It Begins with Housing

How does our community address homelessness in a way that meets the needs of homeless people and everyone in the community?

Springfield, Massachusetts answered this question and had astounding results: the city went from having 100 homeless people living on the streets to 5 just a few years later. Geraldine McCafferty, Springfield's housing director, told the story of the city's efforts at an IForum this morning at the Lyceum in Hartford hosted by the Partnership for Strong Communities.  

It wasn't all just goodwill that got the city to an aggressive mobilization plan that included business, nonprofit, city, and civic leaders.  Springfield faced a series of crises that pushed them into looking at new ways to use resources and embracing the Housing First approach to move from sheltering people to find permanent solutions for people with no homes.  As McCafferty noted, people will continue to face housing crises, but now Springfield has the muscle and community support to get people in crises into housing and off the streets.  A big driver to get people working seriously to solve this problem was understanding the costs involved to service a homeless individual.  The Partnership for Strong Communities has an eye-opening piece on their website demonstrating a typical homeless person's story:

"Dave Rivera was a successful police officer, public servant, husband, father, and taxpayer. But he became addicted to drugs, which led him to homelessness. In his last year of homelessness, Dave used high cost services that cost governments and the healthcare system over $280,000. What is more, this high-cost revolving door of hospitals, detox, treatment, and run-ins with the police did not stabilize his life.  

Then Dave got the help he needed: supportive housing. Funded by the state’s Pilots Initiative and operated by the Family and Children’s Agency in Norwalk, this supportive housing costs around $26,000." 

The Partnership provides a great one-pager that breaks down all of the costs, showing that placing Dave in supportive housing saved over $250,000.

Greater New Haven can answer the question about how to address homelessness in a way that addresses everyone's needs.  We are rich in innovative providers, businesses, and community leaders.  Understanding the cost savings of moving to Housing First approaches, and away from sheltering, is an interesting place to start.  But any conversation has to consider the greatest housing challenge in our region -- we have a tremendous shortage of affordable housing.  In New Haven, 48% of renter-occupied (31,219 families) housing units (31,219) pay more than 35% of their income on housing costs.  This isn't meeting anyone's needs.  

The whole community pays the cost of a lack of affordable housing.  The region is struggling with the burden of knowing that their children cannot afford to raise families in the communities where they were raised.  It makes the area a less attractive place to live and do business.  It deeply impacts the financial resiliency of lower income families.  The lack of affordable housing is intrinsically connected to the more visible challenge of homeless people living on the streets.  And the less visible challenge of homeless families living in over-crowded housing and stringing together temporary places to stay -- indoors and out -- before they turn to a shelter (if they can get a spot).  If we have the conversation about how we meet everyone's needs -- from businesses to municipal government to families facing challenges -- I think we'd all agree that the vision isn't one of patching together a myriad of social services to serve those in the most desperate situations, but making housing a top priority for everyone.