Tag Archives: homelessness

Homeless Hoosiers

At 4:30 on August 20th, local citizens concerned about homelessness and the city’s thus-far insipid response to that growing phenomenon should plan to attend a showing of Beyond the Bridge. It will be held in Clowes Hall and will be followed by a panel discussion facilitated by Sam Tsemberis–chosen as one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People of 2024–and a founder of “Housing First.”

Homelessness has been spiking around the country, as housing costs have increased and housing supply has failed to keep up with demand. Between 2022 and 2023, the nation saw a 12% increase in homelessness (in major cities, the increase was 15%). There are many facets to the problem: national corporations buying up rental housing and jacking up prices certainly hasn’t helped. Morton Marcus recently noted that the increase in single-person households has also contributed to the scarcity. The situation with affordability is so severe that many people with full-time jobs have found themselves homeless.

The Brookings Institution conducted one of several recent research projects on the issue. All of the studies I’ve seen are consistent with the Brookings conclusion that punitive measures–clearing encampments, making “public camping” illegal, etc.–aren’t just unhelpful, but counterproductive. As the Brookings report notes, Treating homeless people as criminals can actually make both homelessness and crime worse.

So what does work? 

Rather obviously, increasing the supply of affordable housing. 

The cities and regions that have embraced the evidence on housing and homelessness have seen positive results. For instance, when the City of Houston and Harris County provided more than 25,000 homeless people with apartments and houses between 2011 and 2022, they saw a 64% reduction of homelessness during the same time period. After Milwaukee County implemented its housing-first program in 2015, its unsheltered homelessness population decreased by 92%. When the City and County of Denver implemented its Social Impact Bond (SIB) Program in 2016, which provided housing and support services to chronically homeless individuals, 77% of participants maintained stable housing after three years, the usage rates of the city’s detoxification services reduced by 65%, and arrests reduced by 40%. The significant cost savings associated with these reductions in public service usage offset the spending associated with supportive housing.

What is less well-known is the broad-based benefits that smart housing policy can have on another critical—and often conflated—issue facing localities: public safety. A strong body of evidence shows that when people are housed stably, they commit fewer survival crimes like theft, robbery, trespassing, loitering, and prostitution. 

Increasing the supply of housing is a longer-term solution, so the Brookings report also discusses evidence-based short and medium-length measures, including reforms to zoning and land use laws that unduly restrict housing types, strengthening tenant protections, interceding before evictions occur, and reforming other counterproductive policies. (Several other policies are discussed at length, and you really should click through for that discussion.)

As I have previously noted, Indiana’s legislature has been consistently unwilling to help tenants. The churches and nonprofit organizations funding the Clowes Hall presentation will thus focus on what local officials can–and should– do. Again, the research reporting on successful programs undertaken elsewhere suggest that a Mayor’s leadership is critical.

Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett needs to take at least the following steps.

  • Convene a meeting that includes the widest variety of stakeholders and provide them with the data. (Here in Indianapolis, whatever we’ve been doing clearly isn’t working and they need to know that.) Then provide them with the overwhelming research confirming that the solution is housing.
  • From that group–perhaps augmented by academics working on the issue–form a task force. That body should identify what our current approach is missing, what is needed, and what resources will be required. The task force should include service providers, law enforcement, healthcare representatives, and city administrators. 
  • Identify a representative of the city administration to act as a liaison to the task force–someone with the authority to ensure that its recommendations are followed with action. The appointment of such an individual would also be a signal that the city is serious about addressing the problem.

The Mayor should also use the “bully pulpit” of his office, in addition to ensuring that the necessary resources will be provided.

Mayor Hogsett has recently directed a significant amount of energy into efforts to acquire a professional soccer team. Surely eradicating homelessness is at least equally important. (Granted, I’m not a soccer fan…but still!)

Meanwhile, we all need to attend the August 20th Clowes Hall event. The film and panel both promise to be eye-opening. Solutions will be offered–ammunition for lighting a fire under the city administration.

Despite our retrograde legislature, we can end homelessness in Indianapolis.

We just need political leadership– and sufficient political will. 

 

 

 

Comments

San Diego Shames Supreme Court

I’ve previously posted about a number of recent Supreme Court cases that have ignored long-time precedents, cherry-picked history, or otherwise done violence to the philosophical basis of the Constitution and the rule of law. One that I haven’t previously addressed falls into a somewhat different category: it’s just wrong and mean-spirited.

The case–Grants Pass v. Johnson–involved an Oregon city that had passed ordinances prohibiting people from sleeping outside in public using a blanket, pillow or cardboard sheet to lie on, even if those people have no other option, i.e., are homeless.

Those challenging the ordinances relied upon the earlier case of Robinson v. California, which had held that it is “cruel and unusual”  to criminalize a person’s status, but the majority held that Robinson didn’t apply–that the ordinances penalize behavior rather than status. As a result of that analysis, municipalities can do what Grants Pass did, and subject unhoused people to hundreds of dollars in fines and even jail time for sleeping outside, even when the city admittedly lacks enough shelter beds for them.

