Quote of the day: homelessness
The Los Angeles Times ran a series of articles on a 22 year old pregnant homeless woman in Los Angeles County.
-- "Pregnant, Homeless and Living in a Tent, Meet Mckenzie"
-- "Letters to the Editor: Homeless, addicted, pregnant — how can a failed city like L.A. possibly fix this?"
From the article:
Mckenzie’s family came out of poverty in Louisiana’s Cajun Country, and for three generations had been buffeted by domestic violence, mental illness and homelessness, and caught up in child welfare cases. Her mother, Cynthia “Mama Cat” Trahan, was taken from her mom at age 5 and placed in foster care. Mckenzie and Cat were homeless on and off during her childhood, and Mckenzie was also put in foster care.
Young adults who age out of foster care after such heightened trauma are at serious risk of repeating the cycle of homelessness and losing their kids to foster care. It’s an ominous harbinger for Los Angeles, where multigenerational homelessness is not uncommon — and the system is not equipped to meet the needs of people with such profound struggles.
The Quote:
“The homeless system is not designed to address and unpack all of the other systemic failures that have led somebody to where they are today,” said Heidi Marston, who resigned in May as executive director of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority.
I have made this point before, that people often have pretty simplistic ideas about nasty developers etc.being the reason for homelessness.
But homelessness is mostly a product of profound poverty, often multigenerational, and all the physical, mental, and social health issues that are associated with it.
And the cost of dealing with that is a lot more than "merely" the cost of providing housing. And it's ongoing.
Not to mention the ongoing dis-coordination between agencies and programs. Even with case worker assistance, a lot is expected of the program participants, and they tend to be people that don't handle program hiccups very well, which is compounded by poor planning at times by the agencies, and the failure to provide an adequate level of coordinated help.
Labels: homelessness
posted by Richard Layman @ 1:56 PM&Permanent Link
52 Comments:
yep.
I understand why advocates make the argument that homeless = housing prices -- it is a way to get around federal restrictions on more public housing.
I know talking to the director of the DC homeless effort that the majority of "families" (single moms) going into homeless shelters in DC come from -- homeless families already in the system.
For adult homeless behavior, the drivers are drug/alcohol and mental illness.
Just finished the ur-text that Alex B recommend "Homeless is a housing problem". They build on the observation that poverty area don't have a a homeless problem. Or at least on that the PIT counts can detect.
Basically I think they are taking cities and not regions as the base case and not asking why they are congregated in cities.
Don't remember the reference. (Maybe it was in a blog entry of his that I didn't read yet?)
https://homelessnesshousingproblem.com/
Thanks. I'll have to track down the cite.
But yes, when extremely low cost housing exists, the supra poor and/or "enfeebled" tend to be housed. Maybe not "helped" to get out of their strictures, but they are housed.
As housing prices go up, this tranche gets eliminated, as does over time more "informal housing relationships" like someone on Sec. 8 renting out a room at extremely low cost to someone, housing family members with issues, etc.
Kind of like "Defund Police," "Abolish ICE," etc. it's very simplistic to blame the homelessness problem, in cities, on nasty developers.
It's very insightful to look at it the way the authors do.
Of course, as you know when you travel in rural and exurban areas, or supra weak market cities like Baltimore or Detroit, there's a lot of supra shitty condition housing. But it's housing.
Yep that's the book.
Lots of crappy housing everywhere.
Met a guy who worked on one of the projects rebuilding a DC high school. Drove up from North Carolina once a week and slept his in car.
8 salvadorans in one room.
Again I get it that the model there is some out there making about $1000 a month (around the minimum social security payout) who needs housing at around 350 a month.
But the later problem is at those price points you're mostly looking at people who can't earn any money at all.
Speaking of substandard housing, I meant to include a link to this photo, off the Bubb Canal in Boise. This is close to the University, a couple hundred feet off a main arterial. It's in a middle class area, with the exception that some of the rental housing, likely for students, is underinvested.
It's not so much substandard technically as super not well taken care of and reminds me of distressed housing in rural and poor urban areas.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/rllayman/52225264052
I remember articles in the Post about construction workers living during the week in tents decently hidden, trailers. Etc.
With work camps in Permian Basin or North Dakota, etc.
We know what to do. But as you point out, low or no wage people can't compete for standard housing, and substandard housing that exists is still too quality and expensive.
The rural areas house poverty but because it's housed they don't deal with it. The urban areas don't house it, hence visible homelessness, and the social programs are inadequate relative to the severe need. And the longer people are out the worse they get and the worse the problem gets.
again the migration aspect is very important. Look at the LA times articles. I can't read the article (paywall) but Cajun people don't grow up in LA.
Also this:
https://www.wfmz.com/news/politics/realclearwire/night-train-to-oblivion-anatomy-of-an-american-od/article_f9023648-a73f-5071-a96d-5de1f4837927.html
Http://www.printfriendly.com
Or I have a walls evader that works for a lot. (I feel bad but it's for research.) If you want a link.
The migration thing.... a separate series an English professor is writing about the homeless in Venice, also in the LAT. One set of 3 I read was not dissimilar, "California dreamin'" called them just like Hollywood does fir people who want to be actors or the Summer of Love, but they had even fewer resources, financial and resiliency, given their issues. And planning. You don't go to LA on a bus ticket with $20 in startup money.
I realize you feel bad about the state of the county and national politics -- a disease that I think is about 75% reading too much and 25% of treating politics like sports coverage of your favorite team. We all have that disease right now.
But its just showing what a country that is realy looking at different things can look like.
If progressives/democrats/blue staters want to get to a majority, they need to convince 5-10% if their population that their system can work.
Homeless is major "blue" (Notice the sport team usage) cities is just a very constant reminder that the liberal nanny state is a real failure.
I appreciate the effort to look at the problem structurally and not emotionally --- as it the articles show it is a very emotional issue. That said, I very much doubt adding new housing and waiting for the filter is the solution here.
The article, wow. You could say the same thing, but change two words:
“The _health care_ system is not designed to address and unpack all of the other systemic failures that have led somebody to where they are today”
WRT paranoia, I've mentioned that author Sam Quinones avers that the greater potency of "less cool" synthetic drugs contributes to paranoia of users, and that the paranoia contributes to "shelter resistance" on the part of the homeless.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/jan/22/fentanyl-methamphetamine-drugs-epidemic-us
I haven't written much about the overdose crisis. It's not something I know enough about it, but I was surprised that the overdose rate is so much higher than the murder rate.
And yes, not only are there not enough resources so hospitals and health care are overwhelmed, but there is the "fatigue" of dealing with this every shift, every day, and losing your ability to do your utmost for every patient (less the reality that the resources you have at your disposal are minimal).
WRT BART, last year maybe I started writing a piece about how amazing they were for appointing a VP to deal with these kinds of problems on the system, hiring a scad of social workers, etc.
But then I realized, wtf should a transit agency have to spend those kinds of resources to deal with a public health emergency that because we're not dealing with it, transit agency and other public space infrastructure managers are being forced to (a big issue with libraries too; many big city systems have one or more social workers on staff to deal with homeless issues).
+ like with the Mckenzie case, you have the same issues of the need for "wraparound" services that are helpful, not full of gaps.
