neoboule

Having spent nearly 20 years operating homeless and low income housing programs, I have a great deal of experience seeing which work and which fail as far as the programs go. Unfortunately, I don’t have good news about what my experience has taught me. I have worked with most every program type that exists including homeless shelters, transitional housing, supportive housing, permanent housing, permanent supportive housing, Section 8 voucher programs, public housing, tax credit sponsored housing and niche programs like programs targeting chronically homeless, housing for persons with aids (HOPWA), veterans housing programs, senior housing and disable housing. The list is not all encompassing but it’s a good start.

Many of my social worker friends argue that homeless programs and low-income housing programs are different categories but I have always felt they are too closely related to be separated. Lack of available low income housing increases the homeless population and the only solution to homelessness is available affordable housing. There is also disagreement on the definition of homeless and low income housing.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) divides the definition of homeless into four categories and gives specific details of each. It is unnecessarily complicated. For my purposes I define homeless as either staying in an emergency shelter designated as such or living on the streets whether under a bridge or in a car, you have no home. I do not include people that are doubled up with family or friends (sometimes called couch surfing) though some programs include them in their definition of homeless. The couch surfers may be precariously housed but they are not homeless, at least not yet.

Likewise the definition of affordable housing differs. Affordable or low income housing means different thing to different folks depending on their situation. For a family looking to buy a home the mortgage on a $250,000 dollar home may be more than they can afford or qualify for a loan and homes where they are looking may be much more than $250,000. Others may not be able to afford rent of $1,000 per month. Keep in mind minimum wage is still $7.25 an hour in the United States ($290 per week for full time employment) and rent for a single family home is typically more than $1,000 per month, depending on where you live it can be a lot more. I generally follow HUD’s definition for low income housing which is 30% of the household gross income for rent plus utilities and total household income of 50% or less of the area median income (AMI).

This is a complicated subject. The previous four paragraphs speak of multiple programs, definitions and some convoluted numbers. Hopefully, I can simplify this as we go. I think the complexity is unnecessary anyway. Our current homeless and housing programs are expensive and not very effective. Some more so than others but the fact remains; everyone needs decent, safe and affordable housing.

Recidivism rates among the homeless population are high, especially for formerly incarcerated persons. Mental illness, alcoholism and drug addiction rates are also very high amongst the homeless population which contributes to the high recidivism rate. There are many niche programs for such persons; these programs are among the most expensive partially due to the practice of involving many case managers and social workers in what are referred to as “wrap around services.” While the idea sounds great at provider gatherings it has been proven for many years not to work very well, thus the consistently high recidivism rate.

For purpose of clarity I define niche programs as any program designated to serve only a specific population such as formerly incarcerated, chronically homeless, veterans, seniors, victims of domestic violence, HOPWA, disabled persons and others. With the notable exception of certain persons with disabilities that require specific construction modifications (larger doors and lower counters for wheelchair bound persons for example), being homeless or otherwise unable to afford suitable housing is a universal need regardless of any other status or category a person may endure.

The idea of low income housing goes back to the 1930’s President Roosevelt’s “New Deal” era programs and later in the 1960’s President Johnson’s “Great Society” era programs. In both cases most of the focus and public funding went into building public housing projects for low income persons and families. It became clear in subsequent years that putting large populations of low income people in the same place, especially on a large scale was not a brilliant idea. Many of the projects in became crime ridden and blighted properties. Later, in the 1970’s policy makers changed course and there was a shift to more private market and scattered site housing through housing voucher programs.

I loathe being too political with my blog but sometimes it is the elephant in the room. Here there are to clashing political ideas. On one side the belief is that there should not be much or any public money subsidizing housing with the possible exception of tax credit programs that fund low interest loans to private sector developers to build affordable housing with caps on rent during the repayment period. Basically rent control for an initial period, typically around 20 years. The other side believes in heavily subsidized programs that include multiple support programs depending on the need of the individual or family. These are the niche programs that I described earlier and they are labor intensive and expensive. My social worker friends do not believe program costs should be part of the consideration but that is not realistic. Cost matters.

Regardless of a person’s belief about the need and cost of homeless and housing programs we can say that what we have done has not worked, particularly in the past 25 years. Currently it is estimated that we have over 750,000 homeless persons in the United States. The number will vary based on which definition of homeless is used; suffice it to say there are far too many for a wealthy nation like ours. Affordable housing is vanishing. The purchase price of a home has doubled in the past 10 years and rent has increased over 50% during that same period and the costs continue to rise.

I do not believe there is a solution for all homeless and affordable housing situations. People have the right of self-determination and some make bad choices. I do believe there is much improvement that can be made to our approach. Start by accepting that there will always be public money in housing, a lot of it. There is a lot of money in public housing programs now. HUD’s annual budget is something north of $70 billion currently and that does not include money for housing programs contributed by the Veteran’s Administration, the Department of Agriculture, Health and Human Services and others. In our society, where income discrepancy is so great, redistribution of wealth has to happen as it currently does and likely always will. In this case the redistribution of wealth is in the form of housing subsidies.

