Beyond the Obvious, Reasons to Fear for Homeless Families

Most enlightened people can grasp the common concepts of why homeless families become and remain homeless so long. Realities like:

• An appalling shortage of decent affordable market-rate housing; 
• An even worse dearth of subsidized housing, with wait-lists of 5 years and more;
• Stringent, some would say impossible, credit requirements filtering out people in poverty (those with tainted credit tend to be the most impoverished);
• Harsh penalties for those who’ve done time in prison—banning them from even stepping onto public housing projects, excluding them from consideration as tenants in the private market.
• Exorbitant application fees that don’t get refunded if an applicant is denied. 
• Steep deposits, for housing and utilities, which often get kissed goodbye when the tenant moves out.

(Read Matt Desmond’s excellent expose on this topic, Evicted. Or my 1-page "Causes of Homelessness" from my book, Crossing the Line: Taking Steps to End Homelessness.)

That's tough enough, as exemplified by our nation’s record high number of families in homeless situations. 

HUD’s (U.S. Dept. of Housing and Human Development) policies  and their continuing refusal to acknowledge the horrifying level of homelessness among families and youth, will only get worse with an incoming clueless HUD Secretary.

While HUD is dancing around the Washington Monument waving banners proclaiming “Homelessness Is Ending!” the U.S. Department of Education grimly points to the doubling of homeless students identified since schools began seriously counting back in 2006. The number of students—not parents, older/younger siblings, nor those still unidentified—has doubled, from about 600,000 to more than 1.3 million in 2015. 

That's bad enough, but another barrier exists that causes, perpetuates and prevents homelessness from ending. It doesn’t get discussed much publicly. But it needs to be addressed. 

Trauma. 

That one word encompasses physical, mental, sexual abuse that creates a sense of panic, dread, and immobility, to name a few manifestations. This affliction often sabotages a person’s return to self-sufficiency. It’s the invisible demon that lingers in the background, waiting for the opportune moment to shatter any chance of progress. 

I’ve seen it time and time again. Depending on the damage the trauma has inflicted, some are rendered pathetically, frustratingly immobile when it surfaces.

We’ve heard “PTSD” referring to soldiers exposed to horrors of war. Post traumatic stress disorder. It’s not just a way of explaining away unacceptable behaviors of our troops. Or our citizens. Lady Gaga’s admission of her PTSD recently rocked her fandom. 

It’s far past time to acknowledge that those exposed to violence—mental, physical and/or sexual—are vulnerable to PTSD. Their trauma is real. As I’m witnessing now.

The mother who, after 3 long years of enduring and surviving incomprehensible abuse and hardships, including homelessness that resulted in her family being split up for survival’s sake, has an opportunity to move out of her (and her daughter’s) hell-hole of indentured servitude and homelessness into a decent, affordable place of their own. 

I suspect the demon is circling, pushing her vulnerable self-esteem against the wall, shouting the abusive chant that she’s unworthy, that she’ll fail, so why should she try. 

She texted me to ask how soon she should tell her sinister employer/housing provider that she and her daughter are moving. Reading between the lines of this short text, she wants to, understandably, tell him to “f-ck off,” a satisfying response to a hated bully. 

Her justifiable anger is ready to spew, amassed over years of abusive, demeaning, brutal experiences that have threatened her wellbeing, and worse, that of her children, just as she’s about to break out of this prison. 

Not now, I uncharacteristically advised. He can kick you to the curb, or make your lives even more miserable while we’re waiting for the languid housing authority to hand her the keys. 

She thanked me for my counsel and said this will be, next to the birth of her kids, the best Christmas ever (we agreed to postpone the celebration of Christmas by a month, figuring they’ll be in their new home). 

This can be my best Christmas, with my fingers crossed that she can hang in and make this happen. Selfishly, I could use a reason to cheer 2017’s inauspicious arrival. Demon, be gone!

What Homeless Kids Want For Christmas…And Beyond

Peer into the face of any of America’s 2.5 million+ homeless children. What could you do to ease their suffering? A toy for Christmas does not assuage their basic human need of housing, but that seems to be all they’re likely to get, and even less from our perpetually politically-hamstrung, priority-challenged Congress. 

Let’s stop pretending that homeless kids count. They don’t. 

HUD (U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development) continues to deny their existence, saying that families and youth who’ve lost housing and rely on a patchwork quilt of nightly accommodations—insecurely doubling up with a succession of friends, families and acquaintances; bouncing in and out of cut-rate motels—are not “really homeless." The only “benefit” of this declaration is to keep the homeless numbers down and avoid addressing the surging increase in families, youth and adults without a place to call home.

