It has been nearly a decade since Chicago launched its plan to end homelessness within 10 years. Nine years later some say that more people are homeless now than before, while others say progress has been made.
Set in motion by Mayor Richard M. Daley in 2003, the highly touted plan was one of the first by a major U.S. city. Its accomplishments have included a shift from shelters to more permanent “supportive” housing, which includes a wide range of social services. But while the number of permanent supportive housing units have increased by 88 percent, from 3,598 in 2002 to 6,779 in 2011, there are still not nearly enough to house the city’s estimated 93,780 homeless people.
Experts also estimate that up to 3,000 Chicago youth need shelter on any given night. In November, the Chicago News Cooperative reported that 10,660 homeless students enrolled in public school classrooms this fall, a 16 percent increase over last year and a record high, according to Chicago Public Schools data for September.
“My feeling is that we have more homelessness than when we started,” said Julie Dworkin, the director of policy at the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless. “Not because of the failure of the plan, but because of the recession and a lack of resources.”
“There is simply not the units in the city to absorb the shelter population,” said Jim LoBianco, the executive director of StreetWise Inc., a local social service agency serving the homeless, and a former deputy commissioner in charge of the Office of Homeless Services under Daley. “And so there is no consistent and dependable exit from the shelter system.”
The positive and negative aspects of the program will be assessed during a three-day conference that begins on Tuesday. Local and national experts will discuss issues related to homelessness, including the plight of veterans, the elderly and mentally ill, victims of domestic violence and ex-offenders. Organizers hope the panels, which are open to public comment, will help develop a new initiative against homelessness, named Plan 2.0, which the city plans to unveil this spring.
“Everyone is hopeful that we’ve learned a lot and that we have a good infrastructure built,” said John Pfeiffer, the deputy commissioner of Chicago’s Department of Family and Support Services. “Now it’s our opportunity to take stock and refine.”
The meetings, which will take place at the Chicago Temple in the Loop, are organized by the Chicago Alliance to End Homelessness, a non-profit agency that partners with the city to help non-governmental service providers.
Though all aspects of homelessness may come up, participants expect resources for youth and the shortage of housing units to be the dominant topics of discussion.
The first plan had a once-size-fits-all “housing first” approach, dealing mostly with the familiar faces of homelessness: substance abusers, the disabled and the chronically homeless. Yet over the past decade, a new population—one the plan was ill prepared to deal with—has emerged: youth and families.
“For the first iteration we were just trying to reimagine the whole system,” said Stan Sloan, who helped craft the first plan and is currently CEO of Chicago House, an organization providing housing for people impacted by AIDS. “We were trying to talk about the very basics and we couldn’t diffuse that message with special needs right off the bat.”
Since the plan began, the ratio of shelter beds to permanent supportive housing has been reversed—from 38 percent permanent housing and 62 percent shelters, to 60 percent permanent housing and 40 percent shelters. The plan also has promoted collaboration among city agencies and non-profits, which have not always coordinated well.
“The real crux of the first 10-year plan was about creating a true system that was collaborative, integrated and communicated across all levels and all parties,” said LoBianco.
Like all ambitious civic undertakings, the plan’s shortcomings have been apparent and well noted, including the failure to create enough permanent housing units and a lack of a dedicated social services phone line.
A nearly three-year evaluation of the city’s plan by researchers at the University of Chicago and Loyola University shows the 311 call line has fallen short in connecting individuals facing homelessness with resources. Chicago is one of the few major cities without a dedicated 211 social services line. Pfeiffer said the city is deciding whether to install a social services line or train existing 311 operators to better handle calls from people facing homelessness.
Units of permanent supportive housing have increased since the plan was adopted, but emergency beds have decreased. Since 2002, emergency and transitional beds have shrunk by 66 percent. Some of this can be attributed to re-categorizing beds as interim housing—where residents can stay up to 120 days. Still, the number of shorter-term beds has declined by 17 percent since 2002.
“To take away those emergency beds you’re taking away that element of safety for people,” said Paul Hamann president of The Night Ministry, an outreach organization serving Chicago’s homeless. “We’ve got to make sure that the plan deals with not just housing, but getting people ready for housing.”
Pfeiffer said DFSS has no intention of cutting more emergency beds in the new plan.
As the demand for services increase, city agencies and local providers have been hit particularly hard by state and federal budget cuts. Grants make up 96 percent of the Department of Family and Support Services budget. The department stands to lose $40 million this year from the expiration of federal stimulus funds.
The city’s budget for homeless services has remained relatively unchanged, from $42.9 million in 2011 to $42.8 million in 2012, according DFSS spokeswoman Anne Sheahan.
On Nov. 30, the Illinois General Assembly approved a measure to restore $4.7 million in state grants for emergency and transitional housing. Yet funding for the Illinois Homeless Prevention Program, which provides rental assistance with one-time grants averaging about $900 for those facing eviction or foreclosure, has been reduced by 87 percent since fiscal 2008 – from $11 million to $1.5 million.
The lack of funding paints a stark picture of the challenges a new plan will face, Dworkin said. “At the end of the day, if the resources aren’t there, you’re never going to get there.”
Hamann added that the push toward building permanent housing and providing the supportive services that go along with it puts enormous strain on providers who are unfamiliar with the process of building federally funded housing.
“People in our field are trained as social workers. We’re not trained as construction workers, land developers, architects. You’re forced to really stretch, while at the same time you’re running an agency,” he said.
Tracking City Shelter Beds
Instead of managing homelessness through a system of emergency shelters, the City of Chicago’s Plan to End Homelessness advocated moving homeless people into transitional and permanent housing in order to gain stability. Since the plan began in 2003, the ratio of shelter beds to permanent supportive housing has been reversed—from 38 percent permanent housing and 62 percent shelters, to 60 percent permanent housing and 40 percent shelters- while the overall number of beds in the system has steadily increased.
The best way to prevent homelessness remains ensuring that people are not wrongfully evicted from their existing homes—especially when those homes are subsidized!