Athens County Foundation’s Post

From CSH: "Punishing people for experiencing homelessness is ineffective, costly, and harmful. Criminalizing homelessness perpetuates cycles of poverty and institutionalization and diverts law enforcement resources away from preventing crime, protecting the rights of all individuals, and responders to emergencies. "Punitive measures fail to deter homelessness, exacerbate poverty and grow incarceration rates. They disproportionately harm vulnerable individuals, hindering efforts to connect them with essential services. In contrast, there is definitive proof that more cost-effective alternatives like investments in affordable housing, support services, and opportunities for economic security, work better for individuals and communities long term." The McGregor Fund is honored to support several exceptional grant partners who are deploying proven strategies to end unsheltered homelessness in Detroit, including the CSH, the Source for Housing Solutions, Homeless Action Network of Detroit (HAND), Noah at Central , Community & Home Supports Inc, the Detroit Phoenix Center, Alternatives For Girls, the Ruth Ellis Center and COTS. 

Erie County answers the challenge to eradicate homelessness within our borders with outside of the box thinking and cross community collaboration like never before. Our "Streets to Stability" program outlines a no wrong door approach and no one size fits all solution to meet the needs of the unhoused as they are, where they are. Filling gaps in social services to prevent homelessness before it happens. Keeping families and individuals in housing through vouchers, blended case management and workforce training opportunities. The renovation of our community corrections building into a community resilience center providing a place for any individual seeking housing, resources, and other services to obtain stability. The begining of phases of constructing a tiny homes village utilizing labor of trade school programs and students incarcerated at our County prison to teach trade skills for in demand jobs while giving back to society. These ideas among many more are all a part of a long term strategy to address homelessness in Erie County to ensure no resident is faced with losing housing and taking steps backward away from stability. https://lnkd.in/eRQrD8pZ

As temperatures rise to murderous levels and homelessness spirals out of control, we can't afford to waste another moment on debates. It's time for decisive action. We must adopt Housing First policies, backed by HUD, USICH, and NAEH, to tackle this humanitarian crisis head-on. Housing First puts permanent housing front and center, recognizing that a stable home is the foundation for recovery. Treatment and support services are crucial, but they must follow housing. Criminalizing homelessness only makes things worse. We need a comprehensive approach, investing in eviction prevention, affordable housing, and emergency funding. Let's streamline processes, track progress, and educate ourselves on effective solutions. It's time for lawmakers, providers, and stakeholders to come together and act. TAKE ACTION NOW: 1. Contact your representatives about Housing First policies. 2. Support organizations providing housing and support services. 3. Join community discussions and educate yourself on effective solutions. Maricopa County, we can't afford to wait. Lives depend on it. Let's come together to address homelessness with a Housing First approach. ACT NOW!

My statement on the Supreme Court decision on homelessness. Today, SCOTUS ruled that cities and towns can fine and criminalize people experiencing homelessness for sleeping in public places, even when there are no other options. This decision gives local governments and police departments the right to harm people who lack viable options like low-barrier shelter, supportive housing, and healthy and affordable housing. Our collective responsibility is to treat unhoused people like every other resident with a roof over their head.I urge our administration to ignore this ruling and continue working with the unhoused community, advocates, nonprofits, the landlord community, businesses, residents and health care providers to create safer interim solutions to address unsheltered homelessness while more supportive units are available. We must continue to work to bring permanent supportive housing units online as soon as possible, expand low-barrier shelters, and develop interim solutions that include wrap-around services without the threat of arrest.I will aggressively oppose any efforts to operationalize this ruling in Worcester. Municipalities do not have to stoop to this inhumane treatment of unhoused people: individuals and families with children. District 5 City Councilor, Etel Haxhiaj

