Riverside jumps on Housing First bandwagon

The city has formally adopted the approach to eliminating homelessness that gets people into a shelter first, then tries to treat their respective problems. Having used it to help veterans, the program is now going citywide.

Riverside has adopted an approach to reducing homelessness that is gaining popularity throughout the United States.

The city council this month voted unanimously to implement “Housing First,” which stresses getting homeless people into housing as quickly as possible.

The issues that caused the problem in the first place, including drug and alcohol abuse, mental illness, physical abuse, are then addressed.

That differs from the traditional approach, in which anyone without a place to live must undergo treatment before they’re given a place to live.

“One of the main tenants of Housing First is that the necessary services to help individuals and families after homelessness … are most effective when people are in their own home, not in the streets, in the parks or in the river bottom,” a staff report released earlier this month on the city’s plan to implement Housing First stated.

Housing First offers rental assistance based on need, but it does not require participation in a service to either get housing or keep it, according to a 2016 study by the National Alliance to End Homelessness in Washington, D.C.

“Services have been found to be more effective when a person chooses to engage,” in them, the report states.

Anyone receiving assistance signs a standard lease with their providing agency, at which point they have access to multiple support services.

Riverside is familiar with Housing First, having used it two years ago to find housing for its homeless veterans. Now it’s making that approach citywide policy, one year after it was  determined Riverside had 405 homeless people within its borders, up from 258 in 2016, according to data compiled by the Riverside County Department of Public Social Services.

That was a year-over-year increase of 57 percent.

“I think Housing First has a good chance of working and doing the city some good,” Councilman Mike Gardener said. “It probably won’t help everyone 100 percent, but if we could help half of our homeless people that would be significant.”

Every January, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development oversees a mandatory one-day nationwide count of the country’s homeless population called Point-in-Time. This year’s numbers are still being calculated, but Gardner said he expects that Riverside’s homeless count will be up, not down, compared with 2017.

“What we’re doing now isn’t working,” said Gardner, a council member – he represents Ward 1 – for 11 years. “The problem is getting worse, not better. That’s why I support Housing First.”

HUD has also endorsed Housing First, calling it “highly effective” in ending homelessness, especially when it was used to aid the chronically homeless who had higher service needs.

In a 2014 study, HUD concluded that Housing First “reduced the use of crisis services such as emergency departments, hospitals, and jails.”

Despite that, the nation’s housing crisis is not going away.

Last year, in its annual report to Congress on the state of homelessness in the United States, HUD stated that there were 553,742 homeless people nationwide, which works out to about 10 people for every 17,000 nationwide.

Roughly two-thirds of those were in emergency shelters or transitional housing programs, while the rest were in “unsheltered locations.” Homelessness was also up for the first time in seven years, with most of that increase happening among “unsheltered individuals” in the 50 largest U.S. cities, the report found.

“Homelessness is not unique to Riverside or the Inland Empire,” Gardner said. “It’s a problem everywhere.”

Cities want to get homeless people off the street for more than humanitarian reasons. A city with a large homeless population may have a hard time attracting business or persuading the businesses they have to expand.

Too many homeless people in a town can also make it difficult to get people to move there.

“It causes problems around a district, like the area around the Mission Inn,” Gardner said. “If it’s bad enough, homelessness puts a city in a difficult position.”

Riverside spends nearly $2.8 million a year dealing with its homeless problem: about $2.1 million measuring its impact on the city, and approximately $700,000 providing services to homeless people, according to the staff report.

“These funds may manage the problem of homelessness, but they do not effectively reduce it,” the report stated.

The city has arranged for shelter at two churches, one at Grove Community Church, 19900 Grove Community Drive, the other on the campus of La Sierra University.

Five years from now, Riverside officials hope to have enough shelter space to accommodate 400 people, Gardner said.

Funding for the program will come from HUD community development block grant funds.