[House Hearing, 115 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
AN OVERVIEW OF
HOMELESSNESS IN AMERICA
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
HOUSING AND INSURANCE
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FIFTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MAY 17, 2018
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Financial Services
Serial No. 115-94
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
__________
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HOUSE COMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES
JEB HENSARLING, Texas, Chairman
PATRICK T. McHENRY, North Carolina, MAXINE WATERS, California, Ranking
Vice Chairman Member
PETER T. KING, New York CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California NYDIA M. VELAZQUEZ, New York
FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma BRAD SHERMAN, California
STEVAN PEARCE, New Mexico GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
BILL POSEY, Florida MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts
BLAINE LUETKEMEYER, Missouri WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
BILL HUIZENGA, Michigan STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
SEAN P. DUFFY, Wisconsin DAVID SCOTT, Georgia
STEVE STIVERS, Ohio AL GREEN, Texas
RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois EMANUEL CLEAVER, Missouri
DENNIS A. ROSS, Florida GWEN MOORE, Wisconsin
ROBERT PITTENGER, North Carolina KEITH ELLISON, Minnesota
ANN WAGNER, Missouri ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado
ANDY BARR, Kentucky JAMES A. HIMES, Connecticut
KEITH J. ROTHFUS, Pennsylvania BILL FOSTER, Illinois
LUKE MESSER, Indiana DANIEL T. KILDEE, Michigan
SCOTT TIPTON, Colorado JOHN K. DELANEY, Maryland
ROGER WILLIAMS, Texas KYRSTEN SINEMA, Arizona
BRUCE POLIQUIN, Maine JOYCE BEATTY, Ohio
MIA LOVE, Utah DENNY HECK, Washington
FRENCH HILL, Arkansas JUAN VARGAS, California
TOM EMMER, Minnesota JOSH GOTTHEIMER, New Jersey
LEE M. ZELDIN, New York VICENTE GONZALEZ, Texas
DAVID A. TROTT, Michigan CHARLIE CRIST, Florida
BARRY LOUDERMILK, Georgia RUBEN KIHUEN, Nevada
ALEXANDER X. MOONEY, West Virginia
THOMAS MacARTHUR, New Jersey
WARREN DAVIDSON, Ohio
TED BUDD, North Carolina
DAVID KUSTOFF, Tennessee
CLAUDIA TENNEY, New York
TREY HOLLINGSWORTH, Indiana
Shannon McGahn, Staff Director
Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance
SEAN P. DUFFY, Wisconsin, Chairman
DENNIS A. ROSS, Florida, Vice EMANUEL CLEAVER, Missouri, Ranking
Chairman Member
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California NYDIA M. VELAZQUEZ, New York
STEVAN PEARCE, New Mexico MICHAEL E. CAPUANO, Massachusetts
BILL POSEY, Florida WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri
BLAINE LUETKEMEYER, Missouri BRAD SHERMAN, California
STEVE STIVERS, Ohio STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts
RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois JOYCE BEATTY, Ohio
KEITH J. ROTHFUS, Pennsylvania DANIEL T. KILDEE, Michigan
LEE M. ZELDIN, New York JOHN K. DELANEY, Maryland
DAVID A. TROTT, Michigan RUBEN KIHUEN, Nevada
THOMAS MacARTHUR, New Jersey
TED BUDD, North Carolina
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
Hearing held on:
May 17, 2018................................................. 1
Appendix:
May 17, 2018................................................. 35
WITNESSES
Thursday, May 17, 2018
Bischoff, Ann, Executive Director, Star House.................... 11
Bremer, Duana, Social Service Director, Polk, Burnett, and St.
Croix Counties, The Salvation Army............................. 7
Lynn, Peter, Executive Director, Los Angeles Homeless Services
Authority...................................................... 9
Roman, Nan, President, National Alliance to End Homelessness..... 5
APPENDIX
Prepared statements:
Bischoff, Ann................................................ 36
Bremer, Duana................................................ 44
Lynn, Peter.................................................. 49
Roman, Nan................................................... 53
Additional Material Submitted for the Record
Duffy, Hon. Sean:
Written statement from Huckleberry House..................... 62
AN OVERVIEW OF HOMELESSNESS
IN AMERICA
----------
Thursday, May 17, 2018
U.S. House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Housing
and Insurance,
Committee on Financial Services,
Washington, D.C.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:30 p.m., in
room 2128, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Sean P. Duffy
[chairman of the subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Duffy, Ross, Royce, Luetkemeyer,
Stivers, Hultgren, Rothfus, Zeldin, Hensarling, Cleaver,
Velazquez, Sherman, Kihuen, Gonzalez, and Waters.
Also present: Representative Green.
Chairman Duffy. The Subcommittee on Housing and Insurance
will come to order.
Today's hearing is entitled, ``An Overview of Homelessness
in America.''
Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a
recess of the subcommittee at any time.
Without objection, all members will have 5 legislative days
within which to submit extraneous materials to the Chair for
inclusion in the record.
Without objection, members of the full committee who are
not members of this subcommittee may participate in today's
hearing for the purpose of making an opening statement and
questioning witnesses.
The Chair now recognizes himself for a 5-minute opening
statement.
I first want to thank our witnesses for participating in
today's hearing as we take a look at homelessness in America.
We also need to review the effectiveness and efficiency of our
Federal programs in order to determine if we are getting the
biggest bang for our taxpayer dollar.
We have already had an opportunity to discuss the number of
ways HUD (U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development)
helps the poorest among us climb out of poverty and achieve
self-sufficiency, whether through the FSS program, housing
choice vouchers, or rental assistance.
Each year, I host a homelessness and hunger summit in my
district. This year, I was honored to be joined by the HUD
Secretary, Ben Carson, at our event, where we had over 400
people in attendance. Maybe the HUD Secretary brings a few more
people out. That was nice.
But during the summit, we learned that, time and again,
homelessness in rural areas looks a lot different than
homelessness in urban areas. But I would just note that it has
the same impact on individuals and on families all the same.
I am sure you will understand my focus on Wisconsin, and I
want to quote something from Ms. Bremer's testimony that
highlights the distinction between homelessness in rural areas
versus urban areas.
Now, before I read her quote, I would just note that PIT in
HUD-speak is point in time and refers to how many people are
counted as homeless in an area on a specific day. So to quote
Ms. Bremer: ``Comparing January 2016 PIT to the January 2017
total, there was an overall 12 percent decrease in the number
of people experiencing homelessness on that one night in
Wisconsin. However, there was an 8 percent increase in the
number of people experiencing homelessness in our rural
communities,'' end quote.
So we have Statewide homelessness in Wisconsin going down
by 12 percent, but rural homelessness actually increasing,
which is a significant problem.
Now, I like Madison and Milwaukee as much as any other
Wisconsinite, but we need to make sure that HUD's resources
aren't just primarily focused on metropolitan areas. That means
addressing some of the funding disparities between rural and
urban populations.
The 2010 Census Bureau's Consolidated Federal Funds Report
stated that of all Federal Government assistance provided per
capita, folks in rural communities receive almost $700 less per
year than in urban communities. That is a lot of money,
especially for our smaller providers who are helping the
homeless.
We can start by looking at the Federal definition of
homelessness to be more inclusive and recognize the reality
that the homeless population in rural areas face different
challenges than the homeless in larger, more metropolitan
areas.
Our homeless in rural Wisconsin, we don't have bridges that
the homeless sleep under or large centers providing shelter.
Our local communities don't get funding proportionate to that
of larger cities.
The homeless in my district hope that they have a friend
that will put them up for a night on their couch or they live
out of their cars. This might shock some of you, but some of my
constituents actually will sleep in the woods when they don't
have a place to stay. We don't even have sidewalks in some of
our rural communities. This is rural stuff.
So let me close by saying this: As it turns out, folks
aren't happy when they are relying on the Government. People
are happy when they are in the community, in the workforce
contributing to society, and at the end of the day, they have a
bit of cash left over maybe to spend on themselves or their
families. And so I want to make sure that our programs achieve
those goals.
To quote Secretary Carson, quote, ``We should measure the
success of a program not on the number of people we add to it,
but the number of people we get off of it,'' end quote.
And so I just--today's hearing, I know that Ms. Waters is
going to testify. And I know that in California, in L.A., there
is a serious homelessness problem that is ravaging her
community.
And so I don't, in my comments, want to undermine the
problems that we have across the country, but I do think it is
a point in time where we can talk about the disparity of rural
America and how homelessness affects our people in a different
way and how the funding resources don't flow to rural America,
though the impact on a family and an individual are just as
catastrophic.
So, again, I want to thank our panelists for being here
today. I look forward to your insight and your feedback.
With that, I now recognize the Ranking Member of the
subcommittee, the gentleman from Missouri, Mr. Cleaver, for 2
minutes.
Mr. Cleaver. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for
this hearing. I associate myself with the facts that you just
presented.
In Missouri, 5 out of every 10,000 people are homeless. And
one of the great tragedies is that many Vietnam veterans live
along the Missouri River, and that is quite a jump. Usually we
will have this annual standdown where we try to bring as many
of them into the city for haircuts and dental checks and so
forth.
But they live along the Missouri River, and that is
significant when you consider this is the third longest river
system in the world. The Missouri connects up with the
Mississippi and--just outside of Kansas City headed toward St.
Louis, and they are living all along the river part. And a
significant number of them live outside of a place called
Slater--that you have never heard of--and maybe you have heard
of Marshall. It is 12,000 people.
So we have a very serious problem. It is being addressed by
some great agencies, City Union Mission in Kansas City, ReStore
in Kansas City. But when you get into the rural areas, there
are very, very few, if any, homeless shelters. Now, we can say
what we want about people who are homeless, but for many of
them, they are people with some severe issues, some of them
mental.
One of the most painful days for my twin sons was when the
local newspaper reported that Willie Mays Aikens was living
under a bridge in Kansas City. Willie Mays Aikens for 5 years
was the leading homerun hitter for the Kansas City Royals, and
he ended up living under a bridge. And there are a million
stories like that all along the Missouri River.
So thank you for calling this hearing, Mr. Chairman, and
hopefully we will get some answers to give us help. Thank you.
Chairman Duffy. The gentleman yields back.
