Can homelessness be ended in the next 10 years? Frankly, when asked this question a few years ago I was incredulous. We had accepted homelessness as a social reality, not be ended but to be lived with.
As the new HUD director for the Pacific NW and Alaska, I imagined that my job was to oversee the programs that brought some relief to the homeless, perhaps a good number would even leave the streets through our housing programs, but end homelessness? Get serious. The best we could do was to manage the problem so it didn’t get totally out of control.
I’d wager to say that my opinion was shared by most public officials, federal, state and local, not to mention by mayors, county commissioners, sheriffs, Democrat and Republican.
All that has changed. It changed because we were persuaded by facts provided by reliable research about the costs of homelessness, and reliable data about solutions. National advocates used these facts and pledged to achieve something social programs rarely do: to produce results.
One of these national advocates was a dynamo named Philip Mangano, from Massachusetts, where he had been a leading advocate for the homeless for many years. I met Mr. Mangano and while impressed with his charisma, I was far more impressed with the facts he wielded: People who are living long term on the streets are not without cost to local government, quite the opposite — they can cost from $40,000 to as high as $100,000 in jail, law enforcement, ER and emergency services. That was a shocking fact, but there it was laid out in a study by a Dr. Dennis Culhane from the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Culhane’s cost study has been verified by nearly every major American city. In Seattle and Portland the cost of these chronically homeless was over $50,000 per person per year. And what did we have after spending all that taxpayer money? Just another person homeless on the streets.
But OK, I asked Philip Mangano, what about solutions? I got an equal shock to see the research on proven programs that could produce lasting results for people we thought were beyond hope. For $15,000 a year or less these same American citizens could be brought into decent housing that was coupled with social services and they would stay off the streets. The data convinced me. Homeless people could and must be given a humane alternative to living in squalor on the streets, and cycling through ER, jail or prison. The solution made humane sense, it made fiscal sense.
But would it work? Could we persuade enough mayors, county executives, city council and county commissions to develop their own local plan to end homelessness in 10 years? Their leadership was crucial. We also knew that homelessness had gotten too big a social problem for a solution to be found among the efforts of the small cadre of social service providers. We knew we needed the leadership of governors and state agency executives if the large state systems like prisons, mental hospitals and foster care systems were to stop discharging people into homelessness. We had the solutions, but could we persuade enough of these leaders to take a stand and make their local systems accountable for results?
Working with the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, HUD took the lead in bringing together federal agencies to work together in support of the development of these local plans. In the Pacific Northwest, we hired a Regional Homelessness Coordinator whose job it was to visit mayors and county commissions in our four states and make the case. He did.
My own experience with Philip Mangano was repeated with an ever-growing number of mayors and county commissioners in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Alaska. County sheriffs quickly produced data from local jails that confirmed the escalating costs of homelessness. The result: a network of local plans throughout Washington State, and local plans underway in nine Oregon counties, with several more starting up this year. Plans underway in Anchorage and Boise, with all four states having governor-appointed executive level councils dedicated to support the local plans to end homelessness.
But when we would get results? It takes a lot of planning to change an entire social service system. How long would it take to fully implement housing-first programs, coordinated entry, PACT case management teams? Could we get our counts of the homeless to be reliable? How long till our homeless management information systems would be operational? Some tough logistical challenges faced these plans and still do.
Portland’s plan (co-led by the city and Multnomah County) was impressive from the start. It had political will, great agencies and determination. An early federal investment of $10 million helped engineer change. The results amazed the mayor, City Commission and County Commission as much as it did me. A 70 percent reduction in chronic homelessness. A 40 percent reduction in the overall street count.
Could this really be true after only two years? I sent out our Regional Homelessness Coordinator to check it out. He took me a little too literally and walked the streets of Portland at 2 a.m. and went under the bridges and through the alleys. He talked with not just city officials but providers such as JOIN and Central City Concern. We found out only later that downtown business owners had already gone to Mayor Potter and asked where so many of the homeless had gone to? Answer: to housing, nearly 1,500 of them in one of the most extraordinary efforts in the country.
Can we get results? Emphatically yes. Do we have a long way to go? Absolutely. Portland can’t stand alone in Oregon. Oregon City, Beaverton, Salem, Eugene, Bend, Albany, McMinnville, Corvallis Medford, Grants Pass and Newport have to develop effective plans as well.
Most of these same plans have strategies to prevent and end the homelessness of families, veterans and youth. HUD continues to invest over half of its homeless funds toward families. Now new research on effective solutions holds the same promise it does for chronically homeless persons; we can create a system that is accountable at every level, that will produce results.
We are determined. We have solutions. We are getting results. We can end homelessness.
