NCH Statement on Martin v. Boise Case

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NATIONAL COALITION FOR THE HOMELESS WELCOMES SUPREME COURT DECISION TO ALLOW MARTIN V. BOISE CASE STAND.  CALLS FOR NEW INVESTMENTS TO ADDRESS THE UNDERLYING CAUSES OF STREET HOMELESSNESS

The National Coalition for the Homeless applauds the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court to deny a review of the Martin v. Boise case, leaving in place the decision by the 9th Circuit that people experiencing homelessness cannot be punished for camping or sleeping on public property where there are no adequate alternatives.

The Boise decision remains the law, at least in the states within the 9th U.S. Circuit.  Criminalizing homelessness, in absence of reasonable and acceptable alternatives to sleeping on the streets, is unconstitutional, and cities and states must act to develop adequate shelter and affordable to address homelessness in their communities.

“Today is a victory for people experiencing homelessness”, said John Parvensky, Acting Executive Director of the National Coalition for the Homeless.  “It is not a victory because people can legally sleep on the streets.  Rather it is a victory because it will force communities to address homelessness proactively – through the development of an adequate supply of affordable housing, while providing safe and appropriate emergency shelter in the interim”. 

NCH calls of the Federal Government to immediately and significantly increase its investment in both housing and services for those experiencing homeless as well as in broader pubic and affordable housing for those at risk of becoming homeless.

The recent announcement of the imminent appointment of Robert Marbut as Executive Director of the USICH raises significant concerns about the Trump Administration’s plans to address homelessness.  Rather than building upon evidence based practices like housing first, permanent supportive housing, increased health and mental health services, and expanded affordable housing, the pick portends an expansion of punitive strategies to control, marginalize and criminalize people experiencing homelessness.

Marbut, a self-described “expert” on homelessness, has limited actual experience developing and operating effective housing and service programs to move people experiencing homelessness from the streets or shelters into housing, and connecting them to the employment, health and mental health resources they might need to remain stable in housing.

As a consultant, Marbut has advocated policy and programming approaches that warehouses people in large congregate shelters which are designed to contain and isolate people experiencing homelessness with punitive rules and practices.  Rather than accepting and implementing the evidence based housing first approach, Marbut has claimed he believes in “Housing Fourth”, as if housing is less important to resolving homelessness than other interventions.

He has also called feeding people on the street “enabling them”, as if not feeding them will make the problem go away.

The appointment of Marbut to lead the agency charged with coordinating the response of federal agencies to homelessness is particularly concerning in light of President Trump’s recent complaints about the large increase in street homelessness in San Francisco, Los Angeles and other cities and the release of a report by the White House Council of Economic on “The State of Homelessness in America” in September.  That report used faulty logic, statistics and policy prescriptions to give cover to the President’s recently stated desire to crack down on the homeless by criminalizing and warehousing people experiencing homelessness – not to help end their misery, but to alleviate the impact of street homelessness on real estate investors and businesses.

Rather than proposing new initiatives with adequate funding to proactively address  and end homelessness through evidence based practices, the Administration has repeated proposed cuts to housing and homeless program budgets, food stamps, Medicaid and other programs that provide a pathway out of homelessness for the more than 1 million individuals and families experiencing homelessness across our nation.

What is needed is vast expansion funding to build more affordable housing, to fund additional supportive housing units targeted to persons with disabilities experiencing homelessness, and to ensure that those on the streets or at risk of homelessness have access to health care and support to they need to improve their lives.

While there is much in the existing federal policy on homelessness which can be improved, the approaches promoted by Marbut would likely exacerbate the existing homelessness crisis rather than solve it.

We urge the members of the USICH to oppose the appointment of Robert Marbut and to seek the input of people experiencing homelessness and those housing and serving them in the selection of a leader with the experience, philosophy and competency to move federal policy towards the ending of homelessness.

In what appears to be an escalation on the White House’s war on the homeless, rather than a righteous war on homelessness, the White House Council of Economic Advisers released an unsigned report this week on “The State of Homelessness in America” that is on its face absurd, and uses faulty logic, statistics and policy prescriptions to give cover to the President’s recently stated desire to crack down on the homeless by criminalizing and warehousing people experiencing homelessness – not to help end their misery, but to alleviate the impact of street homelessness on real estate investors and businesses.

The report claims that homelessness is caused by 1) the higher costs of housing due to overregulation of housing markets, 2) permissive policies increasing the “tolerability of sleeping on the streets”, 3) the supply of homeless shelters, and 4) the ineffectiveness of previous federal policies in reducing homelessness.  Finally, in heralds the Trump Administration’s actions to reduce Homelessness without offering any evidence to support the impact of such actions on the reductions of homelessness.

