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88–411 PDF 2003

S. HRG. 107–950

REAUTHORIZATION OF THE

McKINNEY–VENTO HOMELESS ASSISTANCE ACT

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON HOUSING AND TRANSPORTATION

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

BANKING, HOUSING, AND URBAN AFFAIRS

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

ON

THE HOMELESSNESS PROBLEM IN AMERICA, THE STRENGTHS AND

WEAKNESSES OF THE McKINNEY–VENTO HOMELESS ASSISTANCE ACT

HOUSING PROGRAMS, AND PROPOSALS THAT SHOULD BE CONSIDERED AS PART OF REAUTHORIZING LEGISLATION TO INCREASE THE

EFFECTIVENESS OF FEDERAL FUNDS IN PREVENTING AND ENDING

HOMELESSNESS

MARCH 6, 2002

Printed for the use of the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs

(

COMMITTEE ON BANKING, HOUSING, AND URBAN AFFAIRS

PAUL S. SARBANES, Maryland, Chairman

CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut

TIM JOHNSON, South Dakota

JACK REED, Rhode Island

CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York

EVAN BAYH, Indiana

ZELL MILLER, Georgia

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware

DEBBIE STABENOW, Michigan

JON S. CORZINE, New Jersey

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii

PHIL GRAMM, Texas

RICHARD C. SHELBY, Alabama

ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah

WAYNE ALLARD, Colorado

MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming

CHUCK HAGEL, Nebraska

RICK SANTORUM, Pennsylvania

JIM BUNNING, Kentucky

MIKE CRAPO, Idaho

JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada

STEVEN B. HARRIS, Staff Director and Chief Counsel

WAYNE A. ABERNATHY, Republican Staff Director

MARTIN J. GRUENBERG, Senior Counsel

JOSEPH R. KOLINSKI, Chief Clerk and Computer Systems Administrator

GEORGE E. WHITTLE, Editor

SUBCOMMITTEE ON HOUSING AND TRANSPORTATION

JACK REED, Rhode Island, Chairman

WAYNE ALLARD, Colorado, Ranking Member

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware

DEBBIE STABENOW, Michigan

JON S. CORZINE, New Jersey

CHRISTOPHER J. DODD, Connecticut

CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York

DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii

RICK SANTORUM, Pennsylvania

JOHN ENSIGN, Nevada

RICHARD C. SHELBY, Alabama

MICHAEL B. ENZI, Wyoming

CHUCK HAGEL, Nebraska

KARA STEIN, Staff Director

TEWANA WILKERSON, Republican Staff Director

(II)

CONTENTS

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6, 2002

Page

Opening statement of Senator Reed ...................................................................... 1

Opening statements, comments, or prepared statements of:

Senator Allard ................................................................................................... 8

Senator Dodd .................................................................................................... 19

WITNESSES

Roy A. Bernardi, Assistant Secretary, Office of Community Planning and

Development, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development ............ 3

Response to written questions of Senator Reed ............................................. 62

Stanley J. Czerwinski, Director, Physical Infrastructure Issues, U.S. General

Accounting Office, accompanied by Jason Bromberg, Senior Policy Analyst 9

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 37

Response to written questions of Senator Reed ............................................. 66

Susan M. Collins, a U.S. Senator from the State of Maine ................................. 17

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 53

Nan P. Roman, President, National Alliance to End Homelessness

Washington, DC ................................................................................................... 20

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 53

Response to written questions of Senator Reed ............................................. 67

Mitchell Netburn, Executive Director, Los Angeles Homeless Services

Authority, Los Angeles, California ..................................................................... 22

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 58

Response to written questions to Senator Reed ............................................. 70

Mary Ann Gleason, Director, York County Initiative to End Homelessness,

Alfred, Maine ........................................................................................................ 24

Prepared statement .......................................................................................... 60

(III)

(1)

REAUTHORIZATION OF

THE McKINNEY–VENTO

HOMELESS ASSISTANCE ACT

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 6, 2002

U.S. SENATE,

COMMITTEE ON BANKING, HOUSING, AND URBAN AFFAIRS,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON HOUSING AND TRANSPORTATION,

Washington, DC.

The Subcommittee met at 2:30 p.m. in room SD–538 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, Senator Jack Reed (Chairman of the

Subcommittee) presiding.

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR JACK REED

Senator REED. Let me call the hearing to order. My colleague,

Senator Allard, will be delayed for a few moments but he asked us

to go ahead. I want to welcome all of our witnesses. I would like

to make my opening statement in some detail because of the importance of this hearing and when Senator Allard returns, if he so

chooses, he can make his opening statement.

I am pleased to welcome the witnesses this afternoon. This is a

very important hearing on the reauthorization of the McKinney–

Vento Housing Programs. In the past year, the Urban Institute

estimates that at least 2.3 million, and perhaps as many as 3.5 million people, have experienced homelessness. On any given day in

the United States, at least 800,000 people are homeless, including

about 200,000 children.

Homelessness has an especially devastating impact on these children. If they are even able to go to school, homeless children face

significant challenges, such as learning disabilities and emotional

and behavioral problems.

Many of those without a home are asking for help. This year’s

U.S. Conference of Mayors report on Hunger and Homelessness in

America’s Cities states that requests for emergency shelter by families increased by 22 percent. Unfortunately, over half of all these

requests for housing assistance went unmet.

In my State, the Rhode Island Shelter System provided more

nights of shelter this past year than at any point in its history.

Locally and nationally, several trends seem clear. First, despite

the economic boom of the 1990’s, homelessness has increased. Second, increasing numbers of families with children are being forced

into our emergency shelter system. Just yesterday, in The Washington Post, there was an article about the 25 percent rise in homelessness in Fairfax County, Virginia, in the past 4 years. Third, a

2

relatively small number of long-term chronically homeless persons

continue to utilize a disproportionate number of the bed nights in

our Nation’s shelters.

If you talk to service providers, they can give you a laundry list

of factors that contribute to homelessness—high housing costs, lowpaying jobs, domestic violence, substance abuse, mental illness,

changes and cuts in public assistance programs, utility costs, and

lack of health care.

At the national level, the Federal Government has created nearly

two dozen programs targeted toward people experiencing homelessness. Unfortunately, these programs are administered by eight different agencies.

When it was created in 1987, the McKinney–Vento Homeless Assistance Act was intended to be an emergency response to the crisis

of homelessness. It appears that many McKinney–Vento programs

now serve not just those who are homeless, but those who are not

being serving by the traditional affordable housing programs.

Instead, mainstream programs are now relying on homeless assistance programs, shifting the cost and responsibility for providing

housing and services to the McKinney–Vento programs. As a result, both homelessness and a separate support system, have been

institutionalized.

As many of you are aware, I have been working on a bill to reauthorize the McKinney–Vento housing titles. First and foremost, I

believe that limited Federal dollars need to be better focused on

preventing and ending homelessness, not simply maintaining it.

My proposal would realign the incentives behind HUD homelessness assistance programs. More funding would flow to communities

that can demonstrate a commitment to accomplishing the goals of

preventing and ending homelessness.

My bill also would: Simplify and consolidate the HUD homelessness assistance programs into one program; provide new flexibility

in using the McKinney–Vento funds; for the first time, promote the

building of new housing for families; target funds for the development of permanent housing for the disabled, provide incentives for

the creation of new permanent housing stock; promote comprehensive local planning through HUD’s Continuum of Care process; require greater accountability; and increase coordination between

Federal agencies.

Reauthorizing the housing titles of the McKinney–Vento Homeless Assistance Act is the beginning. However, because the needs

of homeless individuals and families fall within the jurisdiction of

many Federal Departments and Congressional committees, I believe additional legislation is also going to be necessary in order to

require Federal agencies such as the HHS and the Department of

Veterans Affairs to work with HUD in a more coordinated manner

toward preventing and ending homelessness.

Today, we will hear from two panels of witnesses. The first panel

will consist of: Roy A. Bernardi, Assistant Secretary, Office of Community Planning and Development, U.S. Department of Housing

and Urban Development; and Stanley J. Czerwinski, Director of

Physical Infrastructure Issues, U.S. General Accounting Office.

On the second panel we will hear from three homelessness advocates about their efforts to prevent and to interrupt, we hope, the

3

homelessness in the United States. Ms. Nan P. Roman, President,

National Alliance to End Homelessness; Mr. Mitchell Netburn, Executive Director, Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority; and

Ms. Mary Ann Gleason, Director, York County Initiative to End

Homelessness in Alfred, Maine.

We will be asking all of our witnesses to discuss the homelessness problem in the United States, the strength and weaknesses of

the McKinney–Vento Homeless Assistance Act housing programs,

and proposals that should be considered as part of reauthorizing

legislation to increase the effectiveness of Federal funds in preventing and ending homelessness.

As I am joined by my colleagues, I will introduce them and offer

them an opportunity to speak.

Now let me formally introduce our first panel.

Mr. Roy Bernardi is Assistant Secretary of Community Planning

and Development of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. In this role, Mr. Bernardi is responsible for overseeing the

implementation of HUD’s Homeless Assistance Programs. Prior to

joining the Administration, Mr. Bernardi was the 51st Mayor of the

city of Syracuse, New York.

He is joined by Stanley Czerwinski. Mr. Czerwinski is GAO’s Director for Physical Infrastructure Issues and as such is responsible

for overseeing evaluations concerning housing and related issues.

And Mr. Czerwinski is joined at the witness table by Mr. Jason

Bromberg.

Mr. Secretary, your statement will be made part of the record.

If you would like to summarize, you are encouraged to do so.

Mr. Secretary.

STATEMENT OF ROY A. BERNARDI, ASSISTANT SECRETARY

OFFICE OF COMMUNITY PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT

Mr. BERNARDI. Thank you, Chairman Reed.

Thank you for the opportunity to be here this afternoon with you.

On behalf of Secretary Martinez, I want to extend our commitment

to work with you to improve this Nation’s response to the problem

of homelessness that you outlined.

HUD has a long history of addressing homelessness. Since the

McKinney–Vento Act’s beginning in 1987, HUD has administered

an array of Federal homeless assistance programs. The programs

provide emergency, transitional, and permanent housing for homeless persons. HUD’s programs also provide for, by law, a variety of

supportive services, such as job training and mental health treatment. Hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children who

have no place to call home have been assisted by these programs.

Secretary Martinez intends to continue and even enhance our

efforts related to homelessness. The Bush Administration has set

a goal of ending chronic—or long-term—homelessness within 10

years. This is a bold goal. This is a goal that will require many

Federal, State, and local partners. But this is a goal that together

we can and will achieve.

The Federal Interagency Council on the Homeless was recently

reactivated and will be critical in ending chronic homelessness. The

member agencies of the Council elected Secretary Martinez as

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Chairman and Secretary Tommy Thompson of the Department of

Health and Human Services as Vice Chairman. At the meeting,

Philip Mangano was appointed as the Executive Director of the

Council. Mr. Mangano is the former Director of the Massachusetts

Housing and Shelter Alliance and has extensive experience in the

field of homeless programs and policy. The Council will be, among

other activities, assessing current Federal homeless efforts, reducing duplication among programs, and identifying ways to effectively

prevent homelessness. We at HUD look forward to working closely

with the other member agencies of that Council.

Let me provide some background on HUD’s present homeless assistance efforts. The Department administers four McKinney–Vento

homeless assistance programs. Three of these are competitive: The

Supportive Housing Program, Shelter Plus Care, and the Section 8

Single Room Occupancy, or the SRO Program. The fourth program

allocates funds by formula, the Emergency Shelter Grants Program. Together, they provide over 70 percent of all Federal McKinney funds administered by six Federal agencies. In 2002, Congress

appropriated and HUD will be awarding over $1.1 billion in homeless assistance for these four programs.

To streamline the administration of these programs, in 1995

HUD implemented the Continuum of Care approach. Prior to that

time, individual projects were submitted to Washington for review,

and HUD picked which ones it thought were the most important

for each community. The Continuum calls on communities—not individual projects—to identify their needs related to homelessness— both housing and services. State and local government, nonprofit

agencies including faith groups, as well as foundations, businesses,

and homeless and formerly homeless persons come together in this

effort. The community collectively identifies the inventory of resources they currently have to address their various homeless

needs. Any unaddressed needs, or gaps, in the system are what

communities can request HUD to fund. Applicants can request

funds for any or all of the three competitive HUD programs. Communities prioritize the projects they want funded and if eligible,

and the funds are available, HUD awards local projects based on

the community’s prioritized list. The continuum approach has

helped coordinate housing and services for a population that is

needy and often difficult to effectively serve.

Let me briefly summarize the outcomes of this past competition

to give you a sense of the magnitude and impact of these HUD programs. Over 450 continuums applied for funding in 2001. With

many individual continuums representing several cities and in

some cases entire States, a significant portion of America has a

continuum. In fact, a full 90 percent of all Americans now live

within existing continuums. These continuums submitted to HUD

3,275 projects for funding of which HUD was able to fund 78 percent. With the $950 million that was awarded in 2001, HUD will

be supporting the operations of 70,000 beds. When combining the

housing and the services the funds support, approximately 229,000

persons will be supported on any given day.

The current approach is helping many people, but given the need

on the streets—as you outlined, Mr. Chairman—of our cities

throughout this Nation, we must do much more. National studies

5

indicate that in any point in time there are over 600,000 persons

who have no home. Many are homeless for only a short time and

with short-term housing and services they can transition toward

self-sufficiency. That number is approximately 80 percent. However, a much smaller number are homeless for extended periods of

time and they suffer from disabilities. As Dr. Dennis Culhane from

the University of Pennsylvania has pointed out in recent research,

this relatively small portion of disabled single homeless persons

consumes a large share of our public services. To the extent we can

provide permanent housing and support for this population—this is

a key point—the savings in resources can be used to serve many

more of the homeless persons who need only short-term assistance.

Currently HUD is actively pursuing four major policy initiatives

to meet the goal of ending the problem of chronic homelessness established by Secretary Martinez. The first initiative is a joint task

force made up of HUD, HHS, and the Department of Veterans

Affairs. The second initiative is Policy Academies for States and

local leaders. The third initiative is improving the annual competition to help drive this effort. And the fourth is HUD proposes to

consolidate its homeless assistance programs.

Our Joint Task Force: HUD and HHS have been meeting since

February 2001 and VA has recently come on board. The group’s

purpose is to seek ways to increase the use of mainstream Federal

supportive service funds so that we at HUD are not devoting a majority of our funds to services. Right now we provide approximately

50 percent of our services for housing and about 50 percent for

services. Instead, HUD can once again focus on its core mission—

the provision of housing. The wide range of HHS service programs

has been represented at the Federal task force. Sharing information about each other’s programs has been an important and fruitful first step. As part of this process, HUD solicited input on how

it could improve its national grants application. Recommendations

regarding supportive services were provided by HHS and incorporated by HUD into this year’s application process.

Policy Academies: Another concrete outcome of our collaboration

with HHS is the planning and implementation of a series of Policy

Academies. Each Governor was invited to submit an application for

consideration to send a team of their top mainstream health and

human service officials with policy and budgetary authority to a

Policy Academy conference. The top 16 States were selected to attend either of two scheduled Academies. We have plans for additional sessions. The sessions give the State Teams the opportunity

to meet and plan statewide strategies on improving coordination

and communication between the various agencies within the State.

The goal is to assist State and local policymakers in developing an

action plan to improve access to the mainstream health and human

services that are coordinated with housing for homeless persons.

Changes to the Continuum Application: We have carefully considered the comments of the States, cities, and nonprofit providers

as well as our Federal partners in preparing this year’s application.

The application will focus less on process and more on outcomes,

clearly highlighting the importance of housing and mainstream

services. As the Notice of Funding Availability for these funds has

6

not yet been issued, I am prevented at this time from providing the

various details on the improvements that we have made.

In addition to targeting homeless assistance to those most in

need, we concurrently want to prevent homelessness. Homeless

prevention is sensible and cost-effective. By lowering the rate of

entry of people into the homeless population, service providers can

more effectively aid those who are currently homeless. In addition

to saving the cost of shelter and related social services, and you

mentioned, Mr. Chairman, prevention efforts can also reduce the

human and social costs of homelessness. Homeless prevention programs also help people to maintain steady employment and selfsufficiency, thereby generating real benefits for themselves, our

communities, our schools, and our places of work.

The linchpin of HUD’s McKinney–Vento homeless prevention effort is the Emergency Shelter Grants Program. As you all know,

this is a formula program. Up to 30 percent of an ESG grantee’s

funds can be used for homeless prevention. Other HUD programs

can and do provide community development and housing assistance

to State and local governments to assist low-income and other persons in avoiding homelessness. These will include the Community

Development Block Grant Program, the HOME Program, the Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS, our HOPWA Program,

Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers, and the Supportive Housing

for Persons with Disabilities.

There are many successful examples of our prevention efforts. I

want to share with you one such effort. The Community Sharing

Funds of the St. Paul Foundation in Minnesota is considered a

‘‘last resort’’ emergency fund. Working through a network of 70

social service agencies in a three-county area, this recipient of ESG

homeless prevention monies serves clients who are in danger of

being evicted from their homes and are not eligible for help elsewhere. A thorough screening process and documentation of the

eviction proceedings help staff to assess the potential for solving

the housing problem through short-term cash assistance. In some

cases, clients are required to attend financial management classes

prior to receiving monetary assistance. Where a ‘‘reasonable’’

chance of success in solving the problem exists, financial awards—

averaging $400—are made to the referring agency, which in turn

that referring agency presents a check to the landlord to pay the

rent, thus preventing that family from becoming homeless.

Let us talk a bit about our HMIS, our efforts related to Homeless

Management Information System. You can see the disparity in the

numbers. I mentioned that on any given day there were 600,000

people that are homeless on our streets, and I believe, Senator, you

said as high as 800,000 people. The Department has adopted a

comprehensive approach to addressing Congressional direction to

collecting homeless information in all jurisdictions and nationally.

To facilitate that effort, Congress developed, with the input from

the HUD staff, a new eligibility activity in HUD’s Supportive Housing Program. This initiative is resulting in many homeless projects

receiving grant assistance to implement and operate the HMIS systems. To further support this effort, in September 2001, we initiated a $4.1 million 2 year technical assistance contract to assist the

Continuum of Care communities. We are currently in the process

7

of reviewing proposals for setting standards for local and national

homeless data collection and implementing an annual homeless assessment report to Congress. It is through this HMIS effort that we

will be able to better measure the performance of our progress in

ending chronic homelessness and effectively assist homeless persons generally in moving toward self-sufficiency.

The Department will be submitting a proposal to consolidate its

three competitive homeless programs. Communities, not Federal

mandates, can end homelessness. Using the groundwork laid

through the Continuum process, we want to empower the States

and cities to more effectively solve their problem within their jurisdictions. We have been and will continue to be meeting with public

interest groups about our proposal. We are soliciting their feedback

and recommendations as we develop this legislation.