An effort to expand the definition of homelessness to bring HUD’s definition in line with the Department of Education’s definition, one that reflects reality, is still being pondered by Congress. HUD’s annual Annual Homelessness Assessment Report (AHAR), indicates a slight decrease in homelessness, based on their “Point In Time” (PIT) count, a process criticized by homeless children/youth advocates. “The obvious discrepancy between the AHAR numbers and what any provider, public school employee, or American who regularly walks down a city street can see with their own eyes, calls into question the need for the AHAR and indeed, the purpose of the PIT counts,” stated Ruth White, executive director of National Center for Housing and Child Welfare, in a recent press release criticizing HUD’s PIT and AHAR.

Surprisingly, the Every Student Succeeds Act of 2015 recently made it through Congress and was just signed by President Obama. The new law includes a sliver of language addressing the issue of education for homeless students, finally reauthorizing the McKinney-Vento Homeless Education Act, last addressed in 2001. Unfortunately, this legislation includes a recommendation for a paltry amount of funding, $71.5 million, resulting in what my educator-friend points out boils down to an “unfunded mandate.” I can hardly argue.

In the 10 years I’ve been traveling backroads of America to chronicle the plight and promise of homeless children and youth under my nonprofit banner “HEAR US,” the number of homeless students identified by schools has more than doubled, from 600,000 to the current 1,360,747. During that time, funding to help schools cope with this growing population has languished, to say the least. Current funding is a mere $65 million, “up” from $62 million in 2006, reaching about 10% of districts. Money is used to provide supplies, tutors, and transportation as well as pay for staff on the state and local level to coordinate services for homeless students. So much for “homeless kids count.”

Education alone will not alleviate homelessness among families and youth, though without it they’ll have no chance to get ahead. Mostly ignored by mainstream media, accounts of homeless students breaking the chains of poverty merit sporadic coverage, highlighting their hard work and luck, but sadly diverting attention from the millions experiencing daunting struggles with poverty, gut-rumbling hunger, immobilizing trauma, debilitating physical and mental health issues (kids and their parents), and numbing insecurity, the result of not knowing where to sleep at night.

One family I’ve met in my travels, a mother of 2 girls forced to ask her ex-husband to care for their daughter until she finds a secure place to live, illustrates the devastation of homelessness. The mom has continued to try to work, providing in-home health care in return for lodging for her and her youngest daughter. In the process she’s endured grueling abuse from her hosts. Imagine the worst. 

The mother is traumatized, immobilized. She struggles to make productive decisions for her and her daughter, but she’s not able to because the help they need doesn’t exist. Her college degree and rusty work ethic will hardly provide the escape from this “non-homeless” homelessness. No jobs, much less those paying a living wage. No shelters. No affordable housing. No transportation. No counseling. No health care. 

So looking her 8-year-old daughter in the eyes, all I can do is offer an inadequate “Merry Christmas” and a stuffed animal. I painfully know it is not enough. 

Shocking! Homeless Children and Youth--100% Increase

If you wait long enough and do nothing, problems usually don’t go away. Such is the case illustrated by the astounding increase of homelessness among children and youth in this country. The latest numbers just released show a jaw-dropping 100% increase of students identified as homeless since I’ve been on the road—10 years ago.

US Department of Education numbers indicate 1,360,747 students identified experienced homelessness in the 2013-14 school year, 8% more than the previous year. 

I’m almost too numb to be shocked. Almost. 

To be clear, the 1.36 million number does not include younger/older siblings or parents. And it only represents those students identified as homeless under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act’s Education for Homeless Children and Youth program, with specific qualifiers. I suspect that the number would actually double if we counted thoroughly.

As part of my work with my nonprofit organization HEAR US Inc., I spent several weeks this year filming in beleaguered Kansas, including a week at Camp IBA (Imagine. Believe. Achieve.), an astounding creation of the Wichita Public School District 259’s McKinney-Vento Homeless Education program. I can’t get these young faces out of my head or heart. 

I sat in on a campfire-style conversation of 10-12-year old girls, gathered in a circle on the floor of their camp/classroom. One girl shared her dismay of not knowing where her family would be sleeping night-to-night. Another talked about how oppressively crowded it was in their motel room. Another revealed her fear of violence if her mother’s ex-boyfriend would return. These matter-of-fact topics spun around as if these girls were adults chatting about a popular soap opera. 

Another girl told me what she liked most about the camp: she could “depend” on people, certainly the teachers and volunteers, but also her campmates. I suspect she knows about those she can’t depend on.  

Real kids. Real feelings. Real homelessness.

