100K Homes Campaign Registry Week Underway in Nashville

Will as I know and love him!

Many of the folks I've worked with for years in the Nashville area are hard at work this morning, busting hump and literally taking names as they scour the city to register our brothers and sisters on the street who continue languishing in homelessness as a direct result of outdated policies and practices.

Fearless leader, former boss, and Executive Director of the Nashville Metropolitan Homelessness Commission Will Connelly put the effort together in conjunction with the 100,000 Homes Campaign and the good peeps at several local organizations, with a notable mention for Ingrid McIntyre and the Open Table Nashville gang. 

Today is day 2 of "Registry Week" and yesterday I understand more than 100 persons experiencing homelessness were interviewed.  Make no mistake, this is tough work that requires real finesse and skill, so while some may think that number is low, take it from someone who has worked a week-long Vulnerability Index interview process, which is essentially what is occurring, it ain't easy.

The difference of the work today when compared to the work Will, I, Becky Kanis, and Park Center did back in 2008 is both significant and considerably refined.  Years of work experience for Will and the 100K team, coupled with a city-wide leadership role for Will this time around, has provided

Original 2008 VI Team Members

Nashville with a "Perfect Storm" of opportunity that this city has never seen before.  The fierce commitment and determination of folks like Ingrid McIntyre at Open Table and dozens of others who've been struggling alongside so many folks on the street to be able to offer something more substantial than socks and a bus pass, and the possibility that Nashville's homeless will actually see some real progress - spell that H O U S I N G - brings real hope of change

60 Minutes film crews have been following the progress of our teams here in Nashville and will be featuring the work of Will and the How's Nashville Campaign in an upcoming show.  If the effort so far is any indication, Anderson Cooper will have some glowing praise for everyone involved.

To my friends and colleagues out there on the streets early this morning, know that current work demands keep me from joining you in person, but in spirit I'm walking alongside each of you in your journey to end homelessness in our city!

How’s Nashville Campaign Registry Week (i.e. Let’s hit the streets – we’ve got work to do!)

April 22, 2013 Dear OTN Family,
The time has come –– Registry Week for the Nashville chapter of the 100,000 Homes Campaign (we’re calling it How’s Nashville) we be conducted May 28 – June 4, and we need your help!
In case you missed the update in our last newsletter, here’s what the 100,000 Homes / How’s Nashville Campaign is all about:
–The 100,000 Homes Campaign is a national effort to house 100,000 individuals who are chronically homeless and extremely vulnerable by July, 2014.
–The How’s Nashville campaign has been and will be driven by incredibly beautiful community collaboration as we work together to bring Housing First to life in our city.This is a model that considers permanent housing as the first form of “treatment” for our most vulnerable friends. People don’t have to be good enough or have their lives together first. They are just given a safe place to live and then surrounded by the services they need to heal and be whole. This way housing is not a reward, but a thing that all people deserve. Yes.
–Nashville is one of 189 cities that have joined the movement. To date, more than 38,000 people have been permanently housed and supported!
 
What is Registry Week?
Registry Week is the official kick-off of the campaign, and we couldn’t be more excited to hit the ground running. During 3 very early morning outings (what a good time for bonding with other members of the OTN family and advocates from around the city!), team leaders and volunteers will survey people who sleep on Nashville’s streets or in campsites in order to determine which folks are among the most medically vulnerable and at risk of dying on the streets if not placed in housing soon. These people will be placed in housing according to the most urgent need.

We Need You!
The campaign leadership team is looking for:
-20 volunteers to serve as team leaders. (Team leaders need to have significant experience with homeless populations.)
-An additional 100 dedicated volunteers who are willing to participate in a volunteer training session and then conduct surveys on three consecutive mornings from 3.30-5:30am. (Volunteers able to survey on all three mornings are preferred, but we will work with you to meet your schedule.)
-After the surveys have been conducted, we’ll need a third group of volunteers to help with data entry.

We are so proud of the work that the Metro Homelessness Commission, area businesses and other service providers from all over Nashville have put into this campaign so far. The energy is catching on, and we’re ready to join in this work with the bold hope that it will change the lives of our friends.
Please sign up HERE to hit the streets with us as a Registry Week volunteer!

Are Public Housing Units Subjected To Random, Warrantless "On Demand" Searches By Police?

Reading the NYT editorial below reminded me of a recent conversation with someone I supported in the transition from street to housing who told me that several days ago, police showed up at his public housing apartment complex and went door to door with a drug dog, ordering people out of their homes and searching - without warrants or probable cause (according to my source)- those units for "contraband."

