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Agencies collaborate to build housing for chronically homeless

 

Marilee Roloff and Rob McCann
Marilee Roloff and Rob McCann show drawings of buildings.

With federal and state tax credit project support for Housing First for chronically homeless people, Catholic Charities of Spokane and Volunteers of America of the Inland Northwest are collaborating to build two neighboring 50-unit permanent supportive housing facilities on the 200 block of East Second Ave. in Spokane.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) now knows it saves money  to house chronically homeless people before they are sober, drug free or mentally stable. 

Housing First may cost $12,000 a year per person. In contrast, when chronically homeless people fall down drunk, police and fire fighters come, and an ambulance takes them to an emergency room, jail or social services, it may cost the city/county $300,000.

Rob McCann, executive director of Catholic Charities Spokane for 15 years, knew a man who went to the emergency room 62 times in one year.

Both he and Marilee Roloff, who has been the CEO for 19 of her 30 years working at VOA, know the issues relating to housing homeless people.

Catholic Charities operates House of Charity and St. Margaret’s shelters, and opened Fr. Bach Haven, a 50-unit Housing First facility, in 2011.

VOA operates Hope House, a shelter for women, and serves homeless youth at Crosswalk.

Until recently, HUD blocked housing homeless people with untreated alcoholism, substance abuse or mental illness, or people with criminal backgrounds and credit problems. Many programs and landlords also have barriers making it hard to find apartment owners who will rent to chronically homeless people.

“Chronically homeless” is a HUD term referring to people homeless for a year or homeless four times over three years, said Marilee, noting that some people have slept at the House of Charity every night for up to 10 years.

Housing First is an alternative to the idea of homeless people progressing from emergency shelters to transitional housing before permanent housing. It means homeless individuals or families move from the streets or shelters directly into their own apartments.

“Previously homeless people had to sober up, have mental health therapy and complete drug treatment before they moved into housing,” she said. “The idea with Housing First is that those issues can be confronted after a person moves in. People improve faster if we remove barriers to housing.”

Housing First emerged in Salt Lake City. When Utah reduced the number of chronically homeless people by 72 percent, HUD adopted that approach.

HUD’s priorities have changed through the years.

Rob said that in the 1960s and 1970s, many churches and nonprofits built senior housing, because funding was available for it. Those funds were reduced over time and today there is little or no funding for seniors. 

Now with funding for permanent supportive Housing First for the chronically homeless, agencies like VOA and Catholic Charities are working to build what they can as quickly as they can.

In the 1980s, many built housing for disabled people. VOA built four facilities with 88 units in the 1980s and 1990s.

When Catholic Charities built Father Bach House in the Housing First model, it picked 50 homeless people from the House of Charity and other agencies to live in the apartments as permanent housing.

Rob and Marilee said the new buildings are near downtown, and Frontier Behavioral Health, House of Charity, Hope House and Providence Medical Center.

A ground breaking and blessing ceremony will be held Friday, May 22. Construction will be completed in 10 to 12 months.

The Catholic Charities building will be called Buder Haven, after the Buder family in the Spokane Catholic community, Rob said. The VOA Board has not yet announced the name for its facility.

“We used to provide big, one-bedroom apartments, but at Fr. Bach House, we have small studios and security staff so only one person can occupy an apartment.  We can discourage couch surfing or residents inviting friends to move in with them,” Rob said.

After building stability in Fr. Bach Haven, some moved out in two years to standard apartments.

“Mental health counselors and substance abuse treatment are on site,” he said.

Case managers can go door to door, rather than all over town, as they do to serve people living in VOA’s 122 scattered sites, renting from private landlords.

Marilee said one vet took four months after he was given keys to half a duplex to sleep in his bed.  He slept outside for a week, then on the porch and the kitchen floor.

“He would have done better in a building with 49 other people to talk with him,” she said.

Building two buildings on one block at the same time with the same architect and contractor will save several hundred thousand dollars each for Catholic Charities and VOA. Concrete will be poured, drywall installed and plumbing put in both buildings at the same time. 

Once the buildings are open, they will share services like mental health, substance abuse and medical nursing staff.

“It’s rare for two organizations to do such a project together,” said Marilee, “but we have already worked together on the Christmas Bureau for 60 years, Respite Care after hospitalization for men at the House of Charity and women at Hope House, and VOA staff works with people in St. Margaret’s, as well as Hope House.”

Catholic Charities’ furniture bank will furnish both buildings.

“We will continue to be generous partners with each other,” Rob said. “That should be everyone’s goal, because it’s better for the poor if social service agencies work together.”

Both have also worked together for five years in the Community Housing and Human Services (CHHS) with SNAP, the Salvation Army, Transitions and others.

By working together rather than competing, CHHS agencies receive the city’s largest social service grant for housing—more than $3 million in HUD and Department of Commerce dollars.

For the project, Catholic Charities and VOA will receive funding from the State of Washington Finance Commission, which grants 9 percent tax credits to investors—individuals and banks donating funds for tax breaks. Over 10 years, a $10 million investment can be a $10 million tax credit.

Construction is $7.5 million plus soft costs for a total of $10 million for each building.

Operating costs will come from other philanthropy and government sources. Given that tenants will pay no rent, thanks to Spokane Housing Authority Section 8 vouchers, both projects need local contributions.

For the next few years, Rob plans to build at least one new project like this a year, eventually to house all the 362 chronically homeless people—based on the last count in the city.

In addition, the City of Spokane has Single Coordinated Entry, so homeless people are assessed and those with the highest scores can enter the Housing First program.

“When people with the highest need are in this housing, it will free other housing for people with fewer challenges,” said Marilee.

Catholic Charities has 1,000 units of housing in Eastern Washington. Fr. Bach Haven, a new project for homeless veterans in Walla Walla and the Collins Apartments are the only other housing for chronically homeless.

Rob said they will recruit for the new units at the 104-bed dormitory of House of Charity and 34-bed Hope House.

“Over time, we will free beds for the temporarily homeless, the newly homeless and homeless travelers,” Rob said. “Shelters should not have residents sleeping there for years and years.”

“It would be fabulous to have empty shelters,” said Marilee, pointing out that it’s to everyone’s advantage—businesses, hospitals, police, tourism and homeless people themselves—to have chronically homeless people off the streets downtown.

For information, call 358-4250 for Rob or 624-2378 for Marilee, or visit www.ccspokane.org or www.voaspokane.org.






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