Progress Toward Ending Homelessness Not In Sight, New HUD Report Shows

Just finished plowing through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s annual homelessness assessment report for 2010. Many, many figures. Many perspectives on the issues.

At the end of it all, I said to myself, Well, it could have been worse. Then, And it probably was — and very well may be even worse in the upcoming fiscal year.

The homeless situation was probably worse because the most comprehensive figures the report provides come from the point-in-time counts that Continuum of Care agencies must conduct to receive HUD grants for their homelessness programs.

As I’ve said before, the COC counts must use HUD’s restrictive definition of “homeless”. And we can hardly expect volunteers who fan out at night in the depth of winter to find all the homeless people who’ve take refuge in abandoned buildings, stairwells and other out-of-the-way places.

These, however, are consistent defects. So it seems reasonable to assume that changes in the reported PIT figures reflect actual trends.

The one-year changes HUD reports are what could have been a good deal worse.

The total number of homeless people recorded during the January 2010 PIT counts was 649,917 — a very large number, but only 6,850 more than in January 2009. This represents an increase of 1.1%.

The counts also produced only small increases in family homelessness. Just 928 — 1.2% — more homeless families than the 75,518 counted in January 2009. About 3,840 more homeless family members — an increase of 1.6%.

No one, I trust, would view any increase as a cause for celebration. Such small upticks, however, are rather surprising in light of the continuing impacts of the recession — foreclosures, job losses, related increases in severe housing cost burdens, etc.

More troubling, I think, are where the homeless people were counted. Only 52% of single homeless individuals were in emergency shelters or transitional housing. The remaining 48% were on the streets or in some other place “not meant for human habitation.”

More than 21% of homeless families were also unsheltered — 2.8% more than in 2009.

We don’t know how many of these unsheltered families had children — or how many children had no roof over their heads. We do know, however, that the majority of homeless families consist of a mother and two young children.

Also that the face of homelessness is changing. Since 2007, the number of homeless people in families has increased by 20%, while the number of “chronically homeless” individuals has decreased by 11%.

The latter are the people whom policymakers have focused on — individuals with disabilities, including mental illness and/or substance abuse problems, who’ve been homeless for a long time or recurrently.

Permanent supportive housing was initially designed for them. It’s now, HUD says, the single largest part of the homeless housing inventory, providing beds not only for chronically homeless individuals but others, including homeless people in families.

HUD is undoubtedly right in saying that PSH growth probably accounts, at least in part, for the drop in the number of chronically homeless individuals. Without it, the homeless family numbers would probably have been larger too.

But PSH programs cost money to develop and money to sustain. And Congress seems hardly in the mood to provide more for local communities that are struggling with their own revenue constraints.

One reason things could get worse by the time the next homeless count rolls round.

The other reason is that COCs will have exhausted their share of the $1.5 billion in temporary funding for homelessness prevention and rapid re-housing that was part of the economic recovery act.

These funds, HUD says, also help account for last year’s relatively small increases in homelessness.

In 2010, 690,264 people, including children, got some form of assistance under HPRP. HUD reports that at least 87.8% of them found a “permanent housing destination.”* For most, this was a rental unit.

But more than 67% of the adult program leavers had monthly cash incomes of $1,000 or less. And whatever housing subsidy they got is necessarily temporary. What will keep them from joining — or rejoining — the homeless population?

For some, accommodations in PSH. For the greater number, housing vouchers and/or other affordable housing arrangements.

Which brings us back to the funding issue.

The House Appropriations Transportation/HUD Subcommittee is still working on program funding levels for Fiscal Year 2012. It’s been told to produce a bill costing $7.7 billion less than this fiscal year’s total.

This hardly augurs well for local homelessness prevention programs or the diverse programs that will probably face the need to shelter and house some 1.9 million homeless adults and children, as they did in 2010.

* Some HPRP grantees failed to report outcomes for everyone who’d received assistance. Of those whose “exits” were reported, 94% had a “permanent housing destination.” As I indicate, how permanent is an open question.

More Grim News About The Affordable Housing Crunch

Shortly before the Census Bureau issued its new poverty/income report, the Bureau and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development released figures from their latest housing survey. Bad news about the affordability of rental housing, especially for households below the federal poverty line.

In 2009, about 18.6 million renter households paid 30% or more of their current income for rent,* i.e., at or above the HUD cutoff for affordability. That’s 52.6% of all renter households. Close to a third paid at least half their current income for rent, aptly characterized by HUD as a “severe rent burden.”

As we’d expect, housing costs were a greater challenge for low-income households. About 73% of them — 6.8 million households — paid at least 30% of their current income for rent. Rent consumed half or more of all current income for 5.6 million households — just under 60%.

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports that the severe rent burden figure for low-income households represents a 17% increase since 2007 — 800,000 more households in just two years. Compared to 2003, the increase is a whopping 45% or 1.7 million more households.

These figures reflect at least four converging factors.

One is the continuing shrinkage of affordable housing stock. Earlier this year, the National Low Income Housing Coalition reported that 6.3% of affordable units had been lost between 2001 and 2007.

Shrinkage in the District of Columbia has been more dramatic — more than a third of low-cost rental units lost during about the same time period.

Two other factors are both impacts of the recession. One, of course, is the prodigious number of jobs losses, which have left many households with less or no current income. What might have been affordable for them a couple of years ago now leaves them without enough ready cash for basic needs.

The other, related impact is foreclosures, which have increased competition for the limited number of moderate and low-cost rental units available. CBPP reports a nationwide 11.3% increase in rental costs since 2006. The old law of supply and demand at work.