And the reality in all of this, and "government programs" aren't set up to be able to deal with this, is that the nature of addiction is that failure is part of the process in that it may take many attempts with ups and downs, before people are physically and mentally able and committed to be able to get unaddicted.
Plus also, from reading, apparently opiates, fentanyl, meth, etc., provide a different kind of high that's really difficult to resist.
From article:
At Saint Francis, hospital records show, Adam had a fleeting moment of clarity during which he seemed open to quitting drugs, just as he had earlier that day at San Francisco General. He told the attending physician that he was interested in information about detoxifying. Since it was after hours, he wasn’t provided with a social worker, but was given some printouts about how to get placed into a detox facility. In a functional addiction care system, he would have been placed into a detox facility that same night.
This is like the homeless story. Dis-coordination and silos. In this case, these kinds of services ought to have 24 hour intake. Don't waste the moment. Giving an addict some sheets of paper on options...
But in general, with personal rights focus in law (e.g., like the "medical freedom" position antivaxxers take) it's almost impossible to address this.
I joke that there are multiple ways to contribute to the development of herd immunity for covid. One is antivaxxers dying from covid.
Death by overdose, sadly, is how the system "deals" by not dealing.
It's not unlike the issue with DC and "youth rehabilitation." Basically youth get passed through the system, sort of exonerated because they're youth. Then 18, bam, all of a sudden there are consequences.
WRT your points, yep, sure.
E.g., Suzanne was just in Portland, and while there were a lot of homeless, it's not the hellhole that right wing media and the Trump administration suggest. She said otoh, "Seattle..."
The thing about "cities" and blue is that cities become destination points for people with problems.
If you look at these two articles, basically, the severe/profound homeless problem is a drug and mental illness problem.
But it's blamed on "blue cities." There is a good point made in the book _Black Social Capital_ about Baltimore and urban education, that African Americans "got control of cities" only after the cities became resource poor and troubled.
The right excoriates "the Democrats and cities" but the Democrats weren't the ones deindustrializing, closing plants etc. ("When Work Disappears").
But man, Democrats are pretty shitty at narrative, but then I almost think this might be narrative resistant.
with the 5-10% and blue, you know I argue (wrongly in all likelihood) that there is an incredible potential agenda as I've outlined in the Marshall Plan and social urbanism/equity planning entries.
But there is the Thomas Frank "whatever happened to Kansas" thing going on. People are resistant to "help" because help also goes to "those people."
I've been thinking about the "Hispanics are going to Republicans" discussion now, in terms of the Anglo-Indian approach to Brexit/immigrants that we've discussed.
https://www.npr.org/2022/07/23/1113166779/hispanic-and-minority-voters-are-increasingly-shifting-to-the-republican-party
There is also this, very disturbing.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/04/opinion/sunday/trump-arkansas.html
But I read something ("politics as sports") that now the Republican party is based on the working class, etc.
The Republicans aren't organizing them in terms of "how we can help you become better off" but focusing on amping up the resentment.
And at the state level, same thing with governors like Abbott and DeSantis. They are stoking the aggrieved, not working societally to become less f*ed.
E.g., this in the UK.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/29/myths-benefits-tory-britain-low-taxes-rich
As long as you keep cutting taxes, especially on the wealthy, you defund government.
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And yes, doomscrolling is a problem.
RE: Indians/Brexit.
Just one more point there -- Indians seem to be still be voting Labor there, they are just generally pro-brexit and the turn in the news is the large numbers of south asians in the running for PM.
From an intra-endian angle, its interesting so many of the are what would be called diaspora indians -- from kenya, uganda, Mauritius rather than the motherland. Javid was the only one whose parents were born in South asia (Pakistan).
On migration, it's unclear to me whether the newest congressional deal wold allow people to enroll in Obama in every state. If so I can see that changing homeless migration patterns.
on hispanics/GOP; we need to get back to Clinton era talk on reposinsibikity and hard work. Anyone coming from an immigrant background can see that -- that this is a county that actually rewards hard work.
"As usual" your last paragraph is incredibly insightful. I don't know why helping people means categorically that Democrats denigrate hard work... maybe it's because Republicans say it's either or, not and and. But I see how it can come across that way.
So after my mother lost custody 1969? I lived with the common law family of my great uncle (his daughter as wife of household and the rest of her family). I still remember a conversation with her about her husband's oldest daughter from his first marriage was able to get counseling because she was on welfare, whereas she had no such option. This could have been 1970, 1971. Really complex issues about fairness, working etc.
2. Interesting about the diaspora!
King County Washington passed a sales tax providing a stream of money to buy properties (hotels, apartments) to house the homeless.
The Seattle Times has an article about the program, stating that it takes them a long time to fill the buildings.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/king-county-wants-to-add-homeless-housing-while-many-buildings-are-still-empty
"King County wants to add homeless housing while many of its buildings are still empty "
9/28/2022
King County continues to buy hotels and apartment buildings, trying to meet a self-imposed goal of housing 1,600 homeless people. But it has yet to meet half of its occupancy target as five of its 10 properties remain vacant.
Just months away from the new year, the county has used more than $230 million from a sales tax passed in 2020 on properties in Seattle and five suburban cities as part of its Health Through Housing initiative. The county is in the final stages of buying a new, 35-unit apartment building in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood.
It’s taken months — and sometimes more than a year — to open the properties the county already owns.
As of Sept. 1, 357 people were living in four of the 10 Health Through Housing buildings purchased by King County. An additional 118 people are living in two apartment buildings in Seattle whose operations are funded by the county, but are owned by the city, totaling 475. A fifth building is being used to house refugees.
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An interesting datum is that it costs $25,000 per unit to maintain.
https://kingcounty.gov/depts/community-human-services/initiatives/health-through-housing.aspx
https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2022/09/26/nobody-is-in-favour-of-those-people-the-toronto-neighbourhood-where-the-housing-crisis-has-become-an-election-flashpoint.html
"‘Nobody is in favour of those people’: The Toronto neighbourhood where the housing crisis has become an election flashpoint"
Residents don't support social housing, especially for the homeless. Making it very difficult for elected officials who are supportive, and advocates.
https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-20-433
Homelessness: Better HUD Oversight of Data Collection Could Improve Estimates of Homeless Population
GAO-20-433 Published: Jul 14, 2020. Publicly Released: Aug 13, 2020
The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) found homelessness in the U.S. grew 3 years in a row (2017-2019). Rising homelessness in metropolitan areas drove the increases.
We found HUD’s count likely underestimated the homeless population. Organizations across the U.S. provide data for this inherently difficult count. HUD could improve its instructions to them, which in turn could improve data quality.
In addition, our statistical analysis found median rent increases of $100 a month were associated with a 9% increase in homelessness in the areas we examined.
https://www.sltrib.com/opinion/commentary/2022/10/12/latest-local-homelessness-plan/
"Latest local homelessness plan has merit but doesn’t get to problem’s root, George Pyle writes"
Since 2014, the Pioneer Park Coalition has been organizing, meeting, lobbying, cajoling, studying and reporting in an effort to ease the problems associated with homelessness in Salt Lake City.
Residents and business owners in the Pioneer Park and Rio Grande neighborhoods were understandably fed up with petty crime, drug sales, prostitution, vandalism and the occasional assault. And human poop in the doorways. Someone always mentioned human poop in the doorways. ...
