The Framework for an Equitable COVID-19 Homelessness Response
Priorities from People Living with Disabilities
About
Why was this document created?
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to unfold, old patterns are reasserting themselves with historically marginalized communities being left out of the planning and response process. These patterns have resulted in predictable gaps in the pandemic response that have left our most marginalized neighbors at unacceptable risk. There is a clear need for further guidance to local jurisdictions who are planning for the response and recovery of the pandemic, in order to ensure that the priorities of historically marginalized communities are centered in the response.
How was this document created?
The National Working Group on Historically Marginalized Communities
The National Innovation Service (NIS) Center for Housing Justice team, along with other national leaders, started by creating a national working group on historically marginalized communities. The working group brings together a small group of national and local policy experts and advocates alongside direct service providers and people serving the communities most impacted by the pandemic. It includes representatives from mid-sized cities, rural areas, and denser cities.
Listening Sessions
Population Specific Briefs
After conducting the listening sessions, the NIS Center for Housing Justice created population-specific briefs to summarize the ideas of each of the ten communities and offer suggested actions that local jurisdictions can take in response to the concerns and priorities raised by people who are being marginalized. This document focuses on the concerns and priorities of People Living with Disabilities participating in the listening session.
How is the document organized?
The brief is organized around 4 categories:
Space
Stuff
Staff
Systems
The four categories are based off of Dr. Paul Farmer’s Space, Stuff, Staff, and Systems Framework, a regular theme for Farmer across his work to address global health crises. These four categories are used in this brief to identify and organize essential elements within what people are experiencing and how best to respond to these experiences. You can read more about his framework here.
Under each of the 4 categories there are two sections:
What we heard
What we should do
The what we heard section summarizes the direct response of listening session participants who identified themselves as living with a disability. The what we should do section offers up suggested actions from the NIS Center for Housing Justice that local jurisdictions can take in response to the concerns and priorities raised by People Living with Disabilities in the listening session. There are no audio clips included in this brief because participants did not grant permission to share audio.
To download an interactive pdf of the information below, click here.
Space
What we Heard
Create more units of affordable housing, including fixing up vacant houses. The lack of housing is “disgusting” and “ridiculous,” there are too many people living outside waiting for housing, and affordable housing programs do not build enough housing. Municipal and state governments are well aware of this problem and should invest in fixing up the vacant houses that exist in many cities, as well as building new affordable housing.
Build accessible and high quality affordable housing. Much of the affordable housing is not good quality housing and not accessible to people living with disabilities. People who have been placed in housing find themselves fighting to get out of substandard housing, and few well-maintained and accessible buildings taking Section 8 and other housing vouchers. Policy grounded in respect for everyone would include affordable housing that meets people’s accessibility needs and that is good quality. As one person put it, “Just because we’re homeless doesn’t mean we’re nobody. We all have a story, and we’re just as important as everybody else.”
Support people facing eviction. There is a lot of concern that there will be massive evictions once the housing courts are open again post-moratoriums, due to people’s loss of income and health expenses. There are local groups raising money to help people in their networks who will likely be facing eviction, and government funding should be directed at those community-based efforts.
What We Should Do
Develop affordable housing in the most impacted communities and target those most impacted by structural inequity. People experiencing homelessness and leaders in the field agree: housing solves homelessness. Communities should use CDBG-CV dollars to invest in neighborhoods with high numbers of vacant houses or housing below code in order to create additional housing options for people experiencing homelessness and ESG-CV dollars to target rental assistance to members of marginalized communities to be used in the communities being revitalized and in any neighborhood of their choice. Simultaneously communities should end the decades-long practice of divesting in operating funds. Include long-term operating fund/reinvestment clauses in any new development occurring alongside CDBG-CV dollars. These investments would also allow communities to begin to think about alternative housing development and sustainability models and structures including affordable housing that is fully owned and operated by individuals and housing collectives in the community, removing private landlords from the engagement.
Extend eviction moratoriums and enact rent freezes till the end of the pandemic. The most effective eviction prevention strategies available are to extend legislation or emergency declarations that create eviction moratoriums. Additionally, jurisdictions should actively look into rent freezes as the country continues to slide into an economic downturn. This should be paired with mortgage relief to owners of affordable housing buildings, including naturally affordable housing, and targeted rental assistance to ensure that affordable housing units are not lost during the pandemic and ongoing economic crisis.
