A rent-housing-shortage-homeless-roommates friend tells him: “It’s where I want to be”
He was skeptical because of the things he saw inside the shelter. There was a lot of drug use there, a lot of alcohol abuse, lots of vets there. … I don’t want to be in a house with someone like that.
Perkins gave a tour of the two story house where he has lived for more than two years. He shares one of the two apartments on the first floor. The place came furnished, including with some homey knickknacks. Perkins has his own bedroom but shares a bathroom.
The kitchen at the far side of the hall was what sold him on the place. “I like to cook,” he says. “This is where I want to be.”
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/20/1128453558/rent-housing-shortage-homeless-roommates
Moving Out of Homelessness: A Memorandum of Leon Corprew and Anomalous Vincent, Perkins, and the Living Room
After seeing the apartment and meeting the roommate he’d be paired with, Perkins decided to try it out. He gets a lot of help with his rent from housing aid. He says that his roommate was a good match with his personality.
That roommate ended up reuniting with his family and moved out, and in April 2021, Leon Corprew moved in. Corprew is 59 and Perkins is 56. They say they get along well, though they mostly keep to themselves and give each other space. Perkins used to cook for both of them, but Corprew makes his own meals now because, he says with a laugh, “I eat a lot!”
More people are moving out of homelessness than ever before, with an average of over one million annually since the beginning of the year. The problem is that the same number have lost housing in the past few years.
Oliva says that the housing market is tight. The rental vacancies are at an all time low, especially for the affordable units.
Rents in many places around the country have gone up by double digits in the past couple of years, and in June, the median listed rent for an available apartment rose above $2,000 a month for the first time. Federal benefits like Supplemental Security Income — or disability — have been unable to keep up.
Protections against eviction ran out just as the highest inflation in decades began spiking. Mortgage rates have risen as the Federal Reserve tries to try tamp down inflation, pricing many people out of buying a home and putting even more pressure on rentals.
The Judeo-Christian Outreach Center: Putting a Mom-and-Pop Tenant on a Rent and Providing a Community for Their Families
In Virginia Beach, the executive director of the Judeo-Christian Outreach Center found an apartment for Eric Perkins and believes that it could lead to housing in nicer neighborhoods.
The house where Perkins and Corprew live is owned by the landlord. When she heard about Walker’s program five years ago, she was desperate to rent out a couple of places. She had used the internet to find tenants “fly-by-night.” Even if its clients were homeless, working with a nonprofit seemed more stable.
“We had clients that weren’t paying rent, other clients giving that client money to pay for the utility and it wasn’t getting paid,” he said. “It was a catastrophe.”
Walker learned that there was a separate lease for each roommate. If one person is a problem, everyone else can be evicted without being kicked out. Also, he says it’s important to keep utilities in the landlord’s name and include that cost in the rent.
Many people are initially reluctant about sharing an apartment, but Walker says they end up appreciating the community and support. They struggle with loneliness sometimes, but sometimes they say they want to be alone.
The whole idea can also be a tough sell to landlords, who might worry about property damage. Walker talks it up to mom-and-pop landlords at every chance and offers incentives like a bonus or double deposit. He says these arrangements often let him house people who would otherwise be denied a lease, because of lack of income, a criminal record or past eviction.
People can start building their rental history when they are housed. Walker said that lower rent and housing aid allowed for a chance to pay outstanding utility or other bills that would be a problem moving out on their own.
“The only way they’re going to be self-sufficient … is if they can knock down some of those other things that they may not be able to do if they were living in a place by themselves and having to handle everything,” he says.
She says that when they arrive, they don’t just say, “OK, here is the person.” They help them set up the household, donating things like blankets, pots and pans. “And then they’re coming to see them.”
For the first few months, a case manager visits often to make sure everything is going well. Of course, anyone who has had roommates knows there can be tensions. But people who’ve experienced trauma might have a harder time adjusting, or a mental illness can flare up. The case manager keeps a close eye on the situation, as well as teaching roommates to resolve conflicts of their own.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/20/1128453558/rent-housing-shortage-homeless-roommates
Placement of unhoused people with roommates in shared housing for recovering addicts or mental health patients using matching tool: A mission for LA Family Housing
“Anytime I’ve had a little issue with somebody, I can always call up and say, ‘Hey, so-and-so’s having this issue,’ and then they talk to them,” says Sills-Tailor.
It is crucial that you don’t put a renter in a situation where they might fear whatever. was traumatic for them says the housing locator for the Judeo-Christian Outreach Center. For example, she would not place someone in recovery with a person who’s an active drinker.
Wray says she gets to know people through the group’s emergency shelter and while showing them different apartments, and she does her best to match those she thinks will get along well.
Making this type of shared housing work better is a mission for Kris Freed of the nonprofit group LA Family Housing in Los Angeles, where the housing and homelessness crises hit early and hard. She started getting strategic about placing unhoused people with roommates more than seven years ago.
