[Senate Hearing 118-214]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 118-214
THE FEDERAL STRATEGIC PLAN TO PREVENT AND END HOMELESSNESS
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
HOUSING, TRANSPORTATION, AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON
BANKING,HOUSING,AND URBAN AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
ON
REVIEWING THE UPDATED FEDERAL STRATEGIC PLAN TO PREVENT AND END
HOMELESSNESS, DISCUSSING RECENT ACTIONS TAKEN BY AGENCIES ON THE ISSUE
OF HOMELESSNESS IN AMERICA, AND EXPLORING TOPICS RELATED TO RELEVANT
LEGISLATIVE PROPOSALS
__________
MARCH 8, 2023
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban
Affairs
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available at: https: //www.govinfo.gov /
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
54-550 PDF WASHINGTON : 2024
COMMITTEE ON BANKING, HOUSING, AND URBAN AFFAIRS
SHERROD BROWN, Ohio, Chair
JACK REED, Rhode Island TIM SCOTT, South Carolina
ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey MIKE CRAPO, Idaho
JON TESTER, Montana MIKE ROUNDS, South Dakota
MARK R. WARNER, Virginia THOM TILLIS, North Carolina
ELIZABETH WARREN, Massachusetts JOHN KENNEDY, Louisiana
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland BILL HAGERTY, Tennessee
CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO, Nevada CYNTHIA LUMMIS, Wyoming
TINA SMITH, Minnesota J.D. VANCE, Ohio
KYRSTEN SINEMA, Arizona KATIE BOYD BRITT, Alabama
RAPHAEL G. WARNOCK, Georgia KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota
JOHN FETTERMAN, Pennsylvania STEVE DAINES, Montana
Laura Swanson, Staff Director
Lila Nieves-Lee, Republican Staff Director
Elisha Tuku, Chief Counsel
Amber Beck, Republican Chief Counsel
Cameron Ricker, Chief Clerk
Shelvin Simmons, IT Director
Pat Lally, Assistant Clerk
______
Subcommittee on Housing, Transportation, and Community Development
TINA SMITH, Minnesota, Chair
CYNTHIA LUMMIS, Wyoming, Ranking Member
JACK REED, Rhode Island MIKE CRAPO, Idaho
ROBERT MENENDEZ, New Jersey MIKE ROUNDS, South Dakota
JON TESTER, Montana JOHN KENNEDY, Louisiana
CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO, Nevada BILL HAGERTY, Tennessee
KYRSTEN SINEMA, Arizona J.D. VANCE, Ohio
RAPHAEL G. WARNOCK, Georgia KATIE BOYD BRITT, Alabama
JOHN FETTERMAN, Pennsylvania
Tim Everett, Subcommittee Staff Director
Kelsey Pristach, Republican Subcommittee Staff Director
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 8, 2023
Page
Opening statement of Chair Smith................................. 1
Prepared statement........................................... 28
Opening statements, comments, or prepared statements of:
Senator Lummis................................................... 3
Prepared statement........................................... 29
WITNESSES
Jeff Olivet, Executive Director, Interagency Council on
Homelessness................................................... 4
Prepared statement........................................... 29
Responses to written questions of:
Chair Smith.............................................. 42
Senator Sinema........................................... 44
Richard Cho, Senior Advisor for Housing and Services, Department
of Housing and Urban Development............................... 6
Prepared statement........................................... 36
Responses to written questions of:
Chair Smith.............................................. 48
(iii)
THE FEDERAL STRATEGIC PLAN TO PREVENT AND END HOMELESSNESS
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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 8, 2023
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs,
Subcommittee on Housing, Transportation, and Community
Development,
Washington, DC.
The Subcommittee met at 2:30 p.m., in room SD-538, Dirksen
Senate Office Building, Hon. Tina Smith, Chair of the
Subcommittee, presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIR TINA SMITH
Chair Smith. Well, good afternoon. The Subcommittee on
Housing, Transportation, and Community Development will come to
order.
I am very glad to have Senator Lummis as my new partner and
Ranking Member on this Subcommittee, and I really look forward
to working with you over the next 2 years. Both Senator Lummis
and I are interested and concerned and ready to dig in on
issues of the shortage of housing, especially in rural
communities, and the unique challenges that we see on tribal
lands. And we are both, as we have discovered, focused on
getting things done, so I am confident that we will be
successful in finding common ground, and I look forward to the
work ahead of us.
And I am also very glad to welcome Senator Fetterman,
Senator Kennedy, Senator Vance, and Senator Britt to the
Subcommittee this year.
So without safe, decent, affordable housing, nothing in
your life works, and it is nearly impossible to maintain a job
or go to school or stay healthy. Almost 600,000 Americans
experience homelessness on any typical night, and of this
number about 60 percent of those experiencing homelessness are
sheltered while the other 40 percent are unsheltered.
Homelessness is a significant challenge in our country and
we have to acknowledge that it is not getting better. It is
getting worse. While we made big strides in reducing
homelessness in the first half of the last decade, we know that
the number of people experiencing homelessness began to rise
again around 2016, and the pandemic only exacerbated the
challenges that individuals and families have faced.
The backdrop to the issue of homelessness is that our
Nation is facing an affordable housing crisis. According to
data published by the National Low Income Housing Coalition,
not one State in the country has an adequate supply of
affordable rental housing for the lowest income renters. In
fact, for the 10.8 million families with extremely low incomes
in the United States there is a shortage of more than 7 million
affordable homes, which is very alarming.
The challenge of funding and keeping a safe, affordable
place to live is real in every part of the country--urban,
suburban, and rural--and it affects everyone. However,
homelessness disproportionately affects some folks more than
others, including Black and Latino and Native communities. In
my home State of Minnesota, while Native Americans make up only
about 1 percent of the adult population, the 2018 statewide
homeless study found that they make up 12 percent of adults
experiencing homelessness.
In December, the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness
published ``All In'', the Federal strategic plan to reduce and
end homelessness. The plan calls for a 25 percent reduction in
homelessness by 2025, and lays out a data-backed plan to make
that happen. This is an aggressive goal but I am glad that we
are aiming high here.
We have learned a lot in the last few years about how to
effectively address homelessness. The American Rescue Plan
provided 70,000 emergency housing vouchers to rapidly re-house
individuals at risk of homelessness, especially veterans and
victims of domestic violence and sexual assault. And just last
month, Secretary Fudge announced $315 million in awards to
address unsheltered homelessness and homelessness in rural
communities, along with thousands of vouchers. This
coordination of grants and vouchers is critical, and I look
forward to hearing more about how it can work from our
witnesses today.
I am also looking forward to hearing more about how we can
cut red tape, improve staffing, and make it easier for service
providers and housing providers to do their jobs instead of
worrying about administrative paperwork. We heard a number of
suggestions at the hearing Senator Rounds and I held in this
Subcommittee last year on this topic, and I hope that we can
find bipartisan ways to make existing programs work more
effectively.
There are several examples of bipartisan efforts in this
area. Senator Reed and Senator Collins have a bill to
reauthorize the Interagency Council on Homelessness. Senator
Coons and Senator Cramer have introduced a bill to expand the
Housing Choice Voucher Program and eliminate duplicative
inspection requirements, a bill that both Senator Lummis and I
have cosponsored in the past. And there are other bipartisan
efforts to improve the low-income housing tax credit, to
address veteran homelessness, and more at other committees.
You know, I often hear from people working on homelessness
that we know what to do to solve this problem. We just need the
will to fix it. We have data-driven strategies that have proven
effective in addressing homelessness in recent years and are
helping people who have fallen into homelessness. But we must
also address the housing affordability challenges at all levels
that are driving people into homelessness in the first place.
Addressing homelessness and the challenges of housing
affordability has long been an issue that both Republicans and
Democrats have been concerned about, so I hope that in this
hearing we can continue that bipartisan work and look for
concrete steps that we can take together to address this deep
challenge with a comprehensive approach, effective, strategies,
and the resources that we need.
And with that I recognize Senator Lummis.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR CYNTHIA LUMMIS
Senator Lummis. Well, thank you, Madam Chair. It is a
delight to join you on this Subcommittee in this endeavor, and
I too look forward to tangible results from this bipartisan
effort. Thank you. And I also want to thank our witnesses for
being here today.
Right now many American families are struggling to find
safe, affordable housing. For some of these families housing
insecurity is a growing concern. There are many challenges that
can drive an individual or family to homelessness and make it
harder to regain housing. The availability of affordable
housing is part of the problem, but mental health challenges,
physical disabilities, and struggles with substance use can
lead to homelessness and make it harder to escape when it
occurs. These problems cut across demographics.
As a result, communities in every State right now,
including my home State of Wyoming, are challenged to help
those who are homeless or who lack stable housing. Today's
hearing on the Biden administration's strategic plan to prevent
and end homelessness provides a good opportunity to talk about
what has worked and where we can do better.
``Housing First'', a centerpiece of the Administration's
plan, is a policy that places individuals into supportive
housing without any conditions. Individuals are offered
supportive services but are not required to use them. The term
``Housing First'', then, raises an important question. If
housing comes first, what comes second? Individuals are placed
into housing and then may choose whether to undertake mental
health treatment or substance abuse counseling they need to
live healthy lives, but how many people caught in the cycle of
addiction or the grips of a severe mental health crisis can
recognize the help they need at that moment?
At some point, when ``Housing First'' fails--and it does
fail for some people--there need to be other paths to help.
Shuttling vulnerable people between programs without needed
treatment is not the path to housing independence. It
perpetuates the problem. I am disheartened at the
Administration's continued focus on a version of ``Housing
First'' without the integrated wraparound services some
individuals and families require to overcome homelessness. As a
result, we have drifted too far to ``housing only.'' Funded
does not allow local organizations the flexibility to act on
what they have seen work in their local community.
I would also like to see HUD and USICH spend more time on
the unique needs of rural communities and tribes. These are
important issues in Wyoming. Homelessness and housing
instability look different in rural areas and reservations.
Shelters are rare, and so many people turn to family and
friends to get through a period of homelessness. As a result,
homelessness shows up as overcrowding rather than tents on the
street. But given how HUD conducts its counts of the homeless,
these individuals and families living with family and friends
would not be counted. We cannot fix problems when we are unsure
of how big they are or where they are.
Homelessness is a challenging issue, one that requires our
best ideas. I look forward to hearing more from the witnesses
about specific ideas to reduce red tape and help programs
better serve vulnerable Americans.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I yield back.
Chair Smith. Thank you, Senator Lummis, and I would like to
welcome Senator Britt to the Subcommittee. We are very glad to
have you with us today as a Member of this Subcommittee. Thank
you.
Senator Britt. Thank you.
Chair Smith. So I would like to introduce our witnesses
now. Today we are joined by Jeff Olivet, who is Executive
Director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness. Jeff
has working on issues related to homelessness for more than 25
years, including as a street outreach worker and case manager.
And Richard Cho is Senior Advisor for Housing and Services
at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. He has
spent more than 20 years working on housing issues, and
previously served as Deputy Director of the U.S. Interagency
Council on Homelessness.
This hearing is a hybrid format so Senators may join in
person or by video. For witnesses, you will each have 5 minutes
for your opening statements. Each of you will have a clock in
front of you or on your screen, although you are both here so
no screens, and your full written statement will be made a part
of the record.
Mr. Olivet, you are recognized.
STATEMENT OF JEFF OLIVET, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, INTERAGENCY
COUNCIL ON HOMELESSNESS
Mr. Olivet. Good afternoon, Chair Smith, Ranking Member
Lummis, and distinguished Members of the Subcommittee.
Homelessness is a life-and-death public health crisis. Tens
of thousands of people die every year due to the dangerous
conditions of living without a home. According to the latest
data, more than 582,000 people experienced homelessness in the
U.S. on a single night in January 2022, but that is only a
snapshot in time. We know that over the course of a year, at
least twice that number--more than 1.2 million people--
experience homelessness in our Nation.
Two major drivers of this crisis are the lack of affordable
housing and the failure of wages to keep pace with the high
cost of housing. By some measures, as many as half of those
living in shelters and on the street are working, and yet full-
time minimum wage workers cannot afford a modest apartment in
any county in America. Decades of growing economic inequality
have left more than half of Americans living paycheck to
paycheck and one unexpected car repair or medical bill away
from homelessness.
In 1970, this Nation had a surplus of 300,000 affordable
homes, and today, a shortage of millions of units means that
for every 100 extremely low-income renters, only 37 available
homes are affordable. Where do we expect the others to live?
We also know that health and homelessness are inextricably
linked. Illness, injury, and medical expenses put people at
risk of homelessness, and homelessness is harmful to people's
health. People who are homeless face higher rates of mental
health and substance use disorders, and like many health
conditions, homelessness is deadly, but it is preventable.
Every day, roughly 2,500 people exit homelessness in this
country, yet the same number fall into homelessness. To solve
this challenge, we must combine effective housing and
wraparound supports with upstream prevention efforts that keep
people from losing their homes in the first place.
While homelessness has increased in recent years, we are
beginning to see progress. After steady declines in
homelessness nationally from 2010 to 2016, homelessness began
to rise again. During the pandemic, however, we were able to
come together to stem the tide. Between 2020 and 2022, we
actually flattened the curve. And while unsheltered
homelessness remains of paramount concern to the Biden-Harris
administration, along with rural homelessness and tribal
homelessness, we have seen homelessness drop significantly
among veterans, families, and youth. And what those successes
show is that we can make progress even in the most difficult of
circumstances.
When the pandemic put millions of people out of work and at
risk of losing their homes, Congress came together to pass the
CARES Act, then the American Rescue Plan, amounting to the
largest investments in ending homelessness at any point in our
Nation's history. Congress expanded unemployment assistance,
launched bold initiatives like emergency rental assistance, and
provided financial support that saved families from starving
and losing their homes. Together Congress and the President
prevented what could have been a massive wave of new
homelessness.
These investments also ended homelessness for tens of
thousands of Americans. In just the last year-and-a-half, HUD
and VA initiatives helped more than 140,000 people move out of
shelters, off the streets, and into homes. Building on these
successes, our new Federal strategic plan, ``All In'', aims to
reduce homelessness 25 percent by 2025, and create a pathway to
end it for good.
With the help of Congress and State and local leaders, we
believe that it is possible to achieve this ambitious goal. The
plan is founded on an evidence-based, all-hands-on-deck
approach, and it includes numerous strategies and actions to
prevent homelessness, urgently address the basic need for
shelter, and expand housing and support that help people exit
homelessness.
Work to implement the plan is already underway. Our team is
developing implementation work plans and putting the strategies
into action this year. As we move forward, we will work with
Congress and our Federal agency partners as well as with people
who have experienced homelessness, Governors, mayors,
providers, and others on the front line of this tragedy.
During my three decades in this work, any progress we have
made has come when we are united. We all have a role to play.
Homelessness did not happen overnight, and it will not be
solved overnight. But with resources, creativity, and unity, I
believe we can build a country where no one experiences the
trauma and indignity of homelessness and where everyone has a
safe place to call home.
Thank you very much for your time, and I look forward to
your questions.
Chair Smith. Thank you very much.
And now Dr. Cho.
STATEMENT OF RICHARD CHO, SENIOR ADVISOR FOR HOUSING AND
SERVICES, DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT
Mr. Cho. Thank you. Good afternoon, Chair Smith, Ranking
Member Lummis, Senator Britt, and other Members of the
Subcommittee. Thank you for allowing me to testify and share
some of what HUD is doing to address the Nation's homelessness
crisis.
In every city, town, rural community, and tribal Nation
across this country there are people, adults and seniors,
people with disabilities, youth, families with children who
lack access to safe and stable housing. No place is immune. But
every day, in each of those communities, there are also
people--dedicated policymakers, political leaders, outreach
workers, and housing and services providers--who are equipping
people to once again have a safe and stable home.
At HUD and across the Biden-Harris administration we are
working hand-in-hand with those leaders to solve this crisis,
and I would like to take a moment publicly to thank those
leaders for their commitment to addressing and ultimately
ending homelessness.
Regrettably, after 6 straight years of progress, from 2016
to 2020, homelessness rose both in numbers and in visibility.
Overall, homelessness rose by 6 percent, unsheltered
homelessness increased by 28 percent, and chronic homelessness
increased by 43 percent. But our recent history tells us that
this does not need to be the end of our story. Homelessness can
be solved. I know this because it is happening every day across
communities in this country. I know this because we have cut
veteran homelessness by 55 percent since 2010. I know this
because prior to 2016, our Nation as a whole was reducing
homelessness overall and for nearly all populations.
Congress deserves the credit for the progress that we have
made and that we are continuing to make. It was through
bipartisan 2009 HEARTH Act that Congress started requiring
communities and HUD, for the first time, to start tracking
performance outcomes and to achieve those performance outcomes.