The Chair now recognizes the Ranking Member of the full
committee, the gentlelady from California, Ms. Waters, for 3
minutes.
Ms. Waters. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
And I want to say a thank you to our witnesses for being
here today. I am very pleased that we are having this hearing.
Some of us have been calling on this committee to turn its
attention to homelessness for more than 5 years. And, of
course, this will be the first hearing that this committee has
focused on on homelessness during our Chairman's tenure, and I
certainly hope it will not be the last.
In fact, I would like to remind the Chairman of my request
to hold a field hearing in Los Angeles to hear from local
stakeholders about the recent increase in homelessness in that
area. Los Angeles is ground zero for homelessness, and that is
why I am pleased that Peter Lynn is here today to tell us about
the unique experience of Los Angeles and unique challenges and
solutions that they are facing in fighting this problem.
Today, there are over .5 million people experiencing
homelessness here in the richest country in the world, over
one-fifth of whom are children. These are veterans we failed to
support when they returned home after serving our country,
these are women fleeing domestic violence, these are people who
have left prison after serving their debt to society, and these
are people who have simply fallen on hard times.
Mr. Chairman, we know exactly how to end a person's
homelessness: You provide her with a home. That is why I
introduced H.R. 2076, a $13.2 billion bill, the Ending
Homelessness Act, which provides a surge of new resources and a
comprehensive plan to tackle this solvable problem. The end of
homelessness in this country is within our reach if we can just
muster the political courage to provide the necessary
resources.
And to the--Mr. Duffy, let me just say this: I don't think
there is any division, any problems talking about homelessness
both in rural and urban areas. Everybody wants to do something
about this. And I can tell you that I support dealing with and
supplying the resources for homelessness in the rural community
just as I support it in the urban community. So I am anxious
that we can get along with doing something about homelessness.
And I yield back the balance of my time.
Chairman Duffy. The gentlelady yields back. And I look
forward to working with her on this very important issue. I
think I have actually suggested coming to California and
letting her come to rural Wisconsin. It would be a fun trip
together. But that is for a different conversation.
She said she is going to go to Los Angeles, not to
Wisconsin, I would note.
I want to welcome our witnesses today. Thank you for being
here. First, I want to recognize our first witness, Ms. Nan
Roman, the President of the National Alliance to End
Homelessness, also one who has participated in my homelessness
and hunger summits in Wisconsin. I appreciate that.
Our second witness is Duana Bremer, the Social Service
Director for Polk, Burnett, and St. Croix Counties at the
Salvation Army-- counties that belong to the Seventh District
of the great State of Wisconsin. From personal experience, I
just know how hard she works and the success she has had
helping the poorest among us work through her programs and
transition into a life of sustainability. And she has also been
part of our homelessness and hunger summits, and I thank her
for being here today as well.
Our third witness is Mr. Peter Lynn, executive director of
the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. Welcome.
And for the introduction of Ms. Bischoff, I want to look to
the gentleman from Ohio, Mr. Stivers, for her introduction.
Mr. Stivers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate you for
calling this hearing and your impactful opening statement.
I am honored to introduce Ann Bischoff, the CEO of the Star
House. It is a 24-hour center that provides services for
homeless youth in central Ohio. I have had the opportunity to
visit Star House and witness firsthand how impactful their work
is on the vulnerable youth population that they serve and is
committed to serving her fellow man.
And I want to welcome her to the Housing and Insurance
Subcommittee, the Financial Services Committee, and thank you
for allowing me to introduce her.
Thanks for being here, Ann, and we are looking forward to
hearing your very important testimony on how this impacts youth
because the statutory definition also leaves them out.
So thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Chairman Duffy. Thank you, Mr. Stivers.
The witnesses will now be, in a moment, recognized for 5
minutes to give an oral presentation of their written
testimony.
Without objection, the witness' written statements will be
made part of the record following their oral remarks. Once the
witnesses have finished presenting their testimony, each member
of the subcommittee will have 5 minutes within which to ask the
panel questions.
I would just note that on your table there are three
lights: Green means go, yellow means you have 1 minute left,
and red means that your time is up. Pretty self-explanatory.
The microphones are sensitive, so please make sure you are
speaking directly into them.
With that, Ms. Roman, you are now recognized for 5 minutes
for an oral presentation of your written testimony.
Ms. Roman. Well, thank you so much. Chairman Duffy--
Chairman Duffy. Microphone. Is it on?
Ms. Roman. Yes?
Chairman Duffy. There we go.
Ms. Roman. Better.
STATEMENT OF NAN ROMAN
Ms. Roman. Chairman Duffy, Ranking Member Cleaver, and
members of the subcommittee and the committee, thank you so
much for inviting the National Alliance to End Homelessness to
testify at this important hearing.
I know personally of the tremendous commitment of Chairman
Duffy and Ranking Members Cleaver and Waters, Congressman
Royce, and many other members of the subcommittee to helping to
end homelessness. And we are deeply grateful for your
leadership.
I am pleased to report to you that although not--
homelessness didn't go down in every community, from 2007 to
2016, homelessness did decline in the Nation across all
measured populations. And this has happened despite the
headwinds of increasing rents and declining incomes for poor
people. It happened because of Federal support, notably from
the McKinney-Vento homeless assistance programs, and because of
the effective work of local leaders like those who join me here
today on the panel.
Progress has been made, but there is a long way to go. Over
550,000 people are homeless every night. This is unnecessary
because we know how to end homelessness, and achieving that
goal is well within our ability as a Nation.
People become homeless when they lose housing, and people
who have a home are not homeless. It is definitional. You here
on the subcommittee do not control every Federal resource that
might be able to help people end their homelessness, but you do
control housing resources and the homeless programs.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's
homeless assistance programs have been effective and
successful. They are effective because they know what they can
do and what they cannot do. They can help people resolve a
housing crisis and end their homelessness; they cannot solve
every problem that people have or end their poverty on their
own, their first step.
They are effective because they focus on housing. They are
effective because they collect and use data. And they are
effective because, as HUD learns from the field about what
works best, it continually adjusts the programs to support
those solutions and maintains a firm focus on outcomes. As a
taxpayer, I would say that is how I want a Federal program to
run.
The programs are effective, but there are always things
that could be improved. The programs have become more complex,
and there may be ways in which they could be streamlined. It
must be said, though, that a lot of the complexity has to do
with stretching an inadequate resource to try to meet urgent
needs.
While homelessness has declined more rapidly in rural than
urban areas overall--sorry that is not the case in Wisconsin--
the programs could do a better job of helping rural areas take
advantage of their smaller homeless numbers.
The subcommittee might consider allowing rural communities
to provide short-term emergency lodging assistance, incentive
payments to host households, and encouragement to counties to
combine homeless and mainstream funding.
Also to use a definition that is more flexible with respect
to the things you discussed, in terms of the people that have
no shelters, it is hard to identify homeless people, people as
being homeless.
People who are homeless must have housing, but they also
have service needs. HUD needs to partner with other Federal
agencies in terms of the Federal responsibilities for that, and
that is where the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness
(USICH) comes in. It helps Federal agencies and State and local
entities to coordinate.
The impact of USICH's work can be seen in the positive
homelessness outcomes. The Alliance wholeheartedly supports the
work of USICH in its continuing authorization, which could be
accomplished through H.R. 5393, the Working Together to End
Homelessness Act.
While there are always things to improve, it makes sense
not to change things that are working well. Using permanent
supportive housing to end chronic homelessness has cut that
population in half. HUD could be more aggressive in targeting
turnover vouchers to move on initiatives that would free up
more of the supply of that for higher need people.
Rapid rehousing has significantly contributed to the
reduction in family homelessness. This intervention should be
expanded, especially for use by individuals. HUD's investment
in new youth programs fills an unmet need. It will be important
as the demonstrations begin to be implemented to monitor their
outcomes and see what works.
There needs to be an articulation of solutions to
homelessness among individuals. The largest subpopulation--this
is the largest subpopulation, but it has been the least
attended to by communities and by HUD, which is possibly the
reason that unsheltered homelessness has gone up.
These are some of the things to continue in next steps.
But, again, it is the Alliance's view that with a strong
leadership and support of Congress and the Administration and
with a strict focus on outcomes, the McKinney-Vento programs
are doing an excellent job.
Two very important things, however, remain to be said. At
least a third of people who are homeless are unsheltered,
nearly 200,000 people a night. That means they have no roof
over their head at all. That is just not acceptable.
HUD is doing the best it can. It and all its grantees are
wringing every possible ounce out of every dollar they get from
you and leverage from others. We know what to do to get people
back into housing, but we just don't have the money to do it
for those people who are unsheltered.
Further, more people are going to become homeless, and the
effectiveness of our homeless efforts are going to diminish if
the trajectory doesn't change on affordable housing. That
problem is just getting worse. Lower income families and
individuals are paying more and more of their inadequate
incomes for rent, and they are being placed at risk of
homelessness. Not addressing that crisis will stop our progress
on ending homelessness and have enormous economic, social, and
human costs to our Nation.
Once again, I thank you so much for having this hearing and
for inviting the Alliance to be here.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Roman can be found on page
53 of the Appendix.]
Chairman Duffy. Thank you, Ms. Roman.
Ms. Bremer, you are now recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF DUANA BREMER
Ms. Bremer. Again, I would like to thank Chairman Duffy,
the Ranking Member Cleaver, and the rest of the committee for
allowing us to be here today to address this very important
issue. Salvation Army is very grateful to be part of this
conversation to help homeless families seek permanent housing.
Homelessness is often framed as an urban policy issue--
however, families, service providers, and communities. This
situation has received little notice from media or research
attention because it is mostly focused on the highly visible
problem of urban homelessness. There are over 554,000 homeless
individuals residing in the country today; 7 percent of those
individuals are from rural communities.
Rural residents have had a long tradition of taking care of
their own with reliance on relatives, friends, and neighbors.
And anyway, this has been effectively disguising the numbers of
rural homelessness in our community.
Homelessness in rural areas, you don't see them. They are
not on the streets. We don't see them in our communities. They
are in woods. They are in barns. They are doubled up with
friends. They are in storage units.
