Providence, with its massive downtown redevelopment, has been a centerpiece of the Rhode Island renaissance. During one of the city’s first Waterfire events, a group of Brown student activists and allies from HOPE (Housing Opportunities for People Everywhere) dropped a massive sign over the river, lambasting the city’s performance on homeless and affordable housing policy. These advocates were wondering how Rhode Island’s supposed renaissance could be reconciled with the 6,000 homeless people living within its borders.
The definition of homelessness varies, but the legislative consensus classifies it as a condition of lacking fixed, regular and permanent housing and/or relying on shelter or other private or publicly overseen facility not ordinarily used for human residence. Crossroads Rhode Island, a homeless advocacy organization, estimates that over 750,000 Americans experience homelessness every day, with RI state shelters showing a net 24% increase from 2001 levels. Rhode Island is not unique, as major urban areas across America have experienced dramatic increases in housing costs, overgrown and poorly maintained shelter systems, and longer waits for housing benefits. To effectively tackle this burgeoning problem, several approaches should be addressed.
The Spectator sat down with Geoffrey Gusoff and JT Do, two of HOPE’s leaders, and discussed the homeless crisis facing Rhode Island, their preferred solutions to the problem, and ways to fight homelessness nationally. Both Geoffrey and JT advocate a supportive housing proposal that targets the chronically homeless (about 10% of the national homeless population). They would also like to see the warehouse shelter system eliminated. As JT said, “individuals who are chronically homeless suffer from a lack of combination of housing and supportive services . . . when you provide housing for someone that is a catalyst for all sorts of change.” Geoffrey added that, “the problem of homelessness is an issue of social exclusion. It is an issue of people making policies that exclude certain groups.” Criticizing the state for seeing the homeless issue as one of “shelterlessness” as opposed to “homelessness,” both leaders rejected the idea that the provision of housing should be conditional upon the fulfillment of strict criteria and a clean bill of health from applicants. While both voiced sharp opposition to the public housing model of the 1960’s and 70’s, there was a clear consensus for a sustained federal and state presence to leverage the costs of market-based programs.
Yet HOPE’s position is relatively centrist when compared to other groups. For instance, the National Coalition for the Homeless frames the affordable housing issue not in terms of simple economic scarcity, but rather economic justice and housing rights: “Every member of society, including people experiencing homelessness, has a right to basic economic and social entitlements of which safe, decent, accessible, affordable, and permanent housing is a definitive component.” This approach seeks to substitute economic prudence for political catchphrases, resulting in the pain of the homeless being exacerbated. Shortages become more severe, investment declines, maintenance stagnates, and misuse of existing housing policies grows exponentially.
Whether or not housing is regarded as a right or an economic good, each approach sees a sustained state and federal presence in the housing market as favorable. According to them, getting the homeless out of public high-rises and shelters into something close to permanent homes will roll everything else forward. Both approaches open themselves up to a number of serious critiques.
The US Conference of Mayors represents 24 major cities across the nation and holds annual meetings to compare urban policy. It releases a yearly report on hunger and homelessness, of which 2005 is the most recent to be publicly available. It stated that 71% of the cities represented at the conference saw an increase in demands for shelter space (with 79% being forced to turn people away). It also showed that the mentally ill made up 22% of the homeless population, with 30% made up of substance abusers. Single men made up 43%, families with children 30%, and single women 17%.
While homeless activists point to structuralfactors, mainly social exclusion and housing discrimination, critics see the problem as one of individual responsibility. They are skeptical of providing the homeless with housing and waiting on results. Looking at the Mayors Conference statistics, the majority of homeless do not suffer from mental illness, but from poor decision-making and unfortunate economic circumstances. Furthermore, there is the problem of the term homeless itself becoming a slippery slope. A number of major cities, including New York and Boston, mandate that housing be provided to a person declaring himself to be homeless, giving him the benefit of the doubt. “Inadequate living arrangements” now qualify along with no housing for an applicant to receive benefits.