“This report seemingly attempts to give cover to the President’s recent attacks on cities experiencing the crisis of increased homelessness without taking responsibility for the Administration’s own actions which undercut state and local efforts to end homelessness through a combination of housing and health care”, said John Parvensky, Executive Director of the National Coalition for the Homeless.  “The report purports to be an economic analysis of homeless, but instead uses misleading statistics, faulty analysis and spurious conclusions to blame homelessness on those experiencing it, rather than on failure of the housing market and government policy to provide real solutions at the scale necessary to truly end homelessness.”

The report’s simplistic analysis of the effect of regulations on the cost of housing ends with the startling conclusion that a “1 percent reduction rental home prices reduces the rate of homelessness by 1%.”  While the regulatory environment may have a marginal impact of the cost of building housing, the actual cost of rental housing is dictated by the laws of supply and demand (something you would think a council of economic advisors would understand).  The cities with the highest rates of homelessness also have the greatest shortage of affordable housing with rents low enough for those experiencing homelessness to afford. 

When there is a shortage of housing units, owners will set the rents as high as the market will allow, which puts the cost far above what people experiencing homelessness can afford.  The report itself acknowledges that the mean incomes of people experiencing homelessness is about one-half of the poverty level – which equates to $6,445 for a single individual and $12,375 for a family of four.  Yet the 2019 fair market rent in Los Angeles is $1,158 for an efficiency apartment and $2,401 for a three bedroom apartment.  Thus, the average homeless persons in Los Angeles would need spend twice their income to rent an average apartment.  A 1% reduction in rent prices would have no impact on reducing homelessness.  Even a 50% reduction in rent due to deregulation (which even the report’s authors don’t suggest is possible) would mean that the average homeless person would still need to spend all of their income for an apartment.   The solution to high rents is not deregulation, but increased governmental subsidies to bring those rents within the reach of all Americans.

The report’s contention that tolerating people living on the streets increases homelessness is equally absurd.  Talk to any person living on the streets of Skid Row or in any city and you will discover that it is the lack of available, accessible and affordable alternatives that drive people to find refuge on the streets, not tolerance of such refuge.  Alternatively, criminalizing homelessness through camping bans, sweeps, and other means does not reduce homelessness – it only moves people from one place to another and makes it more difficult for outreach workers to engage and connect these people to the limited housing options that may be available to them.

Similarly, the report’s claim that the supply of shelter increases homelessness is laughable.  Building shelters, which are in already in short supply in most communities, no more increases homelessness than building hospitals increases those who are sick.  While building quality shelter may be one effective strategy of reducing street homelessness by providing realistic alternatives to those sleeping on the streets, few people would choose shelter over safe and affordable housing.

Fourth, the report’s critique of previous federal policies does raise serious questions about whether HUD’s contention that homelessness is actually declining in most communities is accurate due to methodological problems and changes in definitions.  However, it’s contention that evidence-based practices of “housing first” and permanent supportive housing are ineffective in reducing homeless is flawed.  Those interventions are designed to end the homelessness of those who have access to such housing, and numerous studies have documented that these approaches do in fact end homeless for 90% of those housed through these approaches.  The problem isn’t the policy intervention.  The problem is that the Federal government has never funded these interventions to the level needed to dramatically reduce homelessness nationwide.

The growth of mass homelessness in our cities did not occur overnight.  It is the result of nearly four decades of federal budget cuts to affordable and public housing programs under both Republican and Democratic administrations beginning in the 1980s.  Indeed, the Administration’s recent budget proposals have called for reductions in funding for strategies that work, not increasing funding to the level needed to truly end homelessness.

This year, HUD provided only $415 million in homeless assistance grants to California, a paltry sum compared to the number of people experiencing homelessness in that state.  Furthermore, only 4.5% of this funding was available to fund new projects to house those currently on the streets or in shelters – the remaining funding was needed just to keep those individuals previously housed through federal support from losing their housing.

Meanwhile, California has recently committed $1 billion of new state funding, and Los Angeles voters approved two $2 billion bonds to address homelessness.

If the Trump administration was serious about ending homelessness in California and across our nation, it would call for a massive new investment of funding for homeless assistance and affordable housing – not increased efforts to criminalize homelessness or warehouse those currently on the streets.

We need to demand that the President and Congress significantly increase its funding for homeless assistance programs — to not only continue to house those previously housed who need continued assistance to remain housed, but also to provide new housing those currently living on the streets.  Incremental increases are not sufficient.  