We apparently have decided that certain groups of homeless persons must be expendable. Kids have drawn the short straw, that, despite what we know would work for many families.

Congress is still pondering whether to let homeless families and youth qualify for federal assistance to escape homelessness. Of course, if they do, Congress might need to do something about the dire lack of affordable housing in communities from coast to coast. Legislation is dangling in the Capitol that might improve this appalling neglect, the Homeless Children and Youth Act, but though I won’t bet my lunch money that they’ll get around to passing this bipartisan, bicameral legislation any time soon, we still need to be at the table. 

As one of a handful of advocates who have been fighting for the rights of homeless families and youth for decades, I continue to be astounded at how few people, including elected officials, grasp that we even have millions of kids and families without homes, much less realize the dire conditions they face. By our collective neglect, we write off this population until they become adults on the streets. 

Something can be done. Although this seems like a long-shot, stranger things have happened in Congress. You and all those in your network can contact your congressional delegation—quickly and painlessly—by going to www.helphomelesskidsnow.org  and clicking on the TAKE ACTION link. By entering your zip code, your representatives’ info will pop up. You can customize the letter or send it as is. 

The venerable Senator Paul Simon (D, IL, deceased) once told me that until elected officials heard from their constituents that homelessness was an issue, nothing would be done. It seems like a simple formula—contact your legislator, make your wishes known, they respond. (Since big money isn't available for this issue, we'll have to do the Paul Simon method.)

With the number of homeless students increasing each year, it seems like more and more people should be aware of this crisis, maybe even knowing someone who fell into homelessness. The best motivation we have is think of ourselves in the place of those in homeless situations. 

What would we want to have happen if those kids sitting in the circle discussing their homelessness were our kids?

Perverted Reality: Shelter ‘System’ Is No System

Homeless people have shelters to go to, a common belief comforting those who don’t know better. 

Having just come from Carlisle Cares, the community-based shelter where my friend and colleague Pat LaMarche works, having run shelters for 15 years myself, having seen shelters across the country for the past 9 years of my HEAR US traveling, I find myself seething at the perverted reality of what our shelter “system” is in this affluent country.

Pat’s shelter is probably average (no offense!). It’s in a middle-income borough in sort of central PA. Hundreds of similar communities dot the Keystone State. This community is quite unusual, with 3 shelters—one in a fixed site, this one which rotates to different places of worship—and a Salvation Army shelter for families. Shari Bellish, the shelter founder, fights hard to keep this meager operation going, knowing that 55 people a night will have a safe place to sleep. 

I listened as Pat answered one of many phone calls she and other staff get during the day. “I’m sorry, we’re full,” was the gist of it. The caller, a woman staying in her car. It’s below freezing tonight. Pat referred her to a neighboring community’s rotating site “shelter” program. At least she has a car, and gas is cheaper. Maybe she’ll get a spot to sleep.

Many shelters operate on paltry budgets, forcing them to creatively get around the lack of space and staff by setting hours that minimize the operations’ expenses. Pat’s shelter busses people to the night site which opens at 9:30 p.m. Everyone has to be out by 7 a.m., bussed back to this modest base so everyone can go on their way.

Imagine life for school kids—to bed by 10 if they’re lucky, up at 6:30, on a bus at 7 to go back to shelter headquarters to wash up and grab breakfast before heading out to school. Not a lot of quality time for homework, much less sleep and normalcy. The pads on the floor squeezed together don’t allow for privacy, or sleep. 

Volunteers and a skeleton staff make this emergency arrangement possible. And it’s much better than everyone cuddling up on the street. In Phoenix, the county is contemplating shutting down their overflow shelter—a bleak warehouse that offers nothing but a place on the floor for hundreds of desperate men.

Reading Bill Moyer’s post on homelessness, I found myself torn. His valid perspective is tainted by the use of wildly-delusional statistics provided by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. HUD’s official report to Congress, which determines funding for homelessness programs, was that 578,424 people were homeless last year.  

This extremely narrow enumeration hardly counts homelessness at all. It’s a one-night point-in-time count that, despite sincerely stalwart efforts by professionals and volunteers, documents a mere drop in the vast sea of people—adults and kids, oldsters and babies and those in between—with no place to go.

Case in point, the U.S. Department of Education reported that almost 1.3 million students without homes were identified in the 2013 school year, a staggering 72% increase since 2006. T America’s Youngest Outcasts reports over 2.5 million CHILDREN are homeless, not including parents or single adults. So, HUD’s report…just a tad under-representing the crisis.

