New Study from ICPH

African Americans Over-represented in the Homeless Population

With the submission of annual data by the shelters to HUD, it provides good solid information for researches to pick over and present to the world.  This data is horrible for counting the number of homeless people in America, which ironically was the original purpose of forcing every shelter to submit.  But it does give excellent information on the demographics using the shelters in the country. So, the Intitute for Children, Poverty and Homelessness has looked at 2010 data and found that African Americans are disproportionately represented in shelters throughout the United States. 

"In 2010, one out of every 141 black family members stayed in a homeless shelter, a rate seven times higher than members of white families, according to “Intergenerational Disparities Experienced by Homeless Black Families,” a report released today by the Institute for Children, Poverty, and Homelessness."

Three times as many African American families were living in poverty compared to white families.  African Americans are impoverished at 23.3% while white families only have 12% of their total population living in poverty in the United States.   The report looks at various cities how many are experiencing homelessness including St. Louis and New York City with over 90% of their 2010 homeless population black.  Cleveland's African American population was listed as the high 90%, but the County reports a figure around 80% for 2010 and 2011.  The figure is so high it raises some troubling questions. Why hasn't the first African American president talked much about homelessness or poverty when there is this huge disparity among minority populations?  Why aren't the national civil rights organizations more involved in the struggle to end homelessness?  Why isn't this issue ever discussed by social service providers or part of the planning to serve the population?  Why are African Americans so overly represented in the homeless population and Hispanic/Latino populations so under represented? 

What policy initiatives can we put in place when dealing with evictions using these statistics?  What does this tell us about prevention if African Americans are so overly represented in the shelters?  How do we change intake with the knowledge that African Americans are disproportionately represented in the beds of the shelters?  How do we set guidelines for diversion if we know that African Americans make up such a large number of homeless people?  These are disturbing number, but what do we do with them?

Brian
Posts reflect the opinion of those who sign the entry.

Today's Links

Photo by Cheryl Jones

A Couple of Interesting Stories

The Huffington Post published an article today about the impact of dramatic cuts on families.  We have seen a sharp rise in family homelessness in both Columbus and Cleveland over the last four years.  The most frightening part of this story was from a young child in Detroit:

“He said, ‘Oh, I’m not eating dinner because it’s my brother’s turn tonight. Tomorrow is my night.’”

The report from the Annie E. Casey foundation found 67% of the children live in concentrated poverty in Detroit.  Michigan has made dramatic changes in cash assistance and dropped 11,000 from the roles.  Over 400,000 are unemployed in Michigan, but only 60,000 receive benefits.

CNN featured an inspirational story about Lamont Peterson and his journey from homelessness to Light Heavyweight world champion. It is nice to see media stories in which homelessness does not seem like a permanent condition.    

The AP is reporting that the City of New York cannot proceed with their diversion plan as we reported previously.   The decision concentrates on the way that the policy was introduced.  The judge did not rule on the merits of the policy at this point.  The City is characterizing the policy as one that anyone can walk in for services whether they need it or not.  The Mayor of New York needs to stay in a shelter for a week, and he would realize that it is not a place where people would volunteer to reside.  This is the final step for most people who have lost everything else. It is an insult for the City to say to a desperate individual that they must impose on their Aunt Rose's hospitality or sleep on the streets. 

Brian
Posts reflect the opinion of those who sign the entry.

Linking Homlessness to Foreclosures

National Coalition for the Homeless Releases Report on Foreclosures

A partnership of national homeless organizations, including the National Coalition for the Homeless, the National Health Care for the Homeless Council, the National Alliance to End Homelessness, the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth, National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, the National Low Income Housing Coalition, and the National Policy and Advocacy Council on Homelessness; have release a joint report on the impact of the foreclosure and economic crises and the unprecedented growth in the number of individuals and families left without a home in the United States.

In a national survey of homeless service and advocacy agencies conducted by the these groups, 79 percent of respondents stated that at least some of their clients were homeless as a result of foreclosure, and about half estimated that more than ten percent of their clients were homeless because of foreclosure on a home they had been occupying.

