[House Hearing, 110 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
REAUTHORIZATION OF THE McKINNEY-VENTO
HOMELESS ASSISTANCE ACT, PART II
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
HOUSING AND COMMUNITY OPPORTUNITY
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
OCTOBER 16, 2007
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Financial Services
Serial No. 110-70
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HOUSE COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES
BARNEY FRANK, Massachusetts, Chairman
PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania SPENCER BACHUS, Alabama
MAXINE WATERS, California RICHARD H. BAKER, Louisiana
CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York DEBORAH PRYCE, Ohio
LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois MICHAEL N. CASTLE, Delaware
NYDIA M. VELAZQUEZ, New York PETER T. KING, New York
MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina EDWARD R. ROYCE, California
GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma
JULIA CARSON, Indiana RON PAUL, Texas
BRAD SHERMAN, California STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio
GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois
DENNIS MOORE, Kansas WALTER B. JONES, Jr., North
MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts Carolina
RUBEN HINOJOSA, Texas JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois
WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut
CAROLYN McCARTHY, New York GARY G. MILLER, California
JOE BACA, California SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West
STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts Virginia
BRAD MILLER, North Carolina TOM FEENEY, Florida
DAVID SCOTT, Georgia JEB HENSARLING, Texas
AL GREEN, Texas SCOTT GARRETT, New Jersey
EMANUEL CLEAVER, Missouri GINNY BROWN-WAITE, Florida
MELISSA L. BEAN, Illinois J. GRESHAM BARRETT, South Carolina
GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin, JIM GERLACH, Pennsylvania
LINCOLN DAVIS, Tennessee STEVAN PEARCE, New Mexico
ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas
PAUL W. HODES, New Hampshire TOM PRICE, Georgia
KEITH ELLISON, Minnesota GEOFF DAVIS, Kentucky
RON KLEIN, Florida PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina
TIM MAHONEY, Florida JOHN CAMPBELL, California
CHARLES A. WILSON, Ohio ADAM PUTNAM, Florida
ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado MICHELE BACHMANN, Minnesota
CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut PETER J. ROSKAM, Illinois
JOE DONNELLY, Indiana THADDEUS G. McCOTTER, Michigan
ROBERT WEXLER, Florida KEVIN McCARTHY, California
JIM MARSHALL, Georgia
DAN BOREN, Oklahoma
Jeanne M. Roslanowick, Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity
MAXINE WATERS, California, Chairwoman
NYDIA M. VELAZQUEZ, New York SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West
JULIA CARSON, Indiana Virginia
STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts STEVAN PEARCE, New Mexico
EMANUEL CLEAVER, Missouri PETER T. KING, New York
AL GREEN, Texas JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois
WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut
CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York GARY G. MILLER, California
GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin, SCOTT GARRETT, New Jersey
ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas
KEITH ELLISON, Minnesota GEOFF DAVIS, Kentucky
CHARLES A. WILSON, Ohio JOHN CAMPBELL, California
CHRISTOPHER S. MURPHY, Connecticut THADDEUS G. McCOTTER, Michigan
JOE DONNELLY, Indiana KEVIN McCARTHY, California
BARNEY FRANK, Massachusetts
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on:
October 16, 2007............................................. 1
Appendix:
October 16, 2007............................................. 69
WITNESSES
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Bassuk, Ellen L., M.D., Associate Professor of Psychiatry,
Harvard Medical School, and President, National Center on
Family Homelessness............................................ 54
Burt, Martha R., Ph.D., Senior Principal Researcher, Urban
Institute...................................................... 59
Carter, Nancy, National Alliance on Mental Illness, Urban Los
Angeles........................................................ 57
Culhane, Dennis, Ph.D., Professor of Social Policy and Practice,
University of Pennsylvania..................................... 28
Gallo, Dora, Chief Executive Officer, A Community of Friends, Los
Angeles........................................................ 50
Gomez, Elizabeth, Executive Director, Los Angeles Youth Network.. 35
Johnston, Mark, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Special Needs
Programs, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development..... 3
Loza, Moises, Executive Director, Housing Assistance Council..... 52
Mangano, Philip F., Executive Director, United States Interagency
Council on Homelessness........................................ 5
Marquez, Mercedes, General Manager, Los Angeles Housing
Department, City of Los Angeles................................ 30
McNamee, Arlene, LCSW, Executive Director, Catholic Social
Services, Diocese of Fall River, Massachusetts................. 32
Nilan, Diane, President/Founder, HEAR US, Inc.................... 56
Roman, Nan, President, National Alliance to End Homelessness..... 37
Van Leeuwen, James Michael, Ph.D., Project Manager, Denver's Road
Home........................................................... 25
Yaroslavsky, Zev, Chairman, Los Angeles County Board of
Supervisors.................................................... 8
APPENDIX
Prepared statements:
Bassuk, Ellen L.............................................. 70
Burt, Martha R............................................... 77
Carter, Nancy................................................ 92
Culhane, Dennis.............................................. 98
Gallo, Dora.................................................. 104
Gomez, Elizabeth............................................. 111
Johnston, Mark............................................... 123
Loza, Moises................................................. 128
Mangano, Philip F............................................ 141
Marquez, Mercedes............................................ 152
McNamee, Arlene.............................................. 161
Nilan, Diane................................................. 182
Roman, Nan................................................... 189
Van Leeuwen, James Michael................................... 201
Yaroslavsky, Zev............................................. 208
Additional Material Submitted for the Record
Waters, Hon. Maxine:
Statement of Family Promise.................................. 213
REAUTHORIZATION OF THE
McKINNEY-VENTO HOMELESS
ASSISTANCE ACT, PART II
----------
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
U.S. House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Housing and
Community Opportunity,
Committee on Financial Services,
Washington, D.C.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:07 a.m., in
room 2128, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Maxine Waters
[chairwoman of the subcommittee] presiding.
Members present: Representatives Waters, Cleaver, Green,
Sires, Murphy; Capito, Biggert, Shays, Neugebauer, Davis of
Kentucky, and McCarthy.
Ex officio: Representative Frank.
Mr. Green. [presiding] Good morning, friends. I would like
to call this hearing of the Subcommittee on Housing and
Community Opportunity to order.
I would like to thank the ranking member, Ms. Capito, who
will be joining us shortly, for her efforts to help us--she is
here now--have this hearing this morning.
I would also like to thank the chairwoman, the Honorable
Maxine Waters, who is not with us. She has another hearing. We
know that wherever she is, she is not only doing the work of
the House, but she is also doing God's work. She is truly a
person who is committed to the homeless in this country.
I would like to also thank all of the witnesses who are
here with us today. At this time, I will make a brief opening
statement, and then we will hear from the ranking member, and
we will proceed in this fashion, and then hear from the
witnesses.
Friends, this is the second of two hearings on the
reauthorization of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act.
This year marks the 20th anniversary of this Act. When
Congress passed it 20 years ago, the legislation was thought to
be the first step to help us end homelessness in America.
We are here today to examine some additional steps that
should be taken to end the plight of homelessness in America.
With limited funding, the homeless assistance program has not
been as beneficial as it can be, although some good things have
happened.
We will hear from witnesses today who will give us both
sides of the story, and help us to make intelligent decisions
about how we should proceed with ending homelessness in
America.
I would like to share some information with you about
homelessness in America. Right now in this country, where 1 out
of every 110 persons is a millionaire, we have approximately
3.5 million people, 39 percent of whom are children, who are
likely to experience homelessness in the course of a year.
In our country, where we have houses for our cars--we call
them garages, of course--on any given night, between 700,000
and 800,000 men, women, and children are without homes or do
not have shelter.
We live in a country where we are spending $229 million per
day on the war, and we have approximately 200,000 veterans on
any given night who are homeless.
In my county, Harris County, Texas, 28 percent of the
homeless persons are veterans: 66 percent have no income at
all; 59 percent are homeless because they have lost a job; 57
percent have a history of substance abuse; 55 percent have a
history of some sort of mental health problem; 11 percent have
experienced domestic violence; and 24 percent have been
incarcerated.
Obviously, these numbers do not add up to 100 percent,
which means we have overlapping. We literally have persons who
are veterans, who may have some mental concerns to be dealt
with. Persons who are suffering domestic abuse, who may have
also a substance abuse problem.
The problem is pervasive and merits our consideration.
Today, as we look at the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance
Act, there are four programs that are authorized by this Act:
The emergency shelter grants, known as ESG; the supportive
housing portion of the program; the shelter plus care program;
and the Section 8 moderate rehabilitation assistance for single
room occupancy dwellings. All four of these are parts of the
Act that we will be looking into.
There are two bills that we are considering. HUD has
indicated that there may be a third bill. We have not seen
evidence of it thus far, but there is an indication that it
will be introduced.
We have H.R. 40, which is the Homeless Emergency Assistance
and Rapid Transition to Housing Act of 2007. This is being
sponsored/introduced by Representative Carson and
Representative Davis.
We also have Senate Bill 1518, the Community Partnership to
End Homelessness Act of 2007, introduced by Senators Reid and
Allard. These two bills are the subject of discussion today. We
look forward to hearing from the witnesses.
At this time, I will yield to Ranking Member Capito, who is
doing an outstanding job. She will be recognized for 5 minutes.
Mrs. Capito. I want to thank Mr. Green for recognizing me
and for chairing this committee today, and for his steady hand
and great guidance in this area and other areas of housing.
Thank you for that.
I would like to take this opportunity to welcome Mr.
McCarthy from the full Financial Services Committee to the
Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity. He has just
joined us. He is a good California Representative; welcome to
your first Subcommittee on Housing hearing.
I just briefly want to say that we learned 2 weeks ago many
of the issues concerning the reauthorization of the legislation
before us. I look forward to the many witnesses who are going
to be before us today. I thank you all for traveling to
Washington. I look forward to the hearing.
Thank you.
Mr. Green. I will now recognize Mr. Cleaver for 3 minutes.
Mr. Cleaver. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank you and
Ranking Member Capito for having this hearing.
Very quickly, I would just say that I am very much
concerned about this issue because of the de-
institutionalization. We are finding that there are any number
of men and women on the streets, sleeping under bridges, or
sleeping along--in my State--the Missouri River.
Each August, we do a stand down and miraculously, this
year, we had about 600 homeless veterans show up--600. There
was nothing in the newspapers. Nothing on television. Of
course, they do not have either.
Somehow, the word is able to circulate and they show up. We
give some of them their one haircut of the year. We give them a
breakfast. They see a dentist. They spend most of the day out
there getting services.
That is stop-gap. That is something that we do, and maybe
it makes us feel better than the service we provide.
The truth of the matter is we have to do something about
this problem. This is the most powerful nation on the planet,
and I think it is embarrassing that we have millions of
Americans, particularly those who have gone out and fought for
this country, sleeping under bridges and in cardboard boxes.
I would reserve the rest of my time, Mr. Chairman, to raise
questions with our witnesses. Thank you.
Mr. Green. Thank you, Mr. Cleaver.
At this time, we will hear from the first panel. We would
like to welcome you. Our first witness will be Mr. Mark
Johnston. He is the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Special
Needs, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Welcome, sir.
The second witness will be Mr. Philip Mangano, the
executive director of the United States Interagency Council on
Homelessness.
The third witness will be Mr. Zev Yaroslavsky, the chair of
the Board of Supervisors of Los Angeles County.
We will now start with Mr. Johnston. We will recognize you
for 5 minutes, and will proceed with the witnesses as
announced.
STATEMENT OF MARK JOHNSTON, DEPUTY ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR
SPECIAL NEEDS PROGRAMS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN
DEVELOPMENT
Mr. Johnston. Congressman Green, Ranking Member Capito, and
distinguished members of the subcommittee, I am Mark Johnston,
the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Special Needs Programs at
the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
It is a privilege to represent the Department at this
hearing today. I ask the subcommittee to accept the
Department's written statement for submission to the hearing
record.
Mr. Green. Without objection.
Mr. Johnston. Thank you.
I am pleased to be here to discuss the Administration's
proposed consolidation of HUD's three competitive programs into
a single Continuum of Care program to alleviate homelessness in
this country.
I also want to thank the members of the Financial Services
Committee for introducing the HEARTH Act, which includes a
number of provisions supported by the Administration.
We look forward to working with the committee on this
important effort with the ultimate goal of getting a bill to
the President's desk.
Consolidation of these three programs would provide more
flexibility to localities, give grant-making responsibility to
local decisionmaking bodies, allow more funds for the
prevention of homelessness, and dramatically reduce the time
required to distribute funds to communities.
HUD developed the Continuum of Care planning and grant
making process in 1994. The continuum is an unique and
comprehensive public/private partnership. It calls for all
stakeholders within a community to be involved in shaping
solutions to homelessness.
These stakeholders include local government, nonprofit
providers, businesses, foundations, and homeless persons
themselves.
The over 3,900 jurisdictions which participate in the
Continuum of Care process represent over 95 percent of the U.S.
population.
Our bill would codify this approach, which was created by
HUD through administrative means. A significant enhancement in
this bill would add prevention as a new eligible activity under
the statute. Prevention is a key part of solving homelessness
and is an important element in our bill.
In addition to preventing homelessness for those who are at
risk, HUD now addresses, and would continue to address in the
new program, the needs of persons who are already homeless,
including the chronically homeless.
The Administration set a goal of ending chronic
homelessness. Through the Continuum of Care grants, HUD funds
have been working to achieve this goal.
The congressional requirement that 30 percent of HUD funds
be used to provide permanent housing has contributed to these
efforts.
Through the consolidation process, HUD remains committed to
targeting its homeless assistance resources to homeless
families and individuals who are in most need of housing and
services.
HUD's preliminary review of proposals to expand the
definition of ``homelessness'' indicates that the number of
people who would become eligible for HUD's programs would
increase significantly.
Expanding the definition of ``homelessness'' beyond the
current statutory definition would cause HUD's homeless
programs to lose their focus on reaching those who literally
have nowhere to sleep tonight.
Further, the definition need not be expanded because with
homeless prevention as a new eligible activity, communities
could for the first time use Continuum of Care funds to serve
those at risk of homelessness.
The Continuum of Care approach encourages local
performance. The grant application continues to have a
performance section, the core of which is the Government
Performance and Results Act indicators, by which Congress
assesses HUD for the area of homelessness.
HUD's GPRA efforts related to the Continuum of Care program
have been touted by OMB as exemplary for other Federal programs
to emulate.
HUD's Continuum of Care program was rated ``Effective,''
which is the highest possible rating by the Program Assessment
Rating Tool or PART. That rating underscores the efficacy of
the Continuum of Care approach embedded in the HEARTH bill and
the Administration's proposal.
Performance will continue to be a key element of the new
consolidated and more flexible program. Overall, consolidating
the three Continuum of Care programs into one and codifying it
in the statute will allow for greater local flexibility, which
will enable improved local performance and effectiveness in
using HUD's homeless programs.
Thank you very much for inviting me to be here today. I
look forward to more discussions on this critical issue.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Johnston can be found on
page 123 of the appendix.]
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much.
Mr. Philip Mangano.
STATEMENT OF PHILIP MANGANO, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, UNITED STATES
INTERAGENCY COUNCIL ON HOMELESSNESS
Mr. Mangano. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, Ranking Member
Capito, and members of the subcommittee.
I am pleased to be here with so many who have done so much
for homeless people, and pleased especially to be here on this
panel with Mark Johnston, who has a long and distinguished
career on this issue at HUD, and with County Chair Yaroslavsky,
whom I have gotten to know in recent years. His deep and
deliberate commitment to see change and results in Los Angeles
County is commendable and needed.
I bring you greetings from the full Council, 20 Federal
agencies, and specifically from HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt,
who is the Cabinet Chair of the Council this year in the
rotation recommended by Congress.
In my 27 years of involvement in this issue, I have never
been more confident that Dr. King's great insight is applicable
to homelessness, that the long moral arc of the history of our
American experience, as he reminded us, bends toward justice,
righting social and moral wrongs.
He had seen that in his own lifetime as segregation was
overcome and in the history of our country's abolition of
slavery and the expansion of suffrage. That is our context,
moving that arc into the lives of our homeless neighbors. The
reauthorization of McKinney-Vento offers us an opportunity to
move beyond what we were satisfied with 20 years ago to
appropriate new ideas, resources, and results in bending that
arc.
Over the past 5 years, the United States Interagency
Council has been ``constellating'' a national partnership with
one goal, one objective, and one mission: ending the
homelessness of our poorest neighbors.
When the President set a new marker in front of the country
asking us to end the homelessness of those who were the most
vulnerable and disabled, those the researchers identified as
experiencing chronic homelessness, the Council set out to bring
Federal and State agencies together, along with local
communities and the private sector.
When we did that, some were skeptical. Now 4 years later,
20 Federal agencies meet regularly in Washington; 49 Governors
have created State Interagency Councils on Homelessness; and
more than 300 local communities are partnered through their
mayors and county executives in Ten Year Plans to End
Homelessness, a partnership supported both by the U.S.
Conference of Mayors and the National Association of Counties.
With 6 consecutive years of increased Federal resources and
more State and local resources, investments are being made to
create results. That has precipitated an unprecedented
involvement of the private sector in those local plans, and
most importantly, more than 30 cities across our Nation, coast
to coast, large and small, are reporting decreases in street
and long term homelessness for the first time in 20 years.
We are at a new place; the arc is bending. There is much
more work to do for both individuals and families, but we have
learned a lot in the past 20 years that is informing us as we
move forward with reauthorization.
We have learned that no one level of government and no one
sector can do it alone. That if good intentions, well-meaning
programs, and humanitarian gestures could get the job done,
homelessness would have been history long ago.
That field tested, evidence-based innovations can end
homelessness, especially permanent supportive housing, along
with employment and appropriate services.
That jurisdictional leadership in business-oriented
community based Ten Year Plans creates results. That cost
benefit analysis reveals the economic impact and consequences
of chronic homelessness. Crisis interventions, emergency rooms,
or police sweeps are not the solution. They are expensive and
ineffective in solving the problem.
Prevention of homelessness is cost effective and requires
many approaches for both individuals and families, and
consumers have a role in planning and partnership.
In the reauthorization, we support the following in the
Administration: One, the Administration proposal along with the
two congressional bills support the consolidation of homeless
assistance competitive grants at HUD. That would provide
flexibility for local communities, more focus on prevention,
and customer friendly applications for the field. That just
makes sense.
Two, we should maintain and increase our emphasis on
homeless veterans in every activity of the reauthorization.
They deserve our priority.
Three, we are close to completing the research on homeless
families, which will become the basis for policy development
and investment. Policy should wait for research and data.
Secretary Leavitt opened the Council's mission and
priorities in his call for renewed attention to families and
youth, beginning with research and an inventory of current
Federal resources.
Four, as the central anecdote to end homelessness, the 30
percent set-aside of HUD's resources for housing instigated the
creation of tens of thousands of housing units specifically
targeted to homeless people. That set-aside should be
maintained.
Five, and finally, having worked on behalf of homeless
people, including in street outreach and shelters in a city
creating initiatives for homeless families and advocacy, the
definition of ``homelessness'' as it now stands at HUD, has
been instrumental in targeting our finite resources to those
who are the most vulnerable and disabled.
That targeting and focus has not included doubled-up
families, not under Secretaries Kemp, Cisneros, Cuomo,
Martinez, or Jackson.
There are needs there, but as Senator McKinney said last
week, ``While it is admirable to want to address all people who
are in need, I am concerned that this could lead to a thinning
of resources.''
We should instead be examining the use of mainstream
resources of the Federal and local governments to respond to
the needs of doubled-up families. In doing so, many more
billions of dollars are available, as indicated in an 1999 GAO
report on homelessness.
We would also avoid the stigma of homelessness being
applied to more mothers and their children.
Finally, we are seeing results in our investments through
Ten Year Plans. Again, 30 cities across our country have seen
decreases on their streets and in their shelters. That is the
trajectory of our national goal, to put to work for homeless
people jurisdictional leadership, innovative ideas, and
increased resources to the mission of reducing and ending
homelessness in our country, beginning with those on our
streets long term and in our shelters.
