Budgeting to End Homelessness in DC - A Letter to DC Mayor Bowser

Dear Mayor Bowser:

We are writing on behalf of the Greater Washington Community Foundation and its Partnership to End Homelessness Leadership Council to offer our recommendations on DC’s Fiscal Year 2025 budget. We urge you to prioritize ending chronic homelessness and making substantial investments in affordable housing and housing stability programs for DC households with extremely low-incomes (0-30 MFI).

Homelessness in DC increased about 12% from 2022 to 2023, the first time this has happened since 2016, when DC launched Homeward DC. This alarming news comes at a time when the District’s rate of investment in housing programs is declining. At the same time, rent continues to rise in DC making it harder for many people to afford to live in DC and evictions are also increasing.

As you know, the Partnership to End Homelessness is a collective effort of private sector business leaders, philanthropists, and national and local nonprofits working in alignment with the city’s comprehensive plan to ensure homelessness in DC is rare, brief, and non-recurring. The private sector and philanthropy play an important role in supporting and funding efforts to end homelessness, but the city’s success greatly depends on the leadership of the DC government to adequately fund and implement evidence-based solutions.

We understand that the city has financial challenges and that the District has many funding priorities to balance this year. However, we are deeply concerned that with the end of pandemic assistance programs, many DC residents are struggling economically and having trouble maintaining their housing. We urge you to prioritize the protection and expansion of programs that help residents obtain and maintain stable and affordable housing. Stable and affordable housing creates the conditions for healthy families and thriving communities, and helps DC advance its goals of achieving racial and economic equity for all its residents. We have the solutions to prevent and end homelessness, and under your leadership, the District has shown that it can make progress by putting resources behind these solutions. We urge you to  invest the necessary resources to continue making progress. 

Our FY 2025 budget recommendations align with the recommendations of our community advocacy partners.

Expand Permanent Supportive Housing to end chronic homelessness: We ask you to invest $36.6 million in Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) to end chronic homelessness for 1,260 single adults. We urge you to provide $22.8 million for PSH for 580 families. 

Support Emergency Rental Assistance: Census Bureau Household Pulse data estimates that 31,000 renters with incomes under $50,000 are behind on their rent in January 2024, or one-third of all low-income renters. Rents continue to rise sharply, even in rent-controlled units. The significant need for emergency rental assistance has time and again been demonstrated by the high volume of requests submitted and the fact that funds are repeatedly depleted long before the end of the fiscal year. Demand for emergency rental assistance is so great that the available ERAP application slots each quarter were filled within hours of opening the portal. We urge you to fund DC’s ERAP program at a minimum of $100 million in FY 2025.

Preserve Public Housing, Expand Affordable Housing: We urge you to commit to preserving and creating deeply affordable housing for households earning 0-30 percent of the Median Family Income (MFI). We recommend:

• Maintaining the $60 million annual commitment to repairing public housing.

• $17.3 million for 800 Local Rent Supplement Tenant Vouchers, to assist those on the DC Housing Authority waitlist.

Expand non-congregate shelter for people experiencing homelessness: The District should take steps to transform its shelter system to make them smaller, safer, and trauma informed. Shifting away from large congregate shelters is essential to supporting the dignity of unhoused residents but also to help them. We support the call for two shelters, funded at $13.3 million.

Support street outreach: Given the increase in unsheltered homelessness over the past year, we call on the District to provide $6.4 million for homeless street outreach to fully restore and expand outreach capacity of the Coordinated Street Outreach Network. 

Support medical respite:  We ask you to support 150 medical respite beds, to offer the critical service of caring for the unhoused who need intensive medical support.

Support and Expand Project Reconnect: Project Reconnect is a successful and cost-effective shelter diversion and rapid-exit program for unaccompanied adults experiencing homelessness. By maintaining existing funding for the program at $1.2 million, and adding an additional $545,000, the program can add diversion specialists to reach more people and prevent homelessness at scale.  

Maintain funding for DC Flex: DC Flex gives a yearly stipend of $7,200 to use on rent in the case of an emergency or in a case where a participant is unable to make rent. We urge you to maintain its $1 million funding as we assess this promising approach. 

