# Presentation: 114767

## Addressing Family Homelessness

- Homeless Policy Academy
- November 1, 2006
- Marybeth Shinn
- New York University

## Today’s Presentation

- The nature of homelessness for families
- Housing – the central service
- Other services for other goals
- How should housing and services be organized?

## Homelessness is Common for Poor, Young, Minority Families 

- 16% of poor Black 0 to 4-year-old children in NYC were homeless in **1** year  (Culhane & Metraux, 1999)
- Homeless families are very similar to other poor families
- Differences largely due to life stage and resources

## Homelessness Is a River, Not a Lake

- Homelessness is preceded by residential instability: 5 moves in 18 months (Rog et al., 1995)
- Homelessness is temporary
- But without housing help, repeat episodes are common: 53% previous episode (Rog et al., 1995)

## Housing Stabilizes Families

- 88% with Section 8 certificates and services housed after 18 months across 9 cities
- City variation in service packages unrelated to stability rates
-      (Rog et al., 1995)

## Housing Stabilizes Families

- Families with subsidized housing and *no* special services as stable as welfare families after 5 years in NYC: (Shinn et al. 1998)
- 80% were in own place for a year without a move
- Only 18% of families without subsidies were stable

## Affordable Housing Key to Ending Homelessness

- Risk factors different from solutions
- In NYC, no family characteristic predicted stability, once subsidized housing was controlled (Shinn et al., 1998)
- Risk factors important because they limit access to housing
- Caveats: Welfare an entitlement; subsidies paid directly to landlord

## How to Increase Access to Affordable Housing

- Increase incomes
- Reduce housing costs
- Reduce barriers to access

## Increase Incomes

- Increase minimum wage
- Education, training for higher wage
- Expand EITC, increase access
- Access to other income subsidies
- TANF, SSI, food stamps
- Day care, WIC

## Reduce Housing Costs

- Section 8, other subsidies
- Use TANF for housing aid
- Use CDBG for housing
- Convert transitional to permanent housing
- Assistance for new renters

## Problems with Housing Assistance

- Limited resources
- Queue jumping, perverse incentives
- Targeting difficult (Shinn et al. 1998)
- 10% of public assistance caseload
-  66% of those entering shelter

## Reduce Barriers to Access

- Enforce Fair Housing Laws
- African Americans treated more poorly than whites in 22% of rental tests (Turner, 2002)
- Require set-asides as remedy for discrimination

## Reduce Barriers to Access

- Minimize barriers for ex-prisoners and families
- 1.5 million children had parent in prison in 1999 (Mumola, 2000)
- Prevent evictions

## Services for What?

- Housing to end homelessness
- Services for other goals
- In New York, housing ended homelessness, but families were troubled in other ways

## Questions for Service Providers, Researchers

- What are goals of services?
- What are the benefits?
- Are there harmful side effects?
- Where should services be offered?

## Stabilize Schooling

- School mobility leads to lower achievement (GAO, 1994)
- Homeless children more mobile, more likely to be held back
- NYC: Achievement declined during homelessness, then rebounded (Rafferty et al. 2004)

## Reduce Family Separations

- High rates of family separation
- 65% of homeless women, 7% of homeless men live with ANY of their children nationally (Burt et al., 1999)
- 44% of homeless families vs. 8% of welfare families in NYC separated from child after 5 years (Cowal et al., 2002)

## Predictors of Separation (NYC)

- Substance abuse
- Domestic violence
- Institutional placement of mother
- Often for substance abuse treatment
- Homelessness (extra scrutiny?)

## Proportion of Mothers Separated by Housing Status and Risk

## Services to Stabilize Families

- Homelessness should not be a reason to separate families
- Avoid subjecting homeless families to extra scrutiny
- Housing resources are often needed for reunification

## Services for Substance Abuse

- Treatment that does not require separation from children
- Treatment that does not require shelter entry

## Other Services for All Poor Families

- To increase incomes
- To address mental health, trauma
- To address health problems

## Should Housing Be Linked to Services?

- No studies comparing transitional housing with permanent housing
- Data on housing stability suggests TH is unnecessary
- Unclear what proportion of families could benefit from intensive services (e.g., supportive housing)
- SAMHSA study underway

## Advantages of Housing Programs with Onsite Services

- One-stop shopping convenient for families
- Easy for providers to reach families

## Disadvantages of Housing Programs with Onsite Services

- Stigma
- NIMBY-ism
- One size does not fit all
- Hard to “transition in place”
- Service providers in dual role of helper and enforcer

## Disadvantages of Homeless-only Services (on site or not)

- Perverse incentives
- Resentment from nonhomeless
- Isolation from mainstream services
- Formerly homeless families unlikely to have regular source of medical care (Duchon et al, 1999)
- Specialized funding stream

## Conclusions

- Homeless families are not “a species apart”
- Affordable housing is critical to end their homelessness
- Other services should be designed to integrate rather than isolate homeless families

## References

- Bassuk, et al. (1996). The characteristics and needs of sheltered homeless and low-income housed mothers: Caring for the uninsured and underinsured. *Journal of the American Medical Association, 276*(8), 640-646.
- Burt, et al.. (Urban Institute) (1999).  *Homelessness:  Programs and the people they serve:  Findings of the National Survey of Homeless Assistance Providers and Clients*:  Technical report prepared for Interagency Council on the Homeless.  Washington, D.C.:  The Council.
- Cowal, et al. (2002).  Mother-child separations among homeless and housed families receiving public assistance in New York City.  *American Journal of Community Psychology, 30*, 711-730.
- Culhane, D.P., & Metraux, S. (1999).  One-year prevalence rates of public shelter utilization by race, sex, age and poverty status for New York City (1990, 1995) and Philadelphia (1995).  *Population Research and Policy Review*, *18* (3).
- Duchon, et al.  (1999).  The relationship of residential instability to medical care utilization among poor mothers in New York City.  *Medical Care, 37*, 1282-1293.
- United States General Accounting Office (GAO 1994). *Elementary school children: Many change schools frequently, harming their education.*  Washington D.C. U.S. Government Printing Office.
- Link, et al. (1994).  Lifetime and five-year prevalence of homelessness in the United States.  *American Journal of Public Health, 84*, 1907-1912.
- Mumola, C. J. (2000). *Incarcerated parents and their children*. U. S Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics. _[http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/iptc.pdf](http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/iptc.pdf)_
- Rog, et al.  (1995).  Implementation of the Homeless Families Program: 2.  Characteristics, strengths, and needs of participant families.  *American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 65,* 514-528.
- Rafferty, et al.. (2004). Academic achievement among formerly homeless adolescents and their continuously housed peers.  *Journal of School Psychology, 42, *179-199.
- Shinn, et al.  (1998).  Predictors of homelessness among families in New York City:  From shelter request to housing stability.  *American Journal of Public Health, 88*, 1651-1657.
- Turner (2002).  *Discrimination in metropolitan housing markets*. Washington, DC. U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Office of Policy Development and Research. _[http://www.huduser.org/Publications/pdf/Phase1_Report.pdf](http://www.huduser.org/Publications/pdf/Phase1_Report.pdf)_