Homelessness is No Longer an Emergency: Commentary on the release of the 2020 Annual Homeless Assessment Report

There was a time in US history, around 35 years ago, that homelessness was an emergency. There were a few long term homeless people who were well known around town (Otis from Andy Griffith Show), but the majority of the population were unfamiliar with the concept of homelessness and when it occurred, religious groups, neighbors and sometimes government would quickly respond. If a family with children were to show up without a place to live, the community would not rest until that family was in a safe space.

We started opening church basements, then government office buildings at night when they were not used, and eventually gymnasiums, but all under the banner of a temporary space while this emergency is dealt with in the United States.  We, the people, all recognized housing was the best for everyone concerned and the leadership of the dominant religions, community groups and local government all had a common set of beliefs that housing was a critical need for a functioning society. This is all to say that the Department of Housing and Urban Development released their 2020 Annual Homeless Assessment Report Part 1 on March 18, 2021, which is the exact opposite of homelessness as an emergency. 

This is not a criticism of HUD.  They stepped up when no other federal agency was willing to take on the challenges of addressing homelessness in America.  The staff at HUD have saved millions of Americans from hypothermia, exploitation, and death with the housing and services they have funded.  Everyone who has ever worked at HUD should be proud of the amazing things accomplished with so little.  They have had to deal with every hole in the US social safety net while attempting to manage the complex world of financing affordable housing. When AIDS was ravishing our community, HUD stepped up with housing opportunities.  When Veterans were not being served well by the Department of Veteran’s Affairs, HUD stepped up with services and housing.  When the opioid crisis was killing Americans at an alarming rate, HUD was there with permanent supportive housing.  

But the reality is that they have institutionalized homelessness as an industry to manage poor people, and unfortunately most of those individuals and family members come from a minority population.  It is now studied, counted, tested, screened, assessed, observed but never solved.  How is it useful to report on the number of homeless people in January of 2020 before a pandemic hit the country if we considered homelessness an emergency?  Sure, if this was an after action report a year and a half after Katrina to tell the American public what went wrong and what we can do better next time, then this would be a useful piece of information.  The 580,466 people identified by HUD in January 2020 who were homeless on that one day may still be homeless today.  They are still living through the nightmare of waking up in the morning not knowing where they will lay their head tonight.  We are still living through this crisis as a nation 35 years on, and we should not be spending our time counting people when so many are sleeping in tents in the richest country on the planet.  

When Hurricane Laura hit Cameron Louisiana in August 2020, FEMA did not send volunteers out to count the number of people who lost their housing and then work on a report for the next 14 months on the demographics of those who lost their housing.  That would be unthinkable and useless information to have.  Presumably by the 14 month mark, all of those people would have settled their insurance claims and would be well on their way to returning to normal.  To the person facing eviction, they feel like a hurricane just hit their life and they want government and community groups to respond with highest degree of urgency.  It is so frustrating and upsetting to see resources spent on an annual assessment, a central intake, a survey to assess the best service for your needs, and a shelter being built to house 400 people a night when the mom is just looking for a safe secure quiet place to rock her child to sleep.  The fact that every city in America now has an Office or Department of Homeless Services and few have a Department of Housing Placement or an Office of Job Referral is the clearest sign that we have made the crisis into a way of life.  

The National Coalition for the Homeless appreciates that HUD recognizes how racist the system has become in saying, “people of color are significantly over-represented among people experiencing homelessness.” That is not really news that needed a study.  Just because members of Congress don’t believe that homelessness is real or that racism exists, we should not have to spend millions on reports for them.  They will continue to stick their head in the sand no matter if there is a report from HUD or just the word of advocates who testify before them.  We could have told you that more people were homeless in January 2020 just based on the increase in requests for food, the kids who reported being homeless in schools across the United States and the call volume to the 211 system.  We really did not need a report to say that American is failing to deliver a basic human right: housing.  The report is deeply flawed in its methodology and we have written about that in the past, but the conclusions are important. Things were bad in January of 2020 and they only got worse during the pandemic.  Now what are we going to do about it?  

The National Coalition for the Homeless congratulates Marcia Fudge on her appointment as the 18th Secretary of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and Xavier Becerra on his appointment as Secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)! See below for more about Secretaries Fudge and Becerra.

