August 26, 2022 Homeless Initiative Advisory Committee (HIAC) Mtg
The committee awarded approximately $1.8 million of Federal HUD (Housing and Urban Development) funds:
- Help Mate ($173K, helps domestic violence),
- Homeward Bound ($1.5M, rapid rehousing and permanent housing for homeless), and
- Salvation Army (50K).
- $65K for Homeless Management Information System subscription fees. A Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) is a local information technology system used to collect client-level data and data on the provision of housing and services to homeless individuals, families, and persons at risk of homelessness.
- Then an additional $175,000 in taxpayer funds has been granted to Homeward Bound for rapid rehousing and permanent supportive housing.
City staffer Emily Ball reported three staff positions are being added to her department to help combat homelessness. She also noted that one seat on the HIAC is open (applications due 12/26).
For the third month in a row, Joshua and Kristi from the National Alliance to End Homelessness addressed HIAC. I believe they are the organization hired by the city to assess Asheville’s homeless situation. They conducted the Street Outreach survey on homelessness, with 1,740 community responses. Of those, 130 respondents identified as homeless persons.
They presented the Housing First Model (HFM) for the third month in a row. They repeated the five core parts of HFM:
- Put people in housing as quickly as possible, with no requirements or restrictions.
- Choice – The client chooses what services and when.
- Recovery and orientation back into society are client driven…” when they are ready” – even though they can’t take care of themselves.
- Individual and personal driven – what does the client want? A Pet? Work? Therapy? This approach caters to the client’s poor decisions rather than reforming them.
- Social and community integration – everyone welcome; no stereotypes; This is the equity lens where everyone gets a trophy no matter if you worked hard for it or not.
Here are my red flags – in 3 parts:
Part 1
The National Alliance to End Homelessness (NAEH) was hired to assess and advise the local government on solving Asheville’s homelessness issues. Why are they preaching the HFM rather than sharing what their research found by looking at what our local shelters (ABCCM, WCRM, Salvation Army) have been doing – the pros and cons?
While visiting NAEH’s website, two points stood out to me:
- It stated: “In 2000, the Alliance challenged communities and the nation to develop plans to end homelessness. The federal government and Congress adopted this approach and substantially increased resources to implement it.” – This “approach” is the Housing First Model. This isn’t consulting; it is selling their own program.
- “Since 1980, housing affordability has been the key driver of increases in homelessness.” Kristi and Joshua talked about this. This is entirely different than the 80% of homeless who are in that position because of addictions and mental health, and it should not be included as a “cause” for the 80% of the homeless.
Joshua talked about “Diversion.” Here are the points he made and my questions/comments in response to those points:
| Joshua | Doug |
|---|---|
| Immediately address someone who lost their housing. Get them into Housing First rather than “shelter or unsheltered homelessness.” | Competes with local shelters. |
| Reduces entries into homeless shelters, “averts stays in shelters.” | Uses HUD funds to compete against our local shelters that work mainly off private donations (not taxes). |
| Improves system flow | Gets the homeless hooked on HFM and entered into their database for more HUD funding. The more homeless, the more funding. (Three new positions in 2022 were created on the city payroll) |
| Conserves and targets homeless resources for those who need them most | How? No facts were presented. It seems like it creates a growing pool of clients to rely on government funding. |
| Cuts down on the shelter wait lists, and shelters have requirements | Which do you expect the “lifestyle” homeless or mentally ill and addicted people to choose? (A) No requirement for free, permanent housing…or (B) A shelter with a program towards recovery, job training, and living a purposeful life? They will obviously choose (A) because it has no requirements. |
| Less costly than shelters | Any proof? Without proof, this is just a way of creating a narrative. |
| It avoids emergency-related costs | I’ve heard how EMS has to respond to the homeless over and over, and it costs taxpayers $30K-40K/homeless person on the streets. Why do we use this as “a given” that taxpayers should continuously pay emergency costs for the homeless? This is absurd that we repeatedly pay medical emergency costs for people who don’t take care of themselves or won’t go into our local shelters and get treatment. The problem is that our city allows them to “choose their path,” panhandle, and get ‘housing first’ with no requirements. If a homeless person has a medical emergency, that should happen once, and then they must: A) enter a shelter, B) be reunited with family locally or (C) be bussed home. |
| Joshua discussed the goal of ” diverting the homeless immediately into the system.” | It seems like this is taking away self-responsibility from the homeless and letting them rely on the government (taxpayer). |
| Joshua talked about “diversion compensation.” He said that diversion would lead to “stabilizing housing prices.” | What is “diversion compensation”? – how does it stabilize housing prices? This is just creating a narrative, repeating something to get it accepted; it is an unfounded claim that sounds good and then is ignorantly repeated. |
A HIAC member asked Joshua to explain why we have seen Housing First become a place where drug dealers and prostitutes gather, and Justin said he would address that but never did. Joshua and Kristi also fail to share that cities that have adopted the HFM, like LA, SF, Portland, and Seattle, have experienced exploding homeless populations. These are canaries in the coal mine of what Asheville will become if we follow the NEAH’s Housing First Model.
