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H.R. 4057—THE SAMARITAN

INITIATIVE ACT OF 2004

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

HOUSING AND COMMUNITY OPPORTUNITY

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

JULY 13, 2004

Printed for the use of the Committee on Financial Services

Serial No. 108–99

(

(II)

HOUSE COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES 

MICHAEL G. OXLEY, Ohio, Chairman

JAMES A. LEACH, Iowa 

DOUG BEREUTER, Nebraska 

RICHARD H. BAKER, Louisiana 

SPENCER BACHUS, Alabama 

MICHAEL N. CASTLE, Delaware 

PETER T. KING, New York 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California 

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma 

ROBERT W. NEY, Ohio 

SUE W. KELLY, New York, Vice Chair 

RON PAUL, Texas 

PAUL E. GILLMOR, Ohio 

JIM RYUN, Kansas 

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio 

DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois 

WALTER B. JONES, JR., North Carolina 

DOUG OSE, California 

JUDY BIGGERT, Illinois 

MARK GREEN, Wisconsin 

PATRICK J. TOOMEY, Pennsylvania 

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut 

JOHN B. SHADEGG, Arizona 

VITO FOSSELLA, New York 

GARY G. MILLER, California 

MELISSA A. HART, Pennsylvania 

SHELLEY MOORE CAPITO, West Virginia 

PATRICK J. TIBERI, Ohio 

MARK R. KENNEDY, Minnesota 

TOM FEENEY, Florida 

JEB HENSARLING, Texas 

SCOTT GARRETT, New Jersey 

TIM MURPHY, Pennsylvania 

GINNY BROWN-WAITE, Florida 

J. GRESHAM BARRETT, South Carolina 

KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida 

RICK RENZI, Arizona 

BARNEY FRANK, Massachusetts 

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania 

MAXINE WATERS, California 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

LUIS V. GUTIERREZ, Illinois 

NYDIA M. VELA ́ ZQUEZ, New York 

MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina 

GARY L. ACKERMAN, New York 

DARLENE HOOLEY, Oregon 

JULIA CARSON, Indiana 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

BARBARA LEE, California 

JAY INSLEE, Washington 

DENNIS MOORE, Kansas 

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts 

HAROLD E. FORD, JR., Tennessee 

RUBE ́ N HINOJOSA, Texas 

KEN LUCAS, Kentucky 

JOSEPH CROWLEY, New York 

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri 

STEVE ISRAEL, New York 

MIKE ROSS, Arkansas 

CAROLYN MCCARTHY, New York 

JOE BACA, California 

JIM MATHESON, Utah 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

BRAD MILLER, North Carolina 

RAHM EMANUEL, Illinois 

DAVID SCOTT, Georgia 

ARTUR DAVIS, Alabama 

CHRIS BELL, Texas 

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

Robert U. Foster, III, Staff Director 

(III)

SUBCOMMITTEE ON HOUSING AND COMMUNITY OPPORTUNITY

ROBERT W. NEY, Ohio, Chairman

MARK GREEN, Wisconsin, Vice Chairman 

DOUG BEREUTER, Nebraska 

RICHARD H. BAKER, Louisiana 

PETER T. KING, New York 

WALTER B. JONES, JR., North Carolina 

DOUG OSE, California 

PATRICK J. TOOMEY, Pennsylvania 

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut 

GARY G. MILLER, California 

MELISSA A. HART, Pennsylvania 

PATRICK J. TIBERI, Ohio 

KATHERINE HARRIS, Florida 

RICK RENZI, Arizona 

MAXINE WATERS, California 

NYDIA M. VELA ́ ZQUEZ, New York 

JULIA CARSON, Indiana 

BARBARA LEE, California 

MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts 

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont 

MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina 

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

BRAD MILLER, North Carolina 

DAVID SCOTT, Georgia 

ARTUR DAVIS, Alabama 

(V)

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on: 

July 13, 2004 ..................................................................................................... 1

Appendix: 

July 13, 2004 ..................................................................................................... 59

WITNESSES 

TUESDAY, JULY 13, 2004

Buckley, Stephanie, Director, United States Veterans Initiative Inc., Prescott, 

AZ .......................................................................................................................... 6

Hess, Robert V., Deputy Managing Director for Special Needs Housing, Adult 

Services, Philadelphia, PA ................................................................................... 7

Hickenlooper, Hon. John W., Mayor, City and County of Denver, CO ............... 43

Mangano, Philip, Executive Director, Interagency Council on Homelessness .... 44

Mauck, James, President and CEO of Catholic Charities and Community 

Services in the Archdiocese of Denver, on behalf of Catholic Charities 

USA, Volunteers of America, and Lutheran Services in America ................... 9

Netburn, Mitchell, Executive Director, Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority ................................................................................................................... 11

Poppe, Barbara, Executive Director, Community Shelter Board, Columbus 

and Franklin County, OH ................................................................................... 13

Pucci, Mike T., Executive Director, Housing Authority of the City of Alameda, 

Alameda, CA ......................................................................................................... 15

Roman, Nan, President, National Alliance to End Homelessness ....................... 16

Simpson, Hon. Bobby, Mayor-President, Baton Rouge, LA ................................. 38

Whitehead, Donald, Executive Director, National Coalition for the Homeless .. 18

APPENDIX 

Prepared statements: 

Oxley, Hon. Michael G. .................................................................................... 60

Sanders, Hon. Bernard ..................................................................................... 61

Matheson, Hon. Jim ......................................................................................... 64

Buckley, Stephanie ........................................................................................... 65

Hess, Robert V. ................................................................................................. 71

Hickenlooper, Hon. John W. ............................................................................ 76

Mangano, Philip ................................................................................................ 79

Mauck, James ................................................................................................... 88

Netburn, Mitchell ............................................................................................. 106

Poppe, Barbara ................................................................................................. 111

Pucci, Mike T. ................................................................................................... 137

Roman, Nan ...................................................................................................... 142

Simpson, Hon. Bobby ....................................................................................... 148

Whitehead, Donald ........................................................................................... 150

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

Frank, Hon. Barney: 

Resolution by U.S. Conference of Mayors ....................................................... 155

Department of Health and Human Services, prepared statement ...................... 157

Department of Housing and Urban Development, prepared statement ............. 160

Department of Labor, prepared statement ............................................................ 166

Department of Veterans Affairs, prepared statement .......................................... 173

National Low Income Housing Coalition, prepared statement ............................ 176

(1)

H.R. 4057—THE SAMARITAN 

INITIATIVE ACT OF 2004

Tuesday, July 13, 2004

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, SUBCOMMITTEE ON HOUSING AND COMMUNITY

OPPORTUNITY, COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES, Washington, D.C. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:02 a.m., in Room 

2128, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Bob Ney [chairman of 

the subcommittee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Ney, Baker, Hart, Tiberi, Renzi, Waters, Sanders, Watt, Frank, Scott, Davis. Also present were Representatives Stark and Matheson. 

Mr. RENZI. [Presiding.] Good morning. This hearing of the Subcommittee on Housing will come to order. I thank my neighbor, Mr. 

Scott, for attending. 

This legislation, guided by the Interagency Council on Homelessness, creates a collaborative grant that authorizes the VA, HHS 

and HUD to pool their resources and to work together to provide 

housing with supportive services to those experiencing chronic 

homelessness. 

In May of this year, Veterans Affairs Deputy Secretary Mansfield 

testified before the VA committee on the issue of homelessness and 

assistance programs for our nation’s veterans and the status of the 

goal to end chronic homelessness. The Deputy Secretary explained 

that they work in a variety of venues with many partners at the 

federal, state and local levels, and with faith-based and other community providers. Most notably, he states that only through such 

effective and extensive collaborations, combined with innovation, 

can the opportunities for success be maximized. 

Approximately 150,000 to 200,000 people nationally are categorized as chronically homeless. There is so much great need in 

this community that unfortunately this population consumes a disproportionate amount of emergency resources, specifically in shelters, emergency rooms and hospitals. These costs are being incurred by communities year after year. One research study followed 15 chronically homeless adults and discovered that in 18 

months they had made 299 trips to hospital emergency rooms at 

a cost of $967,000 to the community public health system. The cost 

of providing supportive housing is substantially offset by the savings of not having these individuals continue this cycle. 

Additionally, the quality of life for both the individuals and the 

communities are vastly improved. One of the misunderstandings of 

2

chronic homelessness is that it is not just an issue for the urban 

areas, but also affects the rural areas. In Yavapai and Coconino 

Counties in my home State of Arizona, we have over 2,000 estimated people who are chronically homeless. To this end, I am 

pleased today to see Stephanie Buckley on the witness list. Ms. 

Buckley serves as site director for the U.S. Veterans Initiative in 

Prescott, Arizona. 

U.S. VETS is the largest organization in the country dedicated 

to helping homeless veterans. It is a nationally recognized leader 

in the field of service delivery to veterans. U.S. VETS offers housing, case management and employment assistance to hundreds of 

homeless veterans in and throughout Northern Arizona. Their career center has placed over 70 percent of our veterans in competitive employment. Their outreach teams visit the parks, forests and 

shelters throughout the area to offer our services and make veterans aware of our program. 

I am happy to see this introduction of the Samaritan Initiative 

has begun, and that we will together today discuss the effects of 

the homelessness. As we hear today, many groups will have additional needs and they would like to see this bill addressed. However, I am pleased that this legislation has garnered solid support 

by individuals and groups, including the Enterprise Foundation, 

the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, National AIDS Housing 

Coalition, National Alliance to End Homelessness, the Corporation 

for Supportive Housing, the Association for Service Disabled Veterans, the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, the National 

League of Cities, and the United States Conference of Mayors. 

I look forward to the testimony of the witnesses and thank each 

of you for coming all the way here to Washington. Let me begin 

with the recognition of members’s opening statements for 3 minutes, and recognize Mr. Scott. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you very much, Mr. Renzi. I want to thank 

Chairman Ney and Ranking Member Waters, and of course you, 

Mr. Renzi, for presiding over this important hearing. I also commend the fine job that you are doing in your work in dealing with 

housing, especially with some of our Indian population and populations in the Western United States. 

Chronic homelessness is an extraordinarily important issue. In 

metro Atlanta in the area that I represent and other Georgia cities, 

we are currently implementing 10-year plans to end chronic homelessness. I believe that the resources discussed in this hearing 

today could further the efforts in Georgia and this nation to address these community needs. 

In December 2002, the United Way of Metropolitan Atlanta convened a 16-member Commission for the Homeless, led by retired 

King and Spaulding law partner Horace Sibley. The Commission 

was co-chaired by civic leader Myrtle Davis and Dr. Leon Sullivan, 

president emeritus of the Morehouse College of Medicine. The Commission carried out a comprehensive and exclusive process that included, one, reviewing plans that had already been developed locally; two, collecting data from service providers, faith and other 

community leaders and government representatives through oneon-one interviews and surveys, and incorporating findings from 

3

local and national research studies on homelessness conducted by 

Deloitte Consulting. 

In addition, the Commission’s efforts were supported by working 

groups comprised of more than 90 individuals representing 64 organizations. The Commission used this information and compiled 

data in combination with input from the community to design a 

framework for practical, fundable solutions. At the end of February 

2003, the Commission unveiled the Blueprint to End Homelessness 

in Atlanta in 10 years. 

These efforts were complemented by a tremendous effort in the 

community led by Duane Ackerman of BellSouth and other corporate and civic leaders to truly address and get underneath the 

problem of homelessness. While I do support efforts to specifically 

target chronic homelessness, I also believe that this committee 

should focus on eliminating all homeless populations altogether. To 

that end, I am a cosponsor of the National Housing Trust Fund, 

H.R. 1102, which will provide funding for 1.5 million units of affordable housing over the next 10 years. I am also concerned with the loss of $1.6 billion from the Section 

8 housing voucher program. We could provide better assistance to 

help families become self-sustaining, and we could not find a better 

way of doing it than helping them with rental assistance. These 

cuts are misguided and they should be reversed. 

Thank you again, Mr. Chairman, and I look forward to this 

morning’s testimony. 

Mr. RENZI. I thank the gentleman. 

The gentleman from Vermont, Mr. Sanders. 

Mr. SANDERS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank 

you for holding this important hearing on an issue of great significance to our country. As I understand it, the Samaritan Initiative authorizes $70 million to provide permanent housing services for the homeless, with 

the goal of ending chronic homelessness within 10 years. Mr. 

Chairman, that is a goal that I certainly applaud and I see no reason for anyone to oppose this bill. Anything that Congress can do 

to reduce homelessness in this country is a step forward and 

should be strongly supported. 

But Mr. Chairman, let us not delude ourselves: $70 million within the context of the problem of homelessness and affordable housing in this country is not a real solution to the affordable housing 

crisis that our country is experiencing. And I might add, at the 

same time that the Administration is supporting a new $70 million 

program to combat homelessness, it is also lobbying Congress for 

a $1.6 billion cut in the nation’s most important affordable housing 

program in this country, the Section 8 rental assistance program. 

So it is fine that we are adding $70 million for chronic homeless 

services, but cutting $1.8 billion for affordable housing more than 

negates that $70 million. 

The Administration’s Section 8 budget for fiscal year 2005 is $1.6 

billion for what is needed to renew all existing Section 8 rental assistance for some two million families. This means that up to 

250,000 low-income families, senior citizens and people with disabilities are in danger of losing their homes or being thrown out 

on the street, including 740 families in my own small State of 

4

Vermont. In other words, if the Administration’s Section 8 budget 

is approved, more people in this country will experience homelessness even if the Samaritan Initiative is signed into law. I cannot 

quite follow the sense of that, of putting some money to help people 

not be homeless at the same time you are creating more homelessness over there. We are taking from Peter to pay Paul. 

Mr. Chairman, as you well know, there is an affordable housing 

crisis in this country. More than 14 million people are paying over 

50 percent of their limited incomes on housing; 3.5 million in this 

country will experience homelessness this year, including 1.35 million children and 500,000 veterans. 

Mr. Chairman, there is a solution, a serious solution to this problem. I have introduced and now have 213 tripartisan cosponsors on 

the National Affordable Housing Trust Fund. This legislation has 

been endorsed by over 5,000 organizations throughout the country. 

This legislation would provide the resources necessary to construct, 

preserve and rehabilitate at least 1.5 million affordable housing 

units over the next decade, and would lead to the creation of 1.8 

million new jobs. Mr. Chairman, that is a serious solution to address the housing crisis. 

Thank you very much. 

Mr. RENZI. I thank the gentleman for his words. 

Mr. Stark, did you want to introduce your witness, or have any 

comments? 

Mr. STARK. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for affording 

me the privilege of visiting with you in this distinguished committee today. I am very pleased. Probably it is little known, but I 

used to sit on this committee some 30 years ago, and have enjoyed 

watching the committee do excellent work in the area of housing. 

We are faced today with a serious problem, and it is my privilege 

to introduce Mr. Michael Pucci, the executive director of the Housing Authority of the City of Alameda. It is a city of 72,000 people, 

home formerly to the Alameda Naval Air Station. We have 1,600 

Section 8 housing vouchers and almost 600 units. I think Mr. Pucci 

has been in this business over 30 years, if I am not mistaken. It 

is vitally important, through changes that we are trying to correct, 

and probably going to cause an increase in homelessness. I guess 

I would consider it penny-wise and pound-foolish. We have an established system. I certainly know that in California it has been 

the premier method by which we have been able to provide housing 

for those less fortunate. We have the situation of having extremely 

expensive housing, for which many of us who are fortunate enough 

to own a house should be very thankful, but for those who cannot, 

it just exacerbates their problem. 

So along with Mr. Pucci and the City of Alameda, I have been 

working with the members of this committee and you, Mr. Chairman, and others to see if we could not encourage HUD to be a little 

more generous in this program, perhaps carry us for another year 

while we find a solution that would be more suitable. I hope that 

this distinguished committee can reverse some of the changes or 

moderate them that are being made in the Section 8 law to protect 

those. I think that Mr. Pucci and his colleagues at the witness 

table, I think we will hear a lot of discussion about what we could 

5

do in a very modest way relative to the total federal budget to help 

many of our constituents. 

Again, I appreciate your interest. I know that the State of Arizona will be well served. I thank you again for allowing me to introduce Mr. Pucci. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. RENZI. I thank the gentleman from California. 

The gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Tiberi. 

Mr. TIBERI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank you for 

your leadership in introducing this legislation. I am pleased to be 

a cosponsor with you in this effort. 

It is my pleasure to introduce a friend of mine from Columbus, 

Ohio, from my community, who is the executive director and has 

been since 1995 of the Community Shelter Board. Barbara Poppe 

has over 20 years of experience in working in the nonprofit, homelessness and housing-related organizations. The Community Shelter Board is a nationally recognized nonprofit in charge of funding, 

planning and coordinating prevention, shelter and housing to end 

homelessness in Columbus and Central Ohio, Franklin County. 

Barbara received the 2003 Buddy Gray Award for homeless activism from the National Coalition for the Homeless. She received the 

2002 citizens of the year award from the Central Ohio Public Relations Society of America. She has published and presented on various homeless research topics, including strategies to end homelessness, needs assessment, chemical dependency treatment and employment and training. 

Mr. Chairman, we are really lucky to have Barbara here today. 

She has done more for ending homelessness and more for the 

homeless in Central Ohio than anyone in the history of Columbus. 

On a personal note, she is a very wonderful person and it is a treat 

to have her here today. Barbara, thank you so much for spending 

time here in DC to share your experiences with us. 

Mr. RENZI. Thank you, Mr. Tiberi. 

We will go ahead and introduce the witnesses now. I am grateful 

to have all of you here. Panel one consists of Ms. Stephanie Buckley. Ms. Buckley is the director of United States Veterans Initiative, Inc. in Prescott, Arizona. She is also served the State of Arizona as a child protective services case manager. 

Mr. Robert V. Hess is the deputy managing director for special 

needs housing, Adult Services, for the City of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Mr. James Mauck is the president and CEO of Catholic 

Charities and Communities Services, Archdiocese of Denver, and is 

testifying on behalf of Catholic Charities USA, Volunteers of America, and Lutheran Services in America. Catholic Charities is a nationwide alliance of Catholic groups working to alleviate the daily 

struggles of our country’s less fortunate. 

Mr. Mitchell Netburn is the executive director for the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, or LAHSA. LAHSA is a joint powers authority created by the City and County of Los Angeles and 

is responsible for planning, funding and coordinating local homeless programs. 

Ms. Barbara Poppe, as Mr. Tiberi just introduced, is the executive director for the Community Shelter Board of the City of Columbus and Franklin County, Ohio, where she has been working 

for the last 5 years. Prior to her current position, Ms. Poppe served 

6

as executive director for Friends of the Homeless and served as assistant director for the University of Cincinnati’s Department of 

Environmental Health. 