Marcia Fudge is as tough as her hometown of Cleveland

If you live in Cleveland for any length of time, you have to develop a thick skin to be successful.  It is tough union town with snow in May, people have no problem telling you how bad you are doing your job and the city has been in the top five poorest communities in the United States for the past two decades.  Marcia Fudge, the new Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio serving as the former mayor of one of the surrounding suburbs and Cleveland’s Congresswoman.  

Marcia Fudge started out her political career as mayor of Warrensville Heights, Ohio, which is best known as the cut through to somewhere else. This small suburb of Cleveland features 90% African American residents and is only 4 square miles.  This experience gave her a great background to chair the Congressional Black Caucus during her years as a Representative for the East Side of Cleveland.  Fudge is especially sensitive to the disparity that exists in the United States for minority populations with development and investments going to predominately white suburbs of Cleveland with majority minority suburbs left behind. 

She was often unopposed in her election to 11th Congressional district in Ohio after the sudden death of her friend Stephanie Tubbs Jones.  This seat is historic in Ohio going back to the first African American nominated to Congress from Ohio, Louis Stokes who served for 30 years.  The seat was gerrymandered to include African Americans in Akron by the racist Ohio legislature in 2012.  This was to limit African American representation in Congress from Ohio to just 2 out of 16 total seats, and so Fudge understands institutional racism.  This will prepare her to rebuild her new agency and its commitment to fair housing after a rough couple of years in which the previous administration focused more on the failings of individuals instead of the systems built to keep people living in poverty.  

Thought during her tenure in Congress, Fudge did not take the lead in supporting people experiencing homelessness, she could be counted on to speak up when seniors or veterans were involved.  These two populations are the third rail of Ohio politics and will get a response if there is a scandal or potential problem with federal funding or bureaucratic entanglement.  When there was a threat to a senior housing property her office was involved, and she was supportive of expanding affordable housing locally.  

Locally, Fudge has been a champion of expanded food stamp benefits, education and voting rights. She was a person who showed up and put in the work everyday to put forward ideas of racial equity and access for low income and minority members of her constituency.  She was not brash about wielding her power, but behind the scenes there was no doubt who was the Mayor of Northeast Ohio.

Fudge will be a huge champion for fair housing and should be good at expanding opportunities for affordable housing in the United States.  She will not criticize people who need help or struggle with housing like some of her predecessors at HUD.  Fudge will be a lot more open to innovative programs and working toward solutions.  She will work for equity in the distribution of resources and access to essential services.  Don’t let her quiet and reserved demeanor fool you. Marcia Fudge is as tough as turning one of those giant container ships down the winding Cuyahoga River of Cleveland. 


Xavier Becerra Takes on the Biggest Health Challenges in the History of the US

Congratulations to the new Secretary of Health and Human Services, Xavier Becerra! Becerra is facing the biggest health challenges to ever face the US and probably a more difficult job than every single one of his predecessors combined. While HUD receives all the attention in the federal response to homelessness because of the obvious link to housing, HHS has more of an impact on the daily lives of homeless people. The first priority for Secretary Becerra is to oversee the huge outlay of funds in the American Rescue Act and ushering the United States through the final push to defeat Covid19.  The HHS Secretary has a huge amount to administer under the American Rescue Plan including:

  • Covid 19 vaccinations for those covered by Medicaid and those uninsured.
  • A re-opening of the Obamacare marketplace with expanded eligibility
  • An expanded role for the CDC in planning, promoting and tracking vaccine distribution.
  • $7.7 billion for state, local and territorial health departments to establish public health workforce
  • An expansion of funds for alcohol and drug treatment and community mental health services to the local community.
  • Additional funds to prevent overdoses, syringe services, and other harm reduction programs. 

Becerra is a previous member of the US House of Representatives from the heart of Los Angeles. He spent the last four years regularly challenging the Trump administration as Attorney General for the State of California.  He has the challenge of getting 200 million Americans vaccinated so that we can reach herd immunity and finally be able to gather without masks for Thanksgiving. Then after the pandemic, he still has to lead the second largest of the federal bureaucracies behind the Defense Department.  He will need to restore faith in the Center for Disease Control and return science based research and guidance to many of the departments under his purview.  Becerra will have to reform the internal structure of the Department and take the muzzle off the HHS Inspector General.  The efforts to strip away regulations during the previous administration hit HHS especially hard and demoralized the workforce.  The National Coalition for the Homeless want to see HHS take a more prominent position within the federal government to eradicate homelessness in the United States. 