What seemed intractable at the beginning of this decade is
now yielding to strategic solutions and informed investments.
McKinney-Vento reauthorization offers a new opportunity to
re-evaluate and re-invest in what works.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Mangano can be found on page
141 of the appendix.]
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. Our next witness is
a friend and a colleague from Los Angeles. He is listed as a
member of the Board of Supervisors, but he actually is the
chair of the Board of Supervisors.
I have known Zev Yaroslavsky for many years. When I served
as chief deputy to a city councilman, he was elected to office.
He served on the City Council for a number of years before
going to the Board of Supervisors, and has a great reputation
for dealing with the homeless issue in the greater Los Angeles
area.
I am delighted that you could be here today, Zev. Thank you
very much.
STATEMENT OF ZEV YAROSLAVSKY, CHAIRMAN, LOS ANGELES COUNTY
BOARD OF SUPERVISORS
Mr. Yaroslavsky. Thank you. Madam Chairwoman, and Ranking
Member Capito, thank you for the invitation to testify before
your subcommittee.
Members of the subcommittee, I will just abbreviate my
prepared remarks and give you a little taste of one county in
the United States and how homelessness impacts it. It happens
to be the biggest county in the United States, with over 10.3
million people and an annual budget of $23 billion.
On any given night in Los Angeles County, the overall
homeless population is approximately 73,000. If the homeless
were their own city in our county, they would be one of the
largest cities in our county.
There are three overarching factors contributing to
homelessness in Los Angeles: First, a pervasive lack of
permanent affording housing, not only a lack of supply but a
diminution of supply, as we see an epidemic of demolitions of
affordable housing taking place; second, insufficient resources
and funding to help clients achieve and sustain self-
sufficiency; and third, severe psycho-emotional impairment of
clients related to and exaggerated by substance abuse and/or
mental illness.
In recognition of these serious issues, our county has
invested an additional $100 million this past year, over and
above the many tens of millions we already spent on human
services in a new homeless prevention initiative intended to
strengthen homeless and housing services in our county.
The goal is to enhance the regional system of care, connect
all of the county's homeless programs, establish comprehensive
services to prevent homelessness, and move homeless individuals
and families to safe, permanent, affordable housing.
In Los Angeles, approximately 22,000 persons are
chronically homeless--22,000. Unfortunately, chronic
homelessness is a complex, persistent, and long term problem.
Perhaps the greatest barrier in addressing chronic homelessness
is a lack of permanent supportive housing to address multiple
issues of the chronically homeless.
Studies show that supportive housing programs which link
permanent affordable housing with supportive services to
chronically homeless persons in need of public assistance and/
or services effectively reduce homelessness.
This housing model improves housing stability and reduces
the use of high cost public services. Additionally, placement
of homeless persons with severe mental illness in permanent
supportive housing is associated with reductions in
hospitalizations, incarcerations, and subsequent use of
shelters, emergency rooms, psychiatric, and detoxication
programs. At the end of the day, this saves the public taxpayer
a lot of money.
In Los Angeles County, there is a growing interest in and
commitment to the establishment of permanent supportive housing
as a key strategy to reduce regional homelessness.
The linkage of housing and supportive services requires
partnerships which facilitate collaboration and coordination
between housing development efforts in the 88 cities that make
up our county, supportive services of the county, and resources
of other governmental agencies and private entities.
The complexities of pulling together housing developers,
capital funders and organizations that can supply and finance
the provision of permanent housing with supportive services
will require extensive coordination and integration among the
entities involved.
One of the county's mandates is to promote State and
Federal legislative and regulatory policy change that enable
the creation of adequate funding streams for permanent
supportive housing, to include but not limited to, pre-
development and operational expenses, and additional resources
for county supportive services for homeless individuals and
families, and those at risk for becoming homeless.
For these reasons, Los Angeles County strongly supports the
inclusion of resources to advance the development of permanent
supportive housing, which incorporates funding for ongoing
support of services for chronically homeless persons, including
those who are elderly, disabled, and mentally ill, in the
reauthorization of McKinney-Vento.
The county strongly supports provisions that would expand
the use of grants to fund homeless assistance and homeless
prevention services, increase resources to advance the
development of permanent supportive housing, including ongoing
funding for supportive services, and appropriate $2.5 billion
for homeless assistance grants in Federal Fiscal Year 2008.
Madam Chairwoman, if I could just take one more second on a
personal note.
Chairwoman Waters. Yes.
Mr. Yaroslavsky. I got really focused on this issue several
years ago, viscerally as opposed to intellectually focused,
when my daughter, who was in a summer between the years at the
Kennedy School getting her master's was working for the City of
Oakland in the Department of Human Services.
She called me one night and she said, ``Dad, an interesting
thing happened to me today, I wanted to share it with you.'' I
asked what it was. She replied, ``I was walking up Telegraph
Avenue in Berkeley and there was a homeless person sitting on
the curb. I sat down next to him and I talked to him for 20
minutes, and we talked about issues and what was troubling him,
the whole 9 yards.
``At the end of 20 minutes, I opened my purse, dad, and I
was going to give him a couple of bucks, and he said, `I do not
want your money. You have given me something far more valuable.
You have given me respect and dignity, for which I am
appreciative.' ''
Then she said, and this is what lowered the boom on me, she
said, ``Dad, we sat there for 20 minutes and not one person of
the dozens and dozens who walked by ever made eye contact with
either him or me.''
The reauthorization of this bill, Madam Chairwoman, is
America's way of saying we are going to make eye contact with
this issue and with these people. These are individuals,
people. We have 73,000 homeless in Los Angeles County. Let us
start with one. Each one is God's creation. Each one is a human
being with a story about whom a book could be written.
This is our opportunity to make eye contact with each and
every one of them. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Yaroslavsky can be found on
page 208 of the appendix.]
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very, very much. That was
powerful testimony.
I would like to thank each of you for the testimony that
you have given today, and I now recognize myself for 5 minutes
for questions.
It has struck me as I have observed effective programs,
especially permanent supportive housing, that one of the keys
to success is the provision of flexible, accessible supportive
services.
However, it seems that a particular homeless individual or
family often requires a range of services, and further, does
not always fit into the neat categories that public
administrators of services fund and construct in distributing
their funds.
I wonder if I might hear about any lessons learned or keys
to success in overcoming these sorts of bureaucratic and
administrative obstacles to efficient services funding?
This is kind of a convoluted, almost question. Let me just
say to Zev, we are confronted with this homeless problem in Los
Angeles, which you have so adequately described. Go to downtown
Los Angeles, right near City Hall, onto some of the side
streets, and it just blows your mind.
I know both county elected officials and the city elected
officials have done a number of things to try to eliminate
homelessness and to provide services to get people off the
streets.
It seems to me there is a discussion going on about
resources being provided to the temporary facilities, because
people need some place to sleep at night, as opposed to
resources going to permanent housing for the homeless.
There seems to be a debate going on somewhere underneath
all of this. Can you share with me and unfold for me what is
happening? Even though we are talking about the entire country,
right now, I am focused on Los Angeles, Los Angeles County.
What is going on with this debate?
Mr. Yaroslavsky. Madam Chairwoman, I think there are a lot
of people in recent years who focused on shelter, if I can
steal a line from Mr. Mangano. It was really in the spirit of
managing rather than solving the problem.
I think we need to make the distinction between managing
and solving the problem. Shelter is managing the problem.
Permanent housing is solving the problem.
If you want to end homelessness, you have to take the
``less'' out of ``homeless.'' You have to provide a home, then
you are not homeless. If you do not provide a home for the
homeless, they are going to be homeless.
It is just that simple. The goal has to be--I think our
county's thinking has evolved very rapidly, thanks to seeing
what is going on in other parts of the country and even in our
own county has evolved very rapidly into believing that our
focus needs to be on permanent supportive housing. That is the
only way to solve the problem.
That is not to say that in the short term that we are not
going to have winter shelter programs, for sure, we will. It is
not to say that between now and the time we wrap up more
supportive housing in some of the 88 cities of our county,
starting with the City of Los Angeles, which is our biggest
city, but there are others that are quite large, as they ramp
up their supportive housing construction and hopefully stop the
demolition of affordable housing so that we do not compound our
problem, while that is being ramped up, that we will provide
temporary or transitional housing.
Our goal has to be and I think our thinking is permanent
supportive housing.
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much, Zev. I really
appreciate that.
Now Ranking Member Capito, for 5 minutes.
Mrs. Capito. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
First of all, I would like to ask Mr. Johnston a question.
You talked about consolidating programs within HUD and how that
will make the process much more fluid, and easier to access.
We had a penel 10 days ago, with someone from my district,
West Virginia, representing rural America and rural
homelessness. It is a lot different from Los Angeles. How will
this consolidation help those folks who are trying to meet the
challenge of rural homelessness?
Mr. Johnston. A very good question. A couple of
observations. The first is that we recently did an analysis to
look at rural America in terms of how well do with getting HUD
competitive homeless funding.
We looked at all continuums across the country versus those
continuums that are rural. The same percentage of rural
continuum applications that score high enough to get our
funding is essentially exactly the same as the percentage of
all continuum applications that score high enough to get our
funding. We have a very high scoring level to receive this
funding because there is so much demand.
I was very impressed that in rural areas, they compete
frankly very, very well.
I think one of the benefits of the proposal, both in the
HEARTH Act as well as the Reid Bill and the Administration's
proposal, is to add prevention as an eligible activity.
In many rural communities where there are not shelters and
certainly people are not on the streets, there certainly is
still a need to be addressed. We think adding prevention as a
new eligible activity, which is not allowed currently under
law, would go a long way to address the needs within rural
communities.
Mrs. Capito. Thank you. Mr. Mangano, you represent an
interagency outlook, a more overarching outlook on
homelessness. It seems the crux of a lot of the debate that we
are going to be having as we move through this legislation is
the definition of ``homelessness'' and whether to expand it and
include other forms of homelessness or other definitions.
When you look at the different agencies, like the
Department of Education has a different definition than HUD, do
you see this as a problem having conflicting definitions within
very large Federal agencies?
Mr. Mangano. As this issue became more pointed in our
country, actually the Council convened its member agencies, the
20 Federal agencies, and we looked through the various
definitions that are available at the different Federal
agencies.
What we discovered was actually the majority of Federal
agencies, including Veterans' Affairs, HUD, FEMA, and a variety
of other agencies, the majority of Federal agencies use the
definition that HUD uses, and there are other Federal agencies,
Agriculture, the Health Care for the Homeless program at HHS,
Justice, and Education, that use other definitions.
In fact, in terms of the conversation on this, the
definition that HUD uses is the most commonly used definition
with Federal agencies.
I think we are faced with the notion of finite resources
targeted to those people who are the most vulnerable, and the
efforts that have been made across Administrations for many,
many years, from my earliest involvement in this issue back in
1980 to today, every HUD Secretary has had the exact same
position on this, which is the definition of HUD is the
appropriate definition for the investment of HUD resources.
Mrs. Capito. Thank you. One final question. You had
mentioned in your remarks that you are doing a survey. I think
you said, do not let the policy get in front of the facts or
something of that nature.
Are you all conducting right now a survey of homelessness?
Is my understanding correct?
Mr. Mangano. That was specifically on family homelessness,
part of the effort that we have been making on the issue is to
conform the creation of policy to the President's management
agenda, which asks that any Federal investment be data and
research-driven first, performance-based, and then results
oriented.
We need to start with the data and the research. We had
very good data and research on people experiencing chronic
homelessness which led to the President prioritizing that as
one of our objectives.
Now we are gathering the data and research under the
leadership of Secretary Leavitt, who is the chair of the
Council this year. We are gathering that data and research on
families.
In fact, outside of government. Dr. Culhane, who will be on
a panel coming up, has completed some research specifically on
homeless families, and there is a federally funded research
effort going on specifically on homeless families as well.
I think our sense is we need to gather together that
research and the data that is associated with it, and what
investments are already being made from the Federal Government
with regard to homeless families, take a look at all of that,
and then out of that, create policies, and then make the
investment in those policies.
Mrs. Capito. Thank you. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. I recognize the
gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Cleaver, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Cleaver. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
One of my concerns is frankly HUD has not, in my
estimation, been as strong an advocate in many areas as many of
us would have liked. Whenever I hear HUD talking about
consolidation, I tremble. As you know, we had to fight off
consolidation last year, 18 department heads into the
Department of Commerce. That creates some paranoia, Mr.
Johnston.
Is there a word of comfort?
Mr. Johnston. There is. There are several words of comfort,
actually.
Mr. Cleaver. I would like a word.
[Laughter]
Mr. Johnston. All right. If you look at HUD's request, that
is the Administration's request for homeless funding over the
last 5 years, you are going to see increases every year.
We have had a 41 percent increase in funding for HUD
homeless programs since 2001. Just in the last 2 years, we have
had a 20 percent increase. We put our money where our mouth is
in a sense.
If you look at our 2008 proposal, which would consolidate
these programs, it came attached to a budget that will increase
significantly the homeless budget at HUD.
The 2007 level is at $1.44 billion. We are asking for
nearly $1.6 billion.
We do not look at consolidation as a way to save money. We
are looking to put more money into this very good investment.
Mr. Cleaver. Thank you. We are friends. Thank you.
[Laughter]
Mr. Cleaver. The final question is, would you agree that
there is some confusion in the Federal Government about what
the word ``homeless'' means? We have homeless programs in a
number of Federal agencies. I am not sure that we know what it
is. I am not sure that there is a definition used by the United
States Federal Government to define ``homelessness.''
We have the Department of Education. We have Veterans'
Affairs. We have Labor, Homeland Security, and FEMA.
Is there something that all of us can agree on, and if not,
do we need this committee to define ``homelessness?''
Mr. Johnston. From my vantage point, there are essentially
two Federal definitions of ``homelessness.'' Both are provided
by Congress.
One is provided to the Department of Education and is also
used by Health Care for the Homeless at the Department of
Health and Human Services, which includes persons who are
living outside, persons who are in homeless facilities, and
most significantly, persons living doubled-up with others.
The definition that is provided to HUD in statute and is
also given to the other agencies that Mr. Mangano referred to,
is a little bit narrower than that. It includes number one and
number two but not number three. That is persons living
outside, and persons living in homeless facilities. It does not
add persons living doubled up.
I think it was intentional that Congress did that, that
expanded the definition for Department of Education, for
instance, and not for HUD.
From my perspective, at the Department of Education, the
mandate is a very important and narrowly targeted focus of
helping ensure that children attend school.
For HUD, the definition implies and requires HUD to have a
very broad mandate, that is to provide emergency shelter,
transitional housing, permanent housing, and a whole array of
supportive services, such as mental health treatment, drug
treatment, day care, food, etc. We are also charged by law to
not just serve one narrow slice of the population but all
homeless persons.
I think from my perspective, it is intentional, and I think
it makes sense, that there are two essentially different
definitions of ``homelessness.''
I think the bridge to narrow that gap is homeless
prevention. If in the consolidation bill, you were to add
homeless prevention as an eligible activity, then those persons
who are doubled-up, who are not homeless, could still get the
assistance they need.
Mr. Cleaver. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
Chairwoman Waters. You are welcome. Mr. Shays, the
gentleman from Connecticut, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Shays. Thank you. I would like to ask all three of you
about this issue which we sometimes do not seem to want to talk
about. I really wrestle with how I integrate my concern for the
homeless and what I feel my obligations are for the homeless,
and that is illegal immigrants.
It astonished me. One of you mentioned all the reasons for
homelessness, and illegal immigration never came up. Is that
because it is a topic we do not talk about or is that because
you think it is irrelevant?
I would like to ask each of you.
Mr. Johnston. I guess I will begin. It certainly is not an
irrelevant topic. We do not have great data on illegal
immigrants, for instance, using systems. We do hear anecdotally
in a variety of emergency shelters in this country, especially
near the border, that illegal immigrants are likely being
assisted. I do not really have specific hard information to
provide you.
Mr. Shays. Why did it not come up in your dialogue? Let me
go to the next witness, please.
Mr. Mangano. In my travels around the country and in my
conversations with people who operate homeless programs across
our country, this is not an issue that has been one of the most
pronounced or visible issues in their experience.
There is not good data on this issue. There have been
certainly reports more in border areas of our country that this
is more of an issue in homeless programs. In general, this is
not a highly reported activity in shelters and homeless
programs across our country.
Certainly, it exists. It is not one of the more visible
expressions of homelessness.
Mr. Yaroslavsky. Let me just speak anecdotally because we
do not have any statistics per se on that issue. Anecdotally,
in Los Angeles, even in Los Angeles, I might say, I think the
percentage of homeless who are illegal immigrants, my bet is it
would be a relatively small number.
Mr. Shays. What is a small number?
Mr. Yaroslavsky. I do not know. Fifteen percent or less.
Mr. Shays. Your point would be that the homeless in
California and parts of California--
Mr. Yaroslavsky. I said Los Angeles.
Mr. Shays. Los Angeles, would be less than 15 percent. Why
would you make that statement?
Mr. Yaroslavsky. Because I know my city and I know my
county, and I spend a lot of time on the streets of my county.
I see who our folks are. I see who comes in for services.
Mr. Shays. Municipal hospitals, what is the number of
homeless?
Mr. Yaroslavsky. That is a different issue.
Mr. Shays. What is it?
Mr. Yaroslavsky. What is what?
Mr. Shays. What is the number of illegal immigrants in
municipal hospitals?
Mr. Yaroslavsky. I am not sure I could give you an accurate
figure, but it is much higher than 15 percent.
Mr. Shays. Why would this be anecdotal? Why would we have
to ask a question like--none of you mentioned it. Is it because
it is just a taboo subject? Is it just because it is
irrelevant? I need to understand why.
Mr. Yaroslavsky. If I can be blunt, the reason it is not
raised is because it really is not relevant.
Mr. Shays. Tell me why it is not relevant.
Mr. Yaroslavsky. Because it is not a significant portion of
the problem.
Mr. Shays. How do you know that?
Mr. Yaroslavsky. I want to be responsive. I am just trying
to collect my thoughts so I can be directly responsive.
Mr. Shays. Sure.
Mr. Yaroslavsky. Almost 25 percent of the homeless on the
streets of our county are veterans--veterans. I would take that
25 percent and put them aside. We see through the number of
people who come through our service agencies all over the
county, not our hospitals, but our homeless service agencies,
our human services agencies, some of our mental health
facilities, they are local people. Many of them are citizens.
Most of them, I would suspect, are citizens. They have served
their country.
Mr. Shays. Do not get on a separate topic. It is like
distraction here. We know that we have a primary problem with
veterans, but do not use veterans to disguise the fact that it
is an anecdotal comment, because we do not understand, and I
want to understand why we do not try to understand what the
problem is.
I am not saying that we will not deal with it. We are
saying--it is like we do not want to know, my feeling is,
because it is a bigger problem than we want to admit. That is
where I come down.
Mr. Yaroslavsky. I understand. Congressman, I think the
reason--it is very hard to get information and statistics about
homeless in general. We just completed our second census of
homeless in Los Angeles County, just announced last week. That
is where the 73,000 figure comes from.
I am not sure the 73,000 figure is accurate. It is based on
extrapolations and assumptions and formula's.
We do not know the number of homeless, let alone what the
demographics of the homeless are.
We do know this, that when we have homeless come into our
agencies, a good percentage of them have mental issues. A good
percentage of them have substance abuse issues, etc. A good
number of them have issues relating to serving in combat.
I have honestly, Congressman, served in public office in
Los Angeles County for 32 years, and this is the first time
that the question of homeless illegals has ever come up. It has
come up in emergency rooms and it has come up in a lot of other
contexts. It has never come up in the context of homeless.
Mr. Shays. It seems to me like a very logical question to
ask and then to confront, and hopefully, with humanity and
caring. Thank you.
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much.
Let me just say I would dare say if that question was asked
of anybody from any city, they would not know what that number
will be. We do not inquire of individuals who are seeking
homeless services whether or not they are legal. It is not
documented, in California or Connecticut.