What was never mentioned by the coalition or the many state and local officials who joined its worthy cause was any realization that deep poverty and homelessness are not bugs in our Republican-dominated system of crony capitalism, but a feature. A sword on a thread hanging over the heads of working-class people so that they will remain pliant and hard-working.
The theory that we would lead the homeless to what was often referred to as “the dignity of work” has merit. But it is too often a sick joke in a state that has a paltry minimum wage, no active union movement, health care access that is mediocre at best, laws that tilt ridiculously in favor of landlords over tenants and political dominance by real estate developers.
With all their study and work and personal, sometimes heart-breaking, interactions with homeless human beings, the thread that seemed to run through the coalition’s approach has been that the homeless have done something wrong and that only when they are ready to repent of the error of their ways can they be helped. ...
So now the Pioneer Park Coalition has a new plan. It includes a legal campsite for homeless people, monitored and policed. Having spent pages and pages outlining what a bomb a homeless shelter is for any neighborhood, the report doesn’t specify where such a camp would be established.
It also calls for new measures of accountability for the service centers, counting the people who come in and whether, when and where they go out again. The idea is that the system won’t really need the extra money the current managers always say they need if they are better managed.
The report also calls for more of the people who are committing crimes to be arrested, offered a chance for treatment and, if they decline, sent to jail. Just for a little while. It may sound mean, the coalition leaders say, but jail is actually more compassionate than freezing to death on the street.
Article on release of report:
https://www.sltrib.com/news/2022/10/07/key-group-calls-new-approach/
https://www.pioneerpark.co/
https://drive.google.com/file/d/10aQ7V5m3Nqygs0LAqX4BRN8Dzc3KfEdb/view
Judge in Teton County, Wyoming sends homeless people to Salt Lake City.
https://www.jhnewsandguide.com/news/cops_courts/jackson-is-sending-its-homeless-to-salt-lake-city/article_12f34a60-be2b-5c91-80a6-825c7662a3b3.html
"Jackson is sending its homeless to Salt Lake City:
Salt Lake City has resources, but advocates say busing is inhumane"
11/2/2022
New regulations proposed for Salt Lake homeless resource centers following temporary ban.
https://www.ksl.com/article/50507436/new-regulations-proposed-for-salt-lake-homeless-resource-centers-following-temporary-ban
11/1/2022
The overlay zoning district would require additional review standards. The updated standards include additional submittal requirements, information required by the city and proximity to other resource centers or providers.
New factors to consider for the map amendment listed by the division include:
The anticipated benefits to people experiencing homelessness provided by the facility in the proposed location.
The proximity of support services and the ability of people to access services from the proposed location. A transportation plan connecting residents to services is required if the proposed location is not within walking distance.
The ratio of homeless-related services proposed in Salt Lake City compared to other jurisdictions in Salt Lake and Davis Counties.
The anticipated impacts on city services, including fire, police, and any other city department that would be involved in providing services to the facility.
Proximity to other homeless resource centers.
The anticipated impact on other government entities that may provide service to the facility if the information is readily available from the government entities.
The anticipated impact on the health and safety of public spaces within a quarter-mile of the proposed facility.
Equity between different neighborhoods. High-impact land uses are those land uses that produce higher levels of pollution than the permitted uses in the underlying zone.
From the pro-urb e-list, post by Bruce Donnelley
The Netherlands used to have a format for housing inadmissible families—also called "antisocial" families.
The idea started with housing for beggars that became prison colonies. The most famous is probably Veenhuizen. It is now a cute little village, but it was founded as a prison camp for antisocial families. There is more detail available at the nearby prison museum, apparently.
After the turn of the 20th century, there were a couple of urban versions in North Amsterdam. Zeeburgerdorp and Asterdorp.
Zeebergerdorp was a dead-end street with a controlled entry: Het Zeeburgerdorp - Geheugen van Oost
Then, in The Hague, there was a full panopticon-like splay of streets. It housed three grades of "control houses." This is the Zolmerhof.
The housing was in three grades. The first grade was for people who were trusted enough to keep their own homes--though they were still being "educated" in how to live among people. They lived on the outside of the block, on the left side and on the top of the plan. The second grade was for people who didn't require detailed supervision, but still had to live under some sort of control. Their houses are on the southeast (bottom) side of the streets running southwest and northeast of the guard house (the small dark building at the center). The third grade was for people who were monitored in all their comings and goings. They had the houses on the three middle streets radiating out of the center, and on the northwest sides of the two streets southwest and northeast of the guard house. The other buildings were for learning trades, etc.
Then there is De Ravelijn in Maastricht, in that weird arm of the Netherlands wedged between Belgium and Germany. It is almost like a regular superblock of housing from the inter-war period. It still remains. See Woonscholen in Nederland. De Ravelijn in Maastricht als laatste herinnering
Tiny houses, cheap to build in Seattle because they aren't provided with insulation and heating and cooling. Would be 12x more expensive in Philadelphia, also because they have to built by union labor, not volunteers.
https://www.inquirer.com/real-estate/inga-saffron/tiny-houses-homeless-philadelphia-encampment-20221123.html
"Prefab cottages are helping West Coast cities reduce homelessness. Are they right for Philadelphia?"
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/does-seattle-bear-the-burden-of-king-countys-homelessness-kinda
In a first-of-its-kind analysis, The Seattle Times compared the overall budgets, spending on homelessness service providers and the location of homelessness services among the 39 cities in King County to find that Seattle allocates significantly more resources to homelessness in proportion to its population and budget.
The analysis was made possible by new data included in the proposed King County Regional Homelessness Authority five-year plan released in January, as well as federal data and documents obtained by The Times from former Mayor Jenny Durkan’s administration.
The hub city gave more than 16 times as much as the rest of the cities in the county combined to homelessness service providers in 2022. And it holds two-thirds of the county’s homeless shelter beds.
But whether that draws people to the city in search of shelter and services is less clear. ...
When four cities in North King County voted to start contributing to the Regional Homelessness Authority, they set a minimum amount they would spend on homelessness services at $1.70 per capita. Some of those cities provide slightly more than that.
By comparison, Seattle spent $160 per capita on local homelessness services. Bellevue and Tukwila spent the next most at $11 and $12 per capita.
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36% of homeless said they were last living in a dwelling in Seattle. 31% either out of King County but in Washington State, or out of state.
https://www.ocregister.com/2023/06/17/caloptima-health-wants-to-create-a-facility-to-better-serve-ocs-unhoused-aging-population
CalOptima Health wants to create a facility to better serve OC’s unhoused, aging population
Proposed $49 million facility will bring recuperative care and elder care services under one roof
CalOptima Health, the provider of publicly funded health coverage in Orange County, is investing about $49 million to create the Community Living Center of Tustin, with the purpose of addressing challenges faced by the one of the county’s most vulnerable populations, those experiencing homelessness and aging.
From 2017 to 2021, the number of people 55 and older who accessed homeless-related services in Orange County increased by about 89%, according to the state’s Homeless Data Integration System. They are part of a growing “silver tsunami” of older adults who are falling into homelessness for the first time after the age of 50. ...