All of these approaches, including the most centrist, are not willing to embracea near fully privatized rental market. They instead settle for compromise programs, where a limited market component is present alongside sustained state involvement. As Geoffrey stated, “additional state and national funding would help, but we are not talking about public housing. I think this is one area where the market has done very good work.”
One policy mentioned as an example of a successful balance between state and market was Section 8. Established in the 1970s as a partially market-based alternative to public housing, it called for the state to subsidize as much as 75% of a tenant’s monthly rent for accepted apartments. While acknowledging problems, the HOPE leaders feared federal attempts to scale it down and saw it as effective in the battle against homelessness. The question arises: does this optimism square with the facts?
In New York, while general welfare rolls were going down, vouchers ballooned from 74,000 to 90,000 between 2000 and 2004, according to the New York City Housing Authority. The majority of voucher recipients were single parent families, with only about one-third of parents working. Howard Husock of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government has chronicled the results. “An increased supply of subsidized housing boosts demand and spurs thousands of New York families, almost all of them headed by single mothers, to flood the shelters so that they can move to the head of the line to get vouchers. In other words, increased subsidized housing creates more homelessness.”
Section 8 fixes a tenant’s rent contribution to 30% of income, which meant any significant wage increase corresponded to a steep rent increase. Furthermore, the average tenant remains in the program for eight years, with little direct oversight as to individual development during that period. As such, tenants have little incentive to improve their lives, housing maintenance becomes difficult, and the program continually puts a strain on the city budget. The New York City Housing Authority estimates a $700 million spending on voucher subsidies, with Section 8 housing concentrated in heavily dilapidated areas of the Bronx and Brooklyn. The theory behind the policy was that, through profit incentives for landlords and self-reliance incentives for the poor, participants would gradually move up into higher quality housing. In practice, instead of the saved personal income from the voucher going to new education, employment, and housing opportunities, Section 8 has become tantamount to a new welfare program.
In order for the policy to be successful in reducing homelessness, continued use of Section 8 vouchers must be linked to concrete tenant development. Delinquency should lead directly to benefit cuts. The length of stay on the program must be shortened, oversight increased, and regulations simplified. The failure of Section 8 shows the faults behind the “housing first” model and further demonstrates that personal decisions matter much more than a secure roof when it comes to tackling homelessness.
When discussing the chronically homeless and the physically handicapped, the situation is somewhat different. In New York, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been championing a program of moving the homeless out of shelters and sending them into intensive care and supportive housing. This rejects the “housing as a catalyst” model, but does give the state a role in providing these tailored services. San Francisco, with the worst homeless crisis in the country, has gone forward with a similar plan advocated by Mayor Gavin Newsom. The result has been a reported, yet contested, 28% drop in homelessness (41% drop in chronic homelessness) in theBay Area. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, “Newsom overall attributed the drop to the Care Not Cash program, which has housed 690 people since last spring; the city’s model Direct Access to Housing program, which put 190 homeless people into residences with intensive counseling; and vigorous outreach efforts by city social workers, who are joined one day a month by hundreds of volunteers in the mayor’s Project Homeless Connect program.” Both mayors and both cities have embraced a supportive housing model very similar to that argued for by HOPE and more centrist activist groups. When dealing with this tragically dehabilitated cohort of the homeless population, it is acceptable and necessary for the state to intervene.
Homelessness in America remains a pivotal policy issue. Decades of failed federal housing experiments, the poor performance of partial market compromises, and strong divisions about the chief reasons for homelessness weigh heavily on those pushing for reform. In presenting both sides of the debate, with their specific flaws, we hope to hasten efforts towards an effective compromise strategy based not on abstract formulas, but concrete data. Homelessness must be clearly defined before anyone can apply for housing benefits. Systemic loopholes and extended federal aid have to be reduced. A distinction must be made between the different groups of homeless, with an appropriate policy targeting each. The focus must be on a limited, but present, state involvement to provide supportive services for the disabled and chronically homeless. The result will not be an overnight cure, but the beginning of the end for the homeless crisis.