The other thing is anecdotally, we do know that in many of
our communities, illegals/undocumented double up an awful lot.
We have cases of not only several families living together, but
even in the garages on the property where the front house may
be full.
I think doubling up is more of a response to the family
members who do not have homes rather than going to a public
shelter, if that helps you at all, Mr. Shays.
Mr. Shays. I agree.
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. Mr. Sires, for 5
minutes.
Mr. Sires. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
Mr. Johnston, I share Congressman Cleaver's concern, when
you say consolidating and restructuring. I guess it must come
from the fact that we were both mayors of cities, and when we
hear that word, we find out that only means that you dump it on
the municipalities, on the local municipality.
You talk about restructuring. You talk about consolidating.
Do you have any guarantees that this is not going to happen,
where all these problems are going to be turned over to the
municipalities and just abandoned? I have past experience. That
is why.
Mr. Johnston. Let me give a little bit of perspective on
our proposal. When the McKinney programs were created in 1987,
they were separate independently appropriated programs.
HUD on its own initiative administratively collapsed them
in a Notice of Funding Availability, three of these programs,
the programs that we seek here to consolidate.
The communities would no longer have to apply three
different times to get some funding. They would not have to
choose from one program if they did not really want it.
We are simply trying to codify what we are doing on a
regulatory basis and have been doing for about 12 years. In
addition to making it simpler, to simply apply to one program,
we would be eliminating the eight or nine different match
requirements that are currently in the law, that are all at
different levels.
In just the Supportive Housing Program, there is a match
requirement of 100 percent, if you want to build something.
There is a 25 percent match requirement for operating costs.
There is a 20 percent match requirement for services.
We would love to eliminate all the complexity in these
programs and simplify it with a simple 25 percent match
requirement.
This proposal is simply furthering what we have been trying
to do for many years administratively and change the law to
make it much more flexible for communities.
Let me just throw out one example. Back in 1987, the law
did and still does say that if you want to develop a housing
project, you can only use $400,000 from HUD to do it. To do
that today in Los Angeles or any other city would be an
impossibility, and is an impossibility, to develop an entire
project with $400,000 from HUD.
We do not want to disincentivize housing. We want to
encourage housing. We would eliminate a number of disincentives
that were not intentional but now that we are here many years
later, since 1987, we would like to improve upon.
The other point I wanted to emphasize, which was discussed
a little bit when Mr. Cleaver asked his question, if you look
at our history on this program in the last 6, 8, or 10 years,
this is a bipartisan issue. This is not a partisan issue.
Helping homeless people is something everybody wants to do.
If you look at this Administration's request, from the very
first one forward, we always ask for increases, and we have
proposed a consolidation for 3 years now, and every year, we
have asked for an increase.
This year, we will be going up well over $120 million above
the current funding level. We are committed to making good
change and providing the resources to do it with.
Mr. Sires. I also had the experience where a large
percentage of the homeless were veterans, and the problem with
housing is certainly a big problem since HUD walked away, I
think, from the housing for veterans, and they just turned that
over to the local housing authorities years ago. I do not know
if you are aware of that.
Mr. Johnston. I have been at HUD since 1989. I am certainly
aware of HUD's policies on the issue of homelessness.
Mr. Sires. And you did not use any of the money from
housing authorities to fix up veterans' housing that was built
after the war? This is the experience I had.
Mr. Johnston. In our homeless programs, the homeless
programs that we are referring to today for consolidation, we
have always used these programs to help all homeless
populations, including veterans.
We highly value the need to provide housing and services to
homeless veterans. We have a great relationship with the VA. I
am talking with my counterpart at VA on a weekly basis. We have
done joint initiatives with the Interagency Council on
Homelessness, where we provide the housing and the VA provides
the services.
We provide tailored kinds of programs to accommodate the
special needs of veteran specific projects.
We are very committed and have been for a long time in
providing resources to homeless veterans, whether it is a
project specifically just for veterans, and we fund many, many
dozens of those, or if it is a program that will serve veterans
among another population, we serve those as well.
Mr. Sires. I am concerned, we are getting a lot of veterans
back. We are going to have to really look at that in the
future. Most of the problems with the veterans is mental in
many cases. We need to address that.
Mr. Johnston. I represent HUD on the Secretary of the VA's
Advisory Committee on Homeless Veterans, and work with them on
a regular basis. That is certainly an issue that is coming up.
At this point, the data that the VA has indicates the
numbers are very, very small, but no doubt, that number is
going to increase somewhat.
Mr. Sires. Thank you very much.
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. I would now like to
recognize our newest member, Mr. McCarthy. I understand you
were welcomed to the subcommittee earlier by Ms. Capito, and I
welcome you also, and recognize you for 5 minutes.
Mr. McCarthy. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
Mr. Johnston, you struck me, not in your written statement,
but something you said off the cuff on an answer about
something that is missing is preventive, ahead of time.
I would like you to elaborate on that, but also I would
like you to answer, from your perspective, since you have been
there since 1989, what assistance do you find the most
effective to this population, and what do you find as
assistance that is the least effective in this population that
we are assisting?
Mr. Johnston. In terms of prevention, currently under the
statute through the emergency shelter grants program,
prevention is an eligible activity. The statute, however,
limits it to just 30 percent. That program is funded at about
$160 million, so relatively little of that set of funding can
be used for prevention.
We would like to open up prevention in the much bigger
consolidated program. For instance, the combination of these
three programs that we would like to consolidate this year
represent about $1.3 billion. We would allow up to 30 percent
of those funds to be used for prevention.
As I go around the country and I know Mr. Mangano has done
the same, we see time and time again where people have slipped
into homelessness for a whole variety of reasons.
If they could have been assisted before then, through
mediation in the courts, through paying the utilities, through
helping on the rent for a couple of months, and that person
would not have slipped into homelessness, it would have cost
HUD a lot less, just in terms of pure budget.
Of course, for that person, it is a very traumatic effect,
to slip into homelessness, to live on the streets for just one
night is horrific.
We would very much like to expand the eligible activities
of prevention because it would be very humane for people not
having to come into a shelter and also it would reserve our
funds to address it in a much more effective way, both through
prevention and through permanent supportive housing.
In terms of your second question as to what is most
effective, HUD realized many years ago that emergency shelter
is absolutely not the solution to homelessness.
If you look at how HUD allocates its funds now through the
homeless programs, only about 10 percent of our entire homeless
appropriation goes to emergency shelters, because we realized
that long term solutions are really needed to solve the
problem.
The vast majority of funds go to long term housing as well
as supportive services.
I was looking yesterday in preparation for this hearing at
what percent of our new awarded funds go to permanent housing
versus other activities, and it was about 87 percent, as I
recall, of all of our new funds go to permanent supportive
housing.
I do want to emphasize ``supportive.'' We recognize that
HUD, while we want to be the houser, we recognize there are
services that are very difficult to get from other Federal
agencies, so a significant portion of our budget is used for
vital services that providers cannot readily get somewhere
else.
Mr. McCarthy. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I yield back.
Chairwoman Waters. You are certainly welcome. The gentleman
from Texas, Mr. Green.
Mr. Green. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and I thank you and
the ranking member for having this hearing today.
Mr. Johnston, sir, your comment caught my ear, emergency
shelters are not a solution to homelessness. I concur with what
you said. However, for that one person who receives the
emergency shelter, for that person, for that period of time
that he or she would be without shelter, it is a solution to
the problem at hand.
My assumption is that you would not want us to eliminate
emergency shelters. You were just emphasizing that for some
reason, and it may have escaped me, so would you kindly
emphasize why you were emphasizing that point?
Mr. Johnston. Certainly. We absolutely value the need for
emergency shelter. As the representative from L.A. County
mentioned, in the winter times, when you have an influx of
persons that need shelter, you need immediate assistance there.
You have to have facilities ready to accept them.
My emphasis was, however, that emergency shelter, while it
will be the solution for the short term, for that 30 days or so
that they are in a shelter, it is not a long term solution for
that individual. They need long term housing and long term care
to address their issues, such as helping them with job
training, helping them get off the drugs, helping with their
mental health issues.
While many of those services can be provided in emergency
shelters on a short term basis, it is very difficult to
transition right out of an emergency shelter into full self
sufficiency.
Mr. Green. HUD is proposing a bill, but the bill has not
been presented; is that correct?
Mr. Johnston. We transmitted the bill this summer. We
realized that the House and the Senate both have active bills
on the same issue. We have been working closely with the Senate
on their bill, and we would love to work closely with the House
on your bill, and frankly, work with what is already there,
rather than introducing a third competing bill.
We do think there are some strong provisions in our bill
that would strengthen the provisions in the Senate and House
bills.
Mr. Green. Your position is that you will not be
introducing a bill? I question you on this because you say some
provisions in our bill, but at the same time, you say that you
would want to help us with the two bills that we have before
us.
Are we to expect a bill or are we to expect a proposal?
Mr. Johnston. We transmitted the bill. It has not been
introduced. At this point, we are not actively pursuing to
introduce it. We would rather work with the committee.
Mr. Green. HUD has at some point indicated that there would
be a long term plan for ending homelessness; is this correct? A
10 year proposal, I believe.
Mr. Johnston. I will begin this response and then I know
Mr. Mangano will also want to insert himself here.
The Continuum of Care, which I refer to as our process for
allocating grants and for planning at the local level, has a
Ten Year Plan to end chronic homelessness. That is married with
an initiative that the overall Interagency Council under the
leadership of Secretary Leavitt and Executive Director Philip
Mangano have espoused and have worked very closely with elected
officials.
I am going to turn now to Philip for any additional
comments that he would like to make.
Mr. Mangano. We have been working together again with
States and local communities around the country. Forty-nine
Governors have moved forward with State Interagency Councils,
many of them are moving forward with Ten Year Plans. Local
communities are making their partnership with us tangible in
the creation of Ten Year Plans.
Part of that effort is to find out what is happening in
communities to more inductively understand what the Federal
response should be.
Even thinking about Congressman Shays' question earlier in
terms of the issue of illegal immigrants, which has not come up
in any of the 300 plans, the notion is to gather information
from both States and localities so that in fact Federal
resources are invested and targeted into inductive plans which
actually begin at the community level.
Part of the effort that is being made in Washington among
the Federal agencies in the Interagency Council is to use that
information to come up with a national plan that will be part
of a national partnership, a national Ten Year Plan, but that
plan would be informed and part of a larger effort at every
level of government, no one level of government can do this, no
one plan will effect what we want to see in this country.
Every level of government is moving forward with planning.
Mr. Green. Thank you. I yield back the balance of my time.
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. I recognize the
gentleman from Kentucky, Mr. Davis, for 5 minutes, for
questions.
Mr. Davis of Kentucky. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I have
a question first for Mr. Johnston. I just have one question for
you.
Can you provide the committee with recent statistics
proving that chronic homelessness has decreased?
Mr. Johnston. We could.
Mr. Davis of Kentucky. I would appreciate that, if you
would share that with us. We might have a difference of opinion
from our perspective here versus what we see out in our
districts and on the street versus the numbers.
Also with those numbers, I would appreciate it if you would
share the criteria for calculating those metrics, what defines
somebody who is decreasing, which leads me to my next question
for Mr. Mangano.
You mentioned you had concerns about the proposal of
expanding the HUD definition of ``homelessness,'' in terms of
including long term voluntary arrangements of people living
together for cultural preferences.
I am coming to this not simply as a co-sponsor of
legislation with other members sitting here, but having worked
with families in crisis since the early 1980's.
One thing that I have to say candidly that I have
personally seen is most of the homeless that we would see or we
would deal with, for example, we had one of our agency leaders
from Kentucky testifying week before last, a single parent,
oftentimes a woman coming from a battered or abusive
relationship, with no means of support, and small children,
versus the traditional image that we have with folks on the
street.
The Departments of Education, HHS, and Justice define
``homelessness'' to include people in doubled-up situations,
some of these unconventional situations, as long as it is not
fixed, regular, a voluntary choice, for example, to reduce
rent, not on a long term basis.
The definitions, I think, that we are discussing that we
would like to see changed in legislation do not really reflect
a cultural preference decision or something that would be long
term.
Are you aware of this distinction in definitions between
what we would like to see and what I think the break in
dialogue might be?
Mr. Mangano. Certainly, both in my written testimony and
earlier in my oral testimony, I spoke to the definition issue.
One of the things that the Interagency Council did was bring
together all of the Federal agencies to talk specifically about
this issue.
What we discovered was that the majority of Federal
agencies actually use the same definition, and there are
several other definitions that are used, one at Agriculture,
one in Health Care for the Homeless program in HHS, Justice,
and one at the Department of Education.
In that dialogue with those Federal agencies, I think the
common consensus was there were appropriate reasons for the
expanded definition at Education, specifically as Mr. Johnston
mentioned earlier, for the well being of those children, and in
Agriculture and Health Care for the Homeless, for very specific
reasons.
Again, the majority of Federal agencies, including the
primary agencies that devote McKinney resources to the issue of
homelessness, Veterans' Affairs and HUD and most of HHS,
actually utilize the definition that is currently used by HUD.
I think there are other reasons to be assembled on this
issue. I think the Mayors have indicated at the U.S. Conference
of Mayors when this issue came up, they felt it was an issue
that needed to be tabled, primarily because no analysis has
been done with regard to the cost. No analysis has been done
with regard to how many people that would actually mean coming
into the system.
What State Senator McKinney from Connecticut talked about
last week was in fact the idea of diminishing the current
resources that are used, all of them are accounted for, all of
them are already invested, so if there would not be a
substantial increase, and we do not understand what that
substantial increase would be because the analysis and the
research has not been done, then we would actually be
diminishing the resources that are already targeted.
Mr. Davis of Kentucky. If I could reclaim my time, I would
suggest politely that the Mayors who were making that
recommendation probably have not spent a lot of time working
down on the front lines. We do not have an organization in our
State that I have met with or groups I have volunteered with
that did not recognize this as a very substantial problem.
I grew up in a single parent household myself and came to
the edge a couple of times. I think the perspective here that
is getting missed is by saying that in effect what we are
saying is somebody who is escaping an abuser or some other type
of what ought to be a transitory recovery situation, that we
are not going to provide the Continuum of Care and we are going
to invest in folks that frankly do not have a high likelihood,
and I am not saying we do not take care of them, but we would
invest money in folks who statistically do not have a
likelihood of recovery and we are leaving out what I would
consider, at least for my small piece of the pie, the largest
single population of homeless are not going to be affected by
this.
I think you do not have any choice but to change this
definition.
Mr. Mangano. I think in our discussions with all of the
Federal agencies, there was a real care and concern about those
families. It is not that there are not needs there. It is not
that there is not a response that is necessary.
The concern was that the Federal resources targeted to
homeless people are very limited, and in the GAO report of
1999, for example, it talked about the much deeper resources of
the Federal Government being available and accessible and to be
targeted anew to people experiencing homelessness, I think the
consensus among those Federal agencies was that it is the
deeper Federal resources that should be matched up with the
needs of people who are doubled up, not trying to bring those
doubled up people into homelessness with all of the stigma that
might associate with that, but in fact to invest mainstream
resources in those lives.
It is certainly an issue that needs to be responded to. It
certainly requires resources. I think part of the concern was
that there were deeper resources that could attend to that
issue.
Mr. Davis of Kentucky. Madam Chairwoman, with your
indulgence, if I could just continue for one more minute.
Coming back to the statement that Mr. Johnston made, that I
think is a corollary to this when we are talking about
resources.
You made mention that the overwhelming majority was put
into permanent housing facilities.
Mr. Johnston. Of the new money.
Mr. Davis of Kentucky. Of the new money. You said 87
percent. In relation to this, and I think it is fine to do
inductive studies among the agencies, but I think the
providers, particularly the successful public/private
partnerships that are working at a community level who, I
think, have generally been very good stewards of the resources
that they receive, have found a lot of disconnects.
You can pay for permanent housing but we cannot have
counseling support or job training or some of the other things
providing for the Continuum of Care.
I just want to say in closing, as a priority for me
personally, and I think probably speaking for other members of
the committee as well, what we want to see enacted in this
legislation is making sure that the Continuum of Care is there
for flexibility in use of the resources, and also specifically
coming about with this re-definition, so it really gets to the
root of the problem.
I think it is both compassionate and also conservative
because what we are going to do is help people get a leg up,
become productive in the community, and be able to support
their families, which is what the overwhelming majority want to
do, be successful and build a future for themselves.
Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I yield back.
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. I understand, Mr.
Sires, you would like to have 30 seconds to bring up an issue
that is very important to you.
Mr. Sires. Yes, Madam Chairwoman. Thank you very much.
I was just wondering the percentage of homeless women, do
you see that as a trend that is increasing? I noticed that when
I served--do you have any statistics?
Mr. Mangano. In the research that has been done from 1987
until recent research done by HUD, the percentage of homeless
families has remained fairly fixed as a percentage of the total
number of homeless people.
There will be three of the Nation's leading researchers who
will be testifying in further panels. They have conducted some
of that research that indicates what the percentages are of
homeless families versus homeless individuals. I am sure they
will be able to respond.
My understanding from the research is that while the
numbers may have increased on the family side, the reality is
that percentage remains the same percentage as it was years
ago.
Mr. Sires. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
Mr. Yaroslavsky. Madam Chairwoman, if I could just shed
light on that question. In a recent census that I referred to
earlier, my staff just handed me the sub-demographics, adult
women in 2005, I would not hold these numbers to be etched in
stone, but on an order of magnitude, you can get an idea,
11,200 adult women in the 2005 census; 9,598 in the 2007
census.
If the trend is an indicator, it has diminished somewhat.
I would caution one thing, and again, this is anecdotal, it
is more than anecdotal, I do not know what is happening in your
parts of the country, but in Southern California,
notwithstanding the housing market situation, we are seeing a
rash of demolitions of older units that are rent controlled and
are relatively affordable, and in their place are coming market
rate, either market rate apartments that are very expensive, or
condominiums.
The people who are being evicted from those affordable or
rent controlled units are vulnerable. They are on the bubble.
In the conference that Mr. Mangano co-sponsored with me in
Los Angeles 2 weeks ago, I asked our deputy director of welfare
for the county how many homeless people have come in and out of
the system in the last year that touched his department? He
said 3,500 had left homelessness, but 3,200 had come into
homelessness in that same period of time.
I asked who were those 3,200? He said those 3,200 were
largely people who were either the reasons indicated earlier,
spousal separation, in which case, the spouse may have taken
the kids with them, or they were evicted from their units
because they were going to be demolished for some other
development, and the overwhelming majority of those 3,200 new
homeless people in our county that came through the Welfare
Department were as a result of that.
It is something we need to watch. It will affect people who
otherwise--this is on the prevention side--one of the ways you
can prevent homelessness is not to lose a considerable portion
of your affordable housing stock.
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. I would like to
thank all of our witnesses who have served on this first panel,
and the Chair notes that some members may have additional
questions for this panel which they may wish to submit in
writing. Without objection, the hearing record will remain open
for 30 days for members to submit written questions to these
witnesses, and to place their responses in the record.
Thank you. This panel is now dismissed. I would like to
welcome our second panel. Thank you very much.
I am going to start with the second panel introductions of
some witnesses who are here from my City. I am going to leave
for a short period of time. My colleague, Mr. Green, will be
chairing.
Allow me to introduce Ms. Mercedes Marquez, general
manager, Los Angeles Housing Department, City of Los Angeles. I
want to recognize Ms. Marquez, with whom I and my staff met in
Los Angeles during the August recess.
I was very impressed by her dynamic efforts to engage the
Los Angeles Housing Department in the fight to remove the
City's and County's dubious distinction as the homeless capital
of the country.
In particular, the Housing Department is partnering with
the City's Housing Authority to create a real permanent
supportive housing pipeline. I expect when Mayor Villaraigosa
rolls out this affordable housing plan, Ms. Marquez will be at
the center of other innovative initiatives. I thank you for
being here today, Ms. Marquez.
