Category

Homelessness

Jun 06
0

Couch Surfing: The Last Stop

By | Homelessness, The Race to End Homelessness | 2 Comments

I have this facebook friend — one of those people I used to know and do not keep in touch with much — who last week updated his status to ask if he could crash at someone’s place. “Help” he wrote, “I’m about to be literally homeless in New Jersey.”

At first, I was infuriated. How dare he pretend to be undergoing the same plight as the people I know who are experiencing homeless? As a middle class, college-educated guy I went to high school with, he couldn’t possibly be “really” homeless.

Then I did my research. As it turns out, couch surfing is a lot closer to homelessness than I originally realized. The 2012 Annual Report to Congress named “doubling up,” or living with a friend or relative as the most common previous housing situation for people entering homelessness. While most people can offer a guest room or at least a pillow for a night or two, many cannot afford a permanent house guest. Furthermore, living in such close quarters puts stress on even the best of relationships. For these reasons, a couch might be the last stop for someone before becoming homeless.

Does this mean everyone who finds themselves caught between a lease for a few days is entering the homeless system? Certainly not. Still, it is dangerous to believe that we or the people we know are immune from this experience. In the 2013 State of Homelessness in America Report, The National Alliance to End Homelessness stated that economic need has driven people to double up at higher rates in 39 states. From 2010 to 2011, New York State saw an increase of 26 percent in the number of households that doubled up, while Massachusetts rates increased by 25 percent. The ten states that saw a decrease in doubling up were mostly southern states, but also included Alaska and Kansas, both with double digit declines. Generally, those areas with lower property values did not see the staggering increases that the rest of the country experienced. This suggests that even when working, many individuals are unable to pay for rooms or apartments at the average market rate.

mapMap: The National Alliance to End Homelessness

Because the 2013 State of Homelessness Report uses data from 2011, some newer studies suggest this trend has started to correct itself as the economy improves. While moving off the couch is certainly an improvement, this group represents a “hidden homeless” population, because they are more difficult to count in homeless censuses or Point-In-Time counts for the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

As the economy improves — or as tensions run high with housemates, this population will begin to look for affordable housing. It is dangerous to assume that the current demand for housing is an accurate representation of the need for such homes. In 2009, the need for affordable housing outnumbered the amount of safe units by 5.5 million. Four years later, the situation has not improved. There are many people who have been waiting in the wings — friends’ spare rooms, basements, and living rooms — for a place of their own.

Affordable housing has never been prevalent enough or affordable enough for everyone, but it is more crucial now than ever. There is a large group of people that used to live independently, and likely have some income, who are ready and willing to become tenants and homeowners. They just need properties at the right price to let them do so.

My facebook friend found a place for the night and has since moved into a new apartment. Others, though, are still waiting for a place they can truly call home.

May 23
0

A Battle Not Yet Won

By | Homelessness, The Race to End Homelessness | 3 Comments

As we approach the unofficial start of summer this Memorial Day, I probably won’t be the only one to interrupt your barbecue or beach day by asking that we take a moment to remember what the holiday is really about. Across the country, there will be parades and memorial services for those lost in wars. At the same time, other veterans are fighting a new battle, returning home only to become homeless.

More than 62,000 veterans will experience homelessness tonight, with twice that number not having a place to stay over the course of this year. Veterans represent seven percent of the general population, yet 13 percent of individuals experiencing homelessness can claim veteran status.

President Obama and Veterans Administration Secretary Eric K. Shinseki have pledged to end veteran homelessness by the year 2015. Great, another pledge to end a timeless problem before a looming deadline. How could the plan to end veteran homelessness be different from various 10 Year Plans to End Homelessness around the country?

Well… it could work. There are plenty of issues with veteran care still happening nationwide, but in the race to end homelessness, this plan is showing signs of success. The Veterans Administration has regional offices to provide a wide range of services either directly or via innovative partnerships with other organizations, and is committed to expanding its scope of care to meet the needs of the thousands of veterans who need comprehensive services.