Specifically, are more people exiting homelessness into
permanent housing? Are lengths of homelessness episodes
shortening? And are fewer people returning back to homelessness
once housed? And by creating accountability for those
performance measures, Congress, HUD, and USICH helped to
transform our Nation's homelessness response. Through year-
after-year investments, Congress also enacted and scaled
evidence-based programs to solve homelessness among veterans.
I will say it again--homelessness can be solved, but to do
it we must continue to scale the housing and supportive
services interventions that work, like permanent supportive
housing, rapid re-housing, and housing vouchers. We must
continue to keep communities focused and accountable to
measurable outcomes, and we must continue to mobilize
partnerships at all levels and across all sectors.
The record over the last decade illustrates that solving
homelessness requires Federal leadership, both from Congress
and the Executive branch, to support what works. It will take
all of us, Government at all levels and the nonprofit and
private sector, to work with urgency both to help those
experiencing homelessness today as well as to prevent others
from ever becoming homeless.
Under the leadership of the President, Vice President, and
Secretary Fudge, HUD has been working to solve homelessness
with the urgency it requires, and to again move the trajectory
of homelessness back in the right direction, downward. We are
doing that by scaling housing and supportive services to meet
the need. The American Rescue Plan funded 70,000 emergency
housing vouchers, the first-ever vouchers dedicated to
addressing homelessness beyond veterans. To date, homelessness
has been resolved for 47,000 households through those vouchers.
We are also addressing the national shortage of permanent
supportive housing through $5 billion in American Rescue Plan
funding for the Home Investment Partnerships Program, and an
additional $75 million that we received in fiscal year 2023.
And working with the Department of Health and Human Services,
we are working to help communities to leverage HHS programs--
Medicaid, SAMHSA grants, and community health centers--to help
provide housing-related supportive services.
We are also directing resources and attention to unmet
areas of need, especially people in encampments and other
unsheltered settings, as well as in rural and tribal areas.
Last June, we issued the first-ever dedicated package of grants
and vouchers to address unsheltered homelessness and
homelessness in rural communities. And we are continuing to
expand tribal communities' access to the housing and
homelessness resources that we administer.
We have also been reinvigorating community efforts to work
with urgency to help connect people experiencing homelessness
to housing and services. Through our House America initiative,
we partnered with leaders across 105 communities, across 32
States, representing over 50 percent of the Nation's
homelessness population. Those communities collectively re-
housed 100,000 households experiencing homelessness and placed
40,000 new units of dedicated housing to address homelessness
into development.
We also revived a new Federal commitment between HUD, VA,
and USICH to end veteran homelessness, and in 2022, 40,000
veterans were moved from homelessness into permanent housing.
As Mr. Olivet noted, our latest data shows that the
Administration's early efforts are working with the resources
and support from Congress. Amid a global pandemic and growing
challenges in the housing market, we averted a spike in
homelessness. Homelessness has remained virtually flat in the
last 2 years. Family homelessness decreased by 6 percent,
homelessness among unaccompanied youth decreased by 12 percent
in the last 2 years, and as I mentioned earlier, veteran
homelessness decreased by 11 percent, the largest drop in 5
years. Veteran homelessness is now down 55 percent.
I thank the Subcommittee for its deep concern for this
national crisis of homelessness, and I will say this again,
that this crisis is solvable. Senators, we have reduced
homelessness national before. In fact, two-thirds of
communities across this country have reduced homelessness since
2010, and more than half have been continuing to see declines
in homelessness since 2016. We are continuing to reduce it
nationally for veterans and families with children, and we can
reduce it and ultimately end homelessness for all communities
and for all populations.
As the President reminds us, there is no problem in America
that we cannot solve if we work together.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify, and I welcome
your questions.
Chair Smith. Thank you very much. We will now begin a round
of 5-minute questions from Members, and unless we have any of
our colleagues on television or on the screen I will go first,
and then we will go back and forth between the majority and the
minority.
Let me just start with this. It is a question for both of
you. The recently released Federal plan sets the bold but
achievable goal of reducing homelessness 25 percent by 2025, in
just a couple of years, and it has been described as an
aspirational goal but an achievable goal.
Let me ask both of you, what have we learned from our
successes in reducing veteran homelessness and youth
homelessness and family homelessness? What have we learned from
those successes that we can apply to achieving this goal?
Mr. Olivet, you can go first.
Mr. Olivet. I think we have learned quite a few things. One
is that when we provide resources, we see progress. The things
that we do not pay attention to, we do not see progress. So the
bipartisan support of addressing veteran homelessness, for
example, has really borne fruit over the last decade. That is
through programs like the HUD-VASH program and supportive
services for homeless veterans. The same is true with youth.
The Youth Homelessness Demonstration Project and others have
shown remarkable success on those areas that we really target
resources.
The resources that we are targeting are a combination of
housing and wraparound supports, and that really is the recipe
for how to end this, as many of you have noted already.
I think another thing that we have learned is that it takes
everybody. The communities that we see really making progress
are where we have got mayors aligned with county
administrators, with the nonprofit sector and the faith
community and the business community in lockstep with what we
are trying to do with Federal resources. And where we see that
alignment, we see good things happen.
Chair Smith. Dr. Cho, would you like to add to that?
Mr. Cho. Yes, Chairwoman. I would agree with what Mr.
Olivet already said. You know, working to reduce homelessness
ultimately is about: can we move more people out of
homelessness into stable housing quicker than more people fall
into homelessness, and also can we prevent more people from
becoming homeless.
Mr. Olivet already talked about the unity that is needed. I
think what holds communities up and what sometimes reduces
their ability to work with speed to connect more households to
stable housing is often the disagreements that happen at the
local level about what needs to happen, and those distractions
often delay a commitment to helping do everything that it takes
to cut through red tape and assist more individuals and
families and youth to obtain permanent housing.
So it is speed, but it is also having the resources on
hand. Our data shows that for veterans, communities have pretty
much enough resources to house veterans who become homeless.
For families, only 1 out of every 3 families with children who
experience homelessness has an available housing resource
available at the community level. For individuals it is even
worse. They often have only one available housing intervention
for every seven individuals who are experiencing homelessness.
So we need resources, evidence-based practices scaled to
meet the need, and we also need to help communities to work
with urgency and efficiency, and that means also having the
unity at the local level that prevents them from those
distractions.
Chair Smith. Thank you. I think that the data that you
cited about how--you know, it is difficult to make progress if
you have as many people entering into homelessness as you have
leaving homelessness. And there is this sort of churn or just
kind of constant processing that is just part of the problem,
which gets me to the point that the individuals that are
experiencing homelessness are very diverse, and what is
happening to them is extremely--you know, you cannot paint it
all with one picture.
This gets, I think, as Dr. Cho is raising, the question of
prevention. What can we do to prevent people from getting into
that cycle? Would either of you like to just address that
briefly and specifically? What are one or two things that we
need to do to make sure that we can stop people feeding into
the problem of homelessness--entering into, I should say?
Mr. Olivet. I think you are absolutely right to point this
out. We have gotten increasingly sophisticated as a Nation
bailing out the bathtub. We see successes all the time, of
people exiting homelessness, getting connected with mental
health care and substance use treatment and jobs and community
and family. What we have not done is turned off the faucets
that are flowing into homelessness.
So when we start thinking about where people are coming
from, where people are most at risk of becoming homeless, we
think about young people aging out of foster care, and we think
about people serving in our military and transitioning to
civilian life, or people coming out of domestic violence
situations--these very tough environments. But we are not doing
a good job at partnering with those systems to make sure that
we are sharing homelessness prevention as a common goal.
Chair Smith. Yep. I just want to mention--I am about out of
time, but I hear over and over again that if you really want to
get to the bottom of this challenge you have to be working
hand-in-glove with people who have experienced homelessness
themselves, folks that have lived experiences, sort of the term
that is used. But, I mean, it is people who understand what is
going on.
Could you just maybe, Dr. Cho, could you just respond to
that quickly, how important is it to be really building
strategies and coming up with solutions with folks that have
actual experience?
Mr. Cho. I think it is vital and something that we have
built into a number of programs. We learned it the most through
the Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program, where it became a
requirement that young people who had a lived experience with
homelessness are placed in positions of decision making to help
design the kind of programs and systems that are needed to
address homelessness.
And you learn things from talking to people with lived
experience that a provider who has never experienced
homelessness would never have thought of. For example, some
people do not feel safe in shelters. They feel that they are at
risk of violence or having their possessions stolen. And if we
do not understand what the experience of actually being in a
shelter is like, we will design environments that maybe people
do not want to come into, and no wonder we see people outside.
Chair Smith. Thank you. Thank you very much. Senator
Lummis.
Senator Lummis. I want to thank both of you for being here
today.
Certainly when Congress just does not do a reauthorization
when it comes up, we just do these continuing resolutions over
and over, we forget to pay attention. We forget that when all
else fails, read the directions is always good advice. We do
not go back and read our own directions, see how a program was
designed and how it is being applied now, and whether something
was lost in translation.
And I am of the opinion that maybe some of those things are
at play here. So I want to explore that a little bit in my
questions to you.
Mr. Olivet, among the tools for action on USICH's website
there is a ``Housing First'' checklist that is intended to help
make a basic assessment of whether and to what degree a
particular housing program is employing a ``Housing First''
approach. So if a tenant is unable to abide by the terms of a
tenancy, every effort is made, according to the website, to
move them to another housing situation program or project.
Would you agree that these are principles of ``Housing
First''?
Mr. Olivet. Thank you, Ranking Member, for raising the
issue of ``Housing First'', and sometimes what we see is a
discrepancy between the directions, as you so rightly said, and
how things play out in the real world.
We know that ``Housing First'' does not mean housing only,
and I was a case manager in this field before we had ``Housing
First'', and what we were doing was not working very well:
making people jump through a lot of hoops before they go into
housing. And so we would see people languishing in shelters and
in vehicles and on the street with serious mental health issues
and untreated substance use issues. And what I hear from people
over and over is that, ``it is incredibly hard to get sober and
stay sober if I am outside. It is very hard to address my
mental health if I do not have a stable home to go to.''
So the whole principle of ``Housing First'' was to get
people into that stable foundation as quickly as possible and
provide really good wraparound supports to help them succeed.
And that works very well for many people, but not everyone, as
you said.
Senator Lummis. And so my question is, and my concern is,
that maybe some of those wraparound services are not actually
happening, that instead of saying, OK, we are going to give
them services, and when they are ready we will put them in a
house. Now we are saying we will provide housing but then not
requiring these wraparound services that give them the help,
knowledge, information, and support they need to stay in that
house.
Mr. Olivet. I think what we have seen is when those
services are readily available to people, many, many people
choose them. And as you said, it does not work for everyone.
The success rates in ``Housing First'' are as high as 90
percent. It is an extraordinary success rate. But that also
means that 1 out of 10 folks are not being served well, and
they return to homelessness. We need to do a better job
supporting them.
Senator Lummis. Should they be required to access those
services as opposed to leaving it voluntary?
Mr. Olivet. Voluntary treatment is the thing that's proven
to work best. When people are forced to do treatment of some
kind, it is not always as successful, and people do not always
do as well in that treatment.
Senator Lummis. OK. Thank you, Dr. Olivet.
And Dr. Cho, thank you for your 20 years of service in
housing programs. That is a commitment, and we appreciate your
years of expertise.
So in rural areas, as I mentioned, some people just cram
themselves into housing. It happens a lot on Indian
reservations. As opposed to being homeless, there are many
families under one roof. And this has got to be hard, but how
do we account for those people? They are ``underhoused.''
Mr. Cho. Thank you, Senator, for that question. We
recognize that in rural communities and in tribal communities
in particular, homelessness looks different, and our definition
of homelessness does include people who are living in
substandard conditions, who are living in places not meant for
human habitation. I have been to tribal Nations where I have
seen some of the conditions that people are living in, severely
overcrowded. So that is part of the definition.
And we have been working to increase more resources going
to rural communities as well as to tribal communities, and with
additional flexibilities. Resources that we provide to tribal
communities allows them to adapt the programs to the needs of
their tribal communities. And for the rural resources that we
have been providing, we took advantage of the fix that actually
Congress made so that you can use some of our homeless
assistance grants to make home repairs and other home
modifications that are often needed to just make housing
livable in those rural communities.
Senator Lummis. My time has expired. Again, thank you both.
Chair Smith. Thank you very much. Senator Menendez.
Senator Menendez. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you to you
and the Ranking Member for hosting what I think is a very
important hearing and topic.
A key element of combatting homelessness is supportive
housing or housing paired with supportive services, such as
treatment for health conditions and substance use disorders. It
seems to me that these services are critical as they can help
ensure families are able to stay in their home and provide
resources to deal with conditions that make it harder to do so.
So, Mr. Olivet, can you talk to us about the role expanding
permanent supportive housing plays in the Administration's
strategic plan to end homelessness?
Mr. Olivet. Thank you, Senator. One of the pillars of our
plan is called Housing and Supports, and we deliberately paired
those two things. We know that housing is essential to end
homelessness, but housing alone is not always sufficient. And
depending on people's life experiences and the challenges they
are facing, people need different degrees of support. I mean,
all of us do. You think about all of the support that we get,
from family and friends, from professionals, from therapists,
from all sorts of social and professional supports. The same is
true for anyone who has been homeless.
And so the key is to really tailor and individualize those
wraparound supports in a way that makes sense for that family,
for that young person, for that veteran, for that person living
in a tribal or a rural area. I know it gets harder when you are
in rural areas in Alabama or Ohio or Wyoming, where there just
are not that many services, and I think that gets to be the
real challenge that we all need to wrestle with: How do we
scale those supports up?
Senator Menendez. I am glad to hear that access to
supportive housing is a core element of the plan. We look
forward to working with you on those services.
Let me turn to another issue. HUD's most recent Annual
Homelessness Assessment Report, or AHAR, shows that the number
of individuals experiencing chronic homelessness has continued
to increase, even as the overall number of people experiencing
homelessness has mostly leveled off.
Dr. Cho, what factors are driving the increase in chronic
homelessness specifically, and what additional steps can we
take to moderate the trend of rising chronic homelessness.
Mr. Cho. Yeah, thank you so much for raising that, Senator,
and I think you actually answered that in your first question,
which is we have seen a significant decrease in the production
of new permanent supportive housing, which is the best tool we
have to address chronic homelessness. People experiencing
chronic homelessness are people who have experienced
homelessness long term and who have a disabling condition,
whether it is mental illness, addiction, or chronic medical
conditions, often all co-occurring at the same time. And
permanent supportive housing is the intervention that provides
that, wraparound supports along with affordable housing.
From 2010 to 2016, our Nation added 104,000 new units of
permanent supportive housing to the national inventory. From
2016 to 2020, we only added 32,000 in that 4-year period. So
the rate of new permanent supportive housing production cut to
less than half of what it was in the prior 6-year period. We
need to get back to doing that.
HUD is using resources from the American Rescue Plan as
well as resources provided through appropriations to help
communities provide the capital and operating, and well as
supportive services to create more permanent supportive
housing. Through our Continuum of Care program we actually fund
about $240 million of those funds actually goes to pay for
supportive services in permanent supportive housing settings.
Senator Menendez. I appreciate that answer. You know, AHAR
2022 detailed demographic data for the overall population of
persons experiencing homelessness, but it does not have data
for this population of persons experiencing chronic
homelessness. Given the struggle these individuals face,
whether it is that affordable housing shortage you just spoke
about or whatever, I think it is critical that we understand
more about them.
Can you commit that you will work on obtaining this data
and making it public?
Mr. Cho. Yes, Senator. We actually do collect that in the
second part of our AHAR reports, which tracks the number of
people who use our homelessness assistance programs. The latest
data on that, part 2 of our AHAR report, covers 2019 and 2020,
and in that report we do have demographics on people who are
experiencing chronic homelessness, including their age----
Senator Menendez. OK. And that is made public?
Mr. Cho. Yes, it is, Senator.
Senator Menendez. All right. So I will have to look at
that.
Finally, I worry that Congress met the challenge of the
pandemic with a historic response from the eviction moratorium
to emergency housing rental assistance to housing counseling,
and the list goes on. That response was overwhelmingly
successful in keeping people in their homes throughout the
pandemic. However, these programs are expiring, and I worry
that if we see a weakening of our core Federal housing programs
what we are going to see is an increase in the homelessness
situation that people will face.
How can we ensure that the expiration of COVID-era housing
programs do not contribute to rising homelessness?
Mr. Cho. Senator, I think the answer is that we need
continued investments through our regular appropriations for
the permanent supportive housing, rapid re-housing, and more
housing vouchers. In the President's budget will be released
soon, and that will provide at least what the Administration is
seeking with regard to housing resources.
