The explanation for this apparent contradiction reveals both the persistence of this social problem and the promise of recent efforts to shrink the unhoused population. Certainly, there's plenty of visible evidence of the continuing challenge in the tents we see at parks, squares, traffic islands and other public places.

But statistics don't lie. Surveys show that some innovative and well-funded programs have helped lower homelessness by a significant degree. The District of Columbia has seen family homelessness decline for six straight years. It credits a strategy shift that focuses on smaller community-based facilities city-wide, known as Short-term Family Housing. The success has offered the chance to reform how the city handles its most difficult cases of homelessness.

Muriel Bowser:

We know the things that we learned about what works in the family homelessness system we're applying to our singles system. We know that, for example, we opened on the St. Elizabeth's Campus. We've replaced a men's shelter that was also too big and not safe, and people weren't able to deal with their emergencies and get on the right track so we have a state-of-the-art shelter now in the campus of St. Elizabeth.

So I actually think if we're able to create facilities like that in other places, then we'll have a lot more success getting people inside.

Robert McCartney:

That's District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser, and this is Think Regionally, a monthly podcast sponsored by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, or COG. I'm your host, Robert McCartney.

As winter arrives and puts unhoused people at extra risk, we're looking at the state of progress in accommodating them and at prospects for doing so in the future. It's no exaggeration to say the district, in particular, has had measurable achievements in fighting homelessness. Mayor Bowser touted her record while acknowledging the need for continued advances.

Muriel Bowser:

Our programs and services are the gold standard. People come and visit us and they're learning from us.

Its not without flaws. We have to fix some old shelters, and I think when we do that, we'll get more people to go on them. We'll fix the front door or the means of access for our single adults. I think that's going to help us get people off the streets.

Robert McCartney:

The city's experience may serve as a counter-example to skeptics who think government programs won't work on seemingly intractable social problems. The number of persons experiencing homelessness in the district has been cut nearly in half since the Bowser administration enacted a long-term program to reduce homelessness. Most of the improvement was in finding housing for families, mostly women aged 30 or under with children.

There's been some progress, but much less in reducing homelessness among individuals, particularly men aged 50 or older. I talked with the mayor about the city's programs.

Muriel Bowser:

We, literally, lost one of our children at DC General. I made a pledge when I was running to become mayor that we would close DC General and transform our homeless services system, and that's what we've done.

We built short-term family housing around the city and we resourced; our Department of Human Services, hired a great leader, where we also transformed the system of entry and how people got services. As a result, we've seen family homelessness decreased by 78%.

Robert McCartney:

The district's programs included more and better shelters, which offered people more privacy and more supporting services. Funding was increased both for emergency services and to make more low-cost housing available generally.

Muriel Bowser:

For the most part, especially now that we're coming out of COVID, we have shelter space for people who need it. Convincing people to come off the street and into stable shelters so that they can get on their way is a big part of driving down unsheltered homelessness in the city.

We know if we can get people in a common entry into our system, we can make sure that we're getting them to the right places. Whether it's for training, whether if it's for care, a voucher, you name it, we know that they can get the help that they need by coming through our common door.

Robert McCartney:

And the tents? The mayor says that's a byproduct of COVID-19.

Muriel Bowser:

Oh, I think that is a direct line to COVID and our experience with COVID. In order to keep our shelters open, there were more rules and protocols put in place in our homeless shelters.

My residents will also note that you didn't hear any of our homeless shelters being shut down because of COVID outbreaks. But there were more strenuous rules, so some people decided not to come into shelter and to, instead, be in an unsheltered environment.

Robert McCartney:

Mayor Bowser noted that while the district guarantees shelter to all who seek it, it does not force people off the street.

Muriel Bowser:

It is a complicated process. It is not one that people are saying, "Well, why doesn't she just go down there with the police and clear it all out?" It has to be a more nuanced approach than that to be legal, but to also be humane.

Robert McCartney:

Let's talk about the region a little bit. How do the district's programs to battle homelessness fit with those of neighboring jurisdictions in the Maryland and Virginia suburbs?

Muriel Bowser:

We know that we need regional support because homelessness is not just a DC issue, affordable housing is not just a DC issue. We always think that our region is stronger when people aren't moving around the region to kind of shop for the best human services.

Robert McCartney:

The mayor went on to emphasize that homelessness is an acute symptom of the more generalized social ailment of unaffordable housing, another issue that has been a target of district programs.

Muriel Bowser:

I do have to say, Bob, that the emergency system, the shelter system, homeless services system is meant to deal with homelessness. It's not meant to deal with poverty or affordable housing and so it is really made and designed to deal with people who are experiencing emergencies.

It does not provide long-term housing. It provides shelter. It's meant to help people stabilize and then get on their way. And part of stabilizing is not just having a house to go to, but being able to sustain it in the long term.