Target eviction prevention to those at the highest risk of homelessness. Eviction prevention and diversion programs that are offered on a first-come-first served basis often perpetuate inequity in the system. CARES Act prevention funds should be targeted to those most at risk of homelessness, or who have been historically marginalized, not just those at risk of eviction during the current crisis. This risk assessment should assess for for the effects of structural inequity such as:
high vulnerability to COVID-19 complications
social determinants of health
community level factors such as zip code that indicate marginalization and disparities in facing COVID-19 or experiences of homelessness
involvement in systems with high levels of disproportionality such as child welfare and justice
lack of access to basic services such as quality, safe housing within a community, employment opportunities, health care, food, and transportation
Stuff
What We Heard
Provide full-service healthcare. While there is increasing access to testing and treatment for COVID-19, people should also be able to access quality health screenings and care for other conditions.
Remove EBT, TANF, and SNAP restrictions and provide better food. EBT, TANF, and SNAP benefits sometimes restrict people from purchasing hot food. This is a major problem for people without homes, who do not have a place to cook food that is not already prepared, and those restrictions should be eliminated. Service providers should also provide better and healthier food.
Fund free, publicly accessible wifi and unlimited phone minutes. While access to Wifi is always an issue, it is a particular issue in the context of COVID-19, because many libraries and community centers with computers are still closed and most information about COCID-19 resources is only available online. Moreover, for people with government phones, the limited minutes have been a problem because now everything they have to do is on the phone. There is an immediate need for funding for free and accessible wifi, as well as phones with unlimited access to the internet.
Provide job training and placement support, including in affordable housing construction. People need to be able to maintain housing once they are placed, and for people who are able to work, it is important that they have access to paid skills training in a trade or other higher-wage sector and/or free college and other higher education courses. In addition, affordable housing organizations should hire people experiencing homelessness or who have recently been housed to help construct and fix up homes and train other people to do that.
What We Should Do
Fund and support people living with disabilities led health organizations and those that employ practitioners living with disabilities. Health and behavioral health issues continue to be intimately linked to some communities’ experiences of homelessness--often in ways that directly relate to that population’s ability to access healthcare. This can be compounded by also being a member of another marginalized community; there is evidence demonstrating that the needs of historically marginalized populations are not adequately accounted for in the treatment methodologies for a variety of behavioral health issues. Considering, individuals with pre-existing conditions are at some of the highest risk for complications from COVID-19, as communities look at CARES Act spending they should allow supportive service spending on health and behavioral health resources and target them towards historically marginalized communities, including those living with disabilities. States and jurisdictions that have not expanded medicaid should also be aggressively working to do so in order to increase healthcare coverage.
Ensure safe access to food and other critical human needs. Basic human services are often not accessible for people living with disabilities During the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, one of those basic needs often denied is access to hot food. As CARES Act dollars are used to develop new service delivery models, communities must address the unique challenges faced by people living with disabilities and ensure safe access to food and other basic needs, this may include delivering groceries, cash support for groceries, and supporting safe transportation options to food assistance centers. Jurisdictions should also work with their state governments to immediately suspend any additional state-level regulations on SNAP, TANF, or EBT benefits via emergency powers while working with legislators to create longer term changes.
Invest in broadband access and device acquisition to ensure access to services. The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated digital equity issues across the country. Communities of color and other marginalized groups are having tremendous difficulty continuing to access basic supports since the majority of them have transitioned to online administration. In order to address these issues communities need to create immediate plans to invest in broadband access and device acquisition programs for those with the highest need--particularly people who are experiencing homelessness and living with disabilities who may be essentially “homebound” during this time. As mentioned elsewhere, communities divesting from policing and other “public safety” responses to homelessness can use the funds to invest in rapidly addressing these issues.
Address systemic barriers to employment for people living with disabilities and the ways they impact access to permanent housing. Access to income and employment opportunities are one of the largest barriers to obtaining and retaining safe housing for people living with disabilities.. When targeting ESG-CV rental assistance to marginalized communities, the models must consider the unique employment barriers these communities face and set flexible time limits on rental assistance. The rental assistance also needs to be paired with specialized employment navigation and supports that can establish a network of trusted employers and offer legal advocacy services when needed. Jurisdictions who are in the process of rehabbing buildings to provide housing options should consider engaging people experiencing homelessness to provide labor for construction and should also consider staffing supportive housing programs with people who have experienced homelessness as those units come online.
Staff
What We Heard
Ensure that police treat people well and show up when people need protection. The police too often mistreat people living outside and do not address the needs of people living in “problem” housing complexes. The government should not waste money on “retraining” police, but should rather ensure that they show up to help people when they are called and do not engage violently.