Since homeless individuals are hidden like this, it is very
difficult to count them. So when we do have our point-in-time
street count and we count people that are literally on the
streets or in a shelter, many of these folks go uncounted
because we don't know where they are.
Because rural homelessness manifests itself differently
from urban areas, the difference may be that we need to look at
policy changes that are a little bit different for a rural area
compared to an urban area. The rural homeless population make
up more families and fewer single individuals. These
individuals, in many cases, are working as well, and many of
them are experiencing homelessness for the very first time.
What causes some of this housing instability? It is
obviously the loss of affordable housing. Wages in rural areas
many times have not kept up with the cost of living. People are
underemployed, and the debt to Americans have taken on a great
deal for this issue.
The other issue in rural areas that we see a lot is the
deinstitutionalized of mental health without giving enough
community-based housing to assist these folks.
Approaches to address homelessness have also changed over
the years. Well, in the past, many of the approaches used to
deal with homelessness were getting people simply off the
streets and putting them into an emergency shelter.
Today, with the continuum of cares, which are CoCs, they
work to transition homeless people into permanent housing
solutions. Now, permanent housing solutions may be different
for everyone. Permanent solution might be for someone a group
home. It might be a rest home. It might be sharing an apartment
with someone else. These are all--they are all different for
every individual.
CoCs are geographically based entities created by HUD that
are tracked with transitioning people--excuse me--that are
transitioning the homeless population into the area through a
range of services ultimately set up to meet their needs. A CoC
may offer outreach and intake. It may link people to
appropriate housing services. It may provide transitional
support of housing. It may put people into permanent support of
housing.
There are also many significant barriers in rural areas
that are different than urban. One is the lack of
transportation. There is very limited if no public
transportation in rural communities. So how do you get to a
service provider when you don't have a car?
Isolation. That is another issue in rural areas. People are
so isolated due to the expansiveness of our area that they find
it emotionally cutoff as well as geographically cutoff. There
is a shortage of services in rural areas because our
populations and our areas are not quite as large, and, again,
there are barriers to employment which indicate transportation
issues.
In closing, since the Interagency Council on Homelessness
has a goal of ending homelessness in America by 2020, I feel
that it is important that we consider, however, the rural
population of individuals and families experiencing
homelessness are made--may need different policy solutions and
practice models other than those living in urban areas.
We want to ensure individuals and families experiencing
homelessness, they are considered as possibly a special
population with unique barriers and needs. The Federal policies
could be tailored and, when possible, flexible in order to make
sure rural communities can meet the needs of residents who
experience homelessness in rural areas.
And, again, thank you for your time.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Bremer can be found on page
44 of the Appendix.]
Chairman Duffy. Thank you.
The Chair now recognizes Mr. Lynn for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF PETER LYNN
Mr. Lynn. Thank you.
Thank you, Chairman Duffy, Ranking Member Cleaver, Ranking
Member Waters, and members of the subcommittee. I am Peter
Lynn. I represent the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority,
which is a joint powers authority between the city and county
of Los Angeles. We are the lead for the Continuum of Care, and
we administer Federal, State, and local assistance county-wide.
That includes programs focusing on prevention, on outreach, on
shelter, and emergency crisis and bridge housing, as well as
permanent housing outcomes for folks, including short-term
rental assistance like the rapid rehousing program that Nan
mentioned, permanent supportive housing programs that include
durable rental subsidies.
We coordinate our work with many other partners, public and
private, through Los Angeles' coordinated entry system. It is a
very effective, collaborative, strategic planning mechanism and
assessment tool, backbone of infrastructure to align all the
services we are delivering into homelessness.
Our jurisdiction covers densely urban areas, like the city
of Los Angeles. It includes suburban communities like those in
the San Gabriel Valley, and it includes rural areas like those
in the high desert up in the Antelope Valley.
Homelessness in Los Angeles is at crisis proportions. Last
year, the number of people homeless in L.A. rose 23 percent,
almost 58,000 Angelenos homeless on any given night in 2017.
L.A.'s numbers were enough to impact the national picture last
year.
And in L.A., unlike the rest of the Nation, our numbers are
actually worse from an unsheltered perspective. Three-quarters
of Angelenos experiencing homelessness are unsheltered. They
are living in vehicles. They are living in tents. They are
living in makeshift dwellings that are visible throughout the
Los Angeles County.
Our ability--like others doing this work nationally, our
ability to actually effectively address the homelessness of any
given person that we can serve is actually increasing every
year. We have more programming, and the effectiveness of our
programming has gotten better and better.
We are moving more people into housing year over year. In
2016, we moved over 14,000 people out of a state of
homelessness into permanent housing. That is an increase of 30
percent over the year before that, 61 percent over the year
before that.
We project those numbers to increase as we deploy new local
resources. Angelenos have voted to tax themselves, actually
twice. There was a county-wide sales tax measure putting a
quarter cent new revenues for homelessness and a city of L.A.
bond measure to put $1.2 billion into new permanent supportive
housing capital.
But the root--so the root cause of the crisis in Los
Angeles is not the homeless crisis system. It is housing
affordability. Our main challenge is that we are one of the
least affordable housing markets in America by many metrics. We
are--we have one of the lowest vacancy rates. We have one of
the highest numbers of people paying more than half their
income for rent.
Los Angeles, there are 700,000 renter households paying
more than 50 percent of their income for rent. Of those, more
than 300,000 of those households make under $20,000 a year.
This is a very high-cost region. This is an enormous number of
families that are absolutely on the edge of homelessness. They
are one financial crisis, one car payment, one medical bill
away from homelessness in Los Angeles.
Nationally, it is estimated that fewer than 25 percent of
households that are income eligible for deeply affordable
housing programs have access to these programs. In Los Angeles,
16 percent of those very low-income households are subsidized.
We have a crisis of affordability in L.A.
Most people face homelessness due to the numbers we see for
economic reasons. That is the primary cause of homelessness for
the people that we speak to. There are other drivers, and
history of incarceration is one of the primary drivers. It has
an impact on people's economic stability and their ability to
rent in the housing market.
Inequitable criminal justice enforcement has had a
disproportionate impact on communities of color in Los Angeles
and nationally. It is why the representation of African
Americans in homelessness is very disproportionate to the
representation of other communities. That is one of the issues
that we have to address in addressing homelessness nationally.
We need to fund more affordable housing, both workforce and
low income, and we need to fully fund the programs that address
homelessness. As Nan pointed out, we know how to use the
resources. We have been effective in reducing homelessness
nationally, even though these programs have not increased their
funding markedly.
We want to encourage you to support the U.S. Interagency
Council on Homelessness. It has been an extremely effective
partner in bringing together the Federal collaboration,
partners that, for all their willingness, have not been the
best at collaborating across agencies. We also think that their
expertise at bringing information to local communities is
unparalleled. They are one of the main drivers of the success
of bringing information to those communities.
Also want to just thank the subcommittee for looking into
this issue. It is a critical one for Los Angeles and for the
Nation. We greatly appreciate your focus on homelessness.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Lynn can be found on page 49
of the Appendix.]
Chairman Duffy. Thank you, Mr. Lynn.
Ms. Bischoff, you are recognized for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF ANN BISCHOFF
Ms. Bischoff. Thank you.
Good afternoon, Chairman Duffy, and Ranking Member Cleaver,
members of the subcommittee. It is an honor to be here today to
recognize and state the unique needs of youth who are living
without permanent housing in our communities.
My name is Ann Bischoff, and I am CEO of Star House. We are
a drop-in center for youth ages 14 to 24 who are experiencing
homelessness in central Ohio. My testimony today is from the
perspective of a drop-in center that is operating in
collaboration with HUD but outside of the HUD system.
We use the McKinney-Vento Education Act definition of
homelessness, which includes youth who are without a permanent
place to call home, including those who are living with another
person due to hardship. They are called couch surfers.
My oral testimony today is condensed to three points: No.
1, youth homelessness is complex and growing; No. 2, there are
proven practices within the drop-in center model; and No. 3, I
would like to share some innovative ideas for addressing the
workforce and housing needs of youth.
A recent research study by Chapin Hall--this is an
institute with the University of Chicago--found that over a 12-
month period, 1 in 30 13-to 17-year-olds were experiencing
homelessness. The number was 1 in 10 for youth ages 18 to 25.
This equates to about 3.5 million young people, and three-
quarters of these young people slept on the streets and were
also couch surfing.
More than half of these youth felt unsafe in these
situations, and they were at high risk of exploitation. In
fact, nationally, one in five of these youth have experienced
human trafficking. Couch surfers are not currently eligible for
HUD services because they do not meet the HUD definition of
homelessness.
And here are some things that we have learned at Star
House. We know that half of youth living on the streets
experiencing homelessness have been in foster care, a quarter
have aged out of care. So this tells us that they likely have
no mom or dad there to support them during these crucial
transition years to adulthood.
Jewish Family Services in central Ohio works with both
Holocaust survivors and young people aging out of foster care.
And they have told me that in a survey of youth aging out of
care, they are scoring 8.5 on a 10-point scale of trauma. And
the ACEs scale includes experiences like rape, abuse, assault,
and so on.
Given what they know about Holocaust survivors, they are
telling us that a score of 8.5 on average for these youth is
equivalent to the experience of a Holocaust survivor. Forty-one
percent have attempted suicide. This tells us that when you are
not sure where you are going to be sleeping from night to
night, your hope for the future is diminished.
We know that a quarter to 40 percent of these young people,
depending on when you survey, identify as LGBTQ and they have
been ostracized from their families. According to Chapin Hall,
LGBTQ youth were more than twice as likely to report
homelessness.
What all these statistics boil down to is trust. These are
young people who were let down by the adults in their lives who
were supposed to be there to love and support them. As a
result, they would too often rather fend for themselves on the
streets than reach out for help. In fact, our research at Star
House tells us that 80 percent of these young people will
choose a drop-in center over the adult shelter system for fear
of being abused, victimized by the older adults there.
We know the story of a young man at Star House who ran away
from an abusive situation at home, got a job at the mall, and
slept behind a dumpster on an inflatable pool raft there just
so he could get to work on time. He found Star House and was
able to get a shower, a hot meal, and some other resources that
he needed. He kept his job as a result, and he was able to move
on and didn't need our services as long as others.
