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ADVOCACY
2010 MAYORAL CANDIDATE BRIEFING
In 1984, citizens and officials of the City of
Louisville and Jefferson County sought a coordinated community
response to the growing issue of homelessness.
The grassroots effort was led by two associate priests from
the Cathedral of the Assumption and Christ Church Cathedral.
They convinced Mayor Harvey Sloane to establish a
community-wide task force to examine the issue and the result in
1986 was the creation of a new nonprofit organization named The
Coalition for the Homeless, Inc.
The mission of The Coalition for the Homeless is
to advocate for people who are homeless and for the prevention and
elimination of homelessness.
The Coalition for the Homeless has been the voice of
homelessness in Louisville for almost a quarter of a century. We
work closely with homeless service providers, civic groups,
concerned citizens, faith-based organizations and local, state and
federal governments to do three things:
1)
Educate
the community about homelessness and inspire action,
2)
Advocate
for system changes, and
3)
Coordinate
the community response to homelessness through efficient use of
resources and funding.
The Coalition for the Homeless is excited to have
this opportunity to share what we believe are the leading issues
being faced by homeless persons in Louisville Metro in 2010.
We would like to see a new Mayor focus on implementation of
the 2000 Louisville Metro Plan entitled
“Reducing and Ending Homelessness: A Blueprint
for the Future.” This
report was released in 2002 and outlined ten goals with action steps
for eliminating homelessness in Jefferson County, Kentucky.
We also hope to see the new Mayor work with the Louisville
Metro Council toward adoption of the Homeless Shelter Task Force
recommendations that create an unbiased set of policies for shelter
citing and expansion regardless of size, design and neighborhood.
Homelessness cannot be fully addressed without the addition
of permanent, supportive housing which should be prioritized in the
Louisville Metro Consolidated Plan and funding to address this need
should be supported through the Louisville Metro Affordable Housing
Trust Fund. While we do
not encourage panhandling in the community, we hope to discourage
criminalizing homelessness and instead concentrate on creating and
strengthening evidenced-based support services that help homeless
persons achieve housing and independence.
Reducing Homelessness: A Blueprint for the Future
In 2000, members of the Coalition for the
Homeless began work on a plan entitled “Reducing and Ending
Homelessness: A Blueprint for the Future.”
This report was released in 2002 and outlined ten goals with
action steps for eliminating homelessness in Jefferson County,
Kentucky. In 2008, the
Coalition for the Homeless joined forces with Louisville Metro’s
Office on Homelessness to update the plan and measure progress to
date. They established a
Blueprint Task Force and eleven focus groups.
These groups met and developed an updated Blueprint for the
Future that was released by Mayor Jerry Abramson in 2009.
We encourage the new Louisville Metro Mayor to
review the Blueprint for the Future update and to provide the staff
the Coalition for the Homeless and Louisville Metro Government need
in order to continue their partnership and implement strategies laid
out in the plan. Only by
dedicating staff to this effort can we determine which efforts are
most effective and prioritize our work to eliminate homelessness.
Past financial support to the Coalition for the Homeless has
been quite effective.
The Coalition for the Homeless created a county-wide database of
homeless services to provide information to target funding to the
most effective services in the community.
We created the Homeless Partnership Grants Committee that
distributes half a million dollars in operating funds to local
homeless shelters and service facilities as well as the Metro
Louisville Continuum of Care that brings service agencies and
community representatives together to allocate and monitor over $6
million per year in federal homeless funding that would be lost to
Louisville otherwise.
Homeless Shelter Land Use Task Force
In 2009, the Louisville Metro Planning Commission
created a Homeless Shelter Land Use Task Force.
Its purpose was to propose amendments to the Land Development
Code that would address land use regulations for homeless shelters.
After five months of hard work and consideration of many
community comments, the Task Force has created and submitted their
final report to the Louisville Metro Council.
The Coalition for the Homeless believes that
Louisville Metro Council should adopt the Task Force recommendations
because they create an unbiased set of policies for shelter citing
and expansion regardless of size, design and neighborhood.