Maintain 24/7 shelter access: DC expanded access to shelters during the pandemic so that individuals could stay in and/or access the buildings around the clock. We urge you to continue this practice, which will require $8.4 million. 

Create a fund to cover PSH move-in expenses:  The District should create a fund to cover one-time move-in expenses for residents receiving a voucher. Assistance with transportation to find a unit, obtaining necessary documents, and IDs, plus help to purchase household items is critical to ensuring that a voucher can be used quickly.      

Address the critical need for affordable housing: DC will not end chronic homelessness until we address the critical need for affordable housing. We ask that you: 

• Increase the supply of Tenant Based Local Rent Supplement (LRSP) vouchers, including TAH.

• Ensure that the Housing Production Trust Fund meets the target of at least 50 percent of funding dedicated to producing housing for extremely low-income households (0-30% MFI). We urge you to fund an adequate number of LRSP vouchers to meet the important targeting requirement of the Trust Fund to produce deeply affordable housing.

• Ensure all produced affordable housing is accessible.

Housing stability is the foundation of thriving individuals, families and communities. Any long-term vision for a stronger DC must start with ending homelessness and addressing the high rates of housing instability. We must not let the District’s finances this year result in long-term harm to our neighbors with the least resources. Stable and affordable housing is the key to creating healthy communities, which in turn supports school success, reduces crime, and narrows DC’s racial income and wealth gaps.

Thank you again for your leadership and commitment to ending homelessness in our city. We urge you to continue to make progress in FY 2025 towards ending homelessness and increasing the supply of deeply affordable housing for extremely low income households.

Sincerely,

The Partnership to End Homelessness Leadership Council

Tonia Wellons, President & CEO

Greater Washington Community Foundation

“Say Their Name, Say Their Name” Advocates Call for Action at Annual Vigil For Those Who Have Died Without Housing

Days before Christmas, friends and advocates for DC’s homeless community gathered around an empty coffin at Luther Place Memorial Church for the 11th Annual Vigil honoring DC residents who died without housing in 2023.

The event is an annual holiday tradition that many say they have become weary -- and wary -- of celebrating, as the number of those who died without housing in DC continues to rise.

“Ninety people died without housing this year,” Rachelle Ellison, Assistant Director at the People for Fairness Coalition shared to an audience of about 60 people gathered at the church.

“Last year it was 77 – more than 17% increase.”
“It’s so sad that the number of deaths just keeps going up.”

A young Vigil attendee and his mother pay their respects to the 90 DC Residents who died without housing in DC.

With local forecasters predicting above average snowfall this winter, advocates fear that unless more action is taken, the trend will likely carry over into the New Year.

“So many of these people - we don’t see their names – but they are humans. They matter,” shared Reginald Black, lead organizer with the People for Fairness Coalition.

“I spent 10 years – 10 long years homeless.”

“Any one of those years, I could have been one of the names; one of the initials; one of the ages on this list.”

“We need to raise our voices that housing is a human right and that those whom this casket represents were denied that right,” Black added.

Black also pointed out the need to incorporate racial equity into policies to end homelessness. Of the 90 DC residents who died without housing this year, 80 percent of them were Black.

“We can and must do better.”

Following the service, the participants filed out onto 14th Street where they followed the empty coffin on a mile-long march towards Freedom Plaza.

For some in the procession, this was their first time at the annual Vigil – which has become something of a somber holiday tradition in the homeless community.

The White House looms in the background as housing advocates gather at Freedom Plaza

For those at the front of the procession; the pallbearers – especially those with ‘lived experience’ of homelessness, the experience marks a milestone of far too many cold sleepless nights and far too many friends needlessly lost.

“I’ve been doing this for three years now,” one pallbearer shared at an open mic gathering held at the end of the march. “It’s sad to keep seeing the same results. But I know it’s important to put our heart on the line and raise our voices.”

“We need to advocate, to be concerned, and to raise awareness– this is an issue that can be solved.”

Perhaps most concerning to housing advocates is the number of deaths that were nearly prevented. Close to 70% of those on the list had received a housing voucher but died before they could be housed – that’s up from more than 60% in 2022.

The list of those who died without housing in 2022 compared with the list from 2023

The harrowing statistic outlines what advocates say is one of the biggest existing gaps in a housing system where people too often fall through the cracks.