A fourth major factor is government housing policies. At the federal level, rental assistance for low-income families has failed to keep pace with rising needs. Last year, CBPP reported that total funding for low-income housing programs in 2008 was $2 billion (5%) less than in 2004.

For 2009, Congress appropriated several hundred million dollars less for housing vouchers than agencies would have been eligible for if allocations been based on use and costs — this notwithstanding enormous waiting lists and rising rents.

CBPP estimates that funding for the current fiscal year is just about enough to renew all the vouchers families were using in 2009. The same is true for the President’s proposed Fiscal Year 2011 budget, though it would also provide funding for about 10,000 new vouchers for people with disabilities and families who are homeless or at risk of homelessness.

So we’re looking here at about 2.2 million vouchers, assuming (as we shouldn’t) that Congress goes along. That would leave an enormous gap between families in need of housing assistance and the help the federal government will provide.

Here in the District, the waiting list for affordable housing has reportedly grown to more than 26,000 households. The Fiscal Year 2011 budget will provide local funding for about 80 more units. Not a penny more for the tenant-based vouchers that allow households to live in apartments with market-based rents.

Even in better times, the District never came close to the targets or funding levels recommended by the Comprehensive Housing Task Force — a diverse group of experts commissioned to produce a long-range housing strategy for “an inclusive city.”

So the Census/HUD figures aren’t just a recession-caused blip. They’re the cumulative results of long-standing failures to give affordable housing the priority it deserves.

* The survey figures include households that reported paying 100% or more of current income for rent. The spreadsheets note that these may reflect a temporary situation, living off savings or a response error. I have followed CBPP in including them in my calculations.

Housing Crisis Voucher On the Horizon

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports that tens of thousands of low-income households stand to lose their housing vouchers, pay higher rent or remain on the growing waiting lists for rental assistance unless Congress acts PDQ.

An estimated 400 local housing authorities face shortfalls in their housing voucher budgets. Every state has at least one agency in trouble. In 15 states, it’s 10 or more. CBPP estimates they’ll need a total of $130 million to get through the rest of the year without making further cutbacks.

The shortfalls are caused in part by the fact that Congress didn’t complete work on appropriations for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development until March. Housing agencies, therefore, didn’t learn what their 2009 funding would be until May–five months into the program year. This left them little time to adjust their budgets in ways that would minimize impacts on low-income families who had–or expected to get–housing vouchers.

And they certainly did have to adjust their budgets because the funding Congress provided to renew vouchers was considerably less than what the agencies would have been eligible to receive, based on the funding formula Congress used for the 2008 HUD budget.

The recession is another big factor in the crisis. Families with vouchers generally have to pay 30% of their income for rent. The housing agency pays the rest. As tenants have lost their jobs or had their hours cut back, their 30% has become a smaller part of the rent costs. This, of course, means the agencies have to pay more.

Unless they do something about it. Under certain circumstances, agencies can reduce the portion they pay. This leaves voucher holders with higher–sometimes very considerably higher–rental costs. According to CBPP, at least a few agencies have already exercised this option.

Agencies can also stop issuing new vouchers and/or terminate existing vouchers, leaving families responsible for the totality of their rent. Some agencies have already done both. CBPP warns that many more will have to do so unless Congress authorizes HUD to use already-approved renewal funding to help them cope with their shortfalls.

According to CBPP estimates, more than 28,200 vouchers in use are currently unfunded due to the shortfalls. That’s a lot of families who could be left homeless or with rental costs they can meet only by cutting back on food, medications and other essential needs.

In the likely event that Congress doesn’t pass a Fiscal Year 2010 budget for HUD by October 1, it could put the needed authorization into the continuing resolution. Just a sentence or two is all it would take to avert the impending crisis.

Homeless Report Shows Signs Of Recession’s Impact

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has just released its annual homeless assessment report. Figures in the report are from the homeless counts conducted in January 2008 and other local data collected for the October 2007-2008 period. The economic and foreclosure crises were in their early stages then. Yet we can already see worrisome changes.

• For the October 2007-8 year, the total number of homeless people in shelters and transitional housing was virtually unchanged, but the percent of them who were in families was up by 9%–to an estimated 516,724.
• About 61% of the adults in families who sought shelter at some point during the year had spent the night before in their own homes or with family or friends. Somewhat more than 19% of them had been in housing they owned or rented.
• About 3% more sheltered homeless people had been in the place they spent the night before for at least a year–another sign of destabilization.
• People were staying in emergency shelters and transitional housing for longer periods of time–one supposes because they couldn’t find affordable housing or someone they could double up with.

Nan Roman, President of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, calls these data “the canary in the coal mine” because rates that had been decreasing stagnated or swung up. And, as she says, homelessness if a lagging indicator of changes in the economy. So it seems reasonable to expect we’ll see more of the same.

HUD has begun issuing quarterly updates, reflecting data from nine communities. As the first report says, it’s hard to see patterns and risky to generalize.

With this caveat, it’s still worth noting that the number of homeless people in the reporting communities increased by 1.5% in the first three months of this year. And these were only people in shelters and transitional housing. Who knows how many more were in cheap motels, doubled up or on the streets?

The bright note is that Shaun Donovan, the Secretary of HUD, is talking of new strategies and funding to help homeless families, as well as the chronically homeless individuals that were his predecessor’s primary concern. Better yet, the economic recovery act is plowing more funds into programs to prevent homelessness.