Today we published part 5 of Pathways Home, the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies' series on homelessness research for the UCLA Housing Voice Podcast. We spoke with Jiaying Zhao of The University of British Columbia about an experiment to give unhoused people in Vancouver, BC, a one-time, lump-sum, unconditional cash transfer of $7500 CAD. The results were very promising. The idea behind providing a large lump-sum payment rather than smaller payments spread out over time: A larger amount may help recipients move past survival mode — putting out day-to-day fires — and plan ahead further into the future. This has been observed in poorer countries, but it hasn't really been tested in higher-income places. What did they find? Compared to unhoused people receiving typical services, people who received $7500 spent 99 fewer days in shelter over one year, and 55 more days in stable housing. On average, they spent more on durable goods, rent, food, and transit, and spent no more on drugs, cigarettes, and alcohol. That last bit may surprise people. Cash transfer recipients spending 99 fewer days spent in shelter also saves the government money — about $8300 in Vancouver. That means a well-targeted program, in addition to its direct and indirect benefits, costs very little (or reduces costs) compared to existing interventions. Over time, people receiving typical treatment "catch up" to those receiving greater support on many housing, social, and health outcomes. Life for the "treatment" and control groups is fairly similar at the end of a year, but experiences *during* that year are markedly different. For me, this has been a key takeaway from these interviews: Given time, life gets better for most people experiencing homelessness. But when we provide more immediate and intensive support, we reduce suffering and speed up their recovery, and the net cost is often roughly $0. This study included public opinion polling that was super interesting. They surveyed people about how they expected cash transfer recipients to spend their money, and they predicted much higher spending on drugs and alcohol. No surprise there—paternalism drives a lot of policy. Researchers asked about peoples' support for unconditional cash transfers to address homelessness—at baseline, and after being told that recipients didn't increase spending on temptation goods or saved taxpayers money. Both increased support, but the taxpayer message more so. Lots of great stuff in this conversation, and the study itself, so give it a listen! Dr. Zhao and her colleagues are now working on an expanded study of this model so I'm very excited to learn what they find over the next several years. https://lnkd.in/gVd4EaZU

Our national nonprofit partners at National Alliance to End Homelessness recently released their State of Homelessness Report with a 15-year lookback at trends, by state, with an interactive map. Some key national takeaways: 1) Response systems work effectively, but needs more resources to combat the nationwide affordable housing crisis; 2) More people than ever are experiencing homelessness for the first time, with a 23% increase in the past 5 years; 3) Record high numbers of people are living unsheltered, especially among individuals; and 4) Severe housing cost burden for renter households (paying more than half your income on rent) is on a dramatic rise. Mississippi's data trends are more encouraging, but there is so much more work to be done! Become a part of the solution by getting involved on the national or local level and consider becoming a member of your local Continuum of Care and investing your time, talent, or treasure to build a better community for us all! https://lnkd.in/dDBr6KSp

At Our Just Future We stand with our partners at the National Alliance to End Homelessness in denouncing this morning’s decision that paves the way for states and localities to further criminalize unsheltered homelessness and traumatize our community’s most vulnerable. Laws that provide criminal penalties levied on people who are forced to sleep outside due to the shortcomings of our housing system do nothing to address the root cause of homelessness – our lack of affordable housing. Criminalization strategies disproportionately harm Black and Brown communities and divert us from the evidence-based solutions our communities need and deserve.  We are fortunate in Oregon that advocates and attorneys have successfully prevented the worst consequences using a combination of legislation and litigation under our State Constitution to block recent efforts at criminalization. But today’s ruling clears the way for a likely uptick in enforcement activities against people living unsheltered, including coming enforcement of Portland’s scaled back criminalization ordinance that will force people into shelters – whether appropriate for them or not – under threat of jail time. As shelter and housing providers we know that forcing people for whom shelter is a poor choice into our shelters is not the answer and will do harm to those directly impacted and to those who choose to be in shelters while they await safe, decent housing. We remain steadfast in our belief that housing is a human right, that shelter is a component of a path to safety and housing that works for many – but not for everyone – and that coercive, criminalization efforts to address our crisis will do much more harm than good and distract us as a community from focusing on the only real solution to homelessness – housing our people quickly, compassionately and humanely. More below on today’s decision from our partners at the National Alliance to End Homelessness.  https://lnkd.in/g8kywZZn

More IS possible.

"The pandemic showed us that homelessness is a policy choice," said USICH Director Jeff Olivet during a Q&A with the Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative's Social Impact Review. "At the height of the pandemic, we as a nation chose collectively to invest in housing and wraparound support for people without a home and in new systems that prevent homelessness. We created emergency rental assistance and expanded the child tax credit and provided lower-income people with direct cash assistance. With those new resources, we flattened the rise in homelessness that started in 2016 and prevented another rise between 2020 and 2022. Unfortunately, as those programs expire, we are seeing homelessness rise again. What we need now is for Congress to once again invest more in what we know works: housing, health care, and all the things we saw were so effective during the pandemic at preventing people from losing their homes." Read the full Q&A 👇