“Housing First is more than Pathways or any one program. It is an overarching principle for addressing homelessness that we have only begun to embrace in this past decade.
We got lost in the past twenty five years and shaped a response that enshrines shelter -- not housing -- for people without homes. ONLY housing ends homelessness, and the qualifications required in the current systems of being ‘housing ready’ are obscene. Do people check out hungry people to see if they are ‘food ready’?
Before I turn to the tragic situation for both tenants in your article, I want to offer the context where ‘housing first’ is the most compelling: children. Children fare best in housing; bad housing (brilliant term from the English) includes shelters and other unfit sites for children to grow and flourish. The evidence is clear: children living in shelters have more emotional, psychological development problems and they fall behind in educational development. How dare we ask their parents to “qualify” for housing – the most basic human need – holding them hostage to a standard which has no bearing on their ability to maintain a good home for their children. It is from a home that they can best be connected to basic services like Early Head Start and other community supports will help them build stability.
It is popular among the popular homeless spokespeople to call Housing First a “fad” or the “flavor du jour”. If you are earning you income working in “homelessness”, the only valid measure of your effectiveness is the number of people who you have housed in a place they can call home and lock the door – in private apartments or houses. I have witnessed the resistance to Housing First in national gatherings for the first half of this past decade, but within the past few years, all across the country, jurisdictions learned quickly that what the two pioneer advocates and implementers of Housing First -- Sam Tsemberis and Tanya Tull – were on target. The vast majority of families and chronically homeless folks will increase stability with a place of their own. 85% is the success rate most Housing First programs achieve.
It makes so much sense that it makes me crazy that Philadelphia is so resistant and picky. So crazy that the organization I lead went ‘all in’ to show that Housing First could work in Philadelphia. With 2-3 full time staff, SafeHome Philadelphia, has assisted over 250 children in 100 families to move from dreadful housing (where they stayed because they feared for their children’s safety in shelter) and shelter into houses and apartments all across the city where over 85% are flourishing. The costs to move a family in a decent and affordable place is $4000-4800 per family once. The city spends $5800 for two month’s of shelter; multiply it out to $35,000 a year! We have no interest in becoming a housing industry but rather to build that capacity with the agencies who call us endlessly trying to help Philadelphians avoid shelter.
Let’s see, what make sense: keep families in shelter purportedly training them to manage housing in the future, or help them move into housing and make connections with basic services and supports – help them succeed in their own place!
Sam Tsemberis’ model is mindboggling, to be sure. I do not pretend to know what should or should not have been done. Sadly, Mary’s struggle puts her in the 15% not succeeding with their first housing situation. Was it not a classic case of “where do my rights end and yours begin?” There is no winner here, it is a very sad story.
But I fear that your story will only give fuel, inappropriately, to those who will not risk the power sharing that Housing First represents. That is what most people fear about the change Housing First represents. In Great Britain, a few years ago, they conducted staff training throughout their homeless systems on the principle that homeless people are your equals, and if you cannot act on that principle, then you are in the wrong job. As a community, I think we in the homeless industry here should be held to that same principle.
I urge you to hear and report the initially improbable and now routine successes of Housing First!”
