What We Know (and Don’t) About the Drops in DC Homelessness Rates

In my last post, I summarized the major results of the latest point-in-time, i.e., one-night, count of homeless people in the District of Columbia.

We see one-year decreases for the homeless population as a whole and for all the subgroups the District reports to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Decreases are longer-term for two overlapping groups — homeless individual men and women, i.e., those not with family members, and individuals classified as chronically homeless.

The District’s report attempts to account for the decreases. It attributes them to an expansion in permanent supportive housing capacity and its investments in homelessness prevention and rapid re-housing.

We’ve got sound evidence for the impact of PSH. The evidence for HPRP — the rapid re-housing component, in particular — is squishy.

It may help explain the one-year declines, but they’re no proof that rapid re-housing will end homelessness for the families that the Mayor — and his Director of Human Services — want to force into the program.

Permanent Supportive Housing

As I previously remarked, the steady drop in the number of chronically homeless individuals counted probably reflects the high priority that both federal and local policies have placed on moving these individuals into PSH.

The report itself provides additional evidence for this. At the time of the latest count, it says, 3,690 individuals and 983 families were in PSH units, thus not homeless for the purposes of the count.

Both these figures are higher than those reported in 2012 — by 18% and 8% respectively.

But this doesn’t mean that the District can take credit for providing housing with supportive services for all these formerly homeless people.

The DC Fiscal Policy Institute reports that the Department of Human Services expects to have 1,350 households in the PSH units it’s funding this fiscal year.

Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing

The PIT count report offers no basis for assessing the impacts of homelessness prevention and rapid re-housing.

A brief by the Community Partnership to End Homelessness says that 762 individuals and 643 families are “stably housed” because of HPRP.

But we have no timeframe for these figures. So we don’t know how long ago the beneficiaries received the one-shot or limited-time assistance — let alone anything about them, e.g., how much steady income they had.

We do, however, have data indicating that a goodly number of individuals and/or families didn’t stay stably housed after their rapid re-housing subsidies expired, presumably because they couldn’t afford to pay the full rent.

A presentation, also by the Community Partnership, says that two-thirds of rapid re-housing participants “exited” the program to “permanent destinations” (HUD-speak for permanent housing) and that 91% of them remain stably housed.

So about 39 out of every 100 households that had the limited-term rent subsidies are in some sort of unstable situation — either at-risk or literally homeless.

We don’t know how long the rest have been stably housed, though a recent statement by David Berns, the director of Human Services, suggests perhaps only one year.*

We do know, however, that some homeless families declined rapid re-housing because they were pretty sure they couldn’t pick up the full rent. So even if the stably-housed figure is fairly long-term, it would reflect some self-selection.

Why Fuss About the Rapid Re-Housing Data?

I’m nattering about the under-supported claims for the success of rapid re-housing because they have immediate policy implications.

As I recently wrote, the Mayor’s proposed amendments to the Homeless Services Reform Act would, among other things, give homeless families a choice between rapid re-housing and life on the streets.

At the time of the PIT count, 18% of homeless D.C. adults with children had no source of income whatever. Twenty-five percent were employed, but obviously not earning enough to pay market-rate rents here.

The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program was the most commonly reported source of income. The maximum TANF benefit for a family of three is less than a third of the monthly rent on a modest two-bedroom apartment.

How many families who’ve remained stably housed entered the rapid re-housing program with comparable incomes — and comparably doubtful near-term prospects for such significant improvement that they could afford full rent?

For the two-bedroom apartment, that would require a monthly income of nearly $4,707 — more than three times the District’s minimum wage.

Seems to me the DC Council should have a much better grasp on the putative — and prospective — success rates of rapid re-housing before it votes on the HRSA amendments.

A better grasp and a lot more input on other issues too.

* Berns says that “91 percent of those who have been re-housed … remained in stable housing after one year.” He’s apparently using the Community Partnership’s figure as if it were a percent of the whole, rather than of two-thirds.

Mayor Gray’s Budget Would Mean No More Money for Many Critical Needs

As I said yesterday, Mayor Gray’s proposed Fiscal Year 2014 budget provides more money for some, but little more — in some cases, no more — for programs that address low-income residents’ critical needs.

For example …

There will be $700,000 more for permanent supportive housing — reportedly enough to accommodate 45 more chronically homeless individuals and/or families than the program is serving now.

But there probably won’t be money to ensure that homeless families with no place to stay can sleep safely indoors unless it’s freezing cold outside.

Nor will there be money to increase the number of locally-funded housing vouchers they could use to help pay market-rate rents until they can afford the full rent on their own.

This could actually mean fewer of these so-called tenant-based housing vouchers because the DC Housing Authority will get less money for Housing Choice (formerly Section 8) vouchers due to sequestration.

There will be no more money for child care subsidies, though the unreasonably low reimbursement rates providers get account, at least in part, for the fact that parents of some 9,000 infants and toddlers can’t get affordable child care.