The National Coalition for the Homeless will urge the new Secretary to take a lead role in ending homelessness in America with a health care related “continuum of care” distributed to local communities targeting homeless people and programs for the 2022 federal budget. Imagine if a federal agency forced the local community to take responsibility for making homelessness a healthcare issue. Think of the resources saved if local communities were given an incentive to take responsibility for all those who lose their housing as a result of their mental health, addiction (including gambling) issues, or just general healthcare debts as well as chronic health conditions.  They could pay for these services with a tax on prescription drugs, alcohol, smoking, and the gambling industry.  If all those with a health related emergency were removed from the shelters and homeless services, we could actually see a light at the end of this long American nightmare of homelessness.  

NCH believes we need treatment on demand that goes beyond just AA and is forgiving of relapses.  We need a mental health system that takes responsibility for life long care in much the same way as the developmentally disabled community provide life long wrap around services.  The HHS Secretary needs to force a complete overhaul of the foster care system nationwide to eliminate the urge for the local community to remove (mostly minority children) because a mother is poor.  We need to push for guaranteed basic income to replace the broken welfare system including childcare, unemployment, and cash assistance. We need HHS to assure that no one loses their housing because of medical debts and that a doctor can prescribe housing as a solution for the guy at the emergency room with a chronic health condition.  NCH believes that psychiatrists and mental health professionals should be available to every single person who becomes homeless and that the industry should be required to volunteer their time in much the same way as attorneys represent indigent clients.  Finally, none of the health care facilities that receive even $1 of federal funds should ever discharge a person to the shelters or the streets. 

To: Ms. Joslyn Carter
New York City Department of Homeless Services

We read the NY Times story about the Bronx Parent Housing Network shelter and the allegations of harassment by the former director in February 2021.  The National Coalition for the Homeless is concerned that the repeated allegations were made over a long period of time and no one seems to have acted on them until the New York Times front page story.  We know that the City is under court supervision to provide shelter to everyone who seeks assistance, which has led to an explosion in shelters and the funding of shelters.  The National Coalition for the Homeless is concerned that the system has become so huge that it needs a complete overhaul and is beyond mere agency personnel changes or updating standards to have any impact on protecting the end user. 

It seems as though there are broader community wide policy changes that need to occur in order to stop the tide into the system and make the time that a person is without housing as short as possible. We recommend looking at a complete overhaul of the homeless social service system to prevent discharges from subsidized housing through eviction as well as medical facilities including drug treatment and mental health facilities into the shelters.  We support increasing the local housing subsidy to those struggling with homelessness so that they have more options in the market and could receive a subsidy that beats or at least matches the federal Housing Choice Voucher program. Shouldn’t the goal of the homeless shelter system in New York be to decrease the time spent in the homeless social services to the shortest time possible?  We believe that the goal could be written into every contract to get those seeking assistance out of the shelter/housing assistance programs as soon as humanly possible?  Maybe an incentive package for the homeless assistance industry for moving families into stable housing in under 30 days?

We understand from local advocates that you have set up an impressive system for input by current members of the homeless community to provide input to the Continuum of Care funding, but we also understand that these are only a fraction of the homeless assistance funds in New York City.  We ask that you consider expanding the oversight by homeless people to include all homeless social service funding and constructing a peer network in which those using the facilities could receive help from graduates of the programs.  This could be a model for programs from around the country and it would stem criticism of this giant bureaucracy unresponsive to the needs of its constituents. We are not asking for the hiring of a consultant who will spend the next year with focus groups to prevent sexual harassment in the shelters, and in the end will produce $1 million poster that says “Sexual Harassment is Wrong—If you see something say something.” We all know that sexual harassment is not acceptable especially in a shelter serving domestic violence victims, and we all understand that women who have few choices are especially vulnerable.  From our perspective, we see a need for reform within  government that failed to set up protections, and once there were allegations, failed to respond quickly?