The Department wants to take the best elements of the current

competitive system and improve upon them. We recognize that the

community-wide planning aspect of the continuum process is a very

positive feature. The coordination that is going on in communities

between city agencies, non-profit organizations, and other groups

such as foundations and businesses is something that we want to

retain in our proposal. We recognize the vital role that nonprofit

organizations provide in communities. They actively participate in

assessing needs and prioritizing which projects should be funded.

They also are usually the frontline providers of assistance to homeless persons, and we will be examining how nonprofits can continue

to play this important role.

There are some features of the current process that need to be

changed. For instance, three of the current programs that constitute the Continuum of Care each have different eligible applicants, different eligible activities, different match requirements,

and different grant terms. It is often difficult for local organizations

to negotiate through the complexity of the current array of programs. We need to be more flexible to communicate with them and

have additional success.

In addition to providing more flexibility to communities, a

streamlined approach to awarding funds will significantly reduce

the amount of time it takes to assist homeless persons. Through a

national competition system where up to 4,000 projects must be

rated and reviewed before awards are made, HUD requires nearly

18 months from the time the funds are appropriated to when a

homeless person is actually assisted. Under a more streamlined approach, the typical community, which has fewer than 15 projects,

might review and award its projects in a matter of weeks, not

months. This approach might use a formula for award that combines the measures of needs, strong performance standards, and incentives so as not to be confused with an entitlement. Performance

standards such as those related to accessing mainstream resources

for clients and placing long-term homeless persons in permanent

supportive housing are being considered.

In closing, HUD is committed to making a difference in the lives

of those who are unfortunate not have a home. We look forward to

working with you to make that a reality.

A proposal is a proposal is a proposal. A function of our agency

is to talk to everyone involved—the providers, the people who have

8

been through the process, local and State governments, your staff,

yourselves—and try to develop a system where we can better utilize the funds that we have available to us, and at the same time

try to reverse that number on homelessness.

Thank you.

Senator REED. Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary. It was important to give you the time to lay out in detail the position of the

Administration, and thank you for your thoughtful statement.

We have been joined by the Ranking Member, Senator Allard.

Senator, do you want to make a statement now?

STATEMENT OF SENATOR WAYNE ALLARD

Senator ALLARD. I do have a statement, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to thank you for holding this hearing of the Subcommittee on Housing and Transportation. This Subcommittee has

discussed reauthorization on previous occasions. I look forward to

the opportunity to continue that dialogue.

In 1987, Congress passed the Stewart B. McKinney Homeless

Assistance Act, now known as the McKinney–Vento Homeless

Assistance Act. This Act was the first comprehensive law addressing the diverse needs of the homeless, including programs at the

Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of

Education, the Department of Labor, the Department of Agriculture, and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Until enactment of this law, the problems confronted by the

homeless were mainly addressed at the State and local level. The

McKinney Act represented a consensus that has developed that a

major Federal commitment was required to end homelessness.

Currently, the Federal Government devotes significant resources

to the homeless. According to the General Accounting Office, 50

Federal programs administered by 8 Federal agencies provide various services to our Nation’s homeless population.

The President’s fiscal year 2003 Budget proposes dedicating $2.2

billion in homeless assistance, with half of that amount, $1.1 billion, to be distributed through HUD’s homeless programs.

Despite the enormous Federal resources that are directed toward

homelessness, the problem persists. We need to bring more

accountability to homeless assistance, increasing funding for successful programs and initiatives, and replacing the ineffective.

I want to make one thing clear. I do not pretend to have the answer to how we deal with homelessness. But one thing is clear: We

have to get better. I believe that this hearing is an important opportunity to continue the discussion of how we can best address

homelessness.

I am very pleased to see that the Administration makes ending

chronic homelessness in the next 10 years a top priority. Particularly, I support the Administration’s proposal to consolidate HUD’s

three competitive programs into one streamlined program. This

will reduce administrative duplication at HUD and will make it

easier for grantees to apply for money. Although HUD has not

specified a distribution mechanism for a consolidated program, I

would like to express my support for a formula-based block grant

approach.

9

It seems to me that a block grant gives local communities the

flexibility to deal with unique situations in their jurisdiction. The

answers to homelessness are different in Loveland, Colorado, my

hometown, for example, than for New York City.

I also believe that a block grant gives communities a predictable

funding stream so that they can plan ahead in order to integrate

homeless assistance with other Government funds and begin to

build a strong Continuum of Care network in their communities.

I would like to conclude by welcoming our witnesses to the Subcommittee. You have all done a great deal of work with homeless

programs and will no doubt have a great deal of insight to share.

I appreciate you being here, and thank you for your testimony.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator REED. Thank you, Senator Allard.

Mr. Czerwinski, your statement has been made a part of the

record. You are encouraged to take about 5 minutes.

STATEMENT OF STANLEY J. CZERWINSKI

DIRECTOR, PHYSICAL INFRASTRUCTURE ISSUES

U.S. GENERAL ACCOUNTING OFFICE

ACCOMPANIED BY

JASON BROMBERG, SENIOR POLICY ANALYST

Mr. CZERWINSKI. I will stay within the clock, Mr. Chairman.

Senator REED. Thank you, very much. You are a veteran witness.

Mr. CZERWINSKI. And as a veteran witness before the Subcommittee, it is always a pleasure to appear before you, Mr. Chairman,

and Senator Allard.

Before I begin, I would like to thank you for allowing Jason

Bromberg to join us at the table. Jason has led the majority of our

key reviews of homelessness and as a result he has a wealth of onthe-ground experiences which I hope we can draw on to illustrate

some of the themes I want to bring up.

As we know, homelessness is both a complex and significant

problem. It has been estimated that 10 percent of the people currently in poverty have been homeless at one time or another. As

it has already been mentioned in this hearing, that on any given

night 600,000 to 800,000 people may be homeless. The homeless

population is not homogenous. About 80 percent are temporarily

homeless. Their immediate need is shelter. And, over the long haul,

probably the biggest thing we can do for them is to find them affordable housing. About 20 percent, however, are chronic homeless.

They do not lack just shelter, but they suffer from other problems

such as substance abuse and mental disabilities.

These people usually have long-term needs for housing and many

other services, and we have talked a little bit about the challenges

they pose today. Families, more often, are going to be found as

temporarily homeless; whereas the chronic homeless are more

likely to be single adult males.

The Federal approach to assisting the homeless reflects the complexities of the problem. As you, Mr. Chairman and Senator Allard,

mentioned, there are about 50 programs administered by eight

Federal agencies addressing the needs of the homeless. Thirty-four

of these are mainstream programs for poor people in general, of

which the homeless obviously qualify. Sixteen programs, though,

10

are targeted specifically to the homeless at a cost of approximately

$2 billion a year. HUD has a majority of the funding for these for

four programs. These programs offer an array of service including

shelter, substance abuse, food assistance, and job training. Services

are sometimes offered in isolation; other times, in different combinations. Eligibility also varies. Some are targeted to families.

Others to veterans. Some are for children. Some are for chronic

homeless. Others are for transitional. The delivery system also

involves many agencies and levels of government—Federal, State,

and local governments, and nonprofit organizations. The result is

a challenge to both agencies and providers in administering and

coordinating the programs, and integrating the services. Especially

in the case of mainstream programs, what we often see is a fragmented instead of an integrated safety net.

If we think of the homeless people and their multiple needs, we

are asking them to navigate a system that they just are not

equipped to handle.

Accordingly, I would like to talk about two areas where I think

we can make a difference. The delivery of benefits can be improved

by looking at several things.

First, we should make better use of the mainstream programs,

as you mentioned in your opening statement, Mr. Chairman. The

homeless are eligible, as I said, for 34 mainstream programs. These

programs include such as Food Stamps, SSI, and Medicaid. The

funding for these programs is over $200 billion a year. In other

words, more than 100 times the amount that is targeted to the

homeless. And yet, most mainstream programs do not track the

number of homeless they serve, nor do they have goals for serving

the homeless. And in fact, they even have disincentives for serving

homeless because, as we have talked about, the needs of the homeless are complex. That means it takes more time and effort to serve

a homeless person than a poor person in general. Accordingly, we

believe that the service to homeless could be improved by providing

mainstream programs with incentives to serve the homeless, and

then holding them accountable for doing that.

I would also like to talk a moment about the targeted programs

where we know there are a number of coordination and administration challenges. These include dealing with different types of organizations. For example, training centers could go in and get a grant

under the Supportive Housing Program; whereas the Emergency

Shelter Grants would only go to State and local governments.

Second, another area of difference in the targeted programs are

the recipients. For example, Shelter Plus Care focuses on disabled

people. Single-Room Occupancy, as it sounds, is for single adults.

Other differences include the services provided, and the time period

that funds are provided, the requirement for matching funds.

I want to commend HUD because it led the way in trying to

work through these challenges. And this is primarily through the

Continuum of Care. I will only spend a moment on it, because Mr.

Bernardi already talked about this, but our view of the Continuum

of Care is that it does a very good job of asking communities to coordinate, plan, and prioritize its services to the homeless. It also

provides a single annual competition and a uniform rating criteria.

11

In our view, HUD with a Continuum of Care has taken things

about as far as they can go without legislation. Therefore, I would

like to close with a brief discussion of some areas where we think

legislation could help beyond the Continuum of Care.

First, we believe legislation should aim at streamlining the grant

making process. I believe we have talked a little bit about that

today already. In doing so, we think that a big part would be to

make communities more likely to integrate the mainstream programs into the overall fabric of homeless assistance. Again, this is

much along the lines that you mentioned, Mr. Chairman.

Second, and this is of course what GAO would talk about, we

want greater reliance on performance measures for both agencies

and providers. This would include agencies and providers with a

requirement to develop outcome measures, and then hold them to

those measures.

From what I have heard today, I would say the Subcommittee is

on the right track. I would like to commend you for leading the

way on this important issue.

With that, I would like to enter my statement in the record, and

if you have any questions I would be glad to respond.

Senator REED. Thank you very much, Mr. Czerwinski.

Mr. Secretary, let me first turn to you and commend you, the

President, and the Secretary for picking a very aggressive goal, to

end homelessness in 10 years. Yet, comments from agencies like

the National Alliance to End Homelessness suggest the budget that

you are working with will not achieve that objective.

Specifically, there is a built-in need to maintain people in housing which could consume significant resources, leaving just not

enough to go the extra mile, if you will, and do the things you have

to do and to ensure that in 10 years starting today that homelessness would be something in the past. Can you comment on the

goals, given the funding levels you are requesting in your budget?

Mr. BERNARDI. The importance would be to try to make sure that

all the people that need services, that they have the mainstream

programs available to them. We just heard that in many instances

that $200 billion number was mentioned, we should be able to be

giving people choices out there, and give them the opportunity to

have housing, and to have the supportive services that are necessary so that emergency housing is first, then transitional, then

permanent.

What we need to do is place people in permanent housing, going

through the system. We at HUD cannot do that alone. We only

have, as Senator Allard has indicated, $1.1 billion for this year’s

budget. The fact of the matter remains that we spend 50 percent,

as I mentioned, of our dollars on services. And to provide those

kinds of services—that number has been rising over the years—we

need to do more to make sure that we prevent homelessness and

provide permanent housing for those that need it.

Senator REED. No, I do not think anyone can disagree with your

comments. But the reality seems to be that it takes a lot of money

to keep these services going. You cannot stop the services because

people depend upon them. Yet, you have to find—and I would

argue, you would have to construct additional housing so that you

can put these people in housing. And that all costs money.

12

We come back to the budget that you are presenting, which is a

challenge just to keep in place, given that budget, rather than getting ahead, and particularly if in 10 years we want to look back

and say we have ended homelessness.

Mr. BERNARDI. That is very true. But we have to live within the

confines of our budget.

Senator REED. Well, I am sending you over to the Department

of Defense.

[Laughter.]

Mr. BERNARDI. The Millenium Commission is looking at the issue

of affordable housing, and we will wait to see their report.

Senator REED. Mr. Czerwinski, again, thank you for your testimony. One of the things you emphasized was the need to have

accountability, and that the present programs are competitive.

And, I think, we all sense that we need to consolidate these programs.

But there is a difference between having a consolidated grant

program and a block grant. One of the aspects I think is it eliminates sometimes the accountability, the ability to look annually at

the quality of effort in the particular community. A formula block

grant is just what it purports to be. You can expect confidently

every year you will get so much money. And the accountability I

think does not follow necessarily. Can you comment upon that, Mr.

Czerwinski?

Mr. CZERWINSKI. There are pros and cons to the block grant

versus competitive approach.

On the competitive side, one thing that we think is important is

to give the funds to those that are doing the most with them. That

would be outcomes. By ‘‘outcomes,’’ I mean the providers would

show what has happened over the long-term with people who have

entered the system.

Now on the block grant side, there are ease of administration

and predictability of funding, and, of course, that is one of the

things that we hear from providers, that they want that. So the job

is to try to have the best of both worlds.

Senator REED. I would agree. I think one of the areas that again

there seems to be consensus in is the Continuum of Care approach

that has been very successful because, not only has it in a way

helped coordination but it has also helped getting a dialogue going

at the local level.

And again, perhaps one concern about a block grant approach is

this dialogue might evaporate when, in fact, you have a formula

and you will get the money whether or not you are talking to each

other or not. So again, I see your point, which is about balance, and

I think it is an important point.

I am wondering, going back to you, Mr. Secretary, we talked

about this budget number. Do you have estimates what it would

take if there were no budget constraints? This is a much more

appropriate way to ask the question, to in fact end homelessness

in 10 years?

Mr. BERNARDI. I do not have those, Senator. But if we have them

at the Agency, I will make sure that I get those to you.

Senator REED. Is anyone working along those lines? And I understand that we all have to live within limits but it helps to know

13

what we are sacrificing, or how much we are falling short of a reasonable plan to end homelessness in 10 years.

I think it is incumbent upon the Department if they are announcing a goal, they should also be able to be straightforward

about how much it will cost, and then challenge us, the American

people, to measure up.

Mr. BERNARDI. Well, Senator, as we talk about changing the

competitive nature of the homelessness program right now, we feel

very strongly that if we were to allow the communities to have the

consortiums at a local level participate in the process, that we

could realize a significant savings.

The fact of the matter is that the competitive program has, as

I mentioned, over 3,000 applications that have to be looked at, and

graded. You appropriate the dollars, and 18 months later the dollars finally flow to the community. To me that is an incredibly long

time and it is really not the best way to utilize the resources that

we have.

So utilizing the resources we have to put a system in place with

the Continuums, where those agencies and those active groups at

the local level would still have the decisionmaking power. They

would make the determination as to where the money was being

spent and we could get that money to them a lot quicker.

Senator REED. No one can argue about better efficiency, better

coordination—— Mr. BERNARDI. Well, that is one way of doing it.

Senator REED. —and a fast review.

I think if you do an analysis you will discover that we are talking

about a lot of money in terms of ending homelessness, truly ending

it in 10 years. Any thoughts, Mr. Czerwinski, or your colleague,

about the number?

Mr. CZERWINSKI. My first reaction, Mr. Chairman, when I saw

that, I said, ‘‘My goodness, they are sticking their necks out.’’ Then

I said, ‘‘Well, it is not 3 years or 7 years, so I was not quite sure

whose neck they were sticking out.’’

[Laughter.]

But in all seriousness, the answer is two-fold. In the short run,

you need to provide the services and the housing, and the only way

that is going to happen is by leveraging the mainstream. That is

where the devil is in the details.

I would look to see just how we are going to deliver those mainstream services. In the long run what we are dealing with are some

economic factors that may be beyond all of our control, or certainly

are beyond HUD’s. One is, for example, looking at the policies for

deinstitutionalizing people. The other is the one that you mentioned, which is within HUD but it is a gargantuan task, and that

is looking at the unmet housing needs, which we know are very

large.

Senator REED. Thank you very much.

Senator Allard.

Senator ALLARD. Mr. Secretary, the figure was thrown out that

20 percent of the homeless use 80 percent of the dollars available

for—is it homeless programs, or just for the HUD program itself?

It was not clear to me.

Mr. BERNARDI. The HUD programs.

14

Senator ALLARD. Just in the HUD program. You also stated that

most of these homeless ones that are most difficult to deal with is

the single male. So is this 20 percent that we are talking about single males? Are they a highly mobile population?

Mr. BERNARDI. They are highly mobile.

Senator ALLARD. They are moving around.

Mr. BERNARDI. They are predominantly male with substance

abuse, mental illness issues.

Senator ALLARD. But they could be transitional from job to job.

Do we have any idea what percent is transitional from job to job?

Mr. BERNARDI. A very low employment rate.

Senator ALLARD. Yes. I would assume much lower than what it

was say 20 or 30 years ago when you had more of a rural population and they would be moving from ranch to ranch, farm to

farm, for jobs and that kind of thing.

Mr. BERNARDI. It is very difficult to count this kind of a population. That is why the HMIS program is going to go a long way

to making the determination of the exact number because I do not

think any of us really know exactly what that number is out there.

Senator ALLARD. Yes.

Mr. BERNARDI. And how can you service it if you do not have all

the parameters. Once that management information system, once

the Continuums with the money that is being provided to them,

have the opportunity to assess the situation, then we will know

better how to serve it.

Senator ALLARD. I bring that up because saying that you are

going to eliminate all of homelessness is kind of like saying you are

going to have nobody unemployed, because there is a transitional

group there that is going to be moving from job to job that would

fall into unemployed for a period of time. I was just inquiring of

whether you would have a certain percentage there that would

apply probably to single males.

Mr. BERNARDI. I think we at HUD understand full well that to

realize that goal we are going to need the mainstream services

from the other agencies take place.

As I mentioned earlier, and I will repeat it for the third time, we

are in the housing business, and yet we provide 50 percent of those

dollars for services.

Senator ALLARD. Yes. Well, let us follow up on that at little bit.

Would you talk a bit about the type of administrative burden we

are placing on States and communities right now when we have

four main McKinney Housing Programs? My understanding is that

each one of these have a different set of requirements in filling out

applications and whatnot.

Maybe, I will ask Mr. Czerwinski, because I think he talked

about that in his discussion, to talk a little bit about this burden

on States and communities meeting the requirements of these four

programs.

Mr. CZERWINSKI. Sure. The upside of targeted programs is that

they meet specific goals. The downside is that the people who are

providing those specific sources of assistance have to meet specific

requirements to get the funds to do that.

15

We have done quite a number of reviews going out and talking

to people at the State, local, and nonprofit level, and they have laid

out several issues that concern them.

One was the application process. They told us they would be very

much helped if HUD would help them with some of the information

that they could use to fill out the applications. The other is the predictability of funding.

Senator ALLARD. But the application requirements are the ones

that I am particularly interested in. My understanding is you have

four different McKinney Programs with different application

requirements, and I would like to kind of get on the record a little

bit of how these are a problem for local and State governments that

apply for them.

Mr. BERNARDI. The Emergency Shelter Grants, the eligibility

there is the State and local governments, and your other organizations do not have access to that funding. That is on a formula

basis. The other three programs are competitive. That competition

is open to—well, it depends on which one of the three you are

speaking of—not all of them are open. Some are open to State and

local government, and some are not. But the competition ends up

in Washington where we take those 3,000-plus applications and go

through those.