I would also like to introduce Ms. Elizabeth Gomez,
executive director of the Los Angeles Youth Network. The Los
Angeles Youth Network is a private nonprofit organization
providing services to runaways homeless, and foster care youth.
Ms. Gomez has worked with youth since 1980 and her
specialized training includes comprehensive program development
for runaway, homeless and foster youth. She serves on community
advisory boards as well as private and state boards, and has
presented frequently at national conferences regarding youth
issues, youth development prevention, crisis intervention,
suicide intervention, strength management, and program
development.
I thank you very much. I am going to ask Mr. Green if he
will take the Chair while I go to another committee that I am
serving on, and I will return shortly.
Mr. Green. [presiding.] Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
Continuing with the introductions, we have Dr. Dennis
Culhane. He is a Ph.D. professor of social policy and practice
at the University of Pennsylvania.
Ms. Arlene McNamee, executive director of Catholic Social
Services, Diocese of Fall River in Massachusetts.
Next we will have Dr. Jamie Van Leeuwen, Ph.D., project
manager for Denver's Road Home, City and County of Denver.
Finally, we have Ms. Nan Roman, who is the president of the
National Alliance to End Homelessness.
I believe I covered everyone. Did I miss anyone?
Because I am told that we may have some scheduling concerns
with Dr. Jamie Van Leeuwen, we will hear from Dr. Van Leeuwen
first. I beg the others to indulge us given that we have these
concerns, and then we will go back to the regular order
announced.
Doctor, if you would, please. You will be recognized for 5
minutes.
STATEMENT OF JAMES MICHAEL VAN LEEUWEN, PH.D., PROJECT MANAGER,
DENVER'S ROAD HOME
Mr. Van Leeuwen. Thank you, Congressman Green.
Mr. Green. Excuse me just a moment. Pardon my interruption.
The chairman of the full committee has arrived, Chairman Barney
Frank, and he will be recognized. The Chair recognizes him for
5 minutes.
The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize for my
lack of etiquette, but you get what you can, you know.
I did want to thank you for being here and thank so many
old and new friends who are here. I do want to emphasize it is
very important that we go ahead with this. I really take pride
in the fact that we are going ahead and dealing with the
homeless in an integrated way, and we are including in that
places where people can live.
We are remembering that we cannot resolve the problem of
homelessness or diminish it without building some homes.
I want to thank so many friends, and in particular say I am
very delighted that Arlene McNamee is here, who has been in the
southern part of my district where the economic issues are the
greatest, representing the Diocese of Fall River, a great
advocate for dealing with housing problems or social service
issues in an integrated way.
I just wanted to welcome Arlene McNamee and Nan Roman and
all the other friends, and say thank you. I have other duties,
but I did want to make clear how important this is, and to
promise people that this will be on the agenda, and I know that
Chairwoman Waters is dedicated to this, and this bill will be
coming to the Floor as part of the package.
I just welcome everybody here. I would say as long as you
are up here on the Hill, if you get a chance, please go talk to
the Senate.
[Laughter]
The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Green. Thank you. The chairman is always recognized
upon his arrival. We will now continue with Dr. Van Leeuwen.
Mr. Van Leeuwen. Thank you, Congressman Green, Chairman
Frank, Ranking Member Capito, and distinguished members of the
subcommittee.
On behalf of Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper and the U.S.
Conference of Mayors, I want to thank you all for the
opportunity to testify in support of the reauthorization of
McKinney-Vento.
In this testimony, I want to provide an overview of the
work that we are doing in Denver as it relates to our Ten Year
Plan on homelessness, and our well-established partnership with
the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness and the U.S.
Conference of Mayors. This testimony is also supported by the
National Community Development Association.
I want first and foremost to acknowledge the leadership and
partnership that Denver shares with the U.S. Interagency
Council on Homelessness and the U.S. Conference of Mayors, in
our efforts to forge collaboration and build strategic
alliances allowing us to more effectively respond to the
homeless in Denver.
This overview assesses both our progress as well as the
cost savings we are experiencing as a result of our coordinated
responses to assist the homeless in Denver.
Denver's Road Home, which is our Ten Year Plan in
homelessness, began in 2003 in response to an increasing rise
in homeless persons in the City and County of Denver.
Through that, we developed a strategic and comprehensive
plan with eight measurable goals, objectives, and outcomes,
combining accountability with compassion.
The plan was approved by the Denver City Council and Mayor
Hickenlooper in 2005 and went into implementation as of July 1,
2005.
From the beginning, the citizens of Denver were promised a
plan with achievable and sustainable goals, with measurable
action steps as well as a plan that emphasizes collaborative
efforts and accountability.
What this translates to is we are 2 years into our
implementation in Denver. Through our point in time count,
through the Metropolitan Denver homeless initiatives, we have
experienced an 11 percent reduction in overall homelessness,
and a 36 percent reduction in chronic homelessness in the City
and County of Denver.
This translates to about 789 new units of housing, 2,455
homeless have been assisted in finding work, 2,003 individuals
have had increased access to public benefits and treatment
services, 563 families receiving eviction assistance, 132
homeless persons entering housing through our street outreach
collaboration, and 233 families being partnered with our faith
based mentoring teams.
While our accomplishments are significant, we also know
there is a lot more work that needs to be done. We have 3,900
men, women, and children in our City who remain homeless at the
time of this testimony.
There are over 600 homeless households with children
totaling 1,563 individual people. Of these households, 465 are
single parent families.
The most commonly reported reason for homelessness in
Denver was loss of a job followed by relationship or family
break-up and substance abuse.
In terms of the cost savings, I want to spend just a brief
moment on that. We know that permanent supportive housing is
demonstrating proven outcomes in our ability to transition the
homeless off the streets and into housing.
It costs Denver taxpayers over $40,000 per homeless person
per year to live life on the streets. To operate one bed at a
shelter, it is costing Denver $18,000 annually versus $15,000
to maintain one unit of permanent supportive housing.
When taking into consideration Denver Cares, the primary
detox center for the City and County of Denver, the 25 highest
users logged an accumulative total of 2,657 admissions last
year, an average of 100 nights per homeless individual in our
detox facility.
After moving these individuals into 1 year of permanent
supportive housing, we experienced a 79.6 percent reduction in
admissions, to an accumulative total of 541 admissions per
year.
We went from 2,657 admissions to detox for these 25 highest
users to 541 admissions when they moved into housing, permanent
supportive housing, combining service requirements with
accountability.
The Colorado Coalition for the Homeless in their study
looked at the chronically homeless, and after 1 year in
housing, 77 percent of those chronically homeless were still in
housing. Their incomes went from $185 at entry to $431, and
emergency service utilization was 44 percent fewer days than at
enrollment.
We know that by putting the homeless into housing,
especially the chronically homeless, that we are not only able
to improve the quality of life but also significantly decrease
the costs they are impacting in terms of our service delivery.
I want to thank you all for the opportunity to address this
subcommittee. I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Van Leeuwen can be found on
page 201 of the appendix.]
Mr. Green. Thank you, Doctor. Because time is of the
essence as it relates to you, we will ask questions of you at
this time, taking you out of order.
I have one quick question. Should agencies that deal with
the homeless be required to ascertain whether or not a person
is a citizen, and if so, why, and if not, why?
Should agencies be required to ascertain citizenship?
Mr. Van Leeuwen. Right now, it has been a dialogue that we
have been having with our homeless providers, and referencing
the previous question, Congressman, we are still trying to get
a better sense of how much that issue is impacting our
agencies.
Right now, they ask for citizenship in order to move them
into housing and follow the laws that are in the State and in
the City and County of Denver.
In terms of whether or not they should do it, we know that
we are assisting them in accessing the services in terms of
food and basic shelter, and really before I can answer that
question, we really do not have the data to tell us whether or
not this is an issue in the City and County of Denver or in
other cities around the country.
Mr. Green. Thank you. The ranking member is recognized for
5 minutes.
Mrs. Capito. Thank you. I am going to hold my questions for
the rest of the panel. Thank you. Thank you, Doctor.
Mr. Green. Representative Davis is now recognized for 5
minutes.
Mr. Davis of Kentucky. Just one quick question. In the last
hearing, for those of you who were here to listen to that,
there was quite a lot of talk about Federal agencies, and I get
the sense that what I am hearing is that the Federal agencies
will determine the winners and losers, that the Federal
agencies are typically in these areas very far away from the
front lines.
I just wonder if you might comment briefly on whether you
feel that critical decisions like this should be made at a
local level with a little bit more flexibility in addressing
this Continuum of Care issue based on what you have been
working on.
Mr. Van Leeuwen. I know that on behalf of Mayor
Hickenlooper, the jurisdictional leadership via our Mayor and
having that flexibility of asserting that jurisdictional
leadership has made a significant difference in terms of our
ability to carry out the initiative that we have in Denver.
When you look at Denver's Road Home and the accomplishments
that we have been able to achieve over the last 2 years, the
silver bullet has been political will at the local level, and
having the Mayor going and reaching out to our homeless
providers and really putting that piece of this is about
quality of life, but this is also about the fact that we need
to hold our nonprofits accountable and we need to hold our
homeless accountable.
If we create these services, we need to make sure that they
are being used cost effectively as we transition them off the
streets.
Mr. Davis of Kentucky. Thank you. I yield back.
Mr. Green. Thank you, Doctor. We greatly appreciate your
sharing your time with us and the information you shared as
well. We wish you well as you make your exit.
Mr. Van Leeuwen. Congressman, I appreciate your sensitivity
to my schedule today as well. Thank you.
Mr. Green. We will now move to Dr. Dennis Culhane. I am
looking at the door because I am told that Representative
Cleaver may come in at any moment. As he is not here, we will
continue.
Dr. Culhane, we will now hear from you for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF DENNIS CULHANE, PH.D., PROFESSOR OF SOCIAL POLICY
AND PRACTICE, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
Mr. Culhane. Thank you, Congressman Green, Ranking Member
Capito, and distinguished members of the subcommittee.
I want to commend you for taking up the reauthorization of
the McKinney Act, which is now in its 20th year of existence.
Many lessons have been learned, especially in the last 10
years. I would like to reflect on some of the lessons which
have been learned as I address some of the issues that I know
are before the committee.
First, with regard to this issue of definitions of
``homelessness,'' it is my understanding that the different
definitions that exist in the Federal agencies actually reflect
the appropriate missions of those agencies.
For example, with regard to HHS and the Department of
Education, I think it is important to distinguish between
mainstream resources for homeless individuals and targeted
resources.
The HHS and DOE definitions are purposely broad because
they are intended to ensure access to mainstream resources,
that being public education in the case of DOE, and
transportation to education, as well as health care services
through HHS, for these broader populations.
With regard to HUD, however, their definition relates to
the targeted resources, dollars that are focused on making sure
that people who are literally homeless have access to emergency
shelter.
Unfortunately, right now, based on a report that was given
to the Congress this last spring, nearly half of the homeless
people today are literally living on the street, and are not in
shelters, and are not currently being served.
I think that suggests to me that we should be very careful
about expanding the definition to populations who are in
conventional housing, however substandard or unfortunate those
conditions may be, when we have 300,000 people on the streets
today who are not accessing these resources at all.
I also would note that the McKinney resources, as you know,
are not an entitlement. There is not a proportionate increase
in the resources from adding new people to the pool who are
counted as homeless. In effect, by not increasing those
resources, we would be diluting the value of the program.
Right now, there are about 2.5 million people who
experience homelessness annually in the United States. That
means that there is an average of about $750 per person from
the McKinney Act that can go to those persons. If we increase
the number of eligibles three-fold, we may reduce the per
person amount available three-fold.
It is also worth noting that there are major problems with
trying to certify eligibility and trying to measure results if
we include people who are less visible and in these
conventional housing units.
With regard to the issue of prevention, I think it is very
important that we do try to serve people who are near homeless.
However, research has not shown that broad based community
interventions to prevent homelessness actually reduce the
number of people who come into the shelter system.
That does not mean that those resources do not do something
that is effective for families in need, but it does not reduce
the number of people who become homeless.
Given the limited resources that are provided by the
McKinney-Vento Act, I think it is important that if we do add
prevention that we are careful to make sure those dollars are
used to leverage mainstream resources like in TANF, in the
mental health system and elsewhere that can provide and expand
services and housing for these populations.
I would encourage you to use the McKinney-Vento resources
for demonstration projects because as yet, we do not have the
research and results to direct a new Federal prevention
program. We do need demonstration projects to test what would
work and what could work and then to have those results drive
policy.
With regard to the issue of meeting the challenge of family
homelessness, we now know clearly from research that
homelessness negatively impacts children and families. I think
it would be wise for the new McKinney Act to consider as a
statement of principle that no family should be homeless for
more than 30 or 60 days. Long shelter stays have no established
benefit yet they consume most of the resources in the shelter
system.
My colleagues and I recently completed a study finding that
a relatively small proportion of families, 20 percent, used 50
percent of the resources. They are staying in shelters on
average more than a year, and the cost of having those folks in
shelters could translate into 4 or 5 years of a permanent
housing subsidy for those families.
The McKinney resources cannot solve the affordability
problem, but they can be used to leverage TANF dollars and
child welfare agencies into doing relocation and transitional
rental assistance, a bridge, if you will, to permanent
subsidies when necessary.
Of course, HUD needs to have more resources to provide
those permanent subsidies to address the housing affordability
that underlies this problem.
One of the other things that has been learned in the last
10 years is that the permanent housing set-aside has been
associated with significant results. We cannot justify the
continued use of resources for emergency shelter and having
people warehoused in shelters when we know those same resources
can provide a permanent solution to homelessness. It would not
be ethical. The research also shows that it is not economically
efficient to do so.
The set-aside has been crucial to producing these results,
and I would urge the committee to codify the set-aside into
law.
Another lesson that has been learned in these past few
years is that jurisdictional partnerships have been very
important to advancing solutions for this population. In
particular, the chronic homeless initiative through the work of
the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness has
helped communities to develop Ten Year Plans. These Ten Year
Plans have brought new research and new accountability to
homeless programs, more than 40 studies have recently been done
by communities, as Denver, as Dr. Van Leeuwen noted, looking at
the high costs associated with chronic homelessness, and the
reductions in costs that are associated with having folks
placed in permanent housing.
Those kinds of results have the opportunity to drive more
resources into the system. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Culhane can be found on page
98 of the appendix.]
Mr. Green. Thank you, sir.
We will now move to our next witness, Ms. Marquez.
STATEMENT OF MERCEDES MARQUEZ, GENERAL MANAGER, LOS ANGELES
HOUSING DEPARTMENT, CITY OF LOS ANGELES
Ms. Marquez. Good morning, Congressman Green, Ranking
Member Capito, and members of the subcommittee.
On behalf of the City of Los Angeles' Mayor, Antonio
Villaraigosa, thank you for the opportunity to let you know how
grateful we are that you are taking up the reauthorization of
McKinney-Vento.
My name is Mercedes Marquez, and I am the general manager
of the City of Los Angeles Housing Department. Along with the
Office of the Mayor, the Housing Authority of the City of Los
Angeles, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, I am
responsible for the administration of Federal homeless
assistance programs in the City of Los Angeles.
Particularly, it is my responsibility to create and
maintain, build and support a production based system of
permanent supportive housing in the City of Los Angeles.
In 2006, Mayor Villaraigosa launched the first permanent
supportive housing program in the City of L.A. He has committed
now for the third year in a row that half of our $100 million
affordable housing trust fund be specifically directed to the
homeless program for permanent supportive housing.
That means that in less than 3 years, we will have $150
million specifically dedicated to the construction of permanent
supportive housing.
In addition to that, the City has committed to expanding
the Homeless Section 8 program and is providing an estimated
value of $129 million in rental assistance to homeless
individuals and families.
Moreover, a portion of this funding is supporting a
partnership with the County of Los Angeles to move 500 families
out of Skid Row and into affordable housing elsewhere in the
City.
We have already had discussion about the different
statistics in Los Angeles. We are unfortunately the homeless
capital of homelessness in the country. It is true that
approximately, at last count, 22,000 folks in the City of Los
Angeles find themselves homeless on any given night, and 13,000
homeless children currently attend the Los Angeles Unified
School District schools. Against this backdrop, we support the
McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act.
Because my responsibility is particularly on creating a
supportive system of construction, I am going to focus my
particular comments on those issues within the Act that support
a production based system.
For us, it is very important that you maintain a set-aside
for permanent supportive housing for all homeless people with
disabilities and sustain this housing inventory with adequate
program funding.
At the moment in the City of Los Angeles, our permanent
supportive housing fund is funded both with CDBG, with HOME
dollars. I use general fund money from the City of Los Angeles,
municipal bond financing income that comes to the Housing
Department. I am now in a partnership with the Department of
Transportation to contribute land to the effort, as well as
working with our Department of Water and Power for energy
efficiencies.
You can see that we use everything and everything we can to
make these programs work. It is important for us that a set-
aside be maintained in order to continually fund it.
The most important thing about creating a production based
system is it is a business like any other. Developers must know
that the funding stream is consistent, that the rules are clear
and fair. It is only in that way that they will continue to
make the type of investment that is necessary, the holding
costs for land, architectural fees, environmental assessments
to move forward with building the housing.
It is important for us to be able to project out years
ahead of time the funding levels that we will be able to
provide with the rules that are applied so that people will
invest.
Having a set-aside is important. It is also incredibly
important that you extend from 12 months to 24 months the
amount of time necessary to fulfill all of the requirements for
the obligation of funds, including site acquisition and
control, the provision of matching funds, environmental
reviews, and the completion of construction and rehabilitation
of supportive housing projects.
It is very difficult to work within the system. I have to
match every dollar for dollar with State leveraging. Our
programs follow this different State cycles of funding, and it
is very difficult to do all that, get it all in line and
actually build the housing.
If we only have a 12-month period, we are pretty much
excluding our construction based program of providing
supportive housing. We really need that.
In addition to that, ensure the coordination with the low
income tax credit program. Since we do leverage in the City of
Los Angeles, while permanent supportive housing is more
expensive to build, for every dollar that the City is
investing, we are in leverage securing approximately $3.25.
In order for us to work within tax credit programs,
different State funding and Federal funding guidelines, we need
the 24 months and we need the rules to match the low income
housing tax credit program, so we can all make it work
together.
We would also echo what we have heard many people on both
panels now say, that we do not support the expansion of the
definition.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Marquez can be found on page
152 of the appendix.]
Mr. Green. Thank you.
We will now recognize Ms. McNamee for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF ARLENE McNAMEE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CATHOLIC
SOCIAL SERVICES, DIOCESE OF FALL RIVER, MASSACHUSETTS
Ms. McNamee. Thank you, Representative Green. I would like
to thank Chairwoman Waters and Ranking Member Capito for
devoting the time and attention of the subcommittee to this
important matter. I wish to express my appreciation to Chairman
Frank for inviting me to share my experience in serving
homeless families and single adults in his district.
Representatives Carson and Davis deserve our deepest gratitude
as well for introducing the HEARTH Act.
We wish Representative Carson a speedy recovery, and she is
in our thoughts and our prayers.
My name is Arlene McNamee, and I am the executive director
of Catholic Social Services of the Diocese of Fall River,
Massachusetts, and I also serve on the Board of Directors of
Catholic Charities USA.
CSS is the largest provider of services and shelter for the
homeless outside of the Greater Boston Region. Last year, we
served a total of 42,523 individuals with a range of services
including food, medicine, financial assistance, and housing
case management advocacy and counseling, services that often
function as a means of preventing homelessness.
CSS provides services and shelter for more than 348
homeless families and individuals each night in housing
programs that include emergency shelter, transitional housing
for homeless women and children, women returning from prison,
70 permanent housing units for families, and 65 units for
singles who were formerly homeless.
My testimony will reinforce the following three points:
First, HUD is not keeping its commitment to provide affordable
housing for the extremely-low-income households; second,
reauthorization of the McKinney-Vento Act must expand HUD's
definition of ``homelessness'' and restore the ability of local
communities to act on all they have learned since the last
reauthorization; and third, the HEARTH Act will best enable
communities to put into practice all we know about preventing
and ending homelessness among all households--urban, suburban,
and rural.