We understand that the Department of Homeless Services is reviewing the situation with the Bronx Parent Housing Network and will work with a caretaker CEO to make changes. NCH is asking that this incident prompt a larger look at shelters and housing for those experiencing homelessness to transform them back to short emergency services and not long term housing solutions.  We hope that you will look at the entire system to make dramatic changes so that anyone entering the shelter system is protected from predatory behavior and has access to a process to report abuse that will result in immediate actions. We have some recommendations:

  • Build into the contacts an incentive system to move people into housing within 30 days of presenting.
  • Limit intake restrictions so that the process is simple and speedy without barriers to access or a long questionnaire that includes a detailed history.
  • Work with local advocates to implement a city wide ban on government funded institutions discharging anyone into a shelter. 
  • Increase all local housing subsidies so that the family/individual can afford housing at the market rate and not be stuck in housing that pays the landlord less than market rates. 
  • Reduce hostile discharges from the shelter system.  The discharge policies for homeless social services should be focused on restorative justice model and not a punitive system that results in a high number of evictions.  Force a high bar with much bureaucracy and greater transparency with the goal of moving people into a better situation instead of so many lateral moves or discharges onto the streets. 
  • Work with groups like Picture the Homeless or Urban Justice Center to collect and report feedback from those using the homeless social service that would result in meaningful oversight. We are not asking for token input of 1 or 2 homeless individuals but real empowerment of leadership groups to provide real involvement by those who have experienced homelessness. This entity needs to be staffed by those who have experienced homelessness and supported by public funding.  This so called “homeless ombudsman’s office” should be visible within the social service system to accept complaints and have the authority to act on those complaints.  
  • A comprehensive review of all agencies policies and procedures to assure that there are tough standards against harassment of clients or staff.  There are good models available and every social service provider should have strong policies with clear consequences for those who violate these standards. No need to contract with a consultant.  We are asking for common sense protections to be put in place for every group receiving public money.
  • A new project to hire currently homeless individuals as so called “mystery shoppers” to report directly back to the Department of Homeless Services on the facilities and care that residents or clients are receiving. 
  • Once a problem is discovered there is due process for the agency, but the investigation and adjudication must be swift and consequential.  We believe these new policies should be published and that complaint process be transparent with the specific names withheld but all other information be released to the public. 
  • Again work with grassroots leadership development groups such as Picture the Homeless or the Urban Justice Center to provide current and formerly homeless individuals a meaningful role in deciding on local priorities for funding. These community leaders with lived experience should be consulted on how resources are divided within the community.  They should have a bigger role than the other communities of interest such as other homeless service providers, government or housing providers. It is our experience that when consulting people who have utilized the shelter system, the reliance on congregate living facilities is greatly reduced.  No one wants to have to sleep on a cot in a gymnasium without privacy because it only adds to the trauma of homelessness and strips a person of their dignity. 
  • Finally, the National Coalition for the Homeless was founded by a group of homeless and formerly homeless people in New York and Washington DC, and for our 40 year history we have always attempted to demonstrate the power and wealth of experience of those who have survived homelessness.  To that end, we have always recommended the importance of peer networks to ending homelessness.  We believe that for a large metropolitan area there should be a safe place for people currently experiencing homelessness can go to learn from those who lived through the trauma of homelessness.  We believe that there is no greater use of public resources than a mentoring network of trained individuals with lived experience who can help people who have recently lost their housing navigate the complicated system and can help to avoid the pitfalls or dead ends that often slow a person’s ability to find stability.  

We would be happy to set up a meeting to discuss any of the issues we have raised.  We are not trying to criticize your work, but we only offer an outside perspective.  We all want to see a better environment for the people we both serve.  We all want to reduce the trauma associated with homelessness and to fund projects that we would be willing to see a relative effectively utilize.  Thank you for all your hard work in protecting fragile populations in our society. 

Sincerely,

Donald Whitehead

cc: Mayor Bill DeBlasio

Congress has voted to enact the American Rescue Plan and President Biden signed it into law today! The legislation includes nearly $50 billion in essential housing and homelessness assistance, including over $27 billion for rental assistance and $5 billion in new funding for states and cities to provide housing stability for tens of thousands of people experiencing homelessness.

The $27 billion for rental assistance, combined with the $25 billion provided by Congress last year and a separate $5 billion for utilities in the American Rescue Plan, can eliminate the over $50 billion of rent and utility arrears that renters have accrued during the pandemic and will enable longer-term housing stability for some renters. This success would not have been possible without your incredible advocacy and the unwavering leadership of congressional champions!