We are going to streamline that. If we can streamline that, we

not only can save an awful lot of time, but also we can save money

and we can drive it back to the communities.

Senator ALLARD. Let me talk a little about the Continuum of

Care. I think it has a pretty complex application process, and many

jurisdictions or nonprofits apparently are forced to hire professional

grant writers in order to be competitive for the homelessness

assistance dollars. Do you consider this a wise use of resources?

Mr. BERNARDI. The local Continuums, obviously, have the expertise. I think as we have all indicated, they provide the services.

Being a former Mayor, I can tell you that we would never be able

to run a community without the good services of the not-for-profits,

faith-based groups, and other organizations. In most instances,

they can handle the grant-writing I believe without hiring outside

people to do so. But in some instances, it depends on the level of

technical expertise. It depends on the ability that they have. But

within their own jurisdictions, I am sure your smaller jurisdictions

probably need that kind of assistance to go through the process.

That is another good reason why we should simplify it.

Senator ALLARD. Thank you.

I see my time has expired, Mr. Chairman.

Senator REED. Thank you, Senator Allard.

Mr. Secretary, one final question, if I may. You have identified

a key dilemma that we all face. That is, HUD is a housing agency

that is providing lots of social services.

That raises the obvious question of how do we encourage other

agencies in their budgets, who might not because of organizational

responsibility, be sensitive to homelessness and increase the services to this population, like HHS, Department of Labor, and all the

different Departments, Commerce programs, et cetera?

Mr. BERNARDI. Well, the Interagency Council, as I mentioned in

my opening statement, Mr. Mangano, I believe on March 15 will

16

be sworn in, and that is being revived after being dormant for I

believe 5 or 7 years. And that is going to take the 16 agencies that

are involved here and bring them together and hopefully will be

able to work something out where we can do some cross-cutting

here and where HHS provides a service organization. We are a

housing organization.

If there are ways in which we can do things that can improve

the delivery of services, and who is to pay for those services, then

perhaps we could do more with permanent housing for our homeless population.

Senator REED. Thank you.

Senator, any other questions?

Senator ALLARD. Just one thing I wanted to follow up on. You

mentioned that there are a lot of homeless programs that are provided by other agencies or that you provide programs in HUD that

are not related to housing for the homeless. So what can be done

to get other agencies to shoulder more of the responsibility of

assisting homeless people to free these dollars up for housing

needs?

Mr. BERNARDI. Yes. Exactly.

Senator ALLARD. Is there more that we can do? What can be

done to do that?

Mr. BERNARDI. I think the Interagency Council on The Homeless,

but obviously your good works and conversations with the other

agencies can contribute to that process, indicating that you feel

strongly, as we do, that the more money that we have for housing

and I think there are records that indicate that; that if you can

provide permanent housing to individuals, they are less likely to be

out in the street; then, the job training, and the employment that

follows leads to self-sufficiency for them and their families. That is

really what we are working on here.

It is episodic in many instances. I mean the majority of the people that are out there that are homeless, maybe they lost a job, or

it is domestic violence, or someone just is out of the mainstream

for awhile, but 80 percent of those people eventually go through

emergency transitional, and then they are into permanent housing.

For example, I have some numbers here. In 2001, over 35,000

persons became employed while in HUD’s homeless projects. So it

does work. And we need to do more with it, and we are committed

to doing more.

The fact remains that the long-term homeless individuals that

are out there, they are the most difficult to serve. And collectively

we need to find a way to put them through the system into permanent housing and hopefully some day into self-sufficiency.

Mr. CZERWINSKI. Senator Allard, if I may offer a little bit more

hard-nosed answer, coordination is nice but it is really hard to

measure. And in our line of business, we want something that we

can measure.

I go back to a hearing that we did for you probably about a year

or two ago on GPRA. What I would suggest is, if the Administration sets an overall goal of ending homelessness, we know HUD

cannot do that by itself, it becomes incumbent upon the Administration to then say how the other agencies are going to help.

17

And going along with GPRA principles, what we would suggest

is performance management, which would ask the agencies to track

the number of homeless they are serving; ask them to find out

what happens to them; and hold them accountable through oversight hearings.

It becomes part of that concerted fabric that we would get at that

issue. There is no way that HUD can do it by itself. It has to be

through a concerted effort. And the only way that we would say is

with measures that people can be held accountable for to oversee

it such as yourselves.

Senator ALLARD. Thank you.

Senator REED. Thank you, Senator Allard.

Thank you, Mr. Czerwinski, for your testimony.

Secretary Bernardi, thank you. It is hard to predict lots of things,

but I predict you are rooting for Syracuse in the Big East.

[Laughter.]

Mr. CZERWINSKI. They better beat Villanova or they will not be

going to the NCAA finals.

Senator REED. Well, I think I know where your sentiments are

in that regard.

Just one other final point. I concur, Mr. Secretary, with the

importance of the Interagency Council. The legislation I am proposing would authorize a million dollars for the Council to actually

move it into the Executive Office so it could truly have oversight

over these individual agencies.

Thank you, gentlemen, very much.

Mr. BERNARDI. Thank you.

Mr. CZERWINSKI. Thank you.

Senator REED. I would like to call the next panel forward, please.

Before recognizing all the members of the witness panel, I would

like to recognize our colleague, Senator Susan Collins from Maine.

Senator Collins and I collaborated on a host of different issues. She

has been a leader in the Senate in lead paint exposure among children. She has done remarkable work in many areas, and it is a

pleasure to have you here.

Susan, you are going to introduce Mary Ann Gleason.

STATEMENT OF SUSAN M. COLLINS

A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF MAINE

Senator COLLINS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I want to thank you and Senator Allard for your leadership in

the area of housing policy, and to let you know, Mr. Chairman, how

much I have enjoyed working with you on so many issues that are

important to the citizens of our States and the Nation.

It is such a great pleasure to be here today to introduce one of

the Nation’s foremost experts on the problem of homelessness. We

are very fortunate to have an expert witness here today who not

only has direct experience with Federal policy affecting homelessness, but also has done a tremendous job at the local level with

programs in Maine.

That individual is Mary Ann Gleason, who sits to my right. I was

trying to remember today when I first met Mary Ann. She came

to my office several times in Washington, and is largely responsible

18

for my getting personally involved on issues affecting the homeless

individuals and their families.

I worked very closely with her and the York County Homeless

Shelter in southern Maine, and I was very honored to receive an

award from them one year for my work. She has been a wonderful

advocate.

Ms. Gleason worked here in Washington for a number of years

as the Executive Director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, where she worked with Members of Congress, the Administration, and Federal agencies to advocate for a more effective public

policy to expand and better employ Federal resources to help those

who find themselves homeless, and also to address the root causes

of homelessness. That is one of the parts of Mary Ann’s approach

that, I think, will be particularly helpful to this Committee.

To the delight of those of us in Maine, Ms. Gleason decided to

return to the frontlines in 2001 and became the Director of the

York County Initiative to End Homelessness. In that capacity, she

has worked diligently to promote both policy and attitudinal

changes throughout our State. Her commitment and dedication to

combating homelessness in Maine has had an immense impact in

improving services, and I am pleased that one of my staff members

serves on the Coalition and on the Study Group.

Aside from her duties with York County, Ms. Gleason has also

made time to act as the Chair of the Monitoring and Evaluation

Subcommittee on the Maine Homeless Assistance Planning and

Advisory Committee, and she has been a Member of the Maine

Affordable Housing Bond Issue Steering Committee. As you will

see from her testimony today, Ms. Gleason continues to take an

active role in Federal policy, and I think her testimony will be particularly helpful to the Committee because she has been on the

frontlines. She has been not only an advocate, but also someone

who has been directly involved in providing services. So, she knows

this issue inside and out. I am thankful to have her as an advisor,

and I want to take this opportunity to express my appreciation for

her work. I look forward to working with the Committee.

Thank you, very much.

Senator REED. Thank you, Senator Collins. Thank you for coming

here today and introducing Ms. Gleason.

Let me introduce our other two witnesses and then recognize

Senator Dodd for some opening comments. Ms. Gleason is joined by

Ms. Nan Roman. Ms. Roman is President of the National Alliance

to End Homelessness, a leading voice on the issue of homelessness.

The Alliance is a public education advocacy and capacity building

organization with over 2,000 nonprofit and public sector member

agencies and corporate partners around the Nation.

Thank you for joining us, Ms. Roman.

Next to Ms. Roman is Mr. Mitchell Netburn. Mr. Netburn is the

Executive Director of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority,

LAHSA, a joint powers authority of the city and the county of Los

Angeles. Before coming to LAHSA, Mr. Netburn served as First

Deputy Commissioner for the New York City Department of Homeless Services. From 1993 to 1996, Mr. Netburn was the Assistant

Commissioner for Ryan White Care Services at the New York

Department of Health. Thank you, Mr. Netburn.

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Senator Dodd, would you like to make an opening statement?

STATEMENT OF SENATOR CHRISTOPHER J. DODD

Senator DODD. Yes, Mr. Chairman. Thanks so much. I apologize

for arriving a few minutes late. We had several meetings with the

Technology Committee on some issues. There are always so many

things going on at once.

But first of all, welcome to the witnesses. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing. It is a very important issue, and one

that unfortunately is not going away. I mean we all wish it would.

I wish we could be standing here and that I could call Lucy

McKinney, Stu McKinney’s wife, who is a wonderful friend of mine.

Their son, John, who is a State Senator in Connecticut today—I

saw just the other day in the State Capital in Hartford—and how

proud they are of what their father accomplished as a Member of

the House Delegation. Stu and I served together for a number of

years when he represented the 4th Congressional District, the District held by Chris Shays today in Connecticut.

What a wonderful hearing this would be if we say that the

McKinney–Vento Program was no longer needed.

But I am very grateful to you and the witnesses for sharing their

thoughts with us on this. I would note—as I am sure you have

already, Mr. Chairman, but maybe it deserves being repeated—

that there are still anywhere from 800,000 to 1 million people who

are homeless.

What is really troubling to me is that a quarter of those are kids.

Whatever one feels about adults, I mean, it is never justified when

you start looking at the conditions that adults live with, but how

anyone could feel that almost a quarter of a million Americans who

are infants living in anything but a safe environment is acceptable

is beyond me. And the numbers continue to grow.

We saw with the mayors recently, three-quarters of them I think

indicated that this is a problem for them. It is not pocketed in New

York and some other large urban areas. It is across the country

and it deserves our attention.

It is wonderful to have Susan Collins, as well, and to add voice

to Ms. Gleason’s testimony. She knows a lot about these issues and

brings wonderful background and experience we need to have.

It is a complex issue, obviously, Mr. Chairman, to deal with. I

am particularly interested, and I know Senator Allard is, on the

block grant issue. I know it was kicked around a little bit here, but

I am nervous about what happens in a block grant in dealing with

this issue, and I want to raise those issues when the proper time

comes for some questions.

So thank you, and thank all of you for being here. Appreciate it

very much.

Senator REED. Thank you, Senator Dodd.

Ms. Roman.

20

STATEMENT OF NAN P. ROMAN

PRESIDENT, NATIONAL ALLIANCE

TO END HOMELESSNESS, WASHINGTON, DC

Ms. ROMAN. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, Senators Allard,

and Dodd, for inviting the National Alliance to End Homelessness

to testify before you today.

We are certainly grateful for the Subcommittee’s past efforts to

address this issue. The National Alliance to End Homelessness is

convinced that not only could our Nation do a better job of helping

homeless people, but also that ending homelessness is well within

our grasp.

How could homelessness be ended? There is no question that

homelessness would be ended if there were an adequate supply of

affordable housing in the country. But the more realistic question

that confronts us is, ‘‘Can we do something about homelessness if

there is not an adequate supply of affordable housing?’’ We think that the answer is yes, and I think it is amazing to

hear the degree of consensus that has been expressed here today

about what we could do to make progress.

Millions of people, as has been mentioned, become homeless in

our Nation each year, and there are some 40,000 nonprofit and

public sector programs that spend billions of dollars to help them.

As has been said, the system is primarily funded at the national

level through HUD and this system is functioning fairly well, we

think, to manage the problem. It ends homelessness for thousands

of people every day.

However, the homeless assistance system cannot prevent homelessness, and it cannot open the back door out of homelessness. It

would be a mistake to think that we could hold the homelessness

assistance system itself responsible for ending homelessness. In

fact, I think that no matter how perfect we make homeless assistance programs, there is no way that it alone is going to be able to

end homelessness.

There are programs that have the resources and responsibility

for doing that. Mainstream programs like welfare, foster care, Veterans assistance, and so forth, can prevent and end homelessness.

But rather than being a safety net, as you said they are shifting

responsibility and cost for the most vulnerable people into the

homeless assistance system. So what can be done to change this

dynamic?

The National Alliance to End Homelessness has developed a

pragmatic plan that could end homelessness, we think, in 10 years.

Basically it suggests that communities reorient around ending not

managing homelessness. They need to close the front door into the

homeless system, reversing the trend by which the mainstream

programs allow most vulnerable people to become homeless, and

they need to open the back door out of homelessness.

To do the latter, we have to examine people’s experience of homelessness. As has been discussed in the Committee Members’ statements and by previous witnesses, about 80 percent of people enter

and exit the homeless system relatively quickly. These people are

having a housing crisis. They have virtually the same characteristics as other poor but nonhomeless people. They really need plain

vanilla affordable housing.

21

In a sense, the homeless system is managing the churn in the

bottom of the housing market for that 80 percent.

Twenty percent of people have a very different experience.

Chronically homeless people spend months and even years in the

homeless system. A groundbreaking study that was done by the

University of Pennsylvania shows that the cost of letting people

live on the street is very high. In New York City a chronically mentally ill, homeless person living on the streets costs public systems

of care about $40,000 a year. It costs about the same amount of

money to put that person in supported housing with services. So,

we are going to pay on one end or the other. It would certainly

make sense to do the permanent housing.

For the 80 percent that is having a housing crisis, we would suggest taking a housing-first approach focused more tightly on rapid

housing placement and connection to mainstream services. We

should avoid letting people stay homeless for long periods of time.

For the 20 percent, we should commit ourselves to permanent supportive housing and, over 10 years, even at current spending levels,

we should be able to provide 200,000 units of that housing. In our

view, any reorganization of homeless assistance should be measured against whether it makes progress in ending homelessness.

The draft bill, Senator Reed, that you have prepared does, we

think, help us make progress. In terms of planning, it creates planning boards that are charged with a wide range of responsibilities.

The goals of these boards are admirable, and since they build on

existing local capacity and do not try to create a whole new system,

I think they move us forward. We have some concern that the issue

of local data should be addressed more specifically in the bill.

In terms of closing the front door, the draft bill has numerous

references to homelessness prevention, and this is a welcome shift

in emphasis. However, reauthorization of homeless assistance programs at HUD cannot be expected to compel action in a full range

of mainstream systems of care, and we think that companion legislation focused on HHS and other agencies might more effectively

address these prevention and discharge planning issues.

In terms of opening the back door, the draft bill clearly improves

the outcome focus of the homeless assistance programs. The Alliance is particularly supportive of the set-aside of funds for permanent supportive housing for people with disabilities, and the

renewal of permanent housing through Section 8.

This proposal does, in fact, put meat on the bones of the Administration’s proposal to end chronic homelessness, and we are very

strongly supportive of it.

In summary, the Federal Government can do three things to help

end homelessness. First, it can adjust the existing homeless programs to improve their outcome orientation, and I believe that the

draft bill you have presented does accomplish this. Second, it can

make the mainstream systems of care and custodial systems more

responsive to people’s housing situation. Again, I think that the

draft, while it cannot entirely do that, sets the stage for progress

in this area. And third, it can address the underlying affordable

housing shortage, income, and service issues, and although this is

beyond the purview of the draft legislation, we look forward to

22

working with the Members of the Subcommittee to address these

issues, as well.

Thank you for your commitment and contributions on this issue.

Senator REED. Thank you very much for your testimony.

Mr. Netburn, welcome.

STATEMENT OF MITCHELL NETBURN

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, LOS ANGELES HOMELESS

SERVICES AUTHORITY, LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

Mr. NETBURN. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman, Senator Dodd, and

Senator Collins.

My name is Mitchell Netburn and I am the Executive Director

of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority known as LAHSA.

We are honored you have invited us to testify in support of the

reauthorization of the McKinney–Vento Homeless Assistance Act.

LAHSA is a joint powers authority of the city and county of Los

Angeles. It was founded in 1993 and is governed by a 10 member

commission appointed by the Los Angeles County Supervisors and

the Mayor.

LAHSA has been the lead coordinator for the Nation’s second

largest Continuum of Care system. Prior to the establishment of

LAHSA, there had been little local coordination of funding for

homeless housing and services. The Continuum of Care requirements enabled LAHSA to vigorously pursue a regional approach to

addressing homelessness. This is critical, especially given the geography covered by our Continuum—4,000 square miles—and the

extreme differences across our county. Moreover, the county encompasses 88 jurisdictions, including 34 entitlement cities.

We are proud of our collaborative efforts to prevent and address

homelessness and support reauthorization of the McKinney–Vento

Homeless Assistance Act to codify the Continuum of Care.

Regarding Los Angeles County, the most commonly used estimate indicates that there are 84,000 men, women, and children

homeless on any given night. A more recent county survey found

that 375,000 adults experienced homelessness in the previous 5

years. While many of these persons doubled up in someone else’s

home, up to half resorted to staying on the streets or in shelters.

Since 1995, the Los Angeles Continuum of Care has received over $325 million through the McKinney–Vento Act. In the last

year alone, these funds provided services to over 63,000 homeless

men, women, and children. This funding has enabled localities to

leverage millions of dollars in private funding and investment,

while also contributing to the quality of life and the aesthetic

improvement of many neighborhoods.

Notwithstanding this significant level of Federal support for

homeless persons, we face some very real challenges to ending

homelessness. Los Angeles County is reporting that despite a 3.5

percent drop in unemployment since 1990, poverty has increased

by 46 percent. These conditions have fueled greater demand for

homeless services even before the local economy began to experience general economic hardship since last fall.

Within the city of Los Angeles, there is a 3.5 percent rental housing vacancy rate. Not only does this mean a tighter housing market

for low-income renters, but also those who are fortunate enough to

23

receive a Section 8 voucher are finding fewer and fewer landlords

willing to rent to them. The city’s Housing Authority reports that

only 41 percent of households issued vouchers are able to use them,

compared to over 90 percent just a few years ago. On a brighter

note, the Los Angeles City Council last week adopted the Mayor’s

plan for establishing an annual $100 million trust fund. And this

November, voters in the State of California will likely have the

opportunity to approve up to $2 billion in bond financing for affordable housing.

In reauthorizing the McKinney–Vento Homeless Assistance Act,

you have the opportunity to harness this momentum and provide

necessary Federal leadership.

In looking forward toward reauthorization, our experience tells

us that the collaborative, community-based process generated by

the Continuum of Care system does work. Our system, as a whole,

is more responsive to the needs of homeless individuals and families, more vigorous and more integrated because of the incentives

created by the Continuum of Care to engage in a broadly inclusive

planning process, and to identify the resources in mainstream systems that need to serve our homeless clients.

