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THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW - June 24, 2010
Obama Vows to End Homelessness in Ten Years
by: Tony Pugh
McClatchy Newspapers
Washington - The Obama administration on Tuesday unveiled
an ambitious plan that aspires to end homelessness among
some of society's most vulnerable groups within the next
decade.
"Opening Doors," a "Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and
End Homelessness," calls for ending child and family home-
lessness in 10 years while wiping out chronic homelessness
and homelessness among veterans in five years.
According to the 74-page plan, "Stable housing is the
foundation upon which people build their lives ? absent
a safe, decent, affordable place to live, it is next to
impossible to achieve good health, positive educational
outcomes or reach one's economic potential."
The plan is a significant breakthrough because there's
never been a comprehensive federal effort to end homeless-
ness with a timeline and measureable goals, said Nan Roman,
the president of the National Alliance to End Homelessness.
"To me that's really important, because we know that when
the Bush administration made a commitment to end chronic
homelessness, it really made a huge difference," she said.
"It changed how resources were allocated. It caused better
coordination, and the result has been that the chronic
numbers have gone down. Now they're taking that same
approach and they're expanding it to the other homeless
populations. I think that's significant."
Other advocates also lauded the plan's goals, but they
questioned the lack of details about how some of the
proposals would be paid for.
"The big question is whether preventing children and
families in the U.S. from becoming homeless is important
enough for Congress" to increase homeless-program fund-
ing, "and I don't think they'll do that without enough
pressure and leadership from the White House," said Maria
Foscarinis, the executive director of the National Law
Center on Homelessness & Poverty. "In order to achieve
these goals, the funding has to be there, and that means
the administration has to really be firm and advocate."
"Opening Doors" comes a week after a government report
showed that nearly 1.6 million people, including more
than 170,000 U.S. families, spent time in homeless
shelters last year as the recession, mounting fore-
closures and record unemployment sent people scrambling
for shelter.
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The number of families in homeless shelters jumped
7 percent by nearly 11,000 families from 2008 to 2009.
Overall, family homelessness was up 30 percent in 2009
from 2007.
The economic stimulus bill has helped 357,000 people by
moving some from homeless shelters into their own apart-
ments and by providing rent payments to prevent others
from becoming homeless. Many agencies that distribute
the money already have exhausted or committed their two-
and three-year allocations, however, and some are turning
away needy people as their funding dwindles.
With most homeless shelters at capacity, many homeless
families are moving in, or "doubling up," with friends
and relatives in overcrowded households.
Against this backdrop, federal legislation that President
Barack Obama signed in May 2009 required the U.S.
Interagency Council on Homelessness to develop "Opening
Doors" as the first national plan to combat homelessness.
While it's more a road map for direction than a detailed
blueprint for immediate action, "Opening Doors" outlines
the government's commitment to make homelessness a priority
for all federal agencies and to partner with states,
localities, private organizations and other stakeholders
to make existing homeless programs more effective and
efficient by using strategies that already have proved
to be successful, Most notable among these efforts is
combining housing and supportive services for the
chronically homeless.
Nationally, there are 234 community plans to end homeless-
ness and 84 percent of them are 10-year plans, according
to the National Alliance to End Homelessness.
Last year, the alliance identified four factors as crucial
for plan success: putting a person or organization in
charge of its implementation, setting specific numeric
goals, setting a timeline for completion and identifying a
funding source. In a survey of the first 90 communities to
establish 10-year plans, however, the alliance found that
only 8 percent of those plans had dedicated funding sources
and only 18 percent had specific numeric goals. Only 41
percent set timelines for implementation and 35 percent
had people or groups in charge of achieving the plans.
A demonstration project that the Obama administration
requested in its 2011 federal budget proposal offers a
glimpse into the kind of multi-agency programming that
"Opening Doors" envisions.
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The Obama proposal would direct 4,000 Section 8 housing
vouchers to homeless people who need treatment from the
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
along with health care, child care and employment services
from Medicaid and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families.
This multi-layered assistance is known as permanent
supportive housing. It's primarily for chronically
homeless people who have disabilities, are tough to
employ and are prone to long, frequent bouts of homeless-
ness. The Obama proposal is modeled after similar efforts
during the George W. Bush administration, which set a goal
in 2002 to end chronic homelessness in 10 years.
Under the Bush initiative, the nation's chronic homeless
population fell to 111,000 in 2009 from nearly 156,000 in
2006, after 42,000 permanent supportive housing slots were
added. In deference to the Bush efforts, "Opening Doors"
proposes to "finish the job of ending chronic homelessness
in five years."
"Opening Doors" will focus resources on housing youths who
age out of the foster care program at 18 and often end up
homeless within a few months. Similar attention will be
paid to homeless veterans, who accounted for 13 percent of
the people who were in shelters last year.
The new plan also calls for government and private sources
to provide more rent subsidies for individuals and families
who are at risk of becoming homeless. The subsidies,
similar to the Section 8 housing program, would allow
recipients to pay a maximum of 30 percent of their income
for housing.
Funding rental vouchers through the Department of Housing
and Urban Development's Section 8 program has proved a
difficult battle in Congress. The House of Representatives
hasn't yet begun floor debate on the Section 8 Voucher
Reform Act, which passed the House Financial Services
Committee last July. The bill would provide subsidies for
150,000 more low-income families, but housing advocates
are pushing for another 2 million vouchers over the next
10 years; that would double the current amount.
The report also calls for replenishing the nation's dwindl-
ing supply of affordable rental housing by funding the
National Housing Trust Fund, which was created in 2008 as
a permanent federal funding source to help construct,
renovate and preserve 1.5 million units of rental housing
for low-income families over 10 years.
The fund was slated to provide up to $1 billion a year for
states and local governments to award grants to developers
and organizations that agree to build or rehabilitate low-
income housing, but Congress hasn't funded the measure
because of the economic downturn.
From 2001 to 2007, the stock of affordable rental units
fell by 6.3 percent, or 1.2 million units, while the
supply of high-rent units increased 94.3 percent. For
every new affordable-housing unit that's constructed,
two are demolished, abandoned or converted to condominiums
or expensive rentals, according to the John D. and
Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
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