The story of another young woman is that she was living in
an abandoned home and nailing wooden planks into the door each
night just so that she could get enough sleep--peace to sleep
at night. She was physically and sexually abused by her
parents.
So the drop-in center model works because these young
people have immediate access to basic needs. We work very hard
to build their trust and to connect them with onsite resources
like therapy, shelter--therapy, healthcare. This is a
population that is 12 times more likely to die than their
peers, and we work hard to connect them with housing,
education, workforce development, and other resources.
Last year, we served 1,000 individuals, up from 400 in
2012. Our research shows that the longer young people
experience the transience of homelessness by any definition,
the more difficult it becomes for them to exit street life.
Utilizing the McKinney-Vento Education Act definition, which
includes couch surfers, allows us to assist all youth living
without a permanent place to call home before they become
chronically homeless.
A couple of innovative ideas for addressing the workforce
and housing needs of youth: One, we know that 60 percent of
youth, after coming to Star House, acquired a job. And when you
ask the same youth if they still have the job, it is nearly 40
percent. So providing flexible jobs onsite at Star House will
be a life changer for them. They will be able to access
workforce development on their own schedule and be more likely
to attain a permanent job once they secure housing.
Thank you for inviting me to share with you today. Youth
homelessness is growing, and research tells us that the longer
young people experience homelessness, they are more likely to--
the harder it becomes for them to exit street life.
I am happy to answer any questions that you might have.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Bischoff can be found on
page 36 of the Appendix.]
Chairman Duffy. Thank you, Ms. Bischoff.
I want to thank the panel for their statements.
The Chair now recognizes himself for 5 minutes for
questions.
I want to thank the panel again. I think we have done a
nice job of getting a wide array of opinions and views from
across the country, and, frankly, riveting and insightful
testimony. So thank you for that.
Ms. Bremer, I want to turn to you first. Obviously, we
share the same area, western, northern, rural Wisconsin. If you
were to leave us with one point on how we can help you serve
your community better, what changes can we make that would help
you the most?
Ms. Bremer. I think the one change that we could make would
be to have more flexibility in the HUD definition. And I can
give you an example of this. I am part of the West Central CoC,
which is in your district. We have a very large population of
chronically homeless in that area. We have also a large
population of homeless. That particular area we really want to
follow the HUD definition of homelessness so we can serve the
most vulnerable.
I also work in another county, Burnett County, which is
extremely rural. They have zero chronic homelessness. But they
have 20 children in their schools that are unaccompanied youth
that I am not able to help with the HUD definition. These are
kids that are sofa surfing. They have no permanent house. They
are sleeping at Wal-Mart. They are going to the QuikTrip. But I
would like to be able to work with those folks to get them into
permanent housing, so I think the main thing would be
flexibility.
Chairman Duffy. Flexibility, OK.
I want to quickly ask you about the rapid rehousing program
and your concern with being able to take a few more dollars for
case management, is that correct, No. 1? And No. 2, why?
Ms. Bremer. This is what we are looking at. With HUD
dollars that we receive, permanent supportive housing folks are
the folks that have the greatest barriers. They receive a lot
of case management. And to be honest with you, because they
have been homeless for many years in some cases, they have also
mental health and AODA issues, they need a lot of case
management. And I think we are serving that population very
well.
There is another segment of population that walks into our
office, basically they hit a little bump in the road, and all
they need is some rent assistance and they can be on their way.
Those folks are succeeding and doing very well. It is the group
in the middle, in the middle that really don't qualify for
extensive permanent supportive housing support, but they need
more than no case management at all.
So working with these clients, I think we can work with
them and use funding more efficiently to move them into
independence quicker, to be able to also work with the schools,
go to conferences, and just move forward with their families.
Chairman Duffy. And I want to thank you for bringing up the
issue of transportation. Again, we don't have public
transportation. You don't have a car that works very well, it
breaks down, you can't get to your job, you lose your job, then
you lose your house.
And if we could figure out a way of how we could get
reliable transportation, and that is a--we have talked about
this in the past, but that is a longer conversation, more
thoughtful, on how we get resources to help people out or how
we partner with community members to make this happen. This
could deal with the critical issue that we have in our rural
community.
Ms. Bischoff, I want to turn to you quickly. I am not
sure--as you are speaking about foster care, I am sure you know
of Congressman Mike Turner's bill that we had a hearing on
recently that will bridge our kids coming from foster care to
make sure they have housing.
The stats are stunning that--kids who come out of foster
care and the rates of homelessness. Have you worked with Mr.
Turner in this legislation, because you are like singing off
the same sheet of music.
Ms. Bischoff. OK. No, I have not. I am not an expert in
policy, but I know these kids, and I know that workforce
development, requiring them to work when they are in a state of
flux is very difficult for them. That is why we have developed
a program called Star Works where young people will have access
to jobs onsite--within our facility.
You know, they are coming to us inconsistently when they
are in this transient state. They might come to the drop-in
center at 10 o'clock on Tuesday and 2 o'clock on Thursday, but
they are coming to us. And while they are there, they will have
access to work opportunities, trauma-informed workforce
development. This trauma piece is crucial for these youth.
We have young people who are getting jobs, and then one
young man, 5 hours in, got into this perceived conflict with
his boss. The fight-or-flight reflex kicked in and he left. So
this training will teach them to stay. Work is important, but
it needs to be flexible.
Chairman Duffy. And Mr. Turner has a bill that, again, I
think is going to move that gives foster youth a priority
placement, one of the top three, as they move out of foster
care.
My time is up, Mr. Lynn, but I was fascinated by your
testimony and the issues that are happening in L.A. Wasn't sure
if this was people coming from where Duana and I live, where it
is cold, coming to L.A., but it seems like, no, this is an
issue of income. It is an issue of expensive housing,
prosecutors maybe in your area.
I am sorry that I don't have more time, but I am fascinated
to hear more as we go through our witnesses to hear about your
problems and how we find solutions to address your concerns.
With that, my time is up.
The Chair now recognizes the Ranking Member of the full
committee, the gentlelady from California, Ms. Waters, for 5
minutes.
Ms. Waters. Thank you very much.
And let me thank again Mr. Peter Lynn for being here. And,
of course, his testimony to us should shock us all, with the
55,188 people experiencing homelessness in the Los Angeles
area. And, of course, each time I visit the downtown Los
Angeles area, commonly referred to as Skid Row, I can see the
expansion and the growth in the homeless population.
And it seems to me that the tenting and the shanties and
the shacks that are there housing people are almost all the way
up to city hall. And so I am very, very concerned about this
situation in Los Angeles, but I am very pleased about the work
that has been done.
And I am very pleased that the people of the city and the
county voted to tax themselves in order to, you know, not only
increase housing, build housing, but for supportive housing. So
they are certainly to be commended for that. And I think a lot
of cities need to think about what they can do in order to
reduce homelessness in their areas by asking the taxpayers to
please participate even more in ensuring that we could get
people off the street.
Now, let me just say, I had a visit this morning from the
mayor of Oakland, Mayor Libby Schaaf. And she was here because
they have a program where mayors and CEOs of companies are
getting together to deal with homelessness. And I guess it is
getting resources from both the public and the private sector.
And so her question to me was, what can we do to get the
Federal Government to provide more resources to deal with this
issue? And I had to admit that I was absolutely troubled by the
fact that this Administration's funding budget for 2019
requests for cutting the Department of Housing and Urban
Development's funding by $11 billion, including the elimination
of at least 200,000 housing vouchers, the National Housing
Trust Fund, the public housing, as well as many other critical
housing programs.
Can you basically talk about what this would mean for your
efforts to reduce homelessness in Los Angeles? I could ask
everybody on this panel this question, but I was almost
terribly embarrassed by the question when it was raised to me
by the mayor of Oakland, what can you do, when I am facing
these kind of cuts in the Federal budget.
How would this impact your efforts in our city, Mr. Lynn?
Mr. Lynn. Ranking Member Waters, it would be devastating.
Nationally and locally, it is devastating. These are folks--the
overwhelming majority of people who are on the Housing Choice
Voucher Program, colloquially Section 8, are extremely low
income; that is 30 percent of area median or below.
These are folks who would not be able to participate in the
rental market at any level without assistance, without subsidy
assistance. It would mean a shrinkage of the affordability
nationally. We have not kept pace with poverty and the
population in this country since the program was initiated in
the 70's. It has continued to shrink effectively compared to
the number of people in America and the number of people in
poverty in America.
One of the primary bulwarks against homelessness are these
deep, affordable programs, Section 8 being one of them, public
housing being another. Not funding operating reserves and
capital improvements for public housing also erodes that
housing stock, which covers the same depth of affordability.
But the Housing Choice Voucher Program is the one that
primarily allows people to move out into communities and get
their--move their kids closer to schools that they want to
participate in, move them closer to work that they need to--the
jobs that they want. It is the one that allows people who are
in those extremely low-income categories to get integrated into
community and keep from homelessness. It would be devastating.
Ms. Waters. Well, as you can see, there needs to be every
effort that can be made by those who are working to try and
deal with this homeless problem, whether it is elected
officials, community leaders, et cetera, to see what can be
done, to speak with this Administration, to speak with Ben
Carson over at HUD, to see what can be done to convince them,
please, do not eliminate any housing vouchers. We need more.
We have people who have been standing in line for these
vouchers for years. And to talk about cuts in the Department of
Housing and Urban Development and in the elimination of these
housing vouchers, we create more pain for everybody. And we
just need to keep saying over and over again, Federal
Government, Administration, HUD, please, please help with this
problem in real ways. Enough talking about it; we have to do
something, and that do something is money and resources.
Thank you so very much, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Duffy. The gentlelady yields back.
The Chair now recognizes the Vice Chair of the
subcommittee, the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Ross for 5
minutes.
Mr. Ross. Thank you, Chairman, and thank you for holding
this hearing.
I also want to thank our witnesses today for your passion
and for your service. It is clearly more than a livelihood for
you. It is a labor of love. And I appreciate your service,
especially with those involving the homelessness of children
and a permanent solution for that.
My first concern has to do with the competitiveness of the
Continuum of Care grant program. One of the program priorities
articulated by HUD has been the Housing First approach, which
focuses on providing immediate access to housing, prioritizing
providers that offer services to clients on a voluntary basis
rather than on those programs that require sobriety,
participation in education, work training, or service programs.
