What We Talk About When We Talk About Homelessness
What We Talk About When We Talk About Homelessness
"It’s not a mystery how to address homelessness," said Harro, "but it takes community focus."
At the end of a report on homelessness given to City Council on Monday evening, which highlighted the need for more emergency shelter space and supportive housing, Councilor Michael Payne said he thought that "advancing our ability as a government" to purchase land and housing units, or form partnership for such projects was a necessary first step in ending chronic homelessness in our area.
"Heh, heh, heh," Mayor Lloyd Snook chuckled. "...beat that drum some more, Michael."
People gathered in chambers laughed, some nervously.
"Every chance I get," Payne responded before the laughter died.
Payne, just 26 when elected to Council in 2019, has pushed for government-funded affordable housing initiatives since being elected, and he was recognizing the need for supportive housing as another opportunity for local government to get directly involved. Earlier, Snook had mentioned a "seemingly improbable" study in Utah that showed it was less expensive for communities to house homeless people than it was to allow them to remain on the street. He asked the directors of the local organizations present if they'd seen similar data locally.
"Yes, we have," said Anna Mendez, the new executive director of The Haven, practically shouting with joy, quickly citing an informal study done by one of her predecessors. It focused on one individual able to get out of a shelter and into permanent housing. The study found that the cost to the community dropped by over $20,000 annually. Mendez empathized that it was just one person, and not a controlled study, but felt it alluded to what the national data shows - that housing the unsheltered saves communities money in the long run.
"I would say it's the right thing to do, whether it saves communities money or not," said Mendez, wearing a "housing is a human right" t-shirt, " but I also understand that balanced budgets are important."
"I sometimes get into discussions with, shall we say, folks who don't agree with me," Snook responded. "And that's one of the points that people...always ask. [In animated grumpy voice], 'Why are we spending this kind of money on...’ And the most effective answer I can give is...it saves money to do this. And if we can localize that data it makes the point more credible."
Anthony Harro, executive director of the Blue Ridge Area Coalition for the Homeless, offered some figures from a study in the Richmond area, saying the costs to the community for a chronically homeless person was about $35,000 to $40,000 a year while providing supportive housing was around $15,000 to $20,0000 thousand a year. Harro pointed out that a single night spent in the emergency room at UVA Hospital costs about a month's rent.
"Yes, it’s morally the right thing," said Harro, alluding to Mendez's comments, "and also fiscally the right thing to do."
And that's when Payne offered his comments about city government buying housing units and land for shelters and housing.
Indeed, practically, homelessness is a problem with a simple solution. Provide people with housing they can afford. However, as Harro and others pointed out, while rental assistance programs and supportive housing projects work to provide needed support, there's a limited number of affordable housing units available, shelters are short on beds, and those experiencing homelessness often have histories that prevent them from getting approved for housing.
It's a vicious circle. As Mendez explained, permanent supportive housing projects like the one planned by Virginia Supportive Housing at the former Red Carpet Inn, which since May 2021 has been serving as a non-congregate emergency shelter called Premier Circle, are effective and applauded by the community, but expensive housing interventions like these first require someone to become chronically homeless to be eligible.
"So I'm hoping, as a community, we can work toward a future where we don't ever have anyone who qualifies for permanent supportive housing," said Mendez, "because they never have to experience being homeless for 12 months in a row to qualify."
By the numbers
According to Harro, during a count conducted on January 25, 2023 [in which Mayor Snook participated], 191 people were identified as experiencing homeless, 143 people were in shelter programs locally, 34 people were living outside unsheltered in the downtown mall area, and 14 people were in transitional housing projects. He said those figures didn't include people in surrounding counties or living in their cars on the outskirts of town.
According to Misty Graves, Charlottesville's human services director, 54 percent of the calls to a homelessness information line come from people in Charlottesville, while 36 percent come from people in Albemarle County. About 10 percent come from people in surrounding areas. Most callers to the hotline, 56 percent, were Black, while 32 percent were White. And not surprisingly, 86 percent had an Area Median Income (AMI) range of 30 percent or below.