We have learned a lot through the pandemic era programs, in
particular the Emergency Housing Voucher program, which is the
first-ever voucher program dedicated to homelessness
specifically. And we have seen that be incredibly successful
and popular. Housing authorities across the country have
partnered with homeless continuums of care, and that
partnership has proven to be wildly successful in ensuring that
these vouchers are reaching the households that need this the
most. And we expect to see the impact of those resources when
we release the results of the 2023 Point-in-Time Count later
this year.
Senator Menendez. We look forward to seeing the President's
budget.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Chair Smith. Thank you very much.
Senator Vance, welcome to the Subcommittee, and it is now
your time.
Senator Vance. Great. Thank you. Thanks to the Chair and
the Ranking Member, and thanks to both of you for being here.
Mr. Olivet, I wanted to just use my time to investigate and
talk a little bit about the ``Housing First'' approach to this
particular problem. And I want to read something from the ``All
In'' plan, in the prefatory letter, and I just want to unpack
this a little bit.
So you write in that letter, ``The United States of America
can end homelessness by fixing public services and systems, not
by blaming the individuals and families who have been left
behind by failed policies and economic exclusion.''
Now I certainly agree that we all have to recognize that we
are all a product of our circumstances in different ways, and
you do not want to blame people for being down on their luck.
But I also worry that the approach of seeing people, even
people who are very significantly suffering, as pure victims
sort of robs them of agency, and if you rob people of agency,
the compassion that you have for them is not the compassion for
a human being. It is compassion for an animal, instead of a
human being who makes decisions, who is influenced by their
environment, certainly.
And I think that a lot of the ``Housing First'' approach
does precisely that. It sees people as pure victims instead of
actors who, yeah, sometimes have very tragic things happen to
them, but also can do things in the face of that tragedy to
rise above it.
I am curious sort of how you think about this. And you are
dealing with people who had very, very tough lives, often
cases, childhood trauma, drug addiction, the whole gamut of it.
How do you not slip into treating them as pure agency-less
victims? How do you treat them as human beings? Because when I
read this letter I worry that you are not taking that approach.
Mr. Olivet. Thank you, Senator, for asking a tough
question. I start with a fundamental belief that we are all
equal as human beings. We are all deeply flawed and beautiful
and wonderful and powerful and broken, all at the same time.
That is true regardless of housing status.
I have known many people who have experienced mental
illness and addiction who never become homeless, and I have
known a lot of people who are homeless who have never
experienced mental illness or addiction----
Senator Vance. Sure.
Mr. Olivet. ----and it overlaps a lot. And you rightly
mentioned the prevalence of childhood trauma, physical and
sexual abuse, that scars people for decades to come for their
entire lives.
But I also believe that recovery is possible, and I believe
that very, very deeply. And what I have seen around ``Housing
First''--and I said this earlier--I was in this field in the
mid '90s when we were not doing ``Housing First'', and we set
up a lot of requirements for people before they could move into
housing. What I saw in those approaches was dehumanizing and
disempowering.
What I see when we can get people the stable foundation of
housing is that they can live into their best selves, and
without such a foundation, it is nearly impossible to do that.
It is impossible for people to rebuild their lives without the
safety of a door they can lock, without the safety of their own
bathroom, without their own kitchen that they can prepare their
meals in.
And so I actually see ``Housing First'' as fundamentally
humane and empowering and very much treating the person as an
agent of their own future.
Senator Vance. I appreciate that. I think that is very
important. It is one of the things that I think often right and
left talk past each other on these issues because obviously,
again, we are subjects of our circumstances. We are also
individual human beings with free will. And I do worry that
sometimes the antipoverty lingo on the left very often glosses
over that fact, even though certainly we have, on my side, our
own problems.
I want to just talk about the evidence basis of the
``Housing First'' policy. I recognize I am short on time, but
let me try to get this out quickly.
The first time I ever visited San Francisco, California, I
thought it was one of the most beautiful cities that I had ever
seen. And when you go to San Francisco now, when you go to the
Tenderloin, or you go further south and you go to Los Angeles,
you go to Skid Row, what you see is a community that feels
like, and, in fact, if you look at the violent crime rates, are
approaching something like a Third World country. I mean, just
unbelievably catastrophic. Chronic homelessness. All the
addiction, the abuse, the violence that comes along with that.
And yet California, since 2016, has supported the ``Housing
First'' approach to ending homelessness, even as chronic
homelessness has gotten way worse in the State of California.
One worry that I have is that the evidence clearly shows,
over the past 6 or 7 years, that that approach has not worked.
We should be looking for alternative approaches, and yet I
worry that what we are talking about in this proposal is to
take the California approach and take it nationwide.
Mr. Olivet. I think there is a great evidence base that
``Housing First'' works for people. It works 75 to 90 percent
of the time, and there are randomized controlled trials over 20
years that show that to be the case. In fact, there are very
few other interventions in the homelessness arena that have
this degree of evidence.
Senator Vance. But why is California gotten so much worse
if this works so well?
Mr. Olivet. We see people still falling into homelessness.
If you look at the housing market--and you talked about San
Francisco, you talked about Skid Row in Los Angeles--cities
where the cost of housing is significantly higher than the rest
of the Nation. I was in San Diego recently, and their vacancy
rate is 1.4 percent. There are no units. And so even if you
have a voucher, you cannot go get an apartment.
We see elderly people falling into homelessness for the
first time because they simply cannot afford the rent. The rent
goes up ,and their income, or Social Security, stays fixed.
If we look at ``Housing First'', the intervention that is
actually working to help people move out of homelessness, and
say, ``But we still have homelessness, so `Housing First' must
be a failure,'' it is a misinterpretation of what is actually
going on. ``Housing First'' is working at an individual level.
It is not working at a population level, for two reasons: One,
we have not scaled it up to meet the need, and two, we have not
turned off the faucets that are flowing into and creating
homelessness.
Senator Vance. I am out of time. Thank you.
Chair Smith. Thank you, Senator Vance. And I want to just
note that I appreciate--I am not making a left or right
comment. I am just noting that sometimes the language that we
use to describe people who are experiencing homelessness can be
dehumanizing. And we always talked about people as being
victims or being vulnerable, but sometimes that seems to
suggest that they do not, as you say, have agency and that they
are not human beings with lots of assets. And so I wanted to
just acknowledge that I heard what you were saying there.
Senator Vance. Thank you.
Chair Smith. Colleagues, I believe I understand that
Senator Sinema is on her way, but while we are waiting for
Senator Sinema I defer to Senator Britt.
Senator Britt. Thank you so much, Madam Chair. To both of
you, thank you for bringing this important issue before this
Subcommittee. I appreciate getting to be a part of the
conversation and therefore, hopefully getting to be a part of
the solution. So thank you.
Gentlemen, thank you for being here today. Mr. Olivet, Roll
Tide.
Mr. Olivet. Roll Tide.
Senator Britt. I wanted to tell you both I appreciate your
testimony, reading them and looking through it. Obviously,
homelessness is something experienced by a wide variety of
people and a range of circumstances across our great Nation.
Would you agree obviously individuals that experience
homelessness--I think I have heard you say it but just to make
sure we are on the same page--it is adults, children, veterans,
families. People from all walks of life can find themselves in
this position.
Mr. Olivet. Absolutely, and I think no two stories are the
same. People have their own pathways into and out of
homelessness. And if you just start breaking down the data,
there are huge numbers of families who are experiencing
homelessness, and even though we are making progress in that
area, we can do more. The same is true for single adults.
I talked about elderly Americans. Older Americans are one
of the fastest-growing groups of people experiencing
homelessness.
So we have to look subpopulation by subpopulation at what
really works.
Senator Britt. Right. And so on that note--and Dr. Cho, I
would love for you to jump in here as well--you know, obviously
these vast circumstances that are different and people's
stories, how are we tailoring the services needed for each of
these different families or people or individuals or children
that come in front of you all?
Mr. Cho. Senator, that is actually a great question and
something that HUD and actually Congress, through the HEARTH
Act, began requiring communities to do. You know, prior to
2009, most communities' homeless services looked like a loose
collection of uncoordinated programs, each maintaining their
own waiting list. Following the HEARTH Act in 2010, communities
just started developing coordinated systems so that we could
actually do a better job of assessing their needs and matching
them to the right level of assistance.
Some people just need short-term rental assistance and
housing navigation. Others need permanent supportive housing,
intensive case management coupled with long-term, indefinite
rental assistance. Others just need a little bit of financial
assistance and a point in the right direction. And I think our
ability to reduce homelessness is, can we use the resources
that we have smartly to match people to the right level of
assistance, relative to their needs and strengths.
Senator Britt. So as we are doing that you kind of talked
about sometimes the hang-up in local communities. I believe you
kind of referenced that. What are we doing to partner with
State and local communities, one? What are we doing to partner
with nonprofits and charities and religious organizations that
want to be a part of the solution?
Mr. Olivet. Senator, our team has senior regional advisors
around the country who work with Governors and their teams,
with mayors and their teams, as well as with the local
nonprofit sector, faith community, and business community,
because we believe that you need all levels of Government and
the private sector working together. So we are actively
fostering those partnerships and trying to support best
practices.
Senator Britt. Is there any impediment in current practice
that keeps those faith-based communities from getting to be a
part of helping in this?
Mr. Cho. I do not see any impediment, Senator. We see lots
of faith-based organizations who participate in efforts to end
homelessness. I have learned a lot over the years working with
faith-based organizations who provide supportive housing and
other housing and services.
I think another thing that Mr. Olivet and I have in common,
in addition to working on homelessness for a long time, is that
we are both--I believe we were both children of clergy.
Mr. Olivet. I am not a child of the clergy but I have known
a lot in my life.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Cho. OK. So, you know, our work in homelessness is
rooted in the faith community and they have always been a
critical part of the homelessness services.
Senator Britt. So from both of your perspectives we have a
good working relationship across the board there.
Mr. Olivet. It is community-by-community. In some areas,
there is very good alignment between how public funding is
working and how faith-based service providers or faith
community members themselves are working, and in other places
there is a lot of dissention and disagreement. And I think it
is critical that those things are aligned. Otherwise, you just
get a lot of finger-pointing.
Senator Britt. Yeah, I appreciated your comments earlier
about needing to align so that we can work together to make it
happen.
And I know I am almost out of time, so I will just jump
ahead a little bit. But the National Alliance to End
Homelessness calculated that in 2021, the U.S. Federal
Government enacted over $51 billion in funding for selected
homelessness and housing programs. And as we kind of look at
that I wanted to just talk specifically about something that my
colleagues have already brought up, and that is mental health
and substance abuse. Seventy-five percent of chronically
homeless suffer from mental illness, and 75 percent have
substance abuse problems. And we know, obviously, that overlaps
the majority of that chronic homelessness.
So would you agree that in addition to putting a roof over
their head, as we have discussed, that it is imperative that
these people are given the resources and begin the process of
being able to deal with the issues that have created the
homelessness in the first place?
Mr. Olivet. Absolutely.
Senator Britt. Thank you.
Mr. Cho. Senator, I 100 percent agree, and we recently have
developed additional tools, working the Substance Abuse and
Mental Health Services Administration, on how to tailor
recovery supports while people are moving into stable housing.
Senator Britt. And one question--I have 19 seconds----
Chair Smith. Take another 30.
Senator Britt. Thank you so much, Madam Chair. How long, on
average, would someone who is homeless find themselves in this
one-roof program or ``Housing First'' program, being there?
Mr. Cho. I think it varies by person. Again, ``Housing
First'' is not one single program model. It is different types
of assistance. So again, some people only need 6 months, 3
months, sometimes 9 months of rental assistance. Other people
who have been homeless for many, many years may need longer-
term housing supports, and ``Housing First'' can last
indefinitely until they no longer need that level of rental
assistance.
Senator Britt. So there are some people that are there
indefinitely. Do those people ever have a moment where they
shift into, well, now it is time for you to start utilizing the
resources in front of you so that you can get back on your
feet?
Mr. Cho. Absolutely, Senator. We see lots of people
graduating from permanent supportive housing either moving into
housing without services or, you know, rental assistance
without services, or even just moving into independent. There
have been examples of people experiencing homelessness who have
gone from homelessness to permanent supportive housing all the
way to home ownership. It can really vary, just as the pathways
into homelessness varies.
Senator Britt. Well, thank you so much. I believe we have
to not only help people but then give them the tools to help
themselves. So thank you so much. I appreciate it.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Chair Smith. Thank you, Senator Britt.
We now have, joining us virtually, Senator Sinema.
Senator Sinema. Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you to
our witnesses for being here today.
You know, housing is one of the biggest issues I hear about
in Arizona. Whether you are trying to rent or trying to own,
the cost of housing in Arizona is outpacing wages, not just in
Phoenix but also in Tucson, Flagstaff, and throughout the Verde
Valley. The cost of housing in Arizona has a direct nexus with
the rise in homelessness in our State.
That is why, in February, I convened two events with
leading housing stakeholders in Phoenix, one around
homelessness and services and another around housing supply and
affordability. First we toured Yuma, the largest shelter
services provider in Maricopa County, and saw how their
innovative model provides childcare and workforce development
alongside shelter services, ensuring that the tools to get back
on your feet are accessible to the people that need them.
Then we brought together industry stakeholders and
affordability advocates to assess the market in Arizona,
identify supply chain and regulatory challenges that are
holding capital investment back, and craft solutions to these
challenges.
At each of these events I was honored to be joined by Joan
Serviss, a deeply respected Arizona leader on housing in
Arizona, who was recently appointed by Governor Hobbs to lead
the Arizona Department of Housing.
What I learned at these events reaffirms my understanding
of the problem. We have a supply shortage in Arizona, and in
order to make housing more affordable and accessible for
Arizonans we need to build more of it. Specifically, we need to
build the types of homes and apartments that everyday Arizonan
families can afford. And that is why I have cosponsored
legislation to expand the low-income housing tax credit and why
I support additional investment in the Housing Trust Fund and
Home Investment Partnerships Program.
According to the Arizona Department of Housing, the State
needs about 250,000 more affordable units to meet demand, to
improve housing affordability in a generally sustainable
manner. We need solutions outside of merely increasing demand-
side subsidies without increasing the overall supply of
available housing.
In October of 2022, members of my staff toured Prescott's
Fort Whipple, alongside veterans groups, affordable housing
developers, VA officials, and saw the need for affordable
permanent housing in Arizona for veterans experiencing
homelessness. Following that tour and discussion with local
leaders, I raised the issue directly with HUD, and then HUD
encouraged the Department to 84 HUD-VASH vouchers needed to
move forward with Fort Whipple's veterans housing project.
I have heard from Arizonans with rental assistance vouchers
that they have been unable to use them, partially because of
the lack of available rental units. However, project-based
vouchers are a tool on the other side of the ledger that can
help spur the development of affordable housing units like Fort
Whipple.
Can both of you speak to ways that Congress can strengthen
project-based subsidy programs in order to increase the
creation of affordable housing units, and specifically, what
are some recommendations outside of just increasing funding or
the overall number of project-based vouchers?
Mr. Cho. Senator, this is Richard Cho. I can respond to
that question. Thank you for raising that.
I agree 100 percent that project-based vouchers is an
incredible tool to be able to add not only housing access but
also housing units. We have talked about how it is difficult to
be able to find housing, even when people do have vouchers.
That said, communities are finding housing but it is a lot of
work to try to find landlords and vacant units. Project-based
vouchers is an incredible tool.
One of the things that could be done is to review the
statutory cap that exists on our voucher programs, where public
housing agencies that administer those vouchers can only
project base up to 30 percent of their housing vouchers. Many
communities have already reached their cap on project-based
vouchers, and some of those communities are the very ones that
are seeing the lowest vacancy rates and so actually need more
project-based voucher assistance.
So a simple thing that can be done, again, without new
resources is just providing waivers and flexibility to allow
communities to go above that 30 percent project-based cap.
Mr. Olivet. And Senator, I will just add that I was in
Arizona recently, and I would agree with you that your State is
lucky to have Joan Serviss running the Housing Department. I
met recently with Governor Hobbs and much of her new Cabinet,
as well as with the mayors of Phoenix, Tucson, and Nogales, as
we toured around rural areas as well as the cities. And I know
the affordable housing crisis that you are facing in your
State, and we have seen homelessness in Phoenix and Maricopa
County increase by almost 30 percent in the last couple of
years. So the situation is certainly dire.
I was also very heartened to hear Mayor Romero in Phoenix
talk about using large shipping containers to create housing.
That is a creative approach that we have seen used with great
success in Los Angeles and other places. It is also important
to note that the Balance of State in Arizona is one of the
recipients of HUD's recent first-of-its-kind rural and
unsheltered funding, and so it will be really interesting to
see how that funding plays out in rural areas as well.
