Is Boise is making a dent in homelessness? Count drops as federal spending rises
Boise and the state of Idaho have had some success getting the homeless population down. But officials are hardly declaring victory in a tough, ongoing fight.
The city and state need help, and while Washington, D.C., is sympathetic and unusually unified in its desire to help, advocates say it’s not doing enough.
Boise had 713 people homeless when it did its last survey in January, down from 756 a year earlier and 833 in 2017.
Also plunging were the number of those unsheltered, or living in cars, encampments or on the streets. The 2019 count was 61, roughly half the 2018 and 2017 numbers.
Statewide, the homeless number has fluctuated from 1,966 in 2015 to 2,247 in 2016, 2,037 in 2017, 2,012 in 2018 and 2,315 last year.
Yet the issue has continued to boil politically, as Boise fights in court to protect its ability to issue anti-camping citations to homeless people. Though a federal appellate court agreed to dismiss advocates’ challenge of the policy, the city is seeking a review by the U.S. Supreme Court.
The controversy played a key role in City Council President Lauren McLean’s upset of Mayor David Bieter in last month’s mayoral election, as McLean says she listened to constituents to oppose forcing homeless people into the criminal justice system.
Washington, D.C., lawmakers say they understand the gravity of the problem. The issue got unusually unified political support this year, as House and Senate budget-writers quietly agreed on more spending. Advocacy groups dealing with the homeless day by day generally praise the effort.
Congress wants to spend about $2.8 billion in fiscal 2020, the 12 month period that began Oct. 1, on homeless assistance grants, the major funding source to help the homeless. Final votes are likely sometime this month on what would be about a 6% increase over last year.
Virtually all that money, though, is to maintain and improve previously funded projects.
That’s barely enough to keep pace. “The cost of building is so high, the level the funding is not sufficient,” said John Parvensky, acting executive director at the National Coalition for the Homeless.
He noted that the 6% increase would not be enough to cover rising rents in many places.
While it’s critical to spend to keep people from losing current housing, the current funding level makes it difficult to house people now on the streets or in emergency shelters, Parvensky said.
“The bottom line is that current HUD funding is very effective for those who are targeted — which are generally some of the more vulnerable and chronically homeless people and some families,” said Michael Ullman, National Homeless Information Project coordinator.
But stopping the flow of new people into homelessness, and the streets or shelters, is much more complex, he said. Ullman urged a “complete rethinking of the problem and the definition of homelessness.”
“The white upper class policy maker cannot fathom living 10 or 50 to a large room — maybe it’s not great, but it’s not homeless. And two-thirds of the people currently defined as homeless live in congregate housing,” he said.
Boise’s challenges
Among those who were homeless in Boise in January, 199 were adults with a serious mental illness, 189 had a substance use disorder and 52 were victims of domestic violence.
Although Boise’s homeless population is down, the number using emergency shelter is fairly steady — 534 this year, 517 last year, 579 in 2017.
The unsheltered number has dropped largely because the New Path Community Housing opened a year ago with 45 beds. It provides a wide range of services, including case managers and help with health care. And it is not restricted to those with poor credit histories or other liabilities that may have kept people out in the past.
Brady Ellis, Idaho Housing and Finance Association’s vice president for housing support programs, warned against drawing any conclusions from the latest homeless population counts. Those counts are done annually on a January night, he said, and can be affected by weather, number of volunteers taking the count and other variables. Idaho Housing is a self-supporting organization that oversees homelessness services, support and federal funding to help affordable housing.
What’s important is to look at the trends over time. Statewide, the homeless population is fairly consistent. As for the Boise unsheltered population, it’s too soon to say what that means.
“It might be the beginning of a downward trend,” Ellis said, “but we don’t know at this point.”
Boise relies heavily on federal funding for its homeless programs, and Ellis said “we feel we use the funding efficiently.”
“Any additional money would certainly be welcome,” he said.
But to get more funding or incentives for dramatic innovation in services provided to the homeless means changing the political culture, and that will be difficult. In a nation’s capital that hears constantly about government programs that don’t work, there’s reluctance to fool with one that often does. Nor are many lawmakers well-schooled on problems far from their constituencies.
“We know this approach works, and our country has seen the success of these efforts,” Joseph Horiye told Congress. Horiye is the Western region program vice president at the Local Initiatives Support Corporation, which promotes community programs.
“We know that progress can be made when the federal government provides adequate resources.”
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