Compassion - National Coalition for the Homeless

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.

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.

I’m in a constant wrestle with the whole notion of ending homelessness in the United States. The lack of affordable housing and the resulting struggles of millions of un-housed Americans are profound and can be paralyzing. But, sometimes we’re presented with clearly contrasting personal stories that can help us make sense of these global problems. Recently, two law enforcement officers were each faced with a situation all too familiar to both of them: a homeless man was living-out his private daily existence in “the public square”.

In Sarasota, Florida, Police Sgt. Anthony Frangioni spotted Darren Kersey charging his cell phone in a public park. Mr. Kersey was homeless at the time and unable to access a private resource for recharging. The officer arrested him for theft of a public utility. He spent the night in jail.

In New York’s Time Square, Officer Larry DiPrimo spotted a homeless man sitting on the sidewalk in frigid temperatures. DiPrimo crossed the street and purchased socks and boots for the man with $120 of his own money. He crossed back over and helped the man on with his boots. The homeless man spent the night with warm feet.

These two examples remind me of the cartoon I used to read as a child in Highlights Magazine: Goofus and Gallant. The cartoon featured two contrasting boys responding to the same situation. Goofus was irresponsible, while Gallant chose the responsible route. The situations were always stark comparisons of right and wrong.

If we are to end the nationwide tragedy of homelessness, we could begin by respecting the inherent worth and dignity of each and every human being, especially those we may find most abhorrent. An important aspect of respecting someone is to understand them and their condition. Officer DiPrimo accepted that challenge and met it with compassion. The result was an outpouring of support from the general public. Sgt. Frangioni confronted the challenge and met it with ignorance and cruelty. The public cried foul.

I’ll end this message the same way the narrator would end each Goofus and Gallant strip. When Goofus saw the homeless man charging his cell phone he saw only the wrong that was being done, instead of a person in need of understanding and compassion. When Gallant saw the homeless man without shoes, he saw someone in need and a problem that he could solve. When we see our world as full of offenders requiring consequences, we see things only punitively. When we see our world as full of people with problems that we can help solve, we see things with limitless possibilities: perhaps an end to homelessness.

– Neil Donovan, executive director, National Coalition for the Homeless

As we close out another year of hard work towards ending homelessness, we reflect on our struggles, our successes and our inspiration to keep pushing forward. Here, Yvonne Vissing, PhD, National Coalition for the Homeless Board Member, reflects on why we keep fighting:

“We are the National Coalition for the Homeless. We give our time, our energy, our talents, our resources and our money to make sure everyone has a home. Why do we do this? We give generously of ourselves because we believe that home is the singular foundation that supports us, protects us, and enables us to build better lives and a better world. A home can be a physical structure where we can store foods and cook nutritious meals so our bodies will be strong. It is a place where we can get clean so we can stay healthy. Homes ideally have a safe and comfortable space where we can curl up when we are tired, sick, and weary, where we can close our eyes and revitalize ourselves so we can get up and live another day. A house is a physical place and space. A house and a home can be similar, but they are not necessarily the same.

Photo thanks to pillowhead designs on Flickr

A home is far more than walls and refrigerators and beds. While “a house is made of walls and beams, a home is built with love and dreams.” A home is where people care for us, listen to us, help us, and believe in us. Home is where our values are born and where our futures are paved. “Home is where the heart is” is a commonly held notion, and people think of home as the place where they grew up, played, laughed, and shared fond memories. Children need a home to give them a good start in life, since “home is where one starts from,” as T. S. Eliot reminds us. What children get in the home sets them up for the rest of their lives. Our nation’s original leaders knew this; Benjamin Franklin reminded us that “a house is not a home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body.” Home is where we have the space to think, to read, to reflect, to work and to plan. It is the place where we may become loved and accepted for whatever we are. Home comforts us when things don’t go well and celebrates our joys and accomplishments.

Sometimes people may have shelter but no sense of security. Their struggles of fighting to survive, to hold a job, to have enough to eat and a place to sleep may be exhausting and enormous. The pressures associated with lack may be overwhelming and lead us down a path filled with problems and despair. The social forces associated with poverty may rip families apart and etch in the minds of children a picture of reality in which they are not enough and the world doesn’t care for or about them. Children may not have a mental place where they can go to be safe or build dreams. They may suffer from a lack of belonging. Physical homelessness breeds emotional homelessness, and neither type is good for individuals or the world.

What happens in the home doesn’t stay in the home. When children live in a sense of abundance they can grow forward to spread it around to others; when they are deprived they will require assistance to merely survive. We are all interconnected. One person’s sense of lack inevitably impacts us; we pay for others not having or being “enough” with our own money, time, energy, and resources. The biggest way lack hurts us is by creating a skewed way of thinking about things, ourselves, and each other. The result is that our world suffers from the creation of a host of preventable social problems. Conversely, every act of loving kindness and generosity nurtures the heart and makes the world a better place. Confucius said that the strength of a nation is derived from the integrity of the home. Growing strong children brings forth strong societies. We don’t need a crystal ball to show us what will happen if all levels of society don’t step up to help children and families – the result is inevitable and unpleasantly clear.