We respectfully offer the following recommendations. Keep the

program flexible. Every community has different circumstances

that call for different approaches to addressing homelessness. The

strength of the existing system is that it allows localities to determine the best use of funding to meet the local needs of homeless

individuals and families. By allowing localities to decide who is

best suited to lead the planning effort and apply for funding, we

avoid the difficulties that often occur when disinterested entities

are the appointed recipients of funding.

Ensure Federal coordination of homeless programs by locating

the Interagency Council on Homelessness in the White House

Domestic Policy Office. While nearly all of LAHSA’s funding for

homeless programs originates in HUD, many of the homeless housing and service agencies that we fund are also funded by other Federal Departments, including the Departments of Veterans’ Affairs,

Health and Human Services, Labor, and Education. Coordination

of funding and programs could be furthered by having a centralized

presence in the White House to oversee a national plan to prevent

and end homelessness.

Lift the cash match requirements for permanent housing. Developers in our system have reported that the 25 percent cash match

requirement hampers their efforts to use this program. Although

new sources of local funding are on the horizon, securing and documenting the cash match for this process is not always feasible. This

in turn inhibits development of the permanent affordable housing

we so desperately need to end homelessness.

Move the renewal of Shelter Plus Care and Supportive Housing

Program Permanent Housing Contracts to the Housing Certificate

Fund. By the time these programs are ready to renew, they have

demonstrated their effectiveness and the tenants in the programs

are no longer homeless. Therefore, we urge you to consider these

renewing programs as mainstream, thereby allowing renewals to

be funded from a mainstream source.

24

Provide for Homeless Management Information Systems funding.

Several years ago, Congress wisely directed HUD to embark on

implementing such a system. However, this entails considerable

cost. We look to you to ensure that the HMIS requirement will not

be an unfunded mandate.

And last, retain the competitive process for homeless services

funding. While administering an annual competition does consume

significant local resources, the system is better for it, particularly

if it is performance-based. The current process is a catalyst that

empowers us to work closely with a broad range of stakeholders,

including homeless and formerly homeless persons, agencies from

our 31 entitlement cities, our housing authorities, and our county

administered housing, health, and welfare systems. Therefore,

LAHSA has historically opposed the block granting of Federal

homeless assistance funds.

Thank you for this opportunity to share the experiences of Los

Angeles County and our suggestions for improving the existing legislation. The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority strongly

supports your efforts to reauthorize the McKinney–Vento Homeless

Assistance Act so we will have the critical resources and Federal

leadership necessary to prevent and end homelessness.

Thank you.

Senator REED. Thank you very much, Mr. Netburn.

I would like to recognize Ms. Gleason for her statement, and

thank her for her help to my staff on the drafting of this legislation

that we are talking about this afternoon.

Thank you.

Ms. Gleason.

STATEMENT OF MARY ANN GLEASON

DIRECTOR, YORK COUNTY INITIATIVE

TO END HOMELESSNESS, ALFRED, MAINE

Ms. GLEASON. Good afternoon, and thank you, Senator Reed, for

your kind invitation to appear before the Subcommittee, and you,

Senator Collins, for your gracious introduction, and most especially

for your wonderful leadership on homeless issues, particularly on

ensuring the passage and expansion of the Grants To Benefit

Homeless Individuals.

It is a critical step in further involving Health and Human Services in providing services and moving HUD therefore out of that

provision. It has been critical, and we really appreciate it very

much. I began working with HUD’s Homeless Assistance Programs

in 1987. It pains me that 15 years later this national issue of grave

concern continues and grows.

In Maine, the number of admissions into our shelters grew by 51

percent over the last 4 years. Thirty-two percent of those who become homeless in our State are families; 11 percent are youth; 13

percent are veterans; 37 percent are employed. Nearly 45 percent

are challenged by disabilities. Twelve percent have attended at

least a year of college and, in Portland, 29 percent have either

graduated from or at least attended college. The average monthly

income, however, of shelter residents in Maine is $240. It is also

important to know that 68 percent of those who entered the shelters were homeless in some other form prior to doing so, and prior,

25

therefore, to being counted. They were doubled or tripled up with

friends or relatives, living in motels, cars, tents, speaking loudly to

us of how many more live so close to the edge that simply doing

shelter or street counts cannot tell us the scope of the problem.

Since passage of the McKinney bill in Rhode Island, Maine, Connecticut, Colorado, and every other State, we have had recipients

of HUD homeless assistance funds that have supported the development of many highly effective programs that not only allowed us

to redress homelessness for the individuals who suffer it, but also

serve as models for addressing the holistic needs of very vulnerable

families and individuals throughout our Nation. In Denver, McKinney funds helped renovate a portion of 92 rental housing units, half

of which were no longer liveable and contributed to the increasing

blight and crime in the neighborhood. Having significantly

upgraded the community’s self-regard, these units now provide permanent housing shared by persons who are challenged by mental

illness who had lived on the streets for years of their lives, hightech employees, factory workers, other families, and individuals of

mixed incomes in an integrated model we can all feel good about.

In another, new construction of a complex of permanent affordable

housing units for diverse populations includes a child care center

used by the broader neighborhood of homeowners, as well as children homeless in the recent past. In Maine, we are developing

housing on an organic farm for late-stage alcoholics who have

become homeless to bring meaning and hope back to their lives,

and to provide vegetables and herbs for the bakery and catering

service where shelter residents can develop skills in culinary arts

from a terrific chef. In Columbus, the housing first model moves

families out of shelters within 2 weeks and into permanent housing

with transitional services, so they can quickly be reintegrated into

the larger society. Developed now in a large number States, highly

efficacious supportive housing programs also provide employment

opportunities for persons with disabilities that help them feel good

again and whole. For families who suffer domestic violence and

consequent homelessness, we are designing a cohousing model to

create the sense of community that September 11 taught us is

America at her best. Nationally, HUD’s McKinney programs have

had a positive impact in every State in the Union. The diversity

of local responses has resulted in significant cross-fertilization of

good ideas and best practices.

Having read a draft of your bill, Senator Reed, I am delighted

to say it builds on much that is highly effective in HUD McKinney

programs and improves elements needing such. I will mention a

few. One, it consolidates the separate McKinney programs and

eliminates the constraints they imposed to maximize flexibility,

creativity, and local decisionmaking. Two, it provides funding for

the first time for permanent housing for nondisabled homeless families. Three, it removes the caps on funding for transitional and

permanent housing to move more realistically to reflect the cost of

housing construction and renovation at the diversity of localities in

our States. Four, it provides some financial incentives to help build

the funding capacity of nonprofits so they can create housing stock

for those poorest among us that other Federal housing programs

keep moving away from. Five, it requires limited and appropriate

26

Federal oversight to ensure that the Federal Government does not

abnegate its rightful role to effectively address the needs of our

most vulnerable citizens. Sixth, it brings to the table both targeted

homeless and mainstream program recipients, public and private,

to collaborate their planning, implementation, and evaluation

activities in order to utilize available resources in a manner that

can maximize outcome effectiveness, reduce duplication, and reverse policies and procedures that unintentionally either stimulate

or prolong homelessness. Seventh, it places the responsibility for

interagency collaboration at the Federal level in the hands of the

Domestic Policy Council, as you mentioned, within the Office of the

President, which we desperately need to help ensure that each Federal agency assumes their responsibility for preventing and ending

homelessness using the resources under their administration.

Eighth, it reduces HUD funding for services 3 years after enactment of the bill in order to ensure and give Congress and the

Administration an opportunity to increase those resources from the

appropriate Departments: HHS, DOL, DOT, VA, to mention a few.

Talking about ending homelessness is actually a dialogue about

deeper, broader issues that narrow into the topic of homelessness,

which is too easily dismissed, is neither accurate nor informed. It

is a dialogue about the lack of opportunity for housing stability, an

essential condition for family health and well being, retaining

steady employment and employees, children succeeding in school,

neighborhoods retaining their quality and safety, disabled and

elderly persons living as full and dignified a life as possible.

Ending homelessness is about finally reckoning with the unfinished business of deinstitutionalization, ensuring that communitybased housing—treatment and support services are available and

affordable. It is a dialogue about welfare reform whose enlightened

purpose would be economic viability for the participating families,

not falling backward by moving them off the roles but into either

hidden or blatant homelessness. Ending homelessness is a dialogue

about recipients of Federal block grants that fund behavioral

health care, not being held accountable for the poorest and most

vulnerable of their target populations. It is a dialogue about wages

and cash assistance benefits that still remain remarkably disproportionate to the cost of housing and other basic needs. We can

respond in one of two ways. We can either increase income levels

so housing is affordable at whatever costs the market requires, or

we can significantly increase the public investment in producing

and sustaining affordable housing. Doing neither is a prescription

for protracted homelessness. Housing policy in America is primarily investment policy, an approach that is simply inadequate to

meeting the housing needs of the disabled person whose annual

SSI income is $6,000 a year, or a full-time worker earning even $7

an hour. Ending homelessness is actually about producing housing

and not simply continuing to talk about producing housing. It is

about only 36,000 new housing vouchers being proposed nationwide

for 2003, when in one city alone, there are 150,000 eligible households on the waiting list. And finally, homelessness is about a

shredded and shameful safety net, including the lack of health

care, in a Nation blessed with both the resources and the ingenuity

to be fairer than that. I look at the weight of poverty, and the burVerDate 11-MAY-2000 07:27 Jul 23, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00030 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 88411.TXT SBANK4 PsN: SBANK4
27

den of disregard that homelessness represents and wonder how,

having so much, we have come so far from what is just and right.

In conclusion, we suggest these broader issues that form the

structural underpinnings of homelessness must be addressed

through omnibus legislation, as you have suggested, similar to but

broader than the original McKinney legislation. We would be

delighted to help you pursue such legislation replicating the highly

collaborative process that resulted in the Community Partnership

to End Homelessness Act of 2002.

Thank you for listening, and for your thoughtful leadership and

proposal.

Senator REED. Thank you very much.

That was compelling testimony of all the witnesses. Thank you

so much.

I would like to turn to Senator Collins and recognize her for her

comments, and thank her because I believe you are going to be a

cosponsor?

Senator COLLINS. Yes.

Senator REED. She is a very wise and brilliant Senator. She is

a cosponsor already.

[Laughter.]

Senator REED. Senator Collins.

Senator COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for

your graciousness in accommodating my schedule this afternoon.

Ms. Gleason, when I heard your description of the homeless individuals and population in Maine, it was a very useful reminder to

us that the lack of affordable housing, particularly in areas of our

State like Portland, can cause people who never dreamed that they

would be in a situation of not being able to afford an apartment

to become homeless; that it is a shock for many to find themselves

in that situation.

You also gave us a useful reminder of how many of the clients

served in Maine have families; that it is not just the single individual, but it may be a mother with children, or a father with children. I think that is a really important reminder to us, as well.

Senator Reed and I have collaborated together to try to designate

more funding to go for substance abuse programs to assist in providing services to individuals who find themselves as homeless and

are battling a drug or alcohol addiction. And indeed, from what I

have learned from working with you and others in Maine, often

many of your clients also have problems with substance abuse.

I would like to ask each of you, starting with Ms. Gleason, how

we can better integrate services such as substance abuse counseling with providing shelter, as well. And, similarly, how can we

ensure that job training and other skills that can help an individual put homelessness behind himself or herself, how can we do

a better job of integrating those kinds of programs into the programs that meet the housing needs of individuals?

Ms. Gleason.

Ms. GLEASON. Thank you for your question. It is an important

one. I actually think the reason that pursuing omnibus legislation

is so important is because we currently do not have the resources

either within HUD or the appropriate oversight. I mean the truth

is that HUD, as wonderful as they are, does not have the level of

28

skill to provide oversight to mental health and substance abuse

programs that is in HHS. So it is really critical.

One of the things we keep missing is that if we try to provide

substance abuse services to people while they are still homeless, it

is very compromised.

Residentially based treatment programs are so critical. In our

State there is a dramatic number, I believe 75 percent, of people

who need substance abuse treatment that do not have access to it

because the resources are so small. But unfortunately we keep

spending them in hospital detoxification programs. So, we spend

the money. This is the funny thing in America. We spend the

money just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and it costs too

much because of that. If we were able to create residentially based

treatment programs, I think it would be much wiser for us than

the current way we are trying to do it.

Senator COLLINS. Thank you. Mr. Netburn.

Mr. NETBURN. I would certainly agree with that comment. Los

Angeles has been a strong leader in supporting the Housing First

Model on the theory that you need to stabilize people in housing

and then wrap around the support services, and only in that way

will you actually adequately address the underlying causes of

homelessness. So, I think that is critical to focus on the whole concept of supportive permanent housing.

I think there are—as I just talked about—a lot of services, a lot

of HUD’s dollars going for services, and we need to look for other

agencies to increase their support.

One of the concerns we all have, regarding to the additional focus

on housing, is whether the other agencies will actually increase

their budgets as they ‘‘mainstream’’ the homeless population. That

will be critical to ensure that high level of services that are needed

for that population are provided.

Also, I think putting the Interagency Council on Homelessness

within the White House will help integrate services and ensure

that all the appropriate services from substance abuse, mental

illness, job training, et cetera, are provided to homeless individuals

and families.

Senator COLLINS. Thank you.

Ms. Roman.

Ms. ROMAN. I would concur with my colleagues. I think on a

National level, half of the people who ask for substance abuse

treatment cannot get it. So that has to be reckoned with.

Also, I would concur with the other two panelists that services

are more effective once people are in permanent housing than

when they are in either shelter or transitional housing.

I would add that most shelter programs and transitional programs have sobriety requirements, so they are essentially asking

people to get sober before they can come in the door. That is something we need to look at, too. We need entry level programs with

a low threshold. Once people are engaged we can provide them

with what they need in order to achieve sobriety.

Senator COLLINS. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, let me thank you again for your leadership. We

are very fortunate here in the Senate to have Senator Reed as the

leader on these issues. He is an individual of great compassion and

29

knowledge, and I am confident that under his leadership we are

really going to make a difference. So thank you for being here, and

thank you for letting me participate.

Senator REED. Thank you, Senator Collins.

Senator Dodd is going to return, and I will leave, at least for the

moment, the questions about block grants to him. He expressed an

interest in asking those questions.

First, again let me thank you all for this informed testimony. Let

me underscore ‘‘informed.’’ The experience at this witness table is

very impressive, people who have been running programs in challenging cities like New York City and Los Angeles. In Maine where

it is a different environment, and Nan’s leadership nationally on

homelessness is extremely commendable. Thank you all.

Let me go to a couple of specific points. One is that I think, Mr.

Netburn, you commented on this but I would like everyone to

respond. The legislation we are proposing would have a 30 percent

setaside for permanent support in housing. Also, it would move the

renewal grants for the Shelter Plus Care and permanent housing

components of SHP to the Housing Certificate Fund. Can you comment upon the importance of this and the criticality of this? Maybe

we will go right down the line. Nan, do you have a comment?

Ms. ROMAN. Certainly. These provisions are critically important

if we are to make progress. Theoretically, we could also do Permanent Supportive Housing through the mainstream programs. But

this is not happening.

I think the SRO, Shelter Plus Care, and SHP Programs were

inserted into the McKinney Act fairly early in its history. There is

a lot of capacity that has been developed through these programs

to deliver premanent supportive housing.

So our feeling is, if we have a proportional amount of money

being spent on permanent supportive housing for the chronically

homeless population, over time we could get enough units to end

chronic homelessness, even with the resources we currently have.

And we think 30 percent is the correct percentage, if the housing

subsidies are renewed elsewhere.

I think Mitchell said, very accurately, that it is peculiar that we

require people who have the most serious housing needs to have

their housing subsidies renewed through a competition, whereas

everyone else has their housing assistance renewed more or less

automatically.

Authorizing these permanent supportive housing activities you

have described would allow us over time to create enough supportive housing to address the issue of chronic homelessness. We

think that the cost of that after 10 years—you asked about cost

during the earlier panel——

Senator REED. Yes.

Ms. ROMAN. —would be slightly in excess of a billion dollars, if

I recall properly, just for the housing. Then we will also have to

obtain the service financing because there is no money at HUD to

do service financing. So, we have to get HHS to the table.

But it is important to note that many of these costs will be offset,

as the New York City study shows us, by savings to public systems

on the emergency side.

30

Senator REED. Before we move on, Nan, just a comment about

the question I posed to the Secretary about the 10 year budget forecast. This budget that has been submitted, if it does not change,

is that sufficient to get us where we want to be?

Ms. ROMAN. No. You could take the renewals for permanent

housing out of the existing program, but you would have to do it

at the expense of serving the other 80 percent of people who are

not chronically homeless or disabled.

The idea is to get the chronically homeless people into permanent

supported housing and free up resources so you can do better by

the other people, the 80 percent, not cut the 80 percent off from

services entirely. The fiscal year 2003 HUD budget has not

addressed this. And I would also say, although I think that the

Secretary was right in pointing out the need to shift some of HUD’s

service spending into HHS, HHS’s budget did not reflect this

increased need for services from that Department, either. So the

need was not addressed in the budget.

Senator REED. Mitchell, do you have a comment? Because you

raised this issue.

Mr. NETBURN. Just as you stated, in my testimony I said I think

it is critical to shift that funding into the mainstream systems. Two

additional points I would make is that, first, by doing that it also

encourages more developers to actually develop this type of housing, because there is a more guaranteed funding stream and they

can use that to secure loans and the like. So that is critical.

Second, which is what Nan just touched upon, is that there is a

lot of needed focus on that 20 percent, but there is that other large

percentage of people who are temporarily homeless. Increasingly in

Los Angeles, and it is certainly a national trend, there are increasing numbers of families, and particularly single women and women

with children, and so mainstreaming services would free up the

funds to address these new needs.

The reality is, we have seen it in Los Angeles, and I saw it in

New York, and I am sure it exists in other jurisdictions, that as

the programs come up for renewals those burdens become very

high and there is very little money available for new programs. So

this would allow new programs to target the new needs.

Senator REED. As I understand your comments, there is a certain

irony here because people have been placed in shelter and they are

successfully living there, and yet you have to go and renew them

as if they were part of the homeless program, when in fact they

have a home.

Mr. NETBURN. That is true. It is an irony. And, you know, HUD,

and rightfully so, has particularly in the last couple of years

focused a lot on having agencies document homelessness, so that

these funds should be targeting homeless people. Well, once they

are in permanent housing, they are not homeless. So it is an irony.

Senator REED. And as you are more successful, the margin for

reaching additional homeless people diminishes because you have

the trail of the legacy of your success in the past. Is that accurate?

Mr. NETBURN. Exactly. HUD itself has raised the possibility, not

this year but in the coming year, that there might not be enough

money nationally to renew all the renewals. For the first time ever

31

they may not be able to fund all the renewals. We are certainly

seeing that locally, and from HUD there is also a national trend.

Senator REED. Mary Ann, do you have a comment?

Ms. GLEASON. Yes. What the policy does is it actually allows the

Federal Government to do the same thing they are asking the

State and local governments to do, and the nonprofits, which is to

utilize mainstream resources to serve the needs of homeless people.