In late 2012, the VA announced a $300 million grant program for veteran services, and pledged to increase the number of mental health professionals nationwide by 1,900. In Maryland, the VA has implemented a program to provide homeless veterans with free dental care at the University of Maryland dental school. At Salt Lake City Community College in Utah, 169 veterans graduated this week, due to the school’s comprehensive veterans’ center and partnership with the VA.

While many veterans need emergency or health services, there is more to consider. After performing valiantly overseas, many military personal return to the states and don’t qualify for traditional employment. There is a need for programs to help reintegrate veterans into the workforce, but few are doing this effectively. The Mission Continues is a new program in Missouri that connects post 9/11 veterans with fellowships and trains them to be community leaders domestically. Through six-month fellowships at non-profit organizations, veterans use skills they already have and build new ones so that they can continue to lead the country at home. The Mission Continues does not directly address homelessness, but preventative measures and creative programs can help alleviate veteran poverty before it begins.

Unlike plans to end homelessness in the general population, the plan to end Veteran Homelessness seems to be moving in the right direction. With a twelve percent decrease in veterans experiencing homelessness this year and a seventeen percent decline since 2009, there is a real possibility that the VA and its partners have found solutions that actually work. While other homeless service providers face budget cuts, the VA has the resources to provide increased financial and personal support to get people off the street.

I am not begrudging anyone his or her long weekend, but this battle is far from won. There are VA claims for services backlogged for days, months and even years. There are veterans who will spend this Memorial Day in shelters or on streets, and that is unacceptable. Now could be a turning point, but there is plenty of hard work ahead. If programs are working, we must continue to fund and staff them through 2015. What veterans need from us is not a parade, but governmental agencies working on processing VA claims, on providing necessary services and programs, and on ending veteran homelessness.

May 09
0

Unaffordable Death

By | Homelessness, The Race to End Homelessness | One Comment

For most, the idea of cemetery dirt and gravestones represents the end of our lives. For Bratislav Stojanovic, a grave in Serbia has been home for the past 15 years. He isn’t the only one living among the dead — the practice of living in graves has spread to Cambridge and other cities where homelessness is on the rise.

Ironically, if Stojaniovic and other grave-dwellers are like most homeless people, their current graves could be the only ones they ever see. For most people experiencing homelessness, a burial is a lavish expense. Even a simple funeral can cost thousands of dollars. Thus, the requests some people have about death — from family plots to specific ceremonial music to the words that will mark a grave — seem not to apply if someone was poor in their lifetime.

As a caveat, it is not appropriate to assume that someone experiencing homelessness did not have family or friends with some means. Often, family members are notified of their loved one’s passing and the body is turned over to them. Hospitals and social workers can often find the people they need in just a few phone calls, because people living outdoors often need to carry all their belongings on them, so a business card can be retrieved easily.

But what if this yields no results? For the most part, these bodies are disposed of and forgotten.

In some cities, bodies with no family contacts are buried in a common grave. Sixteen states are now required to at least subsidize the cost of funerals for those who cannot afford them. The laws differ as to what can be done with the bodies, with some donated to research and some cremated. In Seattle, a service is held every two years to remember and bury the ashes of those who were unable to pay for funeral services at the time of death. A few other cities also host common cemeteries. The largest of these is Hart Island in New York, where an approximate 750,000 people (not all of them previously homeless) have been mass-buried since the 1860s. There are no gravestones at these cemeteries, and while there are records on file, pre-1977 documents burned in a fire.

Denmark has taken strides to equalize the way the homeless are remembered. Earlier this year, advocates for the homeless proposed a cemetery for the 5,000 homeless people in the county. The project is still in the works, but this final resting place is far more dignified than a discarded body or an anonymous common grave. City officials, advocates, and members of the homeless community collaboratively decided on the cemetery, which is slated to open this fall. Why is the city allocating funds for this plot and the statue that will accompany the graves? According to Ayfer Baykal, the city’s deputy mayor for technical and environment affairs, “Copenhagen should be a city for everyone.”

