I always appreciate Oakland Report's in-depth analyses, but this one was less compelling than others. I actually agree that housing first might be more suited as one of many tools than as the primary mandated policy, but the analysis seems to treat the policy used by the state as a causal variable and the number of homeless people in and out of supportive housing as the response. That's too simple - there is much more going on with the pandemic, the economy, and migration of the homeless population as policy in other regions shifts as well.
My 2c and takeaway: Government funding should leave front-line jurisdictions the freedom to address their own homeless problems as they see fit, and perhaps tie future funding to specific success metrics like high 3-year housing stability, low rate of substance related deaths while in housing, and rate of successful transition to non-subsidized housing.
State policy is absolutely a causal variable. Homelessness as been trending downward in a majority of states. Aside from the climate, state policy is the only real distinguishing characteristic that can explain why homelessness is increasing in California while it is decreasing in the majority of states.
Obviously, Housing First is not the *only* state policy driving California's homelessness crisis, but the point of this article was not to fully detail every contributing factor to California's homelessness crisis. The purpose of this article was to show (1) that Housing First is designed in such a way that homelessness spending necessarily must continuously increase, and (2) to illustrate that Housing First as implemented by California is actually contributing to the rise in homelessness (in contradiction to its proponents who believe that Housing First is keeping homelessness from rising at an even faster rate).
Thanks for this informative and well written report. It is such a tragedy that so much money is being spent on flawed research and as a result does not lead to the betterment of more people's lives.
I only see the "obvious" homeless, so perhaps there is a huge proportion of homeless that are not doing drugs or mentally ill, but for the ones that are, requiring treatment in parallel with housing seems completely logical. Add to this, that many are elderly and physically disabled so even with a home house, they will likely never find employment sufficient to live on. Despite all the hype of "tiny homes", providing a roof over their heads is actually the easiest part of this to solve. Finding health care, substance-abuse treatment, in-home care, etc. - I think that is what is now called wrap-around" care - for the rest of their lives... How do we pay for that?
As always, tremendous work!
I always appreciate Oakland Report's in-depth analyses, but this one was less compelling than others. I actually agree that housing first might be more suited as one of many tools than as the primary mandated policy, but the analysis seems to treat the policy used by the state as a causal variable and the number of homeless people in and out of supportive housing as the response. That's too simple - there is much more going on with the pandemic, the economy, and migration of the homeless population as policy in other regions shifts as well.
My 2c and takeaway: Government funding should leave front-line jurisdictions the freedom to address their own homeless problems as they see fit, and perhaps tie future funding to specific success metrics like high 3-year housing stability, low rate of substance related deaths while in housing, and rate of successful transition to non-subsidized housing.
Thanks for the spotlight on this topic!
State policy is absolutely a causal variable. Homelessness as been trending downward in a majority of states. Aside from the climate, state policy is the only real distinguishing characteristic that can explain why homelessness is increasing in California while it is decreasing in the majority of states.
Obviously, Housing First is not the *only* state policy driving California's homelessness crisis, but the point of this article was not to fully detail every contributing factor to California's homelessness crisis. The purpose of this article was to show (1) that Housing First is designed in such a way that homelessness spending necessarily must continuously increase, and (2) to illustrate that Housing First as implemented by California is actually contributing to the rise in homelessness (in contradiction to its proponents who believe that Housing First is keeping homelessness from rising at an even faster rate).
Thanks for this informative and well written report. It is such a tragedy that so much money is being spent on flawed research and as a result does not lead to the betterment of more people's lives.
Thank you for the article, very insightful.
I only see the "obvious" homeless, so perhaps there is a huge proportion of homeless that are not doing drugs or mentally ill, but for the ones that are, requiring treatment in parallel with housing seems completely logical. Add to this, that many are elderly and physically disabled so even with a home house, they will likely never find employment sufficient to live on. Despite all the hype of "tiny homes", providing a roof over their heads is actually the easiest part of this to solve. Finding health care, substance-abuse treatment, in-home care, etc. - I think that is what is now called wrap-around" care - for the rest of their lives... How do we pay for that?
I work with the homeless population in alameda county. I 100% agree with this article.