As single adults transitioned out of programs, they began to be unable to find units, Freed says. “They returned their housing vouchers and I started to say, ‘Oh, we got a problem,’ ” he said.
For Freed, having a roommate is a good choice for anyone who is interested, including people struggling with addiction or mental health. A good match is key.
“A lot of people tend to fall into homelessness because of a relationship fallout,” she says, and may worry they won’t get along with a roommate. The LA Family Housing is using a tool similar to Match.com.
She says that they put them together in a room to decide. They can ask each other if they’re a good fit or not, if they see a document from the matching tool showing the flags, which parts of their personality or habits may not mesh.
The matches have been surprising so far, with only a few hundred people in the system. Some younger people seeking guidance have paired up with seniors eager to offer it.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/10/20/1128453558/rent-housing-shortage-homeless-roommates
When Eric Garcetti was in Los Angeles, and what he’s doing at the Judeo-Christian Outreach Center: A gift from a critical position
He says it’s better than being on the street. “If you can deal with other people’s issues and stuff that gets on your nerves, you will be fine.”
His roommate, Corprew, would like to find his own place in a subsidized senior community someday, but figures he’ll stay put for a while. And as soon as Perkins moves out, the Judeo-Christian Outreach Center will work on finding another good match to take his place.
A few days before Karen Bass was sworn in on Sunday as the first female mayor of Los Angeles, term-limited Democratic Mayor Eric Garcetti was making his farewell tour through South Los Angeles.
He donned a hard hat to survey construction at a massive affordable housing site, checked in on formerly unsheltered residents at a motel-to-interim housing conversion and toured another spacious campus with more than 90 shelter beds and nearly 200 units for the formerly unhoused.
For more than a year, Garcetti was a bystander as the LA mayoral candidates lamented the state of the city – from the ongoing homelessness crisis with about 42,000 people living on the streets, to concerns about crime and a series of corruption scandals on the City Council.
Garcetti remains optimistic that he will get confirmed to the ambassadorship, and he said the delay was an unexpected “gift” because it allowed him to work through the last day of his term. CNN spoke to Garcetti last week about his future, his record and the state of the city as he returns to private life.
I have stopped guessing when but I feel optimistic. I have good support from Republicans and Democrats who recognize this is a critical position. I can’t wait to get to work. Even if it was longer than was first estimated, it was kind of a gift to be here. In addition to seeing records amount of housing being built, I’ll be there for the finishing of the Crenshaw line, which will bring transit to the airport. The leaked audio tapes that came out of City Hall caused a lot of problems. … And, seeing the city through the end of the crisis of Covid. It made me have no guilt about leaving a day early because it was a gift.
Reston: When you think about your major accomplishments all the way back to when you were a council member, what is different about the state of the city today than when you started that you had a real hand in changing?
We won the gold medal. It’s like the biggest civic prize in the world, which isn’t just about an amazing sports event. It is about showing your true self to the world. … And, then transit. Our city has been where a car is king – the car capital of the world – and we’re building 15 transit lines off of one (ballot) measure. … We’ve tripled the pace of the housing, period. Tripled and passed a plan to double that again, which means that if we had a decade of that kind of growth to overcome four decades of the ‘not in my backyard’ mentality, LA could actually be a place where you can dream of owning a home again.
Reston: So, the other half of the equation – as you talked about – is not under your control as the mayor, and that’s the mental health space. There’ve been a lot of committee hearings in Washington about these issues, but nothing ever seems to emerge in terms of a grand plan. What do you want to see happen there?
A goal should be set for that. If we want to end homeless people in other countries, we should point to those who are not as rich as us. Don’t tell me it’s actually not possible.
What are you excited about? What do you want to be next? (California Sen.) Dianne Garcetti
Reston: I want to pivot to politics. You don’t know when you’re getting your confirmation. (California Sen.) Dianne Feinstein’s been in her office for a long time. There are people who are concerned about her mental acuity. Do you feel that the people of California, at this point, are getting full representation from that office?
Reston: She’s not raising a lot of money though, and folks expect that she will step down at some point. Are they an office that would interest you in the future?
Garcetti: I expect to be in India and not around for that campaign. After 20 years I think it is important to reflect, but I don’t usually close doors. I have read two novels in the last 10 years. I have read a few non-fiction books during that time. I haven’t played the piano yet, but I listen to a lot of music. Human beings are always asking what they are going to do next. Nobody asks, “Who do you want to be next?” I want to spend a little time on who I want to be.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/12/politics/eric-garcetti-los-angeles-what-matters/index.html
Why did Joe Biden Run for the White House? What did you think? What have you been listening to during the Pandemic? And where did you want to go?
If Joe Biden stood down and didn’t run for president, the state of California could have two people running for the presidency at the same time. Who would you back?
