2019-2022

BRIEF REPORTS FROM 2019 to 2022

*************************************************************************

HUD awards 2.6 billion for CoC Homeless Assistance

(March 2022) HUD has released the list of project grantee awards that total $2.6 billion under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act.  A complete list of awards from the 2021 grant process can be found HERE.

The 5 CoCs with the largest awards were Los Angeles ($155M), New York City ($145M), and Chicago ($86M), Seattle ($53M), and San Francisco ($51M).  The average CoC award was $13.7M with a median award of $2.5M. 

*****************

Why the PIT does not tell the full story

(June 2021) Each year, HUD releases the PIT homeless count as if this is a measure of how well Homeless Housing Continuums are performing.  This could not be farther from the truth.  First, the PIT includes people who are living in housing (what is called emergency or transitional) and people living in unsheltered locations.  These situations are completely opposite housing situations - one is housing, one is not.

People in housing labelled by the government as emergency or transitional receive more amenities than people living in government subsidized housing. The only basic difference is the lack of private space.  Lack of privacy is a late 20th century value-laden characteristic of housing in most, but not all, developed countries that has little in common with the notion of a permanent and safe dwelling. A full discussion of the need for privacy as a requirement for permanent housing is beyond the scope of this brief.

The second problem of the PIT is the failure to include the bulk of housing services provided by Continuums and funded by the Federal Government, namely, Permanent Supportive Housing, Rapid Re-Housing, and Other Permanent Housing situations.  These three categories of housing nearly equal the total of PIT-reported housing.  From the 2021 PIT Count, we have the following totals:

Total Permanent Housing                     511,809 (47%)
    PSH                                 346,389
    RRH                                 122,908
    OPH                                   42,512

Total "Homeless" Housing                       354,386 (32%)
    Transitional Housing            72,484
    Safe Haven                                  1,986
    Emergency Housing            279,916 
   
TOTAL HOUSING                                  866,195
UNSHELTERED                                     226,080 (21%)
TOTAL                                                  1,092,275
% HOUSED                                               79.3%

The full story of Continuum Housing shows that 79.3% of persons served are currently housed including 47% living in government-funded Permanent Housing.  Only 21% of persons identified by Continuums are living unsheltered.  This total also includes an unverified number of persons living in RVs.  The %Housed number for each of the geographic categories of Continuums are:

Major City                    78.5% 
Largely Urban            84.2%
Largely Suburban     82.8%
Largely Rural              73.8%

While Major Cities contain more than half of the individuals defined as homeless including over half of those defined as unsheltered homeless, they actually outperform Largely Rural areas with respect to the percent of persons who are receiving some form of housing (78.5 vs. 73.8%).  Largely Urban CoCs (84.2%) and Largely Suburban CoCs (82.8%) have the two highest housing rates.  Major City CoCs outperform Rural CoCs primarily due to the significant number of Permanent Housing options funded by HUD and local governments.  Rural CoCs have few homeless persons but have much fewer resources.

The NHIP reminds that unsheltered homeless prevalence is largely unrelated to the efficacy of Continuums.  Key determinants of unsheltered homelessness include:  1) Winter weather conditions, 2) Number of multiple-adult families, 3) Presence of restricted HUD or VA housing subsidies, and 4) Other socio-cultural characteristics of geographic areas.

CoC Housing Rankings:  The Full Picture

The NHIP has developed two types of CoC housing performance rankings:  1)  Percentage Housed - as described above which is calculated by one minus the number of persons unsheltered as estimated by the PIT divided by the total housed (ES,TH,SH,PSH,RRH,OH) plus the unsheltered count, and 2)  Housing Score which allocates points based on the type of housing setting with 10= Permanent Housing (PSH,RRH,OH); 9 = Safe Haven, 7=Transitional Housing, 3=Emergency Housing, and 0=Unsheltered.  The total score is divided by the total possible score if all persons were in permanent housing. 

Theses rankings provide a more comprehensive understanding of the homeless housing system in Continuums as opposed to the limited focus on persons unsheltered or in Continuum "shelter" housing.  The full results for PERCENTAGE HOUSED and HOUSING SCORE is available.

