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The City of Houston has partnered with SEARCH and the Houston Coalition for the Homeless to solve the problem of homelessness through a new program called Community COVID Housing Program, which will offer permanent solutions to get the homeless off of living on the streets.
Houston Daily reached out to Marc Eichenbaum, assistant to Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, for some insight on how the City of Houston is working toward reducing and providing permanent housing for the homeless.
Eichenbaum explained that the city uses a "data proven solutions" approach to decide how to most efficiently use funding to address the problem of homelessness.
"If I have $100,000 to invest and I have ten people around the table and I ask them where I should invest, I'm going to get ten different answers," Eichenbaum told Houston Daily. "So, instead, we say if you're going to propose, show us the data. We want to invest our precious resources wherever we're going to get the biggest rate of return and our rate of return is the number of people we are transitioning off of the streets and out of our shelters and into housing permanently transitioning that person out of homelessness."
Houston has been allocated more than $26 million in emergency funds to help its homeless population, which were deemed the most vulnerable to the pandemic, Houston Chronicle reported. Keeping in line with its Housing First approach and amid fears that the coronavirus has increased homelessness in the city, Houston is directing much of its aid funding toward permanent housing and homeless prevention in hopes of having long-term solutions.
Some of the aid funding will be used to launch a two-year housing initiative called the Community COVID Housing Program. The $65 million program will offer rental and other assistance to prevent homelessness; identify and house those experiencing homelessness because of the pandemic and create more long-term housing options with supportive services available. The new program is predicted to house nearly 5,000 people by 2022, with the goal of eliminating chronic homelessness in Houston and Harris County.
"We're very excited," Eichenbaum told Houston Daily. "Last year, the city and the county working with the Coalition for the Homeless and the homeless response system announced the COVID Homeless Housing Program. Unlike many jurisdictions, Houston has a very well coordinated machine, a system can house very vulnerable individuals. What the machine was lacking was the resources."
Introduced in the 1990s, the idea of Housing First was revolutionary because it didn’t require that people living on the streets fix their problems before securing permanent housing. This approach was supported by years of research, which found that people are better able to address their individual problems when basic needs — such as food and a roof overhead — are met.
Collaboration between representatives from local government, nonprofits and other constituencies have been crucial to Houston’s success, experts say. They formed a homeless governing structure to try to ensure that funding was invested, according to Housing First principles.
In 2011, Houston had one of the highest populations in the U.S., with more than 8,400 people without access to stable housing. By the beginning of 2020, that number had decreased by about 55% to around 3,800, according to the latest government homeless census.