Averting youth homelessness in Victoria

A typical studio provided by Kids Under Cover.

From The Guardian

Space is scarce in Natasha’s* family home in Gippsland in regional Victoria, where up to five children and two adults share the three-bedroom home, along with their cat and two pet ducks. The cramped quarters can lead to household tension. “It doesn’t fit all of us,” she says.

A portable two-bedroom apartment, planted in their back yard, has eased those concerns. The Indigenous mother and stepmother of five says she noticed a profound change in her 18-year-old son, Dylan*, when he started living in the studio.

“We’ve been blessed with the two-bedroom [portable] to enable that extra room that sits in the back yard,” Natasha says. “It’s a safe roof over the kid’s head while we try to work towards a future in a place more suitable for us all.”

Dylan lives with an intellectual disability and was recently reunited with his mother along with his younger brother, Isaiah*, after both boys spent years in the out-of-home care system.

The family, with support from the Victorian Aboriginal Child and Community Agency, reached out to Kids Under Cover, a long-running charity that supports young people facing housing insecurity or homelessness by providing studios which can be installed into any back yard, private rental or social housing property.

“He was very vulnerable already … we struggled with a lot of challenges, but he’s become really independent and has made more friends,” Natasha says.

Despite some challenges, since coming home both boys have thrived. Isaiah, a year 9 student, now loves playing football and going to school and volunteering at a local train museum. He has even won a scholarship to assist with school supplies.

“He’s really happy, he’s in his own element,” Natasha says. “He’s always loved trains, but never been able to go on them or do anything like that so we’ve been able to engage him in some volunteer work with a local tourist railway to gain experience.”

The chief executive of Kids Under Cover, Stephen Nash, says early intervention was the key to keeping at-risk children like Dylan and Isiah at home.

“If people fall into homelessness, it is really dangerous and damaging and can lead to the onset of mental health problems, drug and alcohol problems to survive the stress of homelessness,” Nash says.

The studios give young people a private space to sleep, study, and find some calm, reducing overcrowding and resulting tensions, while ensuring families can stay together, Nash says.

“For a lot of these families there’s no lounge room, because people are sleeping in the lounge rooms. People are tripping over each other,” he says.

An estimated 7,500 Victorian children and teenagers under 18 are without a place to sleep on any given night. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people are over-represented and make up more than a third of young people experiencing homelessness.

About 1,000 young people sleep in roughly 680 studios provided by Kids Under Cover in Victoria, with independent research commissioned by the charity suggesting overall homelessness in the state has been reduced by 12%. Nash has urged the Victorian government, which committed $6.5m in 2021, to expand its support for the program.

“Keep them connected to family, get them through school, and get them on to a much better path in life than to simply fall into the out of home care system or youth justice, and suffer the damage of homelessness along the way,” Nash says.

Aristea* credits the charity for allowing her the space and the clarity to study and finish high school and eventually study law at university.

The now 27-year-old was sharing a room with her mum at 13 years old and says finding the space to study was next to impossible, affecting both her studies and her family. “It’s hard when you’re living in an overcrowded home, it can be a very stressful environment to live in, having to manage everyone’s emotions and conflicts,” she says.

Aristea’s family were given a two-bedroom studio shortly after she entered high school with the teenager sharing the flat with her sister. “It was great. I had that independence that you really crave in those teenage years, just that little bit of distance,” she says.

*Names changed for privacy

 

The interior of one of the studios. Photograph: Jo-Anna Robinson

This is the Kids Under Cover website

Colorado's solution to chronic homelessness

Solid Ground, a 40-unit supportive housing apartment complex, seen June 4, 2024, in Lakewood. (Olivia Sun, The Colorado Sun via Report for America)

From The Colorado Sun

When Solid Ground Apartments opens next week in Lakewood, it comes with proof of concept — giving people who are homeless a place to live, no strings attached, not only changes their lives but can save public money.

The new 40-unit complex is the first permanent supportive housing project in Colorado to copy Sanderson Apartments, which welcomed its first residents in 2017 as a national model in solving homelessness.

Both projects are run by community mental health centers and both invite people who are living outside — the ones burning through taxpayer dollars as they cycle in and out of jail, detox and hospital emergency rooms — to move directly into their own apartments.

A third, similar project is also in the works, set to open next spring. At the same time Jefferson Center for Mental Health prepares to welcome its first residents at Solid Ground, Denver’s mental health center, WellPower, announced it is breaking ground on a 60-unit project called Sheridan on 10th.

