Women, children, and credited cast members first

You have lifeboats in the water.

But you have fewer lifeboats than passengers.

We thought they were enough, for the ship could never sink

What do you do?

Get away from the wreck as quickly as possible?

As reported in the Boston Globe, that dilemma confronts Julia Kehoe:

Julia E. Kehoe, the commissioner of the Department of Transitional Assistance, which oversees state shelters, said the system is “overburdened” and must change to provide services more equitably.

Trying to provide services equitably: Julia Kehoe

[Full disclosure; I worked with Julia when she was executive director of the Metropolitan Boston Housing Partnership.  MBHP does great work, and Julia's good people, so I'm biased. – Ed.]

Key to these programs is the department’s name, Transitional Assistance.  As the Web site says:

At DTA, we provide individuals and families with food assistance, job assistance, cash assistance and emergency shelter.

DTA administers benefits such as Food Stamp Benefits, Transitional Aid to Families with Dependent Children (TAFDC), Emergency Aid to the Elderly, Disabled and Children (EAEDC) and Emergency Assistance (EA).   Because DTA emphasizes transitional assistance, recipients are encouraged to participate in education, training and job search activities to assist in obtaining employment, which helps us all achieve our potential and maximizes our independence.  With our support, our clients are given the tools to improve their lives. 

Basically, you have two choices:

Fill the lifeboats with the first in, and then repel all boarders.

Have a rotation, some in and some out of the boat.

Leo, you’ll have to understand, I’m in the lifeboat

If you’re going to choose a rotation, what rules might you select?

Less than two years after vowing to end homelessness in Massachusetts, the Patrick administration has proposed new regulations that it acknowledges could force hundreds of homeless families back on the street.

Consider me exasperated by the sophist false dichotomy set up in the opening sentence.  Supply is not being cut.  Rather, in forcing ‘hundreds of homeless families back on the street,’ as the Globe puts it, the Patrick Administration is proposing to bring hundreds of other deserving families off the streets. 

The regulations, scheduled to take effect April 1, would deny shelter to families who:

1. In the last three years, had been evicted from public or subsidized housing, or ‘had abandoned such housing’ without good cause. 

2. Fail (a) to meet a new 30-hour per week work requirement or (b) to save 30% of their income. 

[Both sentences rewritten for clarity. – Ed.]

So we have two tests. 

1. Were you in affordable housing and then left it, either because you were kicked out or because you walked away without a good reason?

2. If we have been giving you free housing, have you put the time to use (the work requirement) and put aside the money you’d otherwise have had to spend on housing?

Do either of them seem unachievable to you?  Unreasonable?

I take some convincing

What about these rules?

They also would:

3. Reduce from six months to three months the period families can remain in shelters after their incomes rise above state limits.  [Emphasis added.]

4. Force out families absent from shelters for at least two consecutive nights as well as those who reject one offer of housing without good reason.

5. Deny benefits for families whose members have outstanding default or arrest warrants.

6. [Deny benefits to] those whose only child is between ages 18 and 21, unless the child has a disability or is in high school.  [In our society, 18 and above is a child no longer. – Ed.]

Do any of those seem unduly draconian to you? 

Thought not

Some thought so:

Advocates for the homeless decried the proposal, which comes at a time when more homeless families are seeking beds in state shelters and remaining there longer. This month, the state is providing shelter for a record of nearly 2,700 families – one-quarter of them cramming for weeks at a time in expensive, often unsuitable motel rooms.

Whatever the choices, it’s not easy

“This is not the time to change the safety net,” said Robyn Frost, executive director of the Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless. “The number of people in need of shelter is like nothing we’ve ever seen. There’s never been such a desperate need for housing, and these changes could be devastating. They couldn’t come at a worse time.”

Don’t mess with my safety net when I’m falling on it

While I understand Ms. Frost’s concern for her constituents, the issue isn’t whether we need more homeless housing – we do – but whether, given the finite supply, we give it to those where it will make the most difference.  Hence, I’m with Ms. Kehoe:

“It is certainly not our intent to be punitive, and we understand the difficulties families are facing,” Kehoe said. “But we are responsible for transforming the system, and particularly at a challenging time, it is absolutely critical that all stakeholders need to work together to make sure that families have the greatest chance of moving out of shelter and poverty.”

And she has the evidence on her side:

While hundreds of families will likely lose their shelter beds, she said the changes would open space for qualifying families, many of whom the state is now paying an average of $85 a night to stay in motels. Last week, more than 630 families, including about 1,000 children, were staying at motels, waiting an average 22 days for a spot at the state’s 59 shelters.

Thus we have families staying in motel rooms – at the state’s expense (average $85 a night, or a whopping $2,550 per month) – because there is no room in the homeless-shelter lifeboats. 