Upon hearing this, I asked the man why he allowed them into his unit without a warrant?  He stated that "the lease has something in it that allows them to do this."  

I searched our local Affordable Housing provider for a sample lease and found the following at http://www.nashville-mdha.org/pdfs/ModelLease.pdf  Nowhere in this lease did I find anything that overruled a Constitutional Right.

Image courtesy of: http://www.ibj.com/renewal-planned-for-towers/PARAMS/post/1640

By the way, if my recollection of my college Constitutional Law course is accurate, no law, rule, regulation or policy in the entire country can overrule a Constitutional Right, and I don't recall seeing any amendments that say public housing authorities have the right to enter "on demand" any domicile without probable cause or a warrant to randomly search the unit.  

What I believe may be happening, if what I've been told turns out to be true ( I want to make it clear this is an allegation at this point), is that the landlord may be using an extraordinarily broad interpretation to the following lease condition:

12.Inspection By Landlord

It is understood and agreed that Landlord shall have the right to enter and inspect premises at all reasonable times to insure maintenance and safety of the premises.

 
As my friend said, he feels like he's living in a prison cell, where guards have the ability to enter and shake him (and every one of his neighbors) down "at will." 

If his allegation turns out to be true, I would agree completely with him.  I would hope too that even the most passionate hardliner against drugs and criminal activity would pause a moment and consider the ramifications...the slippery slope a policy like this brings to the table for all of us.

Then I would reach immediately out to the ACLU and find a good attorney.

I get that public housing has had its share of serious crime and drug problems, and law abiding residents should not have to live in fear of gangs, dope dealers and the "criminal element."   To that end, rigorous enforcement of existing laws, good lighting and security cameras on the property, careful scrutiny and pre-screening or renters, etc., are all effective tools that can significantly reduce the problems associated with drugs and crime.  Cities all over the country have used these tactics with great effectiveness, and have done so without trampling - hell, stomping - Constitutional Rights in the process. 

But I think a very serious line is crossed when residents with few options for alternate housing are coerced into believing that as a condition of their renting of an affordable housing unit they must open the door on demand and be subjected to police searches without any probable cause and/or a warrant. 

Again, I want to point out that at present, I only have one side of the story and I do not have all the facts on the situation, and I may never get them all.  But if there is any truth whatsoever to the allegation made by a resident that he did indeed endure this situation, it is a very serious issue that should not be taken lightly by any of us.

Editorial

Public Housing as a ‘Penal Colony’

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD

Published: April 2, 2013

New York City’s constitutionally suspect stop-and-frisk program is rightly being hammered in federal courts. Earlier this year, the court ruled in the case of Ligon v. City of New York that the city had violated Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure by illegally stopping people outside of private buildings in the Bronx. In the case of Floyd v. City of New York, which is currently being heard in Federal District Court in Manhattan, the plaintiffs charge the city with illegally stopping and frisking citizens based on race.

A third lawsuit, Davis v. City of New York, challenges the legality of the program in the city’s public housing projects, where residents and visitors say they were illegally stopped or arrested. In a ruling in the Davis case just last week, Judge Shira Scheindlin rejected most of the city’s challenges to the plaintiff’s claims, clearing the way for the case to proceed to trial.

In allowing the case to go forward, the judge noted that jurors might reasonably reach several troubling conclusions about the case. They could decide that the police had adopted unconstitutional policies leading to widespread stops and arrests for trespassing; that the practice resulted from “inadequate training and supervision regarding constitutional standards, and inadequate discipline in responses to violation of those standards”; that the police treat similar crime levels more aggressively when they occur in public housing developments that have a large proportion of African-Americans.

Judge Scheindlin agreed that it was necessary to provide security for public housing developments. But the police’s aggressive stop-and-frisk tactics, she suggested, had taken an emotional toll on many innocent tenants.

She cited the testimony of Reginald Bowman, the president of a public housing resident leadership group, who compared life in the public housing projects under stop-and-frisk to a “penal colony” where law-abiding parents are set upon by the police while going to the store to get milk and cookies for their children.

Instead of belittling the claims of the plaintiffs, the city needs to settle these suits and ensure that police policies adhere to Fourth Amendment guarantees of freedom from unreasonable search and seizure.

"If you want to end homelessness, you've got to house people, as fast as possible. "

Whenever I'm presenting, participating, or listening to talk about ending homelessness, I'm struck by the manner in which so many of us - self included at times - get trapped in the minutiae of delivering services to support the person experiencing homelessness and lose sight of the end goal.

Bottom line: if you want to end homelessness, you've got to house people, as fast as possible. 

Period. 