Under the policy, HUD gives considerable preference based
on the program's commitment to using the Housing First model,
placing programs that do not use that model at a severe
disadvantage in competition for Federal dollars. For example,
in my district in central Florida, this shift has led to some
of our most successful results-oriented programs being unable
to secure financial support from HUD.
So my question to each of you would be, briefly provide
your thoughts on HUD's prioritization of programs that use the
Housing First model. Is the scoring bonus for those programs
warranted? What have been the results that you have noticed?
And what are the potential downsides of this Housing First
policy?
And I will start off with you, Ms. Roman.
Ms. Roman. The way I see the Housing First model and the
way I think it works is that people have a difficult time
addressing the very serious problems that they have if they are
not in housing. The treatment doesn't work very well. The
services don't work very well. So it just seems to work much
better to get people into Housing First and then try to engage
them in services and make services available. Sometimes people
don't take them, but if the services are what people need,
eventually they do tend to take them. So from my perspective,
we have seen better outcomes as a result of taking that
approach.
Mr. Ross. Ms. Bremer.
Ms. Bremer. Yes, I can speak to that. I actually direct two
different programs, one is a zero tolerance program and one is
a harm reduction model. And I morally really struggled with our
zero tolerance model, because I felt I am looking at someone
and saying, you need to follow my precious rules or I am not
going to help you.
I think getting--
Mr. Ross. Let me ask you, is that a result--do you run into
many that don't want to help themselves or--because it is
difficult. I understand the need for the housing. No question
about it. But also, at some point, if we are going to make
this, as each one of you talked about, a transition to a
permanent solution of homelessness, they have to be gaining
some sort of self-sufficiency. And if we can't provide those
programs because of the Housing First competitive nature that
we put them in Housing First and not look at the other
programs, how do we resolve that conflict?
Ms. Bremer. And I do totally agree with that. I think there
can be two types of programs. One thing, as we look at it at
our shelter, is we will take anyone in. But I look at that as
an opportunity. That gives me an opportunity not to just say
let's get you into housing immediately. Maybe treatment might
be a better option.
Mr. Ross. Right.
Ms. Bremer. Maybe we can work with that individual to
secure and meet some of their mental health needs. The one
thing with housing is that is one thing that then the
individual does not need to worry about.
Mr. Ross. I understand.
Ms. Bremer. And that is one thing that we can help them
with. But we can't lose one opportunity to try to get somebody
into treatment, to try to get them to be in compliance with
their mental health meds, because those are some of the major
issues that we are also dealing with.
Mr. Ross. Gotcha.
Mr. Lynn, in 30 seconds or less.
Mr. Lynn. I think the data is overwhelmingly supportive of
the Housing First model as the most effective, and I think that
is what we really have to listen to. Study after study
demonstrates that it is more effective in housing people and
more effective in keeping people housed, and I think that is
what HUD is really focused on. They have used the data that is
available to us to drive this model.
I think it is really important to recognize that housing is
the lynchpin resource. It is the one that allows you to rest,
close the door, collect your thoughts, collect yourself, and
get yourself connected to these other resources. If you lose
your housing because you are unable to maintain sobriety, which
is very common--substance abuse has an extremely high
recidivism rate--it is really hard to do. So when you lose your
housing because you recidivate, it puts you back in a cycle of
homelessness and keeps you there. Housing First has
demonstrated its effectiveness, and that is why it is--
Mr. Ross. Thank you.
Ms. Bischoff, as much as I would like to ask you, I think
my time has expired. So--
Chairman Duffy. The gentleman yields back.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Missouri, the
Ranking Member, Mr. Cleaver, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Cleaver. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I am going to try to do this quickly. I made some comments
similar to these at another hearing on what happens after some
kind of a disaster, some major event. But when I was elected 14
years ago, my wife and I tried to get a house not too far from
here, and we were warned that the neighborhood was too bad, but
we could at least afford the house down there.
Fast forward now, I can't afford to buy a house down there.
They have the--the Nationals play baseball down there. They
have about 50 upscale restaurants and new apartments, new
grocery stores. I can't afford to live there.
There are 179 census tracts in Washington, D.C. Sixty of
them have already been ruled as gentrified, 60, and they are
growing. I have always wondered, where are those people who
live down there, where are they living now? And the area where
they can live is narrowing inside the corporate city limits of
D.C.
So what happens is that if you are making $7.25 an hour and
you are getting up every morning and going to work and you
can't afford to buy an affordable house, you are going to end
up homeless. And people will say, well, he doesn't want to
work. Well, if you are making $7.25 an hour, that is about
$15,000 a year, and you are going to struggle, and you are
essentially homeless in this town. And it could be--it is
moving all across the country. It is the same issue. We don't
have enough affordable housing.
So I think the whole issue of homelessness is compounded
by--we have people with mental health problems. That is just
the reality. Then you have people now who may be getting up
every morning and going to McDonald's and still they are
homeless. They can't make enough money. And the housing in this
city is extremely costly. So this is a profoundly disturbing
issue for me. I would like for you guys to fix it in the next 2
minutes, 50 seconds.
Ms. Roman? Anybody. Please, help.
Ms. Bischoff. You are absolutely right. There is an
affordable housing issue all across our Nation. In Columbus,
Ohio, our approach is part of our strategic plan, and it is
called Community First, based on the model in Austin, Texas, a
village there that encompasses the four pillars of stability,
all on one site. You have affordable housing, where youth would
be paying 20 percent of their income to live there, in either
micro homes or efficiency apartments. There would be employment
onsite available for them. And transportation, the fourth
pillar of stability, as well as social connections.
A quarter of the 200 homes on the site would be set aside
for mentors and staff who choose to live onsite and abide by
the purpose of this property, which is to lift youth up, and we
believe that this could change lives.
Ms. Roman. Affordable housing is the issue, and we are not
going to rapidly build our way out of that. And I would just
say, with respect to the homelessness situation, right now, the
program, the Continuum of Care programs are pretty much full.
And if an organization wants to innovate around housing
solutions, which I think we do need to be doing some of, more
sharing of housing to keep costs down, different kinds of
housing configurations for people who have active substance
abuse disorders and so forth, they really can't take the risk
because of how tight the continuum is.
So I would suggest one thing that would be good to do would
be to have an innovation fund in the Continuum of Care so that
communities like those we have on the panel here could
experiment with some different models that would help us
address these housing concerns in the short term.
Ms. Bremer. I would like to add one thing to what Ann had
said. We had done a test model, and it is very small scale, but
it is a house. We placed three unrelated individuals there
because they could not secure any other housing. Together, it
is very affordable. They each have their own rooms, they share
a kitchen and a living room. So those are some of the
innovative ways that we would like to work with individuals in
our community to maintain housing.
Mr. Lynn. I think also at the Federal level, affordable
housing programs have been cut dramatically over the last
several years, so the Community Development Block Grant program
and the home program have both suffered really dramatic cuts. I
know in Los Angeles County, the decline was about 35 percent
between 2009 and 2016.
So those programs go right to the core of what needs to
happen, which is construction of affordable housing. And those
things--you know, as Nan pointed out, it is not something you
can fix quickly. We need construction, we need units to keep up
with households, and we need units of affordability to keep up
with households in poverty, and those things need to work
together on a national level.
Mr. Cleaver. Thank you.
Chairman Duffy. The gentleman yields back.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Illinois, Mr.
Hultgren, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Hultgren. Thank you, Chairman Duffy. Thank you all so
much for being here. Appreciate your work.
I am going to address my first questions to Ms. Bremer, if
I may. First, thank you. I am a huge fan of the Salvation Army
and the amazing work the Salvation Army does certainly in
Chicago, but all over the country, an incredible history there.
So I just want to thank you for your work.
Your testimony mentions that rural areas have unique
challenges to addressing homelessness. My district, which is
just west of Chicago, it includes western suburbs, but also
some rural areas, so I am sure that there are different
challenges that what many people struggling with homelessness
are encountering in more urban areas like downtown Chicago,
just 30, 40, 50 miles away from most parts of my district.
I wonder if you could describe some of the unique
challenges for addressing homelessness that are faced in rural
areas. And then, are there certain solutions or services that
are most effective at addressing homelessness in rural areas as
opposed to more urban areas? And what do you think Congress
ought to do to better address homelessness in rural areas?
Ms. Bremer. I think one of the main issues with rural areas
with homelessness also is lack of transportation. All the
distances are far. I was explaining to someone that, for me, we
have clients that are on permanent supportive housing right
now. Sometimes a case manager has to drive 1 hour to get to an
appointment to see another client. We have a very minimal lack
of public transportation, and I think that is the largest
obstacle.
When you start looking at centralized intake, which is an
excellent model, but when you have one centralized intake in
the middle of the county and it is 30 or 40 miles to get there,
that makes that obstacle very difficult. Doing a lot more
things electronically, having a lot of different agencies have
the same centralized intake information so people don't have to
be asked the same question after question, that would be
totally beneficial.
I really like the prioritization that we are having so that
we are serving the most vulnerable in our population first. But
again, I just have to go back to transportation.
Mr. Hultgren. Thanks.
Ms. Roman, your testimony, you also mentioned that
homelessness has been going down faster in rural areas than in
urban areas. Why do you believe this is the case? And what
steps can be taken to get closer to eliminating homelessness in
rural areas?
Ms. Roman. Well, I would agree that flexibility in rural
areas is really the key. I don't think it is actually a
definitional issue so much there as that if somebody becomes
homeless and there is not a shelter bed so they are staying on
someone's couch, that they are still homeless but they might
not get counted that way.
So I just think rural communities need more flexibility to
address the needs individually, and these transportation needs
as well, which it may be that a transportation solution would
solve the problem.
As to why the number is going down, I am not sure why the
number is going down, but I do think that rural communities
have some advantages. They have lower numbers. They tend more
to be less tolerant of long-term homelessness and to act more
quickly to resolve the situation.
Also, a lot of resources come to rural counties, and that
allows the county itself to use the homeless resources in
combination with TANF and housing, mental health, and other
things, and just coordinate a little better. I actually think
we could end homelessness in rural areas a little--pretty
quickly, much faster than we could in urban areas if we just
had a little--some adjustments to our approach there.