Mr. Mike Pucci is the executive director for the Housing Authority of the City of Alameda, California, a good Italian American, 

welcome. Ms. Nan Roman is the president of the National Alliance 

to End Homelessness. The National Alliance to End Homelessness 

is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization founded in 1983 by a group 

of community leaders with the mutual goal of ending homelessness. 

And Mr. Donald Whitehead, who is the executive director of the 

National Coalition for the Homeless, which is the nation’s oldest 

and largest advocacy organization that works exclusively with and 

on behalf of people experiencing homelessness. 

I welcome each of you and I am grateful you have come all this 

way. Without objection, your written testimony will be part of the 

record. Each of you will be recognized for 5 minutes to summarize 

your testimony. We will begin with Mrs. Buckley. 

Thank you. 

STATEMENT OF STEPHANIE BUCKLEY, DIRECTOR, UNITED 

STATES VETERANS’ INITIATIVE INC., PRESCOTT, AZ 

Ms. BUCKLEY. On behalf of the United States Veterans Initiative, 

I appreciate the opportunity to discuss the recommendations on 

H.R. 4057, which we hope will assist programs serving homeless 

veterans. 

We have been operating at the Prescott site since January 16, 

2003. In that time, we have been able to serve 206 veterans in 

most of Northern Arizona, which is a rural area. Seventy-four percent of our veterans leaving our program have been able to be successfully discharged into homes or apartments. We have been able 

to find 112 jobs in a rural area for our veterans. Two of our residents have been able to complete their college degrees since being 

in our program. 

Every year, we are able to outreach to over 900 veterans in our 

area through forests and deserts and the 20 different organizations 

in Northern Arizona. As the representative mentioned, there are 

over 2,000 veterans in Yavapai and Coconino Counties alone. U.S. 

VETS has had a positive impact on the domiciliary, which we are 

co-located. The domiciliary has increased in capacity from 75 percent to 92 percent, and the length of stay in the domiciliary has 

decreased from 120 days to 98 days. 

U.S. VETS supports any measure that will provide assistive programs for the homeless, particularly those making provision for our 

homeless veterans. H.R. 4057 introduced by Representative Rick 

Renzi is a valuable opportunity for rural communities to address 

the homeless veterans that sleep on our streets every night. 

We do have some concerns. The $10 million appropriated by the 

VA to perform its functions in the multi-department collaboration 

program is set up simply as a directive to the VA, earmarked previously authorized funding for treatment of homeless veterans 

under medical care, rather than a separate and distinct authorization. This really does nothing to increase the care of homeless veterans. We recommend a new line item authorized for the Samaritan services within the VA medical care, rather than a $10 million 

7

redirection of existing VA specialized homeless service programs. 

The VA component of the Samaritan program should not be funded 

at the expense of existing programs which are already overstretched and underfunded. 

The legislation required applicants to provide 25 percent non-federal cash or in-kind match in years one and two, and a steep 50 

percent in year three and beyond. These match levels suggest that 

the grant programs are targeted to already well-funded applicants 

or municipalities. Even relatively large nonprofits like my own, 

with many collaborative agreements and local providers, would 

have considerable difficulty raising such amounts, and small community-based and faith-based organizations are very unlikely to 

generate such a sizable match. 

The authorization of treatment and supportive services in the 

measure do not even mention the rehabilitation, prosthetics or 

other services that may be especially critical to the homeless veterans that this very bill is targeted. The list of eligible treatment 

and supportive services should be expanded to include the authorization for assistance to chronic homeless persons to obtain mainstream benefits such as VA disabilities, veterans compensation, 

veterans healthcare, Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security disability 

insurance, food stamps, temporary assistance for needy families, 

and legal aid. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Stephanie Buckley can be found on 

page 65 in the appendix.] 

Mr. RENZI. Thank you, Ms. Buckley. 

Mr. Hess. 

STATEMENT OF ROBERT V. HESS, DEPUTY MANAGING DIRECTOR FOR SPECIAL NEEDS HOUSING, ADULT SERVICES, CITY 

OF PHILADELPHIA, PA 

Mr. HESS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. I am appearing before you today to provide testimony in 

support of the proposed H.R. 4057, the Samaritan Initiative. I firmly believe that the Samaritan Initiative would be an important 

component that our nation needs in order to achieve the goal of 

ending chronic homelessness. 

For 20 years, people working with and on behalf of people experiencing homelessness have seen the same faces on the streets and 

in our shelters. For 20 years, we have been tirelessly trying to engage the men and women experiencing chronic homelessness. We 

have made significant strides in this endeavor, but we need to do 

more. By creating a new investment source dedicated to funding 

chronic homeless programs, this legislation would enable us to do 

more of what we already know needs to be done and frankly what 

we already know works. Without it, cities like Philadelphia will 

continue to see the same faces on our streets and in our shelters 

for another 20 years. 

I want to take just a few minutes this morning to talk about the 

Philadelphia story. In Philadelphia, we were fortunate enough to 

have the strong leadership of Mayor John Street recognize years 

ago that addressing chronic homelessness and street sleeping is 

8

something we can and should and must do as a community to 

make our city even stronger. 

You see, just a few short years ago, there were 824 individuals 

sleeping on the streets of center city Philadelphia. Last week, there 

were 147. What has happened in these intervening years has been 

a focus and a commitment to eliminating the need for anyone to 

sleep on the streets of our city that has been unparalleled. We 

brought tremendous resources to bear locally. We have learned a 

tremendous amount about what works and what does not. 

But that is only part of the story. I think one of the more interesting parts of the story is that in the first 2 years of our efforts, 

we were able to reduce the street population by 50 percent. Then 

we hit kind of a lull. The numbers stayed about the same. The 

intervention strategies that worked so very well for the first half 

or 50 percent of the folks living on our streets were not working. 

So we scoured the country for best practices for research to help 

us focus in on new strategies, new tools for our toolbox, if you will, 

that would allow us to assist additional people to move off the 

streets. 

What we came across were Housing First programs in Los Angeles and New York and in other places, with years of research behind them, that showed that if you brought people into permanent 

housing with the proper set of supports, you really could help them 

move from the streets into permanent housing once and for all, and 

stop the cycle of folks moving through our shelters and onto our 

streets. People that in some cases have been on our streets for 10, 

15, 20 years are now living in their own apartments doing extraordinarily well. 

That is what this initiative is about. Yes, it is modest. Yes, $70 

million will not end all of our problems. It is not adequate even at 

that. But it is a major step in the right direction, to help us move 

the remaining folks that are on our streets, off of our streets and 

into their own apartments and out of our many, many systems that 

are extraordinarily expensive from hospitals to courts to prisons 

and back to the streets again. 

We know this technology works. We now know how to end the 

need for any individual in this country to sleep on our streets. We 

know the technology. We know how to do it. What we have lacked 

are the resources, the political will and the commitment to do it. 

This bill takes us a step in that direction, and for that we are extraordinarily grateful and supportive. 

Some will say that we need to put more into families, and certainly we do. That is probably a discussion for another bill and another day. But from our view, the City of Philadelphia’s message 

is, we know what works; we know how to end chronic homelessness; we deserve to do it; it is a national disgrace that should have 

been done many years ago. But now given that knowledge and the 

technology, we need the political will and the resources to follow 

in a way that will allow us to move the last couple of hundred people off of our streets. 

We look forward to that day and we hope to be the first city in 

this nation to have accomplished that lofty, but important goal. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

9

[The prepared statement of Robert V. Hess can be found on page 

71 in the appendix.] 

Mr. RENZI. Mr. Hess, thank you for that story. I appreciate it. 

Mr. Mauck. 

STATEMENT OF JAMES MAUCK, PRESIDENT AND CEO OF 

CATHOLIC CHARITIES AND COMMUNITY SERVICES IN THE 

ARCHDIOCESE OF DENVER, TESTIFYING ON BEHALF OF 

CATHOLIC CHARITIES USA, VOLUNTEERS OF AMERICA AND 

LUTHERAN SERVICES IN AMERICA 

Mr. MAUCK. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Waters, members 

of the subcommittee, my name is Jim Mauck. I am president and 

CEO of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Denver. Today, I 

am testifying on behalf of Catholic Charities USA, Volunteers of 

America and Lutheran Services in America. 

As faith-based providers of housing and supportive services, we 

believe that our national community has a moral obligation to end 

homelessness for all Americans. We thank the subcommittee for its 

attention to this serious problem. 

The focus of my testimony will be the critically important needs 

of homeless families and children. I will begin by drawing the committee’s attention to four facts that taken together have important 

implications for the Samaritan Initiative and for the homeless policy in general. 

Fact one, the population of homeless families is large and growing. According to the best data, about one million children in families suffer homelessness every year. Recent shelter surveys indicate 

that family homelessness is on the rise. 

Fact two, homelessness has a devastating impact on family and 

children. The effects of homelessness range from the increased incidence of acute chronic health problems to high rates of failure in 

school. Less widely appreciated is the impact on family stability. 

When families lack adequate housing, child welfare agencies often 

step in to separate children from their parents. Over 10 percent of 

homeless children end up in the foster care system, while 30 percent of foster kids could be reunited with their families if their 

housing problems were solved. This intervention is costly. The average annual cost of foster care is about $45,000 per family. This 

is roughly four times the cost of providing permanent supportive 

housing. 

Fact three, a substantial percentage of homeless families with 

children endure repeated or long-term homelessness. According to 

the landmark Urban Institute study of homeless populations, 21 

percent of homeless mothers with children have been homeless at 

least three times, while 39 percent have been homeless for periods 

ranging from 7 months to over 5 years. In other words, large numbers of homeless families suffer chronic homelessness. 

Fact four, members of these families often suffer from domestic 

violence or sexual abuse, mental illness, chronic substance abuse or 

other disabling conditions. Intensive support services must therefore play a critical role in helping families to stabilize and make 

progress toward self-reliance. One-third of homeless women have 

experienced recent domestic violence. Among homeless mothers 

with children, over half report mental health or substance abuse 

10

problems. In the experience of our agencies, families often cycle 

through repeated episodes of homelessness because they have not 

received mental health care, substance abuse treatment, or other 

supportive services that they need. 

These four facts have important implications for the Samaritan 

Initiative. The Samaritan Initiative is part of a new model of how 

supportive services for homeless persons are going to be funded, 

what types of services will be funded, and who will be eligible for 

these services. Most federal homeless assistanced is now distributed by HUD through the McKinney cometittive grant programs. 

Yet HUD has announced its intention both to reduce McKinney 

funding for supprtive services and to restrict this funding to only 

four basic types of srevices: outreach, case management, lif skills 

training, and housing counseling. The Samaritan Initiative is intended in part to meet the expectation that other federal agencies 

such as HHS and VA must replace HUD funding for substance 

abuse, mental health care, and other supportive services for homeless persons. Yet the Samaritan Initiative in its current form would 

fund supportive services only for homeless individuals. Our concern 

is that these combined policy changes will effectively reduce the 

availability to homeless families of a wide range of critical services. 

Accordingly, we recommend the following revisions to the Samaritan Initiative. First expand eligibility to include homeless families 

with children. The Samaritan Initiative relies on a definition of a 

chronically homeless person that categorically excludes families 

with children, even families with disabled members who have suffered often repeated and extended periods of homelessness. This 

critical exclusion, combined with policies being advanced by HUD, 

will hinder the efforts of homeless service providers to assist many 

homeless families with children in their struggle to achieve stability. 

Two, shorten or eliminate the durational requirement of the Samaritan Initiative eligibility to clients who have been homeless for 

at least 1 year or have experienced four episodes over a period of 

3 years. On both moral and policy grounds, we should move people 

out of homelessness as quickly as possible, not to perpetuate it by 

denying them assistance they need simply because they have not 

been homeless long enough. 

I would conclude with the following. Families are young and 

their children are our future. They come to us with complex multiple problems, yet our experience has shown that they can be 

helped. Within families, hope can be rekindled. Children and parents can be nurtured and they can build better lives for themselves 

and for their communities. We will all benefit if we make it our 

task to help them. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of James Mauck can be found on page 

88 in the appendix.] 

Mr. RENZI. Mr. Mauck, thank you. 

Mr. Netburn. 

11

STATEMENT OF MITCHELL NETBURN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

LOS ANGELES HOMELESS SERVICES AUTHORITY 

Mr. NETBURN. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member 

Waters, and distinguished members of the Subcommittee on Housing and Community Opportunity. My name is Mitchell Netburn. I 

am the executive director of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, known as LAHSA. Thank you for the invitation to provide 

testimony. 

LAHSA and the City of Los Angeles readily endorse the Samaritan Initiative because it will continue a successful collaborative 

model that will help us reach the national goal of ending chronic 

homelessness. It is estimated that 80,000 men, women and children 

are homeless throughout Los Angeles County on any given night. 

Of those, we estimate that at least 10 percent can be considered 

chronically homeless. 

In November 2003, Los Angeles began a strategic planning process to end homelessness throughout the county in 10 years. Led by 

Supervisor Burke and Mayor Hahn, a total of 10 elected officials 

convened a 60-member blue ribbon panel of community leaders to 

oversee the development of our plan, which will be adopted this 

fall. Los Angeles is committed to ending homelessness. 

In the past year-and-a-half, for the first time ever the City and County of Los Angeles have contributed over $10 million to turn 

a temporary winter shelter program into a year-round program 

which serves a high percentage of chronic homeless people and is 

operating at 103 percent capacity. In 2003, 1,108 clients were 

placed in transitional housing and 685 were placed directly in permanent housing. These outcomes clearly show that homeless people, even chronically homeless people, want a home. 

To reach others, we need new models. Last year, as a precursor 

to the Samaritan Initiative, 11 grants funding such a new model 

were awarded nationally through the Interagency Council on 

Homelessness under the collaborative initiative to help end chronic 

homelessness. Among the grantees was a skid row collaborative 

comprised of 11 agencies. Skid row is located in the eastern part 

of downtown Los Angeles and has the largest concentration of 

street homelessness in the United States. Approximately 10,000 

people live in this area. 

I am pleased to report that the project has met its goal to house 

70 percent of its clients within the first 6 months of the program. 

This model works. The promise of this intense collaborative can be 

seen in the experience of participants such as Gloria, who is mentally ill. She was engaged by the team this spring, who also helped 

complete the paperwork needed to access her Shelter Plus care 

unit. Despite numerous challenges, she was one of the first people 

housed in this program. Gloria sees the on-site psychiatrist and 

nurse, maintains her appointments, and has increased social skills. 

She is even humorous at times. She pays her rent and she has 

gained so much trust that she recently self-reported her first experience with drugs to our case manager, who was able to deter her 

from further use. 

Gloria and others like her could not have attained this level of 

success without the consistent and coordinated efforts of the collaborative. The chronic homeless initiative, by providing funding 

12

and requiring local collaboration among diverse agencies, ensured 

that this could be the case. While we fully support continuing this 

model through the Samaritan Initiative, I would like to share some 

concerns with you. 

Our primary concern is that the funding authorized in this bill 

is not sufficient to meet the Administration’s goal of ending chronic 

homelessness. The collaborative initiative provided a total of $35 

million nationally. We are fortunate in Los Angeles to have been 

one of 11 recipients of this funding. The Samaritan Initiative proposes to double that amount of funding. However, let me make the 

crude assumption that if Los Angeles successfully competes for this 

new funding, it will receive twice the amount it received under the 

chronic homeless initiative, allowing us to help 124 people over 3 

years. While we would be grateful to have these additional funds, 

it would only allow us to help a fraction of the chronic homeless 

population. 

To truly end chronic homelessness, we have to be realistic about 

the costs. Congress must increase the authorized and appropriated 

levels of funding for the Samaritan Initiative if our country is to 

meet the Administration’s goal of ending chronic homelessness in 

10 years. We also request that the Samaritan Initiative ensure that 

the participating federal agencies take to heart the directive to collaborate. The initiative sets forth the expectation to collaborate, but 

offers to the maximum extent feasible and appropriate. We suggest 

removing this language. 

As much as we appreciate the Administration’s bold commitment 

to end chronic homelessness, we cannot lose sight of the significant 

needs of homeless people who do not meet the federal definition of 

chronic homelessness. We do not believe that the Samaritan Initiative’s focus on chronic homelessness will make it more difficult for 

us to reach our goal of ending all homelessness, provided resources 

are not diverted to help end chronic homelessness. 

For this reason, LAHSA supports additional funding provided by 

the Services to End Long-Term Homelessness Act, the National 

Housing Trust Fund, and adding an additional $150 million to the 

fiscal year 2005 homeless assistance grants budget. Because the 

Housing Choice voucher program is one of the most important tools 

we have for ending homelessness, we strongly oppose the Administration’s proposed cuts. It is estimated that California would lose 

35,000 vouchers and the city 5,000. 

Mr. Chairman, your subcommittee came to Los Angeles last year 

to hear public comment on the Administration’s proposal to convert 

the Housing Choice program to a block grant. It met with widespread opposition and Congress rejected it. We respectfully request 

that Congress reject the Administration’s proposed cuts. 

In conclusion, housing coupled with supportive services is the 

key to ending chronic homelessness and lays the foundation not 

only for rebuilding individual lives, but for restoring vitality to 

communities that have been neglected. By supporting H.R. 4057, 

the esteemed members of this committee have the opportunity to 

bring the vision of ending chronic homelessness in America closer 

to reality. 

Thank you. 

13

[The prepared statement of Mitchell Netburn can be found on 

page 106 in the appendix.] 

Mr. RENZI. Thank you, Mr. Netburn. 

Ms. Poppe. 

STATEMENT OF BARBARA POPPE, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

COMMUNITY SHELTER BOARD, COLUMBUS AND FRANKLIN 

COUNTY, OH 

Ms. POPPE. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Waters, Congressman Tiberi and other distinguished members of this subcommittee, 

I am Barbara Poppe, executive director of the Community Shelter 

Board in Columbus and Franklin County, Ohio. 

As the lead organization charged with our community’s plan to 

address and end homelessness, we thank you for the opportunity 

to testify this morning. I bring greetings from Columbus Mayor Michael B. Coleman who endorses both the Samaritan Initiative and 

services to end long-term homelessness act. My testimony is offered 

as one of 11 recent grantees under President Bush’s collaborative 

initiative to end homelessness, the prototype for the Samaritan Initiative Act. 

Our community has found that affordable housing drives success 

at all levels. For the family or individual, it represents the foundation for success in other areas: employment, health and wellness, 

education and community involvement. For the community, affordable housing drives success in improving neighborhoods and business districts. Affordable housing is the obvious solution to both 

chronic and short-term homelessness. 

While services are important, we have found that without affordable housing, services cannot be successful. While integration of 

mainstream resources is important, without housing integration is 

not successful. While discharge planning is important, without access to affordable housing discharge plans fail. Success begins by 

addressing affordable housing needs first. 

In 1998, our community’s plan to end homelessness was issued. 