The decision reversed a far more reasonable opinion by the Ninth Circuit; that Court held that punishing unhoused people for sleeping in public when they have no access to shelter violates the Eighth Amendment’s protection against cruel and unusual punishment.

The ACLU submitted a brief on behalf of the challengers, and issued a statement on the decision.

“It is hard to imagine a starker example of excessive punishment than fining and jailing a person for the basic human act of sleeping,” said Scout Katovich, staff attorney in the Trone Center for Justice and Equality. “As Justice Sotomayor’s dissent powerfully acknowledged, sleep is a biological necessity, not a crime. We cannot arrest our way out of homelessness, and we will continue litigating against cities that are emboldened by this decision to treat unhoused people as criminals.”

The American Civil Liberties Union submitted a friend-of-the-court brief arguing that punishing unhoused people for sleeping outside when they lack access to shelter violates the Eighth Amendment protection against cruel and unusual punishment. As the brief highlights, the original intent and meaning of the Eighth Amendment and its application in more than a century of Supreme Court cases make clear that the government cannot impose punishment that is disproportionate to the crime.

There is obviously a great deal more that can be said about this decision, but the practical reality is that it allows local governments to criminalize a social problem. Allowing municipalities to punish homelessness does absolutely nothing to ameliorate the problem. (For that matter, allowing fines to be assessed is asinine; people who cannot afford a bed don’t have resources to pay fines.)

San Diego takes a very different, and far smarter approach to the issue. People who are unsheltered or living in their cars can access parking lots that have been modified to provide more than just a place to stay.

San Diego currently operates four lots where people living in cars or RVs can park overnight, with access to restrooms, services and treatment.

The H Barracks location adds 190 parking spaces, which will nearly double the capacity of the city’s safe parking program.

It’ll be located on five acres between the airport and Liberty Station, and it would serve the large population of people living in oversized vehicles in the Peninsula area.

 The pet-friendly lot will be open overnight — 6pm-7am — with onsite security, as well as bathrooms and showers, according to the report.

The lots provide onsite services for case management, housing, health care, mental and behavioral health, plus substance-abuse treatment resources, and patrons are prohibited from drug and alcohol use. Registered sex offenders are not allowed.

The Supreme Court’s tone-deaf opinion effectively allowing municipalities to criminalize homelessness is a classic example of hitting people when they’re down. As a matter of law, it is fatally flawed; as a matter of policy, it’s clueless.

Calling homelessness a “behavior” rather than a status suggests that it is chosen–that it represents a decision made by an individual to forego habitation. Allowing local officials to punish unhoused people is simply cruel. As numerous critics of the decision have pointed out, governments cannot punish their way out of homelessness and poverty. What is needed is evidence-based solutions.

Officials in San Diego obviously recognize that. It will be interesting to see whether that city’s innovative approach results in a reduction of the number of homeless, and whether it will develop follow-up measures aimed at more permanent solutions.

Meanwhile, We the People really need to do something about our rogue Supreme Court…

Comments

An Approach That Deserves Emulating

A recent report in the Indianapolis Star focused on the lack of affordable housing in Indianapolis and the state.

The research had been done by SAVI, a program of The Polis Center at IUPUI that partners with United Way of Central Indiana. SAVI is an online community information system that provides data to government agencies and organizations, and maintains a website making that data freely accessible. (The paper no longer has the resources to independently research such matters.)

In Indianapolis, there are only six affordable rentals for every 10 extremely low-income households, and .there are virtually no vacancies in that category units, making it hard–if not impossible– for extremely low-income households to find an available unit.

Since 2017, the city has supported the construction of 3,842 units of affordable rental housing and 887 permanent supportive housing units by private and nonprofit developers, according to an IndyStar analysis of city data. Permanent supportive housing units are a type of housing for formerly homeless people that includes social services and often cover rent with housing vouchers.

Of the affordable rental units, no more than about 744 are reserved for and required to be affordable to very low-income individuals, who are those making $32,000 for a one-person household or $41,000 for a three-person household.

The city has also supported the creation of 333 affordable homes for lower-income households to own.

That still leaves a shortage of 33,600 homes.

Indiana’s legislators evidently took time out from their obsessions with women’s reproduction and CRT to pass  a bill last session creating a new statewide affordable housing tax credit. The city believes that will boost local government’s ability to build low-income housing using the federal low-income housing tax credit program.

The lack of low-income housing and the growth of homelessness are hardly new problems, here or elsewhere. Municipal governments and CDCs (Community Development Corporations) all struggle with the issue, recognizing that the lack of housing feeds into a number of other social ills, especially crime, so I was fascinated to read about an approach being taken by Kansas City that seems promising.

Kansas City began with an intervention aimed at the most dire manifestation: homelessness.

In order to help alleviate homelessness—and to improve the cleanliness of the city—Kansas City’s Public Works department is collaborating with local nonprofits to create new jobs for some people who are unhoused. The employees of the Clean Up KC initiative were paid to pick up litter from underserved inner-city areas for three months. It’s been crucial—not just for keeping the city cleaner, but for improving chances that they find housing, for which employment is a major criteria. At the end of the program, many have moved into housing, and a new cohort of workers will start a new pilot soon.