This removes the politics involved in making individual
zoning decisions for each shelter and service facility.
The Task Force’s work is also important in that it addresses
the deficiencies listed in the City’s Analysis of Impediments to
Fair Housing Choice in Louisville Metro.
Since at least 2007, this report has described the need to
develop inclusionary zoning recommendations for shelters countywide.
Corrective action is required in order to access millions in
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development funds allocated
annually for housing and community development programs.
The Homeless Shelter Land Use Task Force recommendations will
bring Louisville Metro Government in line with the Analysis of
Impediments to Fair Housing Choice recommendations and ensure that
future federal funds are not lost to the community.
Finally, the Homeless Shelter Land Use Task Force
went one step beyond just creating proposed land use regulations.
In order to ensure safe and effective services for homeless
persons and neighbors, the Task Force has proposed that shelter
licenses be conditioned on meeting Quality Assurance Standards
overseen by Metro Louisville and a third party inspector, the
Coalition for the Homeless.
Louisville was one of the first cities in the nation to
create Quality Assurance Standards for shelters and the Task Force
was thoughtful in incorporating this system into its proposed land
use regulations.
We encourage the new Louisville Metro Mayor to
review and support the Homeless Shelter Land Use Task Force
recommendations as written, including use of the Quality Assurance
Standards and licensing to ensure safe and quality services in our
community. We also
encourage the future Mayor to support a strong partnership between
the Coalition for the Homeless and Louisville Metro Government staff
in implementing these recommendations to insure that the twenty
years of experience the Coalition for the Homeless has created in
implementing these standards is not lost in a new city-run licensing
program.
Expanding the Affordable Housing Trust Fund
The 2009-2010 Louisville Metro Consolidated Plan identified
affordable housing as the highest community development priority for
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development funds.
U.S. Census data for 2000 showed that 57,524 Jefferson County
households had at least one housing problem (e.g., lacking complete
kitchen facilities, lacking of complete plumbing facilities,
over-crowding and/or paying more than 30% of their income for
housing). For
persons below 30% of the area median income,
seven in ten had at least one housing problem and over
half were spending most of their income on housing.
Mayor Jerry Abramson created an Affordable Housing Trust Fund Task
Force in 2006, after it was recommended as an objective in the
Louisville Metro Comprehensive Housing Strategy.
This decision was necessary because the Kentucky General
Assembly did not support the creation of a local affordable housing
trust fund through state funding.
The Task Force was charged with finding creative ways to
create a sustainable and renewable fund to provide affordable
housing opportunities throughout the Louisville Metro community.
The Task Force was broken down into three committees:
Revenue, Governance and Program.
The Revenue Committee of the Task Force agreed that a Housing Trust
Fund is important to address area housing needs and, in order to
achieve maximum flexibility, sustainability and effectiveness, the
Affordable Housing Trust Fund must be funded by a dedicated,
on-going revenue source(s).
They also indicated that at least $10 million per year is
required to address the great affordable housing need in the
community.
Housing is usually the largest single investment made by any
citizen.
Homeownership
increases personal wealth and an individual’s ability to contribute
to society through taxes, employment, local purchasing and
investment. Only through
investing in low-income communities through housing programs can we
begin to address the needs of troubled neighborhoods. We encourage
the new Louisville Metro Mayor to review the funding sources
identified by the Revenue Committee of the Affordable Housing Trust
Fund Task Force and work with the
Affordable Housing Trust Fund Task Force
to provide a minimum of $10 million per year in local resources for
this important local housing program.
Increasing Permanent Supportive Housing
Supportive housing is a successful,
cost-effective combination of affordable housing and services that
help people live more stable, productive lives. Supportive
housing works well for those who face the most complex
challenges—individuals and families who are not only homeless, but
who also have very low incomes and serious, persistent issues that
may include substance use, mental illness, and HIV/AIDS.
It offers people a way out of a situation that no one wants
to be in: having no stable place to live.
While supportive housing and shelters complement one another,
they are not the same thing.
Shelters work well for emergencies and short-term situations,
but not as long-term housing.