Robert McCartney:

To improve housing affordability region-wide, COG has committed to a broad goal to add lower cost housing units in the region.

Muriel Bowser:

That leads me to something that we have been very focused on at COG and that's having a regional goal for affordability. We've set goals in the district. We've put a lot of money behind it. I pledged at the beginning that we would do $100 million out of our housing production trust fund. And over the course of eight years, we've exceeded $1.2 billion.

We also set up a goal to achieve. We looked at all of the forecast to say how many units do we need to meet the demand of people who are moving here or who want to live here for affordability and we set that number. It's 36,000 new units by 2025 with a certain number below market rate, but we had to put the money behind it to get there.

I believe we have to set goals, we have to assign them, like really make them real. Look at what could be built, look at the undeveloped land, look at where you could increase density. Do all of those things and that's how you get to the affordability numbers that you need.

Robert McCartney:

Although the district has by far the largest share of people experiencing homelessness in the region, neighboring suburban counties and municipalities struggle with it, too. I spoke to Amanda Harris, Montgomery County's Chief of Services to End and Prevent Homelessness. She is also co-chair of COG's Homeless Services Planning and Coordinating Committee.

Montgomery is an affluent county by national standards, but it has homeless populations in areas of Silver Spring, Long Branch, Germantown and other locales. The county was one of the first in the nation to effectively end veteran homelessness in 2015, but has had ups and downs with other populations, such as the chronically homeless and families without housing. Here's Harris.

Amanda Harris:

We had a major initiative to end chronic homelessness, being long-term homelessness for folks with disabilities. We have made a significant dent in ending homelessness for that population. We, at one point, had reduced it by 90%. Unfortunately, we are seeing more people, but we're still about 65, 70% of a reduction in chronic homelessness.

For families, interestingly enough, during the pandemic, we had come very, very close to meeting functional zero for families. We had less than 20 families experiencing homelessness in Montgomery County for a sustained period of time. That was in 2020.

Then as some of those tenant protection started to be lifted, the housing market got tighter. Unfortunately, our numbers have gone up, so in the last year we have seen those numbers rise.

Robert McCartney:

Which county programs have proven most successful in combating homelessness?

Amanda Harris:

The most obvious one is our Housing First permanent supportive housing Program. That is intended for households with a disability that need a permanent deep housing subsidy and then intensive support services without any preconditions. They don't have to take their medication, they don't have to be clean and sober, service participation is voluntary. That has been our most successful program. Our housing retention rate in those programs hovers between 98 and 99%.

Robert McCartney:

Two other programs, rapid rehousing and direct cash payments help people in different circumstances.

Amanda Harris:

The trends have shown during the pandemic that we're seen more and more people that their homelessness is caused by a loss of employment and just not being able to afford the rent anymore. So the intervention there is not to give them a permanent housing subsidy, but to give them some rental assistance, some employment coaching to help get them back on their feet.

We have instituted an expansion of a rapid rehousing program, which is medium-term housing subsidy with case management, but also just a deep housing subsidy for up to 12 months with no case management.

We also implemented a direct cash assistance program. So for adult-only households that were entering homelessness for the first time and had minimal case management needs, we offered them $5,000 to resolve their homelessness. They got to choose how they would spend that money. All we asked is that they tell us what is your plan. It didn't matter to us what the plan was, but just that they had one.

That program has also been pretty successful. Our return rate for that direct cash assistance program is about 15 to 20% so eight out of 10 people that received that cash assistance have not returned to homelessness.

Robert McCartney:

Some housing analysts say that there is currently enough funding to end homelessness. I asked Harris to respond to the idea that funding is not the issue, but bureaucratic delays and other administrative challenges that have become the main obstacles to getting people housed.

Amanda Harris:

There is more funding than we have ever had in homeless services before. So there is something to be said about that and there are, in fact, bureaucratic challenges.

I would say it's not all about bureaucracy, it's also about just capacity. It's great to have a mass influx of resources with budgets being 10 times what they normally are. That's fantastic. But if you do not have the staff to actually administer that, and it's just not government staff, it's also staff that are nonprofits, it's very difficult to be able to move quickly and respond.

Robert McCartney:

In addition to staffing and other administrative capacity, Harris says a shortage of low-cost housing units restricts the ability to find long-term housing solutions.

Amanda Harris:

Our biggest issue right now is lack of available units. We have resources, we have vouchers, but we cannot find units to rent. Part of that is just because the housing market is really tight, the vacancy rate is extremely low.

The other part of that is landlords are less willing to take a risk on our population. I do believe there is some maybe unintentional, maybe intentional discrimination.

Robert McCartney:

Harris says collaboration is key to further reducing homelessness throughout the region.