“It is disappointing how often this city gives up on people who are unhoused,” Council Member Janeese Lewis (Ward 4) shared at the vigil. “We shouldn’t ever give up on anyone.”

Council Member Lewis and her staff attended the vigil to honor the memory of one of their constituents, David Ashmore, a lifetime Ward 4 resident and close friend of Council Member Lewis. Mr. Ashmore experienced homelessness for 30 years before he passed away in July 2023.

DC Council Member Janeese Lewis (Ward 4) at the annual Vigil for those who died without housing in 2023.

Council Member Lewis shared that, like many people who experience homelessness, Mr. Ashmore had lost faith in the government and the housing system.

“We spent months visiting with him, building a relationship with him, before he trusted us enough to help him with the housing voucher process.”

Council Member Lewis explained that although housing advocates had tried to help Mr. Ashmore with the housing voucher application in the past, few had taken sufficient time to guide him through the paperwork.

“All he asked was to know what he was signing,” Council Member Lewis explained. “It took us three hours to go through the application with him – but three hours is worth the time for someone who’s been on the streets for 30 years.”

Even after receiving his voucher, Mr. Ashmore still faced an uphill battle, as he now needed to find an apartment that would meet his needs and accept his voucher. Council Member Lewis and her team were in the process of helping Mr. Ashmore visit apartments when he passed away in July.

“Mr. Ashmore had so many people behind him – he had a DC Council Member behind him -- yet he died on the streets,” Council Member Lewis shared. “Mr. Ashmore deserved better from our city.”

DC Council Member Robert White (At-Large) at the annual Vigil for those who died without housing in 2023.

Also in attendance was Council Member Robert White (At-Large), who thanked advocates, including the People for Fairness Coalition for their efforts to raise awareness of the need for further investment and systems change in homeless services.

“Because of you all, I know there are folks in this city who care,” Council Member White shared. “Thank you for continuing to remind us of the work that is truly important – the work that needs to be done.”

The Community Foundation’s Partnership to End Homelessness is proud to partner with advocates like the People for Fairness Coalition in our efforts to end homelessness in DC.

The Partnership to End Homelessness is a public-private partnership that convenes government agencies, funders, and advocates to create more supportive and deeply affordable housing and lead strategic and sustainable investment in the homeless services system.

For more information, visit  https://www.thecommunityfoundation.org/partnership-to-end-homelessness

Tackling Hunger and Homelessness in the Greater Washington Region

November 11-18 is National Hunger & Homelessness Awareness Week — a time to raise awareness of those in our community who lack the basic needs of food and shelter heading into the holiday months.

In recognition of those in our community who struggle with chronic homelessness and food insecurity, during the month of November, The Community Foundation is highlighting experiences from some of our partners working to increase access to affordable housing and nutritious food for our community.

• DC Central Kitchen

  1) Briefly describe the mission of your organization and the services you provide to help those struggling with chronic homelessness or food insecurity in the Greater Washington region.

  As the nation's first and leading community kitchen, DC Central Kitchen uses food as a tool to strengthen bodies, empower minds, and build communities. We prepare 11,000 nutritious meals a day for our community while creating living-wage jobs and enduring careers for our neighbors who have experienced food insecurity, homelessness, and incarceration via our acclaimed Culinary Job Training program.

  2) What do you find most meaningful about the work that you do for those struggling with chronic homelessness or food insecurity in the Greater Washington region? What are you most proud of?

  We bring healthy, dignified food where it is most needed while employing 130 graduates of our Culinary Job Training program to lead and guide this work -- with industry leading benefits and living wages. Our graduates have overcome systemic barriers to employment and now are responsible for serving award-winning healthy school meals, empowering corner stores to become reliable sources of fresh, affordable produce, supporting local farmers, and training the next generation of culinary talent. We are most proud of this "leadership cycle" that takes on the root cause of hunger: poverty.

  3) As a nonprofit partner, tell us about how funding that you’ve received that has helped you achieve this?