Known as Rebuilding Lives, it outlined a better, more targeted system that provides both emergency housing for those in crisis and 

supportive housing for those with long-term needs. Our goal is to 

develop 800 units of permanent supportive housing. Since July 

1999, we have created just over 450 units, as well as another 125 

or so in development. The units have been a mix of new construction, rehab and leasing. Just under half of these units receive a 

Section 8 rent subsidy. One-quarter are public housing units and 

the balance are other subsidies, including McKinney-Vento. 

Almost one-half of the operating and services costs are covered 

by local public and private funds. Just over half are federal funds. 

The newest Rebuilding Lives project is funded by the collaborative 

initiative. It is known as the Rebuilding Lives PACT Team initiative. It serves men and women who have experienced chronic 

homelessness and have serious and debilitating illnesses that prevent them from living independently. We are developing just over 

100 housing units. We hope to house over 150, including almost 50 

who will be veterans. It is a multi-agency partnership providing a 

multi-disciplinary team of professionals that is implementing evidence-based practices to deliver services. 

14

To date, we have served 42 individuals and of those, 37 are already housed. Most are between the ages of 46 to 61. One-third are 

women. Thirty percent are veterans and more than three-quarters 

have at least a high school degree. We have documented results 

from 5 years of Rebuilding Lives implementation. There are individual stories like the 81-year-old man who was recently featured 

in the Sunday Columbus Dispatch for competing in the Senior 

Olympics. The little-known fact is, prior to entering our rebuilding 

lives supportive housing, he had been stuck in the shelter system. 

Another gentleman, Max, is a frequent and notorious downtown 

panhandler and experienced long-term homelessness. Today, he is 

a resident of the Rebuilding Lives supportive housing program at 

the YMCA and he is the greeter at the door, welcoming me each 

morning to my morning workout. I am sure you would agree you 

would rather have Max greet you at the door than be on the streets 

panhandling. 

Other results are our changes in the system of care, such as 

through the collaborative initiative, where we have decreased the 

processing time for an SSI application from more than 6 months 

to just a few weeks. Another example just recently occurred when 

an overnight shelter for homeless men closed. Through a coordinated case management team, we successfully placed 75 men into 

market-rate, affordable and supportive housing in just a 90-day period. 

Overall program evaluations of our rebuilding lives initiative 

have successfully documented that we are effective at ending homelessness. The overall tenancy exceeds a year-and-a-half, and overall 

rates of turnover are less than 20 percent a year. But in order to 

achieve the President’s stated goal of ending homelessness by 2012, 

we believe that we will need not only new HUD and HHS funding 

to realize the recommendation of the Millennial Housing Commission and the President’s New Freedom Mental Health Commission, 

which call for the creation of 150,000 units of supportive housing, 

but we also must maintain existing programs such as the McKinney-Vento programs, as well as the housing voucher program. 

The Samaritan Initiative will help combat chronic homelessness. 

We applaud the initiative’s call for new funding. The Samaritan 

Initiative is truly a very positive step in our collective goal to end 

chronic homelessness. The availability of new federal housing and 

services dollars in a single funding stream means that local communities can more effectively implement a comprehensive strategy 

to provide services coordinated with permanent housing. We also, 

though, do agree that the funding level proposed falls short of the 

stated goal of ending chronic homelessness by 2012. 

We also support the Services to End Long-Term Homelessness 

Act, to be introduced by Representative Burr, continued funding for 

McKinney-Vento programs, and also affordable housing production. 

But most important, I need to call your attention to the President’s 

proposal to cut the voucher program. It threatens more than half 

of our Rebuilding Lives units, and with deeper cuts proposed 

through fiscal year 2009, we believe this will contradict the Administration’s stated goal of ending homelessness. Rebuilding Lives offers the best approach to addressing chronic homelessness, but 

without a fully funded voucher program, we will lose ground. 

15

We thank you for the opportunity to testify today. 

[The prepared statement of Barbara Poppe can be found on page 

111 in the appendix.] 

Mr. RENZI. Thanks, Ms. Poppe. 

Mr. Pucci. 

STATEMENT OF MIKE T. PUCCI, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, HOUSING AUTHORITY OF THE CITY OF ALAMEDA, ALAMEDA, CA 

Mr. PUCCI. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Waters, members of 

the committee, I appreciate the opportunity to testify this morning. 

I would also like to thank Congresswoman Lee for inviting me to 

testify, and also Congressman Stark for his help in trying to resolve our Section 8 problems. 

While the primary thrust of this hearing is about the Samaritan 

Initiative and finding adequate means to prevent homelessness, I 

am here to address the recent changes to the Section 8 housing 

choice voucher program and the impact those changes are having 

on our community and Section 8 participants who are now at risk 

of becoming homeless. 

The City of Alameda is a community in the San Francisco Bay 

Area of approximately 72,000 population. This is an expensive 

place to live. Rents here are some of the highest in the nation. The 

low-income members of our community depend upon the Section 8 

housing choice voucher program to stay in this community near 

friends and family members who provide critical support. In addition to the over 1,600 families that we serve through the Section 

8 program, we have a list of 6,000 additional families waiting for 

assistance. HUD’s failure to pay on an actual cost basis and its failure to fund our reserves resulted in the housing authority no 

longer having enough money to pay for 1,625 authorized vouchers. 

This situation has put 108 families at risk of becoming homeless 

on August 1. 

The situation is having a direct impact on these families. Recently, Malika Nassirrudin, a young woman who has lost her assistance, testified before the Alameda City Council. She said, ‘‘I do 

not want to port out to another county that is getting ready to endure the same hardships. The uncertainty is physically and mentally draining for me and my family. My son’s social behavior is declining. He hesitates to make new friends in Alameda. He likes it 

so much. It is hard to lose good friends and moving around is not 

fun.’’

Another young man named Anthony, a single parent of a teenaged son, told me this past year it was the first time he and his 

son were able to live together. The Section 8 voucher allowed him 

to get a decent place to live so he was able to get custody of his 

son. This was the best year of both of their lives. If he loses his 

Section 8 voucher, he will lose his housing. If he loses his housing, 

he will lose custody of his son. We need to help these families and 

the other 106 families at risk of becoming homeless. 

In 2001, the Bay Area experienced a really tight housing market. 

Rents were increasing faster than the fair market rents. Section 8 

landlords did not want to accept housing vouchers at that time. 

They would rather get families that were working and able to pay 

the full amount of rent and full amount of security deposit. As a 

16

result, we were grossly under-leased and HUD had recaptured 

about $4 million in the years 2002 and 2003. 

By late 2002, though, the market had softened and voucher holders started to lease-up. By the end of the fiscal year, the Housing 

Authority was 98 percent leased-up, but HUD had used all of our 

Housing Authority’s program reserves to pay for the increased leasing costs. Even though we were not over-leased for fiscal year 2003, 

HUD has failed to replenish our reserves, even though they are required to do so by their own regulations. This has exacerbated the 

underfunding situation and directly impacts these 108 families. 

During this fiscal year, the housing market continued to be soft 

and voucher holders continued to lease-up. Our turnover rate declined dramatically, and for the first time we are over-leased. Despite the softer market, costs for the program continue to rise because of increases in utility rates, decreases in family income, portability moves to higher-cost areas, reasonable accommodations provided to the disabled, and several other reasons. 

On May 6, the Housing Authority received a call from the HUD 

San Francisco office telling us that our June 1 housing assistance 

payment check from them would be reduced by approximately 

$800,000. Well, we were faced with having to terminate all of our 

families at that point because we did not have the money to pay 

for housing assistance payments. We had been paying for payments 

using our own reserves throughout the fiscal year, and this was the 

last month of our fiscal year and we had no other choice. But our 

City Council and our Board of Commissioners said, well, we do not 

want any terminations to occur. Therefore, use all Housing Authority reserves to pay for this shortfall, which we did. As a result, nobody went without on June 1. 

However, later in the month of May, we got notice of what our 

funding would be for July 1 under the renewal formula. Under the 

renewal formula, we were facing a $200,000 shortfall. Roughly, 

that meant we had to terminate over 200 families for housing assistance. We could not do that either, so we did have to send out 

termination notices. But we were able to make up that shortfall. 

Right now, we are looking at 108 families that are going to be terminated as of August 1 in case something is not done. 

We are looking to HUD for more funding under the renewal formula. We are looking to HUD to replace our reserves so we can 

help these families. But these families need our immediate help, 

and if nothing is done by August 1, these families are going to be 

facing evictions and will be homeless. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mike T. Pucci can be found on page 

137 in the appendix.] 

Mr. RENZI. Thank you, Mr. Pucci. 

Ms. Roman. 

STATEMENT OF NAN ROMAN, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL 

ALLIANCE TO END HOMELESSNESS 

Ms. ROMAN. Mr. Chairman, Ms. Waters and members of the subcommittee, on behalf of the board of the National Alliance to End 

Homelessness, I am honored to be here today to testify in support 

of the Samaritan Initiative. In deciding to support the Samaritan 

17

Initiative, of course, we had to be realistic about what it might accomplish. It is not designed to address homelessness overall: other 

bigger programs do that. It does not appear, with its limited resources and scope, that passing the Samaritan Initiative alone will 

end chronic homelessness. But while recognizing that it is not a silver bullet, we do believe that the Samaritan Initiative is a needed 

and useful program that can help communities end chronic homelessness. 

In 2000, the National Alliance to End Homelessness announced 

a pragmatic new template for ending homelessness in 10 years. 

One of the things we pointed out was that the existing homelessness system was not working very well for one particular group of 

people who were staying homeless for years on end. For this group 

of chronically homeless people, a strategy of permanent supportive 

housing has proven to be very effective, and 150,000 units of such 

housing would be needed, we believe, to end chronic homelessness. 

If spread over 10 years, this would be a modest 15,000 units per 

year, a doable national goal. 

The cost after 10 years, when all of the housing is in place, we estimate to be approximately $1.2 billion per year in rent subsidies, 

with a similar amount for services. Before you have a heart attack, 

much of this cost we think can be offset by savings to health, corrections and shelter systems. There will indeed be a need for upfront investment and, of course, we appreciate that savings in one 

area does not always necessarily translate into resources that are 

available in another area. Nevertheless, it seems to us that ending 

chronic homelessness is something that we can and should do. 

As communities across the country have begun to develop and 

implement their plans with respect to ending chronic homelessness, 

they have faced many challenges. The Samaritan Initiative addresses some of these problems. First, by providing targeted resources, it encourages communities to take on this difficult task. 

Second, it provides flexible resources, allowing communities to utilize the federal funds as gap fillers, and it models an important 

level of federal coordination. 

The Samaritan Initiative additionally provides funding for many 

of the activities that will have to be undertaken if chronic homelessness is to be ended. It funds outreach. It provides capital to acquire housing units. It funds operating and rent subsidies and it 

provides flexible funding for services. 

In my written testimony, I have suggested a few changes to the 

Samaritan Initiative which we believe would make it even more effective. These involve bringing the amount of service funding more 

in line with the amount that is dedicated to housing, and also adjusting the match provisions to better leverage mainstream, state 

and local service dollars. Of course, additional steps are going to 

have to be taken if we are going to achieve the Administration’s 

goal of ending chronic homelessness in 10 years. In particular, prevention measures and additional housing and services resources 

will have to be put into place. 

As other people on this panel have mentioned, one critically important additional source of housing subsidy which impacts chronic 

homelessness is the Section 8 voucher program. This program is 

important to ending chronic homelessness for three reasons. First, 

18

it prevents people from becoming chronically homeless by keeping 

them in housing. Second, Section 8 vouchers are being used now 

in many communities, as you have heard, to pay the rent on apartments for chronically homeless people. For example, right here in 

the District, I sit as a volunteer on the board of a new nonprofit, 

Pathways to Housing, that in accordance with the city’s just-announced plan to end chronic homelessness, is using Section 8 

vouchers to house chronically homeless, chronically mentally ill 

people. Of our first two tenants, one had been on the street for 10 

years and the other had been on the street for 20 years. So I know 

that Section 8 can end chronic homelessness. 

Finally, the availability of rent subsidies is essential to attract 

capital for the development of supportive housing. For example, 

Fannie Mae has recently committed to provide capital financing 

and pre-development loans for supportive housing to chronically 

homeless people. Reliable rent subsidies like Section 8 must be 

available to access these private funds. 

It is therefore with great alarm that we view the Administration’s actions and proposals around Section 8. They simply are in 

direct contradiction to their own goal of ending chronic homelessness. We urge Congress to fully protect and fund the Section 8 program. Further, if you really wanted to end chronic homelessness, 

a relatively simple way to do that would be to create a dedicated 

pool of housing vouchers that would be linked to capital to create 

the balance of the 150,000 units of permanent supportive housing 

that we need to end chronic homelessness. 

Mr. Chairman and Ms. Waters, the National Alliance to End 

Homelessness supports the Administration’s goal of ending chronic 

homelessness in 10 years, although of course not at the expense of 

or to the exclusion of ending homelessness for other homeless people. We support the Samaritan Initiative and we urge you to authorize it. We extend our gratitude to the subcommittee for taking 

on this difficult task, and we look forward to continuing to work 

with you on the goal of ending chronic homelessness. 

[The prepared statement of Nan Roman can be found on page 

142 in the appendix.] 

Mr. RENZI. Ms. Roman, thank you. 

Mr. Whitehead, thanks. 

STATEMENT OF DONALD WHITEHEAD, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

NATIONAL COALITION FOR THE HOMELESS 

Mr. WHITEHEAD. Thank you. 

Chairman Ney, Ranking Member Waters and other distinguished 

members of the committee, it is an honor to be asked to testify 

today on H.R. 4057, the Samaritan Initiative Act of 2004. I appreciate the opportunity to be here today with many of my esteemed 

colleagues to offer insight on this proposed legislation. 

I am Donald Whitehead, executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless, the nation’s oldest and largest organization 

that works exclusively with and on behalf of people experiencing 

homelessness. The National Coalition for the Homeless, like many 

of our partners, is deeply concerned about the recent growth of 

homelessness across America. We are pleased that the Interagency 

Council on Homeless is coordinating with other federal agencies to 

19

respond to the growing needs of homeless individuals. This coordination is essential as we work together to end homelessness. 

The number of people experiencing homelessness continues to 

grow unabated and new resources are required to meet the demand, but those new resources cannot come at the expense of reduction to existing programs. The Samaritan Initiative would be 

funded at the expense of the McKinney-Vento homeless assistance 

program. The President’s budget proposal for McKinney-Vento is 

$1.26 billion. It is estimated that $1.3 billion is required to maintain the programs at their current levels. 

Leaving the program at fiscal year 2004 levels still leaves us 

with a huge amount of unmet need. In fiscal year 2004, HUD had 

to turn down $273 million in Continuum of Care requests due to 

lack of funding. Instead of using resources to start new programs, 

we should be concentrating on fully funding the programs that already exist. The McKinney-Vento program offers greater flexibility 

in geographic targeting and eligibility of participants, while also 

targeting the chronically homeless population. Furthermore, by 

putting this money in McKinney-Vento, the administrative costs 

associated with starting and administering a new program can be 

avoided and more people can be served. 

The Samaritan Initiative is only available to people experiencing 

chronic homelessness, and the government definition of ‘‘chronically 

homeless’’ applies only to unaccompanied homeless individuals 

with a disability who have been continuously homeless for a year 

or more or who have had at least four episodes of homelessness in 

the past 3 years. While this is an important population to serve, 

this definition excludes families who have experienced long-term 

homelessness, and families are the largest-growing sector of the 

homeless population. Families now represent 40 percent of the 

homeless population. Even families whose head of household is disabled are excluded from the Samaritan Initiative. 

This targeting issue is one I feel very strongly about, for both 

personal and professional reasons. Ten years ago, I was forced to 

utilize the services provided by the McKinney-Vento program. Had 

my ability to access those services been limited to the narrow definition of ‘‘chronically homeless’’ in this legislation, I would certainly 

not be here testifying today and there is a very high probability 

that I would in fact not be alive because I would not have qualified 

for these services. 

Furthermore, we object to the codification of this definition of 

‘‘chronic homelessness.’’ There is widespread disagreement among 

practitioners about the definition of ‘‘chronic homelessness’’ as well 

as the ethics and practicality of using this definition to deliver 

services. Congress should not put this definition into statute. 

We are also concerned that this initiative on its own does very 

little for its target population: $10 million in the Department of 

Health and Human Services to be distributed across 50 states for 

people with complex health and mental health needs is woefully insufficient. 

In addition, this program provides only 3-year grants followed by 

the option to reapply for another 3 years of funding at half the 

amount. The people who will be served by this initiative have, by 

definition, severe mental health and physical disabilities. In order 

20

to remain in permanent housing, they will likely need supportive 

services for the rest of their lives. If funding is cut off, they are at 

risk of becoming homeless again. 

We applaud the drafters and sponsors of this bill for their recognition that both supportive services and affordable housing are 

necessary to end homelessness, but we question the effectiveness of 

earmarking $50 million for affordable housing production, while at 

the same time cutting $1.6 billion from the Section 8 housing 

voucher program. As long as the Section 8 program is in crisis, we 

cannot end homelessness in this country. 

In conclusion, any initiative to end homelessness or chronic 

homelessness in this country must be forward-thinking and comprehensive and it must include the production of large amounts of 

affordable housing. There are two such initiatives in the House of 

Representatives right now, both of which have more sponsors than 

H.R. 4507. These are the National Housing Trust Fund, H.R. 1102, 

which would provide funding for 1.5 million units of affordable 

housing over the next 10 years, and the Bringing America Home 

Act, H.R. 2897, which is a comprehensive bill to end homelessness 

in this country. The Bringing America Home Act includes housing, 

healthcare, economic justice, and civil rights provisions. A list of 

endorsers is attached to my testimony and we ask that it be entered in the record. 

We appreciate the recognition by this committee that ending 

homelessness must be a priority in this country, but the Samaritan 

Initiative in its present form is not an effective way to accomplish 

that goal. 

Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. 

[The prepared statement of Donald Whitehead can be found on 

page 150 in the appendix.] 

Mr. RENZI. Thank you for your insights. 

Before we move to questions, I want to move to our ranking 

member, Mrs. Waters of California. 

Ms. WATERS. Thank you very much, Chairman Renzi. I thank 

you for the introduction of the legislation and your chairing of this 

hearing today. 

This is a very important hearing. I suppose we are all here to 

review the homelessness issues, including those that are particular 

to the chronically homeless. As you have heard today, there are approximately 80,000 people who are homeless each night in Los Angeles. Many of them are concentrated in Central and South-Central 

Los Angeles. A hugely disproportionate number of these homeless 

are African American. A larger segment of the homeless than in 

the general population is disabled. 

There has also been an explosion in the number of families with 

children experiencing homelessness. Simply put, in Los Angeles 

and many communities throughout America, we have a crisis and 

the problems are getting worse. 

Chairman Renzi, there are several technical questions raised by 

this legislation. I am pleased that we are covering some of those 

questions today, especially the issue of whether the definition of 

‘‘chronically homeless person’’ that is used in the Samaritan Initiative improperly excludes families with children, even those families 

with disabled members. 