* * * * * *

New Orleans ranked #1 in SPM performance

(December 21, 2020)  The New Orleans CoC led the SPM rankings among the 48 Big City Continuums for the 3rd straight year with an overall score of 17 out of 18 representing high performance in 5 of 6 categories and average performance in one SPM category (income increases).  The NHIP compiled the 2019 ranking from SPM data submitted by CoCs to HUD for the period Oct 1, 2018 to Sept 30, 2019.  The top ranked (in order) CoCs include:

1.  New Orleans (17)
2.  Virginia Beach (16)
3.  Denver (15)
4.  Miami-Dade (15)
5.  Detroit (15)
6.  Seattle (15)
7.  Portland (15)
8.  Long Beach (15)
9.  Jacksonville (15)

The NHIP scores CoCs on six key SPM in three tiers (High, Avg, Low Performance).  Delineation between raw scores is based on adjustments by program stay length and empirical totals from the 5 percentage measures.  The many weaknesses including incomplete HMIS participation, large variation in Outreach efforts among CoCs, and general data errors precludes the wisdom of further refinements of the rankings at this point. 

The NHIP provides these general measures with an emphasis on the 3 tiers not on individual rankings.  Whether Detroit is doing a better job than Portland is not really an answer that the measures can accurately give.  The ranking do provide comparisons that can giveimpetus for CoCs to improve performance in areas and see how their performance compares with other CoCs. 

Tier scoring for each of the six measures uses the following cut-offs which have remained relatively stable for the last three years.

Measure 1:  Median Program Days

3= 90 days or fewer
2 = 91 to 180 days
1= More than 180 days

Measure 2:  Homeless Recividism (24 months)

3 = 15% or less
2= 16 to 29%
1 = 30% or greater

Measure 3:  Income Increases (both stayers and leavers)

3 = 50% or higher
2=  30 to 49%
1 = Below 30%

Measure 4:  Outreach successful discharges

3 = 50% or higher
2= 30 to 49%
1 = Below 30%

Measure 5:  Permanent Housing Placement

3 = 70% or higher
2= 31 to 69%
1 = Below 30%

Measure 6:  Permanent Supportive Housing retention

3 = 95% or or greater
2= 90% to 94%
1 = Below 90%

The NHIP welcomes any discussion or feedback on the SPM measures via email at NHIPData@gmail.com.

* * * * * 
2019 SPM Rankings of Smaller Urban Areas 

The NHIP also completed rankings of 49 Smaller Urban Areas that had complete data on all measures.  Thirteen CoCs did not report any Outreach data and were excluded from the analysis.   The Top Tier Smaller Urban CoCs included:

#1 Newport New/Hampton VA
#2 Sioux City ND
#3 Fort Collings CO
#4 Tallahassee FL
#5 Portsmouth VA
#6 Alexandria VA
#7 Oxnard CA
#8 Kalamazoo, MI
#9 Burlington VT
#10 Durham NC
#11 Cambridge MA
#12 Bakersfield CA
#13 Lansing MI
#14 Grand Rapids MI
#15 Bridgeport CT

 

* * * * * 
EDITORIAL:  Racism and Homelessness by Michael Ullman, NHIP Publisher

In a recent request for input to guide a new committee to address homelessness among Black San Diegans, the Regional Task Force on Homelessness wrote:

"In the 2020 Point-In-Time Count, Black people made up 21% of the unsheltered population and 30% of the sheltered population, while only making up 5.5% of the County’s general population.  This is the result of systemic racism and a history of racial oppression in our nation and community. "

The NHIP feels it is necessary to address these type of statements of causality because they intertwine cold hard facts (racism against Black Americans) with  oversimplified explanations of outcomes.  The NHIP realizes it is difficult to attempt to clarify - let alone argue - such statements, because they are often read as denials or minimizations of historical and current racism.  It is important, however, because if the end goal is to reduce the disparity, in this case homelessness, then a need to understand the proximal factors that create the situation must be illuminated.  One can never prove that racism is not a factor, even if a singular Black person believes that to be the case for herself, because the condition existed and is temporally associated with the outcome.  

NHIP research identifies the following primary factors that overwhelming cause the overrepresentation of Black Americans among the homeless:

High rates of single adult families with children - between 2 to 3 fold compared to non-Black households.  Single adult households, with or without dependent, are the primary causal factor for homelessness.  HUD states in the 2019 AHAR that one-person households have a 5-fold over-representation. Homeless statistics need to better illuminate this issue for all ethnicities.
Perverse restrictions in housing subsidy programs (Public Housing, Section 8, Shelter Plus Care, SHP, VASH) that effectively prevent persons with these vouchers from allowing other family members or friends to live with them.  The more people of any ethnicity with a restricted voucher, the more persons of that ethnicity or community will be cut-off or face insurmountable barriers to natural support networks. The 1968 Brooke Amendment which brought these rules into existence has likely caused more homelessness than any other federal housing policy.
Draconian regulations in federal housing that do not allow persons with criminal backgrounds into federal housing programs.  This has had a particular pernicious effect on males and males spouses in the Black community over the past 50 years.
Black Americans are over-represented in housing subsidy programs (3 fold) and thus more Black households are impacted by these perverse housing regulations - of which problems #2 and #3 work to impact condition #1.