  As a social enterprise, we earn half of our budget by serving scratch-cooked school meals, wholesaling affordable produce to small corner stores, and operating three cafes city-wide, but philanthropy makes our innovative solutions to hunger and poverty possible. Grants through the GWCF have allowed us to increase our trauma-informed, comprehensive social services for culinary students, invest more resources in local farmers, open the nation's most ambitious community kitchen and urban food hub in Southwest DC, and provide millions of emergency meals in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

  4) What do you wish that more people understood about those struggling with chronic homelessness or food insecurity in the Greater Washington region?

  Food alone will never end hunger. Hunger-fighting organizations cannot measure our progress in fighting food insecurity through the pounds of charitable food we distribute. Answers to hunger must also reflect our success in unleashing the power of food to improve health, create jobs, and build a more resilient, sustainable, and inclusive food system.

• Sasha Bruce Youthwork

  1) Briefly describe the mission of your organization and the services you provide to help those struggling with chronic homelessness or food insecurity in the Greater Washington region.

  For nearly 50 years, Sasha Bruce Youthwork has been providing services to an often-overlooked population experiencing homelessness in the Greater Washington region - young people who are on their own. Our goal is to prevent chronic homelessness by addressing the factors that lead to homelessness before they become entrenched. Our 25 programs provide direct and preventive services for more than 5,000 young people experiencing or at risk of homelessness in Washington, DC, and Prince George's County.

  2) What do you find most meaningful about the work that you do for those struggling with chronic homelessness or food insecurity in the Greater Washington region? What are you most proud of?

  The most meaningful aspect of our work in the Greater Washington region is the historic and ongoing impact Sasha Bruce Youthwork has on calling attention to the plight of young people experiencing homelessness. We are incredibly proud of our services tailored to the needs of young people ages 18 to 24. While legally adults, these young people are still very much in transition.

  3) As a nonprofit partner, tell us about how funding that you’ve received that has helped you achieve this?

  The Community Foundation of Greater Washington has been an invaluable partner throughout history, helping achieve our mission. The Foundation administers giving for some of our top individual donors and foundation funds. Ongoing grants through The Community Foundation’s fundholders provide critical support for our Barracks Row Drop-In Center. Regular visits to a Drop-In Center are frequently the first step for a homeless or unstably housed young person to move toward family reunification or stable and supportive housing. This support ensures that we can fully staff our Center and provide all the resources needed to help vulnerable youth. The Community Foundation’s Fund for Children, Youth, and Families has also been instrumental over the last few years at Promise Place, our emergency youth shelter in Prince George’s County allowing us to hire a case manager, an essential position for helping homeless youth achieve self-sufficiency.

  4) What do you wish that more people understood about those struggling with chronic homelessness or food insecurity in the Greater Washington region?

  We wish for greater awareness of youth experiencing homelessness in our region. Homeless young people often manage to stay below the radar for a long time. They move between friends’ and relatives’ homes and sometimes stay in abandoned buildings. It can be difficult for them to admit they need help and to seek assistance. They are often homeless because the adults in their lives have mistreated them. Greater awareness of these youth and an understanding that they may need a lot of support to even admit they are homeless is critical. The more visibility organizations like Sasha Bruce Youthwork have, the more people will know about the needs of youth experiencing homelessness and the services available to them.

• Miriam's Kitchen

  1) Briefly describe the mission of your organization and the services you provide to help those struggling with chronic homelessness or food insecurity in the Greater Washington region.

  Miriam's Kitchen is dedicated to helping DC reach its goal of ending all chronic homelessness. We are thrilled with the impact of collective advocacy we help lead through The Way Home Campaign. Together 110+ agencies and 7,000 individual supporters have helped bring about important systems changes and increased city investment in proven best practices like Housing First/Permanent Supportive Housing.

  Aside from system level work, Miriam's Kitchen operates four programs that together provide a variety of direct services. Every weekday morning and evening our chefs serve a made-from-scratch meal--about 83,000 meals over the last year. Our Street Outreach program covers half of DC's geographic area to connect people living on the street or in shelters to essential services they. Our Permanent Supportive Housing program supports 320 people who used to live without the security of a home, but now have apartments. Our Social Services team staffs a drop-in center open every weekday morning and afternoon to connect clients (we call them guests) to medical care, mental health support, housing assistance and the income help they need to reach their goals.