21

I am pleased that some of our witnesses are exploring whether 

we need to expand the definition of homelessness to reach unstable 

housing situations where families with children are living doubledup with extended family members or others who are willing to provide them with shelter temporarily. I, too, believe that we should 

be using the broader definition of homelessness employed by the 

U.S. Department of Education so that families lacking fixed, regular or otherwise adequate housing would be eligible for programs 

even if they are not living on the street or in a shelter. 

Also I believe that the services funding authorized by this bill is 

grossly inadequate to meet the needs of those who would be covered by the initiative. The services funding should be substantially 

increased by at least an additional $45 million as the U.S. Conference of Mayors has requested. 

Mr. Renzi, as important as these technical questions are, I submit that there are far larger policy questions that we must address. 

Respectfully, I submit that there is somewhat of an Alice in Wonderland quality to the Administration’s discussion of these issues. 

The Administration appears to believe that the issue of homelessness can be considered in isolation from the broader issues of poverty and affordable housing production. 

Yet nothing could be further from the truth. How can anyone seriously believe that we can achieve the worthy objectives of this initiative by authorizing a total of $70 million in funding, at the same 

time that the Administration is proposing cuts of $1.6 billion in the 

Section 8 voucher program, cuts that if implemented would result 

in a reduction of 250,000 Section 8 vouchers. 

The impact of the cuts to the Section 8 program, if implemented, 

surely would result in a tremendous increase in homelessness and 

make it all the more difficult to achieve the Administration’s professed goal of ending homelessness in 10 years. It is clear that the 

Administration’s Section 8 policies are dislocating households and 

forcing many public housing authorities to raise rents and lower 

subsidies to needy seniors, persons with disabilities, and families 

with children. 

The funding level proposed by the Bush Administration will result in 250,000 vouchers being funded if housing authorities choose 

to maintain the current level of subsidy for those vouchers that 

they do maintain. If housing authorities choose instead to maintain 

the same number of vouchers currently authorized nationally, the 

average Section 8 tenant to rent would have to rise by an average 

of about $850 per year. In Los Angeles, the City Housing Authority 

would have to issue 5,336 fewer vouchers and the County Housing 

Authority would have to issue 2,457 fewer vouchers if they choose 

to make up the funding shortfall by reducing the number of vouchers that they fund. 

If they issue the same number of vouchers, the City of Los Angeles would have to raise the average tenant’s rent by $933 per year 

and the County Housing Authority would have to raise the average 

tenant’s rent by $977 per year in order to absorb the impact of the 

Bush Administration’s proposed funding level. 

Mr. Renzi, the National Low Income Housing Coalition has prepared an impact matrix that explains how public housing authorities around the country are responding to the Administration’s deVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:17 Nov 10, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00027 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 G:\DOCS\96528.TXT FIN1 PsN: MICAH
22

structive Section 8 housing policies, including HUD’s April 22, 2004 

notice announcing changes to HUD’s Section 8 payment policies. I 

believe this document is crucial to obtaining a realistic understanding of the state of affordable housing in this country. I ask 

that it be made a part of the record of this hearing. 

Mr. Renzi, you do not get close to your destination by taking one 

step forward and 10 steps back. I know that is not you, because 

you are trying to move this process forward, but I have to be very 

honest with you, the Samaritan Initiative cannot be divorced from 

the broader issues of affordable housing policy. Most housing experts believe that an incremental 150,000 housing units will be required in the next 10 years to end chronic homelessness for those 

who are currently experiencing it. Yet, I see no evidence that the 

Administration has any plan to produce the units required. 

During the questioning period, I want to find out, and I will be 

asking Mr. Mangano, to provide the details and explain just how 

the Administration proposes to create the 150,000 incremental 

housing units that would be required to address the supportive 

housing shortfall for the chronically homeless. To me, the numbers 

just do not add up. 

Mr. Chairman, I know that an awful lot of work is taking place 

in Los Angeles and many other communities around the country to 

develop, with community input, 10-year plans to end homelessness, 

a project that Mr. Mangano is championing. I certainly recognize 

the value of a planning process and community input. Yet if our 

goal truly is to end homelessness, we must be prepared to devote 

the resources required to make such plans a reality. The plans are 

a means to an end, not an end in themselves. 

If we end up producing carefully considered, well-developed plans 

that simply gather dust on a shelf because we are unwilling to devote the resources required to implement them, then we need to 

ask why we went to the trouble of creating the plans in the first 

place. In my view, we must not offer simple solutions. We need to 

fully fund the Section 8 voucher program and support affordable 

housing initiatives like the National Affordable Housing Trust that 

can produce the supportive housing required to address homelessness. 

I look forward to the testimony of our witnesses today. Again, I 

know, Mr. Chairman, that you are very much concerned, as I have 

witnessed the work that you are doing in your own district, not 

only with the homeless but with the Indian population, and have 

a great appreciation for that. I think that you are on the right 

track, but we have a long way to go. 

Thank you very much. 

Mr. RENZI. I thank the gentlelady and I appreciate her comments 

and agree with a lot of her insights. 

We are going to move to questions now. We will alternate back 

and forth. Each member has 5 minutes and we will start with Mr. 

Tiberi. 

Mr. TIBERI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Ms. Poppe, thank you for your testimony. Can you expand a little 

bit more on what you experienced when you first took the helm of 

the Community Shelter Board in 1995? What I mean by that, when 

I was in the legislature starting in 1992 in Columbus, Ohio, the inVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:17 Nov 10, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00028 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 G:\DOCS\96528.TXT FIN1 PsN: MICAH
23

vogue way to deal with homelessness was just to warehouse the 

homeless in Columbus. Through your leadership on the Community 

Shelter Board, you obviously have a much different approach. I 

have toured your facilities and seen that approach. Can you explain 

how that transition occurred in Columbus and how that is occurring nationally, and what we can do here in addition to this legislation to help you at the local level? 

Ms. POPPE. Yes, thank you for your kind words and the question. 

In Columbus and Franklin County, we were facing a situation 

where downtown economic development was likely to displace two 

major shelters serving homeless men, as well as areas along the 

riverfront where homeless folks were congregating and sleeping 

outdoors. So we received a charge from our Mayor, along with 

County Commissioners and the United Way of Central Ohio which 

asked us to undertake a study to see if there were different ways 

to approach homelessness, and specifically to address the needs of 

those persons who would be impacted by the displacement of those 

facilities and the reconstruction. 

That resulted in a period of intensive research where we looked 

at our homeless management information system data, which went 

back to the early 1990s, along with best practice research. Together, we formed a plan that included input from our providers. 

It included input from those who had been consumers. It also had 

a strong constituency within our neighborhoods who were very concerned about homeless people on the street, but also did not want 

to see facilities developed in their neighborhood, kind of the ‘‘not 

in my backyard’’ approach 

We also had the support of the downtown business community 

and all of our elected officials. What that resulted in was the community came together across all party lines, across all ways of 

doing things, and committed on a path to improve emergency services. So we developed three new emergency facilities which replaced the two outdated facilities. We had a better system to deal 

with those who were publicly inebriated. We increased our outreach and intake processes. 

But the centerpiece of it was the development of permanent supportive housing. I can tell you that having worked in Columbus for 

all these years, there are people that I was told could not be 

housed. They simply wanted to be homeless and this was their lifestyle choice. It is no great surprise, but they are today housed and 

successfully in supportive housing. They are working. They are 

dealing with their mental health issues. 

So it has become a real point of pride for our community, whether it is our Commissioners who are very invested in the success of 

it, or our Mayor or City Council. It has become a point of pride in 

our community. We have also successfully dealt with the issue of 

NIMBY and have developed good neighbor agreements that help 

assure projects operate successfully. 

It has very, very much changed the way we address homelessness in our community and I believe it is a model for other communities that can be adopted and addressed. We were able to do this 

because we had strong local support and local investment of city 

and county tax revenue, as well as the private sector support, and 

24

then strong support from the federal government through the various federal housing programs. 

Mr. TIBERI. What can we do? The Samaritan Initiative is a pilot 

program. What else can we do, in your eyes, to help the 

Columbuses and Franklin Counties of America? 

Ms. POPPE. I certainly believe the Samaritan Initiative is very 

good, and a first step in dealing with chronic homelessness. Beyond 

that, the single most important issue to us really is how we deal 

with the voucher program and preserving and expanding that. It 

is incredibly successful at addressing chronic homelessness, whether we use them as tenant-based or attached to actual projects like 

the Commons Grant, which is our newest downtown supportive 

housing development. 

Beyond that, we do need resources for services to help stabilize 

families as well as individuals, and we do need to all work together 

and put aside some of our outdated notions about what an emergency shelter is or what a transitional housing program is. There 

are many things we have learned in the last 20 years, and some 

of those things we do need to cast aside and to move forward in 

a new, more effective and targeted way. 

Mr. TIBERI. You mentioned the voucher program. Can you comment to me, in your opinion, there is an issue of the cost of the 

voucher program. In dealing with the issue of homelessness and 

chronic homelessness, do you believe that the federal government 

can do a better job? What I mean by that is, invest federal dollars 

in the voucher program in a way that we can long-term save dollars by getting people to be productive and self-sufficient through 

what you have done with supportive services? 

Ms. POPPE. We have seen that the voucher program, by providing 

a rent subsidy, enables us to take in individuals who have no income at the time of intake into supportive housing. In fact, 85 percent of the folks have no income. What they are able to do is by 

stabilizing their lives, they are over time able to increase that income. We have had folks who have moved up to being able to fully 

pay their rent. There are other individuals, frankly though, whose 

serious mental illness is such that full-time work is not really going 

to be something that they can do, but it is at a lower cost than was 

long-term institutionalization or their excess use of emergency 

rooms and psychiatric hospitals. 

I do believe there probably are some administrative savings possible within the voucher program. I do not believe those administrative savings will amount to $1.6 billion, such that we can save 

all of the existing units. We are very concerned that the program 

moves forward and we do not lose ground, but we also need to expand the supply of affordable housing. 

Mr. TIBERI. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, just one final point. Ms. 

Poppe, you do believe, though, that with the proper use of the 

voucher program that we can actually, not everybody, there is no 

question about that, but I have seen it in Columbus where someone 

will be homeless, and rather than just warehousing them, providing them with supportive services and the housing, that potentially, in fact it has happened, people can become self-sufficient. 

Ms. POPPE. Absolutely. We do see folks become self-sufficient. We 

do see about 10 percent of supportive housing residents actually 

25

graduate from the program into a larger unit. Often it is because 

they have a job and they want a better apartment near their job 

or they are reunifying with their family. So success does occur even 

with those who are the most disadvantaged and difficult to otherwise serve. 

Mr. TIBERI. Thank you. 

Mr. RENZI. Thank you, Mr. Tiberi. 

I would like to recognize the Ranking Member from our full committee, Mr. Frank of Massachusetts. 

Mr. FRANK. I thank the Chairman. 

My question is for Ms. Roman. I thought you made the point 

very well in your testimony when you said one critically important 

additional source of housing subsidy impacting chronic homelessness is the Section 8 voucher program. The program seems to me 

very well structured, except that it misses an important semantic 

point. ‘‘Homeless’’ means people do not have homes. 

Now, we should also be clear here, and I am glad to have this 

chance to underline this, we are talking about homes, not homeownership. Homeownership is a good thing, but for many of the 

poorest people in this country most of the time they will not be able 

to own homes. A policy that looks only at ownership and not at 

home occupancy is flawed. 

Now, for low-income people it seems to me the Section 8 program 

is very important. Here is my question. If we were to adopt this 

bill today and it went into effect, but the current policy regarding 

Section 8 vouchers stayed the same, how much of a dent would we 

be making in homelessness? 

Ms. ROMAN. We would probably have more homeless people if the 

Section 8 voucher policies that are proposed went into effect. It appears to us that the Samaritan Initiative would support, it runs 

over 3 years, so it would support about 2,500 units a year. If it 

kept being appropriated at the level that is requested, it could ultimately support a maximum of 7,500 units per year. So we would 

stand to have a much greater net loss if we lose the vouchers that 

we are anticipated to lose, as other people on the panel have described. 

Mr. FRANK. Let me ask another question of everybody here. One 

of the arguments we have seen, and I will address this to Mr. 

Mangano later because he talked approvingly of the Administration’s proposal to restructure Section 8. As Secretary Jackson has 

said, the problem is the Section 8 program is costing us too much 

money, partly because the people we are helping are too poor. He 

points out correctly that you pay 30 percent of your income for Section 8, and people with very little income are thus more expensive 

than people without because there is a bigger gap to be made up. 

If we were to act on Secretary Jackson’s proposal that we re-target Section 8 and try to hit a higher income level, obviously still 

below the 80 percent, how would that interact with this program? 

Let me go down the list here. Let me start on the left, ma’am. Do 

you favor Secretary Jackson’s argument that we should reorient 

the targeting of Section 8 to get a higher income group of people? 

Ms. BUCKLEY. No, especially not in rural Arizona. That would be 

missing probably 85 percent of the veteran population that my 

26

project serves. They just do not meet the threshold that he has set 

forth, so it would increase the homelessness in Arizona. 

Mr. FRANK. Okay. Thank you. Next? 

Mr. HESS. It would be problematic. It would certainly be very 

challenging. It is already challenging to find an adequate number 

of affordable housing units for people at the lowest income ranges. 

We see people in our shelter system that typically are 15 percent 

of mean and below, and it is almost impossible to move them into 

affordable housing without subsidy. So it would be a movement in 

the wrong direction. 

Mr. FRANK. Next? 

Mr. MAUCK. The elimination of public housing in many communities has really put an additional stress on Section 8 as we know 

it. The change in the income levels merely exacerbates the problem. We have not really raised people’s income at the lowest end 

that are in fact enjoying the benefits of Section 8 housing. So I 

think you exacerbate the problem and ultimately it will create 

more homelessness. 

Mr. FRANK. Thank you. Let me just interject here, and I am glad 

you mentioned the public housing situation. I am not happy that 

we have the situation. I am glad you mentioned it. One of the 

things Secretary Jackson pointed out was that the Section 8 program has now, to his dismay, become a much larger percentage of 

the overall HUD budget. But it has become a larger percentage of 

the HUD budget partly because it has grown, but partly because 

almost everything else has shrunk. Section 8 is a larger part of the 

HUD budget because public housing and other construction programs are not there. So I think that is exactly right. We have put 

a greater burden on Section 8 at the same time we lament the fact 

that it is growing. 

Yes, sir, next? 

Mr. NETBURN. I concur that it would definitely create more 

homeless people, particularly in Southern California, especially in 

Los Angeles. There is an extremely low vacancy rate. Housing costs 

are extremely high. It is challenging enough for us as it is now to 

house all the people that need housing. With the loss of this program, I am really not sure what we would do with those very lowincome people who would not be eligible for the Section 8 program. 

Mr. FRANK. Yes? 

Ms. POPPE. We would absolutely see homelessness increase in 

Columbus and Franklin County. Just to give a perspective, the typical homeless family has less than $200 a month that they can afford to pay for housing, and the typical two-bedroom apartment 

costs over $650. So we are already facing a $450 a month gap. 

Mr. FRANK. Mr. Chairman, I would ask unanimous consent just 

to let the last three witnesses answer, if that is okay. 

Mr. PUCCI. Mr. Frank, I have been administering the Section 8 

program for about 27 years, back in the days when we could assist 

families up to 80 percent of median income. I believe that if we 

were to go back to that that it would seriously impact those folks 

who are below 35 percent of median income. It would increase 

homelessness. If we are not going to be assisting them, who else 

is? 

Mr. FRANK. Ms. Roman? 

27

Ms. ROMAN. We have homeless people because people cannot afford housing. So if we remove the primary subsidy program for lowincome people to be stable in housing, we will definitely have more 

people homeless. 

Mr. FRANK. Mr. Whitehead? 

Mr. WHITEHEAD. The chronically homeless initiative is based on 

the idea that people can move quickly through the system. If the 

Section 8 housing program is not funded at an adequate level, it 

will definitely increase the number of homeless people. We have already started to see some effects in programs that have partnered 

with their local housing authority. People are already starting to 

not be able to utilize vouchers. 

Mr. FRANK. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I will summarize. I just 

want to reemphasize. I am not making this up. It is a repeated 

theme of Secretary Jackson that the way to fix the Section 8 program is to help people with higher income. I think that the contrast between that and a professed concern for the homeless is so 

glaring that I appreciated the chance to be able to talk about it. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. RENZI. Thank you, Mr. Frank. 

We have been joined by the Chairman of our Subcommittee on 

Housing, Mr. Ney. I want to first of all thank you for allowing me 

to chair and also for bringing forth the legislation. I recognize you. 

Chairman NEY. Thanks for the job you are doing, and the job you 

are doing today chairing this, and also the legislation you have 

worked on. I know it is appreciated in all parts of the country. 

I have a couple of questions, for whoever wants to answer it. 

What about de-institutionalization? I am talking about the State of 

Ohio because I was a State legislator. We were involved in that. 

I am not saying institutionalization is good as a wide brush, but 

the process of de-institutionalization in the United States, with 

persons that have some form of a problem when it comes to some 

form of mental illness, is that still making the situation worse, to 

create homelessness? 

Ms. POPPE. I can speak first from the Ohio perspective, which is 

that because we have been so many years into the process of deinstitutionalization, what we are seeing is the after-effect of that, 

which is that there are many, many individuals who are homeless 

and who have never had the chance to be institutionalized because 

it happened so long ago. But they do not have adequate community 

services, nor do they have adequate housing. 

We are still in the process of further downsizing our psychiatric 

hospitals. One of our newest rebuilding lives projects is actually 

targeting those who have been institutionalized on a step-down 

basis. What we are able to see is that they are able to over time 

be sufficiently housed in a pretty low-demand situation, in permanent supportive housing. 

So very much supportive housing is a really cost-effective alternative to institutionalization. It only costs us about $14,500 a year 

to house someone in supportive housing. I know that in-patient 

psychiatric hospitalization exceeds costs of $80,000 to $90,000 a 

year. But we simply have not had that investment of those dollars 

translate into affordable housing with community services. 

28

Chairman NEY. You get a lot of ‘‘not in my backyard,’’ too, as you 

know, dealing with this issue. 

Ms. POPPE. Absolutely. I think there is a lot of fear about folks 

who are either poor or mentally ill, but we have been able to overcome that in Columbus by working with neighbors to create covenants around good neighbor agreements. So it is still possible. It 

does require local political will to overcome those neighbors’ objections and it requires good quality operations to make sure we fulfill 

our promises. 

Chairman NEY. Of course, I am familiar from being in the legislature about 14 years there and the work you have done, a lot of 

you, and Bill Faith and a lot of good work that has been done. 

I had a question for Mr. Netburn. I think in your testimony you 

mentioned that the early administration of the collaborative grant 

was complicated. Can you expand on that a little bit? 