The mainstream resources at the Federal level is the Housing

Certificate Fund. So basically all we are doing, we are asking the

Federal Government to do the same thing we have asked every

other level of government to do. It is totally appropriate, especially

because we know most of the recipients of these services are absolutely eligible for Section 8 vouchers.

They needed some weaning back into stability that the homeless

programs were able to do. Now, we simply need to move them into

the mainstream resources. That is the housing mainstream

resource that we have.

Senator REED. One final question before I recognize Senator

Dodd. We have reserved the topic of block grants for you, Senator.

You won the toss-up previously.

[Laughter.]

One of the major points of conceptual agreement is we have to

get into prevention rather than simply responding. Just quick

thoughts on how we move the focus from responding to prevention.

Nan, your thoughts, and then down the panel.

Ms. ROMAN. Well, the draft bill has some good emphasis on that

in terms of emergency prevention—that is, rent assistance, and

mortgage assistance—but the more significant thing is the fact that

these other mainstream programs are discharging so many people

into the homeless system. How do you stop that?

Obviously, you cannot do that with this bill. We think that TANF

is a good example. Even though everyone believes TANF has been

a success, there are people who are being sanctioned or removed

from TANF who are ending up in the homeless system. If the welfare system was more attentive to people’s housing status and had

more responsibility for stable housing, for example, that would be

a way to prevent homelessness.

Similarly in HHS, the mental health and substance abuse block

grants and other service programs could look more carefully at

housing. They used to, before there was a homeless system, be

responsible for housing for people with mental illness and other

disabilities. Now there is a homeless system and they have shifted

responsibility for housing to the homeless system.

So, we need to push back up against those systems. Everyone

has mentioned that we need to do omnibus legislation, and such

legislation is where we should focus our prevention efforts.

Senator REED. Thank you. Mr. Netburn.

Mr. NETBURN. I would just add, preventing eviction is critical.

Somehow it is often looked at as somewhat dubious and there are

concerns for fraud and the like, but with some oversight we can

have programs that work.

Not only do you prevent the homelessness, but sometimes when

somebody becomes temporarily homeless, if they have just been

evicted from their apartment, it sets a whole cycle in place. And

32

sometimes it is very hard to get that person very quickly back into

housing. So it is so much more cost effective and more humane to

keep them in the housing where they are especially for the stability

of children with schools and the like.

In addition, some of the underlying causes of homelessness occur

before somebody became homeless. So the idea is to make sure that

there is treatment upon demand, things like that, rather than getting to the stage where somebody has lost their home due to substance abuse, mental illness, some other issue, and then relying on

the whole homeless system to take care of them.

And last, I cannot stress enough Nan’s point about closing the

front door. What has really happened in this country is that the

homeless systems have really become the last resort for people who

really should be served by many other systems, including everything from hospitals to correctional facilities, to mental health

institutions, and the like. People have all been dumped, to use that

word, into the homeless system. And it is not necessarily the appropriate place for many of those individuals, and we should really

focus the resources on those who are homeless.

Senator REED. Thank you.

Mary Ann.

Ms. GLEASON. One of the things that your bill does that I think

is very important is that it moves prevention activities into the collaborative planning process, which it has not been previously. I

think that is going to go a long way to actually encouraging local

communities to build prevention efforts into their programs.

I am so delighted that you are Chair of this Subcommittee, Senator Reed, because it is so important that we formulate housing

policy in America that really does ensure that the lowest income

population has what they need. We have done it with Medicaid. We

need to do it with housing.

Senator REED. Thank you very much.

Senator Dodd.

Senator DODD. Thank you, very much.

I apologize for stepping out. The Former President of Trinity College in Hartford is now President of the University of Hawaii and

happened to be visiting. So he came over and I stepped out to talk

with him. I apologize for walking out in the middle of the hearing.

Again, to Jack Reed, I was struck, in fact, I was saying to President Dovelle out here, how important this hearing.

Here we are talking about a million people in our country, as

many as a quarter of that population are children, living in these

conditions. Your presence here, knowledgeable people, working at

this. You know, the lights and cameras show up here for somebody

to plead the Fifth Amendment in the Enron case, but we cannot

get people to show up to pay attention, other than the wonderful

people who are in the room here, to care about it. They are never

here and never can come. This is a constituency that can never be

here. We normally have a hearing about some subject matter, and

those who would be affected by it pack the room, line the halls,

show up on the Mall, do all sorts of things. The homeless cannot.

They are never going to come down here and lobby. We do not

know where to go to meet them. They do not have a lunch for us.

They do not have a dinner for us. They do not give out awards to

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get us to come. So it takes someone with the intestinal fortitude

and the heart of a Jack Reed to carry the ball. And I am going to

do everything I can to help him—— Senator REED. Thank you.

Senator DODD. —as a senior Member of this Subcommittee to see

that we get the job done.

Are you teasing me about the block grants?

Senator REED. I am not.

Senator DODD. Okay. I was out of the room and I thought you

were pulling my leg.

Senator REED. I’d never do that, Senator. It is your question.

Senator DODD. Because this is such a big issue here, how this

gets handled right. I am so impressed with the notion of the Continuum of Care concept and how well that has worked.

I want to ask each of you, and particularly because I know in Los

Angeles county, as opposed to the city, they have opposed the block

grant approach. There is a lot of attractiveness to block grants.

You do not want to take the view, because there are

circumstances when a block grant makes sense. It is certainly a lot

more efficient, and you can get dollars in some ways in a whole

area that could be worthwhile.

But my concern here, would be because this really does lace together so many different entities to serve the multiple needs of a

very complicated constituency, and that you start, if you block

grant my fear would be—and there is a big question mark here,

okay—that when you do that, you run the risk of breaking out.

Now maybe there is some way to do this a bit differently where,

maybe you could block grant the Federal level somehow. But then

when it gets down to the State or the local level, you would make

it work differently.

Anyway, I know in Los Angeles they have opposed this. So, I will

lead with you, since I know where you are going to stand——

[Laughter.]

Mr. NETBURN. Yes.

Senator DODD. —then go to your two colleagues on either side.

Mr. NETBURN. We do oppose it. You know, it was mentioned by

the Administration that over 90 percent of the country is now covered by a Continuum of Care. There has been universal agreement

that it is a system that works and works very well. So we certainly

want to maintain that. Frankly, having the competitive process

really enables us to bring all different parties to the table.

Senator DODD. The best ones win. They do. It is really effective.

Mr. NETBURN. It does. Also it is effective in getting the cities to

participate which is not always easy. Everybody has competing

time interests. Some cities do not want to admit they have a homeless problem. But knowing that the funding is somewhat dependent

upon their being at the table, bringing resources to the table, being

a part of the planning process really operates as a carrot-type

incentive. It really brings them. And then we get a better plan because of that, and particularly in a county the size of Los Angeles.

We have 88 different entities to deal with. It is the largest urban

county in the country.

We cringe in fear of the idea of, depending how the block grant

might go, funds going to each one of the entitlement cities, having

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to enter into separate agreements with over 30 of them; the possibility that you would have duplication of services; the loss of planning that has taken place due to the Continuum of Care process.

And, frankly, we think a competitive process does bring communities together to put their best proposals forth, and we support it.

One of the things the Administration was talking about was the

process taking a long time. I think there is something in between.

The 18 months can be cut down. And I also would be concerned

about the 18 months, if this was a brand new program we were

talking about and we are all sitting here saying, well, we are not

going to get money for 18 months.

The reality is, we are all on our annual cycles, and so it is not

as though this is preventing us from providing services today. We

know when that money is coming forward. And so definitely we do

oppose the block grant of the funds.

I believe this begins Senator Dodd’s statements. It would be very

helpful—and I want to hear the two other witnesses—if you might

lay that out a little bit to us for the Subcommittee.

I would ask consent, Mr. Chairman, that specifically the problems that you would have—now Los Angeles is a huge urban area,

and obviously small areas may have a different reaction—but I

think what you just said could be very valuable for Members of the

Subcommittee as we look at this, why this is not some ideological

reaction. It is a question of how it works. If you are going to have

the program—and I presume most people are going to support the

program—then you want it to work well. And you want it to serve

the people it is designed to help. If you are going to somehow break

up the system that delivers the service the best, then Members

here should know what the implications are because the block

grant has turned into this partisan liberal/conservative battleground, and we really need to get away from that.

We have to decide in certain cases block grants work very well.

In some cases they do not. We should be able to make that distinction when it occurs, and by giving us more detailed information

about why this would not work here, not for some ideological

reason but very practical reasons, I think could be tremendously

helpful to the Subcommittee.

Mr. NETBURN. Sure. We would welcome that opportunity.

Senator REED. Ms. Gleason, your thoughts.

Ms. GLEASON. Well, two of those practical things. One is that it

would interrupt the multijurisdictional and regional planning that

has been going on in many communities, certainly in the way the

block grant had been proposed in the past. And we do not have any

idea of any other formula. So that is the only thing we can assume.

But that would definitely interrupt those multijurisdictional efforts,

and those are so critical to being able to effectively reduce and end

homelessness.

Two is, personally, I just think it is a distraction from the

progress we have been really making well, and we do not need this

distraction at this point. Because the truth is, people have a pro

rata share now. This is a modified block grant, as far as I am concerned. That is what this proposal is.

So it is the best of both worlds, in my mind, because it is a modified pro rata share. There is predictability there. The argument

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about predictability really I do not think is very valid because of

the pro rata formulas that we use right now.

Also, I would say there are many communities that would suffer

financially from this. In Maine, we would suffer the loss of well

over $2 million that we really cannot afford to do. So there is definitely financial impact from it, as well.

Another thing I want to mention that worries me terribly is the

institutionalization of homelessness. You know, you give people

block grants. You say, you know what? We are not going to solve

this. We are going to perpetuate it, and potentially prolong it by

giving block grants to communities. And that I worry about, and

I worry about the local politics, because NMBE is alive and well

across the United States. If we do not have somebody like the Federal Government paying attention to what is happening, if we give

all the power and money to the localities in the States, I worry

about the expansion of NMBE and the use of that money in ways

that unintentionally maybe or intentionally perpetuate NMBE.

Senator DODD. It also helps a lot of good people at the local level,

as well. I mean it is how the International Monetary Fund works,

where they set up the rules to countries. They tell them how they

are going to manage things. Then they blame locally the IMF for

doing it. They understand why it has to be done locally, but they

blame. So, we become a good foil in a sense—— Ms. GLEASON. Yes.

Senator DODD. —where people who would like to see us do these

things and say that the Federal Government made us do it.

Ms. GLEASON. Right.

Senator DODD. Yes, Ms. Roman.

Ms. ROMAN. Well, I agree with the argument about institutionalization, although I will say that HUD has indictated its intention

to link funding to outcomes, and it is possible that there is a way

to front load a performance basis onto a block grant. Essentially

that is what the Continuum of Care is. From our point of view we

really do not have a particular interest for or against block grants,

but we have an interest in ending homelessness.

Block granting is really an administrative issue. As Mitchell

said, the money goes out to communities now. Once a year they get

their allocation. They spend it. And no matter how we alter the

administration, communities are still going to get their money once

a year. It is not going to matter to a homeless person how the

money goes out administratively.

I have not heard any serious complaints about the way the

money goes out now. It might be possible to look at administrative

improvements such as a 2 year application so communities would

not have to go through so much process just for renewals. So, we

would not have to do the whole Continuum every year; maybe we

could do a 2 year cycle. There would be more predictability.

But I really prefer the approach that Senator Reed has taken in

his bill, which is just to tidy up the existing system; simplify the

programs; consolidate the programs; but move forward.

If we block grant, we are going to spend a year arguing about

whether or not to block grant. Then another 2 years having communities get up to speed on how to use this new system. We will

be 3 years behind. It will have no impact on outcomes for homeless

36

people, or on ending homelessness. Zero. We will just be 3 years

farther along without having made any progress. I would much

rather spend the next 3 years trying to get an omnibus bill that

looks at HHS resources, VA, Education, and gets us somewhere.

I just do not see block granting as really impacting outcomes or

ending homelessness. I see it as an administrative matter that may

improve administration of the program at HUD. It will make it

easier for HUD to administer, to block grant. That is about all I

could say for it.

Senator DODD. It sounds like what I hear from all three of you

is what Senator Reed has put together makes sense?

Ms. ROMAN. To me it does, yes.

Mr. NETBURN. Absolutely.

Senator DODD. And I guess that suggests block granting at the

Federal level by consolidation of programs and then allowing the

Continuum of Care concept to work at the local level. That is the

hybrid you are suggesting.

Ms. GLEASON. I was just going to say, certainly in my conversations with HUD I believe that Senator Reed and his bill is very

close to the goals they want to reach, as well. I honestly do. So

some conversations between this Committee, Senator Reed, Secretary Martinez, and other people at HUD would really just push

us along. Because I honestly believe there are a lot of mutual goals.

Senator DODD. I should mention, he was not here, but I think

very highly of Secretary Martinez.

Ms. GLEASON. Right.

Senator DODD. He was a local official in the Orlando area. He

has a wonderful reputation as a developer in the private sector.

Then when he served on local planning boards and so forth, he

really had a wonderful record.

He is very forthcoming. He has actually been up to Connecticut

once, but we have tried to get him up to our area, Jack, to come

by, and we have other issues to address, housing authority questions and so forth, but I think that is a good suggestion, Ms. Gleason. And I am a strong supporter of what Jack is trying to do, and

I thank all three of you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Senator REED. Thank you very much, Senator Dodd, for your

questions. Let me conclude the hearing by thanking the witnesses,

all the witnesses, the Assistant Secretary and the representatives

of GAO, and our panel.

This is an issue that, as Ms. Gleason just said, seems to have

some emerging consensus and we are going to work to translate

that consensus into something palpable that will help end homelessness, we hope within 10 years.

If there are any additional comments that you would like to forward to us, do so quickly. If there are questions or requests, as

Senator Dodd made a request for additional information, I would

ask that you respond back to the Committee within 2 weeks.

Thank you very much. This hearing is adjourned.

[Whereupon, at 4:26 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]

[Prepared statements and response to written questions supplied

for the record follow:]

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PREPARED STATEMENT OF SENATOR SUSAN M. COLLINS

A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF MAINE

MARCH 6, 2002

Mr. Chairman, thank you for allowing me to be here today to take part in this

constructive dialogue on the future of Federal housing and homeless policies. Let

me first express my appreciation for your leadership and the work of Senator Allard

to serve the homeless population throughout the country.

I am pleased that the committee is working to reauthorize the McKinney–Vento

Homeless Assistance Act. The programs authorized by the Act have served the

citizens of Maine well, providing resources for shelters, new construction, rehabilitation, prevention, and numerous support services. Mr. Chairman, it has been a pleasure to work with you on possibilities for a reauthorization proposal. I am hopeful

that we can reauthorize the program by the end of this Congress in a manner that

incorporates innovative approaches to improving the delivery of services throughout

the country. I appreciate your initiative and look forward to continued collaboration.

We are fortunate to have a witness here today who has direct experience with the

Federal homelessness programs at the local level and has done a tremendous job

with the programs in Maine. It is my pleasure to introduce one of the Nation’s foremost advocates on behalf of homeless individuals, Mary Ann Gleason. Ms. Gleason

worked here in Washington for a number of years as the Executive Director of the

National Coalition for the Homeless, where she worked with Members of Congress,

the Administration, and Federal agencies to advocate for a public policy that expanded and better utilized Federal resources to prevent and address homelessness.

To the delight of those of us in Maine, Ms. Gleason decided to return to the front

line in 2001 and became the Director of the York County Initiative to End Homelessness. In that capacity, she has worked to promote both policy and attitudinal

change throughout the State. Her commitment and dedication to combating homelessness in Maine have had an immense impact on the success of our system, and

her work is to be commended.

Aside from her duties with York County, Ms. Gleason has also found time to act

as the Chair of the Monitoring and Evaluation Subcommittee on the Maine Homeless Assistance Planning and Advisory Committee, and she has been a member of

the Maine Affordable Housing Bond Issue Steering Committee. As we can see by

her presence here today and her numerous appearances before Congressional committees, Ms. Gleason continues to take an active role in Federal policy, and we are

the richer for her efforts. Ms. Gleason, thank you for being here today and for all

of the work you do in Maine. I look forward to hearing your testimony.

—————

PREPARED STATEMENT OF NAN P. ROMAN

PRESIDENT, NATIONAL ALLIANCE TO END HOMELESSNESS, WASHINGTON, DC

MARCH 6, 2002

Mr. Chairman, Senator Allard, and Members of the Subcommittee, on behalf of

our Board of Directors and partners, I am honored that you have invited the

National Alliance to End Homelessness to testify before you today on reauthorization of the McKinney–Vento Homeless Assistance Act housing programs and on how

these programs can be better used to make progress in the struggle to end homelessness in the Nation. The National Alliance to End Homelessness is convinced

that not only could our Nation do a better job of helping homeless people, but also

that ending homelessness is well within our reach. We very much appreciate the

Subcommittee’s history of accomplishment toward this goal. We are particularly

grateful for Chairman Reed’s recent work to draft a bill, provisionally entitled the

‘‘Community Homeless Assistance Act of 2002,’’ that will take a critically important

step in improving homeless assistance by simplifying and codifying the largest Federal homeless program—the HUD Homeless Assistance Grant Program.

The National Alliance to End Homelessness is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that was founded in 1983 by a group of leaders deeply disturbed by the emergence of a new social phenomenon—thousands of Americans living on the streets.

It is important to remember that prior to the 1980’s, there was not widespread

homelessness in the Nation. While there were certainly problems such as mental illness, drug abuse, and deep and pervasive poverty, people experiencing these problems were able to find a place to live. But then the seeds of deinstitutionalization,

loss of affordable housing stock, destruction of a million units of single-room occupancy housing, new kinds of illegal drugs and an increase in poor, single parent

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households began to take root. In the 1980’s, they grew into homelessness. The absence of widespread homelessness before the 1980’s is a reminder that homelessness

is not inevitable. It has not always existed, and it does not have to exist now.

From its founding in 1983, the focus of the National Alliance to End Homelessness (the Alliance) has shifted as the problem of homelessness and our knowledge

about it have changed. Once focused on food and shelter, today the Alliance and its

nonprofit, public sector, and corporate partners in every State in the Nation are

focused on permanent solutions to homelessness.

I am grateful to you for holding this hearing today. It is time to look at the effectiveness of our homeless assistance programs and to make the necessary adjustments to ensure that they have the best possible outcomes. In doing this we must

avoid the institutionalization of a system, which can manage but cannot eliminate

homelessness. We must, instead, try to make progress toward an improved system

that is results- and outcome-oriented. The decisions that you will make about reauthorization of the McKinney–Vento Act will affect which of these two paths we, as

a Nation, will travel.