Rapid Rehousing: Achieving the Greatest Impact in Ending Homelessness        "To build on the legacy of HPRP, we cannot simply celebrate its successes. We have to be willing to learn its lessons. I am asking our grant recipients to...invest an unprecedented percentage of your funding in rapid rehousing...We can have the greatest impact on homelessness by helping people who have just fallen into homelessness quickly get back out by rapidly finding long-term living situations for them."   - HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan, Feb 3, 2012 Message to HUD's Emergency Solutions Grant Recipients on the Importance of Rapid Rehousing

Why are we still writing about the Recovery Act's Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-housing Program (HPRP) if its legacy is no longer news? Communities have been living without HPRP for over a year, but they still have choices today about how to use Emergency Solutions Grant (ESG), Continuum of Care, HOME Tenant Base Rental Assistance (TBRA), Supportive Services for Veterans and their Families (SSVF) and even Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) to dramatically decrease the amount of time people experience homelessness by leveraging these funds for rapid rehousing.  Rapid rehousing is an effective and efficient strategy to help families and individuals quickly move out of homelessness and into permanent housing with appropriate services. Following the demonstrated success of the HPRP initiatives in communities across the country, USICH and HUD have been joined by a growing number of federal agencies that are urging investment in rapid rehousing interventions. Rapid rehousing is an important tool to serve individuals and families who need time-limited assistance to get and keep housing. A rapid rehousing model offers five primary program elements: Immediate intervention and engagement to help households obtain housing; Financial assistance to address barriers to secure housing such as security deposits, utility arrearages, and other one-time costs; Flexible funding for short-term rental assistance typically over a period of three to six months but in some cases for over a 24 month period, as well as intermittently; Case management to link households to mainstream benefits and community supports to help families stabilize and retain housing; Frequent reassessment to adapt provider service engagement levels to the households' needs and strengths. The objective is to minimize the need for ongoing assistance while promoting greater family independence.  Known as progressive engagement, this approach begins with a small amount of assistance initially, while adding more assistance if needed to reach a level of household stability. With the end of the HPRP, communities across the country are reallocating funds to increase their ability to offer rapid rehousing because it is a cost effective and viable tool that allows them to serve more families and individuals. Rapid rehousing offers a way out of homelessness, particularly among families, by increasing turnover in shelters so that communities can improve their ability to serve more families in immediate need of emergency placement without increasing shelter-bed capacity.  Most importantly, rapid rehousing minimizes extended shelter stays that can be stressful for individuals and families with children. The VA's SSVF program, which emphasizes a rapid rehousing approach, demonstrates numerous success stories, such as that of Army Veteran Felipe Medrano and his family. Shortly after entering the Emergency Family Shelter at UMOM New Day Centers in Maricopa County, the Medrano family connected with an SSVF case manager and quickly located affordable housing. This allowed them to minimize their shelter stay and return to safe, stable housing much more quickly. After only three months of incrementally lowered rental assistance, the family was able to pay their own rent and thrive independently. Regarding the SSVF program, UMOM New Day Centers says that it "has been of great benefit to the agencies as it has allowed us to truly assess the needs of our Veteran Families and target resources that are appropriate to the housing and supportive needs of the families." Many communities that have adopted rapid rehousing are experiencing the benefits of these systemic changes.  In an evaluation of their Performance Improvement Clinics in seven communities in four states, one presentation from the National Alliance to End Homelessness shows that the rate of return to homelessness for families served in rapid rehousing is only four percent, compared with 10 percent from shelter and nine percent from transitional housing. Furthermore, 85 percent of exits by families to permanent housing were accomplished with rapid rehousing. For single adults, the percent of exits into permanent housing with rapid rehousing was 75 percent. In Utah, The Road Home operates the largest family shelter in Salt Lake County. Over the past five years The Road Home experienced a significant increase in the number of families seeking shelter. They responded by implementing a rapid rehousing and a progressive engagement service delivery model beginning in October 2009. In September 2012, The Road Home reported that the average cost of supporting a family through rapid re-housing was $4,866, with an average length in the rapid rehousing program of five months. Moreover, their average length of stay in shelter has been reduced from 71 days five years ago to 26 days. Most importantly, since the program began, 87 percent of families have remained housed. The Road Home continues to work with the 13 percent of families that do return to homelessness and helps them get rehoused, often with more intensive service packages. Federal agencies are united in their support of rapid rehousing's demonstrated effectiveness in reducing homelessness and urge communities to continue to adopt rapid rehousing strategies.   Recently, Ann Oliva, Director of HUD's Special Needs Assistance Programs encouraged communities to use ESG for rapid rehousing, reinforcing the key point articulated by HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan released in a video message a year ago.    Earlier this year, the Department of Health and Human Services released an information memorandum on how states can effectively use TANF as a resource to assist families that are homeless or at risk of homelessness, including rapid rehousing. The Department of Veterans Affairs SSVF program invests in rapid rehousing, providing $300 million this year for services and financial assistance to rehouse Veterans and their family members.  While communities respond to sequestration-related and other budget reductions, investing in rapid rehousing is one way to do more with less.  For more information on Rapid Rehousing see USICH's information in the recently launched Solutions Database.

