January 21, 2008 Ending Homelessness. Lori Aratani. Washington Post. 1/16/2008.
Montgomery Officials Are Halfway Through a 10-Year Plan That Has Yet To Make a Dent in the Problem. Two Council Members Pose a New Approach.
In 2002, Montgomery County officials vowed to end homelessness in the county within 10 years. As part of their initiative, they said they would construct 800 studio apartments by 2012.
Six years later, only 48 such units have been created -- eight of which opened last month. And according to the most recent census of homelessness in the region, there are more homeless people on the streets of Montgomery than there were in the year before then-County Executive Douglas M. Duncan (D) made his pledge.
"Six years have gone by, and we haven't made any progress," said council member George L. Leventhal (D-At Large). "We haven't fulfilled our promise."
Now Leventhal and council President Michael Knapp (D-Upcounty) are renewing the effort to get people off the streets, with a different approach. They want to shift the focus to finding solutions that would get people into permanent housing sooner, such as rent subsidies, rather than depend on new construction to meet demand.
Last month, they unveiled a plan to use $4 million from the county's Housing Initiative Fund to pay for rental subsidies and other services that homeless people need to stabilize themselves.
What is known as the "Housing First" approach is gaining popularity in communities across the country. Officials in the District, which announced a 10-year plan to end homelessness three years ago, have embraced it. And in Fairfax, Housing First plays a significant role in that county's 10-year plan.
A spokesman for Montgomery County Executive Isiah Leggett (D) said the administration is studying the proposal but is not yet ready to commit to the Knapp-Leventhal plan.
"We're behind the motivation and goal, but what we need to figure out is how we're going to divvy up resources," said Leggett's spokesman, Patrick Lacefield.
A County Council hearing on the proposal, with more details about how the money will be spent, is slated for this month.
According to the annual homeless count by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, 1,089 homeless people lived in Montgomery in 2001; in 2007, the number was 1,139.
The District has had the largest decline in the number of homeless people in the region since 2001 -- from 7,058 to 5,757. As with Montgomery, Fairfax's numbers have remained relatively stable.
Sharan London, executive director of the Montgomery County Coalition
for the Homeless, said previous efforts to reduce the homeless
population stalled because good intentions didn't necessarily translate
into action.
"Political will plays a huge role in efforts like homelessness," she said. "It just wasn't a priority."
She said the Duncan administration was also stymied by the high cost of land and construction in the county, and a tight rental market hindered those with subsidies.
And, advocates say, despite the liberal reputation of the county's residents, Montgomery officials also encounter the same fears and not-in-my-back-yard attitude that doomed similar efforts elsewhere.
For example, when officials first proposed converting an Econo Lodge in Gaithersburg into housing for homeless individuals and families in 2003, it drew opposition from neighbors. The 40-unit building, known as Seneca Heights, is now heralded as one of the county's biggest successes.
An apartment on Dale Drive in Silver Spring, which opened last month, also initially drew criticism from neighbors because of its proximity to two schools, Silver Spring International Middle and Sligo Creek Elementary.
In some cases, projects for the homeless were ruled out before they reached the point where plans are presented to a neighborhood.
"I think often what happens is the homeless population is ruled out internally," said Charles Short, who headed Montgomery's Health and Human Services Department in the Duncan administration before leaving in 2003. "There are lots of sites that could be used to house challenging populations, but in the discussions held early on, [we] realized that it would be a difficult sell."
Knapp says it's time to try the Housing First approach, to make more significant progress.
"If we want to stop people from being homeless, we have to give them a home. Sometimes it really is that simple," Knapp said. The county's plan "focuses on getting people into housing that is real, legitimate and stable. Instead of having a person navigate programs that take them from shelter to shelter to shelter, let's get them into whatever is the most suitable home environment."
The hope is that the plan could get people such as Michael Casey, 54, off the street and into permanent homes. Casey, who became homeless after trying to pay off medical expenses, often spends his time on Wisconsin Avenue in Bethesda, holding a sign that notes the day he became homeless: Feb. 24, 2004.
Advocates for the homeless have long pushed for a program that emphasizes permanent homes over temporary shelters. A handful of pilot programs have been in place in Montgomery for several years, but until now, the county's approach has been piecemeal.
Arthur Livingston, 47, was homeless for five years but was able to find a home in Silver Spring in May through a program sponsored by the Coalition for the Homeless. Today, he said he is stronger and more optimistic about his future.
"It's like winning the lottery," he said. "I don't have to worry about the cold. If I go out, I want to come back because it's my home."
As part of the coalition's advocacy for a more comprehensive approach, London hired a consultant to evaluate what it might cost to switch to a Housing First system.
The draft report by Abt Associates estimated it would cost the county $14.7 million to shift its emphasis from shelters and transitional units to permanent housing. The report's authors said most of that money -- $10 million -- could come from redirecting what they estimated the county currently spends on efforts to help the homeless.
Leventhal and Knapp said their $4 million figure is based in part on the report's estimates, although they said the figures must still be vetted by county staff.
Nan Roman, president and chief executive of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, said the Knapp and Leventhal initiative might be one of the most ambitious in the region.
"What's so exciting about the Montgomery County proposal is that it seeks to make it more consistently the approach across the board," Roman said. "Before, it was more of a program-by-program approach. Now, you have the whole jurisdiction -- the whole county."
As in Montgomery, most current programs in the United States funnel people into networks of temporary shelters, where they receive services until they are considered stable enough to be placed into permanent homes, said Dennis Culhane, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Social Policy and Practice, who has studied the approach. Because much of the money is allocated to meet temporary needs, he said, there's often no money left to provide permanent homes.
Although some cities have found success in reducing the homeless population by using a Housing First model, a recent report by the Department of Housing and Urban Development found mixed results.
Knapp is optimistic that the homeless problem can be solved.
"It's Montgomery County," Knapp said. "We've been blessed with a significant amount of resources. We can create a model that can identify ways to do this efficiently, to show how it can be done. If we can't do it here, you can't do it."
