Reflections from the front lines serving people experiencing homelessness, living in high heat, reading another HUD NOFO (notice of funding opportunity) that will wreak havoc on services that are working, and managing constant change.
The Weather Channel forecasts high temps this week of 105 degrees on Tues., 107 on Wed., 108 on Thurs., 107 on Fri., and 105 on Sat. There is little cloud cover to block the blinding rays of sun. The pavement is heating up.
This morning, the Keys to Change Outreach Team counted 283 unsheltered individuals in the immediate neighborhood of Key Campus. And Keys to Change, CASS, and St. Vincent de Paul continue to shelter about 900 people per night.
Enforcement of the no camping areas around Key Campus is increased. There are seasonal cooling centers nearby. And as a leadership team at Keys to Change we have challenged ourselves to consider our ability to adjust operating hours, extending where and when possible, to allow more people on the Campus. This provides access to shade, drinking water, restrooms, indoor space… and so last week we started opening the Campus at 5 am and closing at 9 pm. We are looking for ways to extend those hours even more. While we cannot provide indoor overnight shelter for everyone, maybe we can create a refuge for people to be off the streets more hours of the day.
HUD (the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development) released its Notice of Funding Opportunity for the Continuum of Care (CoC) program. Amidst lingering lawsuits, HUD continues to pursue its uninformed approach to spending these congressionally appropriated dollars.
When reading the email that was sent to a massive distribution list on Monday afternoon, I am still struggling to read past the sentence that says:
“This record level of funding is available to communities across the nation to address the root causes of homelessness.”
That is absolutely not what the CoC program does. Maybe the writers of this email do not know the definition of “root cause.” My intelligence is insulted, and reading the 128-page document has so far been impossible for me. Throughout what is typically intended to be a description of a funding application process, is fraught with misinformation, opinion, and more insults to organizations that are faithfully and successfully serving people who are homeless.
Root cause means the primary reason for something…the underlying cause. If a root cause is addressed, a problem is solved.
CoC funding is not for root causes; it is for housing interventions for people experiencing homelessness. This NOFO includes other “Supportive Service Only” items that I won’t get into here. The funding is not even allowable for emergency shelter operations.
Funding for “root cause” would address the primary reasons for homelessness, such as job loss, health and medical conditions, systemic inequality in accessing every basic need service in the country, insufficient wages that meet the cost of living, landlord-friendly laws and regulations that make evictions easy, domestic violence, predatory lending, rental rates, and discharge policies from systems of care.
The Reflections I wrote on March 31 (online April 1), talked about the systems that create an inflow into homelessness. I stated, At the highest level of seeking to “end homelessness” we examine the reasons why people lose their housing and become homeless. Tracking the reasons back to root cause leads us to understanding where people had a life change, planned or unplanned, and where barriers caused them to experience housing instability, and then for many the loss of housing.
The systems I described are foster care, public safety, law enforcement, jail and prisons, corrections, hospitals and healthcare, military and discharge to veteran status. Funding services to these populations and working on discharge plans into housing would be addressing root cause. The CoC program is not in place to fund these systems and services.
On top of that in my skimming of this document I see on page 37 “HUD is defining elderly as 55 and older.” I can’t with this…. I am 56, and I plan to live to 100 – that’s for a different blog. HUD isn’t consistent with itself. Section 202 funding via HUD defines “elderly” as 62 and over.
With the number of inconsistencies and inaccuracies, it is challenging to take any of this seriously. What is serious about the NOFO? Limiting the amount of renewal projects in Tier 1 of two tiers to 60% of the current funded total. This puts people who are in permanent supportive housing at risk of losing that very housing. Not because of anything they have done in the years they have lived independently.
I will finish reading this tome in time to submit our renewal application. And I will have to keep focusing on my breathing, unclenching my jaw, and finding ways to advocate for continuous investment in programs that do work. As well as staying focused to the goal of truly addressing root causes of homelessness. That’s a long process and remains one that is critical if we authentically want to ‘end’ homelessness.
When these NOFOs are released, many in the sector call out their HUD-aches… I feel that.
I also hear the song “No Roots” by Alice Merton in my head. She sings, “And a thousand times I’ve seen this road. A thousand times. I’ve got no roots, but my home was never on the ground.”
This HUD NOFO screams “no roots” for people who were once homeless and now have supportive housing. Pulling that away is a mistake.