Where We Stand on Homelessness

A recent Federal report, based upon the most extensive survey to date of homeless

assistance providers and their clients (conducted by the U.S. Bureau of the Census)

describes the situation. As of 1996 there were 40,000 programs to assist homeless

people in the Nation. This infrastructure of assistance has largely been formed in

the past 15 years, stimulated and sustained in good part by Federal funding. With

an infrastructure of this size and complexity, one might expect the size of the homelessness population to have been reduced over this period of time. In fact, this is

not the case. Despite the growing infrastructure of assistance, between 1987 and

1996 the size of the homeless population increased, from 2.5 to 3.5 million people

per year.

Is homelessness growing because the homeless system is ineffective? The answer

is no. In fact, the homeless assistance system helps hundreds of thousands of people

to escape homelessness every year. Indeed, it is becoming more effective. Through

the Continuum of Care process much progress has been made, and the vast majority

of people who become homeless exit the system relatively quickly and do not return.

For most individuals, the existing system does end homelessness.

Yet, the homeless assistance system cannot end homelessness overall, nor can it

reduce the number of homeless people. This is because it can neither prevent people

from becoming homeless, nor change the overall availability of housing, income, and

services that will truly end homelessness. In the final analysis, the homeless assistance system cannot close the front door into homelessness, and it cannot open the

back door out of homelessness.

Mainstream social programs, on the other hand, do have the ability to prevent

and end homelessness. These are programs like welfare, health care, mental health

care, public housing, substance abuse treatment, foster care, veterans assistance,

and so on. However, these programs are oversubscribed and underfunded. Increasingly, rather than being a true safety net that prevents people from becoming homeless, these mainstream systems shift the cost and responsibility for helping the most

vulnerable people to the homeless assistance system. Perversely, the better the

homeless system gets, the worse the mainstream system gets.

So there is a very dysfunctional situation that is quickly becoming institutionalized. There is a homelessness assistance system that manages the problem but cannot solve it. There is a mainstream system with far more resources that, instead

of solving the problem, has more incentive to shift cost and responsibility to the

homeless system. If this dynamic is not changed, homelessness will never go away.

If this approach to the problem is not altered, the American people will be paying

to support the current system forever.

How can this system be changed? Given that the draft bill addresses only the

HUD homelessness program, will it nevertheless help us make progress toward ending homelessness?

Ending Homelessness

To end homelessness, people will have to be prevented from becoming homeless—

the front door to homelessness will have to be closed. In addition, those who are

homeless will have to find somewhere to go when they exit the system—the back

door out of homelessness will have to be opened. These are not unrealistic goals.

They can be accomplished within the current parameters of the mainstream and

homeless systems. To do so will require four steps. The National Alliance to End

Homelessness believes that by following this course, homelessness can be ended in

10 years.

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PLANNING TO END HOMELESSNESS

First, jurisdictions and the Federal Government can plan to end, not simply to

manage, homelessness. A preliminary requirement is much better data collection at

the local level. Data can identify who is homeless, why they are homeless, how they

use the homeless and mainstream systems, and what is effective in ending their

homelessness. Based on solid data, jurisdictions can begin a planning process that

brings homelessness experts, and mainstream programs and resources, to the table

with a goal of ending homelessness.

CLOSING THE FRONT DOOR INTO HOMELESSNESS

Second, to prevent homelessness the mainstream programs must be adjusted so

that incentives favor helping the most vulnerable people rather than shifting this

responsibility to the homeless system. Federally funded mental health, substance

abuse, foster care and veterans programs, as well as corrections are among those

mainstream programs whose clients often become homeless. Furthermore, these systems provide inadequate assistance to people while they are homeless. Ultimately,

their performance must be improved if we are to make progress.

OPENING THE BACK DOOR OUT OF HOMELESSNESS

In terms of opening the back door, recent analysis of homelessness has revealed

that while most people (perhaps 80 percent) who become homeless exit the system

relatively quickly, the remaining 20 percent has a much more troubled experience.

Approximately 20 percent of the homeless population (200,000 people) spends

months, and even years, homeless. This group is also chronically disabled. It might

seem that housing chronically homeless and chronically disabled people in shelter

is a cost effective way of providing assistance. It is not. A recent exhaustive and

groundbreaking study by the University of Pennsylvania shows that a chronically

homeless, mentally ill person living on the streets of New York City exacts an annual public cost of approximately $40,000. [This is because members of this group

are high users of hospital emergency and intensive care facilities, jails and prisons,

and mental health beds while homeless.] For nearly the same expenditure on the

part of public systems of care (around $41,000 per year) that person can be provided

with permanent supportive housing and services.

So how can the back door be opened more widely?

The 80 percent of the homeless population who exit the system quickly (both families and single adults) initially entered the system because they experienced a housing crisis that resulted in their homelessness. Despite the near universal shortage

of affordable housing for poor people, they will find a way to house themselves.

Since the homeless system is unable to address the real cause of their problem—

the overall national shortage of affordable housing—its best course of action is to

facilitate their accommodation to this shortage and help them make it more quickly.

Accordingly, the Alliance recommends a ′′housing first′′ approach for most homeless

people—getting them quickly back into housing and linking them with appropriate

mainstream services—thus reducing their stay in shelter or transitional housing to

an absolute minimum. Although people who become homeless certainly need services, such services are most effective when delivered in permanent housing, rather

than while people are in unsettled, temporary housing. (There are exceptions. For

example, families fleeing a domestic violence situation usually need a period of time

in a sheltered and secure environment. Families in which adult(s) are just finishing

treatment for substance abuse also need intermediate levels of supportive housing.)

Affordable housing is ultimately the solution to homelessness for this group, and we

encourage any and all efforts to increase the supply of such housing. In the meantime, everything possible should be done to minimize the duration of homelessness

for families and individuals.

For chronically homeless people, there is also an answer—permanent supportive

housing, usually preceded by outreach and sometimes by intermediate treatment or

housing. Such housing is over 80 percent effective in achieving stability and is very

cost effective. Approximately 200,000 units of such housing would essentially eliminate chronic homelessness, empty the system of those who live in it through no

choice of their own, and change the dynamic of homelessness. This supply of permanent supportive housing could be achieved by retaining the set-aside of 30 percent

of the homeless funds for permanent supportive housing. Further, it requires that

the renewal funding for these units (Shelter Plus Care and Supportive Housing—

permanent housing program, or any permanent housing) be shifted to Section 8.

BUILDING THE INFRASTRUCTURE

Finally, while it is certainly true that the homeless assistance system can shorten

people’s experience of homelessness, and that mainstream programs can be better

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targeted so that clients and wards are not vulnerable to housing crisis, ultimately

this must be done in the context of addressing the larger systemic causes of homelessness. There is not enough affordable housing; earnings from employment and

benefits have not kept pace with the cost of housing for poor people; and services

that are needed for support and stability are not available to extremely low-income

people. Whatever is done must be done in the context of addressing these underlying needs.

The Federal Role

In the view of the Alliance, any initiative to change Federal homeless assistance

programs should be measured against the goal of helping the Nation to end homelessness. Does it facilitate better planning to end homelessness? Does it help prevent people from becoming homeless? Does it help create permanent housing? Does

it encourage greater responsibility of mainstream programs?

The bill Senator Reed has drafted does not presume to be able to end homelessness. This is in its favor since it is unrealistic to expect homeless programs to end

homelessness on their own. The bill does, however, tidy up the administration of the

current system and maximize the use of Federal resources to achieve positive outcomes. In addition, it takes steps to compel action in mainstream programs that will

lead us down the road to ending homelessness. Following is an evaluation of this

proposal relative to its impact on ending homelessness.

Local Planning

The draft bill creates a Community Homeless Assistance Planning Board (the

Board) that is made up of those who deliver and receive homeless assistance, as well

as the other significant sectors of the community. This Board is charged with devising an outcome-oriented plan to spend Federal resources, with developing long-term

plans for reducing and preventing homelessness in the jurisdiction, with examining

causes of homelessness, and with assessing and reporting on the success of projects

funded by the Act and also of the communities’ efforts to prevent and end homelessness. The goals of these planning Boards are admirable, and as they mirror the current system of planning and applying for Homeless Assistance Grants, they build

upon existing capacity. They press further, however, by requiring a more rigorous

outcome orientation and by requiring the community to look beyond the homeless

system for both the causes and solutions to homelessness.

Two improvements might be suggested in this area. First, without comprehensive

administrative data systems that can examine how clients and tenants use the

homeless system over time, from where they come, and to where they go, communities are unlikely to be able to achieve the level of planning or reporting anticipated in the draft bill. The achievements of cities like Columbus and Philadelphia

demonstrate the impact such data systems can have upon results. This could be

more explicitly addressed in the bill.

A second area to examine concerns the constitution and responsibilities of the

Boards. The Boards are required to do a tremendous amount of reporting, much of

it on the performance of public and private systems and institutions. They are asked

to address discharge planning and prevention policy and practice in systems of care

that are beyond their control. While this reporting would be useful, in and of itself

it is not likely to change these systems. It will be costly, and unless there is representation from relevant public and private agencies on the Board, the information

may be difficult to obtain. Frankly, the issues of discharge planning and the utilization of mainstream services might be more effectively addressed in companion legislation directed to the U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services, Justice, Veterans Affairs, etc. Alternatively, the bill might include incentives to encourage key

agencies to participate in local homeless planning. At a minimum, the bill could list

key public sector agencies that must participate in local Boards if local applications

are to be successfully funded.

Closing the Front Door

The draft bill includes numerous references to homelessness prevention and requires Boards to describe improvements in discharge from public institutions and

other prevention efforts. These are welcome shifts in emphasis. Again, a reauthorization of homeless assistance programs at HUD cannot be expected to compel action in a full range of public systems of care. This will have to be more substantively

addressed in future companion legislation.

Opening the Back Door

The bill draft clearly improves the outcome focus of the homeless assistance programs. It places the emphasis much more squarely on placement of people in permanent housing. The Alliance is particularly supportive of the set-aside of 30 percent

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of the funding for permanent housing for people with disabilities. In fact, you are

encouraged to go even further and target these resources to people who experience

chronic homelessness (and are also disabled) in order to make progress in helping

this most difficult to serve population.

The Alliance is also extremely supportive of the provision in the draft that provides funds for the renewal of permanent housing subsidies from the Section 8

account. This will allow, over time (an estimated 10 years), 200,000 chronically

homeless people to be provided with permanent supportive housing—a key step toward ending homelessness.

The Administration commits, in its fiscal year 2003 budget request, to end chronic

homelessness in 10 years. The Alliance fully supports this goal, as part of its own

goal of ending all homelessness in 10 years. Authorizing the 30 percent set-aside

for permanent supportive housing and shifting the renewal of this housing to the

Section 8 account would have a significant positive impact on the Nation’s ability

to end chronic homelessness in 10 years.

Finally, the Alliance applauds the bill’s focus on housing placement. Homelessness

funding will never be adequate to end poverty for the millions of people who enter

the homeless system every year. What can be expected is for the homeless system

to end people’s homelessness. People should be moved into housing as quickly as

possible, and the draft bill has provisions to encourage this preferred approach.

Building the Infrastructure

Since this bill focuses only on the homeless programs, it does not have a major

impact on the systemic changes needed, including improving the supply of affordable housing, providing adequate incomes, or adequately addressing service needs.

It is important to note, however, that to the degree that new permanent supportive

housing or housing for families is developed, the affordable housing supply can be

increased.

Summary

Millions of people become homeless in our Nation each year and thousands of nonprofit and public sector agencies spend billions of dollars to help them. This system

functions fairly well to manage the problem. However, because it cannot stop people

from becoming homeless, and does not create the housing that can end their homelessness, this homeless assistance system cannot reasonably be expected to end

homelessness overall.

And homelessness can be ended. To make progress toward this goal, the Federal

Government can do two things. First, it can adjust the existing homeless programs

to improve their outcome orientation. It can distribute money more rapidly; focus

resources more tightly on the goal of ending homelessness for individuals and families by moving them more quickly into permanent housing; create an adequate supply of permanent supportive housing for chronically homeless people; and be more

attentive to emergency prevention measures such as rent assistance that can divert

people from the homeless system altogether.

The second step, however, is beyond the purview of the homeless system. It

involves making mainstream systems of care and custodial systems more responsive

to the housing needs of those they serve, and preventing them from shifting these

people and the cost of serving them into the homeless assistance system. It involves

the creation of more affordable housing, the provision of adequate incomes, and the

provision of services adequate to meet needs.

The draft bill Senator Reed and his wonderful staff have developed does a good

job of addressing the first task. It builds upon a successful system of delivering

resources. Communities are highly invested in this system, which is well embedded

in communities. It makes sense to focus on improving the existing administrative

infrastructure rather than replacing that infrastructure. Creating a whole new

infrastructure is unlikely to have any significant impact on ending homelessness.

The draft bill tightens up the existing system by codifying its procedures, including

the allocation formula and the planning body. It focuses the program much more

tightly on outcomes and outcome-based planning. It authorizes critical provisions

necessary to end homelessness, including targeting a proportional amount of the resources to permanent supportive housing, and normalizing the renewal of housing

for homeless people. Overall, it improves the administration of current programs,

and shifts their focus to improve outcomes. The National Alliance to End Homelessness believes that this is a positive step.

As to the second part of the Federal responsibility, the draft bill sets the stage

for positive change. Mainstream systems of care and custodial systems such as prisons must be engaged to close the front door into homelessness and open the door

58

1Three of those cities, Glendale, Pasadena, and Long Beach, submit their own Continuum of

Care application, but have been coordinating their Homeless Management Information System

planning with LAHSA. 2The Number of Homeless People in Los Angeles City and County: July 1993 to June 1994.

Shelter Partnership, Inc., Los Angeles. November 1995. 3 Cousineau, Michael R. and Brian Shimabakura, ‘‘The Five Year Prevalence of Homelessness

in Los Angeles County: Findings from the L.A. County Health Survey,’’ Institute for the Study

of Homelessness and Poverty Colloquia presentation, Los Angeles, January 20, 1999.

out of homelessness. The Alliance looks forward to working with the Members of

the Committee on this critical task in the future.

—————

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MITCHELL NETBURN

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, LOS ANGELES HOMELESS SERVICES AUTHORITY

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

MARCH 6, 2002

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Subcommittee, I am honored that you have

invited the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority to testify in support of the

reauthorization of the McKinney–Vento Homeless Assistance Act.

The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, known as LAHSA, is a joint

powers authority of the City and County of Los Angeles. Founded in 1993, LAHSA

is governed by a 10 member commission. Each of the 5 Los Angeles County Supervisors appoints one commissioner and the Mayor of the city of Los Angeles appoints

the other 5 commissioners.

LAHSA has been the lead coordinator for the second largest Continuum of Care

system in the country since the inception of HUD’s Continuum of Care funding

process. Prior to the establishment of LAHSA, there had been no local coordination

of funding for homeless housing and services. The Continuum of Care requirements

enabled LAHSA to vigorously pursue a regional approach to addressing homelessness. This is critical to successfully address homelessness, especially given the geography covered by our Continuum—four thousand square miles—and the extreme

differences in infrastructure and needs across our county. Moreover, Los Angeles

County encompasses 88 jurisdictions, including 34 entitlement cities.1 McKinney–

Vento funding has made it possible for LAHSA to provide critically needed leadership in integrating services across jurisdictional boundaries and between homeless

and mainstream service delivery systems.

We are proud of the collaborative efforts stimulated by the Continuum of Care

and support reauthorization of the McKinney–Vento Homeless Assistance Act to

codify the Continuum of Care and a competitive process for obtaining funding for

homeless programs.

Nature and Extent of Homelessness in Los Angeles County

The most commonly used estimate indicates that there are 84,000 men, women,

and children homeless on any given night in Los Angeles County.2 A more recent

County survey found that 375,000 adults experienced homelessness in the previous

5 years. While many of these persons doubled up in someone else’s home, up to half

resorted to staying on the streets or in shelters.3

Since 1995, the Los Angeles Continuum of Care has received over $325 million

through the McKinney–Vento Act. In the last year alone, McKinney–Vento funded

programs that served more than 63,000 homeless men, women, and children. These

programs include outreach services, supportive services, emergency shelter, and

transitional and permanent housing. Among them are model programs in the area

of specialized employment services for homeless persons, the relocation of families

living in shelters to permanent housing, and permanent supportive housing lauded

for addressing chronic homelessness and its contribution to neighborhood improvement. McKinney–Vento funding has enabled localities to leverage millions of dollars

in private funding and investment while also contributing to the aesthetic improvement of many low-income neighborhoods.

Notwithstanding this significant level of Federal support for homeless persons, we

face very real challenges to ending homelessness. Over the last 10 years, Los

Angeles County has experienced increasing poverty and diminishing housing resources for our lowest-income residents. Los Angeles County is reporting, despite a

31⁄2 percent drop in unemployment since 1990, poverty in the County has increased

by 46 percent. These conditions have fueled greater demand for homeless services

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4 Citywide vacancy rate from January 1998 through January 2002 for multifamily, individually metered housing units. Los Angeles Housing Department/Policy and Planning Unit.

http://www.lacity.org/lahd/vacchart.PDF. 5 ‘‘Housing Less Affordable as Rent-Wage Gap Widens,’’ Los Angeles Times, October 3, 2001.

even before the local economy began to experience general economic hardship since

last fall.

Specifically within the City of Los Angeles, there is a 3.5 percent rental housing

vacancy rate,4 among the lowest rate in the last 4 years. Not only does this mean

a tighter housing market for low-income renters, but also those who are fortunate

enough to receive a Section 8 voucher are finding fewer and fewer landlords willing

to rent to them. The City’s Housing Authority reports that only 41 percent of households issued vouchers are able to use them.5 On a brighter note, the Los Angeles

City Council last week adopted the Mayor’s plan for establishing a $100 million

Housing Trust Fund. And this November, voters in the State of California will have

the opportunity to approve over $2 billion in bond financing for affordable housing.

We are looking forward to unprecedented funding opportunities at the local, State,

and Federal level to finally end homelessness. In reauthorizing the McKinney–Vento

Homeless Assistance Act, you have the opportunity to harness this momentum and

provide the Federal leadership necessary to end homelessness.

Recommendations for Reauthorization of the McKinney–Vento Homeless

Assistance Act

In looking toward reauthorization, our experience tells us that the collaborative,

community-based process generated by the Continuum of Care works. Our system

as a whole is better, more vigorous, and more integrated because of the incentives

created by the Continuum of Care to engage in a broadly inclusive planning process

and to identify the resources in mainstream systems that need to serve our homeless clients.