HUD must re-establish a commitment to produce and subsidize
and preserve affordable housing for the poor. Last week, the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts reported that 1,800 families were
in homeless shelters. According to the Massachusetts Coalition
for the Homeless, more families are in shelter now than at any
time since the inception of the State's family shelter program
in 1983.
This is not a function of overabundance of shelter beds.
This is a result of a dwindling supply of affordable housing
options for the very poor.
In order to begin to reverse the growing problems of
homelessness, the Federal Government must be an active partner
in the creation of affordable housing. We must enact the
National Housing Trust Fund to bring these solutions to scale.
The chronic homelessness 30 percent set-aside carved out of
the McKinney-Vento programs is applied without regard to the
number of chronically homeless individuals in each community.
HEARTH rejects HUD's current practice of prescribing solutions
aimed at big cities like New York and San Francisco, directing
dollars away from small towns and rural areas.
Most Americans are living in cities like mine, with
populations of 90,000 to 250,000. Our needs are different than
that of big cities, and we need to have control over our
problems.
The eligibility criteria associated with the set-aside is
exclusionary and burdensome. Take, for example, the Donaldson
family. After Mr. Donaldson lost his job and fell behind in his
rent, the landlord placed him in what amounts to a servitude,
requiring him to work as a janitor in order to maintain housing
for his wife and four children. This, of course, interfered
with his plan to find a new job, further driving the family
into poverty.
After the landlord began to verbally abuse him in front of
his wife and children, Mr. Donaldson went to the local shelter
for help, but the shelter was full. Donaldson did not quite
qualify for the our HUD funded permanent housing program.
For 2 weeks, this family of six lived in a car until they
could complete the necessary paperwork to qualify under the
current HUD definition for the housing program. While they met
one part of the current definition, which was living in a car,
they did not have the documentation for a disability.
This story begins to illustrate the need to expand HUD's
definition of ``homelessness'' and restore local flexibility.
Research coupled with practice teaches us that families are
best served in their own homes, and that to prevent
homelessness whenever possible is the best option.
We have learned that each family and individual does not
neatly fit into HUD's rigid categories. HUD must expand its
definition of ``homelessness'' to include families who are
doubled-up and living in motels for lack of other options.
While doing outreach to a local motel, one of our workers
found a mother with two children, ages 4 and 11. The 11 year
old daughter was severely disabled and suffering from advanced
cerebral palsy. As such, she was lying motionless on a mattress
on the floor. Placing a mattress on a floor is a common
practice of protecting children with CP from falling out of
their beds.
Without money for a wheelchair that was left behind when
she fled her abuser, the mother had to carry the child wherever
she went. This and her fear of being located by her abuser
prevented her from leaving the motel room.
Sadly, this family did not qualify for our permanent
supportive housing program because the current definition
states that the head of the household must have the disability.
In fact, because they are living in motels, they are not
considered homeless by HUD, and not entitled to McKinney-Vento
services at all.
Finally, children living in families who are doubled-up or
living in motels suffer in unimaginable ways and are at risk of
similarly poor outcomes to those of homeless children.
Congress must expand the HUD definition of ``homelessness''
to include persons who are sharing the housing of others due to
loss of housing, economic hardship, or similar reasons, and
those who are staying in motels because of lack of adequate
alternative accommodations.
We ask that the committee weigh heavily the findings of
practice wisdom and research and reject HUD's overly
prescriptive Federal policy which aims to standardize the
response to homelessness.
HEARTH consolidates the separate HUD programs and codifies
the Continuum of Care and restores the local flexibility
necessary to operate properly.
Lastly, HEARTH extends the HUD definition to include
persons who are sharing the housing of others due to loss of
housing, economic hardship, or similar reasons, and those who
are staying in motels because of a lack of adequate alternative
accommodations.
HEARTH makes the Continuum of Care approach responsive to
all communities by restoring local flexibility, streamlining
the application process, adding double upped and multiple
families to HUD's definition, allowing more money to be used
for prevention.
HEARTH is the optimum approach and we urge the committee to
support HEARTH and thank the 79 co-sponsors of this bill.
Please refer to my written testimony for further comments,
and I would like to thank the committee and Chairman Frank for
this opportunity.
[The prepared statement of Ms. McNamee can be found on page
161 of the appendix.]
Mr. Green. Thank you.
Ms. Gomez is now recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF ELIZABETH GOMEZ, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, LOS ANGELES
YOUTH NETWORK
Ms. Gomez. Thank you for having me here today. As we talked
earlier, I am a little bit different in my representation in
that I am a local service provider providing services to
runaway, homeless, and foster care youth.
Today, I am here as a representative of the National
Network for Youth, the Nation's leading organization on youth
homelessness.
It is an honor to testify. It is the first opportunity in
the 33 year history of the National Network to appear before
this committee. Our absence before this body is indicative of
the inattention to youth and public policy regarding housing
and homeless assistance.
An analysis of community plans to end homelessness
conducted by the National Alliance to End Homelessness
concludes that only 49 percent of such plans have youth
specific efforts.
In Los Angeles, while we have been invited to the
discussions, our appeals for accommodations to address the
unique developmental needs of homeless youth go unheeded.
Therefore, we are very grateful today and thankful that we
are here to talk about the needs of homeless youth.
As many as 3 million youth and young adults experience a
homeless situation annually. In Los Angeles, as was stated
earlier, a recent count shows that 20,000 of those homeless are
under the age of 18; 11,000 between the ages of 18 and 24;
another 3,000 of unaccompanied minors.
Some sit innocuously in classrooms in Jordan or Hollywood
High School and sleep on the couches of their classmates if
they are lucky. Others go to work at minimum wage jobs and
sleep in shifts in efficiency apartments or motels, just to
make ends meet.
Many of these young people end up homeless as well on the
streets and go back and forth to these efficiency apartments or
motels.
Other children hang out on the streets of Hollywood, Santa
Monica, Pasadena, South L.A., and yes, the infamous Skid Row,
or Cardboard City, as it has been called.
A fortunate few make it to a homeless youth organization
such as the Los Angeles Youth Network.
A primary source of funds for us, the youth providers, is
the Federal Runaway and Homeless Youth Act. This is a great
resource. However, the Runaway and Homeless Youth programs have
their limits. Emergency shelters can only serve youth up to age
18, grant awards that are capped at $200,000, funds are not
available for supportive services only, and Congress
appropriated in 2007 only 7 percent of what was appropriated to
the McKinney-Vento Act.
Runaway and homeless youth agencies must look for funds in
other areas, thus we return to the McKinney-Vento Act as it is
a program that Congress established for all homeless people,
and I emphasize the word ``all.'' Young people, youth, should
be included in that process.
We receive about $42,000 for supportive services, a 50
percent reduction over the years, a loss attributed to our
county's shift toward permanent supportive housing, due to the
Federal chronic homeless initiative.
I know of many other organizations that we work with that
are in similar situations. No other public agency has stepped
up to replace those funds.
It is one of the reasons the National Network for Youth
supports the HEARTH Act. The bill would restore flexibility to
communities to use HUD's McKinney-Vento funds as they determine
most appropriate. Also, it would revise the HUD definition of
``homelessness'' to include additional living arrangements,
common among homeless youth, and recognized as ``homelessness''
by Congress several times already.
The Senate reauthorization bill misses the mark on many
counts, although we do favor the prohibition on HUD funded
family shelters and family housing from denying admission of a
whole family or a youth member of the family on the basis of
age.
This practice is harmful to families, stigmatizes the youth
and is a causal factor for youth homelessness.
The current HUD McKinney-Vento programs are critical to
reaching some homeless youth. They could support more youth,
however, if we rolled back the current restrictive
administrative policies, strengthened the laws so that all
homeless subpopulations may have equal access to funds, and
increased authorization and appropriation levels.
The HEARTH Act meets these needs.
The reauthorization of the HUD McKinney-Vento Act must be
considered as just a part of a larger effort. We must take bold
steps such as those offered in H.R. 3409, the Place to Call
Home Act. This bill by Representative Hinojosa seeks to end
youth homelessness, and we urge the subcommittee to give
attention to the permanent housing provisions of that bill in a
future hearing.
We also urge everybody on the committee to visit youth
programs in their local communities so they can meet the young
people in our Nation who are part of the homeless population,
as important as any other group, and who are just as desperate
for a safe place to call home.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Gomez can be found on page
111 of the appendix.]
Mr. Green. Thank you.
We will now recognize Ms. Roman for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF NAN ROMAN, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL ALLIANCE TO END
HOMELESSNESS
Ms. Roman. Thank you so much. Thank you to the members of
the subcommittee for your leadership and congratulations on the
passage of the National Affordable Housing Trust Fund.
Affordable housing is ultimately the solution to homelessness.
The HUD McKinney-Vento programs have been well-run over the
past 20 years, well-administered by HUD, and well-delivered by
a network of nonprofit and faith based providers.
Over these past 20 years, we have also learned a lot about
what works. The reason it is important to reauthorize McKinney,
I think, is to take advantage of what we have learned about
what works and to apply it more broadly.
Our goal in reauthorization should not be to have an
expanding shelter system that more and more people enter with
no clear way out. That would be going backwards. Our goal
should be to use best practices to reduce the number of
homeless people and create a system that is all about
preventing homelessness and moving people back into housing
fast. That, I think, would be the path forward.
Furthermore, it is important to keep a balance in the
program. It is not a matter of ending homelessness among
children say or chronically homeless people first. The program
has to address the needs of all homeless people in a sensible
and balanced way. It is not one or the other, while retaining a
focus on best practices to improve outcomes.
What have we learned in the past 20 years that would help
us to achieve these goals?
I think we have learned that permanent supportive housing
works for people who are disabled. It solves the problem of
homelessness. The 30 percent set-aside, which is a national
set-aside, not local, works to make sure that a proportionate
amount of resources goes to that group.
Some focus on chronic homelessness work because by
definition, this is a group of poorly served people whose
interests must be protected.
We cannot just focus on the chronic population. Rapid re-
housing works for at least 80 percent of families and children.
Permanent housing provides a stable base for children,
education, services, and employment. Shelter does not.
What we want to do is get children and families back into
housing faster and not prolong their homelessness.
The other 20 percent of families and children have more
serious problems including disabilities. Some are chronically
homeless. They should be included in the definition. Chronic
homelessness, they need long term housing subsidies and
services assistance.
Other things we have learned is that data are important.
Rural areas present different challenges. The Federal response
should be different in rural areas. Prevention works but it has
to be tightly targeted to those at eminent risk.
A key learning of the past 20 years is that places that are
making progress in reducing numbers are targeting better and
more tightly.
In this regard, I want to speak to the HEARTH Act's
proposal to broaden the definition of ``homelessness'' to
include people who are doubled up for economic reasons. That
broad inclusion, I think, is a bad idea for several reasons.
First of all, we have actually--there are currently, as has
been said, 744,000 people who are defined by HUD as homeless.
Only slightly more than half receive shelter. We are not
meeting the current needs of people who are defined as homeless
by HUD.
We have looked at the American Community survey data to try
to estimate what expanding the definition would mean. We
estimate that it would mean 3.8 million more people would be
eligible for assistance than are currently assisted or defined
as eligible. That is 5 times the current number of people who
are eligible.
We would need $7.8 billion on a pro rata basis to provide
services to those people at the same fairly misery level of
services we now provide to people who are eligible.
Second, ``doubled up for economic reasons'' is probably way
too broad. Many people are doubled up for economic reasons, but
they are not homeless. They are stably housed. Their housing
may not be optimum, but the homeless system has nothing to
offer to remedy that situation.
Section 8, the National Affordable Housing Trust Fund, and
other housing programs should address their housing needs and
we need more of those. CDBG, TANF, Child Welfare, and other
service programs need to address their service needs.
There are doubled-up families who are not stably housed,
who are couch surfing or moving from one home to another. They
are literally homeless and they should be included in the
definition.
For most doubled-up families who cannot get help from the
homeless system, the problem is not that they are not eligible
for assistance. The problem is that we do not have enough
resources to help them in the system.
Calling 5 times more people homeless will not help that
problem. It will just exacerbate it.
We can do a better job of helping homeless families with
children, youth, veterans, and single adults. In my view, the
Community Partnership to End Homelessness Act in the Senate
provides a great legislative template for achieving the balance
and sensible approach it takes to meet all of these needs.
I urge you to look at it closely. I think it has arrived at
some pretty creative solutions to these conflicting needs and
opinions, and is a good road map for moving forward.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Roman can be found on page
189 of the appendix.]
Mr. Green. Thank you all for your testimony. I will now
recognize myself for 5 minutes.
Dr. Culhane, you indicated that you thought a 30 day rule
would be appropriate. Would you please restate your 30 day
rule?
Mr. Culhane. I am just suggesting, sir, that in the
statement of principle, we should be committing ourselves to
the goal that families should not be homeless for more than 30
or perhaps 60 days.
The idea that families should be lingering in shelters for
a year, a year-and-a-half, or 2 years, as is now actually
permitted, and in some cases, actually encouraged
programmatically, that should be done away with.
Mr. Green. Thank you. Would everyone agree with this? If
not, I would like to hear anyone with an opposing point of
view.
Ms. Gomez?
Ms. Gomez. I think for young people, for youth, we have a
very different perspective. You cannot put an unaccompanied 16-
year-old into permanent housing. They cannot even sign a lease.
There is a group of young people who based on their
developmental needs do need to stay in emergency shelter longer
because they also do not have resources. They might not have a
family to go back to. They might not have a relative that we
found, and they might not have appropriate resources to
transition to stability.
Rather than putting them on the street, you keep them in
shelter until you can find an appropriate housing situation.
Mr. Green. Yes?
Ms. McNamee. Representative, I would just like to make sure
that Dr. Culhane is only talking about emergency shelters and
not transitional.
Mr. Culhane. I am including both because we do not see a
benefit in the research for families who stay in transitional
versus emergency shelters.
We do not see a benefit associated with those longer stays.
Families who are housed, regardless of how long they stay and
whether they are in emergency shelters or transition shelters,
do well in housing, and that should be our goal.
Mr. Green. Ms. McNamee?
Ms. McNamee. Thank you. Our finding has been that there are
certain populations of women and children who really do need
the transitional step prior to going to permanent housing. In
that case, it typically has been women who have come from
domestic violence situations where they really need time to
reconstruct their lives and time to sort of--the word I would
use which is not very therapeutic--be. Meaning where the
pressure is off. There is someone to assist with supporting the
child care because the children have also been traumatized.
They need to establish their identity. They need things
like licenses, cash, apply for benefits, all of which are
pretty difficult, and they are usually very afraid to be by
themselves for the first 3 to 4 months of leaving a domestic
violence situation. We have had them leave and come back.
Mr. Green. Thank you. Doctor, back to you again. You
indicated that prevention dollars do not diminish the number of
persons who are going into shelters, I believe you said.
Would you care to elaborate on that? I would like to get
some responses from other members of the panel as well, more
specifically, Ms. McNamee.
Mr. Culhane. I was speaking specifically with regard to
untargeted prevention dollars. There have been several efforts
to experiment with community based homelessness prevention
programs where dollars are given to families to avoid eviction
and to deal with rent arrearages.
These programs, we find, are very successful in that very
few of the families end up becoming homeless. However, there is
no net impact on the shelter system. It is not clear that these
families would be homeless if they did not get that assistance.
The issue, as I heard it described by one of the providers
who deals with these programs, is that trying to find the
families who would become homeless is worse than trying to find
a needle in a haystack. It is like trying to find a piece of
hay in a haystack because the families are all so similar, the
need is so widespread.
For that, I was suggesting that we really need to look at
the safety net programs that should be preventing homelessness
in the first place and why they are not working. Why is TANF
not effective in providing adequate income to families so that
they do not become homeless? Why does the mental health system
and the substance abuse treatment system--why are they not
effective in providing appropriate treatment and support so
people do not become homeless?
Mr. Green. Because my time is running out, I am going to
have to beg that I move to another person. Ms. McNamee, would
you care to respond?
Ms. McNamee. The issue of TANF supporting, people in fact
get sanctioned off TANF or their time period is over. They are
part of the population that is becoming homeless because they
were never able or probably will never be able to sustain
reasonable employment or to earn sufficient income to maintain
an apartment.
It is not that people are not working. It is that they do
not have enough money to afford the housing stock, and there is
not enough housing stock.
We do tremendous amounts of preventive care. We probably
spend for our budget somewhere around $150,000 to $200,000 a
year in financial assistance, preventing homelessness, and in
giving rent money.
The trick to it is you need to make sure the people can
afford their rent the next month. Most people cannot. Many
people cannot. While you are waiting for either the voucher for
public housing to kick in, you are dealing with the
homelessness factor. The waiting lists on public housing and
Section 8 can be 4 to 5 years. During that time gap, even
though people have money, there is no affordability.
Mr. Green. Thank you. One final question to each of you,
and it will be a yes or no question to be answered quickly.
At an emergency shelter, should we ascertain citizenship?
Yes or no?
Mr. Culhane. I would say no.
Ms. Marquez. No.
Ms. McNamee. No.
Ms. Gomez. No.
Ms. Roman. No.
Mr. Green. Thank you. We will now recognize the ranking
member for 5 minutes.
Mrs. Capito. Thank you. I want to thank the Chair.
I want to pose a question here because a lot of what we are
talking about is going back to what I asked in the last panel,
expanding the definition of ``homelessness'' with HUD to
include more children and families, single parents, in
different situations.
I am kind of fast forwarding. Let us say we do that. Do you
envision a situation--Ms. Gomez, you said you are where the
rubber meets the road. You are right there. You are a service
provider.
A situation where you are going to have to prioritize
within your own shelter, within your own community, who--we
have already said the resources are going to be thinning. I
think Mr. Mangano made that point.
How are you going to be able to prioritize the homeless, is
it chronic that has more need or is it the families? To me, I
think those are going to be very difficult decisions that are
going to be made. I am wondering if any of you have thought
about this and how that is going to set up in a real life
situation.
Ms. Gomez. I will take that. With us, the young people, the
youth who are living in doubling-up situations, motels or
efficiencies, are young people who probably transition into
street homelessness also. They might go back and forth into
those different environments. A lot of those young people, for
youth specifically, we work with those youth on a regular basis
in our drop in centers and emergency shelters.
Our goal is if they are stable enough to work and to try to
stay in a doubled-up situation, to transition them into a more
permanent situation rather than making them become homeless and
living on the street before they can access service.
Ms. Roman. I think that generally you have to look at how
to set those priorities community-wide. Programs are designed
to help specific populations. Community-wide, what I think will
happen--you have to have a balance because you have to serve
everybody. You have to meet all of the needs.
I think what might happen is if you have a lot more people,
you basically will be increasing the demands by a factor of
several times, unlikely to have a lot more resources.
What I think is going to happen is you are going to get
thinner interventions, less rich interventions, fewer outcomes,
and more emergency assistance. I think you are also going to
see the shelter systems start to clog up because you are not
going to have the exits to get people out, especially the high
end users that consume the majority of shelter resources.
Ms. Marquez. What we already do in Los Angeles, we have a
$100 million affordable housing trust fund. It is split 50
percent of it for the chronically homeless specifically. Within
that group, we already target homeless adults, emancipated
foster youth, transition age youth, and very-low-income
families who have experienced already the beginnings of chronic
homelessness. We are already doing that.
What we are now doing to help what we are calling
situationally homeless families, who are not yet needing the
very rich level of services, and this has everything to do with
it--when you have to build a building that is going to have to
contain all of the space for services, that is much more
expensive.
If we are going to have folks who need very heavy duty
services, we need to have them together so they are taking
advantage.
Our other program, the regular affordable housing trust
fund, which is now funded in the last 4 years, we are butting
up against 6,000 units. The vast majority of those units go to
very-low-income families. We are now this year going to add a
10 percent set-aside in our regular program, not the homeless
program, our regular program, a 10 percent set-aside for
situationally homeless families who need a much lower level of
service, that will marry with the Section 8 voucher.