Part 2
I don’t see any questioning of the process at these meetings. For example:
| Joshua | Doug |
|---|---|
| “Hospitalization is costly (estimated 30K-40K/homeless) and doesn’t work” | Why should we accept the basis that taxpayers should endlessly pay for the homeless to get free emergency treatment? Instead, the understanding should be: One and you are done. Then you must play by our community’s rules: shelter, recovery, training and self-reliance. Or live in a jail cell and do community service. Or get a bus back to your home/family. |
| “Criminalization doesn’t work.” | No, jails don’t work because the inmates are given ipads, allowed to live their bad habits, or released without penalty. Studies have shown that “real” jail time allows the homeless a place to sober up, get away from the street life, and get treatment. If jail time required sobriety, community service, or some penalty, it would work like in 2006 in LA’s Skid Row when they cleaned up the streets with stiff penalties. Crime and death rates dropped dramatically.* |
| “They have so many nuances; we can’t force them. They have to come on their own.” | This statement should be questioned. Would you let 2nd Graders come on their own to solve math problems or to come on their own to play the notes on the piano because they have so many “nuances” to solve math problems or play a C note? No. You give them the principles, the rules, and they apply them… With correct instruction, they get it right. |
Statements like these made by NEAH must be questioned, or they become part of an accepted narrative.
Part 3
100 rooms at Ramada and 85 rooms at Day’s Inn:
Where is the conversation that says: “All right, we can take almost 200 homeless people off the streets. Give us 6-8 months, and we will have 80% of our clients rehabbed and in the workforce (studies show that work improves self-worth and reduces the tendency to commit crimes). Then, give us another 200, and we’ll do it again. And then we will close down the Ramada and Day’s Inn within five years…”
Where is the report that says: “Here is how we are working with the mental health and addiction agencies. Here is how we are working with AB tech for job training. Here is how we are working with the APD and Sheriff to reduce panhandling and loitering. Here is how we monitor and track the “travelers,” hobos, and homeless coming into our bus stations (or airports). And in 5 years, our goal is to phase out these hotel rooms and their burden on the taxpayer.”
Instead, HIAC talks about how to get more HUD funds, grow its staff, and create more rooms for the homeless. Where is the goal line that says, “These rooms will solve this problem by this date.”
Where is the conversation that says: “What are our local shelters doing and how can we help them?” – instead of creating a bureaucracy at city hall, working on getting Federal dollars, and creating a program that competes against our existing, community supported shelters (ABCCM, WCRM, Salvation Army) – who have the beds, staff, and years of successful outcomes?
| *Wikipedia: The Safer Cities Initiative was a 68-week policy implemented in 2006 by the Los Angeles Police Department dealing with homeless encampments in Skid Row.[35] The policy, led by former police chief William Bratton, assigned approximately 50 police officers to the Skid Row area to enforce stricter policing of offenses in accordance with the broken windows theory of policing. Through policing these offenses (including non-violent offenses such as jaywalking or littering),[36] the LAPD sought to establish a heightened appearance of public order as a punitive deterrent for criminals. One study by the LAPD claimed that four years post-implementation, crime rates had reduced by approximately 46%, while deaths dropped approximately 34%. |