During 2008, RealtyTrac reported 3,157,806 foreclosure filings — default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions, an 81 percent jump from 2007 and a 225 percent increase from 2006.

“We are one step away from foreclosure. More and more families and children are affected by job loss and the economy. ‘Getting back on your feet’ is next to impossible in today’s society. The public needs to be made aware of who is becoming homeless... and that they could be next - just like any average family,” an individual respondent to the national survey from North Carolina reported.

The study found that there are many interrelated consequences of the economic downturn that lead to both home foreclosure and to homelessness. There is an increased need for affordable housing, as well as targeted legal assistance, health care, living-wage jobs, income supports, access to education, civil rights protections and the various supports that will continue to be needed as a result of the recession.

John Parvensky, Board of Directors President for the National Coalition for the Homeless and Executive Director of the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless states, "This report underscores the fact that we as a nation need to strengthen our efforts to prevent homelessness resulting from this economic crisis, while creating sufficient new affordable rental housing to ensure that no family in America has to experience the tragedy of homelessness."

The report is available online at www.nationalhomeless.org.

The best part of this report is that it features photos from the NEOCH Photo project from last year. Please check it out.

Brian
Posts reflect the opinion of those who sign the entry.

Another Day: Another Report

Photo by Pleasure Simmons (NEOCH Photo Graduate 2008)

State of Downtown Cleveland Homeless

The Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless has published a report on the State of Downtown Homeless in Cleveland. It is on our website under Solutions/Public Policy section of the site. In 2007, during our budget woes at the Coalition, the City of Cleveland engaged a contract with NEOCH. This was a historic change from the bad days of the 1990s when we were forced to sue the City of Cleveland on a regular basis. NEOCH had never in our 20 year history had a contract with the City of Cleveland. Anyway, we completed our one year contract working on assisting the City with issues of homelessness downtown. The big success was moving the food providers to a new location without a lawsuit or a big demonstration. We started to see a large reduction in the number of people sleeping in the downtown. Unfortunately, with the problems facing our economy, the number has started to increase again. We could claim that there was a direct relationship between the numbers starting to rise immediately after our contract ended with the City, but that would not be true. We have continued to do much of the work, because the coordination is valuable.

We have a better network of coordination of outreach workers, we have a coordinated food distribution, and we have far fewer people in the overflow shelter system. NEOCH staff and board hope that the City will renew the contract this spring, and we can continue to work on other issues to reduce homelessness in Cleveland. It is a good report that gives a good overview of homelessness downtown.

Brian

Posts by Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless staff and Board.

State of Cleveland Homelessness 2008

Statistics About Homelessness Published

The Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless published its second annual State of Homelessness for Cuyahoga County, Ohio 2008. In this report, we survey local homeless service providers and the public entities and collects the numbers from last year. We try to use 2008 figures or at least the most recent Statistics available. Thanks to the County Office of Homeless Services, the Salvation Army, 2100 Lakeside Shelter, CTO, CHN, and Mediation Center. We have to thank CEOCG, First Call for Help, and the Cleveland Metropolitan School District. There are so many who submitted information including EDEN, Enterprise Foundation, and Cleveland Department of Building and Housing. It is a lot larger than the 2007 edition. The report details trends, positive steps, and the final section are recommended solutions. It is available on our website www.neoch.org under Resources and statistics.

Here are a few highlights (or lowlights) from the report:

• Estimated number of homeless people in 2007: 20,087.
• Cuyahoga County residents living in poverty in 2007: 200,873 people or 15.5% of the population—a 1% increase.
• Cleveland Housing Court evictions 2007: 11,416 (no data for 2008 yet)
• Over a half million searches were conducted on the affordable housing website a12% increase.
• Foreclosures filed in Cuyahoga County in 2007: 14,041
• 21% increase in overall calls to 211, and a 22% in calls regarding foreclosure
• 26% increase in calls to 211 regarding shelter between 2008 and 2007.
• 3,788 people received help with identification in a one year period before funds ran out last year.
• The need for affordable housing: 40,000 households.
• 69% of the sheltered homeless population are African American.
• The largest men’s shelter averaged 419 people sleeping inside every night.
• 23% of the residents of Lakeside came from the suburbs or outside of Cuyahoga County.
• To afford a one bedroom apartment at the market level, a person must make $1,806 per month or $11.28 per hour.
• Homeless school age children in Cleveland remained steady in 2008 after a 40% increase in 2007.
• 57% of the women who leave shelter have no income upon exit.
• The largest family shelter saw a 50% increase in families in need of help because of the foreclosure crisis.
• The average rent burden for callers to CTO is now 73% of a families income goes toward paying the rent.
• 23% of the homeless population are veterans.
• At least 10,000 housing units sit vacant just in the City of Cleveland.
• 20% of the homeless population reported that they had never visited a dentist.

Please check it out, and give us some feedback.

Brian
Posts by Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless staff and Board.

Federal Government Spins Homelessness

Can We Believe Anything These Guys Say?

The New York Times and the Plain Dealer both covered the latest spin from the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Bush Administration. From the administration that brought us "Enhanced interrogation techniques" as a cover for torture; "renditions" as cover for kidnapping; the cover up of the death of Pat Tillman; the spying on Americans by our telephone companies as a "terrorism monitoring program"; this sentence by the head of this government, "the economy is growing, productivity is high, trade is up, people are working," made in the last month; or the second in command telling the public that Americans will be viewed as liberators in Iraq; these guys have a hard time with the truth. The spin associated with the War in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the federal response to Katrina is staggering. Today, we read that America is reducing the number of "chronically" homeless people. Most would call this spin, a few are calling it lies.

We already discussed the offensive term "chronically homeless" that the administration uses. We also talked about how bogus HUD research is, and the number makes headlines, but the qualifiers for the data is too complicated. Dennis Culhane and the other researchers have tied their ships to HUD, and have published seriously flawed data. I mean they do research to push HUD to focus on the people who have been homeless the longest. Then they compile the information from HUD and declare this policy a major success. What a surprise that with six months left, the Bush Administration is succeeding at reducing long term homeless. Just like they keep telling us how great Iraq is doing, how great Afghanistan is doing, and how much success they have had trampling the Bill of Rights, sorry, fighting terrorists, now they are telling us they are succeeding in ending homelessness.

This is all just spin:

1. Counting homeless people on one day in February across America is impossible. It is like counting the number of gumballs in a candy machine that is constantly in motion.
2. They are not able to count people staying in abandoned buildings or foreclosed homes because it is too dangerous. This is especially important for communities like Cleveland with 10,000 to 20,000 abandoned properties.
3. They do not count those who are staying on couches. So, the Cleveland Public Schools reported a 40% increase in homeless children from 2006-2007 school years, but most of those kids are not counted because they are staying with family and friends.
4. Reducing the number of long term homeless does not mean homelessness in general is down. It is like telling us that fewer people are on welfare therefore poverty has gone down.
   

They have narrowly defined homelessness, and put in place an impossible system for counting. So, those who are coming out of prison, or sleeping in flop houses or low income motels, or those in overcrowded conditions do not count, and then magically we have a reduction in homelessness. In addition, many of the shelters refuse to participate in the homeless counting system, and the domestic violence programs are barred from participating by federal law. NEOCH never uses the numbers derived from the counts, because they have no basis in reality. We use numbers from First Call for Help or the School District or the number of people seeking help or evictions or foreclosures to show that homelessness is growing locally.

I am part of the National Coalition for the Homeless Board, and I can say that only a few cities in the United States have seen reductions. Most communities are seeing unprecedented numbers. A simple walk from the Metro to the HUD building in Washington will show that long term homelessness is not on the decline. I would like to know if Dennis Culhane got off the Metro on his walk to the HUD building for the press conference, noticed how many people were sleeping in the parks and street corners in the District, and had second thoughts about releasing these bogus numbers. It is spin and nothing more than spin. Hopefully, the next administration will deal with homelessness in a more honest and straight forward manner.

Brian
Posts by Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless staff and Board.