Senator Sinema. Thank you. Chair, I have additional
questions but I see my time has expired so I will submit them.
Chair Smith. Thank you very much, Senator Sinema. Thank you
for joining us.
Colleagues, it is possible that I might have another
colleague or two come, though I am not sure. I am going to ask
another couple of questions, but Senator Lummis, I would like
to defer to you and have you go next, if you have another
question or two next.
Senator Lummis. Madam Chair, this is your Subcommittee. You
go right ahead.
[Laughter.]
Chair Smith. Well, I like to go back and forth.
Senator Lummis. Thank you. Thank you.
Chair Smith. All right. Well, I will ask my questions and
then see if either Senator Lummis or Senator Britt would like
to ask any others.
Last year when we heard from stakeholders who were working
in the field kind of on what we could do, we heard a variety of
ideas for how we can cut red tape and improve the functioning
of our policy response. And these ideas included, for example,
switching to a 2-year application cycle from a 1-year
application cycle. Senator Britt, you were talking about local,
on-the-ground nonprofits or faith-based organizations that are
trying to run a program, and every year they are having to
reapply. That was one idea that we heard.
We also just heard about the importance of having resources
for staffing so that frontline workers that are often barely
staying out of a condition of homelessness themselves because
they are paid so little, you know, increasing resources for
staff would make a really huge difference, especially for those
frontline staff. Incorporating some of the flexibilities that
we did use during the pandemic incorporating those
flexibilities into programming going forward.
I am wondering if either of you would like to comment on
those ideas for how we can make these programs work better.
Mr. Cho. Yes, Chairwoman, I can answer both of those
questions. I think the idea of making the Continuum of Care a
2-year renewal cycle would be, I think, pivotal to helping free
up the capacity at the local level to focus on what works,
which is to actually figure out how to help more people exit
homelessness.
The Continuum of Care right now is an annual cycle. The
process of applying for annual grants is--let me just put it in
context. There are 386 continuums of care. They all
collectively administer about 7,000 separate grant agreements,
and they have to apply for those 7,000 grant programs every
year, on an annual cycle. And so that is just a huge
administrative burden that communities face. So the very people
that are trying to do the work of actually addressing
homelessness are often tied up in an application process that
takes many, many months. So shifting to a 2-year cycle would be
game-changing for those communities.
I think, second--I am sorry. I forgot your other question,
Senator.
Chair Smith. It had to do with boosting pay for frontline
staff that are struggling to make ends meet themselves.
Mr. Cho. That is right. Thank you so much for that. That is
critical, and we have encouraged communities to increase pay of
frontline workers through our Homeless Continuum of Care
funding. The challenge is because it is funded at a fixed
level, on an annual basis, communities have to make the choice
about whether they are going to actually reduce the amount of
rental assistance they are providing. Are they going to serve
fewer people in order to raise wages of the frontline workers?
And so it is a difficult kind of tradeoff, and I think the
only way that can be really done is to increase funding for the
Continuum of Care program so that we can both add more housing
capacity to serve people while also increasing the pay of the
frontline workers who are trying to help those vulnerable
individuals and families obtain housing.
Chair Smith. Thank you.
Mr. Olivet. On the workforce front, it is a crisis. Even
before the pandemic we saw 50 percent turnover rates in the
homeless services workforce, and this is a workforce that is
doing very hard work for very low pay. Something like 25
percent of those working in the programs--outreach workers,
case managers--have been homeless themselves. So we have a lot
of lived experience in that workforce, which is beneficial for
improving the system, but we are not supporting them very well,
and that is despite wonderful nonprofits out there trying to do
this work.
The other thing that we are seeing is philanthropy
sometimes stepping in to help close that gap, which is a
wonderful thing, but when philanthropic dollars are going to
supporting the workforce, then that money is not being used for
housing, for treatment, or for other things. It is a really
delicate balance.
The challenge has only gotten worse because the pandemic
required people to do even more. These were emergency workers.
They were showing up every day for the last 3 years, when
everybody else was at home on Zoom. When many of us were in the
comfort of our own homes, these folks were out there doing the
work. And we lost a lot of people during the Great Resignation
and people just burning out, and I think whatever we can do
together to support and incentivize that workforce to stay
engaged is going to pay off.
Chair Smith. Thank you very much.
Let me just get one more question in, one more point in. We
are seeing innovative solutions for addressing homelessness and
emergency shelter. I really am quite intrigued by a project we
have in Minneapolis called Avivo Village, which is basically
providing tiny homes, completely indoors, also with services
for folks.
It was created, as we have been talking about, with people
who have experienced homelessness, who have talked about how
difficult it is to move indoors when you do not have privacy,
when you cannot have your pet with you. And it is really,
really working, the Avivo Village model. People have privacy,
they have autonomy, and they are able then to be able to focus
on getting the services they need to be able to move forward.
I am sure you see examples of this kind of innovation in
our work around addressing homelessness in other parts of the
country. Maybe, Mr. Olivet, you would like to comment on this.
Mr. Olivet. Senator, your State is doing some of the most
remarkable things. Minnesota is leading the way in so many ways
on innovative program models and reducing racial disparities in
homelessness and really integrating tribal leaders into
responding to homelessness and so many things. I have heard
wonderful things about Avivo Village. I have not been able to
come to the Twin Cities since that got up and running.
But what we are seeing around the country is a lot of
innovation. People know that this is a crisis. They know that
we need to address the crisis of encampments and unsheltered
homelessness and rural homelessness. And what we are trying to
do is spur that innovation. We need all good ideas right now
because the crisis is still with us. And I think we need a
range of short-term bridge housing options. I wish we had
enough permanent housing supply to solve the problem right now
and enough wraparound support, but the reality is that as we
are expanding housing and support, we also need really creative
ideas to get people safe and sheltered right now.
Chair Smith. Thank you very much. Senator Lummis.
Senator Lummis. Thank you, Madam Chair.
It was alluded to earlier that during the pandemic, the
American Rescue Plan Act, the COVID Relief Bill, and the CARES
Act combined, nearly $85 billion toward emergency housing and
homelessness assistance. But during those years the levels of
homelessness essentially remained unchanged, partly due to
this, you know, some people exiting homelessness and others
entering. Yet at some point that money is going to expire
because it was one-time money.
What are some concrete ideas for improving the programs we
already have without spending more money? It is just
unsustainable to fund at the levels we did during COVID, and
not just fund housing but fund a lot of things.
Mr. Cho. Yes, thank you for that question, Senator. I think
much of that--and I have never seen that tallying up of all the
funding in that way--and a lot of that was actually for
emergency rental assistance that was intended to prevent
evictions and people from losing their homes.
I would agree that we need to think through some creative
solutions to figure out how to do that. That was, in some ways,
the first significant Federal program intended to prevent
evictions and housing loss for people, and that did have, I
believe, an effect on reducing inflow into homelessness in the
last 2 years. But there are questions about how we are going to
sustain that, so that is an important thing.
We are also just looking at how to take some of the
innovations, regulatory flexibilities that had through the
CARES Act and American Rescue Plan and figure out how to make
those part. So that is one thing that can be done without
necessarily new resources, is just look at the regulatory
flexibilities and what worked for our voucher programs for
homelessness programs that cut the red tape and helped people
move into housing more quickly.
Senator Lummis. I think you have really identified
something important with the flexibility because every State's
needs are different. You know, in Arizona they do not need
nearly the insulation that we need in our northern States, and,
you know, insulation and snow load. We actually have to build
our roofs at a much stouter load-bearing level because of the
snow load. It is just so heavy. And yet there are issues in
States that are subject to tornadoes, that are very different
than what I have to deal with in my State. That might be
something that Senator Britt has to deal with.
How can we make sure that these programs incorporate those
kinds of local, unique challenges?
Mr. Cho. Well, Senator, many of those regulatory issues may
be at the State and local level, and so I think what HUD has
been doing and the Administration has been doing is encouraging
communities to address some of those regulatory issues that
prevent the creation of more housing. And so that is something
we have been looking at.
But also just within the Federal programs that we
administer we had additional waiver authorities that were
provided through Congress for those special programs through
the American Rescue Plan and CARES Act programs. CARES Act
waivers have largely expired or will expire soon. I think it
may be a good conversation to think about how to provide HUD
with the regulatory flexibilities through the regular programs
that we administer, the things that we have learned, how to cut
through red tape so that communities do not have to let
documentation be a barrier to obtaining housing assistance, or
people can house people and then obtain documents to have
additional time.
Some communities were actually able to increase their
payment standards for vouchers because we gave them
flexibility. We were able to do that through emergency housing
vouchers through the American Rescue Plan. But housing
authorities do not always have that flexibility with the
regular voucher programs.
Senator Lummis. Well, I think this is a really important
conversation. With interest rates as high as they, it has not
only dried up the creation of new housing stock but it has
dried up the creation of new build-ready lots, because the cost
of even PVC pipe, sewer pipe infrastructure has gone so high
that you cannot put a build-ready lot on the market that a
buyer can afford to build a product on, that is affordable to
home buyers. And I think it hurts attainable housing and
affordable housing more than any other market.
So I hope that some of the monies that were available under
the American Rescue Plan and CARES is still available during
time of high interest, because it is only going to get worse
for a while, until we can get over this inflation and
approaching recession.
We just heard from Fed Chairman Powell yesterday that they
expect higher interest rates perhaps in increments coming
sooner. It is not good news. And so this dialogue is really
important and it needs to continue.
Thank you. Thank you so much for being here.
Chair Smith. Thank you, Senator Lummis, and I want to just
mention that follow up on the hearing that we had last summer,
we have done some preliminary work on legislation to address
some of these issues around streamlining and overcoming some of
the red tape burdens. So I would welcome the opportunity to
work with any of my colleagues on that legislation going
forward.
Senator Britt, do you have any additional questions?
Senator Britt. Yes. Thank you so much, Madam Chair. I just
wanted to ask a couple of process questions, specifically first
about definitions. I am an attorney by trade so I have learned
that definitions matter. And I just want to know, from your
perspective, the definition of homelessness for HUD programs
includes ``people living on the street or other places not
meant for human habitation, in emergency shelters or
transitional housing.''
Additionally that differs from some other Federal programs
such as the Department of Education's Education for Homeless
Children and Youth Program, which considers a student that is
experiencing homelessness if they are, quote, ``doubled up'' on
family or friends' couches or staying there for economic
reasons. I have also heard, when we are talking about rural
communities, you know, we are talking about the underhoused. So
we have used several different definitions.
My question to you is, in your experience have these
different definitions created an impediment to success, or
would conforming them or creating a more comprehensive
definition help you be able to better coordinate across
multiple agencies and resources? Yeah, both of you.
Mr. Cho. I will take that first just because it is HUD's
definition that you referred to, Senator. Thank you for that
question.
You know, we have different definitions of homelessness
between HUD and the Department of Education because they
largely serve different purposes. Our definition informs who we
count on the Point-in-Time Counts, but it also informs who is
eligible for the roughly $3 billion in homeless assistance
grants. That is out of a much larger HUD budget and set of
programs that we administer.
Education's definition largely governs the rights of
children and students and their access to educational supports,
if they are experiencing homelessness or housing instability.
So schools have an obligation to provide continuing education
for students regardless of their housing instability.
I do not think that necessarily changing the definitions
will solve the problem because essentially many of the doubled-
up families and families who are experiencing homelessness
already are eligible for many of HUD's other larger homeless
assistance programs--our affordable housing, our multifamily
programs, housing vouchers, and public housing. The challenge
is that there is not enough vouchers in public housing and
affordable housing to meet their need.
Simply just redefining them to make them eligible for HUD's
much smaller set of programs is not going to necessarily meet
their needs, particularly because that program is not
necessarily growing. I think the answer is ensuring that
homeless families who are doubled up or experiencing housing
instability have access to affordable housing, and that is
going to take investments across all of HUD's programs.
Senator Britt. Thank you so much, Dr. Cho. And from your
perspective, obviously, being the Executive Director for the
United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, you probably
have a different perspective with regards to dealing with
different resources and agencies and others. What are your
thoughts on that?
Mr. Olivet. Our council is comprised of 19 Federal
agencies, and it is our job to help point them in the same
direction around homelessness strategy. And so this is a
question we deal with all the time.
At the community level, I have worked in programs that have
been funded by Health and Human Services, Veterans Affairs,
HUD, Department of Education, and probably many others.
Community-level agencies are pretty sophisticated at blending
and braiding funding streams to serve the populations that they
are serving.
But the reality is that human beings are bigger than these
definitions, and they are more than their housing status. So if
we are looking in rural Alabama or Wyoming versus Trenton, New
Jersey, or San Francisco, California, it looks very different,
but it also looks different from month to month or year to year
for people. There might be somebody who is ``doubled up'' now
who is in a shelter 6 months from now, or somebody who is
living in their car now who then is staying with friends and
family next week.
So I think of these definitions as really program
eligibility lines. So it helps Department of Ed cast a broader
net for reaching all of the children they are trying to serve
in the education setting, or for community health centers that
are serving people through Health Care for the Homeless grants
to be able to reach as many people as possible, including a
broader swath of folks who might be doubled up. As Dr. Cho
said, the HUD programmatic lines are very targeted, and so the
tighter kind of conception of who is eligible for those
programs--I am not going to speak for HUD--allows more narrow
targeting of where those dollars go.
Senator Britt. Thank you so much. And last, I just want to
thank you. When we look at what is happening with our veteran
population--and you have both referenced getting more and more
veterans out of homelessness and back having the pride and
dignity of moving forward on their own--I believe that our
veterans are the best among us, and put it all on the line, and
gave us their very best. It is certainly our turn to give them
ours.
As you have dealt particularly with that population and
with those different challenges, what have you seen to be the
most effective within that community in helping them come back
out of homelessness?
Mr. Cho. I think our work collectively between Congress,
the Executive branch, and communities across the country,
especially VA, to solve veteran homelessness is a case study in
what effective Government and partnerships with communities
looks like--a commitment to evidence-based practices, a
commitment to working with urgency, and I think the importance
of Federal leadership as well. When we have seen VA Secretaries
make a public commitment to ending veteran homelessness, that
matters, and that pushes that urgency down at the local VA
medical center level and with their community partners.
We have seen Secretary McDonough and Secretary Fudge make
that public commitment when they first came into their offices,
to end veteran homelessness, and that sent a message widely
across the Nation to once again use the Federal resources that
Congress provided to make sure that no veteran is left on the
streets, and to prevent veteran homelessness. And we are
seeing, again, that curve on veteran homelessness start to
decline once again.
Senator Britt. Thank you.
Mr. Olivet. And if I could just briefly add to that. I
think the work on veteran homelessness is one of the bright
spots. It is bipartisan in nature. It has sustained over
multiple Presidential administrations over a decade. We have
seen a 55 percent reduction in homelessness in this population
since 2010 and 11 percent in the last 2 years. This effort
takes the best of what HUD does and lets them do it. It takes
the best of what the VA does and lets them do it.
As you all probably know, VA Secretary McDonough is
chairing our Council right now, HUD Secretary Fudge was our
Chair last year, and HHS Secretary Becerra is our Vice Chair.
That continuity across HUD, VA, HHS, and all of our other
agencies is what is working. And I think we could take the
veteran successes as a case study of how to do this with other
populations.
Senator Britt. Absolutely. Thank you, and thank you, Madam
Chair.
Chair Smith. Thank you very much. Unless we have any other
questions from the Subcommittee I want to thank our witnesses
for being here today and for providing your testimony.
For Senators who wish to submit questions for the record
those questions are due 1 week from today, which will be
Wednesday, March 15th. For our witnesses, you will have 45 days
to respond to any questions for the record.
Thank you again for being with us, and thanks to my
colleagues. And with that this hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 3:49 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
[Prepared statements and responses to written questions
supplied for the record follow:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF CHAIR TINA SMITH
Good afternoon. The Subcommittee on Housing, Transportation, and
Community Development will come to order.
I'm glad to have Sen. Lummis as my new partner and Ranking Member
on this Subcommittee. I look forward to working with you over the next
2 years.
Both Senator Lummis and I are concerned about the shortage of
housing in rural communities, and the unique challenges we see on
tribal lands. And we both are focused on getting things done. So I'm
confident we can find common ground, and I look forward to the work
ahead.
I'm also glad to welcome Sen. Fetterman, Sen. Kennedy, Sen. Vance,
and Sen. Britt to the Subcommittee this year.
Without safe, decent housing, nothing in your life works. It's
nearly impossible to maintain a job, go to school, or stay healthy.
Almost 600,000 Americans experience homelessness on any typical
night. Of this number, 60 percent of those experiencing homelessness
are sheltered, while the other 40 percent are unsheltered.