Overall, the recuperative care center will take care of 119 unhoused older adults working toward a permanent housing placement. The PACE center is expected to serve up to 500 individuals from both the surrounding community and the recuperative care center.
Each semi-private room will have its own bathroom and shower. The building will be divided into five “pods,” roughly 25 beds in each, that will be staffed with its own social worker and nurse, as well as a guest safety associate stationed 24 hours a day. Each pod will also have its own living room and space for socializing.
The facility will include an indoor gym, store, beauty salon and cyber café. PACE services include routine physicals, outpatient surgical and mental services, rehabilitation therapy and transportation services. The recuperative care program will provide additional services such as medication management, three meals a day, support in accessing benefits and interim housing until permanent housing is secured.
“The shelter system is not built for this population, it’s built for economy of scale. It’s built to serve as many folks as possible. It’s meant to serve a younger, more physically agile group of individuals,” Bruno-Nelson said, adding that this facility will be designed to serve the older residents in ways traditional shelters are not.
https://www.denverpost.com/2023/06/18/rodeway-inn-homeless-shelter-denver-closing-shelter-transgender-nonbinary-homeless
Denver is closing a unique homeless shelter that its operators say worked. Residents are now scrambling.
The former Rodeway Inn hotel has been used as a shelter serving women, transgender and non-binary guests since 2020
Here's what largest study in decades of California homelessness found
https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/california-homelessness-study-18152805.php
6/20/2023
California’s homeless population is predominantly made up of people who lived in the state before losing their housing, with nearly half over the age of 50 and a disproportionate number who are Black and indigenous, according to a statewide study released Tuesday.
Homelessness in California results from a confluence of factors driven by high housing costs, the study found, corresponding with reports showing only 24 housing units available for every 100 extremely low-income families. The authors quoted other scholars who said finding housing is like a game of musical chairs — with not enough spots and individuals with challenges such as health conditions or exposure to structural racism less likely to win.
“We have got to bring housing costs down, and we’ve got to bring incomes up,” said Dr. Margot Kushel, the study’s principal investigator and director of UCSF’s Benioff Institute. “We need to solve the fundamental problem — the rent is just too high.”
Most participants reported a monthly household income of $960 in the six months before becoming homeless in a state where rent for a one-bedroom apartment is typically $1,640, according to Apartment List. Many explained that a monthly rental subsidy as little as $300 or one-time help of at least $5,000 would have prevented their homelessness, and almost all said similar support could help them find housing now.
Why did they become homeless?
More than one in five people cited a loss of income as the main economic reason they lost their last housing. All participants were disconnected from the job market and services, although almost half were looking for work. Some participants lost their jobs after becoming homeless for reasons such as their car getting towed, Kushel said.
People can become homeless with very little warning: The median length of time that people had warning they would become homeless if they held a lease was 10 days, but the median amount of time for people who did not have a lease, such as staying with family, was one day.
Nearly one in five entered homelessness after spending at least three months in an institution, including jail, prison or a drug treatment program, and of those, few received transition services upon release.
he Washington Post: This is what happened to McPherson Square's homeless after they were evicted from the park
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/06/26/mcpherson-homeless-where-are-they-now/
Brown, 62, is one of the dozens evicted in February from the city’s largest homeless encampment, which had grown in the shadow of the White House at McPherson Square. Although D.C. officials deemed more than 60 percent of them eligible for housing assistance, less than 30 percent ultimately received some kind of housing — including accepting a bed in one of the city’s shelters. The majority remained on the street. ...
But in mid-May, she learned there was no outrunning the District’s encampment enforcement. City data shows that D.C. has increasingly leaned on an emergency protocol to displace unsheltered adults with little notice. This practice has largely been used to clear solo campers, even those in the District’s most far flung corners. Using this protocol, D.C. has forced some of Brown’s former McPherson neighbors to move as many as six times since February.
Advocates say the practice, known as an “immediate disposition,” has made it harder for outreach workers to keep track of individuals and to connect them to services. It also makes it virtually impossible for unhoused residents to assert their rights or challenge the city’s actions, lawyers said. City officials, who have been unable to contain the rapid spread of encampments since the start of the pandemic, say the increase in emergency clearings indicates a rise in health and safety hazards among those who live on the street — not a shift in D.C. enforcement.
... Despite having more housing vouchers to distribute than any time in recent history, D.C. efforts to house the homeless have been hampered by a dearth of outreach workers.
n dissent, 9th Circuit say homelessness is 'paralyzing local communities' in West
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-07-06/in-scathing-dissents-9th-circuit-conservatives-say-homelessness-is-paralyzing-u-s-west
DC Housing First program is incredibly f*ed. Basically almost no support services. And they pay huge amounts to property owners for the housing. The buildings aren't managed.
They need to be in larger buildings with 24 hour on site management, and much more frequent support services.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/08/08/dc-paid-housing-chronic-homelessness/
"In D.C.-paid housing, he tried to stay sober as drug dealers took hold"
But participants, most of whom have addiction or other mental health issues, are struggling where the District has let them be funneled into buildings that lack security and on-site services, which experts say are necessary to make such scenarios work. Those in the program are guaranteed only one face-to-face contact with a caseworker per month, even as drug users, pushers and vagrants frequent their buildings through front doors with broken locks. All while the city pays top dollar for units — $2,520 a month for 350-square-foot efficiencies along Quincy Street. With few clear lines of responsibility for fixing problems evident to everyone, city agencies, service providers and landlords are pointing fingers at one another.
... Petra’s business plan is simple. Buy up residential buildings, reconfigure them to pack in as many apartments as possible, and rent them to voucher holders, on whose behalf, a Washington Post investigation in February showed, the D.C. Housing Authority has been willing to pay high rents without inquiring into the units’ actual worth.
... The challenge of what social workers sometimes call “door control” is common among the newly housed. They often find it hard to say no to friends looking for a place to crash or use drugs. Over time, a program participant can lose control of the property.
... The concentration of permanent supportive housing participants is best kept to less than 25 percent of a building, according to recommendations by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Experts say buildings full of people in need of intensive case management should have on-site supervision and services.
Sam Tsemberis, a social researcher credited with pioneering the housing-first model, called disregarding those recommendations “a setup for disaster.”
https://www.idahostatesman.com/news/business/article282387403.html
New subsidized ‘affordable’ apartments won’t help most Boiseans who can least afford them
12/2/2023
The city of Boise just announced a partnership with Ada County to build 250 apartments dedicated to people who earn significantly less than average. That development is one of several that the city has touted in its effort to bring affordable housing to people with “very low incomes.” But will apartments that cost $900 or more per month help homeless people who now find shelter at Interfaith Sanctuary or the Boise Rescue Mission? Shelter leaders say no. “I definitely think there is a disconnect when people think of affordable housing,” said Jodi Peterson-Stigers, executive director of Interfaith Sanctuary, told the Idaho Statesman. “They think it’s low-income housing, but it’s not. Most of the units that are coming up, our guests cannot qualify for.”