Mr. NETBURN. Yes, the original request, the notice of funding 

availability that was issued was really several different applications that were just in one envelop, so to speak. There was a really 

short time frame, and it was incredibly challenging for the providers who put together the skid row collaborative, to respond to 

that request. Additionally, in the early part of the grant, particularly the administration of it, there were different start dates to 

the different funding streams; different reporting rules. 

The original concept was really great, of putting funding into one 

single application with the idea that it would be administered singly, but the initial administration was clearly not like that. I know 

they have been working hard in Los Angeles to make it a lot 

smoother. I do hear that it is smoother, but it was extremely challenging in the beginning. 

Needless to say, dealing with this population was very challenging. Where you really want to focus your efforts is on helping 

the chronic homeless people get into housing and stay there, not 

with the oversight of the program. Not to say there should not be 

clear oversight and accountability, but I have been doing government work for about 20 years and it was probably about the most 

complicated application I have ever seen. 

Fortunately, as I said, that has somewhat been worked out. I 

think the new legislation does address that. Just given that early 

experience, we wanted to make sure that those federal agencies involved in this matter really take it to heart and collaborate and try 

to make it as easy as possible, ensuring the proper oversight. 

Chairman NEY. Thank you. 

I have run out of time, but I just had a generic quick question, 

Mr. Chairman. It is also good to be here today with our Ranking 

Member, Ms. Waters. It deals with rural versus urban homelessness. Any recent stats on it? Homelessness is homelessness, but obviously in the urban centers it just statistically has to be a lot 

more. 

Ms. POPPE. I think the rate is higher in urban areas than rural 

areas generally in homelessness per capita. 

Ms. BUCKLEY. I know that in rural Arizona, just in two counties, 

we have over 2,000 homeless veterans, and that is just of the veteran population. I think in the rural areas, the problem that you 

have is they are not so visible. You have them in the desert areas, 

29

in the forests. There are not as many resources such as emergency 

shelters, transitional programs where you can get headcounts. 

So it is a big issue in rural areas as well. There are not as many 

opportunities for nonprofits and faith-based organizations to set up 

programs to help the homeless because there is not as much funding and everything like that. 

Chairman NEY. We have homelessness, but also like down in 

Blair, Ohio at Salvation Army, you will see a lot of people passing 

through from other places also, and they will come into the small 

areas to try and get some help. 

My time has expired. 

Mr. RENZI. Mr. Whitehead? 

Mr. WHITEHEAD. I was just going to echo that, that there are 

definitely fewer resources to address the problem of homelessness 

in rural communities. We have also found in some rural communities like Iowa, the population is primarily families. 

Chairman NEY. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. NETBURN. Could I just add? 

Mr. RENZI. Yes, sir. 

Mr. NETBURN. I come from the second-largest city in America. I 

know from speaking to many of the providers in rural areas, that 

they feel that particularly in the colder rural areas that their clients may not necessarily meet the definition of ‘‘chronic homelessness’’ because in those areas people will take people in, offer them 

housing particularly during the cold months. So they feel disadvantaged. 

Mr. RENZI. Mr. Chairman, thank you for the questions. 

We move to our Ranking Member, Ms. Waters. 

Ms. WATERS. Thank you very much. I would like to just take this 

opportunity to thank Chairman Ney. As was mentioned earlier, he 

came to Los Angeles when we first opened the discussion on Section 8. We had tremendous turnout and a lot of support from the 

service providers and people in this community who are working at 

this every day, landlords, everybody who sent the word back here 

to Congress, please do not cut Section 8. So we all are warned that 

it would lead to, and quickly, to homelessness. I would like to 

thank you, Chairman Ney, and I would like to thank all of those 

who participated. 

Let me talk about Los Angeles and ask some questions about Los 

Angeles for a minute. I do not know if other members of Congress 

are having this problem, but we have a growing confrontation between downtown and South Los Angeles. Something happened in 

this service authority that gave Sheriff Baca some authority to do 

something. I am not sure as of this moment what it is. Many of 

our organizations got word, and they defined it as Sheriff Baca had 

the mandate from the authority to get rid of the homelessness 

downtown because of the proposed new developments downtown, 

and ship them to South Los Angeles with some plan to have temporary shelters under freeways and some other places. As you 

know, the community exploded. 

I got Sheriff Baca out to a meeting where 900 people showed up 

at Crenshaw Christian Center, and of course they sent the word 

back in no uncertain terms that there should not be a shifting of 

homeless population. There is a significant amount of homelessness 

30

in South Los Angeles already, and everybody agrees that every 

community must do its share of bearing the responsibility for the 

homelessness. 

Can you tell me if the Authority has a plan to shift the homeless 

from downtown? I wish other members of Congress would tell me 

if they have these kinds of plans going on the area, if something 

is going on and we are now in confrontation about the homeless. 

Do you know anything about this, Mr. Netburn? 

Mr. NETBURN. I can state emphatically we do not plan on shifting resources or housing to South-Central or other areas. What we 

have seen over time is a concentration of services within the skid 

row area. It was a conscious policy of the City of Los Angeles many 

years about, about 20 years ago, to create, in effect, a skid row. It 

has developed in a chicken and egg scenario. What I mean by that 

is, homeless people not only throughout the City of Los Angeles, 

but really throughout the county and sometimes from other areas 

of the country know of the concentration of services in skid row and 

come there. Those providers have said, we need the funds because 

we have the most number of people. The reason they have the most 

number of people is because they got the funds years ago and they 

have the services. So it has become a self-perpetuating situation. 

So what the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority has said 

is that we are not going to de-fund projects in that area, but as 

much as possible we want to have new projects in other areas of 

the city and the county. Our estimates are that in skid row there 

are about four homeless people for every available bed. In SouthCentral, our estimates are that there are 44 people for every available bed. So what we want to try to do is eliminate that disparity 

so that people can be served in their own areas. 

One of the misnomers about homeless people is that people think 

they have come from some other area. Our experience is that they 

are neighbors; that they live in the area where they have gone to 

high school and the like, and that they are going to be most successful if they are receiving services and housing in their neighborhood with the support services. 

So we are not looking to shift the funding. What we are looking 

to do is to more equitably distribute the funding and the housing 

and the services so that people in the other areas have access in 

the areas where they live. 

Ms. WATERS. If I may, Mr. Chairman, on the Homeless Authority, how many people serve on the Authority Oversight Board? 

Mr. NETBURN. There are a total of 10 members. The Mayor appoints five, with the approval of the City Council, and each of the 

five County Supervisors has one appointee. 

Ms. WATERS. Well, I am finding that the problems of the homelessness is landing on the doorsteps of the members of Congress. 

On Section 8, they are beating our doors down. I have had three 

meetings already, working with the Housing Authority and others. 

Just as the question of whatever Sheriff Baca was doing came to 

light, then I was bombarded with the neighborhood councils and all 

who came to me. 

In the creation of the Authority, was any thought given to asking 

the members of Congress whether or not they wanted to participate 

in any way? Do you know? 

31

Mr. NETBURN. The creation pre-dates me. It was created in 1993. 

It really arose out of a lawsuit between the City and the County 

of Los Angeles. They agreed to settle that lawsuit by creating the 

Authority. State law allows two jurisdictions such as the city and 

the county to enter into a formal agreement. So those were the parties to the agreement. I have not heard of any specific discussion 

about that, but I certainly can check and get back to your office on 

that. 

I do want to state for the record, because you have mentioned 

Sheriff Baca, who has been a real champion of homeless issues and 

been very forceful. His actions were not at the direction of the Los 

Angeles Homeless Services Authority nor did we endorse those. We 

do seek and applaud any leadership we receive on homeless issues 

and funding and the siting of facilities, but his action in that specific area was independent from LAHSA. 

Ms. WATERS. I thank him, and he is a friend. I know that he is 

well-meaning. We just need to understand the relationship to the 

Authority and what is taking place. What I am going to do is ask 

this committee to come to Los Angeles one more time. I do not 

know if it will, but maybe some of the members will. We want you 

to walk us through the homeless network. I, surprisingly, have not 

been invited to do that. I think I am going to take more responsibility in figuring out what is happening in Los Angeles, and I want 

my colleagues to go along with me. 

Chairman NEY. Would the gentlelady yield? I think it would be 

a good idea to go to Los Angeles. I have been there, of course, on 

other issues, but I think to view first-hand homeless problems in 

that and any other cities I think would be excellent. 

Mr. NETBURN. Let me take this opportunity to publicly invite all 

of you. We would be truly honored to show you the situation in Los 

Angeles, which Philip Mangano can talk about. We are not proud 

of this fact, but certainly the skid row area and other parts of the 

city and county have a street population unlike any other city in 

the entire country. 

Ms. WATERS. When we come, we do not want anybody to clean 

it up. I want my colleagues to see exactly what it is. 

Mr. NETBURN. We do not give a cleaned-up tour. 

Ms. WATERS. Okay. Thank you very much. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. RENZI. I share the commitment, and I look forward to also 

coming and visiting and seeing Los Angeles. 

The gentlelady from Pennsylvania, Ms. Hart. 

Ms. HART. I have a quick question. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

It really runs along the same lines, but it is much more general 

in nature. I have had and continue to have regular meetings with 

housing advocates in the six counties I represent, but especially in 

Allegheny County, which is a major center of my district. Though 

they are very happy with some of the programs that we provide, 

they always tell me that they will have someone who they would 

term as chronically homeless who seems to fit everything, but then 

there is one criterion that always seems to prevent them from actually finding a place, not always but often prevents them from finding a place. 

32

So my question is actually for the executive directors of the housing authorities or for the homeless authorities. I think there are 

three of you on the panel, Columbus, LA, and Alameda, the three 

of you. Are there things that we need to do aside from a comprehensive outline of the program, that are more specific? Do you 

find, for example, that there are certain conditions that seem to be 

all the time eliminating factors for a person that you are trying to 

help? Or is this something that maybe I need to get more details 

from my folks? They have given me some, and we have gone back 

to HUD and said, why do you do this; why do you do that. Are 

there things that you find that are chronic issues that we need to 

address? 

Ms. POPPE. Speaking from the Columbus perspective, as well as 

we have heard from those around the State of Ohio, one of the current challenges we are seeing is that an increasing number of folks 

who find themselves homeless, whether it is families with children 

or single adults or those who have records of incarceration, and 

those records of incarceration prevent them from being eligible for 

any of the federal housing programs through public housing or Section 8. I would say that is the number one issue, is how to deal 

with housing for ex-offenders. 

We work very closely with our State of Ohio. They are very interested in doing improved discharge planning, but simply there are 

not resources available to house that population, so they end up 

un-housed. Within the population of ex-offenders, the most difficult 

to house are those folks who have been labeled as sexual predator 

and are subject to community notification. Many of those individuals are effectively completely un-housable and present the greatest challenge. 

The other issue that we consistently face is that folks who have 

been homeless have very bad credit records. Increasingly, private 

landlords as well as the Public Housing Authority will not accept 

folks who have bad credit records. So there is not a process by 

which they can resolve those prior debts. They may be education 

debts; they may be health debts. Those credit issues become a rental factor. They are not embedded in any of the federal laws, but 

because the housing authorities, as well as the private landlords, 

are looking for the best tenants, and there are more people who 

need housing than there is housing available, that is the additional 

factor that can often make families in particular un-housable. 

Mr. PUCCI. In Alameda, we have a similar example. We were trying to do a project-based assistance program using Section 8 vouchers with a homeless collaborative. They wanted to target the housing to folks who needed supportive services in the area of drug and 

alcohol counseling. Our local HUD rep said, well, you cannot do 

that because they would not be eligible for Section 8 if they had 

chronic drug and alcohol problems. So there is a conflict there. 

Mr. NETBURN. I would, in the interest of time, just agree with 

the things that were said. These are our clients. They are people 

who are mentally ill, who have been convicted of quality of life 

crimes, et cetera; people who have been evicted from other units 

because they could not pay their rent. That is why these people are 

homeless. So to have many of those things be barriers to them 

33

going to the type of housing we are talking about is very problematic. 

Ms. HART. I think Ms. Poppe mentioned families as well. Is it because the head of the household faces the challenge that they have 

been incarcerated, or have that kind of a challenge? 

Ms. POPPE. Yes. It is usually the head of household. Occasionally, 

it is a youth offender who is a member of the family, where the 

youth has committed a crime, that they will be ineligible. Usually 

those would be a sex-related offense. They are pretty rare circumstances, but they are the most difficult to house. In part, it is 

because there is not a good availability of treatment services to go 

with the housing to help the individual be really stable out in the 

neighborhood and out in the community, because we certainly do 

not want them to re-offend. 

Ms. HART. So part of the solution is actually to have a more complete package of services? 

Ms. POPPE. Absolutely. 

Ms. HART. Okay. Thank you. 

I yield back. 

Mr. RENZI. I thank the gentlelady. 

My neighbor across the hall in the Cannon Building, Mr. Scott, 

who showed up on time, but we had all this seniority we had to 

get through. Mr. Scott? 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you. I appreciate those brownie points. 

My question is to the gentleman from Philadelphia, Mr. Hess, 

about the phenomenal success in Philadelphia. I have spent some 

time in Philadelphia attending college at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. While there, this homelessness problem 

was really being magnified in Philadelphia, while at the same time 

there was a lot of downward pressure because of urban decay and 

Philadelphia’s massive loss of housing stock, especially up in North 

Philadelphia, which makes your success story all the more remarkable. 

Especially the fact that you went from, I think you said, about 

400,000 and some homeless to around 150,000 homeless, and then 

you had a 50 percent drop. Given all of that and the downward 

pressure also from the loss of all that housing stock, the nation 

would be very interested in knowing what were the centerpieces of 

your strategy that provided this remarkable success story of homelessness in Philadelphia? 

Mr. HESS. I thank the gentleman for his kind words. We point 

out that Mayor Franklin is from Philadelphia as well. 

Mr. SCOTT. Absolutely. 

Mr. HESS. We are proud of the work that is going on in Atlanta. 

Really, it started in our city with a public discussion over the issue 

of the number of people sleeping on the streets. It really was a very 

vocal discussion on both sides of that issue that led to Mayor John 

Street taking very strong leadership to say we were not going to 

criminalize the act of being homeless on the streets of our city, but 

yet we were going to try a social service engagement strategy and 

put $5 million new dollars immediately on the table to bring the 

appropriate systems and resources to bear. 

So we added street outreach teams and created a police detail 

strictly dedicated to homeless service issues to work with those soVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:17 Nov 10, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00039 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 G:\DOCS\96528.TXT FIN1 PsN: MICAH
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cial service teams. But the biggest thing we did was add residential 

treatment placement slots, housing with treatment and support. 

That has been really remarkably effective. At first, it was drug and 

alcohol treatment programs with residential housing and behavioral health housing. We added about 2,000 units of behavioral 

health beds with services attached in the city, and hundreds of 

drug and alcohol recovery house beds. 

So that was the first piece. Once we were able to reduce the 

street population by about 50 percent, we then recognized that 

those strategies in and of themselves would not get us to our goal 

of ending the need for anyone to sleep on our streets. That is when 

we turned to the Housing First approach. Supportive housing is 

just so incredibly important. I was really thinking about Chairman 

Ney’s question about the de-institutionalization. The fact is that I 

think now we have learned over time how to provide services in 

housing for almost anybody. 

Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Hess, let me ask you because I do not want to 

use all my time here, but let me ask about rental assistance. Tell 

me how rental assistance played in your program and how 

impactful and important it is? 

Mr. HESS. It is absolutely critical to be able to house people permanently with supportive services. We were able to kind of cobble 

together some of the services locally, but we had to have the rental 

subsidies to make that portion of our success happen. It remains 

critically important as we look to the future. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you. 

Ms. Poppe, may I ask you this question, in the legislation there 

is a funding mechanism that says you get 3-year grants, and then 

after that 3 years you get a renewal, but that 3-year renewal is 

one-half of what the original was. Do you believe that that authorization is sufficient to provide the necessary funds to address this 

chronic homelessness? 

Ms. POPPE. It has been our experience that overall just over half 

of the support for our supportive housing units that have been developed in Columbus do come from the federal government. That 

does not mean that at the beginning of the project their funding 

got cut by half as we move through the process. So I do believe that 

that formula should be addressed and adjusted. It is one thing to 

say it is 50 percent of the overall project cost, but it is another 

thing if the real intention is to cut the funding by 50 percent. 

Under the current collaborative initiative to end homelessness, 

we are in a declining scale as it relates to the HHS component, 

under SAMHSA, but the rent subsidies under HUD under the SHP 

program have remained constant throughout the term of the grant. 

We believe that the housing subsidy portion of it definitely needs 

to stay fully in place. The service piece perhaps could decline as 

you could bring in locals, because there is a substantial part of 

funding for services that can come from the local and the state government. But absolutely, the housing component needs to stay 

there because that is the only way we can keep folks affordably 

housed. 

Mr. SCOTT. One final question, Mr. Chairman. There has been 

some debate and discussion among professionals as well as housing 

and homeless advocates in terms of the definition of ‘‘chronic homeVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:17 Nov 10, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00040 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 G:\DOCS\96528.TXT FIN1 PsN: MICAH
35

lessness.’’ Do you feel that there is a need for us to try to come up 

with some definition, and this could be for any member on the 

panel, for chronic homelessness, and if we needed to write that into 

the statute? If so, what do you think, just very quickly, what it 

would say? Mr. Hess? 

Mr. HESS. I would say that we follow the research, and we look 

at the research of Dr. Culhane from the University of Pennsylvania 

and we see that 10 percent of the population meet the chronic definition that he has developed, and that they are using 50 percent 

of our resources, we would say with or without a definition that is 

a group we ought to target and we ought to focus on because we 

believe that if we are able to move that 10 percent that is utilizing 

50 percent of our resources, into permanent housing and out of our 

shelter systems, that ultimately we will have more resources to be 

able to address the need of everyone else that experiences homelessness in our community, whether that be individuals or families. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. WHITEHEAD. Mr. Scott, we certainly believe that the definition should be expanded because we certainly believe that it is important to address the issues of this population, but we do not believe that you should be pitting populations against each other. 

Homeless families and children are just as vulnerable as chronically homeless individuals as defined in the legislation. 

In addition to that, there is also additional research by the 

RAND Corporation in Houston that says people that are homeless 

have some of the same issues as people that are chronically homeless by definition. We do not completely understand the freed-up 

resources because if people are chronically homeless and need the 

resources for permanent housing, permanent housing is housing 

that remains forever. So we do not understand how resources are 

freed-up if you provide permanent housing for people over a period 

of time. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. RENZI. I thank the gentleman. I want the gentleman to know 

I am willing to work with him, too, maybe during the markup period at looking at what an amendment might be on the definition, 

particularly given all the testimony we have gotten here today. 

The gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Davis. 

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me begin my comments by saying that while I think I agree with a lot of Ms. 

Waters’s comments that there are some well-founded objections to 

this legislation, I do think that this needs to be said on the outset. 

Mr. Renzi has certainly shown a remarkable commitment on this 

issue in the last year-and-a-half, and not just with the work that 

he is doing today. 