I left as Pat headed down the garbage bag-lined hallway, holiday clothing donations. Folks were quietly waiting at tables. If you’d could ask, you’d hear about boredom, frustration finding housing or jobs, regrets about burned bridges and family alienation, and gratitude that at least they have some place to turn to on this cold Pennsylvania night where they’ll be safe. 

It’s perverted that they should feel grateful. It’s perverted that many communities have no shelters. It’s perverted that HUD is pushing “Housing First” with inadequate resources to help those who need it, and we’ll see the perverted action of the 114th Congress, which doesn’t begin to have a clue as to the staggering scope homeless Americans, as they likely slash spending for human needs.

Connecting the Dots: Homelessness of Families and Youth Needs Attention

Lynne Weise, Anne Arundel School District (MD) homeless
 liaison, welcomes the audience at Abundant Life
Church.

My audience last night in Glen Burnie, MD (on the outskirts of Baltimore) was a mixture of seasoned veterans who've worked with families and youth experiencing homelessness for years and newbies, the kind-hearted folks disturbed by knowing that thousands of kids and their parents in their community "have no fixed, adequate place of abode," i.e. are homeless.

I'd suspect, having done sessions like this all over the country for decades, that the group suffered from a massive guilt, how could we let this happen in our relatively affluent community?

My first task was to assuage their guilt. In virtually every community across this country, you'd find families and youth without homes. The latest stats from the US Department of Education points to a record-breaking dire reality: over 1.1 million students have been identified as homeless. That, by no means, is a complete number, with many districts failing to identify their homeless students, and families/youth in homeless situations failing to self-identify. Almost 1,000 students are identified as  homeless in this district, a steady increase from previous years.

My second task is to introduce the courageous kids who share their stories of homelessness in my award-winning, highly-acclaimed documentary, My Own Four Walls. Any audience watching this 20-minute film can't hold onto ignorance or callousness. And they didn't.

Our discussion, I believe, was fruitful. People wanted to help. And a ton of help is needed. Practical things, diapers, clothing, food, etc.; the vital extras, band instruments, prom dresses, and baseball cleats, etc.; and the underlying essential, raising awareness so that a compassion epidemic can spread.

What I think astounded/vexed them the most is that so many families and youth are still unsheltered in their communities, causing all sorts of logistical nightmares for the unhoused and for those responding to the inevitable emergencies related to being unhoused.

Yeah, it's pretty dismaying to know that for decades our nation, and communities within, have pretty well ignored the basic human needs of vulnerable families and youth. And our federal government, despite what they say, continues to under-fund and under-serve this growing population, at a great cost to taxpayers as well as the beleaguered families/youths.

It would be nice if local communities could muster the compassion needed to solve the problem in their borders, but that's not how it works. They can do great things, but if we don't ramp up the basics: affordable housing, support services, educational opportunities, health care, child care, etc., those teetering on the edge of homelessness will fall hard. That requires pulling in (reluctant) elected officials on all levels.

I'll continue doing gigs like this as long as I get the support (check our our time-limited -3/31/14 matching grant), but I've got to say it's daunting. This crisis isn't easing. And the do-gooders might start feeling like their Uncle Sam has deserted them. At this point, I'd have a hard time arguing.

The Numbers Game

Former Boone, NC mansion sitting empty

I hate numbers. Well, not all numbers, just the kind that people chase when trying to make a point. Well, not even those numbers. I guess it boils down to disliking when people make you chase numbers for N O T H I N G.

Take, for example, the recent U.S. Dept. of Education report showing homelessness among school students has soared over the 1 million mark. These numbers have been gathered each year since the latest version of the McKinney-Vento homeless education act passed in 2002. Districts have been improving at their identifying homeless kids, I'd like to think in part because of efforts of HEAR US Inc. and our amazing documentary (My Own Four Walls) and other efforts. (Check out this latest HufPo article that mentions the work of HEAR US!)

Each year, as Congress contemplates budgetary decisions, do they actually consider the numbers of homeless students? Um, nope. The chump change tossed at this issue to help schools help homeless kids has remained pretty static and severely inadequate, about $70 million. About 3,500 school districts (out of approximately 10,000 nationally) receive funding, a mere dusting. And many have been cut out of this funding dribble.

Ever since the beginning of the federal involvement in homelessness (solution-wise), back in 1987 under the guise of the McKinney Act, advocates have tried to squeeze money for the issue of homelessness. The response has always been "show us the numbers; document the need." So good lil' doo-bees that we are, we'd go out and gather numbers, dutifully turning them in at the end of the year. For what? We're about to commemorate the McKinney-Vento Act anniversary. Has our nation made progress on homelessness? Not from the perspective of homeless people, with their numbers soaring upwards.

