Awareness Wednesday :: Homelessness — Helping Our Communities Think Beyond Soup Kitchens
I appreciate Amanda’s post last week for an intimate/anecdotal view on homelessness. Her story provides information that could help improve services. Today, I want to shed light on homelessness from a different vantage point. I will highlight why the current efforts involving taxpayer-funded homelessness programs aren’t working that well, and what we can do to help.
The Continuum of Care program
I’m a young professional who worked for three years at United Way of Utah County as the Mountainland Continuum of Care co-planner. The Continuum of Care is a federal program under HUD that aims to end homelessness, and there are several in every state. It was my job to work with all service agencies in my area to create and implement strategies systematically. Each CoC is given a pool of money annually, which is almost exclusively allocated to offer housing vouchers to qualified homeless persons. Vouchers simply help to pay rent.
Why does the government put such an emphasis on helping folks pay rent when homelessness is such a multifaceted issue? This approach, called the Housing First initiative, is an evidence-based practice that leads to both economic and social benefits. Since 2000, studies have shown that putting homeless folks into emergency shelters and caring for their needs while they reside on the streets is twice as expensive as directly providing them money for permanent units, or “supportive” housing. Supportive housing is a voucher program that provides rental money to chronically homeless persons and also provides access to supportive services, called “wrap-around services” such as psychiatric care, case management, life-skills training, etc. For homeless persons who are not disabled, vouchers for partial rent, called “rapid re-housing” is also much cheaper than providing long-term emergency shelter. Therefore, government programs have completely shifted their financial support from transitional housing/emergency shelters to giving qualified homeless persons (people living on the street, car, shelter, a motel paid by an agency, or any other dwelling that cannot provide heat, running water/plumbing, or electricity) money for rent. Further, it is theorized that other issues that antecede homelessness will better resolve themselves once someone is in a home (drug addictions, mental health issues, intergenerational poverty, etc.) rather than waiting for them to become stable while in temporary shelter programs (for you psychology people, think Maslow’s hierarchy of needs).
So why is there still so much homelessness? Has the Housing First approach failed? Yes and no. There is evidence of subgroups of the homeless decreasing everywhere due to these programs — particularly veterans and the chronically homeless. Yet there are pockets of overall increases around the country. I’m sure there are a lot of reasons for this, but I’ll speak to the primary reasons in my area, from my experience. One glaring flaw in HUD’s/USICH’s approach to the voucher system is that they assume the private market will naturally cooperate with homeless clients as long as rental money is provided. They assume 1) there are enough affordable housing units per voucher (which is the only housing for which you can use a voucher) and 2) landlords will give equal housing placement to clients due to Fair Housing Laws, 3) and timely rental payment is enough incentive to rent to clients. Although the government is aware that these assumptions are problematic, they force our agencies to find a way to quickly house clients anyway. If they don’t, they are in danger of having a reduction of funds (they are competitive). In my community, with our best efforts, it takes anywhere from three to four months to house a homeless person with disabilities, and that’s after completing mountains of paperwork and hours of case management and outreach. In the meantime, we DO NOT have a long-term shelter. Our cities don’t want one, especially when they are expensive to build and maintain. Further, they are difficult to zone, sometimes due to public protest.
What communities can do
Without cooperation between the public and private sector, there will be no progress toward ending homelessness. The average community spends so much money/volunteer time on soup kitchens, clothing drives, food drives, shelter maintenance, etc., but does very little to help clients on the housing placement front. While these practices show our humanity, if we’re serious about ending the problem we need to address housing problems directly.
So what can we do as communities/cities to help more homeless folks get housed? Here are some ideas based on my work with the CoC:
Increase attainable housing
We need to open up more units that are prioritized for formerly homeless clients. This can happen through 100% affordable or mixed-income construction projects where some units are reserved for formerly homeless folks; or you can rehabilitate existing spaces and turn them into more affordable housing units (see example here). With record-high housing prices, cheap apartments are hard to come by and often go to students, young professionals, and new families. The key player in this will be private development companies that are willing to work with public housing authorities and cities. These projects often use low-income housing tax credits (LIHTC), and several of these projects have already been constructed here in Utah.
Provide landlords more incentive
The housing market is so competitive that landlords often view renting to homeless clients as a loss waiting to happen. Though Fair Housing Laws protect homeless persons on the basis of color, race, family status, disability, religion, gender, and national origin (in Utah we also add sexual orientation and income source), landlords can discriminate on the basis of eviction history, income (most require a triple-income-to-rent ratio to even apply), and criminal history (even minor misdemeanors and non-violent crimes easily disqualify applicants). In fact, landlords are trained by property associations to always refuse applicants with a checkered history. Also, Fair Housing Laws don’t apply to landlords who own fewer than three units.
When I was working for my CoC, we personally reached out to landlords, and they told us they’d be more willing to house homeless persons if 1) clients had evidence of achievement from a rehab program/social program (something the Housing First Program finds unethical, but I think there needs to be space for this), 2) if clients have a co-signer, and 3) if the client could pay additional damage insurance.
Create private funding sources to fill in gaps
Providing funds for damage insurance has proved effective in some cities. Similarly, we have a gap-fund source called the Utah County Housing First Fund, and it has helped provide for simple financial needs (like paying for application fees, deposits, back-owed utility fees, etc.) and has helped over 40 people into permanent units. These types of funds need more community backing.
Introduce targeted tax breaks
It would also make a world of difference if federal or state governments would give landlords tax breaks for renting to homeless persons. My husband (who is a tax accountant) works with landlords and says many barely make a profit. He thinks it would make a difference if they earned a tax credit for renting to vulnerable persons. This would require documentation from agencies, but it sounds like a decent incentive.
Extend greater leniency for criminal offenses
We also need to give people second chances once they’ve paid their debt to society. Not all can live with family or friends again. Most property management companies say they will overlook criminal history if it’s been five years since the last misdemeanor, or 10 years since a felony was committed. We need to find ways to encourage landlords to be more lenient for non-violent crimes.
Donate to local charities
While most of my suggestions are long-term solutions, in the meantime, you can reach out to your local Continuum of Care and find out how to donate or volunteer for the best-performing agencies in your area. They not only help clients get basic needs but also act as liaisons to landlords. These nonprofits have underpaid, overworked social workers and therapists who do their best to help. The federal government offers very little money for case management, and it’s up to our local government and community to fund the social support these vulnerable individuals need.
If there was a combination of new affordable units set aside for homeless persons and new leverage to open existing units, our homelessness numbers would go down dramatically. These housing solutions would not “end” homelessness, but we’d see far fewer people on the street. As citizens, we need to urge our city, county, and state governments to help find solutions to overcome these private market roadblocks, and we must encourage our friends and neighbors who own property to give these folks a chance.
To read the other posts in our homelessness series, click here.
Stephanie Blickfeldt Willmore is a member of Mormon Women for Ethical Government. She is currently a stay-at-home mother to three boys and worked in nonprofit programs for five years after graduating with a master’s degree from BYU.