As we speak, the agriculture appropriations bill is being marked 

up and Mr. Renzi and I are cosponsors of a bill that will allow 

guarantee fees to be included in financing for FHA loans, USDA 

loans. That is, I think, the fourth or fifth time this year that Mr. 

Renzi has been successful in getting a bill of his enacted into law. 

I certainly want to thank him and it is something that people in 

this room should know. 

Let me pick up, if I can, on Mr. Scott’s questions. Obviously, you 

have heard from a number of people on this panel, from a number 

36

of yourselves, about the weakness of the definition of ‘‘chronically 

homeless.’’ The overwhelming majority of you were supporters of 

this bill. Those of you who are supporters, how many of you are 

wedded to that definition? How many of you think that it is critical 

to the efficacy of this bill that the definition remain as it is now? 

Any of you? As we used to say in the courtroom, let the record reflect that no one answered that question affirmatively, and several 

nodded their heads negatively. So let’s work from that assumption. 

One of the things that is striking to me is that under both the 

McKinney-Vento formula and under this formula there is a tendency to fixate on people who are homeless because of long-term 

issues in their lives such as disability or alcoholism or mental illness. It strikes me that there is another emerging population of 

homeless people who fall frankly outside the ambit of all these 

bills, and I want to talk about that for a minute. 

Given the dislocations we have had in this economy in the last 

several years, given the fact that in my opinion and the opinion of 

a lot of us on this committee, the economic inequality in this country is widening and we are pushing people onto the margins who 

have never been on the margins before. There is a new class of people who are homeless not because they are mentally ill, not because 

of any lifestyle issues, but simply because they cannot afford to 

make payments which are unbelievable in a lot of our major urban 

areas. The price of rent in DC, San Francisco, Boston, you have a 

lot of people who do not come anywhere near the profile of homeless who fit that category because they cannot afford $2,500 a 

month in rent. 

Can any couple of you talk for a moment about what we could 

do to address that problem of people who have fallen into shortterm economic distress? 

Ms. ROMAN. If I could speak to that, I have two observations. 

The first is, we want to avoid a situation in which having a housing crisis enter the homeless system and cannot get out. That is 

what is happening now. Anybody who has a housing crisis enters 

the homeless system and their stays are becoming longer and 

longer because there is no exit strategy. So we need to get people 

back into housing faster. The way we do that is by increasing the 

supply of affordable housing. 

So this is not a homelessness issue. This is a housing affordability issue. We need a strong rent subsidy program like Section 

8 and we need a production program like the National Housing 

Trust Fund or other production programs. I think we need to be 

careful not to try to solve the entire housing affordability issue of 

the country through the homeless programs. We ought to strengthen the affordable housing infrastructure and avoid people becoming 

homeless in the first place. 

Mr. DAVIS. Do any one of you think that the Administration’s 

proposed changes in Section 8 over the last several years are a 

good public policy goal for this country? Does anybody on the panel 

think that? As we used to say in the courtroom, let the record reflect that nobody bit on that one either. 

[Laughter.] 

Let me close on this observation with you, Mr. Whitehead. The 

nature of these hearings is that there are a lot more of you all witVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:17 Nov 10, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00042 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 G:\DOCS\96528.TXT FIN1 PsN: MICAH
37

nesses than there are of us members who were here, and there are 

a lot of lobbyists out there and a lot of interns and a lot of staffers, 

and they miss a lot of what is said. So I want to make sure people 

heard something that you said today. 

If I understood you correctly, 10 years ago you experienced a situation of temporary homelessness. That is something I want people 

in this room to hear for two reasons. First of all, no one looking 

at you today would recognize that. That is important because it 

shows us that the profile of this problem does not always look like 

the people we suspect. 

Second of all, if I can just take 30 seconds to make this point, 

you acknowledge that the rehabilitation in your life happened in 

part because of publicly assisted and guarantee programs. It is important for us to know that because every now and then on this 

committee and all the others, we tend to reduce these problems to 

an analysis of numbers and we get caught up on the merits of not 

doing anything versus not doing enough, and we have all these abstract arguments. 

Every now and then it is important for somebody to come in here 

and tell us that there is a power in what we do, and that power 

is the ability to every now and then shape the lives of individual 

people. So I wanted to make sure everybody in this room who 

might have missed your success story in the midst of all the interruptions, to make sure that they heard it because it speaks to ultimately what this institution can do. 

I will yield back. 

Mr. RENZI. Mr. Davis, thank you for your articulation, as always 

substantive. 

We are going to go ahead and dismiss this panel. Let me say to 

you, thank you very much. I am open to an amendment on the definition of homelessness, given the fact that you all brought great arguments to the dais today I think most of us here in this room 

agree with, and I was part of the ones that did sign on to the Section 8 letter that was worried about that issue. I would also say 

that this is new money. It is not money taken from one program 

for another. The motive was simply to target a specific area where 

we could make some gain, again not to, and I know there are tons 

of issues out there that we can deal with, and hopefully in that targeting make some people’s lives better. 

Thank you for coming all the way from all your homes and 

towns, and for being part of this. Let the record reflect that the 

chair notes that some members may have additional questions for 

this panel which they may wish to submit in writing. Without objection, the hearing record will remain open for 30 days for the 

members to submit written questions to these witnesses and place 

their responses in the record. 

We dismiss the first panel and welcome the second panel, and 

also welcome our chair, Mr. Ney. 

Chairman NEY. [Presiding.] I want to thank the second panel for 

your patience. We have the Honorable John W. Hickenlooper, 

Mayor, City and County of Denver, Colorado; Mr. Philip Mangano, 

executive director, Interagency Council on Homelessness. 

I am going to defer to Chairman Baker for the introduction of the 

third panelist. 

38

Mr. BAKER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to express my appreciation to you for courtesies extended in providing an opportunity for the Mayor of my principal municipality in the Sixth District of Louisiana to be able to be with us this morning, Mayor 

Bobby Simpson. The Mayor has been an outspoken advocate for 

housing reform within our community. 

We have been a fortunate recipient of a significant Hope VI 

grant providing for the first time significant HUD resources to revitalize housing in a very depressed area of the city. The Mayor has 

been a leader in this arena and I think one of the first cities to 

demonstrate leadership with regard to the Samaritan Act in formulating their own visionary plan. I wish to extend a warm welcome 

to the Mayor and my deep appreciation to you, Mr. Chairman, for 

the courtesies extended. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman NEY. I want to thank the Chairman for his introduction. 

We are going to start with the Honorable Bobby Simpson. Is it 

true it is Mayor-President in Louisiana? 

Mr. SIMPSON. Yes, sir. We are in a consolidated form of government. I am actually Mayor of the city of Baton Rouge and President of our Parish or County. 

Chairman NEY. That is great. We will begin with you, Mayor. 

STATEMENT OF HON. BOBBY SIMPSON, MAYOR-PRESIDENT, 

BATON ROUGE, LA 

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you. 

First of all, let me thank my Congressman, Richard Baker, for 

the courtesies extended to us. He has been a partner with us in 

changing some of the affordable housing stock in Baton Rouge, 

Louisiana. We have made significant improvements to single-family 

homeownership in our community. 

I also want to thank Mr. Mangano for making several trips to 

Baton Rouge, Louisiana and being part of us and helping us to establish our 10-year plan, one of the first, probably the first in the 

State of Louisiana and one of the first in the south. 

As Mayor-President of East Baton Rouge parish, I represent a diverse community of both rural and inner-city. Our community has 

been fighting the problem of chronic homelessness. The problem of 

chronic homelessness is not just a big city problem. It is a problem 

that affects the communities across the country, both large and 

small, urban and rural. 

We have formed the Mayor’s Task Force to End Chronic Homelessness. This task force was established to link and expand the 

local network of homeless service providers to include businesses, 

schools, law enforcement and the faith community. Our goal was 

to create a one-stop shop for homelessness support. No one agency 

will be able to solve chronic homelessness. This has to be a collaborative community effort. 

As a community, we took what we have learned from our Mayor’s 

Task Force to End Chronic Homelessness and applied it to our 10-

year strategic plan. Our 10-year plan is an example of the way that 

private and public agencies can come together to strategically coVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:17 Nov 10, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00044 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 G:\DOCS\96528.TXT FIN1 PsN: MICAH
39

ordinate and collaborate in the development and implementation of 

a community-wide plan to end chronic homelessness. 

Our Office of Economic and Community Development, along with 

entities such as the Capital Area Alliance for the Homeless, Volunteers of America, Salvation Army, St. Vincent de Paul Society, 

Myriam’s House, Catholic Community Services and other nonprofit 

providers represent a diverse and strong community response, 

which includes both faith-based and traditional nonprofit provider 

organizations. 

As president of the Louisiana Conference of Mayors, the 10 big 

cities in the State of Louisiana, I am very familiar with the Samaritan Initiative. In June 2003, the U.S. Conference of Mayors met 

and passed a resolution endorsing the Administration’s effort to 

end chronic homelessness and supporting the 10-year planning 

process for cities. On January 15, 2004, East Baton Rouge parish 

unveiled its 10-year plan to end chronic homelessness. The CityParish of Baton Rouge supports the concept of single application 

process 

Mr. Mangano from the Interagency Council was with us for that 

announcement. 

The City-Parish of Baton Rouge supports the concept of the single application process provided by the Samaritan Initiative. It fits 

ideally into our City-Parish efforts of a one-stop shop for homelessness services. We support the housing strategies that move the 

chronic homeless from the streets and shelters into housing. We 

have created the Neighborhood Housing Network to partner with 

the city to utilize adjudicated properties for developing housing for 

the homeless. We continue to identify available land to construct 

Housing First homeless development. 

We have formed a partnership with the Baton Rouge Police Department to create the Homeless Triage Center. This center gives 

police somewhere else to bring the homeless instead of incarceration. The Homeless Triage Center puts the client in touch with 

proper services to help end chronic homelessness. The goal is to 

have all our assets working together. East Baton Rouge Parish has 

many services, but for them to have the most effect there needs to 

be collaboration and strategic partnerships. The Samaritan Initiative encourages this collaboration and partnership. 

Chronic homelessness is a challenge we must fight together. It 

is not just a big city problem. Chronic homelessness affects us all. 

This is a problem that taxes our police department, health services, 

and our community. No one agency will be able to solve it. To accomplish our goal of ending chronic homelessness, local, State and 

federal entities must work together to maximize our assets. I truly 

believe that in the world’s most prosperous country, it is unacceptable to have men, women and children living on the streets. A 

home is fundamental to an individual’s happiness, health and success. I am committed to our community’s effort to end homelessness in Baton Rouge. 

We wish to thank the committee for allowing us to testify. Thank 

you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Hon. Bobby Simpson can be found on 

page 148 in the appendix.] 

Chairman NEY. Thank you, Mayor. 

40

Usually we go on and move on to the other witnesses, but as I 

understand it you have to be out at 12:30. So if there are any questions for the Mayor now, we will then move on. 

Mr. Baker. 

Mr. BAKER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Mayor, one of the areas where I know we have particular difficulty in Baton Rouge is with homeless veterans. If there is any 

segment of our population that may deserve special treatment, it 

is those who have served the country and now find themselves out 

on the street. 

Is there any particular portion of the Samaritan program that 

speaks to that particular segment of the population? Is it generally 

blind and it is up to the local community to identify the needs? Finally, what else can be done, in addition to the basic boilerplate? 

I understand the funds for the Samaritan program are fairly limited, about $70 million nationally. Obviously, one answer from a 

Mayor is always more money. 

Mr. SIMPSON. That is right. 

Mr. BAKER. But is there any other additional resource, help? 

What else could we do to work more effectively with you in meeting 

these needs? 

Mr. SIMPSON. More money. 

[Laughter.] 

No, I think Mr. Mangano will address that a little bit in his testimony. The VA is part of the collaboration under the Samaritan Initiative. A lot of the things that we talk about, including the Section 

8 vouchers, are about rental properties. To me, chronic homelessness, to end it you have to establish homeownership. I think that 

is one of the mandates and one of the basic tenets of what we are 

all working on is true homeownership for all. 

We have had this discussion over the last couple of hours about 

whether you need to change Section 8 or whatever, but we have a 

housing stock problem in this country. In my own parish, we are 

building $200,000-plus houses, but we are not building the 

$100,000 starter homes. This is an issue that faces the young folks 

that are growing up, but it also affects anyone that has a major 

health problem, which many of our veterans do. 

So I think the collaboration that is there with the Samaritan Initiative is something that will help us all in solving that problem, 

particularly as it relates to veterans. 

Mr. BAKER. Thank you, Mayor. 

I yield back. 

Chairman NEY. Mr. Davis? 

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you. I will be brief, Mr. Chairman. 

Mayor, let me take advantage of your expertise at the local level 

to get a little bit of insight from you on Section 8. I understand the 

thrust of your last answer is that you believe there is a major housing stock problem. I do not think it is an either/or and I do not necessarily disagree with that observation, but I do not think it is an 

either/or. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Right. 

Mr. DAVIS. Let me ask you this, how long have you been Mayor 

again? 

Mr. SIMPSON. Off and on for 12 years. 

41

Mr. DAVIS. All right. Over that 12 years, obviously you have had 

a chance to work with the Section 8 program. Do you believe that 

the Section 8 program is somehow overfunded, that we are putting 

too many resources into it? 

Mr. SIMPSON. I do not believe any federal program that filters 

down to the local level is ever overfunded. We need more money. 

Mr. DAVIS. Do you have any agreement or any sympathy with 

the Administration’s decision back in April that will lead to the 

elimination or the reduction of Section 8 vouchers? 

Mr. SIMPSON. No, not exactly. I mean, again we were called here 

on the Samaritan Initiative. 

Mr. DAVIS. I understand that. 

Mr. SIMPSON. We do not see what is going on behind the scenes 

with some of your dictates and discussions. 

Mr. DAVIS. But you see what is going on above the scenes, and 

from what you are saying you think Section 8 is something that is 

a good valid commitment from the government. 

Let me ask you this question, do you have any explanation or do 

you have any clue why the Administration, because frankly a lot 

of mayors agree with you. I have not heard from any mayors who 

have a different perspective on Section 8 than you do. Do you have 

any explanation of why the Administration seems to be in a different place on Section 8 from where the overwhelming majority of 

Republican and Democratic mayors are? 

Mr. SIMPSON. No, I do not. 

Mr. DAVIS. Have you shared that with Mr. Baker and any of your 

friends who may have the ear of the Administration? 

Mr. SIMPSON. No. All I can tell you is I am a member of the National League of Cities and we support the Samaritan Initiative, 

but we also support Section 8. We are still having the housing 

issues that just about any city of any size is having. 

Mr. DAVIS. What about Hope VI? Is Hope VI also a good, valid 

program? 

Mr. SIMPSON. Hope VI, we are a recipient of Hope VI, we are 

very, very proud of it. 

Mr. DAVIS. How many Hope VI programs are going in your community right now? 

Mr. SIMPSON. Just the one. 

Mr. DAVIS. When was that one launched? 

Mr. SIMPSON. Last year. 

Mr. DAVIS. Last year? And do you believe that something is going 

to be in effect a program for housing in your area? 

Mr. SIMPSON. Yes. 

Mr. DAVIS. And you do not support the elimination of Hope VI, 

do you? 

Mr. SIMPSON. No. 

Mr. DAVIS. I do not know very many mayors who do. Have you 

communicated to Mr. Baker or to the Administration your confidence in the Hope VI program? 

Mr. BAKER. Would the gentleman yield on that point? 

Mr. DAVIS. I will. 

Mr. BAKER. It was because of his effective congressional representation and continued unswerving commitment to excellence. 

[Laughter.] 

42

Mr. SIMPSON. Exactly what I was going to say, Congressman. 

Mr. BAKER. Fighting the odds against many large urban centers 

which take most of the Hope VI money that our small community 

was able to get a few crumbs and help our Mayor take an excellent 

step toward progress in helping those underserved in our community. 

I thank the gentleman for yielding. 

Mr. DAVIS. Reclaiming my time, I welcome that commitment and 

I hope that your testimony and Mr. Baker’s testimony, as it will, 

is one that is heard by the Administration. 

I yield back. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you, sir. 

Chairman NEY. Are there other questions? Mr. Scott? 

Mr. SCOTT. One quick one, Mr. Mayor. In your opening comments, you mentioned your preference for homeownership over 

rental units. The Millennial Housing Commission’s report, have 

you read that? 

Mr. SIMPSON. No, sir. 

Mr. SCOTT. It states that the lack of affordable low-income rental 

units is by far the more serious problem. On the panel before I 

asked the gentleman from Philadelphia and others about rental assistance. It appears to me that the general national opinion runs 

counter to yours. I was wonder why is that? 

Mr. SIMPSON. In my personal opinion, again I am giving you my 

personal feelings, I believe that homeownership is tantamount to 

being American today. I think we need to move all of our goals towards homeownership. I agree with Mr. Davis’s comments, we cannot do one without the other. You cannot take the population that 

are having to live in the rentals and just do away with the program. But to me, if we can transition from rental into ownership, 

and that requires a tremendous collaborative effort with the building of new homes and the affordability of those homes. To me, that 

is the issue that we are facing as a nation today is the affordability 

of single-family homeownership. 

Mr. SCOTT. Would you say that might be unique according to the 

region of the country? 

Mr. SIMPSON. I think so. Some of the things in Louisiana, and 

particularly Baton Rouge, you can almost buy as cheap as you can 

rent. So that may have something to do with some of the things 

you are talking about. 

Mr. SCOTT. Right, especially on some of the real hardcore urban 

centers where housing stock is not as plentiful, say, in Denver or 

Atlanta. 

Mr. SIMPSON. And with the deterioration of inner-cities and the 

revitalization efforts that are going on, if we can put some programs together that can make low-income housing affordable to 

where the folks that are already living there can move from the 

rental vouchers, and take those vouchers into homeownership 

which, to me, that is a good program also. 

Mr. SCOTT. Are you comfortable with the definition of ‘‘chronic 

homelessness’’? Or do we need to write one, and if so what would 

it say? 

Mr. SIMPSON. I think he has already said that he would be willing to take a look at that. You know, we create a specific program, 

43

this Samaritan Initiative, to target a particular population. It 

seems that it is getting caught up in all the other programs that 

are available. I do not think you throw the baby out with the bath 

wash. 

This is a program from a local government aspect that is very 

needed, because when you have 10 percent of the folks that are involved using 50 percent of our resources, and a lot of times for 

some of the cities with no mechanism in place to even move them 

off of the street anywhere else. So a lot of times the frustration 

from local governments is you just do not tend to deal with it. So 

the program continues to grow and you get a larger homelessness 

section. So if it is a definition aspect, I think you gentlemen need 

to work that out yourselves. 

Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, sir. 

I yield back. 

Chairman NEY. Any further questions? Mayor, I want to thank 

you. I know you have to leave. 

Mr. SIMPSON. Thank you. 

Chairman NEY. Thank you. I appreciate your trip to the capital 

and your testimony. 