Homelessness is a significant challenge in our country, and getting
worse. While our Nation made significant strides in reducing
homelessness in the first half of the last decade, we know that the
number of people experiencing homelessness, began rising again around
2016. The pandemic only exacerbated the challenges individuals and
families have faced.
The backdrop to the issue of homelessness is that our Nation is
facing an affordable housing crisis. According to data published by the
National Low Income Housing Coalition, not one State in our country has
an adequate supply of affordable rental housing for the lowest income
renters. In fact, for the 10.8 million families with extremely low
incomes in the U.S., there is a shortage of more than 7 million
affordable homes. This is an incredibly alarming problem that we are
facing.
The challenge of funding and keeping a safe, affordable place to
live is real in every part of our country--urban, suburban, and rural.
It affects everyone.
However, homelessness also disproportionately affects some
communities more than others, including Black, Latino, and Native
communities. In my home State of Minnesota, while Native Americans make
up only 1 percent of the adult population, the 2018 Statewide Homeless
study found that Native Americans made up 12 percent of adults
experiencing homelessness.
In December, the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness published
``All In'': the Federal Strategic Plan to Reduce and End Homelessness.
The plan calls for a 25 percent reduction in homelessness by 2025.
That's an aggressive goal, but I'm glad they're aiming high.
We've learned a lot in the last few years about what it takes to
effectively address homelessness. The American Rescue Plan provided
70,000 emergency housing vouchers to rapidly re-house individuals at
risk of homelessness, especially veterans and victims of domestic
violence and sexual assault.
And just last month, Secretary Fudge announced $315 million in
awards to address unsheltered homelessness and homelessness in rural
communities along with thousands of vouchers. This is the first time
HUD has coordinated grants and vouchers. This type of coordination is
critical, and I look forward to hearing more about it from our
witnesses.
I'm also looking forward to hearing more about how we can cut red
tape, improve staffing, and make it easier for service providers and
housing providers to do their jobs, instead of worrying about
administrative tasks. We heard a number of suggestions at the hearing
Sen. Rounds and I held in this Subcommittee last year and I hope we can
find some bipartisan ways to make existing programs work more
effectively.
I often hear from people who work on homelessness that we know what
to do to solve this problem, we just need the will to fix it. We have
data-driven strategies that have proven effective in addressing
homelessness in recent years. Those approaches can be effective, most
of the time, in helping people who fall into homelessness. But we must
also address the housing affordability challenges at all levels that
are driving people into homelessness in the first place.
Addressing homelessness and the challenges of housing affordability
has long been an issue that Republicans and Democrats are both
concerned about. I hope that in this hearing we can continue this
bipartisan work, and look for concrete steps we can take together to
address this deep challenge--with a comprehensive approach, effective
strategies and the resources we need.
______
PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR CYNTHIA LUMMIS
Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you to our witnesses for being
here today.
Right now, many American families are struggling to find safe,
affordable housing. For some of these families, housing insecurity is a
growing concern.
There are many challenges that can drive an individual or family to
homelessness and make it harder to regain housing. The availability of
affordable housing is part of the problem, but mental health
challenges, physical disabilities, and struggles with substance use can
lead to homelessness and make it harder to escape when it occurs.
These problems cut across demographics. As a result, communities in
every State right now, including my home State of Wyoming, are
challenged to help those who are homeless or who lack stable housing.
Today's hearing on the Biden administration's strategic plan to
prevent and end homelessness provides a good opportunity to talk about
what's worked and where we can do better.
Housing First, a centerpiece of the Administration's plan, is a
policy that places individuals into supportive housing without any
conditions. Individuals are offered supportive services but are not
required to use them.
The term ``housing first'' raises an important question: ``If
housing comes first, what comes second?''
Individuals are placed into housing and then may choose whether to
undertake the mental health treatment or substance abuse counseling
they need to live healthy lives. But how many people caught in the
cycle of addiction or the grips of a severe mental health crisis can
recognize the help they need in the moment?
At some point, when Housing First fails--and it does fail for some
people--there need to be other paths to help.
Shuttling vulnerable people between programs without needed
treatment is not the path to housing independence. It perpetuates the
problem.
I'm disheartened at the Administration's continued focus on a
version of housing first without the integrated wraparound services
some individuals and families require to overcome homelessness.
As a result, we've drifted too far to ``housing only.'' Funding
does not allow local organizations the flexibility to act on what
they've seen work in their local community.
I'd also like to see HUD and USICH spend more time on the unique
needs of rural communities and tribes. These are important issues in
Wyoming.
Homelessness and housing instability looks different in rural areas
and reservations. Shelters are rare, and so many people turn to family
and friends to get through a period of homelessness.
As a result, homelessness shows up as overcrowding rather than
tents on the street. But given how HUD conducts its counts of the
homeless, these individuals and families living with family and friends
would not be counted.
We cannot fix problems when we are unsure of how big they are or
where they are.
Homelessness is a challenging issue, one that requires our best
ideas.
I look forward to hearing more from the witnesses about specific
ideas to reduce red tape and help programs better serve vulnerable
Americans.
______
PREPARED STATEMENT OF JEFF OLIVET
Executive Director, Interagency Council on Homelessness
March 8, 2023
Good afternoon, Chair Smith, Ranking Member Lummis, and
distinguished Members of the Subcommittee. I am Jeff Olivet, executive
director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH). It is
an honor to appear before you today. I am here to discuss the tragedy
of homelessness and the Administration's current and planned work to
prevent and end it.
About USICH
USICH is the only Federal agency solely focused on ending
homelessness. USICH brings together the collective power of 19 other
Federal agencies to coordinate the Federal response to homelessness,
which includes programs administered by our member agencies
specifically to address homelessness, as well as numerous mainstream
programs that provide support for people experiencing poverty and
housing instability. \1\ USICH has a team of Senior Regional Advisors
across the country who work directly with mayors and governors across
the political spectrum, and with service providers in urban, rural, and
Tribal areas to help them use their resources effectively.
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\1\ https://www.usich.gov/fsp/appendix-b-inventory-of-targeted-
and-non-targeted-federal-programs-to-prevent-and-end-homelessness
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
USICH began in 1987 when large bipartisan majorities in Congress
passed the Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act, later renamed
the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, which was signed into law
by President Reagan. The law, amended and reauthorized by the HEARTH
Act in 2009, recognized the complexity of coordinating Federal efforts
to address homelessness. Then, as now, Congress understood that
homelessness is a cross-system problem that requires cross-system
solutions and that no single agency, system, sector, or jurisdiction
can end homelessness on its own. That is why the McKinney-Vento Act
requires USICH to develop and annually update a national strategic
plan. Such a plan provides a shared vision of the work required to end
homelessness and the strategies necessary to accomplish that vision.
Today, I would like to provide a picture of homelessness in
America, explain recent efforts that have flattened the curve on rising
homelessness, discuss the challenges we still face, and provide an
overview of ``All In'', the bold new Federal strategic plan for a
future in which everyone has a safe, affordable, and stable place to
call home. \2\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ `` `All In': The Federal Strategic Plan To Prevent and End
Homelessness'', 2022, https://www.usich.gov/all-in.
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Homelessness in America
Homelessness is a life-and-death public health crisis. Tens of
thousands of people die every year due to the dangerous conditions of
living without a home, \3\ and the life expectancy of people who are
experiencing homelessness is about 20 years shorter than people who are
housed. \4\ According to the latest annual Point-in-Time Count, 582,462
individuals experienced homelessness in the United States on a single
night in January 2022. \5\ But this is only a snapshot in time. Over
the course of a year, at least twice that number, more than 1.2 million
people, experience homelessness. \6\ When we consider households that
are precariously housed people, people in substandard housing, and
people who are severely rent burdened or ``doubled up''--where multiple
families or generations are living together out of necessity--the
numbers surge adding millions to those who live each year without safe,
adequate, and stable housing. \7\
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\3\ ``Homeless Mortality Toolkit'', National Health Care for the
Homeless Council, 2021, https://nhchc.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/
Homeless-Mortality-Toolkit-FULL-FINAL.pdf.
\4\ ``Remembering Those Lost to Homelessness''. National Coalition
for the Homeless. (2018). https://nationalhomeless.org/remembering-
those-lost-to-homelessness/
\5\ Office of Community Planning and Development. ``The Annual
Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR) to Congress''. U.S. Department of
Housing and Urban Development. https://www.hudexchange.info/
homelessness-assistance/ahar/
\6\ Office of Community Planning and Development. ``The Annual
Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR) to Congress''. U.S. Department of
Housing and Urban Development. https://www.hudexchange.info/
homelessness-assistance/ahar/
\7\ ``Quantifying Doubled-Up Homelessness: Presenting a New
Measure Using U.S. Census Microdata'' (nlihc.org).
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People of color are disproportionately affected by homelessness.
While Black Americans comprise 12 percent of the overall population,
they represent 37 percent of the homeless population. American Indians,
Alaska Natives, and Asian Americans are even more disproportionately
represented. Latinos, who are undercounted, are also overrepresented
compared to their general population numbers. \8\ Other populations are
also disproportionately affected by homelessness, including based on
sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\8\ ``HUD 2020 Annual Homelessness Assessment Report Part 1'':
https://www.huduser.gov/portal/sites/default/files/pdf/2020-AHAR-Part-
1.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Homelessness impacts both the young and old. According to the
National Center for Homeless Education more than 1 million youth were
identified as homeless during the 2020-2021 school year using the
Department of Education's definition of homelessness which includes
those who are doubled up. \9\ Children--who make up 17 percent of the
homeless population in the United States--are more likely to experience
serious health conditions, abuse, and violence if they have experienced
homelessness.\10\ \11\ Additionally, between 31 percent and 46 percent
of young people who exit foster care experience homelessness by age 26.
\12\
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\9\ https://profiles.nche.seiservices.com/
ConsolidatedStateProfile.aspx
\10\ ``The 2022 Annual Homelessness Assessment Report (AHAR to
Congress) Part 1'': Point-In-Time Estimates of Homelessness, December
2022 (huduser.gov)
\11\ Smith-Grant, J., Kilmer, G., Brener, N., Robin, L., and
Underwood, J.M. (2022). ``Risk Behaviors and Experiences Among Youth
Experiencing Homelessness--Youth Risk Behavior Survey'', 23 U.S. States
and 11 local school districts, 2019. Journal of Community Health,
47(2). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10900-021-01056-2
\12\ Dworsky , A., Napolitano , L., and Courtney , M. (2013).
``Homelessness During the Transition From Foster Care to Adulthood''.
American Journal of Public Health. https://ajph.aphapublications.org/
doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2013.301455
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Older Americans--who face the same rising housing costs as everyone
else, but often with fixed incomes and rising health needs--are one of
the fastest-growing groups of people experiencing homelessness. Single
adults over 50 now make up half of the homeless population, and if
nothing changes in the next 15 years, Harvard University estimates that
an additional 2.4 million seniors in the U.S. will have no access to
affordable housing.\13\ \14\ Further, adults who experience
homelessness age faster than their housed peers, with elevated rates of
serious, chronic, and often avoidable medical conditions.
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\13\ https://generations.asaging.org/homelessness-older-adults-
poverty-health
\14\ www.jchs.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/Harvard-JCHS-
Housing-Americas-Older-Adults-2019.pdf
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During the first 2 years of the pandemic, from 2020 to 2022,
family, youth, and veteran homelessness all dropped. \15\ Meanwhile,
unsheltered \16\ and chronic homelessness rose 3 percent and 16
percent, respectively. \17\ The rise in unsheltered homelessness means
people are seeing more tents in their neighborhoods and more people
living in vehicles. As homelessness has become more visible, public
pressure to solve it has intensified, and some State and local
policymakers are resorting to criminalization and forced
institutionalization. \18\ These ``out of sight, out of mind'' policies
are ineffective, expensive, and have harmful, even deadly,
consequences. The solution to public concern about unsheltered
homelessness is to make sure everyone has a home.
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\15\ Office of Community Planning and Development. ``The Annual
Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR) to Congress''. U.S. Department of
Housing and Urban Development. https://www.hudexchange.info/
homelessness-assistance/ahar/
\16\ Unsheltered refers to people sleeping in places not designed
for regular sleeping accommodation such as tents, cars, or on the
street.
\17\ Office of Community Planning and Development. ``The Annual
Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR) to Congress''. U.S. Department of
Housing and Urban Development. https://www.hudexchange.info/
homelessness-assistance/ahar/
\18\ https://homelesslaw.org/criminalization/
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Health and homelessness are inextricably linked. Illness, injury,
and medical expenses can put people at risk of homelessness, and the
experience of homelessness creates and exacerbates health problems.
Many people who are homeless--though fewer than half--have mental
health conditions and substance use disorders. While we must do
everything we can to treat these conditions while people are homeless,
we know that stable housing is the real solution. Permanent housing
with robust wraparound supports not only helps people exit
homelessness, but also provides the stable foundation upon which they
can get healthy, address mental health and substance use disorders,
deal with past trauma, and reconnect with jobs and school, family and
community.
Causes of Homelessness
Among the root causes of homelessness are the lack of affordable
housing and incomes that do not keep pace with the cost of housing. A
job has never guaranteed a home--and that is even more true today. By
some measures, half of the people living in shelters or on the streets
are employed. \19\ But full-time minimum-wage workers cannot afford
even a modest apartment in any county in America. \20\ Meanwhile, rents
have risen far faster than wages. Often evictions come too fast, while
Government assistance is often too slow. Decades of growing economic
inequality have left far too many Americans living paycheck to paycheck
and one unexpected car repair or medical bill away from homelessness.
\21\
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\19\ https://bfi.uchicago.edu/insight/finding/learning-about-
homelessness-using-linked-survey-and-administrative-data/
\20\ ``Out of Reach: The High Cost of Housing''. National Low
Income Housing Coalition. (2021). https://nlihc.org/sites/default/
files/oor/2021/Out-of-Reach-2021.pdf
\21\ https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/24/more-americans-live-paycheck-
to-paycheck-as-inflation-outpaces-income.html
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Even when people can afford a home, one is not always available. In
1970, the United States had a surplus of 300,000 affordable homes.
Moody's Analytics estimates a shortfall in the housing supply of more
than 1.5 million homes nationwide. \22\ Today only 37 affordable units
are available for every 100 extremely low-income renters. \23\ Where do
we expect the others to go? Furthermore, people using housing vouchers
struggle to find landlords who will rent to them, widening the gap.
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\22\ https://www.moodysanalytics.com/-/media/article/2021/
Overcoming-the-Nations-Housing-Supply-Shortage.pdf
\23\ ``The GAP A Shortage of Affordable Homes''. National Low
Income Housing Coalition. (2022). https://nlihc.org/gap
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Preventing homelessness is critical: every day, roughly 2,500
people, or around 900,000 people each year, exit homelessness--yet
roughly the same number fall into homelessness. To end homelessness, it
is critical that we not just house people experiencing homelessness
now, but that we also find ways to ensure people do not become homeless
in the first place.
The current state of homelessness is heartbreaking. This is not the
way it should be, and this is not the way it has to be.
What Is Working: The Impact of Unprecedented Federal Investment
We are beginning to see some progress. In 2016, after years of
steady drops, homelessness began trending upward. Then in 2020, the
Nation was hit by a global pandemic and its resulting economic crisis.
Against all odds, homelessness did not continue to rapidly rise. In
fact, between 2020 and 2022, we were able to flatten the curve. Since
the pandemic began, the number of people experiencing homelessness in
the U.S. has remained relatively flat, increasing less than 1 percent.
Meanwhile--thanks in large part to Congressional investments in
programs like the Department of Labor's Homeless Veterans'
Reintegration Program and the Jobs for Veterans State Grants, the
Department of Veterans Affairs' (VA) Supportive Services for Veteran
Families, the Department of Education's Education for Homeless Children
and Youths, HHS's Runaway and Homeless Youth Program, and HUD's Youth
Homelessness Demonstration Program--veteran, family, and youth
homelessness dropped 11 percent, 5 percent, and 13 percent,
respectively. \24\
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\24\ Office of Community Planning and Development. ``The Annual
Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR) to Congress''. U.S. Department of
Housing and Urban Development. https://www.hudexchange.info/
homelessness-assistance/ahar/
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Such progress occurred during a time of massive layoffs,
skyrocketing rents, shuttering shelters, and lagging housing supply,
that were exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. But this also happened
at a time of unprecedented Federal investment and collaboration--and we
have Congress to thank for that. When shelters had to shrink their
capacity or close their doors due to COVID protocols, we did not shrug
our shoulders and let people languish. We put our differences aside and
our heads together to develop creative solutions, like converting
unused buildings into noncongregate shelters where people could
socially distance and protect themselves from a deadly disease.
When the pandemic put millions of people out of work, Congress did
not sit on the sidelines and watch evictions pile up and hunger grow.
