Make rent subsidies available
Chronic homelessness involves people who are highly unlikely to escape from homelessness without long-term, deep rent subsidies. Unfortunately, cuts to HUD funding in recent years, culminating in the “sequestration” year of 2013, have made rent subsidies harder to come by. For this reason if for no other, extending the time period for ending chronic homelessness is a realistic move.
Despite reductions in HUD funding, the number of people experiencing chronic homelessness has gone done, substantially in many communities. The plan amendment should encourage other communities to adopt successful strategies for making rent subsidies available to end chronic homelessness. These include ensuring that turnover in permanent supportive housing funded by HUD’s Continuum of Care, as well as any new subsidies that may be funded, should be targeted toward chronically homeless people; and that some portion of HUD “mainstream” housing resources (Section 8, Public Housing) be used to help end chronic homelessness. The plan should provide more specifics and benchmarks for communities about what they can do to make enough rent subsidies available. For example, if one out of every five Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers that turns over were made available to house people experiencing chronic homelessness, it would provide enough housing subsidies to end chronic homelessness by the end of 2016 in many communities. The plan should include incentives and encouragement for communities to devote this level of available resources to this end.
There are fears in some communities that targeting housing resources toward people experiencing chronic homelessness could run afoul of various legal requirements or prohibitions. The federal agencies that provide resources should give clear guidance about possible violations of fair housing laws in particular, so that communities can act confidently.
Even if communities are tremendously successful at targeting strategies, however, the numbers don’t add up unless new resources dedicated to housing people experiencing chronic homelessness are made available. The Administration’s budget requested funding for 37,000 new subsidies for this purpose. This appears to be the right estimate. Congress may still fund this request. Another possible strategy would be to make funding available through the Government Sponsored Enterprises for the National Housing Trust Fund, giving states a new resource to use in part for this purpose.
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Anonymous commented
Many families could be prevented from becoming homeless with the availability of additional rent subsidies or short-term rental assistance.