Slip slidin' away, or getting ready for a new day?

By G. Robert Hohler, Melville Charitable Trust

"Slip slidin' away, Slip slidin' away, The nearer your destination,
the more you're slip slidin' away."

-- Paul Simon

First, the encouraging news: Homelessness Counts, from the National Alliance to End Homelessness, reports the latest compilation of homeless "point in time counts" from communities across the country. From 2005 to 2007, a time of increased commitment by states and communities toward ending homelessness, the trend lines were moving down:

• Homeless families with children went from 303,524 to 248,511 - a significant decrease of 18%.
• The decline in the number of chronically homeless individuals was even more dramatic; from 171,192 to 123,790- a drop of nearly 30%.

So, prior to the economic meltdown, communities across America were beginning to register significant progress in the fight to end homelessness. A growing array of studies have shown that strategies and approaches that include supportive housing, prevention, rapid re-housing, and targeting have been having a cumulative and cost effective impact.

The point is, when resources from the private and public sectors are made available, we can make substantial and lasting progress -- we know what works.

Now, the bad news that comes with the foreclosure crisis and a rapidly deteriorating economy: the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities just released a telling new study on the rapidly increasing number of homeless families with children. A few of the examples cited by the report:

• From July to November 2008, compared with the same period in 2007, the number of families entering New York City homeless shelters jumped by 40 percent.
• Massachusetts reported a 32 percent increase between November 2007 and November 2008 in homeless families residing in state-supported emergency shelters.
• In Connecticut, family homeless shelters turned away 30 percent more families due to lack of bed space in September 2008 than in September 2007.
• Hennepin County, Minnesota reported a 20 percent increase between the first 10 months of 2008 and the comparable period in 2007 in the number of homeless families in emergency shelters.

These figures, along with continued dire news on jobless claims and unemployment, put into stark focus the immediate need for increased funding for homeless individuals and families within the Obama Administration's new economic recovery package. As reported last month, a broad coalition of nonprofits led by the Alliance and the National Low Income Housing Coalition is working tirelessly on behalf of the nation's homeless to ensure that these resources are included within the new legislation.

This is not going to happen without a great deal of visible support from those who care about ending homelessness - and that certainly includes those of us who are making grants and supporting the efforts of providers, nonprofit developers and community activists. Even with friends, we must take nothing for granted. We have to make a strong argument for pressing forward with the programs and approaches we've refined and developed over this past decade and a half. And this brings us to one last point: advocacy works.

It's not an accident that where we've made a significant dent in homelessness you will find enlightened and tough minded funders who have encouraging policymakers and providers to change systems, integrate effective strategies, implement evidence based practices into their programs to end homelessness. These same funders have been strong advocates with elected officials to gain the commitment of public dollars from the cities, counties, states and federal governments.

We are now at a crucial point. We must make sure that jurisdictions at every level adopt, support and promote the proven solutions, rather than fall back into short term fixes - open an armory to house the homeless overnight, put families up in motels and hotels. Instead, we must ensure that they continue to invest in permanent housing and accessible, relevant services that help people achieve self sufficiency. We need government to consider the "double payoff" of a stimulus plan for housing and social service programs, as described by Paul Grogan and Eric Schwarz in the Boston Globe.

Clearly, focusing only on long-term solutions is not as simple as it seems - there are many communities with emergency needs out there, and in some cases emergency responses are warranted. But to lose sight of our recent history's solutions-oriented, results-based - and results-achieved - approaches would surely cause us to slip slide away from our goal of ending homelessness.

G. Robert Hohler
Chair, Executive Committee
Executive Director, Melville Charitable Trust