We have, however, outgrown the current McKinney–Vento Act and offer these

recommendations:

• Keep the program flexible. Every community has different circumstances that call

for different approaches to addressing homelessness. The strength of the existing

McKinney–Vento system is that it allows localities to determine how they can best

use the funding to meet the needs of homeless individuals and families. In some

communities, local governmental agencies are strong advocates for service

delivery and understand how to work with their nonprofit partners to serve the

homeless. In other areas, the nonprofit community is better positioned to lead

that decisionmaking process. By allowing localities to decide who is best suited

to lead the planning effort and apply for funding, we avoid the difficulties that

often occur when disinterested entities are the appointed recipients for funding. • Ensure Federal coordination of homeless programs by locating the Interagency

Council on Homelessness in the White House Domestic Policy Office. While nearly

all of LAHSA’s funding for homeless programs originates in the U.S. Department

of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), many of the homeless housing and

service agencies that we fund are also funded by other Federal Departments,

including the Departments of Veterans’ Affairs, Health and Human Services,

Labor and Education. Coordination of funding and programs could be furthered

by having a centralized presence in the White House to oversee a national plan

to end homelessness. • Lift the cash match requirement for permanent housing. Developers in our system

have reported that the 25 percent cash match requirement under the SHP

permanent housing program has hampered efforts to use this program in the Los

Angeles area. Although new sources of local funding are on the horizon, securing

and documenting the cash match for this process is not always feasible. This in

turn inhibits development of the permanent affordable housing we so desperately

need to end homelessness. • Move the renewal of Shelter Plus Care and Supportive Housing Program Permanent Housing Contracts to the Housing Certificate Fund. By the time these

programs are ready to renew, they have demonstrated their effectiveness and the

tenants in the programs are no longer homeless. Therefore, we urge you to consider these renewing programs as ‘‘mainstream,’’ thereby allowing renewals to be

funded from a mainstream source.

• Provide for Homeless Management Information Systems funding. Several years

ago, Congress wisely directed HUD to embark on implementing computerized

data collection. LAHSA has begun working on a countywide homeless management information system that would be used not only by McKinney–Vento-funded

programs, but by agencies serving the homeless that do not receive Federal fundVerDate 11-MAY-2000 07:27 Jul 23, 2003 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00063 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6621 88411.TXT SBANK4 PsN: SBANK4
60

ing. We have embraced this opportunity to establish a system that will help homeless persons access services, providers to track the work that they do, and allow

localities to assess the effectiveness of their programs. However, this entails considerable costs that we cannot sustain with local funding. We look to you to

ensure that the HMIS requirement will not be an unfunded mandate. • Retain the competitive process for homeless services funding. While administering

an annual competition does consume significant local resources, the system is

better for it. The current process is a catalyst that empowers us to work closely

with agencies from the 31 entitlement cities within our Continuum of Care, as

well as with the County-administered housing, health, and welfare systems.

Therefore, LAHSA has historically opposed the block granting of Federal homeless

assistance funds.

I thank you for this opportunity to share the experiences of Los Angeles County

and our suggestions for improving the existing legislation. I strongly support your

efforts to reauthorize the McKinney–Vento Homeless Assistance Act so that we will

have the critical resources and Federal leadership necessary to end homelessness.

—————

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MARY ANN GLEASON

DIRECTOR, YORK COUNTY INITIATIVE TO END HOMELESSNESS, ALFRED, MAINE

MARCH 6, 2002

Good afternoon, Senators, and others concerned about homelessness in our

Nation. Thank you, Senator Reed, for your kind invitation to appear before the Subcommittee. Thank you, Senator Collins, for your gracious introduction.

The Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act was enacted into law in July

1987, as the first, and to date only, major Federal legislative response to homelessness as a national issue of grave concern. According to the Urban Institute, as many

as 842,000 persons on any given night, and up to 31⁄2 million a year become homeless in the United States.

In Maine, the number of admissions into our shelters grew by 51 percent over the

last 4 years. Thirty-two percent of those who become homeless in our State are

families; 11 percent are youth; 13 percent are veterans; 37 percent are employed;

nearly 45 percent are challenged by disabilities. Sixty-one percent are high school

graduates. Twelve percent have attended at least a year of college; in Portland, 29

percent have graduated from, or at least attended college. The average monthly income of shelter residents in Maine is $240. It is also important to know that 68

percent of those who entered the shelters were homeless in some other form prior

to doing so, and prior, therefore, to being counted. They were doubled or tripled up

with friends or relatives, living in motels, cars, tents, speaking loudly to us of how

many more live so close to the edge that simply doing shelter or street counts cannot tell us the scope of the problem.

Since passage of the McKinney bill, Rhode Island, Maine, Conneticut, Colorado,

and every other State has been the recipient of HUD homeless assistance funds that

have supported the development of many highly effective programs that not only

allowed us to redress homelessness for those who suffer it, but also serve as models

for addressing the holistic needs of vulnerable families and individuals. In Denver,

McKinney funds helped renovate a portion of 92 rental housing units, half of which

were no longer livable and contributed to the growing blight and crime in the neighborhood. Having significantly upgraded the community’s self-regard, these units

now provide permanent housing shared by persons challenged by mental illness who

had lived on the streets for years of their lives, high-tech employees, factory workers, other families, and individuals of mixed incomes in an integrated model we can

all feel good about. In another, new construction of a complex of permanent affordable housing units for diverse populations that includes a childcare center used by

the broader neighborhood of homeowners, as well as children homeless in the recent

past. In Maine, we are developing housing on an organic farm for late-stage alcoholics who have become homeless to bring meaning and hope back to their lives,

and to provide vegetables and herbs for the bakery and catering service where

shelter residents can develop skills in culinary arts from a terrific chef. In Columbus, the housing first model moves families out of shelters within 2 weeks and into

permanent housing with transitional services, so they can quickly be reintegrated

into the larger society. Developed now in many States, highly efficacious supportive

housing programs also provide employment opportunities for persons with disabilities that help them feel whole again. For families who have suffered domestic violence and consequent homelessness, we are designing a cohousing model to create

61

the community that September 11 taught us is America at her best. Nationally,

HUD’s McKinney programs have had a positive impact in every State in the Union.

The diversity of the local responses has resulted in significant cross-fertilization of

good ideas and best practices.

Having read a draft of your bill, Senator Reed, I am delighted to say it builds

on much that is highly effective in HUD’s McKinney programs, and it improves elements needing such. I will mention a few:

1. It consolidates the separate McKinney programs and eliminates the constraints they imposed to maximize flexibility, creativity, and local decisionmaking.

2. It provides funding for the first time for permanent housing for nondisabled

families.

3. It removes the caps on funding for transitional and permanent housing to

more realistically reflect the cost of housing construction and renovation at the

diversity of localities in our States.

4. It provides financial incentives to help build the funding capacity of nonprofits so they can create housing stock for those poorest among us that other

Federal housing programs keep moving away from.

5. It requires limited and appropriate Federal oversight to insure that the

Federal Government does not abnegate its rightful role to effectively address

the needs our most vulnerable citizens.

6. It brings to the table both targeted homeless and mainstream program

recipients, public and private, to collaborate their planning, implementation,

and evaluation activities in order to utilize available resources in a manner that

can maximize outcome effectiveness, reduce duplication, and reverse policies

and procedures that unintentionally either stimulate or prolong homelessness.

7. It places responsibility for interagency collaboration at the Federal level in

the hands of the Domestic Policy Council within the Office of the President to

help ensure each Federal agency assumes their responsibility for preventing

and ending homelessness using the resources under their administration.

Talking about homelessness is actually a dialogue about deeper and broader

issues that narrowing to a topic too easily dismissed is neither accurate nor

informed. It is a dialogue about the lack of opportunity for housing stability, an essential condition for family health and well-being, retaining steady employment and

employees, children succeeding in school, neighborhoods retaining their quality and

safety, disabled and elderly persons living as full and dignified a life as possible.

It is a dialogue about the unfinished business of deinstitutionalization—insuring

that community-based housing, treatment and support services are available and

affordable. It is a dialogue about welfare reform whose enlightened purpose would

be economic viability for the participating families, not naively moving the rolls into

hidden or blatant homelessness. It is a dialogue about recipients of Federal block

grants that fund behavioral health care, not being held accountable for the poorest

and most vulnerable of their target populations. It is a dialogue about wages and

cash assistance benefits that remain remarkably disproportionate to the cost of

housing and other basic needs. We can respond in one of two ways—increase income

levels so housing is affordable at whatever costs the market requires, or we can significantly increase the public investment in producing and sustaining affordable

housing. Doing neither is a prescription for protracted homelessness. Housing policy

in America is primarily investment policy, an approach that is simply inadequate

to meeting the housing needs of the disabled person whose annual SSI income is

$6,000 a year, or a full-time worker earning even $7.00 an hour. The larger housing

dialogue is about producing housing and not simply talking about producing housing. It is about 36,000 new housing vouchers being proposed nationwide for 2003,

when in one city alone, there are 150,000 eligible households on the waiting list.

Finally, homelessness is about a shredded and shameful safety net, including the

lack of health care, in a Nation blessed with both the resources and the ingenuity

to be fairer than that. I look at the weight of poverty, and burden of disregard that

homelessness represents and wonder how, having so much, we have come so far

from what is right and just.

In conclusion, we suggest that these broader issues that form the structural

underpinnings of homelessness must be addressed through omnibus legislation,

similar but broader than the original McKinney legislation. We would be delighted

to help you to pursue such legislation, replicating the highly collaborative process

that resulted in the Community Partnership to End Homelessness Act of 2002.

Thank you for listening. I would be happy to answer any questions.

62

RESPONSE TO WRITTEN QUESTIONS OF SENATOR REED FROM

ROY A. BERNARDI

Q.1. How many units of housing have been created with McKinney

funds? How many of these are permanent housing units?

A.1. HUD records and tracks information regarding housing created under the McKinney–Vento Act using Annual Performance

Report (APR) data submitted by project grantees. APR data records

beds created and sustained rather than housing units. On the basis

of the most current analysis of APR data, HUD’s McKinney–Vento

Act programs have created and are currently funding 155,000 beds

of which 43,000 are permanent housing beds.

Q.2. How many communities has HUD provided McKinney funding

to since its inception. Have both urban and rural communities been

able to access the funds?

A.2. The vast majority of the grantees under HUD’s McKinney–

Vento Act programs are nonprofit organizations, not communities.

Therefore, the precise number of communities where projects have

been assisted since 1987 is not known. However, in fiscal year

2002, $150 million in formula-based funding under the Emergency

Shelter Grants (ESG) Program was provided to 324 metropolitan

cities and urban counties, 50 States, Puerto Rico and the territories. In the fiscal year 2001 Continuum of Care (CoC) homeless

competition, over $900 million was allocated to nearly 400 Continuum of Care jurisdictions covering almost 90 percent of the

population of the Nation. Rural and urban communities can access

both the ESG and the CoC competitive funds. We estimate that

approximately 11 percent of the 2001 competitive funds had been

awarded to projects in rural communities.

Q.3. The Administration has made ending chronic homelessness in

the next decade a top objective, but HUD’s programs will continue

to be funded at $1.1 billion. When we asked you if this funding

level was sufficient to meet the Administration’s goal, you said that

this level would not achieve the desired result. Please provide us

with an analysis of the appropriate level of HUD funding needed

to achieve this goal if budget constraints were not an issue.

A.3. The HUD program that most directly works toward ending

chronic homelessness is the Shelter Plus Care Program. This program provides rental assistance for permanent supportive housing

for disabled homeless persons. HUD has committed to request

additional funding above the current funding level to ensure that

all otherwise eligible Shelter Plus Care renewal projects can

be renewed. The renewal demand for fiscal year 2003 is estimated

to be $118 million and is increasing annually as additional S+C

projects seek renewal. Although it is difficult to project exact renewal needs due to the flexible nature of the 5 year grants, based

upon already approved 1 year renewals and projected renewals of

5 year grants, it is estimated that the renewal demand for Shelter

Plus Care will be approximately $200 million in fiscal year 2004.

In order to meet this increasing demand and still have enough

funds to continue funding new and renewal Supportive Housing

Program, the budget request will need to be adjusted appropriately.

63

Additionally, HUD has moved aggressively to encourage our

applicants to seek needed funding for supportive services from the

mainstream supportive service programs of HHS, VA, the Social

Security Administration, the Department of Agriculture, and other

agencies. As the transition to other sources continues, a growing

percentage of HUD’s funding is being freed up for use in developing

housing. As a result, large additional increases in HUD’s homeless

appropriations, beyond the S+C renewal costs noted above, are not

anticipated.

Q.4. What is the Secretary’s plan for achieving funding commitments and active engagement from other Federal agencies—for

example, HHS, DOL, DOE—toward the goal of preventing and

ending homelessness?

A.4. The Department of Housing and Urban Development is working with a variety of other Federal agencies to prevent and end

chronic homelessness in the United States. In particular, we have

undertaken several major initiatives with the Department of

Health and Human Services (HHS) to not only coordinate activities

but also, most importantly, to open up the enormous resources tied

to the HHS mainstream supportive service programs for use in

meeting the critical supportive service needs of homeless persons.

On a monthly basis, a senior level task force composed of

representatives from HHS, HUD, and the Department of Veterans

Affairs (VA) meets monthly to discuss funding availability and

areas for eliminating duplication. The goal of the Task Force is to

discuss access to programs and how to eliminate obstacles that

prevent homeless persons from obtaining supportive services. To

this end, we have collaborated on definitions for supportive service

programs and, for the first time, these joint HUD/HHS definitions

are included in HUD’s 2002 Homeless Assistance Funding Application. Similar interdepartmental coordination has been achieved in

the development of Policy Academies funded by HUD and HHS in

which State governments are actively engaged in identifying and

eliminating barriers that currently prevent homeless persons from

accessing supportive service funding.

HUD’s efforts to coordinate access to Federal funds are now

being assisted by the Interagency Council for the Homeless. The

Agency, with the new leadership of the Director, Philip Mangano,

is responsible for: (1) planning and coordinating the Federal Government’s actions and programs to assist homeless people, and

making or recommending policy changes to improve such assistance; (2) monitoring and evaluating assistance to homeless persons

provided by all levels of government and the private sector; (3) ensuring that technical assistance is provided to help community and

other organizations effectively assist homeless persons; and (4) disseminating information on Federal resources available to assist the

homeless population.

Q.5. You say in your testimony that you are intending to make

changes to the Continuum of Care application process to focus less

on process and more on outcomes. What types of changes are you

intending to make?

A.5. The following changes have been made in HUD’s fiscal year

2002 Continuum of Care application process:

64

• HUD has established a goal for eliminating chronic homelessness

within 10 years. In this year’s application, HUD is requiring

communities to provide their strategy for ending chronic homelessness and to report any progress that has been made over the

past year that would contribute to this goal. HUD is still requiring communities to set goals, action steps, and a timetable for

achievement of the goals that address their other homelessness

needs.

• In HUD’s upcoming national competition, under the Supportive

Housing Program, applicants may include, as an eligible activity,

the development and implementation of homeless management

information systems (HMIS). This will allow communities to

track their homeless clients and report unduplicated data to

HUD regarding client outcomes that is, types of housing clients

reside in, supportive services provided, homeless provider information, etc.

• State and local government applicants must certify that they

have a discharge plan for the discharge of persons from publicly

funded institutions or systems of care if they request funding

under the CoC programs, for example, Supportive Housing,

Shelter Plus Care, and Section 8 Moderate Rehabilitation for

SRO programs. In this year’s application, applicants that certified in 2001 are required to describe any discharge policy or

protocols they have developed.

• Project applicants are now required to provide information in the

application regarding the progress made by homeless clients

based on program goals. The program goals are: (1) residential

stability, (2) increased client skills or incomes and (3) greater

self-determination.

• HUD is placing greater emphasis on housing assistance for

homeless individuals and families. In the 2002 CoC competition,

HUD will award up to 5 points to Continuums whose total

approvable funds go toward housing activities as opposed to supportive services activities. Housing activities consist of rental

assistance; and acquisition, rehabilitation, new construction,

leasing and operating costs for supportive housing projects.

Q.6. Many credit HUD’s Continuum of Care with improving coordination of homeless programs and providing a more comprehensive

approach to homelessness within communities. However, the Continuum of Care has traditionally focused more on targeted rather

than mainstream programs. We know that access to mainstream

programs (such as, Medicaid, SSI, and Food Stamps) by homeless

people is a serious concern. What are your ideas on how to provide

communities with an opportunity to better coordinate and integrate

their mainstream and homeless programs? What key actions or

strategies does HUD feel should be taken in order to reduce the

barriers that homeless people face in accessing mainstream Federal

programs?

A.6. HUD began encouraging communities to integrate mainstream

resources in their Continuum of Care planning in last year’s competition by requesting that the community describe their strategy

to coordinate homeless assistance with various mainstream programs. This year’s application places more emphasis and scoring

65

points on the continuum-wide strategy to identify homeless persons

eligible for mainstream programs, enroll them in the programs and

ensure that they receive assistance. In addition to encouraging continuum-wide strategy to access mainstream programs, HUD is also

rating individual projects on their plan to ensure that all homeless

clients will be assisted in obtaining benefits under mainstream programs. We believe that this may encourage continuums to work

more closely with mainstream providers that have not traditionally

been involved with the Continuum of Care.

HUD has also been actively participating in a senior level working group that includes representatives from HHS and VA. The

working group meets monthly to try to overcome barriers that

homeless people face in accessing mainstream Federal programs.

In addition to this working group, HHS and HUD have sponsored

two policy academies for State and local policy makers to improve

access to mainstream services for homeless persons. State teams

attending the academies are to prepare a State Action Plan that

identified specific strategies for overcoming barriers to accessing

mainstream programs.

Q.7. The most recent Conference of Mayor’s study of hunger and

homelessness states that demand for emergency shelter has increased in 2001 and that most applicants for public housing and

Section 8 vouchers are on a 1 year or more waiting list. What does

HUD propose to do to increase the supply of affordable housing to

meet these needs?

A.7. Within the limits of the current budget constraints tied to the

war against terror and the slowing economy, HUD’s fiscal year

2003 budget seeks to expand the number of households that can

afford the costs of rental housing, as identified below:

• We are requesting 34,000 additional housing vouchers. • We are proposing a $74 million increase in HOME funding, even

after taking out the $200 million for the American Dream Downpayment Fund. • We are continuing our strong commitment to Section 202 for the

elderly and Section 811 for the disabled. • We are adding $15 million to the Housing Opportunity For Persons With AIDS Program—raising it from $277 million to $292

million. • We will continue to emphasize permanent housing solutions to

addressing the needs of the long-term homeless using McKinney– Vento Continuum of Care funds.

Q.8. In your testimony, you discuss HUD’s concept of a Joint Task

Force to seek ways to increase the use of mainstream supportive

service funds. How is this group’s purpose different than the Interagency Council on the Homeless (ICH)?

A.8. As more fully discussed in response to question 4 above, HUD

has joined with HHS and VA in a joint, senior-level working group

that is working to coordinate delivery of housing and supportive

service assistance to homeless persons. While this objective is consistent with the goals of the ICH, the purpose of the HUD/HHS/

VA working group is focused on a very specific objective that is now

limited to these three agencies. Additionally, at the time the working group was initiated in February 2001, the ICH had not been

66

reestablished. Upon installation of the ICH Director, the working

group has been coordinating its activities with ICH Director Philip

Mangano.

Q.9. In your testimony, you also discuss the use of ‘‘Policy Academies’’ to assist State and local policymakers in developing Action

Plans intended to improve access to mainstream health and human

services that are coordinated with housing. Please describe these

Policy Academies, their purpose and who was involved in planning

and attending such Academies?