We are the National Coalition for the Homeless. We fight for people who are downtrodden because the integrity of society depends upon someone having a voice for those whose plight is ignored or discounted. We fight for the homeless because we believe in our nation’s underlying principle of equality. We believe that each person should be treated with respect. We fight for democracy-in-action so those deemed the least among us may have the same chances as those who are regarded as best. We fight for the homeless because our nation can’t build a strong house without investing in the human foundation. We believe that homelessness is unacceptable for any citizen of the United States of America. We fight for those who are homeless because others can’t, won’t or don’t. We hope that each citizen, organization, and governmental leader will join us in a new partnership to ensure our nation’s mandate of liberty and justice for all.”

The National Coalition for the Homeless differentiates between feeding the homeless – objectifying the hungry as simply needing to be fed – and food sharing. The sharing of one’s meal with another is to participate in the mutual fulfillment of the human need to feed both in body and soul. It is the difference between blindly providing resources and services to someone and breaking bread with them.

The religious connotations of breaking bread are profound: Moses told the Israelites to break unleavened bread with each other during the Passover, Jesus broke bread with his disciples both at the Last Supper and again following his death as their risen Lord. The ancient Greeks would invite random travelers homes for a meal, fearing offending them in case they were gods. Zen Buddhists practice a tea ceremony with guests as a way to achieve enlightenment together. Each of these examples provide cultural or religious guidance for going out of one’s way to satisfy the needs of another person, often at the lower end of a power dynamic. In the relationship between host and guest, breaking bread as a way of sharing an experience with someone is to achieving spiritual fulfillment or accompaniment, as expressed in Liberation Theology.

Liberation Theology developed as a Christian movement in Latin America against traditional forms of foreign aid and charity. Its central thesis was to return to the roots of what Jesus taught about the preferential option for the poor, believing that the poor must be the focus in every Christian endeavor. This focus is enacted through the concept of accompaniment, which argues that charity must be a shared experience. The giver must give in solidarity with the recipient, and the recipient must take an active role in their liberation from poverty. In a recent article in the journal Foreign Affairs, Prof. Paul Farmer, a noted Harvard University anthropologist and physician explains that accompaniment derives from the breaking of bread together or ad cum panis.

We are reminded further of the practice and concept of accompaniment through the life of Saint Francis. During the event of his religious conversion, St. Francis de-clothed in the public square, denounced his father’s fortune and adopted a life of poverty. Later in life, after being relieved of his possessions during a roadside robbery, he responded by stripping off his shoes and cloak and offering the robber his last possessions. St. Francis’ life was a true example of sharing one’s possessions most fully, the epitome of accompaniment or breaking bread with the poor.

In recent years, the concept of charity and service has lost much of its focus on the individual being served and unfortunately has shifted its focus to giving credit to the provider. Food sharing allows us to rebalance our relationship with charity and accompaniment, allowing us to once again see those who receive our offerings as blessed and occupying a role that enables the giver to better themselves spiritually.

Realigning oneself with charity and services provides the giver a greater appreciation for themselves and those they serve. At the same time, it allows the receiver to be an active participant in their own liberation. This relationship between the server and served is described beautifully in the Jewish Tzedakah. The philosophy describes charity as a partnership between those who possess and whose in need – the relationship of host and guest, as two who break bread together.

As a homeless advocate, the relationship to services and charity – the ability to break bread as equals -has profound consequences to the way in which we do our work. Within the framework of accompaniment, homeless services must become about quality, love, and sacrifice, rather than quantity, efficiency, and image. We must unlearn the concept of “feeding the homeless,” and take on the mindset of sharing our food with those experiencing homelessness.

By Hunter Scott, Fall 2011 Intern

National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week is finally upon us! From November 12th to the 20^th, nonprofits, religious organizations, universities, high schools, and even grade schools across the continent are spending the night in cardboard cities in front of city hall, hosting hunger banquets, and organizing food drives to raise awareness about the problems of homelessness and food insecurity within their communities. These groups are reaching out to more than 50,000 people across almost all fifty states and Canada, advocating for those experiencing homelessness and hunger.

Too often, we take for granted the festivities surrounding the Thanksgiving holiday. It is just another excuse to watch football and eat as much as you can, while mingling with relatives you rarely see. For many who cook the meal, Thanksgiving can even be a stressful time. You have to watch the turkey, make the rest of the food, and entertain your family at the same time. Throughout all of the hoopla, we forget that Thanksgiving is a time to be thankful for all the blessings in our lives. We are clothed, well-fed, and housed. Because of our circumstances, we can look past the problems of today and focus on long term goals like vacations and retirement. We are fortunate, yet during the Thanksgiving season, many of us forget just how fortunate we are.