Could this attitude exist in other places? It seems unnecessary that poverty is a badge that a person must wear past the end of his or her life. Until we can end homelessness among the living, we could at least end it for the dead.

Apr 25
0

Fewer Baltimorians Headed HOME

By | Homelessness, The Race to End Homelessness | No Comments

They’re back! If you’ve attended a Baltimore Community Association meeting this month, you’ve seen them: armed with letters, announcements, and news from the state’s capitol, legislators have finished a three-month session in Annapolis and returned to the city. As they make the rounds and reconnect with constituents, there is a lot of good news to discuss. While there was much impressive work accomplished, many housing advocates hung their heads at the news that one important piece of legislation had failed — again.

The HOME Act, had it survived in Annapolis, would have required landlords to accept any kind of legal income as a rent payment. Understandably, this would have been good news for people who are experiencing homelessness but hold a Section 8 Voucher. The voucher program is a federal plan that allows tenants to pay 30 percent of their income and provides subsidies to cover the rest of the rent. Despite the ghastly-long waiting list for vouchers, the theory behind the program is that a voucher holder can choose where to live rather than residing in a particular low-income building or neighborhood. This sounds good in theory, but obtaining one does not necessarily lead to housing because many property owners can legally refuse to house tenants who intend to pay with a voucher. (Income discrimination also affects people who use Social Security or pension programs to pay their rent, so the HOME Act could have created increased housing security for many people).

By not passing the HOME Act, this behavior will continue in Baltimore City. Missteps like this one place Baltimore behind other cities in the race to end homelessness. Eleven states and 30 cities have already passed laws prohibiting income discrimination, including Philadelphia, New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia and Boston. If each of these cities is able to allow their citizens equal housing choice, why does Baltimore allow landlords to cater specifically to wealthier tenants?

You can probably guess the answer. Fear and stigma surround homelessness, even in cities that have pledged to end it. There might be abstract support to end homelessness, but it becomes dicey when a formally homeless person is about to become your neighbor. It seems people are much more comfortable donating a dollar from inside a car than passing a low-income person in the hallway of their building. This “Not In My Backyard” mentality deters landlords from accepting Section 8 voucher holders, for fear it might upset other tenants. In reality, low-income housing has been shown not to decrease property values.

Recently, speculation surrounding sequestration suggest that Housing and Urban Development (HUD) budget cuts could actually lead to some current Section 8 tenants having their voucher revoked. In New Orleans, 700,000 recently awarded vouchers were revoked last month. It is unknown which cities will be forced to follow suit.

Baltimore should make every effort to preserve the Section 8 vouchers that have allowed low-income individuals safe and affordable housing. It is unacceptable to reverse someone’s path to housing stability. Even more crucial is a system to provide a voucher system that actually works. By working with HUD, federal policy makers, and local landlords to reduce stigma, income discrimination, and evictions, Baltimore could pull ahead in the race to end homelessness.

Perhaps next year Baltimore will be able to catch up to other cities. Until the next legislative session, income discrimination presents a significant barrier to housing, one that will slow Baltimore in its plans to end homelessness.

IMAGE CREDIT. Hasdai Westbrook.
Apr 11
0

A How-To Guide for Social Change?

By | Homelessness, The Race to End Homelessness | No Comments

Despite the recently beautiful weather beckoning to everyone to spend their days outdoors, it is an exciting time to be a student in Baltimore. For years, students and teachers have complained of dreadful facilities — from broken equipment to roach infestations to undrinkable water, Baltimore schools were not a safe place to learn. Transform Baltimore, an agency determined to update all Baltimore school buildings through an aggressive $2.4 billion loan and rebuilding plan by 2020, has been organizing students, parents, teachers and legislators to follow a funding model to change the face of schools in the city.

