People in more than 2,000 Cuyahoga County households could be pushed toward homelessness with federal policy changes to permanent housing programs.
While the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development is increasing its homelessness funding from $3.6 billion to $3.9 billion, the money is prioritizing “transitional housing” versus the “housing first,” or permanent housing programs that several local housing advocates prefer.
A statement from HUD said the “housing first” ideology “encourages dependence on endless government handouts while neglecting to address the root causes of homelessness, including illicit drugs and mental illness.”
Chris Knestrick, executive director of the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless, said transitional housing is “worrisome.”
“Transitional housing where people are forced to get drug screened, forced to come in at a particular time, forced to have a curfew — all of these things, I think, are putting barriers in place for people to get access to housing," Knestrick said.
Transitional housing is also intended for up to two years, although HUD can make exceptions for longer periods.
He also said Cuyahoga County has seen much success from a permanent housing model, because people like the autonomy and freedom that type of housing provides.
“After they were in their house for a while, they realized that they wanted to stop using drugs and they decided to do that... What this kind of teaches us is that people don't heal from the sidewalk or an encampment. People heal from their own house,” Knestrick explained.
About 90% of HUD’s Continuum of Care homelessness assistance grant funding was dedicated to permanent housing. According to the Emerald Development and Economic Network, a Cuyahoga County housing for homelessness organization, only about 30% of the CoC grant will be distributed for permanent housing moving forward.
In the previous fiscal year, EDEN received about $51 million to serve about 2,700 households, and now estimates it will only serve 500-600 households in the coming year.
“Having people on the streets and in shelter does not solve homelessness. Housing solves homelessness,” said EDEN Executive Director Elaine Gimmel.
The city of Cleveland has a locally-funded program called “A Home for Every Neighbor,” which provides 12 months of housing for nearly 200 people in Cleveland.
Liam Haggerty, the city’s housing and outreach project manager, said about 90 people will soon transition out of that program, and many would have transitioned toward EDEN’s HUD-funded permanent housing program.
“A significant number of our folks we were able to get off the street quickly,” Haggerty said. “And yet, the resource that's lined up for them to transition to may go away.”
Gimmel also said the timing of HUD’s policy change limits the amount of time EDEN needs to find alternative solutions for people in need of housing.
“I understand that they want to make the changes and I don't know that we could stop that. However, we do need a minute to think about, how do we implement this as opposed to having people wind up homeless, because we're not going to be able to pay the landlords,” Gimmel said.
The changes to HUD are supposed to take effect in January with applications for the grant due in mid-December, according to EDEN.
New York Attorney General Letitia James led a coalition of 18 other Democratic attorneys general and two governors in filing a lawsuit Tuesday against HUD in federal district court in Rhode Island to block the changes. They argued, among other things, that HUD unconstitutionally changed spending authorized by Congress. The New York Times reports the changes could impact 170,000 people across the country.