We are trying to handle that. It is a huge part of our
population, but we handle it through our regular affordable
housing program because their services needs are lighter and as
a result, less expensive.
Mrs. Capito. If I could just clarify that. You have spotted
this as a need and a potential conflict here. What you are
doing in Los Angeles is really with the flexibility that your
city and the support obviously, and that you have vast
resources, have made those decisions at the local level rather
than have those decisions made at the Federal level.
Ms. Marquez. Yes. If it were made at the Federal level, it
would be much more difficult because it would add more expense
for us as we are building the type of supportive housing with
rich services that are necessary. It would be a very different
thing and the per unit cost would soar.
With what I am doing now, you are right, I am lowering the
cost by putting those families where they belong, with other
families that need less services.
Mr. Culhane. If I could just follow up.
Mr. Green. Yes.
Mr. Culhane. I think that there are a number of priorities
that the McKinney Act, and as it has been administered through
HUD, a number of priorities that have been very effective in
helping to make sure that resources are targeted and have an
impact.
I think the concern about expanding the definition or
leaving it up to localities is that there are many localities
that do not like the homeless. As the research has indicated,
there are close to 40 percent of the people who do not have any
shelter whatsoever, are not getting any services. They are
living and in some cases dying on the street.
Some communities may choose to expand the definition to
serve people that they prefer to serve, and to continue not to
serve people who are on the street. I think that has been the
value of the Federal priorities, they have made localities have
to recognize and understand these needs that they might
otherwise ignore.
Mr. Green. Thank you. I now recognize Mr. Cleaver for 5
minutes.
Mr. Cleaver. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a number of
questions that I think are for me very critical.
Dr. Culhane, you mentioned 2.5 million homeless in America.
Is there any way for us to better document the homeless? How
comfortable are you and frankly everybody on the panel with the
numbers that we throw around?
In the State of Missouri, for example, we said 8,000
homeless and 1,600 in my City. Whenever I hear those numbers, I
usually just disregard them because I just think that some
person is down in the basement with really thick glasses--okay,
thin glasses, and they are just coming up with a number.
Mr. Culhane. I think it is good to be cautious. In the
1980's in this room here, there were two separate hearings held
on the issue of, ``How many homeless are there in America?''
Fortunately, in the 1990's, there were no hearings focused on
that because the research community came to a resolution on
that issue from different yet convergent methodologies. We have
estimated that about one percent of the population is homeless
each year. Of course, that varies by region.
Furthermore, one of the more important things that the
Congress has done in the last 10 years is required communities
to implement information systems that are gathering systematic
data on everybody who comes into the homeless system.
On that basis, the Congress received its first report this
past spring, the Annual Homelessness Assessment Report, that
will be delivered to the Congress annually, and is providing a
reliable annual estimate of the number of people who experience
homelessness in the United States.
We have made a tremendous amount of progress. It is not an
exact science by any means. I think we are very comfortable
saying the number is between 2.5 and 3 million and the number
on a given night is around 700,000.
Mr. Cleaver. You understand the importance of it as we are
talking about block grants?
Mr. Culhane. Yes.
Mr. Cleaver. I think all of you--I hope I saw this
correctly--were opposed to expanding the definition.
Mr. Culhane. I am opposed.
Ms. Marquez. We are supporting it.
Ms. Gomez. I am opposed.
Mr. Cleaver. With what is happening in the secondary
market, subprime market, with an estimated two million
foreclosures on line when the new rates are triggered this
year, don't you think we need to do all kinds of things to
accommodate the new homeless, I think they are called ``couch
surfers,'' in other words, people who are sleeping on the couch
in their aunt's house because they lost their home, and the
church where I am, I know of seven people who lost homes and
are living with others.
Do you not think, based on what is happening in the
subprime market, that we need to make some adjustments?
Mr. Culhane. If I could, Mr. Cleaver, I would distinguish
between people who are literally homeless, people who are on
the street or in an emergency facility, versus people who are
at risk of homelessness and who have unstable housing.
I think the situation you are describing is something that
as a society we absolutely should be doing more to make sure
that people who are at risk of homelessness do not become
homeless.
I do not think that defining everyone as homeless and
trying to shoehorn them into the homeless programs is going to
do that. We need to have more effective anti-poverty programs
in general, including programs that deal with folks who are
facing foreclosure.
Those problems are much broader than the problem of literal
homelessness.
Mr. Cleaver. Yes. The people I have spoken with, I went
undercover at a local ABC station a few years back. I let my
beard grow and I put on ragged clothes and I went out. They had
a camera on me, Channel 9, KNBC, an ABC affiliate, and they
were in a plain truck and they followed me around and so forth.
As I talked to people who were homeless, many of them
started out pretty much like what is happening to folk who are
losing their homes.
I do not know of anyone who said, ``After careful study and
reading several booklets, I decided to become homeless.''
It was the movement of events that triggered the
homelessness. With people losing their homes, that could
actually trigger what is being called ``chronic homelessness,''
which I think there is some controversy over that.
I know my time is running out. Ms. Roman?
Ms. Roman. I think the solution to that really is we do not
have much to offer those people in the homelessness system. We
have shelter and some kind of case management. Those people
need affordable housing. They need the other things you are
doing in this committee, the National Affordable Housing Trust
Fund, the Section 8 issues, that is what those folks need.
I think what we want to avoid is having all those people
become homeless. That is a terribly important thing for us to
do.
The community partnership also does have a lot of
prevention, new prevention resources, and we should get better
at getting people back into housing faster and having some
flexibility to do that.
Ms. McNamee. I agree. I think much like the last time we
went through this, we tend to be much more responsive this
time, and there has been some efforts made to train the housing
counseling people. There are some programs around foreclosures
and a lot more outreach to families who have in fact lost their
houses, and hopefully before they lose their houses, to provide
the interventions to do it.
I think we have gotten a little better. I think with much
more outreach to those individuals, hopefully we will not see
them sleeping on the couches.
Mr. Green. Thank you. We will now recognize the former
ranking member, Mrs. Biggert, for 5 minutes.
Mrs. Biggert. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am sorry I missed
part of your testimony. I would like to ask Dr. Culhane, your
research on public shelter utilization in New York and
Philadelphia found that children were more likely than the
general population to become homeless.
I think your analysis also found that the younger the
child, the greater the risk. Indeed, infants under the age of
one had the highest rates of shelter usage.
Would you conclude that infants and toddlers do not suffer
lasting ill effects from homelessness? Do you think they do
suffer more or less?
Mr. Culhane. I think the literature shows that in the near
term we know that families and children who experience
homelessness do suffer ill effects of that. I do not know that
we have evidence yet as to what the long term effects are.
Mrs. Biggert. Are you concerned that it could be that
extreme stress in early childhood would cause physical and
mental disabilities later in life?
Mr. Culhane. It is certainly possible. It is also the case
that we know that families when they are in the homeless system
are less likely to access other resources, for example, early
care programs, including Head Start programs.
I think one of the reasons that it is important to get
families back into stable housing as quickly as possible is
that it will enable them to access some of the mainstream
programs more effectively, have more stable schooling, and not
have to move around as much, all of those things.
Mrs. Biggert. I think one of the things that we have been
working on, on the education side of it, is that Head Start
would be available to the homeless.
This is for a couple of people. I will start with Ms.
Roman. I understand that your organization endorses the Senate
bill. In order to be eligible for HUD homeless assistance, a
family in a doubled-up situation must be notified by the owner
of the residence where they are staying that they can only stay
there for a short period of time, and having moved 3 times in a
year or twice in the previous 21 days, and not had significant
resources to contribute to rent.
Are you concerned about the impact this definition's
requirements would have on homeless children?
Ms. Roman. I think the balance that we need to strike is
between doubled-up for economic reasons, which I think includes
a lot of people who may have bad housing situations but are not
homeless, and who among the doubled-up population is actually
homeless.
We were looking for some way to describe couch surfers or
people who are unstably housed but doubled-up. If that is not
the way to do it, I think there is plenty of room for
compromise on this between what is too broad a definition and
what I think many people anyway are really meaning, which is
there is definitely a group of people who are doubled-up, who
are homeless and need help.
Of course, we are always concerned about the effect on
children. I guess my concern is the homeless system--what
children need is stable housing. We do not really have that to
offer them in the homeless system. We have shelter.
Mrs. Biggert. Just take, for example, a mother and her
children who are in an abusive situation, domestic violence,
and they are fleeing really to find some place, safety, and
they go to maybe a relative and they are staying, so they are
going to have to document the proof of all of these things in
order for them to stay some place?
To me, they are almost like refugees who are fleeing with
the clothes on their back and they need to find a place.
Ms. Roman. If they need a place to stay and they present as
homeless, they are homeless, and they are eligible for homeless
assistance.
I think the question is, if you are trying to get them
services while they are living with somebody--
Mrs. Biggert. They are the people who very much need that.
If they can only stay for a short time, then they are going to
have to move from place to place, and maybe they will end up in
a shelter or maybe they will end up in a car, if they have one.
Maybe they will end up in a motel.
It just seems to me to focus on such a definition is not
the way to go.
Let me ask Ms. McNamee. Do you not think we should broaden
that definition?
Ms. McNamee. I do. If you think about this domestic
violence victim who leaves and has to demonstrate being
homeless, and I believe it is 3 times in 21 days or something
like that, they have to verify that. Where are they going to
go? Go back to the abuser and say, ``Oh, by the way, could you
tell them that I was here?''
Or a youth who was on a couch and was sexually exploited in
order to get an overnight stay, is he going to go back and ask
the exploiter person to please tell them that I was here?
I think it creates a barrier in the definition and it is a
real problem for very, very vulnerable populations. We also
know that this population, because we have a fair amount of
mentally ill folks, set each other up sometimes, so they are
held captive.
If you want a verification from someone, well, I will tell
you if, you know, I will tell them you were here if. I am just
not sure that is quite the way we want to do that.
Mrs. Biggert. Thank you. I see my time has expired.
Mr. Green. The gentleman from Kentucky, Mr. Davis.
Mr Davis of Kentucky. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a
parenthetical statement on this last comment, when we are
dealing with the definition. You are going to have people fall
through the cracks if you do not re-define it.
I was reminded of a humorous story after a system change
when the Army payroll system went computerized many years ago.
I walked in and discovered that none of my bills had been paid
and my bank deposits did not happen because I had been deployed
and I came back to find out that somehow I was lost.
When I went in to inquire about my check in uniform, I was
told that I was not in the Army any longer, and was not a real
person according to the computer until a kind person restrained
me.
I think about how we got that fixed after a spirited
discussion, but I had all the documentation to prove who I was.
The challenge that I think you run into here is you have
people who are dealing with a wide variety of issues, those who
have been victimized, young people who are going to be
intimidated by any form of governmental system creates a huge
challenge in dealing with that.
I would like to address a question to Ms. Marquez. In your
testimony, you stated your support for the 30 percent set-aside
for supportive housing. I agree with you in one sense, that
permanent housing is successful in some areas.
Do you not think that instead of a bureaucracy in
Washington, D.C., running things, setting arbitrary
requirements, for example, a brilliant example of a rule made
by somebody who has never worked in the real world is saying
that you have to validate 3 times in 21 days that you were some
place where you might get harmed by going back to prove that,
or not have the means or know how to verify that.
Having Washington do it, would it not be better to have
local areas have that control on the front lines, if there were
appropriate mechanisms for accountability but not creating a
bureaucracy that would incur a lot of overhead?
Ms. Marquez. I guess I would say this, that the evidence
the research does show is the need is so great that it makes
sense to set a floor. I would like the opportunity at the local
level to go beyond that if that is what is needed in my city.
For instance, it is often said that in Los Angeles City, we
are housing and more people come from the County into Los
Angeles City. If there is no requirement that anybody else has
to build housing and has to use the money for that, then we
continue to be a magnet.
I need to be able in my region to make sure that everyone
is taking on their fair share of what is going on. It is for
that reason that I would support a floor.
It is also true from the point of view of the family that
you are speaking of, if you want to extend the definition, to
make sure that is coming down the pike.
It is because it is a significant issue. I would suggest
perhaps that what you are looking at in the National Affordable
Housing Trust Fund, that might be a place to take a look at the
issues of these families. They need affordable housing, not
necessarily the subset of permanent supportive housing that has
rich services that they do not need.
Mr. Davis of Kentucky. For example, if what you are talking
about is effective in Los Angeles, and that is great, you have
a Continuum of Care, the ability to manage that. You have local
resources. I come back to the context issue here.
You have a Federal regulation that may compete with common
sense. I know that might sound paradoxical in this environment
that there would be those types of problems.
I go back to this issue of verification of homelessness.
The local professional and again somebody here sitting in a
cubicle 5,000 miles from somebody with difficulties perhaps
does not realize that good folks working on the ground are
going to know their neighborhoods like the policemen, they are
going to know who these people are in many cases, or when they
come into the system on a localized level, that they can have
this connectivity.
Would you agree that having flexibility say, for example,
in my district, where maybe housing itself is less the issue
but other Continuum of Care issues are the issue, to not simply
warehouse the person but help get the problem dealt with or
help get them back into the economy, that that flexibility
would be of some value?
Ms. Marquez. Flexibility is of some value. Of course, when
we are dealing in local communities, many communities would
come to the point of view that they do not have a problem with
housing when in fact they do, and they are happy to transport
it to other areas.
That is why, from our point of view, a floor is very
important.
Mr. Davis of Kentucky. I will just leave you with one final
point on that. You had mentioned that you do not support the
expansion of the definition. I do not think what any of us are
talking about is a blank check. I think the biggest problem
with the Federal Government are the silo's that do not work
effectively together and create problems.
You can pick any situation whether it is this, national
security. We have a 21st Century country running on a 1960
system architecture and it is broken.
To come back to this, definitions do have tremendous power.
I know if we are going to think in the 1960 sense, then I
perhaps could agree with Ms. Roman, but we are not there. We
are in an entirely different world.
You mentioned 13,000 homeless children attending public
school. That caught my ear. If there are so many homeless
children or young people who are out of foster care and
suddenly find themselves pushed out into the economy, why would
not you support or why do you say you do not support expanding
that?
I am asking you to step out of the regulatory framework you
have to live with for a moment and make a statement in the
context of the situation.
Ms. Marquez. I guess I would say this. I do not support it
in the context of the ``homeless'' definition. In Los Angeles,
what we have done, because it is a significant issue, we have
attached that great need to our regular affordable housing
program, so much so that we are now going to do a set-aside in
our regular program of 10 percent for families such as those
that you are discussing. That has everything to do with the
costs.
Those families need fewer services, less expensive
services. The regular affordable housing programs that we fund
that would be the target of your Affordable Housing Trust Fund,
if it went national, are those families, and of the 6,000 units
that the City of Los Angeles has funded as affordable housing,
nearly 4,500 are targeted specifically to low income families.
In our city, we have taken care of it because they are not
homeless in this context. They do not need that richness of
service. They need other things. We are making sure that they
are getting it.
That is why it is in this context only in the ``homeless''
definition that we would not support it because what comes with
that is a heavy burden of services and it is very expensive. We
think they belong in the regular affordable housing program,
and that is where we fund it. That is actually the majority of
our funding, going to those types of families.
Mr. Davis of Kentucky. With the chairman's indulgence, I
would just like to clarify one point. The services that are
being provided by those monies outside of those specifically
designated as the stereotypical definition of ``homelessness,''
are those services provided by the same people to both groups?
Ms. Marquez. In many situations, they are. For instance, if
you are going to build a permanent supportive housing unit,
there is a requirement that many of the services be onsite,
because of the difficulty of getting folks to access them. You
have to be right there working them all of the time to get them
to participate.
A family like the ones you are concerned with, those are
folks who have issues but are functioning in the world. They
can walk 4 blocks to the services center to get what they need.
In affordable housing what we do, we have a requirement
that services be provided, but they do not have to be onsite
because these folks work. They are the working poor. They may
come from a situation like the one that we have heard here, a
domestic violence situation, but many of them work, including
those who are doubled-up, and including those who have lost
their homes to foreclosure.
It is not that they are not working. It is that the
affordability gap between what they earn and the cost of
housing is too great. They are functioning individuals. They do
not have dual diagnoses.
It is for that reason that we would have them in a regular
affordable housing where they can walk to the services around
them rather than have the very expensive effort of having to
have them housed in the building and the capital expense of
building those units has to include the cost of building out
all of the space for the services. That is why we distinguish
it.
Mr. Davis of Kentucky. Thank you.
Mr. Green. Thank you. I am told that we will have votes in
a few minutes. Because we will have votes, we will excuse this
panel and instruct the next panel to come back at 1:30 or after
the votes have been completed, whichever is later. You do not
have to come back before 1:30.
We look forward to seeing you at that time. You are excused
until 1:30 or after the next series of votes.
[Recess]
Mr. Green. Friends, we would like to call the meeting to
order at this time and proceed with our last panel. We would
like to thank you for being so patient. We assure you that we
try to get to you as expeditiously as possible. We always seem
to have votes that will at some point intercede. Please accept
my apologies on behalf of the entire committee for keeping you
waiting so long.
Let me now introduce the members of this panel. If I should
mispronounce a name, if you will just step right in and help
me, I would greatly appreciate it.
We have with us Ms. Dora Gallo, with A Community of Friends
in Los Angeles.
Ms. Gallo. That is correct.
Mr. Green. We have Mr. Moises Loza. He is the executive
director of the Housing Assistance Council.
Dr. Ellen Bassuk, an associate professor of psychiatry at
Harvard University.
Diane Nilan with HEAR US, in Naperville, Illinois.
Mrs. Biggert, please forgive me. I am told that we have a
Representative who would like to say a few words by way of
introduction, and we will now recognize Mrs. Biggert for this
purpose.
Mrs. Biggert. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I would
like to introduce and welcome to today's hearing a constituent
and a dear friend of mine from Naperville, Illinois, Ms. Diane
Nilan.
Diane has spent over 21 years giving voice to homeless kids
and their families. She comes to us today in her capacity as
founder and president of HEAR US, Inc.--Homeless Education
Awareness Raising in the United States--a nonprofit
organization to empower homeless children and youth through
video advocacy and other technologies. I know you will hear
more about that.
She has had a distinguished career of public service. She
has served as manager of emergency shelters, a long time board
member and officer for the statewide Housing Action Coalition,
a board member and 9 year president of the Illinois Coalition
to End Homelessness, and co-founder of the campaign Forget Me
Not, Kids' Day on Capital Hill, and co-author of several U.S.
Interagency Council on Homelessness reports.
She is going to tell you a little bit about this, but in
2005, she sold her house and car and purchased an RV to travel
across the country documenting the plights and dreams of
America's homeless children. She has logged over 20,000 miles
in just that short time.
I would like to welcome her here today and look forward to
her testimony. Thanks.
Ms. Nilan. Thank you.
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much.
From Los Angeles, we have Ms. Dora Gallo, A Community of
Friends, Los Angeles. I want to thank Ms. Gallo for joining us.
I and my staff were fortunate enough to be able to visit
several of the 33 buildings that A Community of Friends has
developed and operates in the Los Angeles area. We were very
impressed at the quality of both the housing and the services
delivered to the poor, often formerly homeless, disabled
tenants of the projects.
I would like to see this subcommittee do all we can do to
make sure that the production pipeline to this organization and
others like it across the country are as robust as possible.
We also have Ms. Nancy Carter, the National Alliance for
the Mentally Ill, Urban Los Angeles. I very much appreciate the
work that Ms. Carter, whom I have long known, has undertaken on
behalf of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, Urban Los
Angeles Chapter.
I know that the testimony she will provide today will be
invaluable to the subcommittee as we consider our actions
regarding how the McKinney-Vento program will affect the
severely and persistently mentally ill who live in shelters and
on the streets in Los Angeles and nationwide.
Also, Dr. Martha Burt, Ph.D., senior principal researcher,
Urban Institute.
We will start with Ms. Dora Gallo.
STATEMENT OF DORA GALLO, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, A COMMUNITY
OF FRIENDS, LOS ANGELES
Ms. Gallo. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman, and Ranking Member
Capito, for the opportunity to provide testimony to the
subcommittee. My name is Dora Gallo and I am the chief
executive officer of A Community of Friends.