Some would argue that these numbers have helped generate resources. Pardon my scoffing. Have they helped to the extent that homelessness has been significantly reduced? No!

We're playing a game with feds who have no intention of providing real solutions to address homelessness. These same policymakers deftly toss billions to banks, the institutions who hang onto a bunch of housing stock that sits empty while families and youth (and single men and women) stumble about on our streets seeking shelter.

School districts decry the money they have to spend on busing and other services for homeless kids. I say, smarten up! Get some leaders in your community to figure out how to utilize abandoned housing to reduce family and youth homelessness, thus making transportation costs moot.

It's cheaper. Do the math. Let me show you the numbers.

Storm Cloud Darkens for Homeless Children

Ever since I became aware of homelessness, from the early 1980s, I figured it was, at least in some part, about money. 

I knew people didn’t care much for the homeless men and women being seen more and more on streets of cities across the country. Media depictions of these frightening bedraggled “street people” began the perhaps inadvertent campaign to demonize people without homes. It worked. If you ask people to describe homeless persons, you’ll see what I mean.

My memory goes back to Mitch Snyder, a DC activist who took up the issue, going head-to-head with federal officials and eventually backing President Reagan into a corner as Snyder fasted almost to death on the street across from the White House to get the government to do something. They did, passing the McKinney Act in 1987. I met Mitch. His determination and conviction impressed me. I became involved with advocacy along with running shelters, an essential combination, I believe.

Back then, homeless adults were the visible and predominant manifestation of homelessness. At the human service agency where I worked, we began to see a few families, but they were rare. As time passed, into the 90s, families trickled into our emergency overnight shelter. Looking back, we didn’t do enough for the families, but we tried our best to make sure they had shelter, pathetic as our efforts were.

After the drastic changes to our dysfunctional welfare system, some of us feared the worst for the families too shattered to move into self-sufficiency. But the economy was somewhat functional, and things didn’t appear as dreadful as some of us thought, although signs were brewing like storm clouds.

Throughout the 1990s, we began to notice different—invisible—forms of homelessness. Sure, we were seeing more families in our shelters, but when we (IL Coalition to End Homelessness) examined the issue of homeless families staying in motels in the Chicagoland area, we were shocked. Across the 8 collar counties, families were scattered in no-tell-motels and some of the less-expensive chains.  We released a report on what we found. It was a storm warning. No one heeded it. 

Instead, Congress went about quietly tinkering with programs serving homeless persons. They made it harder to qualify for subsidized housing, and reduced HUD’s budget dramatically and tragically. They funded software to track and count homeless people (only those deemed “chronic”) and reshaped how communities organized to address homelessness into mostly dysfunctional “Continuum of Care” alliances. 

Anti-welfare sentiments contaminated programs designed to serve people in poverty. Bad credit became a good reason to deny people housing or a job. Prisons, overflowing, turned people out to a world where the label “ex con” meant less than human. 

One bright spot…. After considerable advocacy, the McKinney-Vento Homeless Education Act passed in 2001, implemented in 2002, guiding schools education for homeless children and youth. It’s been an uphill climb, but progress is being made, despite some recalcitrant educators.

Then the seismic changes of the 21^st century hit. And when the economy nose-dived in 2008, the first group to explode on the poverty and homelessness scene was families and young people (without parent/guardians).  No surprise. 

And along the way, the National Alliance to End Homelessness (NAEH) received sizable funding to provide technical assistance for HUD. Benign as that sounds, it ties NAEH to HUD. So this “advocacy” group becomes, in my opinion, a lapdog to the agency that needs a dog nipping at their heels, not drooling in their lap. In the process, NAEH has become a vehement opponent of expanding the homelessness definition to include families and kids. 

One obvious result of this “partnership,” HUD’s homelessness numbers are astoundingly low, NAEH proudly reported in June. Gee. Not bad for a country in the economic sewer. Not real, but let’s not confuse reality and glee.

The US Department of Education reports almost 1 million identified (likely that many more unidentified) homeless students. It doesn't include younger ones--our Littlest Nomads.  Here are the stats. Read ‘em and weep for the million kids who have no home. If watching TV is something you’d rather do than read dry, depressing government reports, this link connects you with the recent CBS 60 Minutes account about families living in their cars. Not to be denied—the reality that millions of kids, some in families and some on their own, are homeless in America. If you're so inclined, take in 4 minutes of kids talking on our HEAR US documentary, My Own Four Walls.

Seems to me it’s time for NAEH to resign as voice of homeless persons. Conflict of interest has gotten in their way. The kids at Thursday’s hearing will make that perfectly clear. It remains to be seen who will listen and care.