WRAP Releases New Report, “Without Housing”

“From Reagan to Bush for 25 years A Spirit of Abandon” -
click here to view a poster detailing the abandonment

San Francisco CA - To see a video from the event, please click here.

By Janny Castillo

“…Until this government invests billions of dollars more a year in housing for the poor, homelessness will increase and deaths will increase.” – Terri Messman, Street Spirit Editor

 “The government pegs homeless persons as dysfunctional human beings in need of habilitation. This report says, “I don’t care how many life skills training you give me, if I don’t have a place to live, I am going to be homeless.” – Paul Boden, WRAP Executive Director.

According to a US Department of Education Report more than 600,000 identified homeless students attended public schools in the 2003 – 2004 school years. These children are invisible. They will not be seen on rooftops in flood waters, trapped and afraid. Their desperate faces are not plastered across our televisions moving the country to do something, anything to help. They are survivors of a different and more subtle catastrophe.

On November 14^th, 2006 at 12:00 pm about 30 faithful activists met in front of the Philip Burton Federal Building to announce the release of a report entitled “Without Housing: Decades of Federal Housing Cutbacks, Massive Homelessness and Policy Failures written by WRAP, Western Regional Advocacy Project and five other organizations. Juan Prada from the Coalition on Homelessness organized the event.  The 80 page report documents 25 years of federal housing cuts that have resulted in an “emergence of a new and massive episode of homelessness.”

“Those on the frontline of homelessness – homeless people and the providers who serve them – are drowning in a sea of blame.” Says Paul Boden, WRAP Executive Director, “ We have joined together to speak the truth – Until Federal affordable housing programs are restored and expanded, homelessness will continue to grow.”

Since 1978, funding for HUD’s (Housing Urban Development) has dropped 65% - $83 billion in 1978 to $29 billion in 2006. How does that translate in a time of war?

According to the website www.defensenews.com in an article dated  July 21, 2005 by Peter Kaplan - The navy wants to purchase 8-12 new military navy warship DDX Destroyers at a cost of 4.7 billion each. Acquiring 8 destroyers would cost 37.6 billion. Acquiring 12 would cost 56.4 billion.

Let’s compare: 29 billion dollars for Housing - 56 billion for navy war ships.

Terri Messman, Street Spirit editor spoke at the press release. In his voice, you could hear the emotion and righteous anger from the knowledge that countless atrocities have been committed, that extreme suffering exists and that senseless deaths have occurred in the homeless community.  “Without Housing” is a massive indictment of the federal government on so many homeless people to suffer and grow old and sick on the streets.”  Terri said, “I accuse the federal government of re-writing Emma Lazarus’ words on the base of the Statue of Liberty – Give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses and this government will sentence them to die on the streets way before their time….Until this government invests billions of dollars more a year in housing for the poor, homelessness will increase and deaths will increase.”

“It is illegal to be homeless in America.” Says Lisa Gray-Garcia from the Poor News Network. “Poverty is an act of violence. And like thousands of unheard, unseen, very low income individuals living in poverty, I have been incarcerated for those crimes.” Lisa shared that it is cheaper for the government to build jails than it is to build housing.

Laurie McEroy, also from Poor News Network said, “Homeless people weren’t born homeless. We weren’t born un-housed. We are not the lost tribe. We were un-housed, destabilized due to several factors, one of which is that poor people’s housing has suffered severe cuts.”

According to the report, emergency shelters opened in cities nationwide in 1983 correlating with a drastically low HUD budget of 18 billion. Emergency shelters and service providers became the band-aid to a gaping wound called “lack of affordable housing.”

Despite the hard work of the service providers, shelters became short time solutions when few opportunities for affordable housing exists combine that with lack of affordable health care the country gave birth to chronic homelessness – HUD’s definition: homeless individuals with a disabling condition who has either been continuously homeless for a year or more or has had at least four episodes of homelessness in the past three years. We know them better as our veterans, our seniors, our mentally ill.

Sara Short from the Housing Rights Committee described the situation, “In 2006, HUD cut the housing budget at 86% of actual need based on its own study. Since then Philadelphia has threatened to lay off 300-500 workers. In Nevada, the housing authority is disposing some of their public housing units. In Indianapolis, public housing tenants are being asked to pay part of their utility bill…When staff, repairs and maintenance gets cut, crime goes up.”

Locally, Sara shared that San Francisco with a housing waiting list of 30,000 is the 10^th hardest hit in the nation. The cuts have already hurt the city’s poorest seniors. Last week the San Francisco Housing Authority laid off 35 employees starting with security monitors at senior and disabled buildings in the Tenderloin. “The cuts indicate that the federal government does not consider affordable housing their problem.” Sara said, “Local government must start thinking about alternate solutions to the homeless situation. Even with the measures the city has taken the homelessness crisis still exists.”

Wanda Reemers from Housing Rights, Inc. shared that housing for many of us, including the international community is considered a human right but in our country it is not considered a legal right. “As long as it is not a legal right, the government has no obligation.” Wanda said, “They can ignore their responsibility to make sure that every one has a home. Without a home, people are denied the right to send their kids to good schools and to have access to health care.” Wanda also says bad policies, as the report details, as well as removal of funding is to blame. “Policies that remove affordable housing that is in disrepair, displace the people who live there, and in its place builds housing for higher income people is a form of government forced evictions.”

John Malone from Senior Action Network called our attention to the fact in ten years the US population will be 49% seniors. “We need housing and health care for seniors now!” He said, “These are two human rights that need to be brought about today not yesterday.”

The main message of “Without Housing” is that federal responses to homelessness have failed and will continue to fail to resolve the problem unless they include a serious and sizable federal commitment to funding the production, subsidization, and preservation of affordable housing.

What can you do?

Read and share this report with everyone. Download it for free at www.wraphome.org or write to WRAP 2940 16^th Street, Suite 200-2, San Francisco CA 94103.

Write letters to the editor of your local paper and locally elected officials. Demand that they engage in the struggle to make “Housing a Human” right.

Support local homeless service programs that are speaking out about the systemic causes of homelessness.

To see a video from the event, please click here.

back top