Other factors such as substance abuse, mental illness, veteran status are equally problematic among the White populations, so while these are important covariates, they are not necessarily unique to Black Americans. Tackling Condition #1 cannot be addressed directly since it is a socio-economic byproduct heavily influenced by the new norms that prioritize having your own place. The NHIP argue that Conditions #2 and #3 could be changed and would have a large effect on reducing homelessness. 

Tackling the problem of income inequality is also beyond the scope of homeless and housing services.  One must remember that there is not a direct correlation between income and homelessness.  Women have far less income than men, yet they experience unsheltered homelessness at 1/3 the rate.  Women access natural supports more often.  Ultimately , that is what men, both Black and White, need to be able to achieve to permanently reduce the race and gender gap in homelessness.

The NHIP realizes the necessity of having statements like the one by San Diego as more of a statement of solidarity concerning the issue, rather than a scientific explanatory model.  That said, it is also important to tackle current policies that continue to impact Blacks and cause too many to experience homelessness.

People must also realize that  living homelessness today, even more so than 20 years ago, has become a normative housing option - especially for people in warm weather climates.  When behaviors become normative, it is difficult to change these habits in a society with protected civil rights.  In a strict Marxist sense, one could argue that some Blacks and Whites are exercising their civil rights to be free from any societal rules  (zoning, housing codes, paying rent)  - their homelessness merely being a form of civil disobedience.

With this in mind, the NHIP offers a different statement that San Diego or others could employ that does not minimize racial oppression but underscores factors that must be addressed:

"Addressing the over-representation of Black Americans among the homeless population requires prioritization due to the systemic racism and history of racial oppression in our country.  Policies and economic impacts that have weakened too many households in the Black community must be changed to reduce this grave disparity."

The NHIP

* * * * *
2018 CoC System Performance Measures Rankings show high performers, improvers and strugglers

(May 20, 2020) The NHIP has completed its 2018 Rankings of CoCs based on key HUD System Performance Measures.  These data are the most recent publicly released data and cover the period from Oct 1, 2017 to Sept 30, 2018.  Six measures were included:

Median Stay in Days (Emergency Shelter/Safe Haven)   (CoC Median 29 days)
Homeless Recidivism - 24 months  (CoC Avg 19.4%)
Increased Income (Stayers and Leavers) (CoC Avg 35%)
Successful Outreach Exits  (CoC Avg 36%)
Successful Placements in Permanent Housing (all programs) (CoC Avg 42%)
Permanent Supportive Housing retention (CoC Avg 96%)

Rankings are divided by HUD's three CoC types:  Big Cities, Balance of Sheet/Statewide, and Smaller Cities/Rural/Suburbs.  Scoring for each measure uses thresholds with scoring of high, medium or low (2,1,0).  Scores range from 0 to 12.  For more on the methodology, please read the full 2017 CoC Ranking Report.  

 Due to the limitations of the HMIS data, this summary grouping is thought to be the best approach. Many CoCs do not operate programs in certain areas (Outreach, Permanent Supportive Housing, Emergency Shelter) that negatively impact their scoring.  The NHIP recommends using this rankings to identify areas of needed improvement and providing a general understanding of how well their fare compared to peers. 

Below are the top performers for each CoC class and the full ranking of all CoCs for each rank.

BIG CITIES  RANKING LIST:  Top CoCs: New Orleans, Miami; Big Improvers:  Denver, Detroit

BALANCE OF STATE LIST:  Top CoCs: Mississippi, Kentucky, Nevada;  Big Improvers: Alabama, Oklahoma, Michigan

SMALL CITIES:  Top CoCs:  Slidell/Southeast LA, Overland Park KS Big Improvers: Lynchburg, VA, Roseville/Placer, CA, San Luis Obispo, CA.

A couple important notes include:

1) Outreach Exit performance is heavily dependent on the extent of outreach programs in a CoC.  The collection of more outreach data (unsheltered persons) may also bias recidivism upward compared to CoCs that do not enter much or any outreach discharges in the HMIS.  Similarly, those with little outreach or outreach that is not linked to placement will score low on this measure.