They must also restore affordable housing funding across the board to the levels necessary so that those experiencing homelessness are not continually competing for limited housing with those living at risk of homelessness, on fixed incomes, or working at minimum wage jobs. 

We know how to end homelessness through a combination of affordable housing, health care, and social supports.  Criminalization and warehousing of the homeless are not the answers.

 

In an act of hypocrisy that is extreme, even when compared to the serial outrageousness we have come to expect from Washington in recent years, the Trump Administration has taken initial action seeking to criminalize homelessness by relocating people experiencing homelessness from the streets of Los Angeles and other California cities to federal facilities.  While appropriate federal investment is desperately needed to address the growing crisis of homelessness in cities across the nation, federal efforts to criminalize homelessness, or to create warehouses to move the homeless out of sight and out of mind are clearly not the answer.

The Trump Administration is complicit in the continuing growth of homelessness.  While it did not start under its watch, the administration has offered no positive proposals to address homelessness nor its main underlying cause — the lack of affordable housing.  Rather, the administration has proposed significant budget cuts to HUD’s affordable housing and homeless funding every year.   Other actions, such as repeated attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, cuts to SNAP benefits, and cuts to housing assistance for undocumented individuals in public housing, all undercut state and local efforts to end homelessness.

The growth of mass homelessness beginning in the 1980’s began with massive cuts to federal housing assistance for public housing and the Section 8 program.  Federal funding to specifically address homelessness has never been at a level commensurate with the need nor adequate to end homelessness.

Currently, HUD holds a yearly national competition for funding to award its Homeless Assistance grants to local communities.  In January, HUD announced the distribution of $2.2 Billion in such grants.  However, the vast majority of HUD funding was needed just to renew existing projects housing formerly homeless persons.  Nationwide, 91.3% of projects funded were renewal projects, with only 5.8% ($126 million) being new housing or service projects.  Of these 71% of renewals (totaling $2 billion) were for permanent supportive housing – applications to keep those who were housed through those projects remain housed.

In California, only 4.5% of the $415 million of HUD grants funded new projects to house those currently on the streets or in shelters – the remaining funding was needed just to keep those previously housed from losing their housing. 

Meanwhile, California has committed $1 billion of state funding, and Los Angeles voters approved two $2 billion bonds to address homelessness.

If the Trump administration was serious about ending homelessness in California and across our nation, it would call for a massive new investment of funding for homeless assistance and affordable housing.

We need to demand that the President and Congress significantly increase its funding for homeless assistance programs — to not only continue to house those previously housed who need continued assistance to remain housed, but also to provide new housing those currently living on the streets.  Incremental increases are not sufficient.  

They must also restore affordable housing funding across the board to the levels necessary so that those experiencing homelessness are not continually competing for limited housing with those living at risk of homelessness, on fixed incomes, or working at minimum wage jobs. 

We know how to end homelessness through a combination of affordable housing, health care, and social supports.  Criminalization and warehousing of the homeless are not the answers.

Across the nation, agencies and communities providing housing and services to homeless families and individuals with federal HUD funding are beginning the annual ritual referred to as the SuperNOFA.  This is not some astrological event.  Rather, it is the funding equivalent of a cross between the Hunger Games and Survivor.  Agencies receiving HUD homelessness funding are required to compete with each other to renew their grants for permanent supportive housing, transitional housing, rapid re-housing or other programs.  The losers will be defunded and “voted off the island.”

While competition for funding can be beneficial to ensure that the most worthy projects having the greatest outcomes housing the homeless are funded, the NOFA (Notice of Funding Availability) is structured in such a complex and convoluted way that it traumatizes not only agencies serving the homeless, but the very people the funding is designed to help — formerly homeless families and individuals who are currently residing in supportive housing funded by these grants.

The funding process requires local “continuum of care” entities designated by HUD to hold local competitions for new and renewal projects serving the homeless, and submit a collaborative application which ranks projects based on HUD and locally determined criteria.  The collaborative applications are then ranked by HUD, and projects prioritized by the local continua will be funded or not based on how HUD has ranked their continuum and how the continuum has ranked the project.

The process involves a three month scramble that starts with reading and understanding an 83 page NOFA issued by HUD which changes each year, the issuance of local continuum processes involving scoring matrices and priorities, the writing of new and renewal applications, the ranking of those applications by the local continua, and the submission of the collaborative application to HUD with ranking of local projects.

HUD then takes approximately three months to review, rank, and make announcements as to which projects will be renewed and which limited new projects will be awarded.

Thus, half of each year, agencies housing the homeless with federal funding are working on getting their grants renewed or worried about the prospects of their grants not being renewed.