Mr. Hultgren. Ms. Bischoff, if I can address my last minute
to you. Thank you, first, for all that you are doing, and
everyone there at Star House is doing, to address youth
homelessness. I absolutely agree that providing the support
necessary to help individuals and families find and maintain a
job is key. I also appreciate the real life examples you shared
in written testimony from the young man who lost his housing
because his roommate could not pay his share of rent, to simply
providing a reliable place to shower for another young man
before he went to his job at the mall.
I wonder if you could discuss why the services that you
offer under the McKinney-Vento Act are successful. And are
there any improvements that you would recommend to helping
address youth homelessness? Specifically, how can we help
provide stable employment and other opportunities for self-
sufficiency?
Ms. Bischoff. Representative, thank you for the question.
Our services are successful because we are research-based. We
started out as a research project at OSU. And the research, one
of the primary findings is that social connections were the
greatest predictors of exiting homelessness. And I think in our
programming, we too often take those connections lightly.
So at Star House, young people come in through the
provision of basic needs. We are really in the business of
developing strong relationships with them. We know them
individually, not just on paper. That is why we have so many
stories to tell. Through this relationship-building, then we
connect them with easy access on one site, therapy, housing
connections, jobs, education. For youth, we have to make the
access to resources more flexible and more accessible.
Mr. Hultgren. Thank you all.
My time has expired. I yield back, Chairman. Thank you.
Chairman Duffy. The gentleman's time has expired.
The Chairman recognizes the gentleman from Nevada, Mr.
Kihuen, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Kihuen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Ranking
Member, and thank you all for being here this afternoon and for
your insight.
Since the 2008 economic recession, thousands of Nevada
families have been struggling to maintain access to safe and
affordable housing, as it has been alluded to here with the
rest of the country.
I represent the Fourth Congressional District based out of
Las Vegas, north Las Vegas, in central Nevada. It was the
epicenter of the housing crisis during the recession, and
thousands of Nevadans lost their homes, and many were pushed
into that rental market.
Today, we are facing a severe shortage of rental homes, as
we are hearing here today, that are affordable and available to
people with the lowest incomes. According to the National Low
Income Housing Coalition, there are only 15 affordable homes
for every 100 extremely low-income families. Without affordable
housing options, people live just one event, a car repair, an
illness, from a destabilizing impact of evictions and, in worse
cases, homelessness. So unfortunately, this cycle is playing
out in southern Nevada, where we are experiencing a growing
homeless population.
Today, Las Vegas is one of the top 10 cities in America,
with the highest homeless population. And even more alarming,
it is one of the fastest growing youth homeless populations in
the country.
So with that, I have a couple of questions, and I will
start with the homeless youth for Ms.--and I apologize if I
mispronounce your last name--Bischoff. So nearly half of
homeless youth have been in juvenile detention, jail, or
prison. Can you talk about the relationship between our system
of criminal justice and homelessness? And second, what barriers
exist for youth with criminal backgrounds?
Ms. Bischoff. Absolutely. Thank you for the question,
Representative. Our youth are caught in a situation too often
where they engage in survival crimes. We have a young man
recently, he grew up in an orphanage in Russia, moved to Ohio,
and has this lack of understanding for trusting connections, so
he is often finding himself on the streets. He is not really
able to couch surf because of that relational issue, and he
finds himself in prison or jail often as a result. So for him
the challenge is very strong.
I think coming out of prison, being able to find housing in
such a way where you are not evicted is also another barrier
that they face. So we do need to pay more attention to youth
aging out of care and youth aging out of juvenile justice to
ensure that they have the relationships and connections in
their lives to sustain that housing, employment, and other
stabilizing features as they go forward.
Mr. Kihuen. Thank you.
And, Mr. Lynn, also a question for you as well. The Trump
Administration has proposed significant rent increases for
families receiving Federal rental assistance. What would this
proposal mean for your efforts to reduce homelessness? And do
you have any reason to believe that this proposal will help
families becoming more self-sufficient?
Mr. Lynn. We don't. One of the concerns we have is that the
families that would be subject to these increases for rent are
the poorest Angeleno families. Across the Nation, they are the
poorest folks that we offer assistance to. So an increase that
might sound like a manageable increase to a family that is at
median income or above, like $100, is absolutely devastating to
somebody for whom that is most of their income for that month.
There are a lot of households that are existing at severe
poverty levels. And I think the one thing that we really would
want to underscore is that these have profound impacts on
people who are the least able to afford them.
I don't think work requirements are the best approach to
people experiencing poverty. I think that providing
opportunities for people to engage in workforce development is
critical and is very, very important. But certainly, work
requirements can push people into homelessness. And the rent
increases for the poorest folks is a very, very, very, very,
poor use of this resource.
Mr. Kihuen. All right. Thank you.
And last question. Ms. Roman, in your experience, what are
the biggest myths or misunderstandings about homelessness that
you have had to confront? And how have you sought to change
public perception on those fronts?
Ms. Roman. Well, I think probably the biggest myth is that
everybody has mental illness and substance abuse, and once they
become homeless, they stay homeless forever basically, until
they are given a subsidy, and that is not true. Most people
don't have mental health and substance abuse disorders,
although those are overrepresented in the population.
And most people who become homeless self-resolve. They
enter the homeless system, they figure something out, they
leave, and they don't come back. So really who stays longer is
the people with more serious problems.
How we seek to clarify that to people, we do communications
and public information, and we rely also on you all
understanding it and explaining it to the constituents as well.
Mr. Kihuen. Thank you. And thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Duffy. The gentleman yields back.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Ohio, Mr.
Stivers, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Stivers. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I really appreciate
you holding this hearing.
And my first question is for Ms. Bischoff.
Ms. Bischoff, welcome. It is great to have you here. You
know, there are a lot of young folks that are, because of the
definition of homelessness at HUD, they are denied a safe place
to stay, and they are left to rely on the good will of family,
friends, and neighbors, or live out of hotels or motels.
And my first question is, do you think that living--a child
living in those type of conditions, either relying on the good
will of extended family, friends, or neighbors, or living out
of motels, is disadvantaged when it comes to education and
health outcomes? And can you explain what that means?
Ms. Bischoff. Representative, thank you for the question.
Absolutely, they are at a disadvantage. We know that this
population is 12 times more likely to die, period, then their
peers who are not homeless.
I work with young people who are living on the streets,
sleeping in tents, sleeping on the proverbial park bench, and
sleeping outside in the elements. The No. 1 killer of this
population is suicide and overdose because of a lack of hope
for the future. So healthcare is certainly important. That is
why we have a health clinic onsite at Star House, so that they
can have immediate access to those services.
In terms of workforce, getting to their place of employment
becomes very difficult when they are living on the north side
of town one night and the east side of town the next. They are
getting jobs, as our research has shown, as I shared, but
keeping those jobs becomes impossible. So we need flexible
opportunities for them where they have access to trauma-
informed workforce care--workforce development that is in sync
with the jobs that are offered.
Mr. Stivers. Thank you for that. So as a follow up, are
those young folks, these children growing up in those
conditions of relying on the good will of extended family,
friends, or neighbors, or living out of motels, more likely to
experience unemployment or homelessness as adults?
Ms. Bischoff. Yes. Our research shows that the longer a
young person experiences the transience of homelessness, by any
definition, including those couch surfers, the more difficult
it becomes for them to exit street life. So utilizing the
McKinney-Vento Education Act, which includes those youth who
are couch surfing, it allows us to assist all youth living
without a permanent place to call home before they become
chronically homeless, and the return on investment over the
course of a lifetime will be exponential.
Mr. Stivers. Thank you, Ms. Bischoff. You also talked about
how hard it is for them to get to employment when they don't
know where they are going to live. What about getting to a
school?
Ms. Bischoff. We have several youth at Star House who are
currently enrolled in college. I think that is something that
people don't realize. They have graduated from high school,
they enroll, but when they are in survival mode, they are going
to choose food and other basic needs over college and they
withdraw and then they have debt, and there is a cycle of
issues. So certainly, we need flexible opportunities of all
kinds.
At Star House, in our strategic plan, as we develop this
village, onsite we want college--community college
opportunities for them that are virtual and flexible so that
they can move forward toward stability.
Mr. Stivers. Thank you. I think, obviously, I know there
are some people concerned about resources. But we have to
figure out how to take care of these children. So I really
appreciate the work you are doing. And I will tell you, a lot
of us will stand up for more resources, but we have to get a
definition that helps us get a count so we know what kind of
resources to get, and that is why this bill is so, so
important. Thank you so much.
My next question is about our veteran homelessness. And I
will ask Ms. Bremer, I guess. Is there anybody who wants a
question on veteran homelessness? Prefers it?
Mr. Lynn, you look excited.
Mr. Lynn. I would be happy too, but Nan, I think, is--
Mr. Stivers. Would you like it, Mr. Lynn?
Mr. Lynn. I guess it depends on the question.
Mr. Stivers. OK. Well, why don't I give you the question,
and whoever wants to talk about it can.
So we have seen a huge drop in veteran homelessness, except
among a special population; that is the population of veterans
who either don't qualify under the definition of veteran as a
result of serving in the Reserve as opposed to the Active Duty,
or those who have discharges with other than honorable
conditions.
Let me start with the question, a simple question. Do any
of you think that somebody should be sentenced to a life of
homelessness simply because their discharge is an other than
honorable discharge?
Mr. Lynn. No one should be homeless.
Mr. Stivers. Thank you. So is that a problem you are seeing
in your organizations? And do you believe that we should do
something to address this special population of folks and try
to make sure they get resources?
They don't qualify for the HUD-VASH (Veterans Affairs
Supportive Housing) program because of the definition of
veteran, or their designation of service. But do you believe
that we should try to do something to find a special assistance
for that population?
Mr. Lynn. I think that the question, the way you framed it,
really illustrates how effective resources are. This program,
HUD-VASH program, the Supportive Services for Veterans Families
program, together, have driven homeless veteran numbers so far
down.
Mr. Stivers. Close to zero.
