Washington Legal Cinic for the Homeless' response to the WAMU 88.5 report on Homeless Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program.
The
Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless ("WLCH") believes that every human
being has a right to housing. We applaud any efforts by Mayor Fenty or
President Obama to prevent homelessness by keeping people in their homes and to
end homelessness by increasing access to affordable, permanent housing.
WAMU misconstrued our position for their first story on the Homeless Prevention
and Rapid Re-Housing Program ("HPRP") funding, which ran the morning of
December 1st. Our concern, which is taken out of context in the WAMU
story, is that life-saving shelter not be reduced below the need while the
homeless services system is transitioning from a shelter-based system to one rooted
in permanent housing.
Despite
the laudable efforts and significant funding the Fenty administration has put
towards increasing access to affordable housing for chronically homeless
individuals and families, the District still has 26,000 households on the waitlist
for subsidized housing, including 13,000 who are homeless. As the Urban
Institute noted in its 2009 Housing in the Nation's Capital report, "without
significant increases, subsidized housing will not fill the gap" in housing
affordability and stem the tide of those in need of shelter. Moreover,
due to the economy, homelessness - especially amongst families - is rising at a
very precipitous rate (by 20% during the period of January 2008 to January
2009). Over the past several months the family emergency shelter system
has been at capacity with - for the first time ever - over 400 families on the
waiting list for emergency shelter. The HPRP funds will help ease this
crisis by preventing more families from falling into homelessness, and WLCH welcomes
this funding wholeheartedly. In addition to this funding, however, more
resources need to be identified and dedicated to the homeless services safety
net - including shelter - so that the District can ensure that no family has to
sleep outside on a cold fall night. We look forward to - and commit
ourselves to working towards - the day when shelters can be closed because
enough affordable housing and prevention funds exist to help all families in
need; unfortunately that day is still far off.
We
have, over the years, been dismissed as "emergency shelter zealots," and
unfortunately, WAMU's characterization of Marta's remarks feeds that
misconception. The reality is that we have worked with families over the
last few months who have spent nights sleeping outdoors at the Rhode Island
Avenue metro station (across the street from the shelter intake office); in
laundromats, vans, and in other dangerous or abusive situations, because they
were refused admission to shelter for lack of space. Our position is that
the shelter safety net must remain intact in some capacity unless or until
there is adequate and immediately available permanent housing for each family
who needs it. Hopefully, having new resources like HPRP funds will mean
that the safety net can ultimately be downsized, but not until fewer families
find themselves falling off of the cliff into homelessness.
The
Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless works to end the unnecessary suffering
caused by poverty and advocates for justice for people who are homeless or
at-risk of becoming homeless in Washington, DC.
