As federal housing officials ramp up funding to end homelessness through permanent housing support, local nonprofit organizations are seeing plummeting funding for transitional housing.
For the fiscal year beginning in July, the Tucson Pima Collaboration to End Homelessness — which applies for and distributes federal funding on behalf of local programs for the homeless — lost $600,000 worth of transitional housing programs from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. That equates to a loss of about 190 beds.
“We may see more families having to live out of their vehicles,” said Patti Caldwell, chief executive officer of Our Family Services, one of the local nonprofits that utilize the HUD funding. “We may see more families who are literally on the street because we don’t have that resource any more.”
But some advocates say HUD’s funding decisions make a lot of sense.
For years, HUD has been shifting its focus from transitional to permanent housing, which homeless people can receive quickly and indefinitely, without conditions attached. The options are known as “permanent supportive housing” — geared toward homeless people with a disabling condition, like serious mental illness — and “rapid rehousing,” more often benefiting families who incrementally take over their subsidized lease as they are stabilized.
Research shows these interventions are more cost-effective, and have the same or better success rates, than transitional housing, HUD officials say. Transitional housing provides rental assistance — plus wraparound services like job training and case management — for up to two years before a client must move on.
Transitional housing is ideally a steppingstone, but there are typically strings attached, said Tom Litwicki, board chairman of the Tucson Pima Collaboration to End Homelessness. Clients must get sober, get on needed medications and meet other requirements before they qualify for transitional housing. Then if they follow the rules there, they can qualify for permanent housing, Litwicki said.
Those requirements can lead to lots of wasted resources, he said.
“People with the most significant problems typically don’t make it through those first few steps. They wash out and they never make it to permanent housing,” he said. “They keep cycling out of shelters and transitional housing, again and again.”
HUD now recognizes the stabilizing effect of providing housing upfront, without making clients jump through hoops, said Ed Cabrera, a HUD spokesman.
“A permanent home shouldn’t be the prize. It should be the first form of intervention,” he said.
This year, about $1.6 million of the nearly $8.2 million in HUD grants awarded to the Tucson Pima Collaboration to End Homelessness has been shifted from transitional housing programs to permanent housing, Litwicki said. The area will net a gain of 90 permanent supportive housing beds locally.
“HUD’s priorities make sense,” Litwicki said. “They first want to get people off the streets who are most vulnerable and most in need.”
CONTINUUM-CARE change
Still, advocates worry about losing one component of the local continuum of care for the homeless, whose needs aren’t easy to categorize into neat boxes.
“HUD appears almost to be saying by their funding decisions, ‘We’re not sure there’s much need for transitional housing at all,’“ said Caldwell of Our Family Services. “In the meantime, families and youth are getting left out of this.”
Beginning in July, Our Family Services will have $200,000 less in grant funding that largely supported transitional housing, she said. The organization is cutting two case-management positions in transitional housing because of the reductions.
Litwicki said transitional housing is an important resource for recently released prison inmates. But he argues the Arizona Department of Corrections should be responsible for subsidizing it. The DOC does provide some housing assistance, but it’s not enough to address the needs of 20,000 people released annually, he said.
OVERALL DECREASE
This year’s overall dip in HUD funding for local homeless housing programs — which equates to about $350,000 — can be blamed in part on weaknesses in grant applications, based on past performance, Litwicki said. Despite the enormous need, last year Tucson recorded vacancy rates ranging from 17 to 24 percent in transitional and permanent housing, Litwicki said. There are many reasons for vacancies: Sometimes tenants get evicted or choose to leave their housing unit without notifying the agency subsidizing their rent. Sometimes a participating landlord is reluctant to accept a referred tenant.
But the problem often comes down to agency coordination and the complexity in matching the complex needs of the homeless to the appropriate service, he said.
Failing to utilize all local resources is a big problem when courting HUD dollars, Litwicki said.
“How do we convince HUD that we need more money or that we need to protect our transitional housing when we’re not even filling the beds we have?” he said.
BRIDGES PROGRAM
Anticipating HUD’s changing priorities, city of Tucson officials this year opted to replace the “Bridges” transitional housing program with permanent housing.
That means about 60 people living in Bridges housing were notified recently that they will have to leave by the end of June. The vast majority will receive a Section 8 voucher to replace their lost benefits and will be allowed to bypass the nearly 15,000-person Section 8 waiting list, said Sally Stang, director of the city’s Housing and Community Development Department.
Those who aren’t eligible for the vouchers include sex offenders and households in which every member does not have an eligible immigration status, she said.
Silver Mintah, 45, is one of those who must leave her Bridges apartment on Dodge Boulevard. Last year, Mintah lost her job after the bus strike caused her to miss work. She had been living paycheck to paycheck. With no car and no family to help her out, she was evicted soon after being fired.
“There wasn’t anyone I could borrow money from to tide me over,” she said. She spent two weeks living on the streets. “It was very scary. I didn’t have a place to get washed up or use the bathroom or change my clothes,” she said.
In November, Mintah moved into a transitional housing apartment on Dodge Boulevard and began a job-training program.
She says she was only notified a couple weeks ago about the end of her housing subsidy. Since she doesn’t have a car, she’s anxious about the prospect of hunting for a decent, Section 8-qualified apartment and getting all her belongings moved.
“They’re really rushing us out,” she said. “I think they could have given us a lot more notice.”
NO SURPRISE
HUD’s shifting priorities shouldn’t have come as a surprise to local homeless advocates, Litwicki said.
“The reality is, we’ve known this is coming for three years,” he said. “We’re responsible to plan ahead.”
Litwicki, who runs Old Pueblo Community Services, said Old Pueblo has reallocated its transitional housing program for men to permanent housing.
“We’d rather do it on our terms, and without disruption to patients, than to have it put upon us,” he said.
The Primavera Foundation, which also utilizes the HUD funding for programming, has also pre-emptively shifted all its housing programs to permanent housing, said CEO Peggy Hutchison.
Still, she said, HUD’s changes mean there will be gaps in services for clients who require the robust, wraparound services transitional housing provides.
Primavera is trying to reduce its dependency on government grants and focus on fundraising in order to maintain more flexibility in services provided, she said.
But ultimately, boosting Tucson’s affordable housing stock and creating jobs that offer a living wage are critical steps to addressing the root causes of homelessness, Hutchison said.
“It’s both a macro and a micro issue,” she said.
Mintah echoed those sentiments.
Three years ago, after a difficult divorce, Mintah moved to Tucson to “build a new life” for herself. She’d hoped to get settled and send for her 9-year-old son, who is staying with his dad in Illinois. She deals with post-traumatic stress disorder stemming from childhood abuse, and she’s been diagnosed with bipolar I disorder and clinical depression. Finding and keeping employment has been an uphill battle, she said.
She didn’t expect to be separated from her son for so long, she said.
“I never thought I would have this hard of a time here,” she said. “There are not enough employment opportunities out there for people with mental illness.”