We are a nonprofit developer in Los Angeles County. As a
practitioner, I can tell you firsthand how important McKinney-
Vento funding has been to our efforts to end homelessness for
individuals and families with special needs.
We are thrilled to see reauthorizing legislation proposed
and a commitment to enact legislation that encompasses the best
provisions of H.R. 840 and Senate Bill 1518.
The McKinney-Vento Act is unique, unlike other State,
local, and Federal sources of funding, at least in Los Angeles
County, the McKinney-Vento Act is the only source of funding
that encompasses all three elements of permanent supportive
housing, operating, construction, and services.
An award of McKinney funds from SHP, Shelter + Care, or SRO
rehab allows ACOF and other developers to leverage millions of
dollars in other funding, particularly in construction.
Therefore, it should come as no surprise that our
organization supports the set-aside of 30 percent of McKinney
funds for permanent supportive housing for people with
disabilities.
One concern that we wish to convey to you, however, is a
provision in Senate Bill 1518 that codifies a policy to limit
supportive housing projects to 16 units or less, unless it can
be demonstrated that, ``Local market conditions dictate the
development of a larger project.''
No such provision exists in H.R. 840. While we understand
the policy objective of not concentrating and isolating people
with disabilities, the definition of ``large'' varies from
community to community.
In urban areas where density is often much higher, setting
a maximum of 16 units per project is too low and imposes an
unfair burden in urban areas to prove that more than 16 units
should be allowed.
ACOF has successfully developed, operated, and maintained
supportive housing ranging in size from 7 units to 60 units,
such as the successful 40 unit supportive housing project in
South Los Angeles that is in Chairwoman Waters' District.
From a developer's standpoint and a service provider's
standpoint, there are economies of scale to incorporating more
than 16 supportive housing units in one building. That is not
to say that integrating special needs housing is not a good
policy objective.
We have two buildings now in operation with mixed
populations, and we are developing more. Even with a 50 percent
ratio, the special needs component of our new projects total at
least 20 units and as high as 35.
I would like to also point out that it is going to take us
a very long time to reach the Federal goal of 150,000 units of
supportive housing if we are only building 16 units at a time.
Regarding the ``homeless'' definition, we do support the
expansion of the definition to include those in camp grounds
and motels for purposes of determining eligibility for the
community homeless assistance programs, such as the Shelter +
Care, SHP, and SRO mod rehab, but we do not support the
expansion of the definition to include those who are doubling
up or couch surfing.
Instead, we propose that those who are doubled-up or couch
surfing be assisted under the new prevention program in the
McKinney Act proposed in both H.R. 840 and Senate Bill 1518.
The last critical point we wish to convey is a plea for the
subcommittee to think carefully about the long term
sustainability of permanent supportive housing projects, both
from a financial perspective as it relates to operating, and a
human perspective, as it relates to services.
Goals of increasing economic self-sufficiency are admirable
for individuals and families in supportive housing, but
experience has shown us that for individuals who have a long
term chronic disabling condition, it would take many years for
them to be able to increase their income to a level to enable
them to move into the private market, either on their own or
with mainstream resources.
Therefore, housing must continue to be affordable through
project based rental assistance. The consequence is
homelessness again caused by economic instability or poorly
maintained housing throughout communities.
Services funding should also be consistently available. As
a developer, we sometimes find that government agencies and the
larger provider community do not realize that once a homeless
person with disabilities is in housing, their job is not over.
Our onsite service coordinators with a staffing ratio of
1:25 or 1:30 do not have the capacity due to lack of resources
to provide intensive services if and when a tenant needs more
help.
Nonprofits need to be able to develop long term plans for
our services program and an opportunity to leverage HUD
services funding.
Finally, we would like to express our appreciation to the
committee for considering clean up provisions in both bills,
which is itemized in my written testimony and referred to by
Mercedes Marquez in the Housing Department.
A Community of Friends applauds the subcommittee for your
leadership in putting best practices, lessons learned, into
reauthorization legislation for the McKinney-Vento program.
Whatever final version you adopt, this legislation will
have a tremendous impact on thousands of homeless individuals
and families throughout the country.
Thank you to the subcommittee and to Chairwoman Waters for
holding these hearings and for soliciting our input.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Gallo can be found on page
104 of the appendix.]
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you.
Mr. Loza?
STATEMENT OF MOISES LOZA, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, HOUSING
ASSISTANCE COUNCIL
Mr. Loza. Chairwoman Waters, Ranking Member Capito, and
members of the subcommittee, thank you for inviting the Housing
Assistance Council to provide testimony on pending legislation
to reauthorize Federal programs for the homeless.
My name is Moises Loza, and I am the director of the
Housing Assistance Council, a national nonprofit dedicated to
improving housing conditions for low income rural Americans.
HAC is particularly interested in the resources needed to
address homelessness effectively in rural areas. Rural
individuals and families do experience both literal
homelessness and very precarious housing situations.
HAC's local partners have often reported and research has
shown that homeless people in rural areas move from one
extremely substandard, over crowded and/or cost burdened
housing situation to another, often doubling or tripling up
with friends or relatives.
Over 6 million rural households experience a precarious
housing condition, threatening their ability to achieve housing
stability and placing them at risk of homelessness.
Based on conservative estimates, 9 percent of the homeless
population lives in rural areas. Many rural communities lack a
system to meet emergency housing needs and face structural
issues that limit the creation of these resources in rural
communities, such as lack of community awareness and support,
lack of access to services, and lack of data on needs.
For these reasons, using Federal resources can be difficult
in rural areas. Because the number of homeless people in a
given community is often small and congregate shelter may be
viewed as inappropriate, providers in rural areas have a strong
incentive to emphasize homelessness prevention and permanent
re-housing options.
Despite limitations, some programs, specifically HUD's
Continuum of Care, have been useful in rural areas. For
example, the Center for Family Solutions is located in Imperial
County, the poorest county in California.
The Center operates two emergency shelters and 14
transitional shelter apartments for women and their children
who are victims of domestic violence or who are homeless for
other reasons.
Another example is Stop Abusive Family Environments, Inc.,
SAFE, located in McDowell County, West Virginia, which has been
working for 25 years to break the cycle of violence through a
social justice approach and combines domestic violence services
and the provision of transitional housing with permanent
housing and economic development.
SAFE operates a 31 unit transitional housing facility for
victims of domestic violence.
Both H.R. 840 and Senate Bill 1518 have important
components that can support the work of rural homeless
providers and equip them to better serve homeless individuals
and families in rural areas.
The bills would consolidate HUD's three main competitive
homeless programs into one. This would improve rural
communities' ability to apply for resources. The bills also
make prevention an eligible activity in rural areas, which is a
very important part of homeless assistance activities in rural
communities.
These common themes would make the McKinney-Vento programs
more accessible to rural homeless providers.
The definition of ``homelessness'' used by the Departments
of Education, Health and Human Services, and Justice, as
proposed in H.R. 840, would work better in rural communities.
HAC supports the new rural resource created in Senate Bill
1518 because it will help local rural organizations to both
address and prevent homelessness.
Senate Bill 1518 would target resources to re-housing or
improving housing conditions to stabilize the housing of
individuals who are in danger of losing housing, provide a
simplified funding application that recognizes the capacity
constraints of rural community organizations, and allow
successful applicants to use up to 20 percent of their grant
for capacity building activities.
HAC also supports the simplified application in Senate Bill
1518.
Finally, HAC suggests following a change recommended in
H.R. 840, allowing local communities to set their own
priorities for spending McKinney-Vento funds. Communities could
certainly choose to prioritize chronic homelessness if
appropriate, but no community would be required to do so.
Thank you for this opportunity to comment on the bills
before the subcommittee and on the housing needs of the rural
homeless. I would be happy to respond to any questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Loza can be found on page
128 of the appendix.]
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you.
Dr. Ellen Bassuk.
STATEMENT OF ELLEN L. BASSUK, M.D., ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF
PSYCHIATRY, HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL, AND PRESIDENT, NATIONAL
CENTER ON FAMILY HOMELESSNESS
Dr. Bassuk. Chairwoman Waters, Ranking Member Capito, and
other distinguished members of the subcommittee, I am honored
to have the opportunity to speak with you today on behalf of
the 1.3 million children who are homeless in America each year.
Thank you for giving a voice to this vulnerable and often
neglected group.
As a psychiatrist and president of the National Center on
Family Homelessness for 20 years, I have witnessed a change in
the face of homelessness with children and their families now
comprising 35 to 40 percent of the overall homeless population.
I have had the privilege of seeing firsthand the spirit of
homeless children. I have also documented their anguish.
Homelessness for children is more than the loss of a house.
It takes away their belongings, reassuring routines, friends,
and community. Instead of developing a sense of security, trust
in care givers, and freedom to explore, they learn the world is
unsafe and that violent things often happen.
As one homeless teenager described, ``Not only did we lose
everything, but we were looked at and treated like garbage,
told we were dirty, no good, our parents were lazy, and should
get jobs. I remember crying myself to sleep. At times, I still
do, thinking why us? What did we do to be treated like this?''
In our work at the National Center, we have learned that
residential instability, interpersonal violence, and family
disruption are inextricably linked. In a population based
longitudinal study we conducted, families moved many times in
the year before they entered shelter. These moves were not
positive ones.
Thirty percent were evicted. Many moved into doubled-up
situations where they were faced with overcrowding, friends and
relations who resented their presence, and significant risk of
physical and sexual abuse.
Perhaps most shocking is the staggering rates of violence
in the lives of these families. Over 90 percent of homeless
mothers have been severely physically or sexually assaulted.
Almost two-thirds have been violently abused by a male partner.
Homeless children are exposed to violent events, some many
times, including adults hitting each other, seeing people shot,
and even having their own lives threatened.
Homelessness is marked by family separation. Almost a
quarter of homeless children have lived apart from their
immediate family, with 12 percent placed in foster care
compared to just 1 percent of other children.
These separations may interfere with caring attachments
between a parent and child leading to behavioral problems and
the inability to form supportive trusting relationships in
adulthood.
The relentless daily stress of homelessness diminishes
children's physical, emotional, behavioral, and cognitive
development. They have more acute and chronic medical problems,
many developmental delays, higher rates of anxiety, depression,
and behavioral difficulties, and more learning disabilities.
By age eight, one in three have at least one major
psychiatric disorder. They struggle in school, with almost
three-quarters performing below grade level in reading and
spelling and one-third repeating a grade.
Within this bleak picture is a ray of hope. In spite of
their experiences, new data suggest that many homeless children
are resilient and do well with proper support and clinical
treatment when needed. Stable permanent supportive housing is
critical for achieving these positive outcomes.
This brings us to the work of this subcommittee. We are
dismayed by the current policy debate that focuses on how to
allocate scarce resources by pitting one subgroup of homeless
people against another. All homeless people are deserving of
help. Any response to homelessness in America requires a
substantially larger commitment.
We strongly advocate for adequate funding for McKinney-
Vento to meet the needs of all subgroups experiencing
homelessness. Until that time, we offer the following
suggestions.
First, we urge aligning the HUD definition of
``homelessness'' with those used by other Federal agencies.
Families, children and youth who are doubled up or living in
hotels and motels and do not have a fixed, regular, and
adequate living situation are homeless.
These temporary, chaotic situations are emotionally
damaging to children and place them at an increased risk for
physical and sexual abuse.
Second, we support provisions in the HEARTH bill that give
communities greater flexibility to implement a range of housing
and service options. This approach will also support better
strategies, essential for closing the front door onto the
streets.
Furthermore, the proliferation of Ten Year Plans to end
homelessness indicates sufficient community momentum to allay
our concerns about discrimination against individuals with
disabilities.
Finally, if there is to be a set-aside for permanent
supportive housing, it is essential that eligibility criteria
be expanded beyond chronically homeless individuals to include
homeless families and children.
Their mental health needs are different from those of
homeless single adults, but some family members, both adults
and children, are nevertheless disabled enough to warrant
ongoing services and housing.
Homeless children do not become homeless by themselves. We
cannot expect them to stabilize their lives alone. As a
society, we have a moral responsibility to devise their rescue.
We must act now before the homeless children of today become
the chronically homeless adults of tomorrow.
The HEARTH bill takes important steps in that direction,
but we are mindful that much more needs to be done.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Bassuk can be found on page
70 of the appendix.]
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much.
Next we will hear from Ms. Diane Nilan.
STATEMENT OF DIANE NILAN, PRESIDENT/FOUNDER, HEAR US, INC.
Ms. Nilan. Thank you very much for the opportunity to
testify, and my profound gratitude to Congresswoman Judy
Biggert who has been a tremendous champion for this Nation's
homeless children and youth.
I am president and founder of HEAR US, Inc., a national
nonprofit whose mission is to give voice and visibility to
homeless kids.
I sold my home and I have spent the last 2 years traveling
in my RV across this Nation's back roads, interviewing homeless
children and families. Our documentary, ``My Own Four Walls,''
features these courageous kids talking about their
homelessness. I speak on their behalf.
I have worked over 20 years with homeless children and
adults, 15 years as director of an emergency shelter in
Illinois, serving up to 150 men, women and children each
evening.
My premise is simple. This Nation needs a new more
promising approach to ensuring people in this country that they
have a place to call home.
One family I met was in Las Cruces, New Mexico, and
included Esperanza, who was crippled by polio all her life, who
impressively managed to look after her grandkids while her
daughter, Elizabeth, worked minimum wage jobs.
When I met them, they were living in a cramped motel room
prior to moving into a palatial three bedroom handicap
accessible subsidized apartment. Sadly, their stay was short
lived. About 7 months after moving, Esperanza died, and the
family had to leave because they did not require an accessible
apartment.
They moved into a friend's cramped house because Las Cruces
lacks a shelter for families with teenage boys. Elizabeth was
working two jobs and sleeps on the floor with her three
youngest children wrapped around her, knowing that their
situation is precarious, utterly dependent on her friend's
hospitality and her family's ability to endure this grueling
arrangement.
Elizabeth is on a long waiting list for housing, with
Esperanza, the Spanish word for ``hope'' in her heart.
Why would families like these, struggling to survive in
motels, or doubled-up with others, not be defined as homeless?
I am haunted by an experience from over a decade ago. TJ
and his mom turned to us for help off and on for years. This
little guy changed places to live more often than he changed
clothes. He encountered what is tragically common for kids in
homeless situations, abuse which caused severe mental harm.
TJ, a severely disturbed 7-year old, snapped when he faced
the prospect of living in our cramped family sleeping room.
After spending hours holding this traumatized little boy to
keep him from harming himself or others, I had to commit him
for psychiatric evaluation.
He and his mom continued to be homeless, with his fragile
situation deteriorating further at great expense to him, his
mom, and the community.
This tragedy may have been prevented had HUD recognized
this homelessness when he and his mother were bouncing between
homes prior to entering our shelter, and despite TJ's
disability, the current HUD definition of ``chronically
homeless'' does not include families at all, and the Senate's
bill of ``chronically homelessness'' does not include families
where the child has a disability. TJ's family would not be
prioritized for assistance.
TJ is 18 now, facing a life filled with hardship.
To narrowly define ``homelessness'' in order to feign a
successful war on homelessness defies comprehension. To force
families to move repeatedly before assistance is provided as
proposed in S. 1518 is short sighted and cruel.
To proceed with HUD's proposed direction of codifying
chronic homelessness at the expense of homeless children, youth
and adults, is fiscally and morally irresponsible.
Frontline shelter staff across our Nation await the day
that HUD provides the opportunity for people in all homeless
situations to receive assistance.
They long to focus on easing homelessness as it appears in
their communities, on the street, doubled-up or in motels,
instead of coping with arbitrary rules and restrictions. It is
no coincidence that the local service providers who have
testified at these hearings support an updated definition of
``homelessness.''
We need a new approach, much of the blueprint which can be
found in H.R. 840, the HEARTH Act. Please incorporate the
HEARTH Act into HUD's new approach to homelessness.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Nilan can be found on page
182 of the appendix.]
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much.
Ms. Carter?
STATEMENT OF NANCY CARTER, NATIONAL ALLIANCE ON MENTAL ILLNESS,
URBAN LOS ANGELES
Ms. Carter. Hello. My name is Nancy Carter. I must admit I
am a little choked up after hearing Diane speak.
I am president and co-founder of NAMI Urban Los Angeles,
the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Our Urban Los Angeles
Chapter was formed by five African-American women to reach out
to families like ourselves who had loved ones who suffered from
mental illness.
The stories that Diane is telling you are the stories that
we live with every single day. We educate. We support. We
advocate for our own families and for those in the community
who affect us the most.
Chairwoman Waters, I am honored to be here, and I thank you
so much for the invitation. Ms. Capito, thank you as well.
When I think about family, I think about the fact that I
was raised in Logan County, West Virginia, where I saw
homelessness in rural areas every day of my life as a child,
and then growing up living in Los Angeles, California, and
raising a son who would one day develop mental illness.
I think today on this panel that there, but for the grace
of God, go most of us. In a week, 2 weeks, or a month, so many
of us can end up homeless and on the streets. For those
families who have loved ones who suffer from mental illness,
the risk is even greater, and that is why I am so honored to be
here today to speak for NAMI, both for my Chapter, Urban Los
Angeles, and as a National Board member as well.
Why do we support the McKinney-Vento reauthorization?
Because it works, because it has been a success. The McKinney-
Vento permanent housing programs are perhaps the most
successful and effective Federal intervention for people with
severe mental illness since the Community Mental Health Center
Act of 1963.
Shelter + Care and SHP permanent housing have brought
stability and the opportunity for recovery for thousands upon
thousands of individuals with the most severe mental illnesses
and co-occurring disorders.
These programs break the tragic and costly cycle that too
many of these individuals experience through chronic
homelessness, bouncing between the streets, the emergency
shelters, the emergency rooms, psychiatric hospitals, general
hospitals, and tragically in Los Angeles, jails and prisons.
Permanent supportive housing is an effective solution that
works. It is also cost effective. There is substantial research
that demonstrates that permanent supportive housing is an
effective model.
Formerly homeless residents of supportive housing achieve
decreases of more than 50 percent in emergency room visits and
inpatient hospital days, and an 80 percent drop in emergency
detoxification services. This translates into a savings of
$16,000 plus in health care costs per unit per year. Eighty
percent of people who enter supportive housing are still in
housing a year later.
The focus of McKinney-Vento must stay on permanent housing
needs of the most difficult to serve, experiencing chronic
homelessness.
In NAMI's view, it is critical that any reauthorization of
McKinney-Vento retain a Federal minimum requirement for
permanent housing. This is the hallmark of what has made this
program successful over the past decade.
Prior to enactment of the 30 percent set-aside in 1998,
only 13 percent of McKinney funds went toward permanent
housing, with the vast majority of funding going toward
shelters and services. In effect, we were using McKinney
programs to build a service system that would depend on keeping
people homeless to sustain itself.
Investment in permanent supportive housing offers a
different policy objective, that of ending chronic
homelessness. NAMI is troubled that the HEARTH Act excludes a
permanent housing set-aside. We are extremely concerned that
without a minimum national requirement for development of new
permanent housing, many local Continuums of Care would face
strong incentives to spread limited dollars among as many local
homeless programs as possible.
It is important to note that people who experience chronic
homelessness are more likely than other McKinney-Vento eligible
populations to be categorically excluded or screened out of
other affordable housing programs.
These include restrictions on eligibility for both Section
8 and public housing based on previous history of substance
abuse and involvement in the criminal justice system.
Ms. Waters, I am so grateful. NAMI is so grateful to you
and Chairman Frank. Over the past 9 years, you have achieved
enormous legislative and policy accomplishments with respect to
addressing the affordable housing issue.
The Section 8 voucher reform bill, the GSE and FHA reform
bills, the Gulf Coast housing bill, and most importantly, the
National Housing Trust Fund bill, H.R. 2895, passed by the
House just last week. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
These are the most impressive legislative accomplishments
for affordable rental housing in a generation.