The $1.9 trillion relief package provides broad based relief. This new law will: 

  • Extend enhanced unemployment benefits through the summer. 
  • Give millions of people a desperately needed cash infusion of $1,400. 
  • Expand the Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit to help low- and middle-income people. 
  • Fully fund vaccine distribution. 
  • Extend nutrition assistance for hungry children and families. 
  • Provide housing and utility assistance to keep people in their homes. 
  • And deliver aid to states, communities, tribes, and territories to cover safe education in the pandemic, maintain critical services and prevent job layoffs. 

This new law will cut childhood poverty in half. This new law will provide a critical lifeline for millions of people and families who have lost jobs and wages during the pandemic. And, it is vital to fully vaccinating the U.S. population. 

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases appeared on Meet the Press on Sunday February 28, 2021, to discuss the third vaccine approved for emergency use against the spread of the COVID-19. He provided the grim reality of this highly infectious and dangerously adaptable virus, and he urged Americans to take whichever vaccine becomes available to them when they become eligible.

The National Coalition for the Homeless supports experts like Dr. Fauci and the health care professionals at the National Healthcare for the Homeless Council (NHCHC) who are recommending that all those experiencing homelessness and those serving homeless people take whichever vaccine is available as soon as possible. COVID-19 has decimated fragile populations in the United States especially members of minority populations such as African Americans, Latinx, and Native Americans.  Any level of protection against this killer is going to be essential to protect the homeless community. 

NCH Executive Director, Donald Whitehead, receiving his first COVID vaccine dose.

To that end most of our staff are people with previous experience with homelessness, many either have been, or are in line to be immunized against the coronavirus. We trust the scientists and hundreds of thousands of hours of research, oversight and testing that went into developing these vaccines. It is not worth the risk waiting for the one shot from Johnson and Johnson. We urge our friends who we serve every single day to get the first shot offered. We implore that all those working in the shelters and social service networks in the United States seek out the first vaccine available to them. We need everyone to get the vaccine as soon as possible so that we can return to finding solutions to all the other barriers facing the population.  We need you to be healthy and capable of receiving that key to the front door of a brand new apartment when it is ready for you.  

In the words of our friends at the National Healthcare for the Homeless Council (NHCHC), experts who have the trust of the homeless community,

COVID-19 vaccines are an essential part of ending this pandemic, but there are many challenges to ensuring successful and equitable vaccination campaigns. A number of key factors will influence the success of these campaigns for people experiencing homelessness and the providers who serve them. Health centers and homeless service providers should be taking action steps now to create an intentional operations plan, an effective communication and engagement strategy, and broad community partnerships to ensure COVID-19 vaccines are available to everyone.

Click here for more information from the NHCHC. There is an easy to use dashboard and local resources available to local doctors and health care professionals.

Please do your part to keep our community safe: get the vaccine as soon as you can!

WASHINGTON, D.C.  – Give a man a fish, he will eat for a day. Teach a man how to fish, and he will eat for a lifetime. Well, you have to give people life, in order to receive the revolution of redemption. Guaranteed Income does just that, give people the chance to dream again. That’s what former mayor of Stockton, CA, Michael Tubbs, had in mind when the Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration (SEED) was launched.

Based on a philosophy from Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr that economic freedom can help eradicate poverty, Stockton, CA, was the first major American city to take measures into their own hands. One hundred twenty-five Stockton residents were randomly selected to receive $500 a month in a two-year pilot program. The cash was completely unconditional, with no strings attached and no work requirements. A report on the project’s results found that:

  • Guaranteed income reduced income volatility, or the month-to-month income fluctuations that households face.
  • Unconditional cash enabled recipients to find full-time employment.
  • Recipients of guaranteed income were healthier, showing less depression and anxiety and enhanced wellbeing.
  • The guaranteed income alleviated financial scarcity creating new opportunities for self-determination, choice, goal-setting, and risk-taking.