Sound Familiar? Baltimore is in the middle of another long-term plan to change a social issue. While Transform Baltimore is an eight-year plan and The Journey Home is a ten-year plan to end homelessness, both are ambitions road maps to change. Unfortunately, as I have mentioned before, we know that one of them is not really working. As Baltimore’s Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness passes its fifth birthday, there are more people experiencing homelessness in Baltimore than when the plan began. A new draft of the plan was released earlier this year, but the new draft so greatly disappointed service providers that the city council needed to intervene and ask for revisions.

Will the bright futures of improved Baltimore schools go the way of the plan to end homelessness? It is possible that the next few years could see failed development, unfinished renovations and continually crumbling existing schools, but something tells me it won’t be that way. Transform Baltimore has taken impressive steps to ensure that it can succeed. Even though The Journey Home is approaching middle age, its authors could learn a lot from Transform Baltimore.

• Communication: Transform Baltimore began with community organizing. It has over 30 member organizations that represent youth, parents, educators, and community members. Meetings began in 2011 to gather ideas and plan for rallies and demonstrations. This organizing allowed for the perspectives of multiple stakeholders to share ideas and get involved in the project. While the first draft of Baltimore’s Ten Year Plan involved stakeholders, the rewrites failed to make use of the many experts on homelessness in Baltimore. The Baltimore City Housing Authority has the most housing resources in the city, but was not invited to comment or contribute to the plan’s rewrite.

• Best Practices: Baltimore’s strategic plan is based on a model that has been successful in three cities. Indianapolis, Buffalo, and Greenville, South Carolina are each in the process of dramatically updating their school buildings. It was by examining these school districts that Baltimore was able to create a financial plan that would provide necessary funding for this project. As I have lamented before, Baltimore has stayed woefully close to home when planning to end homelessness. While the consultant for the plan was actually Canadian, there is little evidence that practices from any other city struggling to end homelessness were ever discussed.

• Funding: In early April, we learned that Transform Baltimore lobbying has been successful. A bill that would commit $1.1 billion for school building and renovation passed both the house and senate, and is on its way to Governor O’Malley’s desk. The new draft of the Ten Year Plan fails to demonstrate where much of its funding will come from. Funding for ending homelessness has primarily been focused on keeping shelters and existing agencies running, rather than on new solutions.

Baltimore students and educators deserve nothing less than excellent school facilities. It appears that Baltimore might be on the way to providing this, making the city a true leader in education reform nationwide. If this plan is successful, it will mean supreme growth for the city’s young people, but also a strong model for the city’s population experiencing homelessness. A road map for social change is a valuable asset, one from which other advocates might learn.

IMAGE CREDIT. [Allford Hall Monaghan Morris]
Mar 29
0

The Keys to Housing and Health

By | Homelessness, The Race to End Homelessness | No Comments

Last week’s tragedy in Baltimore’s City Shelter showcased the many faults of homeless shelters. Both in Baltimore and nationally, these places can be overcrowded, unsafe, and not equipped to work with people who might be mentally ill or combating addiction. Having never stayed the night at a shelter, I am wholly unqualified to evaluate which of these shortcomings is the most serious, but my biggest gripe with shelters is something else.

The biggest fault of homeless shelters is simply that they are only ever meant to be temporary. The most commonly mentioned solution when people discuss homelessness actually does nothing to alleviate homelessness. Someone can stay in a shelter every night for a year- or longer- and be no closer to permanent housing. Homeless shelters are only a band-aid on a potentially deadly issue. Despite the human and financial costs to homeless shelters, these institutions do nothing to improve the lives of those who stay there.

Shelters, like band-aids, serve a purpose. Immediate resources are not unimportant, but they cannot be the only solution we offer those who experience homelessness in our cities. This week, fellow ChangeEngine author Robyn Stegman suggests that even when people are experiencing homelessness, they have the right to their own money and to make their own decisions. Housing First is the radical idea that people have a right to housing. Housing first programs focus on housing people as rapidly as possible, providing supportive services, and providing a standard lease (without mandated therapy).