Besides, Many business owners benefit indirectly from programs for the working poor. Consider this, a single person with a couple of kids works at a fast food place for $10 per hour 35 hours per week so she makes roughly $1500 per month. Her rent is $1200 per month so she would only have about $300 a month to live on. Does anyone believe she could feed and clothe her kids for $75 per week? No. It has been my experience that most will not deal with the stress of working if they still cannot afford to provide their families with the basic necessities. Feeling defeated, the person will quit the job and the business owner losses his cheap labor. Now, let’s provide that same person with a housing voucher to assist with her rent burden. With the voucher her portion of rent would be something less than $400 per month, the voucher would pay the rent difference directly to the landlord. Let’s look at who benefits. The business owner gets his reliable cheap labor, the landlord gets his full rent paid, and the single parent can better provide for the family. Society benefits by keeping this family off the street or in a homeless shelter and instead has a productive citizen taking care of the family. It’s worth a few public bucks.

We have tried the big public housing projects and they fail miserably. Whoever thought putting all low income people in concentrated areas wasn’t very smart. Human beings have a survival instinct. We will do whatever we have to in order to survive. Whether we need to steal or kill to survive we will. People with little or no money are desperate and desperate people will do desperate things. Concentrating poverty in a single area is just asking for trouble. Through the late sixties into the early eighties public housing projects became high crime, blighted, hopeless neighborhoods. We don’t need to learn that lesson again.

In the late nineties something called the Faircloth Amendment was passed that capped the number of public housing units at the current (1998) level. This was probably a good example of doing the right thing for the wrong reason. The right thing being stopping the growth of public housing; the wrong reason being that I think the intent was to cut funding for housing programs in general. It has taken a few years but HUD seems to have found a work around for the Faircloth Amendment. The Rental Demonstration Project (RAD) purports to be a fix for financially struggling public housing projects. It’s really not. It’s a band aid at best. What it really does is convert public housing units to project-based Section 8 units for funding purposes which will reduce the number of public housing units below the Faircloth cap and allow public housing authorities to build new public housing projects. My experience working in public housing authorities is extensive and I can say without a doubt most Public Housing Authority (PHA) directors hate dealing with private sector landlords. They would rather put the resources into something which they have total control.

Which brings me to another problem that needs fixed. PHA’s are rife with incompetence and fraud. Nefarious directors keep wages low for line staff which keeps competent people away so there is no one around with the education and experience needed to figure out that things are not as they should be. If someone does call the attention of HUD to a suspicious matter, HUD staff avoids dealing with it in any substantive way. Many millions of public dollars flow through public housing authorities, they need to be monitored much closer than they are, but that a subject for another day.

There is no magic solution to homelessness, low income housing or affordable housing but there are improvements that can be made to the present system to make it work. There is no need to reinvent the wheel. Start by getting rid of the niche programs. Housing needs to be kept as a separate issue. Persons needing other types of assistance for mental health or addiction or any of a host of other reasons should be treated for those separately, not as part of their housing needs. It has been my experience that most housing problems are caused primarily by lack of affordability. It may be lack of income or cost of housing or both. Regardless, social workers are not needed when the only real problem is money.

It is already recognized that public housing projects cause more problems than they solve. We don’t need to learn that lesson again. Though I haven’t mentioned it yet, low income homeownership programs are also a bad idea. Remember the mortgage crisis of the 2000’s? People bought homes they could not afford and lost those homes, ended up back in the rental market in debt and with bad credit. Moreover, for persons living on a minimal income the cost of replacing a hot water heater, fuse box or other repair is not affordable. They cannot afford the sudden expense and they end up living in substandard housing in disrepair that they likely will never be able to afford to fix. They are better off having a reliable landlord they can call if something breaks. If you eliminate the niche programs, public housing projects, low income home ownership program what remains is the voucher program

The Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program formerly known as Section 8 is the best option to solving the housing problems we have in the United States today. The HCV program has been administered successfully by PHA’s for decades. In order for it to work it needs to be fully funded and treated like an entitlement program. Anyone that income qualifies gets a voucher. The Fair Market Rent (FMR) already established annually by HUD will help stabilize private market rents and full funding should put downward pressure on housing prices overall by reducing demand.

Though the voucher program needs to be updated and revamped. There are way too many rules that complicate payment calculations and overall program qualifications but it is stable enough as is to expand and serve all homeless and low income persons seeking affordable housing. The entire PHA system needs to be overhauled and more closely monitored for competence and accountability. If operated correctly this could be an example of how the private and public sectors can work together and improve this country for everyone. I would estimate that fully funding the HCV program and treating it as an entitlement program would eliminate 90% of homeless situations and solves the problem of unaffordable rents for low income persons and families. Eliminating most of the expensive and ineffective housing programs would go a long way toward paying any additional expense.