People staying at Boise’s homeless shelters can make anywhere from $0 to a couple of thousand dollars per month, Peterson-Stigers said by phone. But they rarely qualify for apartments because of credit issues, background checks or high demand. Most of the affordable apartments that Boise expects to open in the coming years promise to be affordable to tenants making 60% or less of the area median income. According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the median income in the Boise metropolitan area is $68,865 for a single person, $78,653 for a couple and $98,300 for a family of four. Sixty percent of that is $41,319 for a single person, $47,192 for a couple and $58,980 for a family of four. “That’s big money for someone coming out of homelessness,” said the Rev. Bill Roscoe, president of the Boise Rescue Mission. Even a homeless person making 60% of the median income may have a criminal or eviction record, which makes renting on the private market difficult, Roscoe said.
... In the Fairview apartments, the city plans to set aside 10% of the units for New Path Community Housing tenants exiting homelessness. New Path is a 40-unit apartment building at 2200 W. Fairview Avenue. Residents at New Path and Valor Pointe, two supportive housing buildings that host Ada County residents who had been chronically homeless, make far less than 60% of area median income. Valor Pointe, a 27- unit apartment building at 4203 W. State St., is reserved for veterans. Jill Youmans, spokesperson for the city of Boise, told the Statesman in an email that tenants at New Path and Valor Pointe are extremely low income, “and in some cases do not have income.” New Path and Valor Pointe have supportive services on site, including Terry Reilly Health Services, a social worker, a case manager, peer specialists, a registered nurse and a housing specialist. All of the tenants have either Section 8 or Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing vouchers, which are funded by the federal government to pay for some of a participating person or family’s rent, with the person or family responsible for the difference between the actual rent and the subsidy. The veterans vouchers are for housing and supportive services. Of any income that residents have, 30% goes toward rent, Youmans said.
--- continued
... Brewer said the city is “an active and enthusiastic partner” in affordable housing, but Boise has “extremely limited resources” to build affordable housing. That is why it requires partners in the private sector. Many of Boise’s latest affordable housing projects take advantage of the city’s Housing Land Trust program, which allows the city to lease city-owned land to developers at a low cost in exchange for the developer building or preserving affordable housing. Old Boise developer Clay Carley told the Statesman previously that donated land can help developers build affordable apartments, but it is usually not enough. Last year Carley said it cost about $270,000 for a developer to build a one-bedroom apartment in the Boise area. A for-profit developer wants to make a 5% return on the investment from a project, he said. That’s why developers dedicate only a small portion of a new apartment building for low-income tenants, and rarely to tenants who make below 60% or 80% of AMI, Carley said. Another tool developers use is a federal tax credit. Each year, the federal government awards housing tax credits to the Idaho Housing and Finance Association to distribute to developers building affordable housing. But the credits are limited, and only a few projects get funded each year.
... The city has three projects planned to provide about 190 homes like those in New Path and Valor Pointe that offer supportive services to people experiencing homelessness, Brewer said. They are 95 new apartments at New Path, 47 units in the University Park Apartments, at 860 W Sherwood St. near Boise State University, which the city recently bought; and 50 units near the downtown fire station, near Bannock and 12th Streets, Brewer said. Roscoe said he supports what the city is doing to encourage more affordable apartments. He and Peterson-Stigers agree, though, that there has to be a step between living in a shelter and living independently in an apartment. “I’m not an expert in housing, but I know my guests well,” Peterson-Stigers said. “I think what is missing is more transitional housing.”
Peterson-Stigers said transitional housing would be less like an apartment building or complex and more like a college dorm.
... The Rescue Mission operates about 50 transitional apartments throughout the valley. The units are “not luxury apartments,” Roscoe said. Each resident has a single room with a bathroom, sink, microwave and refrigerator, he said.
Miracle on Clarendon Street: How a Back Bay building became apartments for homeless people
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/12/02/business/miracle-clarendon-street-how-back-bay-building-became-apartments-homeless-people
For about 15 years, Jack Koutoujian was homeless, the result of a downward spiral that began with a divorce. He frequented the shelter run by Pine Street Inn, then bounced between rented rooms. At 79, he never again expected to have a home he could call his own.
By year’s end, he and about 100 other formerly homeless people will have moved into studio apartments in the most desirable of Boston neighborhoods: the Back Bay.
... In a region desperate for affordable housing, 140 Clarendon stands out for how public and private sectors came together, cobbling together 15 sources of government funding and financing from MassHousing, the Boston Housing Authority, and other agencies. Then a neighborhood threw its support behind the project, welcoming people coming out of homelessness into its backyard.
... The 13-story building sits a couple of blocks from Copley Square, a neighborhood of glitzy condos and glassy skyscrapers. Turns out it’s also an ideal place for 210 units of affordable rental housing, with access to public transit (the Back Bay T station is next door) and amenities such as the Boston Public Library, churches, and grocery stores.
... For close to a century, YW Boston — the former YWCA — owned the Clarendon Street property. The nonprofit’s administrative office is there, and the Lyric Stage Theatre is on the second floor. Boston Public Schools’ Snowden International occupies the basement. There was even a small 66-room hotel (run by the YW), as well more than 100 subsidized rentals.
In 2019, the board of YW decided to sell the property because owning and managing it was taking away from its core mission of empowering women and fighting racism. The board also wanted to capitalize on a hot real estate market and use the proceeds to finance YW programs for decades to come.
... Beacon Chairman Howard Cohen corralled city and state officials to come to the table with financing. Beacon and Mount Vernon would purchase the building for about $51 million. Then Beacon would spend another $40 million to renovate the property and manage it. The developers would allow the commercial tenants, the YW, the Lyric, and the Snowden — which all supported the project — to stay, as well as residents in the rental apartments.
Beacon’s plan called for the hotel section to be converted into studio and one-bedroom units, doubling the number of apartments in the building to 210. To qualify for the units, which are subsidized under the federal Section 8 housing program, tenants can’t earn more than $51,950, or 50 percent of the median-area income for a single person.
For formerly homeless residents, the income cap is $31,150, or no more than 30 percent of the median-area income. Rents for similar market-rate apartments are close to $3,000 a month.
Tenants were allowed to stay in the building while Beacon created 111 units of so-called permanent supportive housing for formerly homeless people — with Pine Street Inn providing case managers and other services to these residents.
... Pine Street carefully vets tenants, conducting criminal background checks and other screening to ensure they can thrive living on their own.
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/why-are-cities-closing-shelters-if-homelessness-is-rising-c73cdbcd
https://archive.ph/pAEqB
Why Are Cities Closing Shelters If Homelessness Is Rising?
12/13/2023
Homelessness is rising, but cutting shelter beds out of the belief they're providing enough. Programs are being eliminated as focus on different elements, e.g., move to transitional housing, rather than all the elements.
$750 a month, no questions asked, improved the lives of homeless people
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-12-19/750-a-month-no-questions-asked-improved-the-lives-of-homeless-people
The results were so promising that the researchers decided to publish results after only six months. The answer: food, 36.6%; housing, 19.5%; transportation, 12.7%; clothing, 11.5%; and healthcare, 6.2%, leaving only 13.6% uncategorized.
Those who got the stipend were less likely to be unsheltered after six months and able to meet more of their basic needs than a control group that got no money, and half as likely as the control group to have an episode of being unsheltered.
... About 2% of the total went to alcohol, cigarettes and drug expenses — the largest portion of which was cigarettes, Henwood said.