A.9. The idea for the Policy Academy concept originated after a

national meeting in September 2000 titled ‘‘Building Partnerships

for Access to Health Care and Social Services for Persons Who Are

Homeless. ‘‘ In this session, HUD and HHS officials asked stakeholders to describe barriers and solutions to better uses of multiple

funding sources. As an outgrowth of this conference, HUD and

HHS formed a joint working group that later grew to include VA.

The mission of this group was to develop a project that would focus

States on how their current policies and program resources could

be coordinated and integrated at the State level to improve their

ability to serve the homeless. Our research revealed how little

State officials knew about each other’s programs and areas of

responsibility and consequently what the Policy Academies could

accomplish. The purpose of the Policy Academy is to bring individuals from the same State together, sometimes for the first time,

with the task of developing a statewide Action Plan to improve

access of the homeless population in their States, to mainstream

health and human services.

All States and Territories were invited to apply for slots in the

two planned Policy Academies. Thirty-seven States applied. The

sixteen top scoring applications were selected. The initial Academy

took place November 26–28, 2001, in Santa Fe, New Mexico, focusing on how to increase the access of families and children to mainstream resources. The second Policy Academy is scheduled for April

9–11, 2002, in Boston, Massachusetts, and will focus on the adults

who are disabled and have experienced chronic homelessness. Each

State team is assigned a facilitator who continues to work with the

team over the following year as the Action Plan is developed and

implemented. There are tentative plans to hold additional Policy

Academies and a National meeting that will be open to all who are

interested in hearing more about the State Plan process and understanding the direction of the HUD/HHS collaboration.

RESPONSE TO WRITTEN QUESTIONS OF SENATOR REED FROM

STANLEY J. CZERWINSKI

Q.1. Your statement highlighted the need for better integration of

homeless assistance programs. Why is this so important?

A.1. Numerous studies have demonstrated that the multiple and

complex needs of homeless people—which may include medical

care, mental health care, substance abuse treatment, housing,

income support, and employment services—should not be addressed

in isolation but rather through programs that are integrated and

that are coordinated. Yet, as we and others have reported in the

past, the Federal Government’s system for providing assistance to

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low-income people is highly fragmented. Each Federal assistance

program usually has its own eligibility criteria, application, documentation requirements, and time frames; moreover, applicants

may need to travel to many locations and interact with many

caseworkers to receive assistance, Among other things, this fragmentation can make it difficult to develop an integrated approach

to helping homeless people, who often have multiple needs.

Q.2. Mr. Czerwinski, some local communities use outcome measures to evaluate their homeless programs. What do you believe are

the benefits of using outcome measures to evaluate homeless programs? What kind of information do you believe communities need

to collect in order to effectively measure outcomes? Is HUD or any

other agency collecting such data?

A.2. The benefit of using outcome measures to evaluate homeless

programs is that the data can be used to hold programs accountable for their performance. Our work in 1999 showed that homeless

assistance services are increasingly being evaluated by measuring

outcomes (such as number of clients who are no longer homeless)

rather than outputs (such as number of shelter beds provided).

Measuring program outcomes generally requires the ability to collect data at the client-level (rather than the aggregate community

level) and over an extended period (rather than at a single point

in time). Implementing such data gathering can require significant

planning and development of appropriate management information

systems. Nevertheless, we reported in 1999 that communities were

increasingly using outcome measures to manage their homeless

assistance programs. For example, in Minnesota the Family Homeless Prevention and Assistance Program provides agencies with

grants they can use very flexibly, as long as the agency sets specific

outcome goals, develops a method for tracking those outcomes, and

reports on those outcomes. Similarly, the Ohio Department of

Development requires its homeless assistance grantees to develop

performance targets that they are then held accountable for achieving. HUD said that it has begun collecting data through its Homeless Management Information System.

RESPONSE TO WRITTEN QUESTIONS OF SENATOR REED FROM

NAN P. ROMAN

Q.1. You state in your testimony that, ‘‘there is an overall national

shortage of affordable housing . . . earnings from employment and

benefits have not kept pace with the cost of housing for poor people.’’ What do you suggest should be done to increase the supply

of affordable housing?

A.1. Increasing the supply of affordable housing requires both production of more low-cost housing and subsidies to very poor people

so that they can afford the housing, even if the cost is very low.

HUD says that there is a shortage of 5.3 million units of affordable housing. To achieve an adequate supply of affordable housing,

this gap would have to be filled with increased production. To

achieve more production, it will be necessary either to devote substantial new resources to housing production, or to target existing

resources much more tightly to production of very low-cost housing.

A variety of strategies can be used to distribute the increased

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resources and produce the housing. Housing can be produced by

for-profit, nonprofit, or public sector entities. Each has its advantages and disadvantages. It can be produced through increasing

funding to existing programs such as HOME, the Low Income

Housing Tax Credit, Section 202, and Section 811 (which the Alliance has supported), and/or through a new production vehicle such

as the National Housing Trust Fund (which the Alliance has also

supported). Increased funding can be obtained through new appropriations, and/or through targeting existing resources to the

production of very low-cost housing. The bottom line is money.

Without more money, either new or redirected, devoted to the production of low-cost housing, the gap will not be filled.

Even if there were substantial new production of very inexpensive housing, there would be a sizeable group of people who could

not afford to live in it. In fact, using the Federal standard of 30

percent of income for rent a substantial percentage of renters could

not afford to pay for the costs of operating housing, even if all capital costs were covered. There is simply no way to reduce the cost

of housing to a level that extremely low-income people can afford

without subsidy. So, additional subsidy will be required. This can

be provided via Section 8 or other subsidy vehicles. It has been suggested, for example, that there be a renters’ tax deduction similar

to the mortgage interest tax deduction. Another suggestion is that

there be a tax credit for excessive (above 30 percent of income)

housing cost burden. Again, the issue is money.

The short answer to the question, then, is that more money is

needed to increase the supply of affordable housing. The vehicle

through which this money is delivered is less important than the

money itself.

Q.2. Why is moving the renewals grants for the Shelter Plus Care

Program and the permanent housing components of SHP to the

Housing Certificate Fund so important to ending and preventing

homelessness?

A.2. Spending 30 percent of the HUD Homeless Assistance Grant

program funds on incremental permanent supportive housing over

10 years would result in the availability of 200,000 units of permanent supportive housing for disabled homeless people, according to

Alliance calculations. Based upon available data about homelessness, there are an estimated 200,000 chronically homeless people

in the Nation. This strategy, therefore, holds the hope of ending

chronic homelessness. By removing the chronically homeless population from the homeless system, moreover, additional resources

would become available to assist people who become homeless for

shorter periods of time.

This supply of permanent housing will not be amassed, however,

if the subsidy contracts are renewed from this same 30 percent setaside, (unless additional resources are added every year). Three

hundred million dollars worth of incremental subsidies are needed

every year. We recommend that the renewals come from the Housing Certificate Fund, as this is the most well-accepted method of

funding renewals. However, any mechanism that funded the

renewals would suffice. We estimate that after 10 years, when the

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supply of housing was around 200,000 units, the cost of maintaining rent subsidy would be something over $1 billion per year.

Q.3. Could you describe Dr. Dennis Culhane’s University of Pennsylvania study results on the cost of supportive housing for the

chronically homeless? What long-term benefits are derived from

providing services and housing to these individuals?

A.3. Dr. Culhane’s 5 year study tracked 4,679 mentally ill individuals in New York City for 2 years while they were homeless and

for 2 years after they were housed in permanent supportive housing. The objective of the study was to assess how many public

dollars were spent by and on these individuals both pre- and posthousing. This was determined by tracking their use of publicly

funded service systems—emergency shelters, psychiatric centers,

hospitals, jails, and prisons. The study found that on average, these

individuals utilized $40,500 worth of publicly funded services annually while homeless. Placement in supportive housing resulted in a

reduction in costs of $16,282 per person per year. The cost of the

housing was $17,277. So the net cost of placing a mentally ill

homeless person in supportive housing was $995 per year. Essentially, to quote Dr. Culhane, ‘‘The solution can pay for itself.’’ The Corporation for Supportive Housing says that overall, supportive housing programs are around 85 percent successful in stabilizing people. Individual programs claim success rates as high as

95 percent. For people with chronic illnesses, many of whom have

lived on the streets for years, this is astounding success, far above

the success rate of mental health and substance abuse treatment

programs not linked with housing, for example. To again quote Dr.

Culhane, by providing people with housing and services, ‘‘Policymakers could substantially reduce homelessness for a large and

visible segment of the homeless population—often considered

beyond the reach of the social welfare safety net. . . .’’

Q.4. You express support for the Administration’s initiative to end

chronic homelessness. Do you believe the Administration has taken

adequate steps to implement this commitment, and what steps do

you think should be taken to make this goal a reality?

A.4. The National Alliance to End Homelessness fully supports the

Administration’s stated goal of ending chronic homelessness within

10 years, and believes it to be possible and practical. Having said

that, the Administration has yet to structure or fund programs that

could achieve this goal, although some progress has been made.

To end chronic homelessness, the Administration will need to

address three things:

• There are a series of steps, known as ‘‘engagement,’’ that may

have to be taken in some cases before chronically homeless people can enter housing. People may have to be contacted, often

repeatedly, by outreach workers or other skilled professionals to

overcome their fears, lack of knowledge or anxiety. They may initially require housing that has low demands of them in terms of

stability and sobriety (some supportive housing requires stability

and sobriety prior to entering). Although HUD currently funds

such activities, it needs to improve communities’ understanding

of how to utilize these programs to move people into permanent

supportive housing.

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• HUD needs to ensure the renewal of existing permanent supportive housing rental contracts. It did not request adequate

funds for this in its fiscal year 2003 budget request and it has

not yet taken steps to make this process reliable. • Funding must be found for the services attached to supportive

housing, moving forward. Units now online have cobbled together

services, many of which are funded by HUD. Even if HUD funding of such services is thought to be a good idea, there is not

money available in the HUD homeless programs to fund both the

services and the housing, going forward. HHS resources must be

engaged. The Administration did not propose any significant

activity or resources in HHS to address these needs.

On the other hand, HUD has done several things that move the

initiative forward:

• It has pushed forward with requirements that jurisdictions

develop Homelessness Management Information Systems

(HMIS). Without such systems, chronically homeless people are

difficult to identify and strategies for ending chronic homelessness are not based on realistic numbers.

• It has appointed an Executive Director for the Interagency Council on the Homeless, which would be a fine vehicle for coordinating efforts among agencies. In particular, it appears that the

ICH will focus on prevention—that is on discouraging agencies

from discharging people, particularly people with illnesses, into

homelessness.

• It is meeting with HHS and pushing that Agency to coordinate

better and to provide more funding for services.

• It is using TA resources to encourage the development of supportive housing.

RESPONSE TO WRITTEN QUESTIONS OF SENATOR REED FROM

MITCHELL NETBURN

Q.1. Why is LAHSA opposed to block granting McKinney–Vento

housing funding (other than Emergency Shelter Grant funding)?

A.1. Competition has been good for the Continuum of Care in Los

Angeles—it has motivated communities to work together to identify

and address needs across political boundaries. LAHSA has opposed

block granting of the McKinney–Vento Act funding for the following reasons:

a. Many Continuum of Care networks involve multiple jurisdictions and it is to their credit that they have created regional

responses to address their problem. There are 31 entitlement

cities in the Los Angeles Continuum of Care. Few of those

cities coordinate use of their block grant funding. However, the

Continuum of Care has provided the impetus to bring those cities together to coordinate their funding, as our agency did in

cooperation with the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) last fall. In addition, the requirements of HMIS

implementation have not only meant further integration of programs within the Los Angeles Continuum of Care, but also

cooperation with the neighboring Continuum of Care systems

in the cities of Pasadena, Glendale, and Long Beach, as well

as with Orange County.

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b. Contrary to the collaboration fostered by the Continuum

of Care competitive process, block granting would fuel fragmentation and lead to the likelihood of ill-prepared jurisdictions returning unused funds. In most instances, cities do not

coordinate the use of their block grant funding on a regional

basis. Thus, we could expect to see in Los Angeles County 31

separate entities administering small portions of funding for

homeless programs. Many of these cities are not equipped to

manage a homeless services grant. In fact, one of the reasons

the Los Angeles area HUD office agreed to sponsor a meeting

with LAHSA last fall was that many of the Consolidated Plan

submissions by these cities did not do an adequate job of

describing their response to homelessness.

c. Recent HUD action to impose penalties on jurisdictions

that are slow to spend Community Development Block Grant

funds illustrates how entitlement funding does not guarantee

that a jurisdiction will use its funding in a timely manner.

d. The existing Continuum of Care planning process, by

emphasizing a community-based process for determining priorities, does allow for local control. And, because the projects are

specified in relation to a grant request, provides stronger assurances that the funding will be spent in a timely manner.

e. While no jurisdiction is assured a set allocation, all applicants are provided a reasonable estimate of funding, for example the pro rata need share they can expect to receive if they

submit a competitive application.

Our primary criticism of the pro rata need share lies with the

formula used for creating it; block granting would heighten our

concern about funding equity. We have found that within our Continuum of Care, there are communities that defy the allocation

formula’s premise. Specifically, the City of Santa Monica has a considerably larger visible homeless population than one would expect,

based on the pro rata need share number. Furthermore, communities in our less populated areas, such as Lancaster, face barriers

due to their distance from concentrated service areas. Finally, Hollywood has long been a magnet for homeless and runaway youth

from around the country. These are people never included in Census figures. The pro rata need share formula does not take into

consideration these factors which have a great impact on our communities. If a block grant system were to be implemented, we

would continue to share these concerns.

Q.2. Do you believe that increasing the supply of affordable housing would help the existing problem? How would new production

address the needs of the homeless in Los Angeles?

A.2. Increasing the supply of affordable housing is essential to ending homelessness—both for persons experiencing short-term homelessness and those who are chronically homeless.

Lately, a great deal of attention has been given to ‘‘chronically’’

homeless persons because they tend to use a substantially higher

proportion of public services than the balance of the homeless population. Chronically homeless persons tend to have conditions such

as mental illness or serious addiction problems that, in an addition

to poverty, keep the prospect of staying in their homes out of reach.

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However, in any given year, there is a much higher number of

more functional persons who become homeless simply because they

cannot find a home that they can afford.

A 1997 telephone survey in Los Angeles County found that

approximately 375,000 individuals were homeless at some point in

the previous 5 years. Of those reporting a prior homeless experience, 35 percent indicated that they stayed in shelters or on the

streets, and another 8 percent stated that they sometimes stayed

in shelters, sometimes on the streets or with others. Thus, over

half did not enter into the homeless delivery system at all, suggesting that for a substantial number of people, homelessness is

the result of economic conditions.

The shortage of affordable housing continues to be the most significant problem we face in ending homelessness. In the last 3

years, Los Angeles County has implemented a State program originally called ‘‘AB34,’’ after its State Assembly bill number. The

AB34 program is designed to end the cycle of arrest, incarceration,

and release to the streets of mentally ill, nonviolent offenders.

Under this program, community-based mental health providers

work with mentally ill inmates who are about to be released. The

challenge facing these providers has been finding adequate housing

for this population. The lack of affordable, accessible housing has

consistently been the greatest barrier to success of this program.

While Section 8 has brought habitable housing within the reach

of extremely low-income households, the program does not begin to

meet the need. Moreover, in the current housing market, fewer

landlords are willing to accept Section 8 vouchers. Overall, in the

city of Los Angeles, successful use of new Section 8 vouchers has

dropped to 41 percent of those issued. Persons with disabilities fortunate enough to receive Section 8 have even greater difficulty because so few of the units accepting Section 8 are ADA accessible.

As I mentioned in my testimony, the low-vacancy rates and challenges to the use of Section 8 in Los Angeles underscore the need

for affordable housing. For the nondisabled individual, the income

source of last resort in Los Angeles County, General Relief, pays

$221 per month. Working individuals and heads of households on

the margins have not only low wages, but also unstable sources of

income that make it difficult to sustain rent payments at the lower

end of the market. This, of course, gives rise to overcrowding and

tenancy in substandard conditions, if not homelessness.

Persons with disabilities, in particular those who require the use

of a wheelchair, also find that new production of accessible units

affordable for low-income persons is not keeping pace with demand.

In short, the unassisted housing market does not build for these

populations. New production must therefore include units targeted

to extremely low-income individuals and families, as well as to lowincome persons with disabilities, including those who require supportive housing. Since the private market does not—or is not

required to—build for these populations, Government intervention

and leadership is necessary to meet these needs.

Q.3. Why should the Homeless Management Information System

(HMIS) be an eligible activity apart from administration? Couldn’t

communities recoup their costs for HMIS with their administrative

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fee allocation? Has the 5 percent administrative fee been sufficient

for your Continuum of Care?

A.3. While a Homeless Management Information System (HMIS)

should simplify program administration, its true purpose is to facilitate program and systemic evaluation. Our recommendation is

to create, as a separate eligible activity, implementation of HMIS.

In preparing for selection of HMIS, jurisdictions have been told

that implementation will take far longer and cost far more than

originally envisioned. Apart from purchasing a system and the

hardware necessary for implementation, jurisdictions will face continuing costs of training and technical assistance to ensure proper

use of HMIS. Moreover, we have been told that at least 60 percent

of the beds in our Continuum of Care must be included in order

for HMIS to provide reliable information about service usage. Since

we do not fund this threshold number of beds in our Continuum,

the line-item approach to funding HMIS through administrative

fees will mean that a significant portion of the programs we want

to use HMIS must find other sources of funding for this activity.

Permitting HMIS to be a separate fundable activity gives us the

flexibility to include agencies in our geographic area that currently

do not receive HUD funding. A significant number of such programs are likely to be the faith-based organizations that the

Administration has focused on for increased access to Federal funding, but who, for a variety of reasons, do not wish to apply for it.

We see this activity as being consistent with Congressional goals

for evaluation and accountability, and with the vision of the Administration to promote greater integration among all programs

serving the homeless.

For those programs receiving SHP funding, the 5 percent administrative fee currently allowed fails to cover the cost of administering Continuum of Care programs. The 5 percent administrative fee is so low that LAHSA, as the Continuum of Care grantee,

long ago made the policy decision to pass the entire amount on to

the project sponsors. The extent to which the 5 percent fee is insufficient likely depends on the agency and the total grant amount. In

fact, many sponsors have stated that the 5 percent fee does not

cover the administrative costs essential for implementing a Continuum of Care program. The larger organizations, with multiple

funding streams are likely able to take advantage of economies of

scale and the 5 percent fee may suffice. Smaller agencies, with few

grants may struggle to cover core administrative functions.

Therefore, the additional cost of implementing a system and providing the needed staff training simply cannot be absorbed by the

administrative fee provided to our sponsoring agencies. We agree

with the Congressional directive stating the need for HMIS, however, failing to provide an accompanying source of funds to pay for

it constitutes an unfunded mandate.

In addition to a separate category of funding for HMIS, we recommend a 10 percent administrative rate, or a sliding scale for program administration, with a higher rate for smaller agencies or

grants. This is still lower than the overhead rates typically permitted by private foundations, and we believe, a more realistic

compensation for the administrative responsibilities necessary to

successfully manage a Continuum of Care grant.