Mr. Lynn. We would never have predicted that we could be so
effective at this challenge of ending veteran homelessness
before we put the resources in. You put the resources in, they
really talk. It goes back to--
Mr. Stivers. In Central High in Columbus, Ohio, 24
veterans, we are that close every night, and some nights we are
at like 5 or 6 veterans, but we have never had more than 26,
and almost every one is in that special population we just
talked about.
Mr. Lynn. So resources matter. Finding resources to fit the
needs of people who are experiencing homelessness, whether they
are other than honorably discharged veterans, whether they are
people who have never served and are chronically homeless,
whether they are youth, we need resources for everyone
experiencing homelessness. Resources matter. That is why there
is a challenge with the youth definition. If we don't put the
resources behind it--we don't know how many kids are in that
definition, but there are a lot more.
Mr. Stivers. Let's not make those kids suffer until we
figure it out, sir.
Mr. Lynn. So the resources behind it, we can use them. We
know how to deploy them.
Mr. Stivers. I am 1 minute and 48 seconds over my time, and
the Chairman has been very generous. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I appreciate the answer.
And I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Duffy. The gentleman yields back.
The Chair now recognizes the gentlelady from New York, Ms.
Velazquez, for 5 minutes.
Ms. Velazquez. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Roman, earlier this week, the House Appropriations
Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development
released their draft spending bill for Fiscal Year 2019. The
bill provides $3.6 million to U.S. Interagency Council on
Homelessness, which President Trump sought to eliminate in his
Fiscal Year 2019 budget request.
Can you speak to the important role the Council plays? How
will these additional resources help the Council combat
homelessness nationwide?
Ms. Roman. So the Federal Government spends about $5
billion a year on homelessness from a variety of different
agencies, five or six major agencies. And I think the
investment of $3.6 million to coordinate those Federal
agencies' investment of $5 billion, not to mention all the work
that USICH does with communities around the country and
spreading best practices to them and States, is well worth the
investment. And I think that that coordination--which it is
very hard for the programs to do. They do it but it is extra
work, and they are trying to run the programs effectively.--it
makes a huge difference, and it is a big reason why our numbers
are going down.
Ms. Velazquez. Thank you. Ms. Roman, in his budget request,
the President reduces funding for the Section 8 program,
requesting approximately $19.3 billion, or $977 million less
than Fiscal Year 2017 enacted levels. Under the President's
request, New York City will lose approximately 15,000 Section 8
vouchers, and more than 200,000 housing vouchers will be lost
nationwide.
With more than 200,000 fewer vouchers, how will HUD be able
to address homelessness and housing poverty?
And, by the way, you mentioned the misconception of mental
health and substance abuse. But what about the other
misconception that homeless people don't work?
In places like New York, where we have 63,000 homeless
people, they are the working poor, in many instances. The
problem there is we don't have enough affordable housing, and
there are not many resources put into building new housing
programs that will provide affordable housing.
Ms. Roman. Yes, of course. So if the budget proposal goes
through, the result will be that more people will become
homeless and fewer people will exit homelessness. And this is
not a wise; however, you may feel about that, this is not a
wise decision for the country economically, morally, socially,
because letting people be homeless has a tremendous cost to us
in all of those areas.
Ms. Velazquez. Mr. Lynn, would you like to comment?
Mr. Lynn. As I indicated earlier, I think the voucher
program is one of the backbones of affordability for the
poorest Americans. And I think that any cuts to it--the program
has eroded over time with regard to its reach into the
population of need. It needs to be expanded. The last thing we
need is to erode the size and scope of this program.
Ms. Velazquez. What about your take on the CDBG program?
You know, in New York City, the CDBG program allowed the city
to provide emergency shelter to 1,000 households in 2016. Can
any of you discuss the importance of the CDBG program in
combating homelessness?
Mr. Lynn. We use it very effectively in Los Angeles, and
the city and county of Los Angeles both contribute CDBG funds
into addressing homelessness, both through development of
affordable housing, through provision of shelter, through other
services. I think communities nationally have used it to
address affordability issues that directly prevent
homelessness. It has a lot of flexibility and is used to
address homelessness, both preventing people from falling into
it by contributing to the affordability in communities, and
also by direct provision of services for people experiencing
homelessness. It is a very important program.
Ms. Roman. I would just add, it also often pays for the
staff to coordinate the homeless assistance locally.
Ms. Velazquez. Well, let me just say that I am so happy to
see that the bipartisan T-HUD appropriations draft that was
released, this bill, is a clear repudiation of the President's
budget request of 2019, and I am happy to see that.
Thank you, and I yield back.
Chairman Duffy. The gentlelady yields back.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Pennsylvania,
Mr. Rothfus.
Actually, I withdraw that.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr.
Royce, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Royce. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Ms. Roman, as you know, our Ranking Member, Maxine Waters,
and I, along with Representatives Stivers and Joyce Beatty,
have introduced the Working Together to End Homelessness Act,
which continues the authorization of the U.S. Interagency
Council on Homelessness.
In your testimony, you noted the role that the Council
plays in coordinating Federal agencies to enhance performance,
to improve outcomes. Given the urgency here surrounding--and
across the country--surrounding this issue of the opioid
crisis, can you speak to the Council's role in aiding Federal
and local agencies with respect to the intersection of that
crisis and homelessness?
Ms. Roman. Yes. Thank you for the question. The impact of
opioids on homelessness varies. Some places it is a big factor
and other places it is not, but it is obviously very key. USICH
pulled together an interagency working group on opioids to
align Federal efforts around the impact on homelessness and
provide guidance. The USICH regional coordinators are working
with communities on key strategies to address opioid use in
homeless populations and help to stop that.
They have identified housing providers that are housing
people who have opioid use disorders and shared those
successful practices. They have instituted peer-to-peer
learning and are providing written guidance to communities. So
they really have led the effort to help homeless assistance
organizations and systems to understand what the best practices
that we know of to help people deal with opioids.
Mr. Royce. Well, thank you, Nan.
Any of the other members of the panel who want to add any
specifics in terms of your communities?
Mr. Lynn. I think the opioid crisis draws out one of the
key benefits of USICH, which is their ability to coordinate
between Federal agencies. So you have substance abuse treatment
and strategies that are deployed through Health and Human
Services, combined with the work that is going on with the
homeless assistance grants that come through HUD and other
Federal agencies, and I think the coordination role is
critical.
Mr. Royce. Can you just give me an example, Mr. Lynn, of
how you do that in L.A.?
Mr. Lynn. Well, so, in Los Angeles, on the local level, we
have the Department of Public Health, which is our local
substance abuse prevention and control agency, working closely
with the Continuum of Care. So we have deployed beds to address
people with substance abuse issues.
The opioid crisis did not hit L.A. as hard as it has hit
many other regions, but we do work very closely to ensure that
there are substance abuse treatment beds available through the
continuum and through the connection that people experiencing
homelessness have to the rest of the resources. That kind of
coordination is essentially what--those are the practices that
are elevated up by USICH and can present a model of
effectiveness to other communities. Los Angeles has a deep
bench. Many communities don't. And the work that USICH does in
terms of elevating what are best practices is critical to those
communities that just don't have the same resource base or the
depth of research.
Mr. Royce. President Reagan said that integrity and
efficiency in managing Government programs not only save the
Government money, they mean better service for those the
programs are designed to serve. They mean better service for
the people.
So, Nan, you testified that the Interagency Council on
Homelessness, the budget there is a very modest sum, especially
considering the scale of the targeted resources for ending
homelessness. In line with the former President's maxim, would
you say that the Council plays a role in improving the
efficiency of the Administration of these resources? And if so,
could you just give us a quick example?
Ms. Roman. It absolutely does that. A good example might be
the HUD-VASH program. So that is an incredibly effective
program, as people have discussed already today, that provides
vouchers from HUD and combines them with services from VA. You
might think that is pretty straightforward and easy to
administer, but in the process of implementing that, there have
been so many decisions that had to be made that just weren't
really happening: Who was eligible for the assistance, who
decided who was the next person, what kinds of services, what
was the case management ratio, who did the outreach? And
really, those decisions weren't getting made until USICH
stepped in and coordinated that, and now that program is
functioning at a high level.
Mr. Royce. Thank you very much, Nan.
I will yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Duffy. The gentleman yields back.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Texas, Mr.
Green, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Green. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to thank
the Ranking Member as well, and the witnesses for appearing
today.
I have been provided some intelligence, some information
from staffers, and I bothered to try to validate it because it
is something that is difficult to comprehend. And I have
checked several sources, and most of the sources are close.
Numbers may vary slightly, but the intelligence indicates that
African Americans are about 12, maybe 12.5, under 13 percent of
the population, yet they represent more than 40 percent of the
homeless population. 12.5 percent, under 13 percent, total
population, 40 percent of the homeless population.
Can someone explain to me why we have this disparity,
please?
Mr. Lynn. I think it is really impossible to address that
topic without confronting America's history of racial
segregation and--
Mr. Green. I have 3 minutes and 31 seconds, and confront it
to the extent that you can, please.
Mr. Lynn. Sir, if you look at African Americans in the
county of Los Angeles, they comprise about 8 percent of the
population. If you look at people in poverty in the county of
Los Angeles, they comprise about 12 percent. So right there you
have a dramatic overrepresentation of people who are very, very
poor.
But if you look at people experiencing homelessness, the
representation is 40 percent, which is 5 times the general
population. And I think that there is intersectionality with
housing discrimination. I think there is intersectionality with
job discrimination. But if I had to put my finger on one thing,
it would probably be criminal justice engagement and
disproportionate impacts of inequitable criminal justice
enforcement.
If you look at the population of the jails in Los Angeles
County, they are 30 percent African American. So these things
stack. Once you are incarcerated, you have a much harder time
economically for the future. It is harder to get a job, it is
harder to keep a job. It is harder to get housing, it is harder
to keep housing. It is harder to maintain the social
connections that Ms. Bischoff was talking about that are so
vital to people. It interrupts every pattern that folks have.
I think that is one of the strongest predictors of
homelessness, but the overrepresentation of African Americans
in homelessness, I think, says volumes about the challenges
that African Americans are facing across systems in America.
Mr. Green. Yes, ma'am, if you would.