... After six months, only 12% of those who received funds reported being unsheltered at any time in the prior month, a dramatic decrease from 30% at the outset. Those on the waiting list also reported fewer unsheltered episodes, but by a much smaller margin, from 28% to 23%.
Homeless prevention program to help with rent and more if OC leaders approve
https://www.ocregister.com/2024/01/05/homeless-prevention-program-to-help-with-rent-vehicle-repairs-and-more-if-county-leaders-approve/
Second District Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento proposes allocating $1.5 million from his discretionary funds to kickstart the program. His office is also asking the board to redirect an additional $1.5 million of unused funds from the Office of Care Coordination toward the pilot program.
With $3 million in total, the county would be able to serve about 200 individuals and families who are at-risk of becoming homeless, his office said.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/12/30/metro/we-can-fix-this-if-we-choose
Barriers keeping homeless families from shelter are not acts of nature — but choices we make
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/12/16/metro/blaming-homeless-families
https://archive.is/hniuQ
These advocates see the pain of homeless families up close every day. It takes a toll.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/12/23/metro/companions-crisis/
A Record 119,300 New York City Students Were Homeless Last Year
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/01/nyregion/homeless-students-nyc.html
The statistics — which include children in shelters, hotels, relatives’ homes and other transient places — illuminate the challenges for Mayor Eric Adams’s administration in handling the rise in homeless students. They are uniquely vulnerable, dropping out at steep rates and often missing school. New York City’s homeless student population is now larger than the entire traditional public school system of Philadelphia.
As the system’s overall enrollment shrinks, the rise in homelessness among children means the issue has touched more schools. Now, about 1 in 9 New York City students are homeless. Some areas of the city have been especially hard hit, however. In one section of the Bronx, more than 22 percent of students were homeless.
... Migrant children have made up most of the increase. The students could ultimately be a boon for many schools, helping those with declining enrollment to stave off budget cuts. But several school leaders, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, said the system was not doing enough to support them.
... “The first thing that glaringly stood out to us was language access,” said Arash Azizzada, who runs a small community organization that works with Afghan immigrant families, who mainly speak Dari or Farsi. “The city is just not equipped.”
At many schools, other parents have stepped in, donating supplies, preparing meals and calling elected officials about problems. But there are other needs families cannot address.
Some educators believe a mental health crisis for migrant children — many of whom made dangerous journeys to get here and now face social isolation — is looming. They worry that schools remain unequipped to tackle trauma. “You could easily reconstruct the school-to-prison pipeline with this population if you don’t understand what they’re going through,” said Kevin Dahill-Fuchel, who runs Counseling in Schools, a mental health organization.
homeless camping out in public facilities
At Boston’s Logan Airport, the state’s ongoing shelter crisis comes to a head
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/01/26/metro/migrants-waiting-at-logan
Twin Cities mayors tout falling crime, call for help with homeless crisis
https://www.twincities.com/2024/01/23/minneapolis-st-paul-mayors-jacob-frey-melvin-carter/
St. Paul’s Melvin Carter and Minneapolis’ Jacob Frey said many of the residents they meet in homeless encampments in or near downtown did not grow up in either city. Communities across the state effectively have “exported” their housing crisis to the state’s two largest cities, the elected leaders during a “Breakfast with the Mayors” event jointly hosted by the St. Paul Area Chamber and Minneapolis Regional Chamber.
Good Reddit thread.
People experiencing homelessness in Vancouver BC were given a one-time unconditional cash transfer of $7500 CAD. Compared to a control group, they spent more time in stable housing and didn't increase spending on drugs or alcohol. They also saved more than $7500 per person on shelter costs.
https://www.reddit.com/r/urbanplanning/s/vSMX3x4AbK
1/25/2024
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/amp/opinion/article-i-watched-a-major-citys-homeless-problem-vanish-we-could-do-the-same/
I watched a major city’s homeless problem vanish. We could do the same
7/21/2023
When I moved to London for the second time in my life, in the early 2000s, I was struck by a highly visible change: The street-level misery that had defined the great metropolis in the 1980s had all but vanished. Gone were the bodies huddled under blankets around the edges of Trafalgar Square, the rows of beggars along Oxford Street and the Strand, the encampments beneath the arches of Waterloo Bridge.
It was the first and only time I have seen a serious urban “rough sleeping” problem (as street homelessness is more accurately known in Britain) more or less fully solved, humanely and comprehensively.
London didn’t “solve” it the way European cities do – by force-bussing sleepers to shelters on the edge of town. It didn’t solve it by making housing more affordable; this happened as its housing was becoming among the world’s most expensive. In fact, it wasn’t solved by London at all. The solution arrived in the late 1990s, before London got its first mayor and municipal government in 2000. The solution was national, and involved many institutions working in concert under goal-driven leadership.
... It’s been apparent for some time that the problem is beyond the scope of cities. That became evident this month, when Toronto faced a new crisis in which scores of asylum seekers, mainly families from African countries, found themselves without shelter spaces and sleeping on the sidewalk of Peter Street, outside the shelter authority’s offices. For weeks, they were caught in a tug-of-war between Ottawa (responsible for immigration) and the city (responsible for shelter).
... This is where Ottawa needs to learn from what I witnessed in London. When what became Britain’s Rough Sleepers Unit was created in 1997, it was a high-profile initiative with an outspoken “homelessness czar” in charge (Louise Casey, the deputy director of a rough-sleepers charity) and a hard target: cut the numbers of people on the streets by two-thirds within three years.
It accomplished this by not just filling the demand for various sorts of shelter – a lot of its budget was spent upgrading the lowest-end rental accommodations to a level that would make them tolerable to someone in an encampment – but also by slashing the supply of homeless people. The RSU worked directly with the major sources of homelessness – the military, the penal system and the care-home system, as well as the usual mental-health and addiction bodies – to ensure that troubled people who left those institutions would be given places to stay and wouldn’t end up in the street.
... In practice, I found that the RSU sent out hundreds of staff and volunteers every day to have one-on-one meetings with rough sleepers, focused on one question: What would it take to get you off the street? They were expected to have same-day responses, in the form of a wide array of shelters, hostels, alcohol-permitting “wet spaces,” shelter-to-home transition facilities, residential hotels and more permanent accommodations.
This effort was expensive, and it was eventually augmented with a more punitive system, then abandoned in 2010. But for a decade, it worked: One of the world’s worst rough-sleeping crises was all but solved. The benefits to London, to Britain, and to the thousands of people taken off the streets were immeasurable.
https://www.ocregister.com/2024/01/27/oc-point-in-time-count-raises-basic-questions-about-homelessness
In a lot of ways, homelessness is such a complex issue that it’s hard to think about, much less solve.
Who qualifies as chronically unhoused? How many people like that are out there? What policy, or policies, might help one person get a roof over his or her head, or significantly reduce the broader problem for lots of unhoused people? None of the answers is easy.
But in one way – at least in one way expressed loudly this week by a man sleeping in an aging Mustang parked near a gas station in Costa Mesa – being unhoused boils down to a single word.
“Money,” he said.
“If I had more (money), I wouldn’t be sleeping in my car,” he added as he moved some toiletries (a bag with soap and shampoo; a toothbrush) into his back seat.
“I’m homeless because I don’t have enough money not to be.”