National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week is about advocating for and raising awareness of people who are less fortunate than we are. During H&H week, people from across the country work together to ensure that everyone can celebrate Thanksgiving in their homes with their families and have some of the same blessings which many of us often take for granted. Whether it through giving supplies to our neighborhood food drive or by advocating for affordable housing in front of city hall, H&H week is about being so thankful for what we have that we want to share it with others. This week gives all of us, from Maine to California, a week to be in solidarity with those experiencing homelessness. By participating in activities in your area, you are raising awareness of those we often ignore while walking down the street. With more people aware of those experiencing homelessness, more work can be done to increase the number of affordable housing units, to work toward living wage requirements, and to make sure that no one goes hungry. Together, we can Bring America Home.

If you know of any events taking place in your community that are not listed on our website, please email us at handhweek@nationalhomeless.org or fill out the online form.

By Evan Thompson, NCH Fall 2011 Intern

Are you on Facebook? Have you voted for your favorite charity on the Chase Community Giving application? You get 10 votes to help your favorite charity win up to $250,000. Make your commitment to ending homelessness known by sharing one of your votes with the National Coalition for the Homeless!

Today’s guest post is from Dr. Norweeta Milburn, Professor at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at the University of California, Los Angeles. Dr. Milburn chaired the American Psychological Association’s (APA) 2009 Presidential Task Force on Psychology’s Contribution to End Homelessness. The task force released a great report, and NCH is proud to partner with the APA’s Public Interest Directorate to raise awareness among psychologists of how we can all work together to end homelessness.

As I walk my daily early morning route up Westwood Avenue from the parking garage to my UCLA office in the old Neuropsychiatric Institute, it is impossible not to see what appears to be bundles of clothing in doorways are actually people sleeping. Homeless people have found a place to sleep that provides some security and shelter in the doorways of office buildings and store fronts in a relatively safe area.

In the mild Southern California October evenings, the doorways do not seem like such a bad spot to spend the night, but people will still be there, layered deeper in their worn clothing, when our weather turns wet and cold. In the late afternoon, homeless people are sitting on benches or walking on the sidewalks; some are seriously mentally and actively psychotic, but some are not. Other homeless people come to Westwood to panhandle but do not sleep on the streets.

Photo courtesy of davco9200 on Flickr

There is a man that I exchange “hello, how are you and have a nice day” with every day who gets off a bus in the morning to walk to his “spot” to stand with a cup asking for donations. His cup says he is a homeless veteran. There are other homeless veterans on the street in wheelchairs. In the shadow of one of the world’s great universities, Westwood is no different from urban areas in many other cities where homeless people seem to be everywhere.

Before we accept this as the inevitable result of the new normal, what can be done to move public policy further in the direction of ending homelessness? The American Psychological Association’s Task Force on Psychology’s Contribution to End Homelessness, it ‘s report “Helping People without Homes: The Role of Psychologists and Recommendations to Advance Training, Research, Practice and Policy,” advocates for federal legislation to create supportive housing and safe low-income housing across geographic areas (e.g., urban, suburban and rural) and for legislation that provides for mental health and a range of other needed services for homeless people: low-income housing, supplemental income, food and benefits. Even in this era of limited funding, the needs of people who are homeless cannot be ignored.

What do I do personally? Sometimes I put money in their cups. I try to always acknowledge homeless people who approach me – say hello when greeted with a hello, and say sorry, no, when asked for spare change and don’t want to give it. I also carry granola bars in my car (as suggested by another psychologist).

I wasn’t sure about this tactic, but one day after I had parked my car on the street, a rather sullen homeless young person sitting in a doorway by the parking spot asked for spare change. I said no, sorry, but asked if he would like a few granola bars. He actually perked up, lost his adolescent attitude and said yes. His entire demeanor changed – I don’t think it was just the food, it was the fact that another person had taken a few minutes to stop and connect with him. Sometimes that is all we can do daily – continue to remember that homeless people are fellow human beings just like us and those brief social connections do matter.

by Neil Donovan, NCH Executive Director

The people of Memphis want to know if they should put up “parking meter – contribution stations” to replace the method of directly donating to a person in need, often referred to as panhandling. If they asked me, I’d confidently say “No” to the parking meter plan, and “Yes” to promoting compassion through the personal act giving to those in need.” I’d also recommend not asking me, or any national advocate or your local city planners. Instead, ask those in need and those that serve them best. The answer you’re looking for resides within them.

The practice of installing meters has been done unsuccessfully in dozens of communities across the country and most recently in Nashville and Orlando. What these new cities will learn too late and Memphis may learn just in time, is that parking meter plans are often an act of frustration in disguise.

Homelessness has been with us for far too long. No one will agree with you more than a homeless person. But, the responsibility belongs to all of us: national advocates, federal, state and local governments, homeless service providers, the intolerant and dispassionate… and the homeless.

But, let’s not punish one group and call it innovative giving. “Parking meter – contribution stations” are small memorials to a community that’s stopped trying to end homelessness and started to circle the wagons. Most mainstream religions and community organizations can look to their teachings and missions for advice on interacting with those less fortunate: We all become richer in body, mind and spirit through the personal act of giving to another.

NCH Responds to Fallacious White House Report on Homelessness: Calls for Significant New Investments to End Homelessness NOW!

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