In this case, what looks like level-funding — perhaps a small increase even — will mean somewhat over $1.5 million less because sequestration will cut a portion of the District’s federal child care funding.

There will be no more money for adult literacy services — in fact, apparently $734,000 less, though I’m told the budget document may be misleading.

Even without the cut, the District will be investing considerably less than it once did to address a problem that affects not only the job prospects and daily lives of more than a third of adult residents, but the children they’re raising.

Adult literacy programs need more money not only for these “functionally illiterate” residents, but for more proficient high school dropouts, who can get the equivalent of a high school diploma by passing the GED tests.

These tests will get harder next year — and require computer proficiency. Adult literacy programs thus need to invest more in teacher training and equipment to get their students up to speed (literally and figuratively).

One would think that the District’s abysmal 59% GED pass rate would have led the Mayor, who’s so concerned about employment here, to put more money into these programs.

Ditto for adult job training, which the Mayor’s budget would cut by $624,000 — considerably more if measured against what the program will have this year if the DC Council approves his proposed supplement.

There will be no money to protect families in the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program from running up against the five-year time limit in cases where the parents have been excused from regular work activity requirements for compelling reasons, e.g., needs to care for a sick or disabled family member, domestic violence trauma.

There will, however, be money to protect long-term TANF families from further benefits cuts for another year.

This is a further indication that the Department of Human Services doesn’t have the resources it needs for its program revamp. Nor will it in the Mayor’s proposed budget, according to the DC Fiscal Policy Institute’s analysis.

Because even if it completes the remaining 9,000 or so assessments that are supposed to produce suitable work preparation plans for TANF parents, there won’t be enough training slots for them.

For a family of three, the reprieve will mean a continuing cash income of $257 a month, instead of the regular $428 — 23.9% less in real dollars than the year TANF was created.

The Mayor might have considered increasing TANF benefits, as a few states have recently done. All he chose to do was replace “lost” federal dollars, which weren’t really lost, but merely funds the District didn’t have left over, as it did the year before.

I understand that the Mayor has competing interests to balance. He wants to make the city an appealing place for higher-income people to live — good for the local economy, essential adequate revenues.

He’s got to worry about the stability and quality of the District’s own workforce.

And he understands that the city’s future hinges in part on how well it educates the next generation — though apparently not that all the early learning opportunities, libraries, modernized schools and the like can’t compensate for resources parents lack to provide for their kids’ basic needs.

Yet his budget truly is, in many respects, what its title says. It’s investing in tomorrow while ignoring investments needed today.

Needed, at any rate, if the District’s prosperity is going to benefit everyone, as the Mayor rightly says it should.

Mayor Gray Proposes More Money for Some, But Not Enough for the Neediest

Washington City Paper‘s headline after Mayor Gray released his proposed Fiscal Year 2014 budget proclaimed “Money for Everyone!” Not altogether so.

There will be money for most, but not quite everyone. There will be more money for some — both businesses and individuals, including some of the District’s lowest-income residents.

But their needs still get shorted, even now that the District is looking forward to $79.7 million more in revenues than the windfall expected for this fiscal year.

So here’s a selective look at who will get more, focused mainly, as you might expect, on spending that will — or at least, could — help low-income residents. Next post will deal with help they won’t get, but could have.

There will certainly be more money for construction companies. The proposed budget bulges with projects for them — public school buildings (new and modernized), infrastructure, recreational facilities, libraries.

If the companies comply with the District’s First Source law, there could be more jobs — hence money — for unemployed and underemployed D.C. residents too.

There will be more money for affordable housing developers, since the Mayor decided to invest the bulk of his promised $100 million in the Housing Production Trust Fund.

This should ultimately mean more money for food, clothing and other necessities for some of the nearly two-thirds of extremely low-income District households who are now paying more than half their income for rent because 40% of Trust Fund dollars are supposed to help finance housing for them.

An additional $5 million will go for housing vouchers that help pay for the operating costs of units designated for the District’s lowest-income residents — an essential complement to the Trust Fund money.

Another $3.1 million will provide more housing for victims of domestic violence.

And there will be a total of $2 million more for one-time and limited-term assistance to families for whom the rent has been so unaffordable that they’ve been evicted — or are about to be.

But — getting ahead of myself here, I know — not a penny more for regular vouchers that homeless and other very low-income residents could use to help pay market-rate rents.

There will be more money for all District employees, who’ll get their first pay increases in at least four years — not only fair, but perhaps job-creating if the employees spend some of their extra cash locally.

There will be more money for some nonprofits because the Mayor’s budget would create a $15 million competitive grant fund for them.

And there will be more money for lots of District residents who’ve got municipal bonds in their investment portfolios.

Current law would impose a tax on the interest these bonds earn, unless issued by the District.

But the Mayor wants to repeal it, giving us bondholders a total of nearly $13 million over the next five years — and the unique privilege of investing tax-free in bonds of no benefit to our community.

The tax giveaway and the values it reflects are among the reasons that there’s no more money for some of the urgent needs of the District’s low-income residents, though there will be more money for other “quality of life” investments like bike lanes.