For years, the path out of homelessness required jumping the hurdles of finding employment, remaining clean from drugs and alcohol, and maintaining a mental health regimen. Many programs that serve homeless citizens impose such rules on their clients before they will help find them housing. In 2005, Health Care for the Homeless, a Baltimore health care agency, moved 30 people who were about to be evicted from a local park into their own housing and found that nearly all of these individuals were able to remain housed. Having housing led many people to successfully secure an income and participate in mental health treatments.

Here’s the shocking thing about a program that doesn’t require its users to be clean, employed and seeking treatment before they are allowed a safe place to live: it works. In a New York City study, 84 percent of active drug users housed remained in their housing. This statistic is higher than what plenty of social service programs achieve by requiring clients to abstain from drugs and alcohol before “earning” housing. In Seattle, housing people who were chronically homeless and addicted to alcohol (without requiring clean time) not only allowed for most study participants to remain in housing — it reduced costs for the city by $2,449 per person, per month.

Baltimore’s 10 Year Plan to End Homelessness relied heavily on the Housing First Model when it was written in 2008. In Chicago, Housing First is one of three pillars of the plan to end homelessness and policy makers in Los Angeles, Boston, and New Orleans are discussing the merits of this practice. Earlier in 2013, consultants for Baltimore drafted a new version of the 10 Year Plan to End Homelessness, which mistakenly does not provide enough resources for Housing First to reach its full potential. Moving people experiencing homelessness into sustainable shelter should be a priority for any city that is looking to save lives and money. Revisions of the plan are ongoing.

For some reason, many people think that safe, affordable housing is a carrot we can hold up as an incentive to force others to make huge life changes. If shelters were used only as temporary places to stay instead of consolation prizes, we would see a dramatic decrease in not only the number of people experiencing homelessness, but also the number of people struggling with debilitating mental illness and addiction. Cities could literally hand people they keys they need to overcome addiction and maintain their mental health. Housing is not a prize for the healthy — housing is a human right.

IMAGE CREDIT: Pembroke Financial
Mar 15
0

Sticks and Stones Can Break Your Bones

By | Homelessness, The Race to End Homelessness | One Comment

Most people have certain words they hate. Moist. Slacks. I hope not too many people stopped reading just then. For me, the phrase that makes me cringe is “those people.” Unless you are literally talking about a specific number of people near you, it is just not appropriate. Usually, this is a phrase used to fuel stereotypes. “Those people are homeless because they are drug addicts,” or “Those people are too lazy to get jobs.”

Word choice matters. Just like mass stereotyping, labeling people who are homeless can affect the way in which those who are not homeless understand and relate to this population. Instead of “homeless person,” many people in social service or outreach work generally prefer the term “person experiencing homelessness.” It may be a mouthful, but the extra second it takes to say can be the second when someone realizes that homelessness is a condition, not a definition. “Homeless” is not an adjective to describe a person, but rather a measure of the person’s housing situation. It is not the whole picture of an individual. People experiencing homelessness should not be reduced to being evaluated by their lodgings.

I am not trying to exaggerate small problems, and vocabulary is a molehill next to the mountain of homelessness. A friend told me that she recently saw a mother and child walk past a person sleeping on the street. As they passed, the mother instructed the little girl to spit on the person. Actions like that speak louder than any phrasing can. Still, the distinction between “homeless people” and “people experiencing homelessness” is important to service providers, lawmakers, politicians, and the public — those with and without housing.  This verbal reminder can serve as a strong tool; it reinforces the powerful idea that people are experiencing homeless today, but it does not have to be this way. Their “experience” can end.