... He also doesn’t fit many of the (fading) stereotypes about the unhoused. He’s not addicted. He’s not obviously mentally ill. He’s not fresh out of prison or chronically unemployed.
He doesn’t prefer sleeping in his car or otherwise outdoors.
Instead, he says, he’s “working, but still poor.” The pay he earns in his current full-time job (at a convenience store near a gas station) is low enough that he can only afford the cheapest, shared room in the cheapest apartment in high-priced Orange County. Such rooms, in such apartments, aren’t common. And if that’s what you can afford, and you wind up between dwellings – as the guy in the Mustang did in mid-January, following a verbal dispute with his former landlord – the next stop can be the streets.
... Shepherd and others who worked this year’s Point in Time count noted that social ills, such as drug or alcohol addiction, or mental illness, are common among people of all incomes. But people with less money have less breathing room when their troubles spiral, meaning the same episode of addiction or mental illness that might frustrate or endanger someone with a middle-class income can also push a convenience store worker into using his car as a home.
That precariousness isn’t lost on people struggling to find permanent homes.
... In a 2023 report from the UC San Francisco Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative, based on questionnaires and interviews with about 3,200 unhoused people in California, 7 in 10 unhoused people said they would be able to find and keep stable housing if they were given a rental stipend of as little as $400 a month.
The survey from UC San Francisco found several trends about the unhoused
- Homeless people aren’t young
- Homeless people aren’t visitors. Nine out of 10 people who answered the UCSF survey were from California.
- Homeless people often are victims of violence
Is homelessness becoming more common?
Public surveys on the question suggest people overwhelmingly believe it is. A poll conducted last year by UC Irvine’s School of Social Ecology found that people in Orange County view homelessness as the county’s single most pressing problem. And a poll conducted last year by Quinnipiac, looking specifically at California voters, found that homelessness has grown to the point that it’s now the single biggest problem in the state.
But is it? Are more people homeless today than, say, five years ago? Data on that isn’t conclusive.
https://www.ft.com/content/a1ec4f19-ff00-4675-bbaa-e42f6b0f3846
Homelessness is a problem we could solve
2/29/24
It’s a myth that most homelessness is due to addiction, says Alicia Walker of the Centrepoint charity. More typically, it’s the other way around: homeless people develop addictions to numb the horror of their situation.
Homelessness usually stems from an unsafe home. People flee family breakdowns, domestic violence or addicted parents. Others, raised in care, never had safe homes. The asylum-seekers living on British streets left unsafe home countries. These stories have endless variants. One formerly homeless person I met, John, fled home as a teenager after constant conflicts with his strict immigrant parents. He’s still trying to forgive them: “I haven’t got there, not quite yet.”
Now homelessness is rising because of Britain’s broader housing crisis. Some families, struggling with rising costs, kick out teenage children. The same housing crunch reduces the availability of friends’ sofas. Britain’s “austerity” policy of the 2010s was an experiment in scrapping support for the vulnerable. The results are now in. There’s little social housing or mental-health treatment for homeless people. Underfunded local councils seldom help. The government seems unbothered. Despite its 2024 target to end rough sleeping, it has no discernible strategy for homelessness, says Walker. There have been 16 housing ministers since 2010.
How to reduce homelessness? The frustrating thing is that we know what works. Statutory homelessness fell 69 per cent from 2003 to 2010, largely because the Labour government prioritised an unpopular issue. The solution: build social housing, while providing treatment and counselling to help people recover.
Prevention is better. We could plug the holes in the safety net, such as the point of exit from care or prison, when many become homeless. That would reduce the fortunes we’re spending on temporary housing, emergency healthcare, addiction treatment and prison, which all serve to keep people “just not homeless”. Tucker marvels at how much she cost society during nearly 20 years of addiction. Bird asks: “Why do we put an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, not a fence at the top?”
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-03-01/la-me-nearly-half-of-san-francisco-drug-users-are-visitors
Nearly half of San Francisco drug users are visitors, fueling debate on aid to poor and addicted
Nearly half of the individuals cited for drug usage in San Francisco over a 12-month period ending in February were not residents of the city, according to a report released Thursday that sparked a debate over how to care for poor and drug-addicted people in one of the nation’s most progressive cities.
That data led to speculation from the mayor’s office and allies that abuse of free money offered to low-income residents was driving substance abusers to the Bay Area. But San Francisco Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin called the statistics released by the office of Mayor London Breed “highly suspect” and said the report was a cynical attempt to attack the city’s public safety net.
San Francisco police cited 718 individuals for drug use between March 30, 2023, and Feb. 2, 2024, with 47% of the violators stating “they reside in another county or declined to say,” according to Breed’s office. A slight majority of the citations were given to violators who identified themselves as San Franciscans.
Of that group, 20% or 141 were recipients of a government assistance program intended for San Francisco residents. The mayor’s office said that about 33% of those 141 people, however, were not residents and “self-disclosed they lived outside of San Francisco.”
https://www.sf.gov/news/san-francisco-releases-new-numbers-showing-almost-half-those-cited-public-drug-use-dont-live
Housing loss, rising rents, evictions: How Chicago’s homelessness problem evolved
https://chicago.suntimes.com/columnists/2024/03/08/chicago-housing-loss-rents-evictions-homelessness-bring-chicago-home-alden-loury-column
For weeks, Chicagoans have been inundated with the pros and cons of the Bring Chicago Home referendum. After a contentious legal battle, it appears votes for — and against — the controversial ballot question will be counted in this month’s primary election.
There’s considerable debate about whether increasing the real estate transfer tax on properties sold for $1 million or more is a proper way to raise revenue to address the long-standing problem of homelessness. There are also a lot of questions about exactly what to do with that money.
It’s time we start grappling with how we got here in the first place.
It's about housing, plain and simple. There’s just not enough of it. As a city, we aren’t building it. We aren’t maintaining it. We often harpoon those who support building it. And we’re tearing down what we already have.
As for public housing, you could argue that we’ve torn down more than what we’ve transformed.
We also haven’t adequately replaced the housing that has been demolished in affordable neighborhoods across the South and West sides. One impact of the decline in population in those neighborhoods is that there just aren’t as many places to live as there were decades ago.
Higher rents, more evictions
And in historically affordable communities where there has been positive growth in residential properties, like Woodlawn, many of the new units aren’t terribly affordable.
Meanwhile, rent, utilities and evictions are also on the rise, putting families at risk of becoming homeless.
These households are, not surprisingly, at risk of falling into debt and being evicted when emergencies happen.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/04/15/metro/rhode-island-housing-crisis-small-clinic/
A small clinic in tiny Central Falls, R.I., takes a giant step to tackle the state’s housing crisis
Nelken realized something needed to change. And her efforts came to fruition last Friday with the unveiling of a Jenks Park Residence, a 30-unit transitional housing program for women and children (ages 10 and under) who are homeless or at risk of homelessness.
Located in a former assisted living facility near City Hall, the 10,000-square-foot residence
will provide rent-stabilized, fully furnished apartments for two years, with access to medical
and mental health care, job training, and tutoring. The building includes a community kitchen, a library, a children’s play area, and a computer lab for workforce development.