2)  Recidivism is also impacted by the type of housing programs offerred, since emergency shelters will have high rates of recidivism compared to transitional and permanent facilities.  This is another reason why ES are not an effective solution.  In addition, the lack of substantial outreach that documents unsheltered episodes may bias recidivism downward since data on persons living unsheltered is not collected in their HMIS.

3)  HUD notes that the use of SPM results should be used with discretion due to many changes including changes in HMIS providers and data transfer issues, 

4)  Most CoCs do not have 100% HMIS participation with their housing facilities listed on the Housing Inventory Chart.  CoCs with a higher participation rate may be bias upward or downward due to the exclusion of key facility data.

You can contact the NHIP at nhipdata@gmail.com for any request concerning these rankings.

 

* * * * * 
Dear Marc Benioff, CEO Salesforce:

You have donated $30 million for a Research Institute on Homelessness at the University of California at San Francisco.  You have personally lobbied for hundreds of millions of dollars in additional state and local funding for housing and homeless services for San Francisco, the Bay Area and the State of California.  Those efforts are appreciated.

The NHIP offers the following action steps needed if you want to help the public better understand the problem of homelessness and improve services with the hope of reducing, but not ending, street homelessness.

1.  Improve the accuracy and increase the frequency of street counts.
 
How effective could you be in leading Salesforce if you only received financial statements every two years?  Currently, San Francisco, Oakland and several other Bay Area Cities only conduct a homeless street census every two years without any check for accuracy.  This is below the standard of most cities who complete an annually count.  Given the urgency of the problem, unsheltered counts should be done quarterly (if not monthly), including recounts for accuracy, especially in key areas with a high density of street dwellers (e.g. Mission, SoMa and Tenderloin) with results disseminated widely.  These counts also need to be completed by trained professionals - not volunteers receiving 45 minutes of training or overworked case managers who already have a full-time job. 
 
2.   Improve your monthly HMIS reporting

Currently, the reporting from the HMIS is below standard. Only 56% of the emergency and transitional beds and 73% of Permanent Supportive Housing units are reporting data into the HMIS system.  How could you make decisions about Salesforce with only half of your departments reporting?  The monthly reports produced by the homeless department continue to be lacking in necessary data needed for decisions.  I challenge you personally to improve this aspect of homeless reporting for SF.  Here is the latest January 2020 report.  If you read it, you will see. If you need assistance, the NHIP can explain what is missing. I do not blame the current staff,  because they do not have the skill and training to produce rigorous reports.  Salesforce is all about timely data analytics. Let's make that a goal for SF homeless reports.

3.  Stop opening Emergency Shelters (aka Navigation Centers)

The Emergency Shelter, call it what you want, is the failed solution of the 1980s and 90s.  This is why HUD provides zero Continuum funding for these shelters.  All Emergency Shelters should be closed or converted to permanent housing.  If you read the monthly report, you will see that the success rate from these Navigation Centers is less than 15% with most clients just returning to the streets.  The fundamental flaw of homeless services is asking a person who has come in from the streets to leave the shelter and go to a "better" place.  Upper-class people may not think a shelter or congregate living is permanent, but for many people it is good enough.   Do not kick people out just because they stay a long time. This is a good solution for them until THEY decide to move on.

4.  Explain to the public that the lack of affordable housing does not cause homelessness

Please understand that affordable housing does NOT cause homelessness.  The primary engine for homelessness is the formation of one adult households without sufficient resources.  Most adults without resources live with other adults.  This is why homelessness is not significantly higher.  Any functioning household who cannot afford housing will move somewhere else or move in with family or friends.  Laws, federal regulations and societal trends that fuel the creation of these one-adult "deformed" households need to be addressed.  Currently, an individual with a housing subsidy cannot allow another family member or close friend to come live with them.  These types of regulations are anti-family and anti-community and a big part of why we have such high levels of homelessness..

5.  Prioritize shared-housing - the normative housing for most SF residents - for current homeless persons.

SF has 8,600 permanent supportive housing vouchers/subsidies that each support one adult.  The norm for middle-to-lower income persons in San Francisco and the world is shared housing - whether that is 4 Ivy League grads sharing a house or 3 tech coders sharing a 3 bedroom apartment.  SF and other Bay Area homeless services needs to prioritize the development of shared-housing opportunities for any new or re-opened voucher.  This can create 50 to 100 percent more housing opportunities with the same amount of funding.  Only a very small percentage of homeless persons clinically require their own apartment, most can and many thrive in shared-living situations. Shared-living is how most people make it in San Fran. It is both appropriate and beneficial for social animals like humans.