Ms. Roman. I just would concur. I would say the
overrepresentation of African Americans in the poor population,
housing discrimination, and then the feeder systems, so
corrections is one, but foster care is another big one that are
sending people in. I think what we don't know is whether the
homeless system, which is on the receiving end of that
disproportionality itself, is having a disparate impact on the
population, and that is something that we are planning to look
at in the next year, at the Alliance.
Mr. Green. Please. Others.
Mr. Lynn. So in Los Angeles--
Mr. Green. You have given me an answer that I am--I would
just like to hear from the other members of the panel, please.
Just give me your opinions. I would like to hear your opinions.
Ms. Bischoff. Representative, thank you for the question. I
concur with Mr. Lynn and Nan. I know at Star House, about 60
percent of the youth there are African American. It is a little
bit more than what you would see in the shelter. We attribute
part of that to the young women in our program being more
likely to be accepted into someone's home as a couch surfer,
and these young men are not always welcome in the home of folks
within their community.
I agree with Nan in terms of the systems that they are more
likely to go into.
Mr. Green. Yes, ma'am, please.
Ms. Bremer. And I do agree with incarceration. That is a
huge problem for the folks that we work with. Once you are
incarcerated, you have that on your record, it becomes
extremely difficult to secure any type of permanent housing.
Mr. Green. Well, my time is up. I will have a follow up
question when I have the next opportunity to visit. I thank
you.
Chairman Duffy. The gentleman yields back.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from Pennsylvania,
Mr. Rothfus, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Rothfus. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you to the
panel for being with us this afternoon, and for the work you
are doing in a very critical area for our country and in your
respective communities.
Ms. Bremer, you mentioned in your testimony that mental
illness and substance abuse are primary causes of homelessness
for single adults in your region. As you may know, the opioid
crisis has been devastating in western Pennsylvania as well.
One of my main priorities is making sure that our resources are
effectively deployed to do their best possible work, to help
those suffering from addiction get clean, get back to work, and
return to stable, fulfilling, and independent lives.
What can Congress do to give local providers the tools to
address this multifaceted problem?
Ms. Bremer. Additional funds for treatment facilities would
be extremely beneficial. In the rural area that I am in, we are
seeing more meth addiction than any other addictions.
Additionally, the burden on foster care. At our shelter,
and we are--keep in mind, we are in rural Wisconsin. At one
given day, one of the communities had taken 14 children into
custody because of meth use. And the scary part is, is many of
the parents would be willing to go into treatment, but there is
a lack of services, for one, and then they worry about what is
going to happen to their children.
Mr. Rothfus. Any regulatory restrictions that would limit
your flexibility to be dealing with this issue?
Ms. Bremer. Not so much. Again, I think I am looking at
what we are looking at is additional funding.
Mr. Rothfus. OK. I think another new billion dollars is
going to be made available this coming September on treatment
programs.
Ms. Bischoff, in your testimony, you wrote that all
agencies need the freedom to grow and try new concepts to lift
youth who do not have a permanent home out of homelessness.
Representative Stivers had a line of questions. He raised
the definition of homelessness. Given what Representative
Stivers has been talking about with his legislation, has HUD
given solving youth homelessness the priority it deserves, do
you think?
Ms. Bischoff. Representative, thank you for the question. I
think HUD is beginning to recognize the need. They recognize
the drop-in center model as an important piece of the puzzle.
They are also part of the 100-day challenge that has been going
on, and an effort of the committee to address youth
homelessness across the Nation. So I would say that we are all
beginning to learn more about the population, why they are
hiding, and how to bring them in.
Mr. Rothfus. Ms. Roman, I understand that veteran
homelessness--again, this is an issue that Representative
Stivers brought up--has fallen significantly in recent years.
How can we apply what we learned in the fight to reduce veteran
homelessness to interventions targeted at other subgroups,
whether it is young people, families, and those suffering from
drug addiction and mental illness?
Ms. Roman. Well, I really think that the reason for success
in the veteran arena is because we had the key tools that we
needed in terms of interventions. That was permanent supportive
housing for high-need people and rapid rehousing for lower need
people, and also some emergency assistance. And really, there
was a tremendous political will around it and the resources
were scaled to the size of the problem, and that is what
allowed us to make that progress there and so rapidly.
Mr. Rothfus. Mr. Lynn, your testimony details L.A.'s
homelessness crisis as a, quote, crisis of housing
affordability. Other high-cost cities, all with housing
affordability problems on their own, they don't seem to have
the homelessness epidemic that L.A. has. What makes L.A.
different from other high-cost areas around the country?
Mr. Lynn. So I think part of the issue is just scale. You
have to remember, Los Angeles County has over 10 million
residents. It is the most populous county in America, and is
actually, if it were a State, it would be the ninth largest
State. So it is very, very big. And I think that we do not have
the per capita homelessness that some other communities do, but
from the scale of how big Los Angeles is.
So housing affordability is a key driver, but we have the
same challenges that many other communities face. There are a
significant plurality of people with serious mental illness.
There are a significant plurality of people who face substance
abuse issues. We have been working to integrate discharge from
our foster system into the homelessness planning and that work
is going to be instrumental in preventing homelessness. But I
think that many of the drivers that we have seen across the
country also affect Angelenos at a much larger scale.
Mr. Rothfus. One of the things in your testimony, you said,
homelessness in L.A. did not arise overnight or over a few
years, but as a result of many policy choices we have made,
both Federally and at the local level.
I am wondering, have local zoning laws contributed to
housing affordability in Los Angeles?
Mr. Lynn. I think that it would be hard to argue otherwise.
Certainly, the housing unit production has not kept up with
households in Los Angeles County, and that puts a real squeeze
on affordability. That would do the same anywhere in the--
Mr. Rothfus. Any other local issues besides zoning that
might be a factor? Reflecting in your testimony you were
talking about policy choices at the local level.
Mr. Lynn. I think particularly land use issues are the key
there.
Mr. Rothfus. I yield back.
Chairman Duffy. The gentleman yields back.
The Chair now recognizes the gentleman from California, Mr.
Sherman, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Sherman. Thank you.
Between 2009 and 2016, Federal funding for affordable
housing in Los Angeles County declined 35 percent. That is
certainly one of the reasons why we have seen this huge
increase in homelessness. But another, as Mr. Lynn points out,
is just the incredible cost of building a new apartment unit,
given the very high fees that local governments impose on each
unit and given the high cost of land and given the fact that
you are strictly limited as to how many units you can put on a
piece of land.
Mr. Lynn, what would be the impact of the Administration's
rent reform and work requirements, the so-called Making
Affordable Housing Work Act, on homelessness in the Los Angeles
area? Would this initiative help the city serve more people or
would it exacerbate the problem?
Mr. Lynn. I think it would clearly exacerbate the problem.
I think the concern that we have in raising minimum rents for
people who are the poorest housed folks that are in Los Angeles
is of grave concern, very concerning. The impact of work
requirements on households, particularly families with
children, families with disabled members, I think it would only
exacerbate the problem, sir.
Mr. Sherman. Now, although Los Angeles County does have 10
million people, and New York has even more, although it is
divided into several different counties, we see one in every
four people experiencing homelessness last year, did so in New
York City or Los Angeles. Is that because of the high cost of
housing in those areas? Because it occurs to me that
unemployment is a problem nationwide. Addiction is nationwide.
Psychological and other health problems are nationwide. And yet
we have one in four people in those two cities.
Is there something else that causes disproportionate
homelessness in the two largest metropolitan areas that you can
put your finger on, other than the very high cost of an
apartment?
Mr. Lynn. So I think high cost of living is the key issue.
Both of those are very unaffordable communities, and the
unemployment rate is actually quite low. We are experiencing
quite a robust economy in the Los Angeles area. The challenge
is that most of the jobs and most of the income has actually
gone to above median income households. So what happens is, as
the economy picks up, people have better paying jobs. Folks who
are making minimum wage and people who are below minimum wage
who have fixed incomes, they are on benefits program, they are
on pensions, they feel an extreme squeeze as the rents
increase, as people can pay more, and there is a fixed housing
stock issue.
Mr. Sherman. Now, we in California need to build 180,000
units a year. We are a growing State. We are building 80,000.
What can the city of Los Angeles do to bring down--to encourage
people to build more apartments, condos, affordable housing, or
even housing that somebody would move into, thereby vacating
another unit that would be affordable? How do we get more
housing built in Los Angeles?
Mr. Lynn. So I think the city and the county are looking at
this. One of the issues that has driven a lot of interest is
the building of accessory dwelling units, which are generally
as of right in most areas, and I think there is the ability to
put a second unit on your lot. Often called granny flats or a
second dwelling unit. I think that that holds out a lot of
promise. I think there has been a lot of work to address this
concern and think through what is the impact of land use policy
on constraining supply to address this issue.
Mr. Sherman. What fee is charged in Los Angeles per unit to
pay for the infrastructure, the parks, et cetera, that is
already there? Let's say you have the right to build a 5-unit--
I will use a round number--a 10-unit building. What does the
city charge you for the right to do that?
Mr. Lynn. I don't actually know, sir. I have covered a lot
of zones, but that one is a little far outside my zone, sir.
Mr. Sherman. OK. Because I am told figures of well over
$100,000, whereas, in most of the country, the cost of
construction, land, everything, per unit, would be less than
that. So I don't know if the figure is that high, but advocates
for making it easier to build apartments are saying that it
totals that.
Mr. Lynn. I will find out and get back to you, sir.
Mr. Sherman. Thank you.
Chairman Duffy. The gentleman yields back.
I want to thank our panel for their testimony today. I
would just note that you can see there is a bipartisan interest
in trying to resolve these solutions and both sides coming
together to help the most disadvantaged among us in our
communities, whether it is from L.A., to rural Wisconsin, and
anywhere in between, to Ohio. It is incredibly important, and I
think you see a willingness from this committee to try to do
the best we can.
I just want to thank you for your insight, and look forward
to continuing to work with this panel and others as we navigate
this important issue to make sure that we do the right thing as
policymakers, again, to help the most folks in our communities.
And so, again, thank you for your testimony and your time.
Without objection, all members will have 5 legislative days
within which to submit additional written questions to the
Chair which will be forwarded to our witnesses.
I would ask our witnesses, if possible, please respond as
promptly as you are able.
And without objection, this hearing is now adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:15 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
May 17, 2018
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