Next, we will go to the Honorable John Hickenlooper. Mayor? 

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN W. HICKENLOOPER, MAYOR, CITY 

AND COUNTY OF DENVER, CO 

Mr. HICKENLOOPER. Good morning, Chairman Ney, other members of the subcommittee. Thank you for this opportunity to testify 

before you in support of the Samaritan Initiative Act. 

I was only elected a year ago and had never really been involved 

in political campaigns. I did, as an entrepreneur, develop housing 

as a private individual and also did affordable housing. One of the 

reasons I ran for office was the lack of nonpartisan collaborative 

and programs with measurable outcomes. I think that is one of the 

things that this Samaritan Initiative act really stands for. 

You have heard about most of the details already so I will not 

bore you with that. In Denver, we received last year $1.9 million 

from HUD in the Shelter Plus Care Program over 4 years. We subgranted that out to the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless, who 

have since receiving the first funding in January have already 

placed 47 out of 60 of the individuals in that program for the 

chronically homeless. 

I also want to thank Mr. Mangano and the Interagency Council 

on Homelessness for really addressing this issue in a collaborative 

way and bringing together, especially those of us on a local level 

and new to government. The matrix of services and how to patch 

them together is often challenging. I think that this initiative is a 

second step in making a seamless approach to addressing homelessness. 

One of the major issues we face in Denver is our hospital, Denver 

Health, our large urban hospital which is the major, by far, provider of indigent care and spent over $44 million last year on 

healthcare for the homeless. That has driven us. That has grown 

by over 20 percent for the last 2 years and driven us to be on the 

precipice for the first time in our history of considering specifying 

44

certain types of care that we would no longer be able to give to indigent people. 

I am also, in addition to representing the people of Denver today, 

representing mayors from across the country. Last month, the U.S. 

Conference of Mayors enthusiastically endorsed the Samaritan Initiative Act of 2004 as a vital first step in addressing some of the 

issues around chronic homelessness. At the same time, the U.S. 

Conference of Mayors also enthusiastically endorsed maintaining 

full funding for Section 8. I think it recognizes that Samaritan is 

a complement, and not a substitute for that funding, and that you 

cannot do one without the other. 

I am assured and am confident that the Samaritan Initiative 

would help Denver and many other cities bring an end to chronic 

homelessness and be a major step to ending homelessness altogether. Again, as someone who ran for measurable outcomes, to see 

we now have over 125 cities committed to ending homelessness in 

10 years. That is something that those of us outside of government 

have rarely seen. I see it as incredibly encouraging. This initiative, 

again, is one of the steps to get to that destination. I hope that we 

can get all of your support for that. 

Thank you for your attention today, as well as your support of 

Denver and other communities as we work together to end homelessness. 

[The prepared statement of Hon. John W. Hickenlooper can be 

found on page 76 in the appendix.] 

Chairman NEY. Thank you for your testimony. 

Mr. Mangano. 

STATEMENT OF PHILIP MANGANO, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

UNITED STATES INTERAGENCY COUNCIL ON HOMELESSNESS 

Mr. MANGANO. Thank you, Chairman Ney. I want to give a special thanks to Mr. Renzi for sponsoring the Samaritan Initiative 

legislation. I believe it is an important next step in the efforts to 

end homelessness, and specifically focusing on chronic homelessness in our country. 

In this room are a number of the federal partners from HHS, 

HUD and VA and Labor who have worked to reduce the statutory, 

regulatory and cultural barriers to make the Samaritan Initiative 

possible. Without them, this unprecedented collaboration would not 

have been possible. 

From all those who have testified today, some who I have known 

for many years during my 24 years of advocacy for homeless people, mostly spent in Massachusetts, what I heard was a near-unity 

in support of the Samaritan Initiative. In the President’s fiscal year 

2003 budget proposal and then again in his 2004 and 2005 proposals, he has called on this nation to end chronic homelessness in 

the next 10 years, the homelessness of those most likely to be on 

the streets of our communities, severely disabled by mental illness, 

addiction or developmental disabilities, and tragically those most 

likely to perish on those streets from exposure. 

Cabinet secretaries and agency and department heads have responded, and the revitalization of the U.S. Interagency Council on 

Homelessness has convened 20 federal agencies in the Administration’s response. Not only is this Administration reorienting its 

45

homelessness resources to accomplish the objective, investing deeper resources in the prevention of homelessness and providing technical assistance through policy academies for states to partner with 

Washington in making mainstream resources more responsive and 

available to homeless people, the president has also proposed the 

Samaritan Initiative. 

Mr. Renzi, as lead sponsor and others who have signed on, understand that the Samaritan Initiative represents a new approach 

to our country’s effort to reduce and end the national disgrace of 

homelessness. Disabled homeless veterans who live in encampments in the woods in rural areas or who forage for food from 

dumpsters in our cities; homeless mentally ill elders wandering the 

streets of our communities, sleeping in doorways or long-term in 

overcrowded shelters; those with the disease of addiction on the 

streets of every city in our country; physically and developmentally 

disabled men and women who wrestle with homelessness in their 

treatment and their recovery; these and others are the focus of the 

Samaritan Initiative. 

As the name implies from that old story, this initiative is targeted to those who are on the side of the road, on the street, long 

term in shelters, long term in homelessness. Others ignoring their 

plight, indifferent to their situation, insulated from their presence, 

have walked by. The Samaritan Initiative is saying that we are 

going to stop. Federal agencies and our governmental partners in 

statehouses, city halls and county buildings, and our private sector 

business partners and our community and faith-based partners, we 

are going to stop and ensure that those who are on the side of the 

road are moved toward housing and the services they need to stabilize their lives, treat their ailments, and sustain their tenancies. 

That is what the Samaritan Initiative is, supporting neighbors. 

We have all long understood the moral and spiritual and quality 

of life issues attending to these lives. But the recent research tells 

us that there is another compelling reason to respond, economics. 

Across our country, study after study from Seattle to New York, 

from Columbus to Denver, is telling us that those experiencing 

chronic homelessness on our streets are some of the most expensive 

citizens in our communities. A recent study in San Diego demonstrates this new understanding. 

The City and County of San Diego commissioned the University 

of California at San Diego to follow people who are experiencing 

chronic homelessness on their streets. The presumption was that 

these people did not cost very much; that they slept on the beaches 

and in the parks and on the streets of San Diego, and that they 

begged for what they ate and what they drank. 

But when the city and county engaged the university in the 

study, they uncovered a different story. Their research following 

just 15 chronic street inebriates for 18 months revealed that the 15 

people had 299 entrances into the emergency rooms of local hospitals, similar to what Mayor Hickenlooper described in Denver. In 

that period, they were usually taken by ambulances and EMTs to 

those 299 entrances at the cost of nearly $1 million to the city and 

county of San Diego. 

When acute substance abuse and mental health treatment were 

added for the 15, plus law enforcement interventions and temVerDate 0ct 09 2002 10:17 Nov 10, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00051 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 G:\DOCS\96528.TXT FIN1 PsN: MICAH
46

porary incarcerations, the total cost for the 15 in the 18 months 

was $3 million, or an average of $200,000 per person. San Diego 

knew that they could do better. Through results-oriented, cost-effective planning, they are, through their SIP program and a 10-

year planning process. 

What was most disquieting and the cause of much frustration to those city officials was that after the expenditure of $3 million or 

$200,000 per person, those 15 were in the same condition and the 

same situation as before the funds were spent. Those ad hoc siloed 

crisis interventions were expensive and ultimately ineffectual in 

remedying the situation or improving the condition. 

A long time ago, Einstein warned us that a certain sign of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different 

results. Well, the Samaritan Initiative aims to break that cycle on 

our streets and in the shelters of our country. How? First, moving 

from ad hoc, siloed crisis responses to coordinated strategic solutions, starting in Washington where three federal departments, 

HUD, HHS and VA, are partnering in the unprecedented Samaritan Initiative to ensure that housing and service resources are 

available together in a single application, and through that coordination requiring a similar coordination in communities across the 

nation. Samaritan leaves room for other of the 20 federal agencies 

now partnering in the United States Interagency Council to join 

that effort. 

Second, the Samaritan Initiative moves beyond simply funding 

programs to investing in results. The bill calls for grantees to 

measure outcomes and quantify results. 

Third, the Samaritan Initiative challenges the status quo of 

homelessness in calling for a new standard of expectation that we 

will see visible, measurable and quantifiable change on our streets, 

in our programs, and especially in the lives of homeless people. No 

longer are we content to shuffle homeless people from one city to 

another, from one side of town to another, or from one homeless 

program to another, or from the street to treatment and back to 

the street. The Samaritan Initiative, along with the prevention resources proposed by the president in his budget, offer a whole prevention and intervention strategy to reduce and end chronic homelessness. 

Fourth, the Samaritan Initiative offers to our state and city and 

county partners, such as Mayor Hickenlooper and Mayor Simpson, 

new resources to invest in the results-oriented 10-year plans that 

they are creating across the country from Massachusetts to Chicago, from Minnesota to San Francisco. The Council has partnered 

now with 46 Governors in the creation of State Interagency Councils, and with 127 mayors and county executives in the creation of 

10-year plans to end chronic homelessness. 

This partnership that literally extends from the White House to 

the streets, moves through 20 federal agencies, statehouses, city 

halls, in partnership with the private, nonprofit and faith-based 

sectors, along with homeless people themselves, partnerships to 

create results-oriented, cost-effective plans, driven by data and research and performance and outcome-based. 

Samaritan is an investment in these plans and partnerships, and 

indicates our nonpartisan support to reduce and end homelessness 

47

on our streets. In developing these city plans, we have worked 

closely with the U.S. Conference of Mayors, who have agreed with 

us that on this issue of homelessness, partnership trumps partisanship. There is no D or R or I on homelessness. We are just Americans partnering to end a national disgrace. 

Congress has received two letters from over 80 mayors endorsing 

Samaritan. The U.S. Conference of Mayors endorsed the Samaritan 

Initiative last month at its annual meeting. A number of national 

homeless, faith-based and issues-related organizations have endorsed it as well, as have individual provider agencies. 

But the most important endorsement for Samaritan comes from 

the field, from the streets. Last year’s precursor to the Samaritan 

Initiative, the Collaborative Chronic Homelessness Initiative, has 

produced results. Invested in 11 cities across the country, initiatives begun earlier this year such as the one in Denver have already found the target and hit the bull’s eye. Hundreds of those 

who have been on our streets for years, and long term in our shelters, have moved into permanent, supportive housing and are staying there. By the end of the year, hundreds more will join them. 

When we make any investment, we should expect a return. The 

return we are looking for from Samaritan is that people will move 

off the streets, out of long-term homelessness stays, into housing 

and stay here. We are doing and getting just that. The investment 

in the Samaritan Initiative will produce those results and move us 

further away from punitive responses that just have not worked. 

Samaritan offers us an opportunity to meet our spiritual and 

moral obligations to the poorest, to improve the quality of life in 

our communities, to save money on homeless and healthcare systems, to foster deeper and more collaborative relationships in 

Washington, and then between Washington and our nation’s communities, and to move beyond the status quo to results and efficiencies. 

Finally, when our country says that we will no longer tolerate 

chronic homelessness; we will no longer tolerate a homeless veteran foraging for food from a dumpster; we will no longer tolerate 

a mentally ill person finding their sleep on our streets; we will no 

longer tolerate a homeless elder succumbing to exposure; when our 

toleration of street homelessness diminishes, our country’s soul will 

feel the healing. That remedy will move us closer to the day when 

everyone in our communities will be known by a single name, 

neighbor, and treated as one. 

The Samaritan Initiative moves us as a nation beyond indifference and insulation and allows us with all of our partners to stop 

on the side of the road for our neighbor. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Philip Mangano can be found on page 

79 in the appendix.] 

Chairman NEY. I thank you for your testimony. 

The gentleman from Arizona. 

Mr. RENZI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate this panel 

and thank you for taking the time. 

I want to ask, when we looked last year at the initiatives that 

were put together, there was a collaborative grant process that had 

some money behind it. We had a little bit of feedback where it 

48

talked about some of the bugs needing to be worked out. Apparently, the process is new. It is a little bit burdensome. As we move 

forward with the hope that the Samaritan bill will move, and again 

open to possibly some clarifications, what would it look like as far 

as the actual process? What kind of lessons learned from last year 

could we apply that we will not be bogged down in implementing 

this? Mr. Mangano? 

Mr. MANGANO. First of all, we received the same feedback. I 

think it is to be understood that what we were attempting to do 

with the collaborative initiative, which is the precursor to the Samaritan Initiative, was unprecedented. Never before had three federal departments, involving four federal agencies worked together 

on a single notice fo funding availability for homelessness resources 

to provide to the field what they would need to end chronic homelessness housing and service resources together. 

So it was unprecedented, and therefore it was a prototype of 

what needed to come. I think we all remember the first cell phones. 

They were cumbersome. Sometimes they worked, sometimes they 

did not. You needed a little briefcase to carry them around. Well, 

in a similar way the collabarative initiative of last year was a prototype. It was cumbersome. 

What we have done with the Samaritan Initiative is to streamline that process, make the funding more flexible in terms of the 

pooled resources that would be available. The United States Interagency Council on Homelessness fielded all of those responses from 

the field and that information was brought to the agencies. Many 

of those agency personnel are here and because of the work done 

on the Collaborative Initiative to identify the statutory, regulatory 

and cultural barriers, they were able to put the Samaritan Initiative together. 

Mr. RENZI. Thank you. The first panel did a great job of unanimously looking at the classification situation and saying, well, we 

understand that you are trying to target something here. I really 

was looking at the idea of going after those 15 individuals that you 

talked about who we are describing as chronic homeless. Is there 

a better way for me to describe that in defining it? 

You hear from the testimony from the gentleman from California 

who talked about families being now one of the growing sections. 

I am the father of 12 kids. I do not want to turn my back, especially on children. But again, this was meant to be a specific arrow 

of that specific group, particularly that came out of that study of 

15. Also I heard great testimony from the gentleman who talked 

about seasonal homelessness, how particularly in the cold regions 

of America those seasonal individuals maybe go inside and be temporary homeless, but then they would be restricted because they do 

not meet the 1-year definition that was brought out. 

So could you help me refine what is the chronic portion that we 

are going after? 

Mr. MANGANO. Sure. First of all, I think it is important to understand that not only is it one study, but it is multiple studies across 

our country that have indicated that people experiencing chronic 

homelessness are the people most likely to die on our streets, to be 

disabled, and they are the highest cost in healthcare systems. 

When I go around the country and meet with people in cities and 

49

I ask to look at the lists of people who have died on the streets in 

their cities, nearly every person fits exactly the profile of people experiencing chronic homelessness. When I talked to mayors like 

Mayor Hickenlooper from Denver and other mayors around the 

country and they are talking about the people who are in their 

emergency rooms, they meet the definition of chronic homelessness 

here. 

There is no question that the full policy of this Administration 

is to address all of homelessness, and much of that was addressed 

in the testimony that was giving to the committee by HUD wherein 

they indicate that nearly half of the persons to be assisted by the 

homeless assistance funds invested by HUD are homeless families. 

HUD’s funding assisted over 200,000 families including 350,000 

families in the latest round of McKinney funding. 

As you said, this is exactly a specifically targeted initiative 

meant to make an intervention in the lives of people who are on 

our streets and long term in shelters. There are resources addressing other populations. There is no need to put every population into 

the Samaritan Initiative. It is meant as that arrow that you described. Certainly, there are many other initiatives addressing the 

homelessness of other profiles of homeless people. 

Mr. RENZI. I appreciate it. Mr. Chairman just for a few more seconds, if we look at the chronic homeless, particularly those most in 

need on the street, the 15 particularly in the study, and that is the 

arrow I was trying to shoot here, those individuals who may live 

in the cold regions of America and necessarily be brought into a 

temporary shelter, this bill right now in its current language would 

restrict those individuals from being part of our initiative. While 

we may be putting and looking at the chronic homeless, those individuals that we talked about, and we are talking about individuals 

rather than families, and not turning our back on the families, 

would you be open to the idea of expanding the definition on the 

seasonal side of it? 

Mr. MANGANO. Actually, this definition was derived by a series 

of conversations and deliberations that were made by HUD, HHS 

and VA over a 9-month period, really attempting to refine the definition to come to terms with what the research was indicating to 

us. The definition attempts to be research-and data-driven. It is not 

quixotic in terms of having someone come up with a definition, but 

it responds to the research that is being done. 

Needless to say, to the degree that there are other concerns, I 

think other initiatives are being fostered to address concerns of 

other profiles of homeless people. 

Mr. RENZI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman NEY. Thank you. 

The gentleman? 

Mr. FRANK. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Mangano, you mentioned the mayors resolution in support of 

this program. Have you seen their resolution on supporting Section 

8 HUD funding? 

Mr. MANGANO. I was actually at the U.S. Conference of Mayors 

meeting and heard both of these resolutions brought before the 

Housing Committee. 

50

Mr. FRANK. Okay. It did seem to me relevant to mention both of 

them, because here is my question. And of course the Section 8, 

and I would ask unanimous consent to put that into the record, it 

is very critical of HUD’s position with regard to Section 8. I believe 

Mayor Hickenloooper referred to it in his testimony to the need to 

have Section 8. 

My problem is you say we are going to end homelessness. I am 

all in favor of that, but I am also skeptical of our over-promising. 

Do you believe we now have enough affordable housing units to end 

homelessness in this country, available to the homeless? 

Mr. MANGANO. I think we have made it clear through the research that has been conducted independently of the Administration and in documents that the Administration has talked about, 

that we need to provide for 150,000 tenancies over the next 10 

years with the objective of ending chronic homelessness. 

Mr. FRANK. That would be additional units. Are these additional 

units to what we are now doing? 

Mr. MANGANO. I think part of the notion was to both access what 

units exist——

Mr. FRANK. You are talking like a bureaucrat. Can we talk like 

real people here? Are there going to be additional units or existing 

units? 

Mr. MANGANO. They will be additional units in the lives of people 

who experiencing chronic homelessness. Whether they are brand 

new units that are produced, that is a question that is now being 

focused on. 

Mr. FRANK. Not produced, because we are not talking about necessarily new production, but made available. Here is the problem. 

Mayors are telling us that because of the policies of your Administration, they are having trouble solving the problems now. 

I am all in favor of ending homelessness. I think it would be a 

terrible error, and I am sure you agree, if we did that at the expense of existing people in this. You do not want to set up a fight 

between working families who need Section 8, at the working lowincome, and the homeless. That is why I am asking you, does this 

anticipate an increase in the number of units that are made available for affordable housing through federal help? 

Mr. MANGANO. Part of the work that we are doing in the Administration right now, just as we have called on states and cities to 

develop 10-year plans, we are working within the Administration 

right now in terms of developing precisely a strategy that will get 

us——

Mr. FRANK. Can I ask you the question again? Please. I am glad 

you have plans, but these are fairly specific questions. Do you 

think we have enough units right now under the current budgetary 

situation? Let me put it this way, do you anticipate finding more 

permanent housing for homeless people than we now have? 