Many cities have drawn up 10 Year Plans to End Homelessness. By defining individuals as homeless people, there is no room to understand a person’s many other traits and qualities. In Baltimore City’s 10 Year Plan to End Homelessness, the city’s homeless population is referred to only once as “people experiencing homelessness,” and more than 40 times as “homeless people.” Plans in other jurisdictions are written in much the same vein.

The particular words in each city’s plan probably will not be the reason it does or does not work, but the culture that is created with each phrase shapes the attitudes of those who are involved. If the writers and the planners in each city truly expect to see an end to homelessness, that should be reflected in the language used to describe people who are experiencing it.

IMAGE CREDIT. Courtesy of Leah Stirewalt.
Mar 01
0

You Can’t Slam A Revolving Door

By | Homelessness, The Race to End Homelessness | 5 Comments

I have never stayed overnight in a hospital. My only real surgery was to remove my wisdom teeth. After that, I vaguely remember being walked by my mom to a waiting car, brought home, and allowed to sleep — in my own bed — for the better part of the next 24 hours. Even with the puffy cheeks, it was worlds better than the common post-surgery experiences of someone who doesn’t have someone to pick them up, some way to transport them, and some place to sleep.

Medical recovery for someone who is homeless means taking open wounds, broken bones and compromised immune systems out into the elements. You don’t get to stay an extra night in a hospital bed just because you don’t have another bed to move to. Some Medical Respite Centers do exist, providing a place for those without housing to recover, but only in limited quantities. There are 25 beds for medically fragile homeless people in Baltimore City, 104 in Boston, 30 in Denver, four in Austin, zero in Detroit and zero in New Orleans. Even when beds are available, patients are not always referred to them.

Perhaps busy hospital staff believe that the homeless are the responsibility of shelters, not medical centers. In Los Angeles, a hospital recently got a $125,000 fine for “dumping” as many as 150 patients in homeless shelters. This is hardly a medically sound plan, because shelters cannot even accept patients if their health needs are too great. A person with an oxygen mask, an open wound, or a contagious disease is typically not allowed in a shelter. Even inside the shelter, patients run the risk of having their prescriptions lost or stolen. Not surprisingly, this often lands the recently discharged back in the hospital — this time, in the emergency room — with infection or complications from their treatment. Hospitals can become traps for the people experiencing homelessness — a revolving door of disease and disarray.

What might be the easiest first step to improving recovery — asking an individual if he or she has a place to go — is hardly implemented when talking with patients. One study found that only 44 percent of homeless patients were asked about their housing accommodations for the night after their discharge, and 11 percent spent the first night after leaving the hospital outside.

The right questions and improved resources can change the health outcomes for homeless individuals. In California, hospital discharge procedure for the homeless sometimes includes a bus pass. In Austin, the founder of a city housing program proposed a new policy, in which he suggests patients not be sent away from medical care if they lack a safe and stable place to go. The plan, called Discharge No One Into Homelessness (DNOIH), is only a petition now, but its implementation could help improve health among homeless populations.

Over 200 cities in the United States have developed 10 Year Plans to End Homelessness, yet homeless patients are often discharged without so much as a plan for the next 10 hours. If we cannot ensure short-term health, there is little hope for more long-term change.

IMAGE CREDIT. Courtesy of Global Good Group.
Feb 15
0

How Can We Change Lives With $70 Million?

By | Homelessness, The Race to End Homelessness | No Comments

I work primarily with adults in transitional housing. Still, my job promoting community understanding of homelessness sometimes leads me to events with younger populations. That is how I found myself facing a group of Baltimore County eighth graders last month, trying to engage them in a discussion of how people can become homeless.

“What about a fire or a natural disaster?” I would ask each group as they rotated to my table, “Could that lead to someone losing their home?”

“No!” said someone in almost every group. “People have home insurance for that.”

“What about an accident that prevents someone from working?” I would suggest.

“No!” asserted a member of the group. “They can just use their sick days!”

