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Feature News | Monday, December 05, 2016

Funding shift threatens transitional housing for homeless

MIAMI | A shift in the way the federal government supports housing for homeless persons has threatened the loss of millions of dollars for local people needing transitional housing and services.

Last spring, Miami-Dade's homeless services providers such as Camillus House learned that they would likely see a devastating drop in relevant funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development as that agency moves toward a "Housing First" approach.

HUD announced plans to place homeless populations directly into subsidized housing and bypass traditional homeless intervention and recovery services; services provided by long standing nonprofit agencies in cities across the county.

The result will be devastating and impact some 750 transitional housing beds locally, according to the county’s Homeless Trust, a board that oversees Miami-Dade’s homeless agency and the food-and-beverage tax that helps fund it.

Camillus House’s former CEO Shed Boren has said Camillus lost roughly 75 percent of the funding for a center that provides showers and meals during the day at Camillus’ Norwegian Cruise Line campus. In 2016 alone the center has served close to 1,200 people.

Deacon Richard Turcotte, CEO of Miami’s Catholic Charities, pointed out what it means to shift to a Housing First approach: “To put it in simple terms, it means to treat a person’s homelessness first and then you put all these wrap-around services around them.

“And if they fail (to comply with various personal requirements), they are not grounds for dismissal but grounds to work further with them,” he said, noting that Housing First is a departure from many existing and successful models of working with the homeless.

The Housing First approach holds that moving people into permanent, independent housing as quickly as possible is the best solution for homelessness. Often, this means putting people into government-sponsored housing through vouchers but offering less support, education, therapy, training and other programing associated with transitional housing efforts.

It is unclear if Housing First is the best approach for families or if families who are not equipped to maintain a stable housing situation will simply bounce back into shelters.

“It is more clearly defined as to what HUD wants to accomplish and now we have had to shift our model of homelessness care not only at our New Life emergency shelter for families, but other programs also funded by the Homeless Trust,” Deacon Turcotte said.

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