Solid Ground, as well as WellPower’s Sheridan on 10th, will have on-site mental health services, peer support specialists and case managers, all of which are available to residents but not required. Residents don’t have to have jobs and it’s OK if they have criminal records or are not sober or in recovery. Still, the “low-barrier” apartments have some rules — residents cannot cook illegal drugs on site, or start a fire to keep warm in the courtyard, or commit violent acts.

It’s not a step-up program intended to push people toward jobs and finding their own, independent apartments. The housing is available to them for as long as they want to stay.

“It means that people have a permanent home from the first day they move in,” Kuenzler said.

Both new buildings are designed for people who have grown used to sleeping outdoors, which means light-filled rooms, an abundance of plants, no dark hallways and plenty of outdoor space. At Solid Ground, residents can bring their dogs, and there is a community barbecue for people to use. The laundry room was strategically placed in a corner of the building so it has two walls with windows looking outside, creating a bright, airy feeling uncommon for a typical laundromat.

“We have heard time and again that laundry rooms are triggering areas,” said Taylor Clepper, Jefferson Center’s director of navigation and housing services and project manager for the complex. People who are homeless have been assaulted in laundromats, gotten into altercations about machines and belongings, and had their tent, cart or other belongings stolen outside while they were doing laundry.

The entire building is structured to make people feel comfortable and safe, in the hope that it will lead to recovery from mental health issues and substance use.

“There is a kind of dichotomy on the streets,” Clepper said. “There is safety that is created. There are groups, communities that form and really create safety for individuals and that’s where they feel safest. Conversely, there is a lot of trauma that happens on the streets. It’s a both-and situation, and we are trying to meet people where they are.”

“Trauma-informed” furniture was arriving at Sold Ground this week, including beds made for people accustomed to sleeping on the hard ground. Instead of wooden slats under the mattress, the beds have a wooden platform so people can remove the mattress and sleep directly on the wood.

Sleeping inside “feels very different than not having four walls around you or feeling the sun come up over your head,” Clepper said. The couches are narrow by design, to encourage people to try sleeping in their beds. Sleeping in the courtyard will not be encouraged, but it isn’t a deal-breaker. Overnight guests are allowed, but with restrictions, because it’s typically not the resident but the resident’s friends that lead to evictions, Clepper said.

Case managers will be on site, 24-7.

“We are going to work on housing first and then we will work on the rest,” Clepper said. “The goal is not to kick people out if there is a safe way to work with you. This is low-barrier housing and the intention is to keep them housed.”

There is evidence, based on years of studying and following up with the residents of Sanderson Apartments in Denver, that it works.

The Urban Institute tracked people’s usage of emergency services, hospital stays and the criminal justice system before and after moving into Sanderson.

The national think tank found that the first 250 residents had cost the government a total of $7.3 million per year when they lived outside and in shelters. After they were housed, researchers found a 40% reduction in arrests, a 30% reduction in jail stays, a 65% decrease in detox services and a 40% drop in emergency department visits.

The reductions made up for half of the cost of the program, which was started with $8.6 million from eight private investors as well as local housing resources.

The institute’s research also found that 86% of people in the program were still housed after one year, and 77% were still housed after three years.

The 60 units at Sanderson Apartments were originally filled through Denver’s “social impact bond,” a public-private partnership that included selecting the highest-users of the health care and criminal justice systems and inviting them to move in. Private companies loaned money to the mental health center and the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless to build the complex, and the city paid them back with the savings created through decreased arrests, jail time, detox and emergency room visits.

The Urban Institute said its findings about Sanderson Apartments “disrupt the false narratives that homelessness is an unsolvable problem and that people who experience chronic homelessness choose to live on the street.” Researchers called for expanding supportive housing, arguing it could “end homelessness, break the homelessness-jail cycle.”

All the construction, funded largely by tax credits and grants, would make it seem that Colorado has turned a corner in how it gets its chronically homeless population off the streets. Have the years since the COVID pandemic, when homelessness was more visible and entrenched than ever, convinced people that government-funded, permanent housing is the solution?

“I would love to say yes to that,” said Kiara Kuenzler, president and CEO of Jefferson Center. But “I think there is still a lot of stigma, and sometimes the more visible folks without houses are in communities, the more that people can stigmatize and want to push away what is uncomfortable.”

Bringing neighbors and the public in general around to the idea is “requiring a lot more dialogue — even more dialogue now than when homelessness was less visible.”

Kuenzler often tells skeptics that people without housing are going to live in their neighborhoods anyway, so “whether they are in a tent or whether they are in an apartment with wraparound services really makes a difference.”