Congress came together to expand unemployment assistance, to launch
bold new programs like emergency rental assistance and provide stimulus
checks that saved families from starving and losing their homes. In the
process, you helped reduce overall poverty by 45 percent. These efforts
prevented what could have been a massive new wave of homelessness.
Congress came together to pass the CARES Act, and then the American
Rescue Plan, amounting to the largest investments in ending
homelessness at any point in our history. \25\ These investments have
saved lives. The CARES Act and the American Rescue Plan included tens
of billions of dollars for emergency rental assistance that has
prevented millions of evictions and kept evictions below prepandemic
levels--even after the Federal moratorium had ended. The legislation
sent 70,000 emergency housing vouchers to communities, which served as
an important tool to keep people housed. \26\ More than $5 billion in
the American Rescue Plan is being used to expand access to housing and
shelter. In 2022 alone, the Department of Housing and Urban Development
(HUD) approved plans to build 10,000 affordable or supportive homes.
Some of the new homes and shelters are in hotels and motels that were
sitting vacant for years. With the help of these Federal funds,
communities are renovating them and putting them to use. In just the
last year, the VA and the 105 communities that joined USICH and HUD's
House America Initiative used the American Rescue Plan to move more
than 100,000 people out of shelters, off the streets, and into
permanent homes. \27\ During the same period, the initiative added more
than 40,000 affordable homes into the pipeline.
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\25\ ``Guide to American Rescue Plan Funding That Impacts People
Experiencing Homelessness''. U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness.
(2021). https://www.usich.gov/tools-for-action/a-guide-toamerican-
rescue-plan-funding-that-impacts-people-experiencing-homelessness/
\26\ https://www.hud.gov/press/press-releases-media-advisories/
HUD-No-22-213
\27\ https://www.usich.gov/news/biden-administration-helps-105-
communities-end-homelessness-for-more-than-140000-americans
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Additionally, Congress provided $800M in ARP dedicated funding that
was dispersed within 60 days to help deliver services to ensure that
students experiencing homelessness get the services they need to ensure
they are able to stay in school and thrive.
Last year, the White House released its Housing Supply Action Plan,
which includes legislative and administrative actions that represent
the most comprehensive in history to help end America's housing
shortage--and in just 5 years. \28\ The White House also released
national strategies to transform mental health and social services and
to combat the overdose epidemic.\29\ \30\ This year, USICH and the
White House are launching a new Federal initiative to help key cities
and States address unsheltered homelessness through dedicated Federal
staff, maximum flexibility and regulatory relief, and technical
support.
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\28\ ``President Biden Announces New Actions To Ease the Burden of
Housing Costs''. The White House. (2022). Retrieved from https://
www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/05/16/
president-biden-announces-new-actions-to-ease-the-burden-of-housing-
costs/.
\29\ https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/
2022/03/01/fact-sheet-president-biden-to-announce-strategy-to-address-
our-national-mental-health-crisis-as-part-of-unity-agenda-in-his-first-
state-of-the-union/
\30\ https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/
2022/04/21/fact-sheet-white-house-releases-2022-national-drug-control-
strategy-that-outlines-comprehensive-path-forward-to-address-addiction-
and-the-overdose-epidemic/
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While we are only beginning to see the impact of these commitments,
the results show that we can make progress even during the most
difficult times.
Challenges
Lack of Housing Supply
Housing is the fundamental solution to homelessness, but the United
States suffers from a severe shortage of safe, affordable, and
accessible rental housing. \31\ The shortage is caused by many factors,
including a shortage of available land and labor, increased costs of
raw materials, local zoning restrictions, land-use regulations,
opposition to inclusive development, and the destruction of homes in
the path of natural disasters. \32\ Compounding this, people with
housing vouchers or other rental assistance compete for limited housing
in a highly competitive rental market, and they often face stigma,
barriers, and discrimination by landlords. In addition, many landlords
deny housing to people based on their criminal records or credit
history. And many renters of color, LGBTQI+ renters, and renters with
disabilities continue to face discrimination when they apply for
housing. The lack of accessible housing for people with disabilities
further complicates the situation.
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\31\ ``The GAP A Shortage of Affordable Homes''. National Low
Income Housing Coalition. (2022). https://nlihc.org/gap
\32\ Zhang, J., Cummungs, R., Maury, M., and Bernstein, J. (2021).
``Alleviating Supply Constraints in the Housing Market''. The White
House. https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-materials/2021/09/01/
alleviating-supply-constraints-in-the-housing-market/
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Rise of Rent Amid Slow Wage and Income Growth
Wage growth has been slow for the lowest-paid workers for decades,
and for many Americans, rental housing is unaffordable because wages
have not kept up with rising rents. According to a 2021 report, in no
U.S. State can a person working full-time at the Federal minimum wage
afford a two-bedroom apartment at the fair market rent. \33\ As a
result, 70 percent of the lowest-wage households routinely spend more
than half of their income on rent, placing them at risk of homelessness
if any unexpected expenses or emergencies arise. Housing
unaffordability disproportionately impacts people with disabilities,
LGBTQI+ people, and people of color. Discriminatory employment
practices toward these groups further contribute to these disparities.
Similarly, there is no housing market within the U.S. in which a person
living solely on Supplemental Security Income (SSI) can afford housing
without rental assistance. \34\
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\33\ https://nlihc.org/sites/default/files/oor/2021/Out-of-Reach-
2021.pdf
\34\ ``Priced Out: The Housing Crisis for People With
Disabilities'', Technical Assistance Collaborative, https://
www.tacinc.org/resources/priced-out/. Please note that this website
lists a prior maximum monthly SSI benefit amount. The current one is
$914 for an unmarried individual.
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Inadequate Access to Quality Health Care, Education, and Supportive
Services
Culturally appropriate, readily available, and accessible
supportive services--including treatment for mental health conditions
and substance use disorders--often are not available at a level to meet
the need. This is particularly true in rural areas where transportation
barriers, lack of community-based supports, and large geographical
distances can inhibit access to services. As a result, people seeking
these services may face long waits or may not receive them at all, and
service providers may only be reimbursed for a fraction of the cost of
care. Furthermore, collaboration and coordination between homelessness
response and other systems--including health, victim services,
workforce development, aging- and disability-related services, early
care, and education--is often not as strong as it could be. \35\ People
of color and other marginalized populations face greater barriers \36\
to receiving the supports they need, which leads to severe health
inequities and disparities in health outcomes.
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\35\ ``Early Care and Education Supports for Young Children
Experiencing Homelessness''. The Administration for Children and
Families, 2020, https://www.acf.hhs.gov/opre/report/early-care-
andeducation-supports-young-children-experiencing-homelessness.
\36\ Cogburn, C.D. (2019). ``Culture, Race, and Health:
Implications for Racial Inequities and Population Health''. The Milbank
Quarterly, 97(3). https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0009.12411
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Limited Alternatives to Unsheltered Homelessness
The number of people living in unsheltered locations is rising, and
has for the first time exceeded the number of people staying in
shelters, yet there are often not enough safe, low-barrier shelter or
interim housing options for people waiting for permanent housing and
support. Many shelters are full or deny entry to people who have a
mental health and/or substance use disorder, have a criminal record,
live with a disability or chronic condition, or identify as LGBTQI+
despite regulations that prohibit this discrimination. People with
disabilities, pets, partners, or older children (especially male
teenagers) have fewer options for sheltering together. Additionally,
shelters may not be equipped to meet the specific needs of a diverse
population or have the capacity to provide adequate support and
accommodations for people with significant physical disabilities and
those with mental health or substance use disorders. As unsheltered
homelessness increases in some communities, the impact on surrounding
neighborhoods has eroded support for further investments in homeless
services.
Criminalization of Homelessness
In some communities, a rise in encampments has resulted in harmful
public narratives and opposition to development of affordable housing
and programs that serve people experiencing homelessness. As elected
leaders respond--and not always in the most effective ways--some have
resorted to clearing encampments without providing sufficient notice or
alternative housing options for the people living in them. Many
communities have made it illegal for people to sit or sleep in public
outdoor spaces or have instituted public space designs that make it
impossible for people to lie down or even sit in those spaces. \37\
Unless encampment closures are conducted in a coordinated, humane, and
solutions-oriented way that makes housing and supports adequately
available, these ``out of sight, out of mind'' policies can lead to
lost belongings and identification; breakdowns in connection with
outreach teams, health care facilities, and housing providers;
increased interactions with the criminal justice system; and
significant trauma--all of which can create challenges in the pathway
to housing.
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\37\ https://nlihc.org/sites/default/files/AG-2020/6-08-
Criminalization-of-Homelessness.pdf
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Despite these formidable challenges, I believe that it is possible
to end homelessness in this country. Programs in communities across the
country have gotten better and better at getting people housed,
providing wraparound supports, and making sure people don't fall back
into homelessness. Lessons learned through the pandemic offer hope
around increased collaboration, creativity, and urgency in our work to
end homelessness. The way has become clear: we need to prevent
homelessness before it happens, respond to the crisis of unsheltered
homelessness, and connect people as quickly as possible with the
housing and services that help people exit homelessness. I believe that
we can come together as a Nation to do just that.
``All In'': The Federal Strategic Plan To Prevent and End Homelessness
Our new Federal strategic plan, ``All In'', sets the bold goal of
reducing homelessness 25 percent by 2025 and lays out a path to
ultimately ending homelessness in America. With the help of Congress
and communities, we believe we can achieve this ambitious goal.
``All In'' is built around six pillars: three foundations--equity,
data and evidence, and collaboration--and three solutions--housing and
supports, crisis response, and prevention. The plan includes dozens of
strategies and actions the Federal Government will pursue to prevent
homelessness, to urgently address the basic need for shelter, and to
expand housing and supports that help people exit homelessness. At the
foundation of our plan is the need to do this work with an evidence-
based, all-hands-on-deck approach based on what people who have
experienced homelessness say they need and want.
``All In'' recommits the Federal Government to a Housing First
approach to homelessness. This approach is simple but often
misunderstood. It is built on a strong evidence base that a home
provides the best foundation for rebuilding one's life. Without a home,
every other aspect of a person's life suffers. How can you improve
mental and physical health without a safe and stable place to live? How
can you get and keep a job without a place to store belongings and
maintain adequate hygiene?
Housing First works--and it's cheaper than the alternatives.
According to multiple scientific studies that span three decades, 75
percent to 91 percent of people are still in their homes a year after
Housing First assistance. \38\ Housing First shows increases in
individual income, \39\ costs three times less than criminalization,
\40\ and saves up to $23,000 \41\ per year per person compared to
providing emergency shelter.
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\38\ Peng, Y., Hahn, R.A., Finnie, R.K.C., Cobb, J., Williams,
S.P., Fielding, J.E., Johnson, R.L., Montgomery, A.E., Schwartz, A.F.,
Muntaner, C., Garrison, V.H., Jean-Francois, B., Truman, B.I.,
Fullilove, M.T.; Community Preventive Services Task Force. ``Permanent
Supportive Housing With Housing First To Reduce Homelessness and
Promote Health Among Homeless Populations With Disability: A Community
Guide Systematic Review''. J. Public Health Manag. Pract. 2020 Sep/
Oct;26(5):404-411. doi: 10.1097/PHH.0000000000001219. PMID: 32732712;
PMCID: PMC8513528.
\39\ www.kansascityfed.org/Research%20Working%20Papers/documents/
8716/rwp22-03cohen.pdf
\40\ https://homelessvoice.org/the-cost-to-criminalize-
homelessness/
\41\ Stefancic, A., Tsemberis, S. ``Housing First for Long-Term
Shelter Dwellers With Psychiatric Disabilities in a Suburban County: A
Four-Year Study of Housing Access and Retention''. J. Prim. Prev. 2007
Jul;28(3-4):265-79. doi: 10.1007/s10935-007-0093-9. Epub 2007 Jun 26.
PMID: 17592778.
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Of course, Housing First does not work for every person. There is
limited research to understand the factors that predict whether a
person will stay housed after receiving support. \42\ That work needs
to continue, coupled with the development and testing of new
interventions that could be effective in helping people maintain stable
housing. Having a humane response to homelessness means treating every
person with individualized care based on what works best for them.
There are other evidence-based approaches--such as Trauma-Informed
Care, Motivational Interviewing, and Critical Time Intervention--that
communities and providers should include in their response. Our plan
includes strategies to build a stronger evidence base for what works
and to address research questions that need further study.
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\42\ Byrne T., Tsai J. ``Actuarial Prediction Versus Clinical
Prediction of Exits From a National Supported Housing Program''. Am. J.
Orthopsychiatry. 2022;92(2):217-223. doi: 10.1037/ort0000603. Epub 2022
Jan 13. PMID: 35025573.
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While housing is the immediate solution to homelessness, it is of
course not the only solution. Housing must be matched with the
availability of wraparound services to help people rebuild their lives.
We must help people address the range of challenges they face around
health, education, and employment.
Implementing ``All In''
Work to implement ``All In'' is already underway. This is a
multiyear roadmap to create the systemic changes needed to end
homelessness in our country. To drive progress toward the ambitious
goal of reducing overall homelessness 25 percent by 2025, USICH is
developing implementation work plans and putting the strategies in the
plan into action during FY 2023. These implementation work plans will
include specific action steps, expected outcomes, and timelines for
when action steps will be completed.
As we continue our work on implementing ``All In'', we are
committed to partnering with and incorporating regular input from
people with lived expertise and stakeholders representing a broad range
of groups and perspectives. We will work across the Federal Government
and identify opportunities to make programs more efficient and
effective. And we will work with governors, mayors, providers, and
people on the front lines of this tragedy to implement effective
strategies.
``All In'' represents a long-term commitment, and our
implementation will be dynamic, results-driven, and transparent.
Progress will be assessed regularly, and the implementation work plans
will be adapted in real-time to reflect new actions and commitments as
well as new data and information that can inform future work. USICH
will publish an annual update to the plan that will include progress
toward the 25 percent reduction goal, adjustments to the plan, and
updates on implementing strategies at the Federal level and across the
country. USICH will share information as it is available on its
website, usich.gov, and report to the USICH Council, Congress, and the
public on progress and actions taken to implement this plan.
Conclusion
Any successes the Federal Government and State and local leaders
have achieved in reducing homelessness are rooted in decisions made
when we were united. We all have a role to play--the Administration and
Congress, State and local leaders, faith and business communities,
local service organizations, and leaders from across the political
spectrum. Homelessness did not happen overnight, and it will not be
solved overnight. But with resources, resolve, and cooperation, I
believe we can end homelessness. I believe we can come together to
build a country where no one experiences the trauma and indignity of
homelessness, and everyone has a safe and affordable place to call
home. ``All In'' provides a roadmap to help achieve this vision.
______
PREPARED STATEMENT OF RICHARD CHO
Senior Advisor for Housing and Services, Department of Housing and
Urban Development
March 8, 2023
Good afternoon, Chair Smith, Ranking Member Lummis, and other
distinguished Members of the Subcommittee. Thank you for this
opportunity to testify on behalf of the Department of Housing and Urban
Development on our efforts to help communities address the Nation's
homelessness crisis.
I'd like to start by reiterating the point made by Director Olivet
that homelessness in America is a national crisis, but it is a crisis
that we can solve.
I know that homelessness is solvable because communities are
solving and reducing homelessness every day. There was also a time, not
long ago, when homelessness was decreasing overall. Specifically, from
2010 to 2016, overall homelessness decreased by 14 percent--from over
637,000 people on any given night to under 550,000 people. Homelessness
decreased both among people in sheltered and unsheltered settings. In
fact, from 2010 to 2016, unsheltered homelessness decreased by over 24
percent.
During this same period, from 2010 to 2016, homelessness among
military veterans declined by 47 percent (from 74,087 veterans on a
single night to 39,471 in 2016); homelessness among families with
children declined by nearly 23 percent (from 79,442 families to 61,265
families); and chronic homelessness declined by 27 percent (from
106,062 individuals to 77,486 individuals).
Those reductions did not happen by accident. They were the result
of policies enacted by Congress. In 2009, Congress passed the Homeless
Emergency Assistance and Rapid Transitions to Housing (HEARTH) Act of
2009, which required communities receiving Federal homelessness
assistance funds to track measurable outcomes and incentivize a focus
on producing those outcomes. Specifically, are more people exiting
homelessness into permanent housing? Are lengths of homelessness
episodes decreasing? Are fewer people returning to homelessness once
assisted?
Over the next few years, HUD implemented the directives in the
HEARTH Act to focus on system performance and outcomes. As a result,
communities shifted their approaches and reallocated resources towards
programs that produced those measurable outcomes, namely permanent
supportive housing and rapid re-housing. From 2010 to 2016, communities
added over 104,000 units of permanent supportive housing nationally.