I do not answer hypotheticals. I’ve never said that to anybody, but I don’t. And by the way, look, I genuinely love both of them. Kamala has been a friend since she was district attorney (of San Francisco) and I was a council member and we were co-chairs of the Obama campaign. I think he is a really critical leader for our country, and I got to know him very well during the Pandemic. I mean, I’ve always known him decently well, but wartime leadership together is a different level of bond.
Reston: When you think about the things that still are on your bucket list – beyond being an ambassador – what are the things you’re most excited about right now? And I need an update on how many countries you’ve visited – since you said you were going to try to get to all of the countries in the world.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/12/politics/eric-garcetti-los-angeles-what-matters/index.html
The Biden Administration’s 2017 Urban Homelessness Action Plan: A Countdown to the Rise of Homelessness in the U.S. Since the First Reionization
A long time ago I was working on a musical that I thought would be interesting in LA. It starts with the riots and it ends with the (Northridge) earthquake – ’92 to ‘94 – as the internet first comes. That moment kind of defined us. A group of people living together. Many people called for the development of a City Hall. ‘The Wire’ was good, but there’s not been, since that, a really good series about City Hall. That would be kind of fun.
The Biden administration’s latest plan to fight the homelessness crisis, released Monday morning, calls for more action to keep people from losing their housing in the first place.
“We’ve gotten very, very good at providing supportive housing for people,” says Jeff Olivet, executive director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, which developed the plan. “We haven’t done a great job turning off the faucet as a nation.”
The number of people experiencing homelessness has remained constant since the beginning of the year. There were 582,462 on a single night in January this year, according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development. That’s only slightly more than the previous full count, in 2020, before the pandemic disrupted the process.
Over the course of this year, more than a million people and families were without housing, and they weresproportionately people of color, a disparity that the plan aims to address.
Most individuals were out on the streets rather than in shelters — a shift that’s raised awareness of the crisis but has also led to more communities cracking down on encampments and criminalizing sleeping or even sitting in certain public spaces.
Olivet and local advocates credit the array of federal financial help during the pandemic for preventing a sharp spike in homelessness. But with much of that aid now gone, they warn the numbers might go up again.
The latest data also shows big differences among certain groups. The numbers of unhoused veterans, families and youths are down. The numbers for single adults and those with disabilities are up.
Paul Downey has worked as an advocate fighting homelessness for three decades, and says the focus has always been how to help those on the streets get into a shelter, get services and get back into permanent housing. What there hasn’t been, he says, is “a lot of discussion about how we stop it from occurring in the first place,” even though “it is the obvious thing.”
Downey heads the nonprofit Serving Seniors in San Diego, where a recent count found a quarter of those unhoused are 55 or older. Over the past year there, on average, for every 10 people moved out of homelessness, 13 others fell into it for the first time.
Downey claims that it’s a bargain compared to how much it costs for a person to be homeless in San Diego with the help of the criminal justice system, emergency rooms and police. He plans to study the impact of the rent subsidy pilot and hopes it’s a model that can expand.
There are a lot of homeless people who come for coffee, clothing, snacks and help getting placed in housing at the nonprofit Friendship Place. With a severe national shortage of affordable housing, Chief Community Solutions Officer Sean Read says it’s key to find “the creative solutions, like, three steps before the full-blown emergency.”
If you can get an $800 car repair and keep them in work, then you can address the issue earlier, at a lower cost.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/12/19/1142790156/people-homelessness-crisis-housing-prevention-biden
Los Angeles County Housing Project: Detecting and Preventing Homelessness at the Emerging Stages of Recovery from a Crisis in the 1990s
Los Angeles County is trying out a computer model, developed by UCLA, that tracks data from eight different agencies. Caseworkers help people who are flagged as struggling with financial assistance and other support after reaching out to them.
“At those critical moments of transition, we have an opportunity. “We’re aware of where people are.” We could bridge that in-patient, incarceration, or foster care experience straight into housing. It doesn’t have to be a shelter or a tent.
The lack of public funding for affordable homes, a severe housing shortage, and wages that have not kept pace with those soaring housing costs are just some of the reasons behind the homelessness crisis. Starting last year, the worst inflation in decades only compounded the struggle for many.
“We did not have any major obstacles,” Downey says. “It just took that long to grind through the system, to layer the financing that is needed to be able to build the housing.”
Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/12/19/1142790156/people-homelessness-crisis-housing-prevention-biden
The Right Way to Address Unsheltered People in the U.S.: State and Local Government Requires More Federal Assistance for Affordable Housing
President Biden has called for more federal funding for affordable housing, but according to Olivet, states and localities have to step up. In November’s elections, voters in a number of places across the country did approve more funding to build or subsidize affordable housing.
The Biden administration said it would work to help reduce the number of unsheltered people. The feds will work with local officials in order to find the 19 different U.S. agencies that can provide support.