Some housing advocates as well as everyday citizens point out that more adequate funding would solve America’s homelessness crisis, yet more people are on the streets despite the millions doled out to states every year.
On July 31, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced more than $3.5 billion in competitive funding to homeless services organizations across the country for supportive services and housing programs for people experiencing homelessness.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has invested more than $24 billion across multiple state agencies and departments, including billions of dollars in funding to assist local jurisdictions in providing services and wrap-around support to people living in encampments.
As of January 2023, California had the highest number of people experiencing homelessness in the United States (more than 181,000 people or 0.46 percent of its population) and the highest percentage of unsheltered homeless residents (70 percent, compared to 5 percent in New York), according to HUD.
“The funding is not enough. They’ll put it out there that we’re spending billions and billions of dollars, but you have to offset what the total percentage of that budget is,” said Bilal Mufundi Balagoon, a San Francisco Bay area homeless advocate who was once unhoused.
“In San Francisco, the so-called billions of dollars they’re spending only represents like 2 to 2 1/2 percent of the total budget, but when you look at that, it’s not that much, but that’s still a lot of money, so people look at that, but what they’re actually using is a spit in a bucket,” he told The Final Call.
Mr. Balagoon, other researchers and activists cite a myriad of factors as part of the problem in tackling homelessness, such as a lack of wraparound services, shelters, low-income and truly affordable housing for the poor, and failure to track funding dollars. Structural policies and criminalization of homelessness, not mental health issues, present further challenges, Mr. Balagoon said.
He advocates for supportive housing for people who may have mental and substance issues, versus just giving them keys to houses, and they end up back on the streets.
Supportive housing comes with supportive services, such as individual case management with access to job training, counseling, and more, which allow people to focus on their physical and mental health. Unfortunately, news media oftentimes portray homelessness as mental health and substance abuse issues, but there is more to it, advocates argue.
“Homelessness is a structural issue, building the structure of an economy, but they cannot admit that, because people will question the system,” Mr. Balagoon said. “Homelessness didn’t come out of a vacuum. There is a good cause for this—policies, the high costs of rent.”
Millions of renters are facing higher rental costs, but those most harmed by the crisis are the nation’s lowest-income seniors, people with disabilities, families with children, veterans, and others who pay more than half of their income on rent, according to “Out of Reach: The High Cost of Housing,” a report released June 27 by the National Low-Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC).
Without the resources they need to make ends meet, they are forced to cut back on food, medications, and other essentials to make their rent payment each month, it continued. Further, any financial issue—missing a few days of work due to illness, or a broken-down car—could cause them to fall behind on rent and face eviction and homelessness.
“Because of systemic racism in housing and other sectors, Black and Brown renters are much more likely to be impacted. This year’s Out of Reach report confirms what housing advocates have known for years:
We cannot accept our housing crisis as ‘normal,’ and instead, we must build a nation where everyone has a quality, accessible home they can afford in a thriving, healthy community,” indicates the report.
Out of Reach states it is past time for Congress to pass legislation ensuring every person has a roof over their head, however, that vision requires federal policymakers to have a strong, coordinated effort to advocate for the millions of renters in the U.S.
As a solution, the National Low Income Housing Coalition launched the first-ever congressional caucus to fight for renters and affordable, quality living.
Meanwhile, on Aug. 8, Gov. Newsom threatened to pull funding from cities and counties that failed to clear homeless encampments. That was after the Supreme Court’s decision in the case of Johnson v. Grants Pass that people experiencing homelessness can be arrested and fined for sleeping outside when there are no safe alternatives.
“It’s two-fold. One it’s devastating and on the other stream, I think it can be inconsequential,” said Attorney Sara Rankin, professor of Law at Seattle University School of Law.
The Johnson decision said it is not a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s 8th Amendment, which provides protection to people against cruel and unusual punishment, that it is not a violation of this amendment if cities jail or fine someone for not having shelter when that same city does not have shelter to offer them, she noted.
“You’re punishing someone criminally for not having shelter, even though it’s not their fault. That’s really important to understand. The class was limited to people who are ‘involuntarily’ homeless. And that is, of course, devastating because it says a lot about who we are as a people and how little we value the human dignity of our unhoused neighbors,” Atty. Rankin told The Final Call.
But there is hope, she continued. There are many other tools advocates have to tackle unjust laws and the logical places to start are state constitutions, she said.
“The way that the law works is state constitutions can be more protective than the federal Constitution, but they can’t be less protective,” Atty. Rankin said.
Homelessness is a two-handed issue, she said.
“In your right hand are the programs people typically think of regarding homelessness policies, like the $20 billion investment in affordable housing, programs, etc. The left hand is the hand that enacts and enforces laws that can make homelessness better or worse;
And what happens is, all the time, any progress the right hand would otherwise be making is being undone by the work of the left hand,” Atty. Rankin said.
Gov. Newsom also signed on July 25 two bills—AB 2835 to help create more shelter beds and build more housing units faster to help local communities address homelessness, and AB 3057 to help streamline and jumpstart the process for local governments to permit and facilitate the construction of Junior Accessory Dwelling Units to create more affordable living spaces throughout the state.
These are no more than 500 square feet and are typically bedrooms in a single-family home that have an entrance into the unit from the main home and an entrance to the outside from the unit.
“Okay $3 billion. Right on! That’s great,” stated Adam Rice, executive director of the Washington State-based Human Right to Housing Collective referring to HUD’s recent announcement. “That does not replace the $88 billion that was cut from HUD, and we’re talking in 1981 dollars,” he continued, regarding cuts under former President Ronald Reagan.
“That does not replace that money, which was the cause of the mass homelessness that we see now, the destruction of public housing, the defunding of the Section 8 program. … Homelessness is not the problem. Homelessness is a symptom of the problem, which is neoliberalism,” Mr. Rice told The Final Call.
He argued shelter beds are not permanent housing and advocates, instead, for banning corporate ownership of buildings. He applauded the Justice Department’s lawsuit against RealPage for price-fixing the real estate market.
The complaint, filed Aug. 23, alleges that RealPage contracts with competing landlords who agree to share with RealPage nonpublic, competitively sensitive information about their apartment rental rates and other lease terms to train and run RealPage’s algorithmic pricing software.
Mr. Rice also argued against the criminalization of people experiencing homelessness or mental health issues. He added, “The basis of homelessness is not drugs. It is not mental health. It is not any of those things. It is the thing that causes the disease of drug addiction, mental health and physical health.
That do not allow people to maintain housing in the market, and that is trauma, and that is a system created by old White men who had the cognitive dissonance to write the words, ‘All men are created equal,’ while owning other men.” (Read Part 1 of “Out of house and home: Homelessness in America is a nationwide crisis,” in The Final Call, Vol. 43 No. 47.)