They also expanded the number of rapid re-housing beds from 0 in 2010
to nearly 73,000 by 2016.
At the same time, Congress provided significant new investments in
the HUD-Veterans Affairs (VA) Supportive Housing (VASH) program that
provides permanent supportive housing and rapid re-housing
interventions through the Supportive Services for Veteran Families
program for veterans experiencing homelessness. Those investments,
coupled with the implementation support from HUD, VA, Department of
Labor (DOL), and the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness
(USICH), are directly responsible for the steep reduction in veteran
homelessness.
During this time, both the VA and local Continuums of Care
implemented coordinated systems for identifying and assessing needs,
delivering housing and supportive services, and matching people to the
right level of assistance based on assessed needs.
This overall shift is what we refer to as the Housing First
approach, which provides people experiencing homelessness assistance in
obtaining permanent housing as quickly as possible, without
preconditions of treatment or sobriety, through a range of housing and
supportive services interventions. Housing First is not a one-size-
fits-all approach, nor is it a ``housing only'' model. It is about
implementing an array of programs that provide tailored levels of
housing and services to help as many people as possible with the
stability of a home as the foundation for achieving other goals and
meeting other needs.
Those decreases were driven by the combination of Federal
leadership on homelessness, the commitment to Housing First, a focus on
evidence-based programs and overall system performance, and Federal
investments in housing interventions that connect people experiencing
homelessness directly to permanent housing.
However, when the Biden-Harris administration began, the trajectory
of homelessness in America had changed. It had gone from decreasing to
increasing. From 2016 to 2020, homelessness rose by 6 percent overall.
In that 5-year period, the number of homeless adult individuals rose by
15 percent, the number of people in unsheltered settings rose by 28
percent, and the number of chronically homeless individuals--
individuals with disabilities who are homeless long-term--rose by 43
percent. In 2020, among adult individuals, there were more individuals
sleeping in unsheltered settings than in shelters for the first time
ever.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
In January 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic began, more than
580,000 people were experiencing homelessness on any given night,
including people with disabilities, unaccompanied youth, families with
children, and older adults. They tend to have poor health status, often
co-occurring chronic health conditions, and premature mortality rates,
and they are disproportionately Black or African American, Native
American or American Indian, and other people of color.
The COVID-19 pandemic added to the challenges faced by people
experiencing homelessness and the organizations and people who assist
them. Communities put in place new measures to protect people
experiencing homelessness from the pandemic, including decreasing
congregate shelter capacity and limiting shelter entries. Efforts to
connect people to housing faced new challenges as landlords and housing
providers switched to virtual operations, and illnesses and health
risks decreased workforce capacity and hampered the delivery of in-
person and home-based case management.
This was the state of homelessness in America when the Biden-Harris
administration began: Four years of homelessness growing nationally, a
growing number of people sleeping outdoors, and the added challenges of
the pandemic. Homelessness among veterans and families decreased, but
did so at a slower rate than previously.
To be clear, increases in homelessness after 2016 did not happen
everywhere. Out of the 386 Continuum of Care (CoC) communities, 255
CoCs (66 percent of total) achieved reductions in homelessness between
2010-2022. And while the Nation and some CoCs saw an overall rise in
homelessness from 2016-2020, 199 CoCs saw further decreases from 2016
to 2022.
This shift in the trajectory of homelessness starting in 2016 was
driven by a combination of factors, which can be summarized as follows:
after 2016, in many communities, particularly those with the highest
homeless populations, the number of people who became newly homeless
began to exceed the number of people whose homelessness was resolved.
Data from HUD's AHAR Part 2 reports shows that from 2017 to 2019,
approximately 901,000 people exited homelessness annually and
approximately 909,000 people became newly homelessness in each of those
3 years. In other words, in each of those years, approximately 8,000
more people entered the ranks of homelessness than exited it, and hence
homelessness at a point-in-time increased by approximately 25,000
people.
The increase in homelessness from 2016-2020 is not because the
Housing First approach is ineffective--in fact, more people were
exiting homelessness into permanent housing during this period than
ever before. Rather, it is because housing market conditions and other
factors were leading more people to become newly homeless than were
being exited from homelessness into housing than in the prior years. In
other words, Housing First works, but it must be scaled proportional to
the level of need and supported by Federal policy. For example, from
2016 to 2020, only 32,000 new units of permanent supportive housing
were created, compared with over 104,000 new units during the prior 6
years. In addition, greater efforts are needed to prevent people from
becoming homeless in the first place.
The contrast in homelessness trends in these two periods
illustrates what is possible when the Federal Government provides
leadership, resources, and support to help communities solve a problem.
It shows what happens when targeted investments are made in evidence-
based interventions. It shows how a focus on outcomes and performance
measurement can produce results. It also shows why ongoing Federal
leadership and attention is needed to continually adapt in its response
to changing dynamics.
HUD, alongside USICH and other Federal agencies in the Biden-Harris
administration, is providing that Federal leadership and attention.
HUD's specific contributions to the implementation of `` `All In': The
Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness'' focus on
scaling Housing First interventions, directing resources to underserved
communities and unmet areas of need, mobilizing and strengthening
collaboration among all of HUD's grantees and recipients to address
homelessness, and providing ongoing support and technical assistance to
help communities implement the Housing First approach effectively.
Scaling Housing First Interventions
After Congress passed President Biden's American Rescue Plan Act,
HUD provided communities with historic resources to scale Housing First
interventions for all populations.
At the top of this list is the Emergency Housing Voucher (EHV)
program. EHVs are HUD's first housing vouchers specifically targeted to
people experiencing or at risk of homelessness, including people
fleeing or attempting to flee domestic violence, sexual assault, or
human trafficking, and who are not veterans. The American Rescue Plan
provided $5 billion for EHVs, and HUD awarded communities nearly 70,000
vouchers.
To implement the EHV program, HUD drew upon lessons learned from
the HUD-VASH program regarding the importance of public housing
authority (PHA) and service provider partnerships. HUD required that
the 609 public housing authorities administering these vouchers partner
with Continuums of Care and victim services provider organizations to
receive referrals and to provide housing navigation and other
supportive services to voucher holders, as evidenced by execution of a
Memorandum of Understanding. All 609 PHAs executed these MOUs.
Approximately 1\1/2\ years after the issuance of vouchers and program
requirements, all vouchers have been issued to households and nearly
two-thirds of the vouchers have been leased. Through the EHV program,
nearly 47,000 households have found stable, affordable housing to date.
This is the fastest take-up rate of any voucher program HUD has ever
administered and demonstrates both the demand for these resources and
the effectiveness of housing vouchers as a tool for addressing
homelessness. We will continue to assist the 609 PHAs and their
partners to lease up and utilize EHVs to reduce homelessness.
Through the American Rescue Plan, HUD also awarded communities $5
billion in funds through a special homelessness-focused allocation, the
HOME Investment Partnerships Program, which HUD calls ``HOME-ARP''.
HOME-ARP provides communities with grants to build permanent supportive
housing or other deeply affordable housing, as well as to fund
supportive services, short-term tenant-based rental assistance, or the
acquisition of noncongregate shelter. HUD required that the
participating jurisdictions (cities, counties, and States) that receive
HOME-ARP allocations review data on needs, consult with Continuums of
Care and victim services providers, as well as obtain public input, to
determine the allocation of these funds. Participating jurisdictions
have been submitting their allocation plans for HUD approval, and HUD
expects to review all plans by June 2023. HOME-ARP will further
increase communities' resources for housing assistance and supportive
services to sustain their momentum on addressing homelessness over the
next few years.
In FY 2023, Congress also provided HUD with $75 million in
additional funds to help Continuums of Care create more permanent
supportive housing. As I mentioned earlier, the slowdown in permanent
supportive housing production over the last few years coincides with
the increase in chronic homelessness. Our Nation needs to get back to
increasing permanent supportive housing for people experiencing chronic
homelessness and other people with more severe service needs. We are
currently working on developing the program requirements for this new
$75 million program.
HUD will also continue to administer our annual Continuum of Care
Program competitive grant program, including funding for programs that
serve survivors of domestic and dating violence, sexual assault, and
human trafficking, as well as to expand the Youth Homeless
Demonstration Program (YHDP).
Directing Resources to Unmet Areas of Need
HUD is working to bring more Housing First interventions to the
populations and geographic areas where homelessness has been rising,
specifically, people in unsheltered settings and rural communities.
In FY 2020, Congress gave HUD the authority to re-issue Homeless
Assistance Grant funds returned by or recaptured from communities,
allowing HUD to repurpose the recaptures through the Continuum of Care
or Emergency Solutions Grants programs and set-aside funding for rural
communities and for disaster response. Last June, HUD used this
authority to issue a special Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) that
made over $300 million in grants available to help Continuums of Care
implement coordinated approaches to address unsheltered homelessness by
scaling housing and supportive services, including in rural areas.
Communities were incentivized to leverage health care and supportive
services partnerships, as well as mainstream housing resources. In
addition, HUD issued a notice to public housing authorities that it
would allocate over $43 million for special purpose housing vouchers
that it received in FY 2021 to PHAs that formally partnered with
Continuums of Care that will receive grant awards to address
unsheltered or rural homelessness through our special NOFO. HUD
received an overwhelming response to both the special NOFO and the
voucher notice. Over 200 Continuum of Care communities out of 386
applied to the special NOFO. Over 400 PHAs applied for the special
purpose vouchers.
On February 2 of this year, HUD announced that it would award over
$300 million to 46 Continuum of Care communities to address unsheltered
or rural homelessness. These communities represent large urban areas
like Los Angeles, Chicago, and Dallas, as well as rural communities in
Tennessee, Minnesota, and Missouri, and large Balance of State
Continuums of Care that cover urban, suburban, and rural areas in
States like Connecticut, Kentucky, and Kansas. Meanwhile, HUD has
recaptured additional Homeless Assistance Grant funding and is
currently seeking congressional approval to award these recaptured
funds to additional qualified communities who applied to the special
NOFO. Pending congressional approval, HUD expects to make these awards
in the coming weeks. Also in the coming weeks, HUD will issue the $43
million in special purpose vouchers to the PHAs that partnered with
CoCs awarded under our special NOFO for addressing unsheltered and
rural homelessness. HUD will accompany these resources with technical
assistance to help communities implement the coordinated approaches and
will scale Housing First interventions to address unsheltered and rural
homelessness. HUD anticipates that these resources will help these
communities reduce unsheltered homelessness as well as homelessness in
rural areas.
HUD will also continue to expand access to our Continuum of Care
Program for tribal Nations and tribally designated housing entities.
Through technical assistance, information resources, and direct
engagement, HUD is reaching out to tribes to help them either join an
existing Continuum of Care or to establish a new Continuum of Care, and
thereby, apply for funds to address homelessness in tribal communities.
Providing Federal Leadership and Fostering Collaboration at All Levels
HUD, alongside USICH and other Federal agencies, have been
providing renewed Federal leadership to mobilize a national all-hands-
on-deck effort to solve homelessness. Solving homelessness cannot be
the work of homeless services providers alone, but must be a shared
responsibility with local and State governments, housing developers and
providers, public housing authorities, philanthropy, the faith
community, and the private sector.
In September 2021, HUD Secretary Marcia Fudge launched the House
America Initiative, a national initiative to address homelessness. She
called upon mayors, county leaders, and governors to partner with HUD
and USICH to set and achieve specific numeric goals for re-housing
people experiencing homelessness and adding new units of housing to
address homelessness to the development process by the end of 2022.
State and local elected leaders from 105 communities across 31 States
and the District of Columbia, representing over 50 percent of the
Nation's homeless population, joined the initiative, convened local
partners, and set local re-housing and unit creation goals. Over a 15-
month period, HUD, USICH, and other agencies provided technical
assistance to help these communities to achieve their goals. By the end
of 2022, these 105 communities collectively re-housed over 100,000
households experiencing homelessness and placed 40,000 units of deeply
affordable housing into the development process.
To reinvigorate efforts to end veteran homelessness, the
Secretaries of HUD and VA issued a joint statement and announced
strategies to achieve an end to veteran homelessness. These joint
strategies re-elevated the interagency effort to end veteran
homelessness as a Secretarial priority. These strategies helped inspire
greater focus across local VA Medical Centers, their public housing
authority, and community partners and helped to set the trajectory on
veteran homelessness back on a downward trend.
Secretary Fudge and Secretary McDonough also served as the first
Chair and Vice Chair, respectively, of the United States Interagency
Council on Homelessness under this Administration. Under Secretary
Fudge's leadership, the Council was re-established as a Cabinet- and
principal-level body, a new USICH Executive Director was hired, and a
new Federal strategic plan to prevent and end homelessness was
developed. HUD is proud to have played a significant role in developing
and informing the Biden-Harris administration's strategic plan ``All
In''. The plan is centered on the Housing First approach but also adds
a greater focus on addressing the racial inequities in homelessness,
engaging people with lived experience of homelessness, and preventing
people from becoming homeless in the first place.
Providing Ongoing Support and Technical Assistance to Communities
In addition to deploying resources and providing leadership, HUD is
also continuing to provide ongoing support and technical assistance to
help communities improve their local systems and processes for
connecting people experiencing homelessness to housing and supportive
services.
Areas of technical assistance include assisting communities with
improving the leasing of Emergency Housing Vouchers and other vouchers
for people experiencing homelessness, including addressing challenges
related to collecting documentation, as well as with housing search and
landlord engagement. HUD is also assisting communities to resolve
homeless encampments through connections to housing and supportive
services using an emergency management-style approach that has been
honed in Houston and other communities. We refer to this as ``Housing
First with a disaster response mindset.'' We are also helping
Continuums of Care improve their coordinated entry systems, which serve
as the locus of intake and triage for people experiencing homelessness,
to ensure that they are efficient and equitable. We are particularly
focused on ensuring that communities are addressing the racial
disparities in homelessness by analyzing data on racial disparities in
outcomes and conducting analyses to identify and address the drivers of
these disparities.
Most of HUD's programs fund housing and rental assistance, but we
recognize that many people experiencing homelessness also need
supportive services either to help them find and secure housing or to
help support ongoing tenancy. To that end, HUD has been working closely
with agencies at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to
help communities coordinate housing assistance with the various HHS
programs that fund and cover supportive, health, and behavioral health
services, including Medicaid home and community based services which
include certain housing-related support, mental health and substance
use services grant programs, and services provided by community health
centers (including Health Care for the Homeless programs), certified
community behavioral health centers (CCBHCs), and more. In December
2021, HUD and HHS launched a joint technical assistance center, the
Housing and Services Resource Center, to create a ``one stop shop'' for
providing information to communities on the health and supportive
services programs at HHS that can be coordinated with the housing
assistance programs at HUD to assist people experiencing homelessness,
older adults, and people with disabilities.
Conclusion
HUD's latest data shows that Federal actions, including the safety
net investments made through the American Rescue Plan, likely helped to
prevent a spike in homelessness between 2020 and 2022. Homelessness
grew by only 0.3 percent amidst a global pandemic. Family homelessness
decreased by nearly 6 percent. Homelessness among unaccompanied youth
decreased by 12 percent. And homelessness among veterans decreased by
11 percent--the largest drop in 5 years. Veteran homelessness has now
been reduced by 55 percent since 2010. We are once again bending the
curve on homelessness, and we will continue to work to set the
trajectory in the right direction--downward.
I thank this Subcommittee for its deep concern for the national
crisis of homelessness. And while the Nation's homelessness crisis is
dire, I hope that my testimony has shown that homelessness is solvable,
and that it can be solved when we fully invest in Housing First
interventions for all populations, continue to focus on outcomes and
performance, and mobilize partnerships across all levels and sectors.
With Congress' support, HUD has made progress in reducing homelessness
before, and, together, we can do so again. As President Biden likes to
say, ``There is no problem that America cannot solve if we work
together.'' Thank you for the opportunity to provide this testimony.
RESPONSES TO WRITTEN QUESTIONS OF CHAIR SMITH
FROM JEFF OLIVET
Q.1. Under the Biden administration there are important efforts
to better connect and leverage the health programs under HHS--
including Medicaid, SAMHSA grants, and community health
centers--in order to help provide housing-related supportive
services.
Housing is clearly a social determinant of health. One
thing I have heard from advocates and experts is that no
medicine is as powerful as housing and many times doctors wish
they could write a prescription for housing.
With that in mind, what specifically can Federal
policymakers do to help forge a better connection between our
health care system, including the Medicaid program, and our
homelessness response system?
A.1. Preventing homelessness, housing people, and promoting
well-being requires close alignment between the homelessness
response and health care systems. The success of the U.S.
Department of Housing and Urban Development-Veterans Affairs
Supportive Housing (HUD-VASH) program, which pairs Federal
housing vouchers with Veterans Affairs (VA) supportive
services, models these effective and collaborative partnerships
in VA medical centers and community-based outpatient clinics.