6. Explain to the public you cannot end homelessness unless you want a police state

Stalin and Hitler ended homelessness.  In the US, we have civil rights that allow persons to occupy public spaces. How much space is between the community and the constitution. These same civil rights allow people to own a gun, marry same sex partners, practice their religion, and seek justice for crimes.  To a large extent, persons living in public urban space is a social movement that says "F-You" to the wealthy who also enjoy the same city.  We can do better, but we should not even attempt to end homelessness and people need to understand the reasons. 

You have made a good start by hiring two medical professionals to take on the leadership of the Center.  Homelessness is co-morbid with a high prevalence of serious disabilities and chronic health conditions.  As we know, living on the streets is associated with a shorten life expectancy of 10 to 15 years. 

The Center needs to add to its arsenal diversity in the understanding of the roots causes of homelessness (not affordable housing), the analytics required to monitor progress, and the creativity to apply normative housing solutions to quicken the pace of action.  Unfortunately,  the Science of Homelessness is currently at a Second Grade level. We need to improve it enough to earn a High School diploma, and by doing so, improve the homeless situation and the public's understanding of homelessness in both SF, the greater Bay Area and the Nation.

Thank You 
Michael Ullman, Ph.D. 
National Homeless Information Project
808-391-7963
nhipdata@gmail.com
mdarrenu@yahoo.com

* * * * *
Transitional Housing masks true rise in homelessness

(January 2020)  The recent release of 2019 PIT Count Data show a total one-day estimate of 567,715 residing at shelters or living unsheltered.  This total includes 77,095 persons living in transitional housing (including Safe Haven facilities).  The NHIP no longer defines people living in  Transitional housing  as homeless since it needs to be understood and defined as permanent housing.  The continued inclusion of persons in transitional housing has also worked to mask significant increases in homelessness over the past several years due to increases in emergency shelter counts and unsheltered estimates.  The graph belows shows the HUD totals and the NHIP homeless totals adjusted without persons living in transitional facilities (including Safe Havens)>

Two differences can be seen comparing the two definitions.  First, the reported decrease in homelessness from 2013 to 2016 was fueled by the reduction of transitional housing facilities.  HUD efforts over the last decade to eliminate transitional housing funding has worked to reduce the transitional housing bed capacity from over 200,000 to less than 100,000 currently.  Similarly, the PIT count from transitional housing has more than halved during the period.

The second trend from the graph is the rapid increase in homelessness since 2016.  The last three years have seen the NHIP-defined homeless count rise 14% from 430,663 to 490,620.  This trend has been fueled by the steady increase in new emergency shelters throughout the country and the rise in the unsheltered estimate especially over the past two years.

The NHIP has compiled a state-by-state comparison between HUD and NHIP homeless counts for 2019 for each of 56 states and territories.

* * * * * 
Unsheltered Count rises 8 percent to highest level since 2012

CLICK HERE for a state-by-state unsheltered count comparison between 2018 and 2019.

* * * * *
Over 6,000 homeless veterans counted in communities that "Ended Veterans Homelessness"

(Novembe 2019)  An analysis of the 80 communities that have been designated by HUD and promoted by the USICH as having ended homelessness show a total of 6,029 homeless veterans including 1,492 unsheltered veterans found in 64 communities.  There are 16 CoCs that report no homeless unsheltered veterans including Alexandria, VA, Bergen County, NJ, Reading, PA and Nashua, NH.

The analysis performed by the NHIP did show that these 80 communities achieved better progress comparing 2018 with 2019 with an average decline of 4.3% comparing a decrease of 1.7% of the other 320 CoCs.

The NHIP continues to advocate for the elimination of the label of "Ending Veteran Homelessness" since it is a false notion that is contradicted by the data and represent a slap in the face to any veteran who may be experiencing homelessness in these communities.  It is fine to acknowledge communities that have built effective systems that minimize homelessness and the length of homelessness by veterans.  Calling these efforts "Ending Homelessness" is akin to G.W. Bush's infamous "Mission Accomplished"call that the Iraq war had ended in 2003.

CLICK HERE for a complete list of the 80 communities analysis.

CLICK HERE for a complet list of 2019 Veterans Homeless by State.