Stripping Housing Funds and Adding Barriers Won’t Move People into Stability. It Only Builds a Dead-end System Designed to Fail.
The Trump administration is turning homeless services upside down. By rescinding funding for programs that work and forcing others to put up arbitrary barriers to entry, this administration is putting thousands of people at risk of homelessness while at the same time making it more and more difficult for anyone to secure stable housing.
This upending is being framed as a shift away from long-term housing and toward so-called “transitional” housing efforts. But for a temporary program to be truly transitional, there actually has to be somewhere on the other side for people to transition to. Otherwise, it’s just a dead end.
This Is Bad
Ever since the changes were announced, advocates have been pointing out how this system is doomed to fail. It is obvious to everyone, even those somewhat in the know, that these changes will result in more homeless people, not fewer. And the new approach will worsen conditions for unhoused people, making it even more difficult to ever escape homelessness. For Trump and his team, this cruelty seems to be the point.
Under the new policies, aid will be withheld from homeless people who can’t prove that they are employed or who decline to be placed in a treatment program for drug use or mental illness. Only after you jump through the hoops you’re told to jump through will you be eligible to receive the help you actually came for.
According to a statement from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, officials in that office believe that they need “to address the root causes of homelessness, including illicit drugs and mental illness.” However, the root cause of homelessness is neither illicit drugs nor mental illness, but rather the lack of affordable housing. These new policies do nothing to address the real root cause and further stigmatize some of the most vulnerable and maligned people in the country today.
The HUD statement also alleges that, “the failed ‘Housing First’ ideology…encourages dependence on endless government handouts.” The research tells a much different story. Housing First is far from a failed ideology. It is actually the most evidence-based approach we have, backed by decades of research and practical application. And it is a focus on temporary measures to the exclusion of permanent solutions that will force people to remain dependent on receiving what scraps the government can be bothered to dole out.
Housing First Works
It doesn’t take a genius to understand that solving the most urgent problem first gives people space and bandwidth to address any other problems more effectively. Unfortunately, geniuses are not what we’re working with in the current administration.
Housing First programs allow you to put your oxygen mask on first, breathe, and then act on any other issues that need solving with the benefit of a well-oxygenated brain that’s no longer in fight or flight mode. Treatment-first programs hold the oxygen mask just out of your reach while telling you they’ll hand it to you as soon as you tie your shoes. The priorities are all wrong, and the whole system ends up being counterproductive.
The benefit of treatment-first programs for a government is that it allows them to drastically scale back programs while still looking virtuous. Fewer and fewer people are deemed “worthy” of actually receiving aid because they’re being screened out before they can access it by a needless test. Still, the test seems reasonable and easy enough for people who have never been in that situation, so all the blame gets put on the poor person. The government says, “all I asked them to do was tie their shoes, it’s really not that hard, and it’s a skill that any functioning member of society should be able to do,” and the populace nods along, missing the greater context.
Temporary Programs Keep People Stuck
Trump’s focus on temporary solutions will keep people stuck in so-called “transitional” programs that don’t offer any clear path to transition. We’re already seeing this in areas that overfocus on band-aid solutions because they’re cheaper, even though they don’t invest in the permanent housing that will actually solve the problem once and for all. This keeps people in the system, stuck and dependent on the “handouts” that this government is so loath to give out. It goes against everything the Trump administration pays lip service to, but what else is new?
Perhaps being stuck in a temporary solution wouldn’t be so bad if it adequately met your needs and kept a roof over your head, but with a government that’s so clearly antagonistic to the basic idea of providing for its people, it’s understandable that someone would feel ill at ease relying on their goodwill. People are already having their lives uprooted by the current changes, and it’s likely only a matter of time before the next switch-up.
What Is the Goal?
Since it is obvious to anyone with a basic understanding of cause and effect that these changes are destined to force more people into homelessness and keep them there longer, we have to wonder what the goal is for the people who pushed the policy through, anyway.
At this point, the generous read would be that they’re simply operating on the private equity model of slowly (or rapidly) reducing the level of services provided until eventually all the protections we used to enjoy are completely eroded. And that’s bad enough, but the alternative is worse.
In the greater context of everything playing out in the world today, this feels like a push to intentionally make the problem worse and worse as a way to manufacture consent for even greater mistreatment of homeless people. We are already seeing mass criminalization of homelessness, unhoused people being harassed by police and the public just for existing, and a rise in violent attacks against homeless people.
But what’s most concerning to me is how often “mandatory treatment” programs are being suggested, even in blue states like California. The sentiment that certain people need to be institutionalized against their will or “for their own good” is a very scary one, and it seems to be on the rise even among people who once pleaded for the courts to “free Britney.” The desensitization to dehumanization we’re seeing all around us now is very dangerous. People always forget that this is a weapon that can and will be turned on them, eventually. Choosing which type of people are deserving of human rights like housing and the autonomy to make their own treatment decisions is a losing battle. You may not have drawn the short end of the stick today, but you will one day, and there will be even fewer people left to fight for you then.