This might be chalked up to just the “cost of doing business” if it were not for the fact that the final funding decisions are really not about which agencies are funded and not funded, but whether the families and individuals being housed through these programs will continue to be housed or not.  Indeed, the non-renewal of homeless housing by HUD over the past ten years has led to significant reoccurrence of homelessness by thousands of people previously housed in HUD funded programs.

Simply put, families and individuals housed in supportive housing programs funded by HUD should not have their continued housing put at risk for the sake of HUD managing a competitive renewal process.

To make matters worse, HUD has created a process whereby local continua must rank their projects into two tiers – with 6 percent of funding ranked in the second tier.  Projects ranked in the second tier are least likely to be refunded. 

HUD initially created a two tiered ranking system in 2012, when congressional appropriations for the program were significantly cut through the process known as Sequestration.  However, HUD has continued to use the two tiered ranking even though funding in the past few fiscal years has been sufficient to fund all renewal projects.

A yearly national competition for funding might be justified if there were significant funding for new projects each year.  However, the vast majority of HUD funding is needed just to renew existing projects housing formerly homeless persons.  In the 2018 competition, 91.3% of projects funded were renewal projects, with only 5.8% ($126 million) being new housing or service projects.  Of these 71% of renewals (totaling $2 billion) were for permanent supportive housing – applications to keep those who were housed through those projects remain housed.

There is no other funding process in the federal government that places the housing or services of people in need at risk through a competitive renewal process.  Can you imagine if HUD required Public Housing Authorities housing millions of people through public housing or Section 8 housing choice vouchers to annually compete to continue to receive such funding and keep those currently housed from losing their housing?

To make matters even worse, HUD has devised scoring criteria for the national competition that penalizes communities that are experiencing an increase in homelessness due to factors outside of their control.  For example, they provide incentive points for continua that demonstrate an overall reduction of at least 5% in the number of people experiencing homelessness, and for demonstrating a reduction of “first time homeless”.  Similarly, they provide incentive points to continua that demonstrate a reduction in the length of time people remain homeless, demonstrate a decrease of 5% of chronically homeless persons, or a decrease in family homelessness, and for a reduction in the number of homeless veterans.

While there is certainly merit in rewarding communities for improving outcomes, penalizing communities that are struggling with increased homelessness due to affordable housing shortages, increased population, decreased employment opportunities, and other factors out of their control is not only counterproductive, it exacerbates the problem by reducing the very resources these communities need to reduce homelessness.

In what world would it make sense for the Center for Disease Control to reduce its assistance to communities for treating HIV-AIDS or TB because there were more people in those communities needing such treatment?”  That is essentially what HUD is doing in its scoring process.

HUD claims that chronic homelessness has decreased by 26% since 2007, despite recent evidence of increased homelessness in many communities.  Even if true, at that rate, we will not achieve the end of chronic homelessness until 2050.  That is unacceptable in the richest nation on earth.

To truly help communities reduce and end homeless, significantly more federal funding is needed to help leverage state, local and community efforts.  To rely on only 5.8% of funding to provide new housing for people currently on the streets will not end homelessness. 

We need to demand that Congress significantly increase its funding for homeless assistance programs — to not only continue to house those previously housed who need continued assistance to remain housed, but also to provide new housing those currently living on the streets.  Incremental increases are not sufficient.   We must start with at least a doubling of the current homeless assistance program budget.

Congress authorized in the HEARTH Act of 2009 that funding to renew permanent supportive housing be funded through the Section 8 Appropriations Fund rather than through the more limited homeless assistance funding.  HUD has refused to implement this change.  Doing so now would free up over $1 billion dollars of funding to target the newly homeless.

HUD should also end its practice of requiring annual renewals for desperately needed homeless housing and services.

Finally, Congress must restore affordable housing funding across the board to levels necessary so that those experiencing homelessness are not continually competing for limited housing with those living at risk of homelessness and those working at minimum wage jobs. 

The time to act is now.

Feedback imageHomelessness continues to be a major failing of our social and economic systems. We need your help to strengthen our advocacy to fight the root causes of homelessness, as well as the shortcomings of our current assistance systems.

Here is a link to our brief survey that we very much hope you will answer about what you think our advocacy and policy priorities should be.

We are hoping to hear from:

  • people who have been (or are currently) homeless
  • advocates who work with homeless folks
  • providers of services for people experiencing homelessness

Please take a few minutes to help us to help people who are counting on us! The survey will remain open until the end of March, 2019. When the results come in, we will post them here on our website.

Thank you so much for your help and partnership!

Click to fill out the Survey