We thank you for your leadership in bringing this agenda
forward. We thank the entire committee for the opportunity of
NAMI's views to be heard today on the reauthorization of
McKinney-Vento. We look forward to working with you and the
subcommittee to produce a bill that will continue to move us
down the road towards ending chronic homelessness.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Carter can be found on page
92 of the appendix.]
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you.
Dr. Burt?
STATEMENT OF MARTHA BURT, PH.D., SENIOR PRINCIPAL RESEARCHER,
URBAN INSTITUTE
Ms. Burt. Chairwoman Waters, Ranking Member Capito, and
other members of the subcommittee, thank you for inviting me to
share my views relating to various provisions of the
reauthorization of the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act
pertaining to the HUD housing programs.
I have been involved in policy oriented research on
homeless populations and homeless service systems since 1983,
and also helped shape the definition of ``homelessness'' that
now governs the Department of Housing and Urban Development
programs funded through the Act.
It is a pleasure for me to be asked to give testimony on
these matters. I will address my remarks to five issues raised
in the invitation letter, definitions first.
I very strongly urge the committee to retain the current
HUD definitions with a couple of very important exceptions.
I do believe that for families, if a parent meets the
definitions, the criteria of chronicity and disability that
currently allow a single person to be considered chronically
homeless and to access funds and programs directed to chronic
homelessness, that family should also have access to permanent
supportive housing.
On the other end of the spectrum, I think in certain
situations, which I mostly have seen happen in rural areas, if
a family or a person is seeking help, they are clearly homeless
at the time they seek that help, by HUD's definition, there is
no place for them to go at the time, and Aunt Susie will take
them in for 3 days with the clear understanding that 3 days is
it, they should at the end of those 3 days be considered
homeless and eligible for the housing.
At present, they are not or they are interpreted as not
because people are afraid that HUD will reject a decision to
continue to serve them.
My reasons for strongly advocating for retention of current
HUD definitions for use in HUD programs with the exceptions
just notes are that if you are going to create a definition,
the definition has to tell you who is in and who is out. It is
the only way to tell whether interventions are making a
difference.
With the current HUD definition, you can in fact tell who
is homeless and who is not. You can do surveys that let you do
estimates of homelessness. I am responsible for the first two
national ones of those, one from 1987 and one from 1996.
The Department of Education definition, and I have worked
with State homeless coordinators and some local homeless
coordinators around definitions and how they should count, it
is really not a definition at all, in my opinion. It is so
loose that it varies greatly from State to State and even from
school districts within the States.
I have worked with it and I know it is flawed. It does not
meet the criterion that I have just stated, which is measurable
and it has an ability to count.
Furthermore, the departments that use the broader
definitions that have been under discussion today are not
actually charged with ending anybody's homelessness. They are
charged with serving people who are already homeless. They have
very narrow statutory responsibilities of keeping people in
school or treating their health conditions, but they are not
charged with measuring everybody in the country who could be
eligible for their services. They are only charged with serving
the people who walk up to the door, and that is who they report
to Congress.
They do not have any responsibilities for telling you that
they have reduced that number, changed that number, or affected
that number in any way. HUD does.
It would be extremely counterproductive to burden HUD with
a definition that cannot be measured when you are also
requiring them to report to Congress progress in reducing
homelessness every year through the annual homeless assessment
report.
For doubled-up situations, I would suggest that if there
has to be any expansion of definition to doubled-up
populations, it should be limited in very careful ways. One
possibility is first of all only for those who seek assistance
from homeless assistance programs, rather than the whole
universe, and second, to add specific easily documentable
circumstances of extreme housing instability.
The allowable circumstances need to be very carefully
thought out, and I think are better left with special panels to
determine rather than to be codified into law, as they may
change.
Prevention. One of the reasons that Congress has not added
or included a lot of prevention money in homeless programs in
the past is that it is easy to waste prevention money.
There are very, very large populations of very poor
households, single and family, who could come under the rubric
of being eligible for homelessness prevention. That was
certainly true when Congress first passed the McKinney Act. We
now know more and we are in a better position to target than we
were 10 years ago. I think support for prevention resources is
really important, but you really need to think how they are
going to be used.
It would be very, very important to require good
recordkeeping and outcome tracking for at least the first 2
years of funding any community to do prevention, so that you
can be sure that you were actually preventing homelessness
rather than just helping a lot of poor people with their
housing costs.
I have complete respect for how much they need that help
for housing costs, but the homeless programs are not the place
for them to get it.
I want to cite to you the case of Massachusetts, increase
in family homelessness, which has already been mentioned,
because the way it happened was that the Department of
Transitional Assistance, through which all families go to get
homeless assistance, had been really working on prevention in
exactly the way this law envisions.
They were actually succeeding. One of the consequences of
their success was there were fewer families in emergency
shelters. They emptied the motels and they reduced the number
of families going into shelters.
Chairwoman Waters. I have to end your testimony.
Ms. Burt. Okay. The reason there are more homeless families
is the legislature was convinced to give everybody the right to
6 months of shelter, and as a consequence, there is a lot more
family homelessness now.
The last thing I really want to say is on the composition
and authority of local homeless planning bodies in relation to
Ten Year Plans, please do not specify who should be on them,
how they should work, what their decision making structure
should be, because if you do, you will be recording a far
larger number of them--
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. You will have to
submit that for the record.
Ms. Burt. It is already in my written testimony.
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much for your testimony.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Burt can be found on page 77
of the appendix.]
Chairwoman Waters. With that, having heard all of you, we
are now going to turn to questions for the panel, and I will
recognize myself for 5 minutes.
Let me first tell you how moved I am and how impressed I am
with all of you and the work that you do. Maybe I should not
say this, but there are five women at this table, and I wonder
if this is telling us something about who is doing the work. I
thank you for being here, Mr. Loza.
Let me ask Ms. Gallo, you started to talk about what we
should be doing if we are truly going to talk about permanent
housing for the homeless, that we must understand that there
still must be assistance for a long period of time for those
who reached the level of being able to have their own unit,
their own place to live, and maybe some income. We cannot
expect that is going to last forever.
Would you further explain to us what you were saying?
Ms. Gallo. Yes, I will be glad to. I was speaking
specifically of individuals and families whose head of
household has a chronic mental illness. The residents that we
house in our buildings fit that description, which means they
come to us on SSI. They are disabled for purposes of the
definitions that allow them to access mainstream resources.
Off the streets with a disabling condition, once we moved
them into the housing, once we get them stabilized, that is
when we start to be able to treat the underlying causes of some
of their issues, whether it is substance abuse, mental illness,
that takes a long time. If we are successful, we can get people
back participating in the community. We can get people to
volunteer, hold part time jobs and even hold full time jobs,
but that takes a very long time.
Again, I am talking about people who have been on the
streets for a long time, and who have a chronic disability.
That group of individuals is different than for instance a
homeless person taking advantage of SRO mod rehab, where that
homeless person does not have a chronic disability.
I am speaking specifically of the Shelter + Care program
and people who have a disability.
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. I have heard a lot
of discussion about the definition of ``homelessness'' today. I
think you have helped me to come to grips with what I think was
said by Dr. Bassuk, and that is we should not be pitting one
homeless group against another homeless group.
Certainly, you have made the case as far as I am concerned
about individuals who find themselves homeless but being able
to stay with someone for a few days, and then all of a sudden,
they are not eligible any more. That is just not right.
Thank you for helping me to understand that a little bit
better, and for Ms. Nilan, thank you for having dedicated your
life to documenting homelessness. It seems to me even as we
explore the changing of the definition or expanding of the
definition, there are going to be people who are going to fall
outside of the definition and there needs to be some kind of a
hotline that can be called to take care of extraordinary cases,
that do not fit anywhere.
Your testimony was riveting. Thank you very much.
With that, I will turn to my colleague, Ms. Capito.
Mrs. Capito. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I, too, echo the
chairwoman's sentiments, thanking you for your dedication to
service and to folks who a lot of times cannot advocate or help
themselves. I am glad to know, Ms. Carter, that you were born
in West Virginia. I am sorry you went to L.A., however, but you
are welcome back to West Virginia any time. You know that.
I have a question. I think maybe I would like to hear, Dr.
Bassuk, in your clinical life, in talking with homeless
children and youth, we have heard kind of conflicting opinions
that if we expand the definition to include children that may
be doubled up or living in different kinds of situations, that
the stigmatism of labeling them as homeless has a damaging
effect. No doubt, to think you were a young person without a
home, that is a damaging effect.
You have to weigh, I suppose, the pluses of being labeled
homeless and being able to access services that we have talked
about, permanent housing. How do you weigh that in your
clinical assessment for the well being of a child becoming an
adult that has been either labeled--is there a real damage
effect that we should be cognizant of?
Dr. Bassuk. I think the way I would answer that is 40
percent of homeless kids are 6 years old or less. Their
experience of the world is mediated to a large degree by their
mom's. They are not going to have necessarily a direct
experience of that labeling.
The teenagers tend to be humiliated and mortified about
being homeless, many of the teenagers I have spoken to. In many
of the shelter systems, they tend to age out after 12 or 13
years. They go with relatives, families that have split up. In
certain States, they will not take boys who are 12 years old or
older because of the domestic violence problem.
Weighing it, I think it is a small price to pay for
providing services to a kid who is going to have extreme
difficulties because of this experience, and everything that
surrounds it.
Mrs. Capito. Thank you. I have a tendency to agree with you
on that. I think the services and availability of services is
critically important. Those ages, you cannot go back.
Mr. Loza, you mentioned a project in West Virginia, in
McDowell County, I believe, that was servicing rural
homelessness. I understand you have a perspective on that. I
know you addressed this in your comments.
Flexibility seems to be the main thing that people in rural
communities, places I represent, are asking for. How do you
reflect on that?
Mr. Loza. We work with a few hundred organizations around
the country. The testimony is based on what we are hearing from
them. Rural areas suffer from a dearth of resources and access
to resources. Flexibility becomes more important for them.
For example, we heard about some of the great programs in
Los Angeles. Los Angles has CDBG money. Many rural areas do not
get CDBG money. Los Angeles has HOME money. Many rural areas do
not get HOME money. Los Angeles is fortunate enough to have a
trust fund. Many rural areas do not have access to a trust
fund.
The lack of resources and just the difficulty in counting
and assessing the need and finding where the homeless are
because they are so invisible makes it necessary for those
local organizations to have the flexibility, where they are
able to really deal with their own unique situation in their
own area.
For all those reasons, flexibility becomes very, very
important in rural areas.
Mrs. Capito. I have one final question. I know we had a
presenter from the Catholic Charities in the last panel.
This has been a great debate here on Capital Hill on the
role of faith based organizations. Somebody who I have not
asked a question, how do you perceive the role of faith based
organizations in helping to address the problem of
homelessness? Ms. Nilan?
Ms. Nilan. Having run a shelter dependent on faith based
communities, I think I can answer that. Without faith based
communities, this Nation would have a far worse homelessness
problem across the lands.
That being said, I get very nervous when we start talking
faith based because I do not think that should be the core of
how the program is structured. It should be just the reason the
volunteers are there. I think it is a very strained system.
Volunteers who have been doing this for 20 years get really
tired in the fact that our program in Aurora started 20-some
years ago, and it was an emergency shelter, and ``emergency''
tends to mean short term, something that is going to get
better. We have far exceeded any definition of ``emergency.''
Mrs. Capito. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman.
Chairwoman Waters. Mr. Green?
Mr. Green. I thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I will be brief.
I thank each of you for your testimony today. It has been very
insightful.
Let me ask Ms. Gallo, you mentioned the maximum of 16 units
per project and you expressed your concern. Tell me how would
you have this language be modified?
Ms. Gallo. I am not exactly sure how it got into current
HUD policy. It is a policy. It is in the current applications
where every single time we do a project, we are an affordable
housing developer, so we do projects and we do permanent
supportive housing projects, we have to justify every single
time, proving market conditions.
The suggestion I have is either if for some reason there is
a desire to have a limit, that you raise that threshold to 25,
35 units, something that makes more sense for urban areas, so
that urban areas do not always have to justify that number.
I am aware of a project apparently in Louisiana where they
did 35 units. I am sure they must have had to justify how they
needed to go above 16.
The number needs to be higher--I do not know what that
floor is--or eliminated, not have a floor at all, and not put
that as a requirement. Let the local conditions of the
particular community decide what is the appropriate size for a
project.
Most municipal governments have zoning regulations as well,
which governs that.
I would suggest that either there not be a number in there
or raise that threshold substantially. It needs to make sense
as to why we have to have a justification.
Mr. Green. Let me see if Mr. Loza has a quick comment on
it.
Mr. Loza. Again, getting back to the flexibility issue as
Ms. Capito raised, the localities need to have some input into
what floors or maximums are. The problem we have always faced
in rural areas is that when you have those floors, they are
automatically eliminated because we just do not have the scale
or the population size that would make sense with floors on
development size.
Mr. Green. Thank you. Moving to another topic quickly. We
have a debate here about citizenship and resources being
accorded persons who are not citizens.
My assumption is that everyone would agree that at an
emergency shelter, we should not require citizenship at an
emergency shelter. If I am incorrect, please raise your hand,
at an emergency shelter. Does anyone differ with that
proposition?
[No response]
Mr. Green. If we start to require citizenship, and my
suspicion is there will be someone who will think that we
should, and I respect the position, I just want to get some
intelligence from people who are actually on the ground, who
know what is going on, what will be the impact of requiring
citizenship before persons can receive shelter who are
homeless?
Would someone care to give me a statement on it, please,
and I will leave it to you to decide. Ms. Burt?
Ms. Burt. I am not on the ground, so to speak, but I think
you will harm far more people who are citizens than who are not
because one of the basic problems of people who are homeless is
documentation, and if you start requiring for everybody who
comes into an emergency shelter that they be able to prove that
they are citizens or resident, permanent residents, I assume
that is okay, then a lot of people are not going to come and a
lot of people are going to fail and the burden on the programs
themselves is going to be much increased.
Mr. Green. Anyone else care to comment? Ms. Carter?
Ms. Carter. I think it also ties into faith based. When I
was growing up, there was very little homelessness because we
took care of each other. There was no term as ``couch surfing''
or ``doubling up.'' We doubled-up as families, because that is
what was required of us.
We were our brother's keepers. It seems over time we have
lost that. If we are truly a faith-based nation, then we must
be our brother's keepers and we cannot separate out those who
have a card and those who do not have a card.
People who are suffering are people who are suffering.
Mr. Green. Thank you. I yield back, Madam Chairwoman.
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. Mrs. Biggert?
Mrs. Biggert. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I would like to
submit, without objection, a letter from 44 organizations
starting with Alliance for Excellence in Education down to
Youth Service of America, and the 42 in between, concerning the
definition of ``homelessness.''
Chairwoman Waters. Without objection, so ordered.
Mrs. Biggert. Thank you. Madam Chairwoman, I would also
like to note that there are five women down there and one man,
but there are three women up here and one man.
[Laughter]
Mrs. Biggert. My first question is for Ms. Nilan. Some of
the panelists today have suggested that homeless families
should have their needs met through mainstream programs such as
Section 8 and TANF as opposed to the McKinney-Vento program.
As you have traveled across the country, do you think these
programs offer real opportunities for homeless families?
Ms. Nilan. Thank you, Mrs. Biggert, for the opportunity to
speak to that issue because I would have to say unequivocally
that the families that I met across the country in non-urban
areas are so not served by those programs, mainstream
resources, that it is shameful.
I have met families who are in motels or staying in
churches or staying in their cars. I am sorry, but what is
supposed to be out there is not working. For me to have the
opportunity to come and say that to this respected committee
today, I think you need to know that.
If it were working, I would be here saying you know, what
you are doing is good, let's keep it up, maybe add to it. It is
not. It is tragically not working at the expense of the
children and the families and the teens that are not getting
the help they need.
Mrs. Biggert. Thank you. Ms. Gallo, would you have any
comment on that? I know you had said we should not expand the
definition of ``homelessness'' to include doubling up. We
obviously need some alternatives. Would TANF--
Ms. Gallo. I agree with Ms. Nilan. I think some of the
existing systems, some of the existing programs in mainstream
are not working.
I am not advocating that homeless families not be served
under the McKinney program at all. We serve several hundred
children in our buildings, people who are homeless.
I do support--we did not talk about the chronically
homeless. I do support expanding that definition to include
families, whether or not I believe the definition of
``chronic'' is a relevant definition, that is another matter,
and that is in my written testimony. You can look at that.
I do believe families should be served. The doubling up,
the reason I say that there is another source, it is not
necessarily because of TANF, it is that most of the families
that we are talking about who have fallen into homelessness
have fallen in because of economic circumstances.
One of the things that I do not think is clear is that both
legislation talk about a new program, prevention activities,
which can pay for mortgage assistance, rental assistance,
security deposits. I am not suggesting that--the program itself
has not been defined.
It could be 3 months of mortgage assistance. If a family
does not have to pay 3 months of mortgage, that can allow them
to save that money to last them throughout the rest of the
year.
I think that for Shelter + Care and SRO mod rehab, we
should restrict that to the homeless, people who are actually
homeless and on the streets and in camps, but for prevention
activities, I think that is where it is most valuable to
families, to take advantage of those types of activities to be
funded, which is really new to the McKinney-Vento Act.
Mrs. Biggert. Thank you. Dr. Burt, and maybe I will come
back to Ms. Gallo, too, talking about this, but you mentioned
that the proposed expansion of HUD's definition of
``homelessness'' including all people living together, but to
be clear, the U.S. Departments of Education, Health and Human
Services, and Justice, use the definitions of ``homeless'' and
include people in doubling-up situations and motel situations
if the situation is not fixed, regular, and adequate due to
specific circumstances.
If I read that definition, it seems to me that we are not
including two families choosing to live together on a long term
basis because the rents are high.
Do you read that differently than I do?
Ms. Burt. No. I would agree with you, that you are not--
that definition does not include voluntary long term
arrangements, two sisters and their kids, rent an apartment
together.
Mrs. Biggert. You still think doubling up should not be--
Ms. Burt. I would not in any way disagree with anybody
about the current inadequacy of mainstream services in two
different directions. I would totally agree that they do not
reach homeless people and they do not serve them very well. I
would totally agree that they do not have the resources to do
it.
I would totally agree that we need very much more--I would
personally like to see the resources to eliminate every worse
case housing need that stemmed from economic resource issues.
I think there is a lot of homelessness and a lot of it on
the family side that is economic in nature, and you can see it
as the cost of housing goes up, so do the number of families
that are specifically desperate on the subject of housing, much
more than you see it on the single side.
Mrs. Biggert. If I could just interrupt because I am out of
time, just one question for everybody.
When we were talking about the disabled and the disabled
parent and finding housing, do you think the definition of that
should be changed to include if you have a disabled child? Dr.
Burt? Rather than just the parent, where they were kicked out
of the apartment.
Ms. Burt. That is actually rather hard.
Mrs. Biggert. I just need a yes or no.
Ms. Burt. Maybe.
Mrs. Biggert. Okay, maybe, too. Ms. Carter?
Ms. Carter. Yes.
Mrs. Biggert. Ms. Nilan?
Ms. Nilan. Yes.
Mrs. Biggert. Dr. Bassuk?
Dr. Bassuk. Yes.
Mrs. Biggert. Mr. Loza?
Mr. Loza. Yes.
Ms. Gallo. No.
Mrs. Biggert. It is close. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. I
yield back.
Chairwoman Waters. Thank you very much. That completes the
hearing for today. I would like to thank all of you who have
been so patient and who have been so informative and so helpful
to us as we make decisions about this very important public
policy. We appreciate your time, your work, and everything that
you are doing.
With that, the Chair notes that some members may have
additional questions for this panel, which they may wish to
submit in writing. Without objection, the hearing record will
remain open for 30 days for members to submit written questions
to these witnesses, and to place their responses in the record.
This panel is now dismissed and without objection, we
submit for the record a statement from a group known as Family
Promise.
Thank you very much. This hearing is now adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 2:58 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
October 16, 2007
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