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Learn More About: Housing First Why the Housing First Approach Needs Sustainable Funding BY JUDITH TACKET T Nashville’s Mayor has at last endorsed the Housing First approach, a win from the community advocacy perspective. With a $50-million infusion in federal American Rescue Plan (ARP) funds to address outdoor homelessness over the next three years, we may have a great kick-start to improving our local Housing Crisis Resolution System* to prevent and end homelessness. One major principle to remember when talking about Housing First is that some programs can view themselves as a Housing First program, but it truly is a philosophy that provides the lowest possible barriers to access housing and services within a solutions-focused system. A true Housing First approach offers program options and housing choices for people to figure out what works best for them. Housing First is anything but a cookie-cutter approach. And while it focuses on housing as the solution to homelessness, it recognizes that housing is the starting point. Housing First is not Housing Only. On the contrary, the individualized approach ensures that people are offered service options as needed. Some people will utilize those services on an ongoing basis to be able to manage their health, mental health, and/or substance use issues. Others may need minimum assistance and eventually are able to maintain their housing on their own. One thing that we seem to choose to forget though, is that a true Housing First effort needs ongoing funding to accommodate the individualized approach that includes a diversity of ongoing service options. That’s why it is imperative that we recognize that while different aspects of the recent $50-million proposal by Metro are Housing-First oriented, unless the city comes up with a sustainability plan, it won’t be able to implement and maintain a Housing-First system. So, is the current approach a true effort to implement Housing First? Or is the current approach essentially an effort that will initially achieve political results and reduce visible homelessness, but in the long run not maintain the outcomes that a huge investment like the $50 million initially promises? My fear is that the public is blinded by the big $50-million number, not realizing that when we
take a closer look, it is by far not enough to end either outdoor and/or chronic homelessness. On the contrary, without further federal, state, and local investments, homelessness may look similar in three years after the ARP funds are used up. Nashville will still have assisted a lot of people, but without proper public education around the difficulties to build an efficient Housing-First-oriented system that truly prevents and ends homelessness, the recent publicity hype may be misleading. A quick calculation shows what I am talking about. Of the $50 million, $25 million will be designated to create actual housing units. Early estimations show that 120 new permanent supportive housing units should be generated. Of the remaining $25 million, $9 million will go toward support services, $9 million toward temporary housing (allowing for the quick dismantlement of encampments), $3 million toward landlord engagement, and $4 million toward innovative programs. It’s not clear yet what the criteria of the latter programs will entail. When Nashville received and invested $10 million in Emergency Solutions Grant-COVID funds in 2020 to house more than 600 people and support them over a two-year period, I presented to the Mayor’s Office a calculation that an ongoing annual investment of $12 million was needed to ensure we implement a Housing First approach (compare that to the $8.3 million per year investment of the $25 million in ARP funds for services over the next three years, and you’ll start to see the shortcomings). My $12-million calculation was based on the continued prioritization of the most vulnerable people who often need intensive support services to maintain their housing. Furthermore, this calculation was only a starting point that did not fully account yet for addressing an influx in homelessness, which happens in a booming city like Nashville when rents continue to increase, mainstream service delivery (especially for mental health and substance use) are unobtainable for people without health insurance, and other safety nets outside the homelessness system keep failing people. In other words, no matter what politicians will tell us, we will need local investments in ad-
dition to federal and state dollars to significantly increase our ongoing investment if we want to build a safety net approach as part of an efficient, Housing-First-oriented Housing Crisis Resolution System. Why did we not have these conversations before? Most significantly, four years ago, our city did not have the tools to be able to conduct needs assessments or truly measure outcomes at the program and community levels, which is a necessity to any Housing First effort. The provider community of the Continuum of Care worked hard to change that, and now we have those tools in place. In addition, we utilized COVID dollars to create a solid landlord engagement effort and developed an innovative approach by creating the Mobile Housing Navigation Centers. Tools that are now in place to benefit the $50-million investment. A win for our community. We, as a community, cannot be blinded by election language including the term Housing First without scrutinizing whether city leaders are completely understanding how to build a true, long-term Housing First-oriented system. As Councilmember Bob Mendes says in his interview (in this issue), “The city has a demonstrated success rate of accomplishing whatever its number one objective is. That begs a lot of questions about whether homelessness has ever been a top priority any time recently.” Mendes hit the nail on the head. I don’t think our political will is prioritizing homelessness yet; otherwise, we would have seen a sustainable plan along with the $50 million in the multiple presentations the Mayor’s Office provided to tout a win. Instead, the focus appears to be to close encampments. Many people will obtain housing, and that is a good thing. But I don’t believe a sustainability plan is in place that includes preventing others who were housed during the past two years from falling back into homelessness. Each Homelessness Planning Council member should take on the task and serve as a watchdog and leader and avoid rubber stamping what Metro puts before them. The recent community work was completed by a committee on only one of the resolutions about temporary housing. Metro falsely claims that all four resolutions had public
Dr. Richard Cho, senior advisor for housing and services at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban development (HUD), published an article in 2014 when he was working for the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH). Cho clarified four specific misconceptions of Housing First. He explained that Housing First is a philosophy that should be implemented at the systems level. (www.usich.gov/news/four-clarifications-about-housing-first/) 1. Housing First is not a “program.” It is a whole-system orientation and response. 2. Housing First is a recognition that everyone can achieve stability in (real) housing. Some people simply need services to help them do so. 3. Housing First is about health, recovery, and well-being. Housing itself is the foundation and platform for achieving these goals. 4. Housing First is about changing mainstream systems.
scrutiny and input. Again, to me it seems the Mayor’s message was misleading. Nonprofits are aware of it, but with that many millions at stake and up for bidding, many of their voices seem to have been quieted. To sum this up, a true Housing First approach outlines long-term goals and mechanisms. We cannot rest on $50 million in temporary funds. And so far, the sustainability plans Metro officials like to point toward are based on dollars that are already being utilized by nonprofits to address homelessness and potential new federal funds that are neither appropriated yet nor sufficient to prevent and end homelessness in Nashville over the next few years. *A Housing Crisis Resolution System is a communitywide system that includes all types of programs from prevention/diversion, emergency and temporary interventions to permanent housing solutions. As a whole, an effective Housing Crisis Resolution System focuses on identifying people in a housing crisis as early as possible and connects them with housing and needed supports as quickly as possible. Most leaders at the national level use the term homeless crisis response system. However, I always preferred the terms housing and solution when speaking about our response to homelessness.
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