☆ Opinion on SJ homeless nonprofit flops: We don't just need “more shelters”—but better financed/managed shelters
Image by KOMUnews on Flickr
Last week, local news reported that SJ's City-funded homelessness nonprofits are failing to perform on the valued metrics they tout (think: unhoused folks actually getting into housing). California Policy Center's Edward Ring breaks down how City/State laws, fiscal imprudence, and muddy nonprofit–vendor relationships impact SJ's homelessness crisis. An Opp Now exclusive.
When I consider what's going on with SJ's homelessness nonprofits, a few things come to mind:
First, the Housing First doctrine is fundamentally flawed. It de-emphasizes any kind of job training or treatment for substance abuse. As a result, even if you can get people a roof over their heads, you're not ultimately helping them become independent. We are witnessing a lot of these same “Housing First” outcomes in LA, and what we see are similar to what happened with housing projects built back in the 1960s. They're highly unsafe: overrun with gang activity and drug use. Instead of just trying to provide housing to every homeless person who asks, we need to have conditions applied. People who receive these housing allotments should be willing to agree to drug counseling, job training, sobriety, and some kind of curfew (they can't just be out on the street; it doesn't do any good). Housing First has to be revised; that's the number one priority here.
Now, Housing First philosophy rewrites should happen along with state legislative reform on crime. It's obvious that in California, the downgrading of property crimes and drug crimes has misfired. I've spoken to people living in LA who observe criminals being released from prison in other states like Arkansas, and these criminals openly declare that they moved to Venice Beach because they can steal things and use drugs without consequences. Rather than being compassionate towards people who are struggling, removing sanctions actually becomes an incentive for crime and substance abuse—a magnet for risky behaviors.
Second, it's essential that cities are allowed to compel people to take residence at shelters. San Francisco is trying this now; they'll hopefully pave the way for other Californian cities. However, attempting this gets complicated because of a couple of court decisions. Jones v. City of Los Angeles and Martin v. Boise have been conflated into this idea: that unless a city has shelter space for everyone, they can't compel people to move off the street into shelters. This has to change. If people are camping on sidewalks and other public spaces, cities like San Jose should be able to compel them into homeless shelters.
Third, let's talk about these homeless nonprofits. To begin with, “nonprofit” is a really misleading term. Many of them have for-profit vendors, and their directors and executives may also be sitting on those vendors' boards or have financial stakes in them.
What's more, these nonprofits are only required by court to provide shelter; yet they're constructing these semi-luxury apartments costing $500,000 or more each (often insisting, in the name of equity, on building housing in some of California's most expensive neighborhoods). That's a huge draw, especially for people who don't want to abide by behavioral restrictions. So the waiting lists are long, and we'll never be able to build enough housing to keep up with demand. This has created a perfect storm in cities like San Jose.
Some cities are proud of using tiny homes, which in some cases cost over $100,000 each, but that's still an appalling number. And why is this the case? You could buy a 10x10 shed at Home Depot for $4,500 and then add plumbing and air conditioning; we need to understand, with audits, why we aren't able to build a tiny housing unit for $20,000.
Let's take another example: There is a beautiful three-acre farmers market and parking lot area in Venice Beach, owned by the city. The so-called homeless industrial complex took control of the property, with a land value worth around $90 million, and is building 140 homeless housing units at a cost of $105 million—thus, making the total project cost nearly $200 million. Residents who raised concerns were passionately dismissed. And this kind of situation is happening all over California. In the past couple of years, there has been a movement to reduce prices, but so far they are still ridiculously high, averaging around half a million dollars per unit. On federally owned land in Los Angeles, unused barracks were converted to homeless housing at a cost of $900,000 per unit. In Sacramento, low-income residents living in an old hotel were actually evicted so it could be converted to “supportive housing” at a cost of $600,000 per unit. People are finally waking up and realizing that these spending patterns are corrupt and ineffective.
Meanwhile, some argue that these homeless nonprofits are underperforming because there just isn't enough shelter space available in San Jose and elsewhere. But the failure to create enough housing is due to spending too much for each bed. A city should be able to provide shelter for a few thousand dollars per person in a traditional group shelter environment if it isn't beholden to politically-connected developers and nonprofits. (And it's also worth noting here that when shelters are mixed-gender, women often feel unsafe living there. So cities might have sufficient shelter space that is underutilized because it's not segregated by gender.)
To summarize, this is what must happen to make progress on San Jose's homeless crisis: Fix Housing First and put conditions on entry to these shelters, change state laws that downgrade crimes, compel people into shelters when necessary, and—most of all—build shelters as shelters. Stop the notion that shelters have to be built in the most expensive parts of town. Stop spending lavish amounts of money per unit when there are more cost-effective ways available.
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