Nelken said other medical organizations in other parts of the country have become involved
in addressing homelessness. For example, Kaiser Permanente has launched a housing program in California, and research has shown that addressing homelessness helps to reduce the costs of medical care and behavioral health services, she said.
As a pediatrician, Nelken said she has seen how futile it can be to treat a child’s asthma if that child is returning to a home filled with mold, for example, or to treat anxiety or depression if a family is living in a car.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/08/headway/homelessness-tiny-home-austin.html
Can a Big Village Full of Tiny Homes Ease Homelessness in Austin?
One of the nation’s largest experiments in affordable housing to address chronic homelessness is taking shape outside the city limits.
Community First Village
Mr. Tyler, 41, lives in Community First! Village, which aims to be a model of permanent affordable housing for people who are chronically homeless. In the fall of 2022, he joined nearly 400 residents of the village, moving into one of its typical digs: a 200-square-foot, one-room tiny house furnished with a kitchenette, a bed and a recliner.
In the next few years, Community First is poised to grow to nearly 2,000 homes across three locations, which would make it by far the nation’s largest project of this kind, big enough to permanently house about half of Austin’s chronically homeless population.
Mandy Chapman Semple, a consultant who has helped cities like Houston transform their homelessness systems, said the growth of these villages reflects a need to replace inexpensive housing that was once widely available in the form of mobile home parks and single room occupancy units, and is rapidly being lost. But she said they are a highly imperfect solution.
But Community First is pushing the tiny home model to a much larger scale. While most of its homes lack bathrooms and kitchens, its leaders see that as a necessary trade-off to be able to creatively and affordably house the growing number of people living on Austin’s streets. And unlike most other villages, many of which provide temporary emergency shelter in structures that can resemble tool sheds, Community First has been thoughtfully designed with homey spaces where people with some of the highest needs can stay for good. No other tiny home village has attempted to permanently house as many people.
"Microshelters are one part of the solution to homelessness, Switchpoint executive director says"
Deseret News, 1/3/24
Runs a 50 unit camp in SLC.
https://www.ocregister.com/2024/10/09/anaheim-will-ban-homeless-from-occupying-sidewalks-bus-benches/
Anaheim will ban homeless from occupying sidewalks, bus benches
The most consequential change will be banning people from sitting or sleeping in public rights-of-ways such as streets and sidewalks or keeping their personal belongings there. The new law will also make lying down or sleeping on bus or park benches or blocking driveways or entrances to businesses where the public is invited illegal.
Anaheim’s current laws already prohibit camping on public property, but did not specifically bar people from blocking public right-of-ways and businesses.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/the-saga-of-seattles-empty-tiny-homes-is-building-to-a-head/
10/5/24
And a study this year by Portland State University found that tiny homes are three times more effective than conventional shelters at transitioning people into permanent housing.
https://www.oregonlive.com/portland/2024/05/tiny-home-villages-more-effective-than-group-shelters-at-getting-formerly-homeless-people-permanently-housed-study-finds.html
The Clinton Triangle community provides a nurse, peer support, employment help, case management for housing and mental health services. Ten couches in the center of the site’s central building act as a community space where people can eat, commune, watch television or find a more sprawling space than their tiny home offers.
Just outside the Clinton Triangle’s central building, residents find a dog park that serves about 50 dogs, including a dozen puppies that were born at the village.
“We are trying to meet people where they are at, and we are one of the lowest barrier shelters” in the Portland area, said Jeff Dickey, Urban Alchemy’s operations director for Portland. “People won’t come without their pets, and really, all of the dogs offer emotional support.”
Residents at the shelter said they receive pet food donations and free vet services from a local nonprofit called the Portland Animal Welfare Team, which provides free or low-cost vet services to people who are unhoused.
Seattle overhauled its homeless shelters. Did it work? 12/15/24
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/seattle-overhauled-its-homeless-shelters-did-it-work/
Since 2017, the city has spent millions to convert crowded halls into private spaces, expand hours from overnight to 24/7 and add staffing, an overhaul more extensive than perhaps anywhere else in the country.
The changes made more people want to enter shelters and stay, and helped them heal. People have a better shot than ever at getting into housing if they can get into shelter.
But beds are clogged up, and fewer people are getting in off the street. Shelters increased how much they help people but reduced how many.
That’s not shelters’ fault. They’re backed up because there remains a shortage of places to go after.
More than any aspect of the shelter system, the number of government-funded housing units controls the rate at which homelessness is solved in King County.
Christian missionary groups opened Seattle’s first homeless shelters in the late 19th century — large, crowded dormitories where people could sleep but were required to leave in the morning, sometimes to encourage guests to find work, sometimes because the churches hosting them needed the space during the day.
As the city took over, it continued to emulate that model. It wasn’t geared toward ending homelessness, it was the most cost-efficient way to bring as many people inside as possible. For more than 100 years, the model hardly changed.
By the 2010s, homelessness erupted visually and politically, and Seattle and King County declared an emergency. Officials began to scrutinize the response system they had inherited and found that, in 2017, only 12% of people who left shelters moved into permanent housing.
People often returned to the streets after a short shelter stint because they couldn’t handle the concentration of mental health issues, drug addiction and financial desperation packed into crowded environments.
“It was pretty clear that the old-style system of mats on the floor — in at 6 (p.m.), out at 7 (a.m.) — was not only inhumane but incredibly disruptive and self-defeating,” said former Mayor Jenny Durkan, who entered office in 2017.
The city experimented with different models and saw that shelters open 24 hours with social service workers on staff were several times more successful at moving someone to permanent housing. Plus, they got people off the streets during the day. Seattle converted most of its shelters within several years.
“It was more expensive but it also worked better,” Durkan said.
Research from the University of Washington showed that replacing congregate shelters with hotels during the pandemic improved health, reduced conflicts and lowered the number of 911 calls.
The purpose of shelters shifted as well, from a brief reprieve off the streets to a “waiting room” for permanent housing, said Derrick Belgarde, executive director of Chief Seattle Club, a homelessness organization serving Native people.
Two-thirds of people who move from shelter into housing rely on government-funded units, a number that’s shot up since 2017, as rents have risen and providers say mental health issues and addiction have become more common and severe.
For a vast majority of people in shelters, moving into housing is a matter of waiting for a subsidized unit to open up.
“There’s nothing magical about shelter that gets you into housing,” Fay said. “If there’s enough housing, we don’t need shelter.”
Providers also say the longer people are off the street, the more their mental health issues and addiction subside. Time and stability allow people to work with case managers on a plan to get into housing.
With not enough housing and shelters clogged, more people are stuck on the streets. The number of people getting into shelters dropped 42% since 2017 despite an increase in beds and people sleeping outside.
Despite a national spike in homelessness, some US regions are finding solutions
2/5/24
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/despite-a-national-spike-in-homelessness-some-us-regions-are-finding-solutions/
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/homelessness-in-us-cities-and-downtowns/
12/7/23
Homelessness in US cities and downtowns
The perception, the reality, and how to address both
https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/if-you-dont-want-encampments-in-your-park-you-should-speak-up-for-shelters-in/article_69a9dd38-9de8-11ef-a1b2-7f247b723cd0.html
If you don’t want encampments in your park, you should speak up for shelters in your neighbourhood
12/9/29
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