Several years ago, the agency for which I used to work faced a crisis. HUD changed the definition of homelessness to exclude people who were doubled-up with others or who were couch surfing. They also required that people’s homeless be verified, which was easy to do for people staying in shelters. But if people were sleeping outside, the new rules required that outreach teams visit homeless people in their camps before they were eligible to receive services.
Of course, the new policy cost homeless service providers a lot of scarce resources and ensured that many homeless people would not be able to receive services to help them end their homelessness.
It’ a dismal policy, but the new definition made it appear that homelessness was declining across the country.
That’s why I was glad to see this from Time.com:
According to a report given to Congress on Tuesday by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), overall homeless numbers, taken from a one-day national count in January, were down 12% from 2005 to 2007, to just under 672,000 people, most of whom were on the streets only temporarily. Chronic homelessness is down even more, almost 30% lower than in 2005, from 175,000 to fewer than 125,000.
There is a rather large asterisk on the new data, however, the result of an ongoing effort to more narrowly define who is actually considered homeless. This is the third annual national HUD count, and in previous years, some cities had been counting families who were living two families to an apartment, for example, or those living in RVs, as homeless. This year, they weren’t. This count, say the report’s authors, is the most successful to date in tallying only those who were actually in shelters or on the streets — the official HUD definition of a homeless person.
The count is regarded as a joke by homeless service providers. Each city amasses volunteers to go look for homeless people in January. For the most part, those volunteers have little experience in homeless outreach, so they don’t know where to look for people. And the fact that the count is held in January makes is even more silly, as the dead of winter is when homeless people are more likely to find shelter with friends or family, as no one wants to see their loved ones sleeping in the frigid air.
The homeless count really is pathetic and can’t possibly measure the number of homeless people in any city, given the limitations of the volunteers.
For example, one year when I worked on the count, I was partnered with a police officer, as they felt that he and I could work together effectively to find homeless Latinos, given my Spanish-speaking abilities and his ability ensure safety in rough areas.
I was OK with that until we actually started trying to count homeless people. His way of encountering homeless people was to ride into an area known to have many camps. But he didn’t want to get out of the car. Instead, he flashed the police light on the woods and grassy areas and announced from the bullhorn of his police car that "we have sandwiches!"
As you can imagine, we weren’t able to "count" anyone that night.
But, back to the Time piece:
So why keep these vulnerable families out of the count? It’s partially about the power of positive thinking. The number crunchers leading the federal fight believe that as long as Americans continue to perceive homelessness as an implacable problem, they’ll never muster the will to help. But if the government can show that the numbers are actually relatively small — like the 125,000 chronic homeless they are now counting — then the public might just be up for tackling the issue.
So HUD thinks that if we pretend that homelessness is not a major problem, there will be more public support to fight homelessness?
Whatever.
Positive thinking is key to Housing First, which since 2000 has been the main innovation in President Bush’s fight against homelessness. Basically, the idea is to identify the big users of government shelters and services and show voters that you can slowly herd them into permanent housing. With its emphasis on tangible gains and more rigorous data, it might as well be called No Transient Left Behind. And it has proven hugely popular with local politicians, like San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom, who can boast about their measurable, if small, progress.
Housing First is a nice concept, but it doesn’t work if agencies are not provided with the resources to implement that policy.
Dennis Culhane, the University of Pennsylvania professor who co-authored Tuesday’s HUD report, says that Housing First is working. "What these data show," he told me, "is that when we make a targeted investment strategy focused on chronic homelessness, we can actually make measurable improvement."
Maybe, but when are the Feds going to invest in "Housing First" beyond a few select pilot cities?
I don’t see that happening. It’s easier to pretend there are fewer homeless people than it is to put forth the resources necessary to implement "housing first" programs.