Sometimes the choice is living in a car

By reducing those eligible for shelter, Kehoe said the new regulations would save the state $520,000 this fiscal year and more than $11 million in fiscal 2010. “Given our limited resources, we wanted to encourage people to find housing or stay where they are, rather than encouraging them to come into the system,” she said.

Now are you more willing to push out into the market those who have been evicted from affordable housing, who haven’t used their time in the shelter to work or save a little money, who are staying in the shelter even though their income has risen, and so on?

I haven’t finished using it

There’s also the Law of the Observant Herd: forcing out those who aren’t diligent or who disrespect the benefits they are receiving sends the best possible signal to all those who are wondering which behavior to adopt.

But those who work with the state’s neediest residents said the new “harsh restrictions” will only make it harder for the homeless to find a way out of poverty.

They will make it harder for some homeless; they will make it easier for some other homeless.  A rotation policy isn’t anti-poor.

They said many of the regulations are open to interpretation and risk being applied unfairly if a shelter director doesn’t consider an explanation reasonable.

Keep thinking!

That’s always true of any regulations.  The alternative is to save everybody, which the state can’t afford.

But Kehoe insisted the regulations will be applied fairly and noted they provide exceptions for:

Families trying to pay down their debt

Those who hold jobs that might make them reluctant to accept a housing opportunity too far away

Others who can’t find affordable housing after their income rises above welfare limits.

Hard to argue with any of that.

You think it’s hard to argue?  I’ll show you hard to argue!

She and other state officials said the regulations are part of the administration’s effort to overhaul the shelter system by more quickly moving the homeless into more permanent housing. In 2007, state officials moved the last homeless family out of a motel and heralded it as part of their new strategy to help all of the state’s homeless find permanent housing.

So the state was making progress — then the recession hit, and the demand has spiked.  (Rents are down a little, not enough to make a difference in housing consumption.)  That spike has spurred the state to innovate in pursuit of efficiency:

As part of that plan, the state recently merged the welfare agency’s emergency shelter programs with housing programs run by the Department of Housing and Community Development and is now planning eight regional networks to better coordinate homeless services and housing.

Homeless shelters aren’t affordable housing, although they can overlap in customers and purposes. 

And this month, the state revised the way it pays shelters, holding back thousands of dollars in payments until homeless families are housed.

‘Pay for performance’ should work for shelters as much as it works for the sheltered. 

The state now withholds its final payments for a year after the family leaves the system, as part of an incentive for shelters to extend their services to help keep the families housed.

Our goal, remember, is to get people out of shelters and into self-sufficiency.

“We know the severity of the problem, and we’re trying to provide a comprehensive approach,” said Bob Pulster, executive director of the state’s Interagency Council on Housing and Homelessness.

Pulster (on the left), seeking a comprehensive approach

He and others said they expect to receive millions of dollars from the federal stimulus package, which they hope will ease the state’s growing burden.

But they said federal money won’t stop the new regulations from taking effect – and the imminent changes have Grace Monteiro worried.

The 28-year-old mother of a toddler has been in and out of shelters and apartments for several years. In the fall of 2007, six months after landing a $15-an-hour job as an administrative assistant, she was forced to move out of a shelter because she exceeded the income requirements, which is now an income of $1,578 a month for a family of two.

Ms. Monteiro and her son appear to be the archetypal customer we are trying to help – someone who is teetering on the cusp of self-sufficiency. 

”It’s a catch-22,” Grace Monteiro, with her son Keegan, said of housing regulations for the city’s homeless. Monteiro, 28, has been in and out of shelters and apartments for several years.

So she moved into an expensive studio apartment – she couldn’t find affordable housing in time – but she had trouble balancing the rent with her other expenses.  Within a few months, Monteiro lost her job [What reason? – Ed.] and she and her son moved into a state-subsidized motel room and then back into the shelter system.

She says three months isn’t long enough for many families to find affordable apartments, which are increasingly scarce.

Certainly, there’s no doubt that affordable apartments are hard to come by here.  Ms. Monteiro needs roommates or a sharing arrangement.

As a result, she thinks the new regulations will just encourage more parents to avoid working.

“It’s a catch-22,” she said. “I want to get a job, but I’m afraid to get a job. I don’t want to repeat what happened last time.”

Although I’ve never been homeless, I’m convinced that you are what you live in – and if you’re homeless, you cannot possibly be as effective in your life and your work as if you have some stable housing.

“Because if I don’t have housing after three months, then what? This just makes it harder to do the right thing.”

The right thing is to find a way out of the poverty trap within three months, or manage the lifeboats to give someone else a try to do so. 

Kate, honey, don’t you think it’s my turn in the lifeboat?

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