In supportive housing, residents sign leases and pay rent
just like their neighbors.
The combination of permanent housing and supportive services
helps them to live with stability, autonomy, and dignity.
It costs about the same amount of money to house
someone in stable, supportive housing as it does for that person to
remain homeless and stuck in the revolving door of high-cost crisis
care and emergency housing.
A Coalition for the Homeless study of homeless persons in
Metro Louisville found that in 2004-2005, the total cost of
providing housing and services (including the cost of emergency
shelter, transitional and permanent supportive housing, physical and
mental health services, jail and corrections) was $88.8 million for
7108 homeless individuals.
This represents an average two-year cost of $12,493 per
person. The cost for an
average efficiency apartment and utilities over the same two years
would have been $446 per month for a total of $11,592.
In other words, these homeless persons could have been stably
and permanently housed, and even after providing supportive
services, the community could potentially have saved millions of
dollars. Further,
supportive housing has been demonstrated to reduce utilization of
costly public services such as incarceration and emergency room
care.
We encourage the new Metro Louisville Mayor to
support the development of more permanent, supportive housing in
order to create permanent, cost-effective solutions for chronically
homeless persons with disabilities.
In order to do so, permanent, supportive housing should be
moved to Priority One in the Louisville Metro Consolidated Plan (as
one of the action steps toward affordable housing goals) versus
being included in the Priority Four goal of providing homeless
services. Additionally,
Low-Income Housing Tax Credits and other rental housing resources
should be sought in partnership with local developers to address
this priority community need.
Panhandling Ordinance
A city ordinance was created in 2007 making it
illegal to engage in unwelcome panhandling.
This ordinance defines panhandling as requesting an immediate
donation of money or other thing of value from another person.
This request can be spoken, written or printed and includes
requests to purchase items for an amount far exceeding their value.
Penalties for panhandling are $250 per offense and up to 90
days imprisonment.
While we feel that the Louisville Metro ordinance is written to
avoid criminalizing homeless people, the
need
outlined in the ordinance is discriminatory and the ordinance itself
can still lead to homeless and mentally ill people being unfairly
targeted since they are more visible on our city streets.
Additionally, homeless and very low-income people are unable
to pay panhandling penalties, which makes them more likely to have
to serve jail time.
Finally, if panhandlers are acting aggressively—the important and
precipitating behavior to be addressed—their actions are already
covered through assault and intoxication laws.
Therefore, we recommend that the new Louisville
Metro Mayor abandon the panhandling ordinance and, instead, create
alternatives to fining and jailing poor citizens.
Based on demonstrated outcomes in communities with model
responses to panhandling, we recommend combining an educational
campaign that explains reasons not to give to panhandlers with
initiatives that provide opportunities to give instead to agencies
serving poor and homeless persons.
Other communities with best-practice solutions include
Cleveland and Los Angeles, where food coupons are provided for those
who wish to help panhandlers, and Santa Cruz, parking meter proceeds
go to homeless shelters.
The Coalition for the Homeless would be happy to work with the new
administration to create a program that is most effective in
discouraging panhandling in Louisville Metro.
Investing in Evidence-Based Support Services
The Coalition for the Homeless has coordinated
planning and monitoring of homeless services in Louisville/Jefferson
County for almost 25 years.
We also manage the community-wide Homeless Management
Information System (HMIS) database that collects data from all area
shelters and homeless services.
Once a year, we publish a “State of Homelessness” report and
provide data on is the number and characteristics of homeless
persons in Jefferson County.
We also use data on services to prioritize programs that are
most effective in getting people housed and keeping them out of the
homeless system and our community streets.
We encourage the new Louisville Metro Mayor to
use information available from HMIS and Quality Assurance Standards
monitoring (also coordinated by Coalition for the Homeless) to
target funding to service programs that produce strong results for
the populations they serve.
Programs that fail to demonstrate effectiveness and
efficiency should receive technical assistance to improve services
and housing for those in need.
Successful housing programs providing quality, evidence-based
services should be strengthened with additional funding and
expansion opportunities.
To follow legislative issues through Bill Watch:
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