``All In'' includes several strategies to improve
coordination between the homelessness response system and
health care systems and Medicaid, ranging from integrating
treatment for mental health conditions and/or substance use
disorders into primary health care settings to encouraging
States to consider Medicaid financed service approaches and
models.
Collaboration: USICH encourages creating and sustaining
local partnerships, particularly among housing and health care
providers. These partnerships can promote holistic treatment
for mental health conditions and/or substance use disorders
with the goal of co-locating, coordinating, and integrating
health, mental health, substance use disorder, safety, and
wellness services with housing. Such collaborations can improve
outcomes for groups that have historically been marginalized,
including people of color, LGBTQ+ people, and people with
disabilities. ``All In'' further calls on Federal agencies to
deploy targeted funding and technical assistance that fosters
collaboration among diverse entities, such as outreach, housing
navigation, and aging and disability network organizations, as
well as health centers, hospitals, and public health, and
mental health crisis interventions teams. As part of this
approach, Federal agencies will promote harm reduction and low-
barrier \1\ and accessible models to provide primary health
care services and treatment for mental health conditions and/or
substance use disorders and integrate treatment for mental
health conditions and/or substance use disorders into primary
health care settings and other nontraditional settings that
lower barriers to services.
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\1\ Shelter or service provision that are designed to screen-in
rather than screen-out applicants with the greatest needs and to
provide assistance without service participation requirements and
restrictive rules related to pets, partners, possessions, etc. All-
In.pdf (usich.gov).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
To increase access to resources, ``All In'' calls on
agencies to review requirements for Federal programs that fund
or support access to basic sanitation supplies and resources,
health care services (including services for mental health
conditions and/or substance use disorders), and other supports
and resources that specifically impact areas where unsheltered
people reside to identify barriers to program implementation.
Furthermore, ``All In'' recognizes the need to increase the
availability of, and access to, medical respite care to meet
the needs of people who need recuperative care after hospital
discharge, as well as to incentivize, strengthen, and expand
opportunities for people with lived experience of homelessness
to serve as outreach workers and service providers through
programs like Peer Recovery Support, 50 Community Health
Workers, and Medicaid HCBS.
Data-Sharing: Preventing and ending homelessness will
require programs to facilitate greater datasharing. ``All In''
calls on Federal agencies to expand communities' capacity to
integrate Homeless Management Information System data and other
Federal data sources with State and local administrative data,
such as Medicaid data, to inform planning and decision making,
while also protecting individuals' confidentiality and not
excluding victim service providers from strategic decision
making. For example, these health and administrative data
sources can inform community assessment and prioritization
approaches to service delivery and help determine who is most
at risk of becoming homeless.
Medicaid: More effectively leveraging Medicaid funds and
partnerships can improve the health of people experiencing
homelessness and help them stay stably housed once they exit
homelessness. ``All In'' calls on Federal agencies to highlight
and promote successful Medicaid-financed service approaches and
models where State Medicaid, aging, disability, and health care
agencies have coordinated housing assistance with Medicaid-
financed health care and supportive services for people with
high medical vulnerability. USICH also encourages States to
consider Medicaid-finance services approaches and models.
Disaster Response: As highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic,
natural disasters and public health emergencies can disparately
impact people experiencing homelessness. Thus, ``All In'' calls
on greater collaboration among Federal partners that play a key
role in disaster and public health response--including HUD,
HHS, and DHS--and national emergency management associations
and trade groups--including the Association of Healthcare
Emergency Preparedness Professionals. Through increased
collaboration, these entities can provide guidance, technical
assistance, and training for emergency shelter operators on
providing housing-focused services and integrating health care
and supportive services into the provision of noncongregate
shelter. For families with children, these efforts should also
include resources to address the health and developmental needs
of children and to improve environmental conditions while
children are living at a shelter. Furthermore, these
collaborations can illustrate to cities and counties how to
create multisystem coalitions that partner with local public
health agencies to drive down homelessness and reduce barriers
to permanent supportive housing.
Prevention: Finally, greater collaboration between the
homelessness response and health care systems can help prevent
new experiences of homelessness. Through the implementation of
``All In'', USICH and member agencies will provide guidance and
technical assistance to local systems of care for better
integration of housing stability screening to determine who is
most at risk of homelessness and to allow for earlier
intervention and support. We will encourage community partners,
including hospitals and health systems, to adopt housing
problem solving that is inclusive in its approach. We will also
provide accompanying guidance, training, and technical
assistance on housing problem solving, providing
accommodations, and associated practices, such as motivational
interviewing and mediation.
------
RESPONSES TO WRITTEN QUESTIONS OF SENATOR SINEMA
FROM JEFF OLIVET
Q.1. I am concerned about chronic homelessness and supporting
those with serious mental illness. My office recently heard
that Arizona used to have a Safe Haven project, but it no
longer does. I heard about the value of this form of supportive
housing to help those with severe mental illness who come
primarily from the streets or have been unable or unwilling to
participate in housing or supportive services. I noticed that
this intervention was largely left out of the national
strategy. Mr. Olivet, what is the Council doing to ensure that
this intervention also plays a role in ending and preventing
homelessness?
A.1. Safe Havens were an eligible component under the former
Supportive Housing Program as a form of supportive housing that
served hard-to-reach persons experiencing homelessness with
severe mental illness conditions and who have been unable or
unwilling to participate in housing or supportive services. The
Homeless Emergency Assistance and Rapid Transition to Housing
Act of 2009 (HEARTH Act) amended the McKinney-Vento Homeless
Assistance Act and repealed the ``Safe Havens for Homeless
Individuals Demonstration Program'', meaning that the
Department of Housing and Urban Development would not fund any
new Safe Haven projects under the Continuum of Care Program but
would continue to renew funding for an existing safe haven
project as long as the community prioritized it. Today, very
few safe havens remain operational, as many communities have
redirected funds that were used for Safe Havens towards the
creation of permanent supportive housing projects for persons
with disabilities.
Q.2. My office has been in contact with GAO, and they mentioned
that the Council was developing an interactive decision-making
tool to help clarify which Federal definitions apply to
different types of living arrangements and to help providers
navigate the various homeless programs and match their clients
to the programs that they are eligible for. Mr. Olivet, can you
explain why this tool has not been created and what is being
done in the interim to ensure that service providers can
quickly and easily help connect their clients to Federal
homelessness assistance programs?
A.2. Following internal discussions and those with key Federal
partners, we have determined that the utility of such a tool at
the community level would be limited and that developing and
maintaining such a tool would require significant resources.
Further, we believe that other mechanisms could provide
clarification and guidance more effectively. Therefore, we
determined that the development of this tool is not a priority,
and USICH does not plan to develop an interactive mobile app or
web-based tool. The agency has communicated this clearly to
GAO.
However, as part of USICH's work with its interagency
Council, the agency has initiated an interagency discussion on
the different definitions of homelessness to determine if there
is an opportunity to create greater clarity and alignment.
Furthermore, the recently released Federal Strategic Plan to
Prevent and End Homelessness, ``All In'', includes several
strategies that recognize barriers faced by communities and
commits to Federal action focused on providing additional
clarity and support. For example, ``All In'' calls on USICH and
member agencies to: ``[p]ursue Executive actions, legislative
amendments, and policy changes around eligibility and other
definitions that limit access to programs for youth,
individuals, and families who have prior involvement with a
publicly funded institutional system.''
Q.3. We know that many of those experiencing homelessness have
prior involvement with or are exiting from publicly funded
institutional systems, including foster care and mental health
and substance use treatment facilities. Mr. Olivet, the report
noted that legislative action is needed to amend eligibility
criteria and definitions that limit access to programs for
these populations. Can you elaborate and provide specific
examples?
A.3. Many people experiencing homelessness have prior
involvement with, or are exiting directly from, publicly funded
institutional systems, including child welfare and foster care,
juvenile and adult corrections, health, and mental health and
substance use treatment facilities. People, including youth,
who are exiting an institutional system can face barriers to
receiving assistance from the homelessness services system.
Ending homelessness will require a whole-of-Government approach
to close gaps and provide greater support to increase the
likelihood of housing stability and decrease the likelihood of
a subsequent occurrence of homelessness.
Closing these gaps will necessitate a wide array of tools,
as well as both statutory and nonstatutory changes. Through the
implementation of ``All In'', we will work with interagency
partners to identify legislative changes that may be needed, as
part of our strategy to: ``[p]ursue Executive actions,
legislative amendments, and policy changes around eligibility
and other definitions that limit access to programs for youth,
individuals and families who have prior involvement with a
publicly funded institutional system.''
Q.4. The general formula for getting someone back into stable
housing is to connect them to school, employment, or job
training. However, we know that this formula does not work for
seniors on a fixed income. Senior homelessness is on the rise
in Arizona. What are some ways to amend eligibility criteria or
increase flexibility in terms of allowable expenses for
programs that seniors are already participating in order to
help seniors at risk of becoming homeless or ways to rapidly
re-house them?
A.4. Poor housing conditions are shown to worsen health
conditions--especially for older adults and people with
disabilities--which, in turn, can lead to homelessness. Older
adults and people with disabilities face dual health and
housing crises and need more access to community-based health
care and support services, such as mental health care,
outpatient treatment for substance use disorders,
transportation, assistive technology, and personal care
assistance. This is particularly true for people of color,
especially Black people and American Indian/Alaska Natives, and
other marginalized populations.
``All In'' commits to reducing housing instability among
older adults and people with disabilities--including people
with mental health conditions and/or substance use disorders--
by increasing access to home- and community-based services and
housing that is affordable, accessible, and integrated.
Innovative strategies identified in ``All In'' to increase
supports for older adults include:
Exploring the feasibility of expanding the scope of
programs that provide housing-related supports to allow
for greater flexibility in terms of allowable costs and
eligibility to ensure that people at risk of
homelessness are covered. This could include expanding
the permissible use of funds to cover home repairs,
modifications, renovations, and costs to address
disability-related needs, such as innovative
accessibility features, to reduce the likelihood of
housing insecurity and potential health impacts.
Expanding housing options for people with
disabilities and older adults by providing guidance and
technical assistance and expanding and enforcing
requirements related to accessibility of housing.
Promoting the use of flexible funding to cover
first or last deposit for renters with reliable sources
of income, such as Supplemental Security Income, which
provides for little to no discretionary spending.
Q.5. We know that many individuals experiencing homelessness
tend to be eligible for multiple programs and services to help
them get back on their feet to live better lives. Can you speak
to some of the strategies that the council is considering to
streamline eligibility to allow people to qualify for multiple
programs at once without duplicative processes?
A.5. Complicated eligibility and documentation requirements can
significantly delay the process of getting someone off the
streets and into housing. The Federal Government should ensure
that programs ``fit'' people experiencing homelessness and do
not require people experiencing homelessness to ``fit'' into
programs. Recognizing such, ``All In'' calls on USICH and
member agencies to:
Consider strategies to streamline eligibility and
access processes such as ``categorical eligibility'',
which would allow people to qualify for multiple
programs at once without duplicative processes and
``conditional eligibility,'' which would allow
immediate entry into housing with a grace period for
required documentation.
Identify ways to align eligibility criteria across
programs (i.e., categorical eligibility) so that people
do not have to apply and qualify for each program
separately (for example, children in households that
receive SNAP are considered categorically eligible for
free school meals). Similar categorical eligibility
could be applied for other programs.
Conduct a comprehensive review of available policy
mechanisms that can increase access to Federal housing
programs among people experiencing or at risk of
homelessness, including eligibility, admissions
preferences, referral partnerships, funding incentives,
and administrative fees.
Examine ways to ease eligibility and documentation
requirements for specific subpopulations, such as
people who are chronically homeless.
Pursue Executive actions, legislation, and policy
changes around eligibility and other definitions that
limit access to programs for youth, individuals, and
families who have prior involvement with a publicly
funded institutional system.
To implement the above strategies, USICH received a
directive from its Council leadership in March 2023 to work
with partner agencies to explore opportunities for
administrative rulemaking related to presumptive and/or
categorical eligibility for housing and other supports.
Q.6. One thing I've started to hear about from Arizonans is
that each agency defines homelessness differently and has its
own set of eligibility criteria. As a result, some providers
may lack an understanding of the different definitions and
criteria. What are your thoughts on having a single definition
for homelessness? And how can the definition of homelessness be
updated so we can come to a universal understand of what is
consider homelessness?
A.6. Most programs targeted to people experiencing homelessness
rely on one of three definitions used by three different
Federal agencies: the Department of Housing and Urban
Development, the Department of Education, and the Department of
Health and Human Services. Each definition requires the
collection of data elements that play a role in establishing
eligibility for program benefits. These elements have varying
degrees of overlap but are not the same.
USICH and our Federal partners recognize that different
Federal definitions of homelessness, and different eligibility
criteria for Federal programs, can create implementation
challenges in communities. Numerous Federal agencies administer
programs either targeted exclusively to people experiencing
homelessness (targeted programs) or available more generally to
low-income populations (mainstream programs). These programs
often have different eligibility requirements and use different
definitions of homelessness. These differences can be confusing
for both people in need of services and service providers, and
can make collaboration and data collection difficult.
As part of USICH's work with its Federal partners, the
agency has initiated interagency discussions on the different
definitions of homelessness to determine if there is
opportunity to create greater clarity and alignment.
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RESPONSES TO WRITTEN QUESTIONS OF CHAIR SMITH
FROM RICHARD CHO
Q.1. Under the Biden administration there are important efforts
to better connect and leverage the health programs under the
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)--including
Medicaid, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services
Administration (SAMHSA) grants, and community health centers--
in order to help provide housing-related supportive services.
Housing is clearly a social determinant of health. One
thing I have heard from advocates and experts is that no
medicine is as powerful as housing and many times doctors wish
they could write a prescription for housing.
With that in mind, what specifically can Federal
policymakers do to help forge a better connection between our
health care system, including the Medicaid program, and our
homelessness response system?
A.1. HUD recognizes housing-related supportive services are
critical to addressing homelessness, especially for people with
chronic health and behavioral health conditions. While HUD
funds supportive services through our Homeless Assistance
Grants, these resources are limited and are also needed to fund
rental assistance. At the same time, there are significant
opportunities to cover and finance housing-related supportive
services through HHS programs, including Medicaid, SAMHSA
formula and competitive grants, and community health centers
that receive grants from the Health Resources Services
Administration. Whether to use these HHS programs to cover
housing-related supportive services, however, is at the
discretion of States and HHS grantees and the degree to which
States and grantees use HHS programs to cover housing-related
supportive services varies:
SAMHSA has five programs and services for those
experiencing homelessness. SAMSHA's homelessness
programs include discretionary and formula grants which
include PATH, CABHI, GBHI, TIEH, and SOAR. SAMHSA's
programs support efforts for ending and preventing
homelessness among people with mental and/or substance
use disorders, works to end homelessness by improving
access to treatment and services that support health
and wellness, and provides connection to stable housing
and linkages to HUD's coordinated entry system. A
small, but growing number of States are recognizing the
opportunity to cover certain housing-related supportive
services under their Medicaid programs. States can
cover these health-related social needs by obtaining
Federal approval of waivers, demonstration projects, or
State plan amendments. However, in most of the States
that have obtained approval, implementation is still in
its early stages.
Many federally qualified community health centers,
especially those that receive Health Care for the
Homeless grants, are also covering housing-related case
management in addition to primary and behavioral health
care.
Through our Notices of Funding Opportunities, HUD
incentivizes Continuums of Care and homeless services
organizations to leverage health care partnerships and programs
to provide housing-related supportive services and coordinate
these services with HUD's housing and homeless assistance
programs. HUD and HHS also launched the Housing and Services
Resource Center (HSRC) to provide States and communities with a
one-stop shop for information, guidance, and technical
assistance on how to coordinate HUD and HHS programs to
coordinate housing with housing-related supportive services,
including to address homelessness.
Federal policymakers can support the leveraging of HHS
programs to cover housing-related supportive services in two
ways. First, additional technical assistance resources for both
HUD and HHS would enable the agencies to provide enhanced
coordinated messaging, guidance, and technical assistance that
would encourage States and HHS grantees to use HHS programs to
cover and provide housing-related supportive services. Enhanced
technical assistance is particularly needed to provide
implementation support to States with recent Federal approval
of section 1115 Medicaid demonstration programs and State plan
amendments to cover housing-related supportive services.
Second, Congress could consider providing authorizing language
and waiver authorities that enable HUD to better coordinate its
programs with HHS programs. For example, waiver authorities for
HUD's Mainstream Voucher program would enable public housing
agencies to establish waiting list preferences specific to
Mainstream vouchers for referrals from services partnerships
with Medicaid and other health and disability services
agencies.