Harro also said that 459 people fell into homelessness between April 2022 and April 2023 and that 77 percent of them were experiencing homelessness for the first time.
Harro also pointed out that the average length of stay in an emergency shelter for the same period was 206 days, compared to 48 days in 2019. Harro estimated the community needs 60 to 70 additional emergency shelter beds.
"What's causing this? The truth is there's a limited number of affordable housing units," said Harro. "You need less shelters when you have more opportunities for people to move into housing."
Mendez predicted that 2023 would be The Haven's "busiest year yet" and serve over 500 people. In 2022, The Haven, a day shelter made possible by the largesse of Hollywood director Tom Shadyac, who bought and donated the church building on Market Street while filming "Evan Almighty" in Crozet, provided 17,000 meals, 3,000 showers, 2,500 loads of clean laundry, and served as a legal address for 500 people.
"Wealth inequality and lack of housing is the root of the problem," said Mendez. "We see both of those things colliding here in Charlottesville creating perfect conditions for homelessness."
Harrow and others mentioned how much Premier Circle, the former motel re-purposed into a temporary non-congregate emergency shelter, has helped homeless people, especially seniors, transition to permeant housing. And PACEM executive director Jayson Whitehead provided some reasons why.
PACEM, which provides emergency congregate shelter to people, partnering mostly with faith congregations in the area, was already partnering with the La Quinta Inn on Route 29 to provide non-congregate shelter during the pandemic when they shifted their services to managing the former motel as an emergency shelter. Since opening in May 2021, 177 people have been served at Premiere Circle, 95 of whom were 55 or over. Whitehead mentioned that the number of seniors they serve has "really been rising." In what he described as a "seemingly impossible" outcome, PACEM was able to secure permanent housing for 75 people.
"One unique thing at Premiere Circle was the stability it provided folks and the ability we had to develop relationships with our guests," said Whitehead, "...to really deep dive with them, what are their housing barriers, what are their challenges in getting housing. On top of that, there were a lot of housing options made available to us after it was announced that Premiere Circle was going to close....usually, it's thin pickings."
This led to a discussion about The Haven becoming an overnight shelter, something that was part of the original vision for the shelter, said Mendez, who revealed that they were in the process of securing a consultant to provide a feasibility study for that.
"It's complicated," she said, "we no longer have a patron [Shadyac] who is willing to write blank checks."
She also discussed the idea of creating a "master leasing program" that would allow The Haven to take on the responsibility of leasing housing for its members. As Mendez emphasized, the key to securing housing for those experiencing homelessness, and for "getting those 34 people off the downtown mall," was to provide easy, very low-barrier programs.
Indeed, as Whitehead mentioned, one of the biggest challenges they've had in transitioning people to permanent housing is those barriers.
"We have folks who have housing subsidies in hand," he said, "but there are so many other challenges to them securing housing, criminal records, evictions, so many barriers. You can have the money, even find the place, but then they are turning you down."
Vice Mayor Juandiego Wade praised the group for their work, saying it was "hard to thrive if you don't know where you're going to lay your head," but also introduced a familiar argument made by some - that Charlottesville, by offering more and more services, was in danger of becoming a mecca, or a "temple," as he characterized it, for those experiencing homelessness across Virginia and the country.
Near the end of the presentation, Mendez returned to that comment.
"We see new faces in the day shelter every single day from places that are not in Charlottesville," she said. "And while that is one-hundred percent true, what is also true is, and even more true, is that the vast majority of people who are regularly using Haven services are individuals, or their families, who have incredibly long histories in the city of Charlottesville."
"That was truly surprising to me," added Mendez, the former executive director of Partner for Mental Health, who started at the Haven just six months ago. "So I don't want us to lose sight of the fact that this is an issue that is affecting people who have been here for generations."