The approach being tried by Kansas City recognizes the inter-relationship of social problems, and of the challenges faced by folks who have fallen on hard times–or never known any times that weren’t hard.

Crucially, finding housing is often easier with employment, as it’s more appealing for private landlords and sometimes on a list of criteria for public housing. As part of the program, the nonprofits also helped the workers navigate the housing system. “A goal of this is helping them to create a sustainable, successful life,” Parks-Shaw says. “And you can’t do that without housing.”

Research has shown that investments in programs to help people who are unhoused reduces spending for cities—and taxpayers—on healthcare and emergency department visits.

The obvious question about this particular approach is: what happens to these people when the program–and employment–end?

For the program graduates, there may the opportunity for full-time employment. Kansas City’s Full Employment Council will provide the additional training and certification needed to work for the city on a permanent basis. “I see this as a win-win for our unhoused individuals, and a win-win for the city at a time when we’re struggling to fill positions and meet the needs of our community,” Parks-Shaw says.

That paragraph reminded me of long-ago proposals addressing joblessness by making government the “employer of last resort.” 

In Kansas City, providing employment through government addressed much more than homelessness; not only did formerly homeless people find housing, but workers removed litter and piles of trash from city streets, enhancing the municipal environment.

If America ever emerges from the cold civil war and focuses on solving public problems, Kansas City may provide an approach to emulate. 

Comments

About “The Least of Us”….

Sunday sermon time…

Homeless people make most of us uncomfortable. The reasons vary: some people are frightened or intimidated, believing that unkempt and sometimes strange-acting street people pose a physical danger. Others feel guilt over a comparatively privileged status. Still others simply lack compassion and want “those people” to stop cluttering “their” landscape. A San Francisco Catholics Church evidently fell in the latter category.

First the water rained down, and then the condemnation rained down — and on Wednesday, San Francisco’s embarrassed Roman Catholic Archdiocese said it would tear out sprinklers that have been dousing homeless people sleeping in the doorways of its premier church in the city.

I’m sure Jesus would have been proud….

Here in Indianapolis, we haven’t been hosing down the homeless, but we’ve been hosing them in other ways.

As I’ve previously written, last year, a local group of independent filmmakers documented the City’s embarrassing treatment of homeless individuals (and the fact that NO public dollars are spent on programs to help them). The film actually motivated citizens to demand action by the City County Council–and the Council responded by passing a “Homeless Bill of Rights.” (Can we spell “democracy in action”? Very encouraging.)

Then the Mayor vetoed the ordinance.

The “usual subjects” defended the Mayor’s veto, because (wait for it) the constitution already gives homeless folks these rights. (Which were being so carefully observed by local authorities…)

The Huffington Post has an interesting report on the veto, under the headline: Hoosier Reputation Taking a Beating. (That’s a bit unfair–thanks to our legislature, our reputation is already pretty badly damaged….)

Prior to the historic vote and once humanitarian arguments were set aside, both sides debated the cost of granting equal rights to persons without housing. Opponents of the HBR feared high litigation costs should persons experiencing homelessness file lawsuits demanding equal access to public places.

I hate to point out an inconsistency here, but if homeless folks already have these rights, then they also already have the right to sue. And I haven’t noticed any “flood of litigation” over the City’s constant violation of those rights.

Proponents of the HBR cited statistics proving the cost of incarcerating the persons experiencing homelessness — something that is done now because homelessness is effectively illegal in Indianapolis — makes the HBR a cost saving measure.

We can argue costs and abstract rights until the cows come home, but I can’t get one scene from the documentary out of my head: the police trashing the pathetically few possessions of homeless people in an encampment that had become a sad but supportive “community”–throwing into dumpsters the books, chairs, tents and other items that these down-and-out folks had managed to hold onto, and telling them to scatter, to “go somewhere else.”

But not telling them where, because in Indianapolis, there are few, if any, places to go.

Comments

Save the Date

I’ve written before about  Uncharted: The Truth Behind Homelessness.

The film focuses on how Indianapolis deals with its homeless population. It illuminates the issues that all major cities have to confront about their homeless citizens: downtown panhandling, homeless camps in the way of urban gentrification, underfunded human services, and endless debates over whether local government has an obligation to provide services to homeless people and if so, the nature of those services.

You won’t be surprised to learn that Indianapolis doesn’t do very well dealing with these issues–which may be why Mayor Ballard has thus far refused filmmakers’ invitations to view the documentary. That’s too bad; I have seen it twice, and I can attest to the fact that it is meticulously even-handed; interviews with a number of City representatives are included, and there are no “bad guys” hung out to dry.

Plus, it is a really gripping, well-done film.

The filmmakers, A Bigger Vision, have invited the community to attend one of two free screenings at the IMA on August 30th, at 1:00 pm and 4:00.

You can get tickets here.

You can see a trailer here.

The issues are anything but simple, and (despite the Mayor’s evident fears) their treatment is non-accusatory. Anyone concerned with the quality of life—let alone the quality of mercy– in Indianapolis should make an effort to attend one of the upcoming showings.

Comments