More cities in the United States are launching programs because their constituents need it. Guaranteed Income can eliminate debate on raising funds for social services through tax credits, temporary direct payments until the pandemic is over, or raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour. Private funding has deeply influenced this bi-partisan movement. What will it take to influence Congress, maybe mass eviction due to the lingering pandemic economic downturn? The people have the power, and decisions have consequences, so do elections.  Want unhoused people off the streets? Guaranteed Income is a good start.

Some think that it is hard to reach people experiencing homelessness, especially with the smaller population of people with a mental illness who often refuse shelter or services.  Barb Anderson, working in Jeffersonville, Indiana, has found a way to reach people where they are, not where she wants them to be or where society things they should be. 

Barb talks about her clients as her friends – truly some of the most amazing people she has ever worked with in her career.  Some of her friends’ minds don’t process information in a linear or sequential manner but have a creativity, spontaneity, and unique perspective that is enlightening. The downside is they will often make horrible decisions that are harmful to themselves, and it is so painful to see them suffer unnecessarily.  There is also the issue of looking on in horror when seeing how others react out of fear or hostility when they are face to face with a mentally ill person who lives outside.  Barb takes it all in stride and is able to calm the situation with her quick wit and loud Hazard, Kentucky laugh!

Barb shared a story about a man who traditionally lives outside with mental illness, who she was trying to coax inside this winter.  Anderson was trying to convince him to stay in the hotel designated by the County as the emergency spot for the hardest cases; he refused to follow the rules designed to serve the mainstream paying customers.  This conflict led to being asked to leave the end of the line, hotel of last resort. Barb tried her best with the staff person at 1:00 a.m. to get them to reverse course because she could not let him sleep outside in the middle of a cold winter night as the wind blew through the rural Indiana landscape. She called a neighboring hotel and paid for a room, they fed him, treated him very well and the issue was resolved.  It was a long night with little sleep, and she knew her long time friend appreciated her efforts. He was safe, fed, and sleeping in a warm bed. Her friends deserve nothing less.   

Barb Anderson

Barb began her career in 1979 as a public service employee (sort of like a national service member) and in the local city planning department.  She told me that she had grown up in poverty and had never really planned to work on social justice issues.  In 1985, she worked with many to open the only shelter in a 14 county region in Southern Indiana. In 1996, the shelter became an independent non-profit. In the same year, she joined the Board to the National Coalition for the Homeless. Anderson has been fighting for her friends for decades in rural Indiana with policy work at the national level, twisting the ears of state officials in Indianapolis and confronting the mayors at their favorite hangouts in the region. 

Small town America does not typically have the number of visibly homeless as the big cities like the one just across the Ohio River in Louisville, but that may be changing.  The poverty rate in this area is 9.6% but that hides many who are out of sight and thus out of mind.  Barb reports a sharp increase in street homelessness in the region over the last few years with no new resources to address the issue.  The opening of a walking bridge between Louisville and Jeffersonville has resulted in an increase in street homelessness but is only one  contributing factor in the increase. Louisville also tends to do more sweeps, has a more violent reputation, and homeless people have said that they feel safer on the streets in rural Indiana.  The problem is that the resources in a small community are fewer and friendliness does not keep people safe on a cold night.  

Barb reported that in the initial stages of the pandemic serving homeless people was very productive because of the “crap load of money” that the region received, but NIMBY issues resulted in tearing tents down.  The region has used CARES Act assistance funds to assist with COVID relief,  and used some of those funds to put people up in hotels and motels. The unemployment rate in Southern Indiana is really good at only 3.9%, but they do boast a higher than the national average of medically uninsured.  Haven House, in partnership with other agencies, has worked hard to provide outreach services to those living outside and those who were evicted despite the federal guidelines pushing an eviction moratorium.  But just like everything associated with the pandemic, things have gotten progressively worse as time wore on.  The money was not flowing like it did in the beginning, and people’s patience was wearing as thin as the same face mask being worn for 8 months straight. Anderson traveled to Bloomington recently and worked with activists in South Bend to find solutions to the sweeps being done in their communities.  

The increase in homelessness over the past year is not confined to one population with families, women and young people all on the rise in the region.  Barb and the Haven House volunteers did a get out the vote campaign, but Indiana is one of the state’s with many barriers to voting like mandatory identification.  The reality is that it is extremely difficult to motivate people to vote during a pandemic.  Haven House has a Facebook page and would love your input on ways to better serve people experiencing homelessness living in a rural community.