I don’t think I knew the first thing about home insurance when I was in the eighth grade, so kudos to these young people for knowing as much as they do. Still, the reality is that not everyone has a job that provides them with sick days, and not everyone gets enough from their home insurance. This is especially true after major traumas, such as the recent Hurricane Sandy, for which many people will not qualify for much compensation.

I’m still learning about the best ways to educate youth about the realities of homelessness. It seems like all of Baltimore is wrestling with the right way to guide and teach our young people. Baltimore just recently struck down a $70 million dollar plan to create a brand new youth jail in the city. If the city follows this up with new youth supports, this would show real faith in the city and compassion for its children. Research suggests that youth incarceration is directly related to youth homelessness, as young people in both populations tend to have reduced contact with parents and spend less time in school.

And perhaps illustrating the plight of homeless youth is ultimately the best way to reach those young people who knew so much about insurance, but so little about what those as young as them are suffering. Last year, the number of homeless students reached one million for the first time, including 640 youth in Baltimore City. Counts suggest there are 3,800 homeless youth in New York City, but only 250 shelter beds and 4,000 youth homeless in Los Angeles, but only 50 beds available.

Without enough resources, youth face a bleak outlook on the streets. Even if I find it frustrating that some young people cannot understand the realities of homelessness, I know they are lucky to be safe in a school and not left outside. By shifting focus away from a youth jail, Baltimore has the opportunity to use the funds and resources for a different institution. Many organizations that support children rather than detain or punish them could use financial backing – our schools, youth shelters, and recreation centers could all benefit from increased funding. By redirecting its money and its priorities, Baltimore has the opportunity to get homeless youth housed, educated, and out of youth jails.

IMAGE CREDIT: Courtesy of Clarity Human Services.

Feb 01
0

Being Homeless is A Full Time Job

By | Homelessness, The Race to End Homelessness | One Comment

I have a few friends who work in organizations focused on job and employment training. Because I work in a housing agency, we often have chicken-or-egg-type debates when we talk about the route to reducing poverty – a home or a job? Which needs to come first to end the cycle of poverty?

It is hard to pay for security deposits, rent, furniture, and home repairs if someone has no income. Still, it is an incredible challenge to hold down a job without a place to shower, prepare food, change clothes and rest up each day. While I still fall on the housing side of the discussion, I realize that really, you can’t have one without the other. It is abundantly clear that the need for income and housing are tied together, so how should we approach these needs?

In a 2010 article on homelessness in London, The Economist made the radical claim that “The most efficient way to spend money on the homeless might be to give it to them.”  The article profiles a charity called Broadway that performed a radical housing experiment with a cohort of chronically homeless individuals and managed to move 84 percent of the group off the streets. The agency did not provide job training services or housing. Instead, it asked the individuals what they needed to improve their lives. The answers varied greatly, from shoes to television sets, but the results did not – eleven of those 13 people are now in stable housing.

What can our cities learn from a small-scale British experiment? U.K. housing policies are different from those in the United States, and when there are thousands of people experiencing homelessness, eleven people is not a grand accomplishment. But the question at the root of the experiment – “What do you need?” – is applicable to homelessness everywhere.

Too often, our policies make it impossible for someone to leave the streets or obtain employment. A formally homeless woman once explained the connection to me when she said that between appointments, waiting lists, and paperwork, “Being homeless is a full time job.” Many policies are aimed at punishing or suppressing the poor, but do nothing to help reduce the rates of people experiencing homelessness. Even well- meaning policies are usually created in meeting rooms, not shelters. In Baltimore, Chicago, and Denver, agencies have begun connecting homelessness experts – those who have actually experienced homelessness – to politicians and legislators. This testimony can provide valuable insight to policymakers and shape new legislation in ways that can actually work.

When Broadway asked people what they needed to leave homelessness, they got the right answers. If this could happen in the legal, political, and economic spheres, it would take a lot of guesswork out of policymaking. Perhaps we are wrong to wonder if the job or the apartment needs to come first – maybe there is another strategy entirely. We cannot know until we ask.