Nothing against bike lanes, mind you. But I would have put a higher priority on improving the quality of life of homeless families, some of whom will probably again be spending their nights in Metro stations, hospital waiting rooms and the like.

And a higher priority on other programs and services that can advance not only the Mayor’s quality of life improvement goal, but his other goals too.

DC Mayor Slips Harmful Homeless Policy Changes Into Budget Bill

The DC Department of Human Services has a problem. Too many homeless families for the space it’s got to shelter them. And far too many for the permanent supportive housing units it’s funded to give some of them a more suitable place to live.

Mayor Gray has a solution, tucked into his proposed Budget Support Act — the legislative changes supposedly needed to make his actual budget consistent with District laws.

The changes I’m referring to would amend the Homeless Services Reform Act — the law that, among other things, gives homeless families with no safe place to stay a right to shelter or housing in extremely cold and hot weather.

The amendments would allow DHS to force sheltered families into temporarily-subsidized housing — or out onto the streets if they refuse it.

Families it decided weren’t cooperating with caseworkers assigned to assess their needs could also be kicked out of wherever DHS had temporarily parked them — and with none of the due process protections they have now, as the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless explains.

They’d lose them because the amendments give legal authority to a provisional shelter policy that the Legal Clinic successfully contested last winter.

So they’d be highly vulnerable to expulsions based on subjective judgments that they’ve failed to meet demands, even if they couldn’t or didn’t for good and proper reasons.

Experience with sanctions imposed on parents in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families programs shows this is not a far-fetched concern.

And just to ensure that DHS would have fewer homeless families to serve, the amendments would authorize the Mayor to require that they establish and contribute to savings accounts or the equivalent “as a condition of receiving shelter or supportive housing services.”

As if these families have money to squirrel away — even the vast majority at DC General, who rely on the egregiously low cash benefits they get from the District’s TANF program or are poor enough to qualify.

The amendments would also allow providers of supportive housing to establish time limits on residency — a strange redefinition of what’s commonly called permanent supportive housing.

Even stranger because DHS could bar the doors to its PSH units after residents were away for 60 days, even if they’d been in a hospital.

And there would be a fixed two-year time limit on transitional housing — another form of housing that includes supportive services designed to help residents deal with problems that led to their becoming homeless.

Now, as I said, DHS does have a homeless family problem. But it has neither the authority nor the resources to appropriately solve it.

Not surprisingly, the number of homeless families increased when the recession set in. And not surprisingly, it hasn’t decreased, though the local economy is in a recovery mode.

The unemployment rate in the District is still higher than the still-high national rate. And it’s up in the double digits in the poorest parts of the city.

The larger problem, however, is the acute shortage of housing that low-income District residents can afford. This helps account not only for the rise in family homelessness, but for the difficulties DHS has had in moving families out of DC General so that others can move in.

It insisted that it would have enough units there this winter — perhaps more than enough — because its rapid re-housing program would continuously free up space.

Unrealistic, as predicted — and partly because of problems baked into rapid re-housing.

This program, as I’ve written before, provides families with housing that’s subsidized for, at most, a year. It’s good for families that are temporarily down on their luck, but they’re hardly a majority of those at DC General.

Many have looked at the rapid re-housing offer and sensibly concluded they’d be homeless again as soon as they had to pay the full rent — and perhaps then denied shelter because it wasn’t cold enough.

Some, I’m told, have also refused to be rapidly re-housed because the units offered were potentially unsafe or otherwise inappropriate, e.g., because they lacked accessibility features a disabled member needed.

Now the Mayor wants to deny them shelter or supportive housing if they refuse two offers — regardless of the reasons.

Also, as I’ve said, kick them out of transitional housing at the end of two years and potentially — or in some cases, definitely — out of permanent supportive housing.

Here too support would end with no assurance that residents wouldn’t immediately be literally homeless again.

In the long run, their housing prospects may be better because the Mayor wants most of his promised $100 million put into the Housing Production Trust Fund, which is supposed to spend 40% of its money on housing that’s affordable for extremely low-income residents.

He’s also proposing that all the additional $5 million he’s allocated to project-based and sponsor-based vouchers, i.e., those that help cover operating costs, be used to house families with no safe place stay or individuals referred by District agencies.

But he’s not proposing a penny more for vouchers that homeless residents — and those who are about to be homeless — could use to help pay market-rate rents until such time as they didn’t need subsidies any more.

A nice boost in funding for these vouchers would help solve the problem his punitive Homeless Services Reform Act amendments seek to address — and in a way that would provide homeless families with a safe, stable housing situation suitable to their needs.

He’s instead decided to spring major, coercive policy changes on homeless residents, service providers, advocates and the DC Council itself without notice — let alone opportunities for input.

You’d think he’d at least have run the proposals by the Interagency Council on Homelessness, which is supposed to play a lead role in the District’s strategies and policies for meeting the needs of its homeless and at-risk residents.

But he and some of his representatives on the ICH probably wouldn’t have liked what they’d have heard.