Mr. MANGANO. Absolutely, and that is——

Mr. FRANK. Okay. Do they come from new units made available 

under federal programs? Do they displace existing people? That is 

the problem we have. I want to do this. I want to accommodate 

this. But I think you are kidding people if you suggest it can be 

done within the existing allocation of——

51

Mr. MANGANO. Both the collaborative initiative of last year that 

was described by both Mayor Hickenlooper and myself, and the Samaritan Initiative of this year, are housing initiatives. They are 

both targeted to the creation of more housing specifically for this 

population. So the trajectory is precisely to create more units. 

Mr. FRANK. Okay. So how are you going to create more units? So 

you do agree we need to create more affordable units. The problem 

is you are working for the Administration that is cutting back on 

them, according to the mayors who you are working with. The mayors say, mayors and their residents who receive Section 8 vouchers 

are facing a serious crisis as a result of a policy guidance from the 

U.S. Department of HUD where approximately 250,000 Section 8 

vouchers would be eliminated across the country based on the fiscal 

year 2005 proposed funding request. 

I have a disconnect here. You say that this assumes more units, 

but the mayors whom you cite, and I assume you cannot turn the 

mayors on and off, much as you might like to, if you cite them in 

support of your initiative, we have to assume they are still valid 

on the support of the general one. Do you agree with the mayors’ 

characterization of the fiscal year 2005 funding request’s impact? 

Mr. MANGANO. First of all, I have never found myself able to 

turn off and on mayors. I find that they respond to results——

Mr. FRANK. Good. Could you answer my question now? Do you 

agree with their characterization that the fiscal year 2005 proposed 

funding request will eliminate 250,000 Section 8 vouchers and result in unforeseen housing and financial hardships by the most 

needy of our low-income population of working poor. That is the 

mayors. Do you agree or disagree with that statement? 

Mr. MANGANO. As you know, in Massachusetts there were two 

significant housing programs——

Mr. FRANK. Excuse me. Do you agree or disagree with the mayors’ statement? Mr. Mangano, you know better than that. I am not 

asking you about what we did in Massachusetts. Nobody cares. 

They have heard too much about Massachusetts lately, frankly. 

They will be talking it about it all day tomorrow in the Senate. 

Let us answer my question now. Do you agree or disagree with 

the mayors’ whereas, that is a straightforward question. 

Mr. MANGANO. I am trying to answer that question. 

Mr. FRANK. But not by what you and I did in Massachusetts 

where nobody cares. 

Mr. MANGANO. My concern about Massachusetts is that we had 

a housing program that was specifically targeted to this population, 

namely the 707 program. Because of a lack of political will there, 

because people did not want to reform any aspect of that program 

whatsoever, that program now does not exist. 

Mr. FRANK. Okay. Now can I ask you a question? 

Mr. MANGANO. The constellation of political will for a housing 

program——

Mr. FRANK. Now I have to ask you a question. 

Mr. MANGANO.—that supports the poor. 

Mr. FRANK. Very impressive, Mr. Mangano. I am not asking you 

about Massachusetts. Will you answer the question, do you agree 

or disagree with the mayors’ comment about the fiscal year 2005 

budget request causing this hardship and losing 250,000 units. I do 

52

not understand what that has to do with 707. Would you just tell 

me——

Mr. MANGANO. My concern is exactly that, about——

Mr. FRANK. Do you agree or disagree with the mayors? 

Chairman NEY. Look, let’s not do crossfire. The Congressman has 

asked him a question. 

Mr. FRANK. I am just trying to get an answer to that simple 

question. It does not have to be yes or no. It can be yes but, no 

maybe. 

Chairman NEY. I am not telling you what to answer. I am just 

saying rather than go back and forth. 

Mr. MANGANO. My concern is to sustain political will for the Section 8 program. I support the Section 8 program. I came from many 

years when I was an advocate for homeless people in Massachusetts, here to Washington to support the Section 8 program. No one 

wants to see any diminishment——

Mr. FRANK. That is not what I asked you. 

Mr. MANGANO.—of people losing housing. The point of the matter, though, is that sometimes, as we learned with the 707 program, when reform is not constellated, you can lose the entire program. So my concern in supporting the Section 8 program is to ensure that it can——

Mr. FRANK. Okay. Let me try one last time. Having said all that, 

do you agree or disagree with what the mayors said? I am really 

disappointed at your dancing around this one. I understand the 

problem. It is a problem because you are part of the Administration, and if you do not want to say so, say so. By the way, I am 

not aware of specific reforms they have set up here, other than the 

Secretary saying we have to give it to richer people. 

Mr. MANGANO. The flexibility that they are talking about gets to 

reform. 

Mr. FRANK. But what do you think about the mayors’ comment 

in this whereas. Do you agree or disagree in general with what the 

mayors said? 

Mr. MANGANO. Which is about the 250,000 units? I have not conducted that kind of data research so I cannot speak exactly to that. 

Obviously, I have a concern about the loss of any units that would 

create more homelessness. I do not know of any appetite in this 

Administration, in the Council or in the Congress for taking actions 

that would create more homelessness in this country. It is not a 

growth industry. 

Mr. FRANK. You know better than to think that is an answer. 

I am going to close with this. I did not ask you for self-justification. You should not feel you have to do that. I think what you 

have done on the program is a good thing. But to dance around this 

critical question, because you know we can do all of the planning, 

but these people still have to live somewhere. 

What we have is, your own allies, the people you quote say yes, 

but there is a problem. And the people of the homeless coalition. 

Almost everybody but you, concerned with this program, says it is 

true; it would be good to restructure it this way, but the people still 

have to live somewhere. I really am disappointed I cannot get a 

straight answer out of you. 

No further questions. 

53

Chairman NEY. The gentlelady from California, the Ranking 

Member. 

Ms. WATERS. Yes. Mr. Chairman, I think Barney’s question 

makes a lot of sense. I mean on the one hand we have all of this 

planning. This is an agency that plans. But how do you plan to 

solve a problem that is being exacerbated by the cutbacks? I guess 

the philosophy of the Administration that feels that it has been too 

costly and you have not reaped enough for it, I mean, that is where 

it seems that you are coming from in your planning. 

Having said that, having done studies and you have learned all 

of this terrific information about chronic homeless people costs cities and counties a lot of money. It is cheaper to keep them than 

to just let them stay out there and go these emergency rooms and 

the jails and all where they cost more money. 

Now having said all that, who has come up with a model to deal 

with chronic homelessness? I think we have to recognize some 

things. These people are mentally ill. They are disabled. They are 

veterans with agent orange problems, on and on and on. What is 

the solution? 

Mr. MANGANO. You asked for models. I think represented on the 

first panel are two cities that have done an exceptional job, both 

Columbus, Ohio and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in specifically targeting results-oriented, cost-efficient plans at this population that 

have moved people off the streets, out of the clogging of emergency 

rooms, to housing. There are a number of initiatives around our 

country. 

In your home State of California, the Direct Access to Housing 

program in San Francisco is a perfect example of a program that 

in fact moves people off the streets, the most complex, the most disabled, targets those people, moves them into housing, provides the 

support services necessary for their well-being to ensure that they 

will stay in that housing. 

So across the country, there are a number of initiatives exactly 

accomplishing that objective. 

Ms. WATERS. Do you know of a model? I missed some of the testimony, and I am sorry about that. Do you know of a model that basically recognizes that some people barely function. They will never 

be able to live independently, and that they need to have the kind 

of support services that places them in a unit where you have centralized services in a complex where there are two meals a day and 

there are janitorial services and people are able to do what they 

can do, but that they will never be able to live independently. Do 

you know of anything that recognizes that? 

Mr. MANGANO. There are a number of programs around the 

country that in fact respond to that issue. But what we are learning more and more is that the strategy of permanent supportive 

housing, which again provides support services to people who are 

disabled by virtue of mental illness or addiction, actually that is 

the model that is most in use in our country. That is exactly the 

kind of model that we are attempting to fund with the Samaritan 

Initiative. 

Ms. WATERS. No, but I have not seen this. I want to describe it 

again. I just do not know about it, I guess. 

54

If someone built 200 units of housing and not necessarily would 

there be another design for families. Say these were for single 

adults who are severely disabled, who are mentally ill, who will 

never be able to live independently. 

Mr. MANGANO. Yes. 

Ms. WATERS. But they can live with some support services, providing they have a clean place to live, someone is preparing the 

meals and they do some kind of group therapy and work in crafts 

or day care, whatever. Who is providing that kind of service? 

Mr. MANGANO. For example in my home state, we had a special 

initiative to house people who are homeless and mentally ill. We 

moved people from the streets and from long term stays in shelters 

directly into permanent housing, and again provided the support 

services that they needed. Some of those people needed deep services for a very long period of time, perhaps for the rest of their life. 

Ms. WATERS. Those are the only ones I am talking about now. 

I am talking about the ones that are always going to be on the 

street unless extensive services are provided. 

Mr. MANGANO. Right. 

Ms. WATERS. Did this place that you are describing, did it have 

a central dining room? 

Mr. MANGANO. It was actually scattered-site housing, but there 

are certainly models that have congregate living where people live 

together, receive their services in the same building, and have 

meals together. There are many models of that across the United 

States. 

Ms. WATERS. For permanent living? 

Mr. MANGANO. That is correct. 

Ms. WATERS. Do we have that in Los Angeles? Where is that located? 

Mr. NETBURN. There are several throughout the city and the 

county. 

Ms. WATERS. Give me one. 

Mr. NETBURN. A Community of Friends projects, and there are 

some in South-Central that specifically——

Chairman NEY. I am sorry. Can you come to the mike, and that 

way the record will be clear on it. 

Ms. WATERS. Community of Friends? 

Chairman NEY. I am sorry. 

Mr. NETBURN. Can I state my name? 

Chairman NEY. Yes, identify yourself. 

Mr. NETBURN. Mitchell Netburn from the Los Angeles Homeless 

Services Authority. 

One provider that comes to mind would be a Community of 

Friends which specifically develops permanent housing projects for 

people with mental illness, and some of those people with mental 

illness are so severely ill that they need a tremendous amount of 

support services. 

Ms. WATERS. I have a design in mind. I want to know if there 

is a program where you have multiple units that provide services 

for the severely handicapped, mentally ill, disabled homeless, that 

is envisioned as permanent living, where you have centralized services, where food is prepared, where you have psychological, psychiatric health services and activities of some sort, where we are 

55

not anticipating that they are going to roll off anywhere. They are 

going to be there for the rest of their lives. Who has that kind of 

service? 

Mr. NETBURN. As I said, the Community of Friends would be one 

agency that does, and certainly you offered to come on a tour of 

some of these. 

Ms. WATERS. Tell me where it is. I will be there before you get 

there. Tell me where it is. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. NETBURN. I doubt that. I am on a plane early tomorrow 

morning. 

Ms. WATERS. Where is it? 

Mr. NETBURN. There are several. I cannot think of an address, 

but I know they have facilities specifically in South-Central so I assume there are several. 

Ms. WATERS. How many do they have in that facility? 

Mr. NETBURN. Their facilities, they tend to be in the 20-to about 

60-person range. 

Ms. WATERS. Is this the only one that you know about? Any in 

downtown Los Angeles? 

Mr. NETBURN. Again, that would be some of the SRO housing. 

Ms. WATERS. SRO usually does not fit this model that I am talking about. SRO just does not fit this model that I am trying to describe to you. 

Mr. NETBURN. Some of them do, some SROs have individual 

units where they have a bath. 

Ms. WATERS. And they are on their own. 

Mr. NETBURN. Yes, but not all of them. Some of the older ones 

do not have kitchens, so there are congregate settings. Even some 

of the newer ones, have a very small kitchen, but they have group 

social services, and group meals within that facility for the people 

who either can not cook for themselves or who are not going to cook 

properly. 

Ms. WATERS. All right, let me ask, if I may Mr. Chairman just 

a little bit, have any units been developed specifically for this population, say, outside of urban areas? Fifty units, 100 units, 200 

units, outside the urban area in open spaces that is supported by 

city, county or federal dollars? Anybody develop any of that, and 

do we have the services to go along with it if someone developed 

that kind of model? 

Mr. NETBURN. Not specifically in Los Angeles. There are probably some around the country. As you just pointed out, these are 

expensive models when you are attaching all of those support services, so one of the reasons that we are supporting the Samaritan 

Initiative is to fund those services. 

Ms. WATERS. This will not fund those services, will it? This is not 

a lot of money. Is this envisioned to support the kind of services 

I am attempting to describe here? What I would like you, and anybody can answer this, do we all agree that the chronic homeless 

who are never going to be able to independently take care of themselves, do we agree that that is true? 

Mr. NETBURN. There are probably some individuals. We always 

say we, empower people to live independently. 

56

Ms. WATERS. Oh, come on. I know. Look, I have been going 

through downtown Los Angeles for years now and we have people 

who are never going to be——

I would like to think that we empower people as much as we possibly can, and that you guys are doing a good job of doing that. I 

would like to think that. But do we recognize that there are some 

people who are never going to be empowered? They are chronically 

homeless, ill, unable to manage themselves and their lives, and 

never ever will be able to. Do we have any models that recognize 

that? 

Mr. NETBURN. Yes, I think there are some. There is always the 

hope that they will become more independent, but yes, we have 

some of these models. 

Ms. WATERS. No, no. 

Mr. NETBURN. Accepting that they will be like that, and giving 

them the——

Ms. WATERS. No, you have people that have been on the street 

in downtown LA for the past 15 or 20 years. So the first thing I 

want to tell you guys is, if we, and I put myself in the group with 

you, if we do not recognize that and develop services for that population, we are always going to have the homeless on the streets. 

Mr. NETBURN. We agree with that and do definitely need to fund 

and create those models. 

Ms. WATERS. Does your planning recognize this? And what does 

your planning say about this? 

Mr. MANGANO. Absolutely. The Samaritan Initiative is really targeted to creating housing for people. Some people will go on to live 

quite independently. They will get jobs. 

Ms. WATERS. No, they will not. I am not talking about that. 

Mr. MANGANO. Some will. I can show you there are people. 

Ms. WATERS. No. No. 

Mr. MANGANO. That is their story. 

Ms. WATERS. No. I am talking about the people who will not. 

Mr. MANGANO. I understand. I am just saying there are some 

people who will. 

Ms. WATERS. No, I know that. 

Mr. MANGANO. Right. 

Ms. WATERS. But I am not talking about them now. I am talking 

about the people who will never ever be able to go on and get a 

job or manage a house. Do we recognize that? Or have we not come 

to that conclusion that there are people who will never be able to? 

Chairman NEY. Can I answer that? 

Ms. WATERS. Yes. 

Chairman NEY. There are going to be people that no matter what 

you do, they will not be self-sustaining. That is my opinion, so I 

thought I would try to answer it. 

[Laughter.] 

Ms. WATERS. I have this theory that we have a population of people who are homeless who will never ever be independent. It is 

good social work to talk about empowering them so that they will 

go on and get a job and a house, but they will never ever do it. 

I come from a social work background and I say it. They will never 

be able to do it. Do we have a model that recognizes that and will 

take care of them until they die? 

57

Mr. NETBURN. One that I would point out is HUD funded and 

is referred to as Safe Havens. There are two types. One is permanent housing. They tend to be small units of about 25 that are for 

people with very severe mental illness. There are really different 

rules that they are asked to follow because there is an understanding that they are in the exact category of the people that you 

were just talking about. They are not going to follow rules of the 

traditional programs. They are going to need more flexibility. Some 

of the programs will allow the clients to sign leases. They can stay 

there the rest of their life, and they are very intense social service 

models. 

In skid row, there is an agency called Lamp Community which 

has really been a pioneer in developing that type of housing. We 

did receive HUD funding a couple of years ago for a project on the 

west side of Los Angeles for a Safe Haven, which the city of Santa 

Monica supported. Recently, the provider purchased a building and 

they are developing it. That would be another model that would 

come to mind. 

Ms. WATERS. I am not convinced, based on my limited conversation with you today, that that population, I guess that is what we 

are all referring to as the chronically homeless, is being serviced 

or can be serviced in the way that I am talking about. 

I just want to say this. You know, we have got the chronic homeless who have gone from shelter to shelter to shelter to shelter. 

They change corners and they change pocket parks and they die on 

the street. We know that. At some point in time, we have to recognize that. We have to know the difference between those that we 

can transition and we can get services for and we can get into jobs 

and homes and houses and places that they can manage, and those 

that cannot. I guess that is what we are trying to talk about. But 

I am not hearing what I need to hear to believe that we are going 

to be committed to doing that. 

The other thing that I have not heard is I have not heard that 

there has been housing specifically developed for this clientele, 

with the support services. And when I say ‘‘support,’’ I mean everything. I mean the central kitchen. I mean the psychiatric services. 

I mean the daily services that keep people busy and involved and 

all of that. 

I know it is costly, but I just do not hear us admitting that that 

is what we have to have. 

Mr. MANGANO. I think the Samaritan Initiative would fund exactly that, and there are a number of other programs sponsored by 

HUD and HHS, including the Safe Havens that Mitchell mentioned 

that in fact do target that population. So I want to assure you that 

that population is being served. In fact, again in your home state, 

in San Francisco, the Direct Access to Housing program master 

leases buildings and in those buildings places people who we would 

have thought, if we passed by them on the street, they will never 

get off the street. In fact, those people are now placed in those 

buildings and slowly their lives are turning around and they are 

living in those buildings. 

Ms. WATERS. Well, I appreciate that. I am going to go out and 

search and take a look and see what is out there. But I know that 

in downtown Los Angeles, there are people who have been on the 

58

streets many, many years and they have baskets that they have 

been rolling around for 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 years. I think it is senseless 

to talk about anything other than permanent services for them. I 

hope this initiative will get to that. 

Mr. MANGANO. To the degree that they are placed in housing, the 

services will last as long as they are needed, to assure you of that. 

So if it is needed for a lifetime, the services would last that long, 

because it is done in partnership with the local communities as 

well. So I think there is a responsiveness to that population. Those 

are people who are targeted by the Samaritan Initiative. 

Ms. WATERS. We shall see. Thank you. 

Chairman NEY. I want to thank the gentlelady. For the record, 

the National Low Income Housing Coalition has a statement for 

the record, a resolution of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, agency 

statements by HUD, HHS, the Department of Labor, and Veterans 

Affairs. 

The Chair notes some members may have additional questions 

for this panel and might want to submit them in writing. Without 

objection, the hearing record will remain open for 30 days. 

I appreciate your testimony and your passion for this issue and 

your frontline work on this issue. 

I really appreciate Congressman Renzi. I think it is a good bill 

that begins the process of seeing how the government can come together with the private sector in a lot of different areas to utilize 

the funding in a collective, collaborative way to help the homeless. 

Thank you. The meeting is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 1:04 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

(59)

A P P E N D I X

July 13, 2004

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