Amanda Harris:

We have to work together because it doesn't do any good for Montgomery County to say we've ended homelessness if our neighbors in Prince George's and the District of Columbia still have very high numbers.

I think one of the biggest things that needs to happen is that we need to be able to share data. Prince George's, Montgomery County and the District of Columbia currently have a data sharing agreement so we are able to share data at the aggregate level so we can identify trends. Who is using emergency shelter? If they're coming from another jurisdiction, what time of the year is that happening? Where's the unsheltered homelessness?

Robert McCartney:

Finally, let's talk to a leader in the philanthropic sector. She is Amanda Chesney, Executive Director of Homeless and Housing Services for Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Washington.

She manages no fewer than six shelters with a total of 1,500 beds for the homeless in the district, plus a family shelter in Charles County. Like Bowser, she wants to apply lessons from the fight against family homelessness to the battle against homelessness among individuals.

Amanda Chesney:

Over the last 10 years, there's been a significant emphasis on ending family homelessness, and that's had tremendous success. So in the last two years, we've kind of turned our attention to more investments to end singles homelessness.

I think working on the individual side of the homelessness system in the district in particular has been really, really difficult. There hadn't been major investments in that system or in the resources to end their homelessness in a very long time.

Robert McCartney:

That changed during the pandemic when fresh help became available for some unhoused persons who were most at risk. They benefited from an emergency initiative known as PEPVI, P-E-P-V-I for the Pandemic Emergency Program for Vulnerable Individuals.

Amanda Chesney:

It was something that the district brought on. This was like the fall of 2020 really to address those highly vulnerable medical, mental health, chronically homeless folks who were traditionally in our low-barrier shelters with a general population, but possibly older. So 55-plus and having some other chronic health condition put them in a higher vulnerability to COVID.

Robert McCartney:

Catholic Charities operated two PEPVI facilities, each with 200 beds. Because of emergency funding, the group was able to offer quality care that yielded results.

Amanda Chesney:

It was a high-intensity service and it was tremendous. I mean, for some of those folks who have not had a stable living situation and also dealing with chronic health conditions, seeing them in a stable, more private environment, you just saw a different side of these folks.

Unity Healthcare was the partner and is still the partner on the medical side onsite. So being able to have real-time onsite access to medical care so it was just life-changing for that. Having case management onsite, mental health services, positive community, access to onsite case management, I mean, it's an intense service. So these are things that I think providers like me and other stakeholders in the community have been advocating for.

Robert McCartney:

While welcoming the arrival of federal dollars, Chesney agreed with Harris of Montgomery County that the system's capacity is being stretched.

Amanda Chesney:

I think there's a lot of money. I think, again, it's kind of a timing issue. We got a ton of emergency housing vouchers and we got a ton of permanent supportive housing vouchers to address the needs of the highly vulnerable, especially singles population in the community, which was awesome.

However, me, as a provider, I now have to bid for services to match those vouchers, and I got to find those case managers. So you have the resources and you have the vouchers, and now you got to find the people to do the services and connect these things.

Then sometimes when you have the resources and you have the people, you don't have enough units. If you don't have enough units available, then where do these people go?

Robert McCartney:

Where do they go indeed? Here at the end, I share some of my own thoughts. To understand the homelessness issue, it's necessary to simultaneously entertain two conflicting thoughts.

First, there are too many unhoused people living in dangerous and socially harmful conditions, and their continued presence in public places and elsewhere is an ongoing scandal. But at the same time, the region has adopted and funded ambitious programs that have yielded impressive results in reducing homelessness. Consider the contrast between our situation and that of comparable high-priced metro areas such as Los Angeles or Seattle. All struggle to shrink the homeless population.

But the problem is more severe in West Coast cities and has become a major hot button political issue there. By contrast, the district's programs are among the nation's models. They have demonstrated that even when dealing with a chronic social ailment like homelessness, public action can make gains if the responsible agencies are given adequate resources and effective management.

The district has also supported housing affordability in general by investing more money in its housing production trust fund on a per-capita basis than any other major city.

Of course, the fight is far from over and is a difficult one. Continued success will require construction of more and better shelters, sustained outreach by housing and mental health specialists and cooperation among city and suburbs. It also requires both government and philanthropy to expand capacity to assist the unhoused. It's important to do so now to take advantage of a rare period when abundant funding is available.

Ultimately, the battle against homelessness is part of a broader campaign to provide more low-cost housing in general so that people who are leaving shelters have a place to live long-term.

I hope you've enjoyed this podcast. We welcome your feedback. Please email comments to thinkregionally, one word, at mwcog.org. This podcast is produced by Janele Partman and Lindsey Martin. This is your host, Robert McCartney, urging everyone to think regionally.