Affordable Housing Still Out of Reach For Many, Especially Families...

Back in 2011, our friends at the National Low Income Housing Coalition provided a superb"industry decoder" for understanding the housing wage and what those of us living in the "low wage" categories are facing as we try to obtain housing. 

Their latest update in 2013 brings a little good news, primarily related to veterans experiencing homelessness, but paints a bleaker picture for those of us trying to find affordable housing for families.

NLIHC Executive Director Barbara Poppe shared that,

"The most recent national report on homelessness found that as a country we are making progress on ending chronic and Veterans homelessness, yet the number of persons in families experiencing homelessness increased. An increasingly tight rental market and the drop in the number of affordable rental units available to extremely low income households is the greatest barrier to achieving our vision that 'no one should experience homelessness, no one should be without a safe, stable place to call home.'”

Amen.

The Housing Wage: Our Industry Decoder

May 25, 2011

By Danilo Pelletiere

Danilo Pelletiere is the Research Director and Chief Economist for the National Low Income Housing Coalition.
For most “housers,” immersed as we are in the deep details of the world of housing and housing policy, a quick, easy to understand and convincing elevator speech isn’t easy to come by.
As a group, we produce a lot of reports on the need for affordable housing. Within these reports are a lot of numbers arranged in a lot of tables, charts and maps. They break down various housing problems by various measures of tenure, cost, location, income and other household characteristics.
To us, the need for this analysis is clear. Housing markets and housing problems vary over time. Similarly, homes, financing and assistance come in bewildering variations to serve varying needs. But this barrage of numbers and policies can be confusing. In response, longtime antipoverty advocate and National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) founder Cushing Dolbeare developed the Housing Wage.
The Housing Wage boils down important concepts – income, housing costs, quality, and location – to a single number. This year the National Housing Wage is $18.46. On average, nationwide a household has to earn at least this amount an hour, working 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year, to afford a modest two-bedroom apartment at HUD’s Fair Market Rent, which includes utilities.
The report Out of Reach provides Housing Wages for every metropolitan area and rural county in the country as well as states and combined non-metropolitan areas. The Housing Wage puts the mismatch between what people earn and the price of a modest home into perspective. There is not a state in the country where the two-bedroom fair market rent is affordable to someone earning the minimum wage. In fact, there is not a county nationwide where the full-time minimum wage can secure a two-bedroom apartment.

Expensive coastal cities tend to have the highest Housing Wages, e.g., the top five are San Francisco, $35.25; Stamford, Conn., $34.83; Santa Cruz, Calif., $33.27; Honolulu, $32.73; and San Jose, $32.73.
While these cities are known for being “unaffordable,” the areas with the lowest housing costs may not be any better for the majority of renters. For example, in San Francisco the average renter in that city is estimated to make 75% of what is needed ($26.40). But in Flint, Mich., with a declining population and falling home prices, the average renter earns $9.45 an hour, 78% of the city’s Housing Wage ($12.08). In Michigan’s rural areas, the relationship is worse; the average renter’s wage ($8.39) is just 70% of the Housing Wage ($12.15). Affordable housing is not a coastal or a big city issue. It is a national issue.
These kinds of wage comparisons provide a simple summary of the more complex information needed to understand housing markets, housing choices and the nation’s lack of affordable housing. Most non-housers will likely still have a lot of questions such as: What about other size apartments? What about multiple wage earners? What is the Fair Market Rent? What is the definition of affordable and modest? Fortunately, Out of Reach provides data and related explanations to help address all these topics, too. But if people are asking these questions, you are past the elevator speech.
These are some talking points from Out of Reach that can also be replicated at the local level

• The national two-bedroom Fair Market Rent (FMR) is $960 per month.
• A household must earn $18.46 an hour or $38,400 annually in order to afford that FMR.
• In 2011, the estimated average wage for renters in the United States is just $13.52, a significant decline from $14.44 in 2010 and well below the Housing Wage.
• Lowest income households working at the federal minimum wage of $7.25 would have to work 85 hours each week, more than two full time jobs, to afford the national average FMR for a one-bedroom home.