Older homeless women

 From a toot by artist Myles

I got back on the spray cans this weekend. I'm happy with this tester. She's ready for the streets

Finland ends homelessness

Almost.

From Scoop.me

In Finland, the number of homeless people has fallen sharply. The reason: The country applies the “Housing First” concept. Those affected by homelessness receive a small apartment and counselling – without any preconditions. 4 out of 5 people affected thus make their way back into a stable life. And: All this is cheaper than accepting homelessness.

Finland is the only country in Europe where homelessness is in decline.  In 2008 you could see tent villages and huts standing between trees in the parks of Helsinki. Homeless people had built makeshift homes in the middle of Finland’s capital city. They were exposed to harsh weather conditions.

Since the 1980s, Finnish governments had been trying to reduce homelessness. Short-term shelters were built. However, long-term homeless people were still left out. There were too few emergency shelters and many affected people did not manage to get out of homelessness: They couldn’t find jobs – without a housing address. And without any job, they couldn’t find a flat. It was a vicious circle. Furthermore, they had problems applying for social benefits. All in all, homeless people found themselves trapped.

But in 2008 the Finnish government introduced a new policy for the homeless: It started implementing the “Housing First” concept. Since then the number of people affected has fallen sharply.

Finland has set itself a target: Nobody should have to live on the streets – every citizen should have a residence.

And the country is successful: It is the only EU-country where the number of homeless people is declining.

It is NGOs such as the “Y-Foundation” that provide housing for people in need. They take care of the construction themselves, buy flats on the private housing market and renovate existing flats. The apartments have one to two rooms. In addition to that, former emergency shelters have been converted into apartments in order to offer long-term housing.

“It was clear to everyone that the old system wasn’t working; we needed radical change,” says Juha Kaakinen, Director of the Y-Foundation.

Homeless people turn into tenants with a tenancy agreement. They also have to pay rent and operating costs. Social workers, who have offices in the residential buildings, help with financial issues such as applications for social benefits.

Juha Kaakinen is head of the Y-Foundation. The NGO receives discounted loans from the state to buy housing. Additionally, social workers caring for the homeless and future tenants are paid by the state. The Finnish lottery, on the other hand, supports the NGO when it buys apartments on the private housing market. The Y-Foundation also receives regular loans from banks. The NGO later uses the rental income to repay the loans.

“We had to get rid of the night shelters and short-term hostels we still had back then. They had a very long history in Finland, and everyone could see they were not getting people out of homelessness. We decided to reverse the assumptions.” (Juha Kaakinen, Director of the Y-Foundation)

The policy applied in Finland is called “HousingFirst”. It reverses conventional homeless aid. More commonly, those affected are expected to look for a job and free themselves from their psychological problems or addictions. Only then they get help in finding accommodation.

“Housing First”, on the other hand, reverses the path: Homeless people get a flat – without any preconditions. Social workers help them with applications for social benefits and are available for counselling in general. In such a new, secure situation, it is easier for those affected to find a job and take care of their physical and mental health.

The result is impressive: 4 out of 5 homeless people will be able to keep their flat for a long time with “Housing First” and lead a more stable life.

In the last 10 years, the “Housing First” programme provided 4,600 homes in Finland. In 2017 there were still about 1,900 people living on the streets – but there were enough places for them in emergency shelters so that they at least didn’t have to sleep outside anymore.

Creating housing for people costs money. In the past 10 years, 270 million euros were spent on the construction, purchase and renovation of housing as part of the “Housing First” programme. However, Juha Kaakinen points out, this is far less than the cost of homelessness itself. Because when people are in emergency situations, emergencies are more frequent: Assaults, injuries, breakdowns. The police, health care and justice systems are more often called upon to step in – and this also costs money.  In comparison, “Housing First” is cheaper than accepting homelessness: Now, the state spends 15,000 euros less per year per homeless person than before.

With 4 out of 5 people keeping their flats, “Housing First” is effective in the long run. In 20 percent of the cases, people move out because they prefer to stay with friends or relatives – or because they don’t manage to pay the rent. But even in this case they are not dropped. They can apply again for an apartment and are supported again if they wish.

Of course, there is no guarantee for success. Especially homeless women are more difficult to reach: They conceal their emergency situation more often: They live on the streets less frequently and rather stay with friends or acquaintances.

[The author of this piece is Kontrast.at/Kathrin Glösel ]

The best solutions to social problems are often not the free-market ones favoured by neo-liberalism.  It turns out that the Finnish solution to homelessness saves money as well as being more humane.  Will those infatuated with neo-liberalism learn from this?  Prolly not.