  At the core of our work is our guests who have a seat at the decision-making table. They are equal partners in our strategic planning, serve in important advisory roles, fill paid positions as an Advocacy Fellow, speak alongside staff members at local, regional and national conferences, and help guide The Way Home Campaign from seats on the Steering Committee.

  2) What do you find most meaningful about the work that you do for those struggling with chronic homelessness or food insecurity in the Greater Washington region? What are you most proud of?

  We are proud of the high-quality services we provide AND that we were open every weekday during the pandemic except one (Inauguration Day) during which we had to close to protect our guests from threats posted on the Internet.

  3) As a nonprofit partner, tell us about how funding that you’ve received that has helped you achieve this?

  Funding from the Partnership to End Homelessness has helped us make great strides in advocacy and systems change. Together we have 1) pushed forward unprecedented investments in Permanent Supportive Housing, 2) taken initial steps on changing the narrative around homelessness 3) increased local investment and help expand Medicaid funding which will reduce the cost of Permanent Supportive Housing by about 20%, 4) achieved system improvements to address some of the hurdles in implementing the voucher investments and 5) helped win approval for a much-needed non-congregate shelter in Ward 2 against strong opposition.

  With support from the Community Foundation (and from other important private investors) we have been able to field a four-person Advocacy team (building to five this year) to lead collective advocacy through The Way Home Campaign. We will broaden our work in 2023 to address some of the root causes of homelessness and continue the important narrative change.

  4) What do you wish that more people understood about those struggling with chronic homelessness or food insecurity in the Greater Washington region?

  Homelessness is not caused by addiction, mental illness, or lack of family support. Those are risk factors that make it harder for some people to work their way out of homelessness, but they are not causes. Housing is too expensive and even people working full time jobs often can't afford to live here because of rapidly rising rents and increased cost of living. Structural reasons like systemic inequality and discrimination are some of the root causes of homelessness.

• Hope and a Home

  1) Briefly describe the mission of your organization and the services you provide to help those struggling with chronic homelessness or food insecurity in the Greater Washington region.

  Hope and a Home’s mission is to empower low-income families with children in D.C. to create stable homes of their own and to make lasting changes in their lives. Our mandate is to break the cycle of poverty for qualified families through the programs and services we offer.

  Recognizing the extremely negative impact on the wellbeing of individuals, families, and communities that result from homelessness, Hope and a Home’s programs implement the best practices of a housing-first model coupled with proven, multi-generational programs to confront the root causes of homelessness. Hope and a Home’s 19 transitional housing units in Washington, DC are rented to homeless and extremely low-income families with children at subsidized rates while families participate in Hope and a Home’s robust, multi-phased program, consisting of Phase I: Transitional Housing, Phase II: Independent Housing, the Grace Dickerson Higher Education Program (GDHE), and the Mary Jo Schumacher Nutrition Security Program.

  2) What do you find most meaningful about the work that you do for those struggling with chronic homelessness or food insecurity in the Greater Washington region? What are you most proud of?

  The most meaningful part of the work Hope and Home provides is seeing the growth of the parents and families Hope and Home works with. Our two-generation approach focuses on meeting the needs of both children and parents, providing parents access to quality education and financial literacy opportunities while also supporting children's development and educational needs. Families that come to Hope and a Home with little hope, leave the housing program after three years of intensive support thriving mentally, physically, and economically – not only because of the support Hope and Home provides but also through the hard and diligent work that parents and children engage in to build strong foundations for success. They also have the confidence that, when hard times inevitably come, they remain connected to the education, nutrition, and other supportive programming that Hope and a Home provides for as long as necessary. Hope and a Home is proud of its dedicated staff, who remain a constant source of support for each adult and child throughout their academic journey and is proud of the work that these families do to build new pathways to a permanent exit from homelessness.

  3) As a nonprofit partner, tell us about how funding that you’ve received that has helped you achieve this?

  Hope and a Home is grateful for the funding partners who make possible our work supporting low-income families with children in Washington, DC to create stable homes of their own and to make lasting changes in their lives. Support from Hope and Home’s partners ensures that Hope and Home can remain committed to operating the two-generation model that works to address the systemic causes of poverty and homelessness for families living in Washington DC. Becuase Hope and a Home provides services to families even after they have transitioned out of Hope and Home’s transitional housing, funds from our partners have been critical in ensuring that Hope and a Home can support families if they return for additional supportive services.