What We Should Do
Remove policing from the homelessness system. People experiencing homelessness have consistently reported extremely high levels of unhelpful police engagement; for people living with disabilities, particularly those who are Black and Brown, these encounters can lead to violence or even death. As communities plan their CARES Act expenditures it’s clear that these dollars should not be used to fund policing activities--inclusive of ‘outreach’ teams that include police or encampment enforcement that often includes violent sweeps.
Systems
What We Heard
Defund shelters, which are actively harmful and should not be central to the homeless service system. Shelters are inhumane, are not well maintained, and offer no privacy or security. Funding for shelters should be redirected to building and fixing up affordable apartments, condos, and houses. Shelter could exist for emergency situations, such as for people escaping domestic violence. But it would be better to invest in transitional housing and safe houses for people leaving domestic violence situations.
Create a single housing application process and waitlist per jurisdiction. In many places, people are on many different waitlists run by different organizations. This is not only confusing, but means that some people miss out on housing opportunities if each list does not have the most up-to-date information. A single housing waitlist would ensure that everyone had one place to go to fill out and update information, as well as check on the status of their application.
Simplify the housing application process. The housing application process is too long and involves too much paperwork and too many different checks. Even after being approved for housing, people have to wait months before they can move into their new homes. In addition to creating one centralized application process and waitlist, the application should be simplified and the barriers to entry should be lowered. In particular, there needs to be a more holistic approach to assessing credit history, where people are not automatically denied housing based on limited or bad credit.
Pass and enforce source of income discrimination legislation. A lot of landlords discriminate against people who have Section 8 and other housing vouchers, and jurisdictions must enforce legal action against landlords who engage in source of income discrimination.
Distribute services evenly across states. Whether or not someone has access to affordable housing or the related services they need should not depend on where they live in a particular state. The same services should be accessible in all jurisdictions in a state.
What We Should Do
Implement a crisis response that ends the use of large congregate shelters and creates dignity - based, safe, temporary crisis options as a bridge to long-term housing. Current approaches to shelter that utilize large congregate settings are often actively harming people. Rather than complex and harmful shelter programs, communities should begin to transition their resources to creating an array of dignity-based, safe , temporary crisis options. Cares Act funds should be used to abolish large congregate shelters and create systems that house people rather than simply warehouse them. This will require long-term planning to shift funding away from large congregate shelters and toward:
hotel/motel/SRO options for temporary use,
The re-shaping of transitional housing stock to create more dignity based crisis options.
targeted prevention and diversions services, including financial support to kinship networks and direct cash transfers to individuals and families, that leads to less dependence on formal crisis options and
more immediate and direct access to long term housing through rental assistance and the development of affordable housing prioritized for marginalized communities.
The work of many cities, counties, and states to move people into non-congregate emergency housing during COVID-19 serves as a proof point that it is possible to re-imagine crisis options that offers a safer, more dignified solution. Communities need to continue and improve upon these efforts with CARES ACT funds in order to fully realize a system with no large congregate shelters.
Create centralized access to homelessness assistance and affordable housing across a community. Homeless assistance and affordable housing programs have differing eligibility requirements, applications processes, and waiting list. This leads to major barriers to accessing housing programs for people experiencing homelessness, with individuals often waiting on multiple waiting lists for multiple years. Coordinated Entry has attempted to solve these issues across homeless dedicated resources but due to lack of adequate resources and lack of coordination with affordable housing programs, the problem remains. As more resources are allocated to homelessness and housing through CARES Act and funds being divested from police, communities must centralize the access to all programs through coordinated entry.
Ban income discrimination at the federal, state, and local level. Source of income discrimination can be banned at any level of government. Jurisdictions should take up whatever legislative process is necessary to accomplish this and housing agencies should fully fund enforcement efforts and may consider CDBG-CV as a possible funding source.
Build, support, and fund dignity-based services led by people living with disabilities and other communities most impacted by homelessness. As CARES Act dollars are used to develop new service delivery models, dignity-centered care and service delivery must become the standard across all services and systems. Dignity-centered care in this context means implementing a holistic approach that seeks to comprehensively address the short and long term needs of people living with disabilities; ensures accessibility across the full geography, especially in rural communities, using accessible technology and mobile solutions; and to increased access to services operated by people living with disabilities. Communities should implement new performance management systems that prioritize feedback from people who are experiencing homelessness, including the people living with disabilities, routinely engage frontline staff in identifying policy barriers to serving individuals, and inform local and federal policy changes.