The answer to homelessness

Finnish social housing (Source)

From The New Daily:

Finland has the distinction of being the only European country where homelessness has decreased in recent years, and the rest of the world is starting to take notice.

Between 2008 and 2016, long-term homelessness in Finland was slashed by a staggering 35 per cent.

By contrast, homelessness in Australia rose 13.7 per cent over the five years to 2016, according to census data.

A decade ago, Finland decided to tackle chronic homelessness by providing permanent housing — individual apartments rather than temporary shelter accommodation — to rough sleepers and others in the grip of long-term homelessness. It’s success has been remarkable.

The model is known as Housing First.

One of Finland’s biggest advocates of Housing First is Juha Kaakinen, CEO of Y-Foundation, a social housing organisation which has provided more than 6000 homes to former rough sleepers, and 10,000 homes to low-income families and individuals.

“Housing is the foundation for solving other issues. That was the change in thinking,” Mr Kaakinen said.

“You don’t need to be ‘housing ready’, it’s not a reward after you’ve solved your issues. It’s the basis for solving them.”

The program has been both a social and economic success.

Providing a homeless person with permanent housing in a supported housing unit saves the government approximately €15,000 ($23,400) per person per year, according to an evaluation of the program by the Technical University of Tampere, with savings mainly coming from reduced use of health services and institutional care.

A solution for homelessness

Each night, tens of thousands of people sleep in tent cities crowding the palm-lined boulevards of Los Angeles, far more than any other city in the nation. The homeless population in the entertainment capital of the world has hit new record highs in each of the past few years.

But a 39-year-old struggling musician from South LA thought he had a creative fix. Elvis Summers, who went through stretches of homelessness himself in his 20s, raised over $100,000 through crowdfunding campaigns last spring. With the help of professional contractors and others in the community who sign up to volunteer through his nonprofit, Starting Human, he has built dozens of solar-powered, tiny houses to shelter the homeless since.

Summers says that the houses are meant to be a temporary solution that, unlike a tent, provides the secure foundation residents need to improve their lives. "The tiny houses provide immediate shelter," he explains. "People can lock their stuff up and know that when they come back from their drug treatment program or court or finding a job all day, their stuff is where they left it."

Each house features a solar power system, a steel-reinforced door, a camping toilet, a smoke detector, and even window alarms. The tiny structures cost Summers roughly $1,200 apiece to build.

LA city officials, however, had a different plan to address the crisis. A decade after the city's first 10-year plan to end homelessness withered in 2006, Mayor Eric Garcetti announced in February a $1.87 billion proposal to get all LA residents off the streets, once and for all. He and the City Council aim to build 10,000 units of permanent housing with supportive services over the next decade. In the interim, they are shifting funds away from temporary and emergency shelters.

Councilmember Curren Price, who represents the district where Summers's tiny houses were located, does not believe they are beneficial either to the community or to the homeless people housed in them. "I don't really want to call them houses. They're really just boxes," says Price. "They're not safe, and they impose real hazards for neighbors in the community."

Most of Summers's tiny houses are on private land that has been donated to the project. A handful had replaced the tents that have proliferated on freeway overpasses in the city. Summers put them there until he could secure a private lot to create a tiny house village similar to those that already exist in Portland, Seattle, Austin, and elsewhere. "My whole issue and cause is that something needs to be done right now," Summers emphasizes.

But the houses, nestled among dour tent shantytowns, became brightly colored targets early this year for frustrated residents who want the homeless out of their backyards. Councilmember Price was bombarded by complaints from angry constituents.

In February, the City Council responded by amending a sweeps ordinance to allow the tiny houses to be seized without prior notice. On the morning of the ninth, just as the mayor and council gathered at City Hall to announce their new plan to end homelessness, police and garbage trucks descended on the tiny homes, towing three of them to a Bureau of Sanitation lot for disposal. Summers managed to move eight of the threatened houses into storage before they were confiscated, but their residents were left back on the sidewalk.

If the city won't devote any resources to supporting novel solutions, Summers urges officials at least to make it easier for private organizations and individuals like him to pave the way forward. The city owns thousands of vacant lots, many of which have been abandoned for decades, that could provide sites for tiny house villages or other innovative housing concepts that can have an immediate impact.

"Everything that they have been doing doesn't work. It's just years of circles and bureaucratic holds and wait times," says Summers. "10, 20, 30, 40 years—where's all the housing?"


 Read more here