  Importantly, support from Hope and a Home’s partners has afforded Hope and a Home the ability to remain responsive to the needs of families experiencing homelessness which continues to be a critical element in Hope and a Home’s ability to support families as they build the foundation to transition from transitional to market-rate housing. In FY2023, Hope and a Home focused efforts on supporting families as they continued to be disproportionately impacted by post-pandemic pressures and increasing inflation. Even as emergency pandemic support has abated, Hope and a Home has been able to increase support for the Mary Jo Schumacher Nutrition Security Program to ensure families continue to receive nutritional, fresh foods.

  Hope and a Home has also been able to continue working to support our students who are recovering academically from the pandemic-mandated school closures and subsequent changes in school routines.

  4) What do you wish that more people understood about those struggling with chronic homelessness or food insecurity in the Greater Washington region?

  We wish more people, organizations, and stakeholders understood the multi-dimensional, multi-layered, and multi-generational challenges that families experiencing homelessness in the greater Washington area are met with. We also wish more people understood the opportunity that we have to strengthen our community, as we invest in the long-term well-being and success of these families.

  Research shows that getting people housed saves tax-payer dollars; improves education outcomes for young people, increases the likelihood that they will not experience homelessness in adulthood to mitigate further costs of homelessness; and reduces the cost and pressures on healthcare systems, among others.

  Investment is more than getting people housed. Investment means supporting individuals and families to develop the skills and foundation necessary to maintain economic stability and improved well-being. By investing in families and individuals experiencing homelessness, we can ensure that all people can experience the stability necessary for overall well-being and contribute to developing stronger communities.

• People for Fairness Coalition

  1) Briefly describe the mission of your organization and the services you provide to help those struggling with chronic homelessness or food insecurity in the Greater Washington region.

  Our Mission is to end housing instability with outreach Peer Mentoring and Advocacy by advocating on behalf of those who haven't found their voice yet. Speaking before Dc Council. Leading a women's initiative of women with lived experience although challenging it has been rewarding

  2) What do you find most meaningful about the work that you do for those struggling with chronic homelessness or food insecurity in the Greater Washington region? What are you most proud of?

  Being their voice and doing what we can to change the stigma around mental health and homelessness so society at large will see the unhoused population as human beings with a back story and helping those who engage with documents and resources to get housing.

  3) As a nonprofit partner, tell us about how funding that you’ve received that has helped you achieve this?

  The Rhonda Whitaker Streets to life DC Women's Initiative was birthed through the Waldons Adams Justice Grant bringing about racial equity and allowing unhoused women to have a seat at the table with real time info to become their own best advocates

  4) What do you wish that more people understood about those struggling with chronic homelessness or food insecurity in the Greater Washington region?

  That people who struggle with chronic homelessness are human and have a back story and just need someone to believe in them and treat them with dignity and respect so.they can see themselves in a different light thanks to the support of consistent people in their lives.

Partnership to End Homelessness Continues to Invest in Systemic Change for Service Providers

In 2022, DC launched a new Medicaid benefit that can pay for permanent supportive housing (PSH) services for people experiencing homelessness – a major shift that allowed the city to leverage an estimated $20+ million in new, annual federal resources through Medicaid.

Since the launch, the Partnership has been working to help nonprofit providers take advantage of the opportunity and make the transition to billing the new Medicaid Benefit for permanent supportive housing (PSH) services for people experiencing homelessness.

Shortly after the change was announced, the Partnership provided an initial grant to provide technical assistance for twenty-six PSH providers through The Corporation for Supportive Housing (CSH), a national leader in supportive housing. Providers were enrolled in CSH’s Supportive Housing Medicaid Academy, a six-week training series where they learned how to enroll clients, how to supervise, budget, and bill under the Medicaid model and how to comply with Medicaid regulations – filling a critical knowledge gap for many providers.

However, as the Medicaid Academy came to a close, it became clear that some providers needed more human resources, accounting, evaluation, and compliance capacity to meet Medicaid requirements.

The Partnership responded quickly to meet the needs of these providers. The Partnership provided $200,000 in additional Readiness Grants, administered by CSH, to seventeen of the PSH providers. Each readiness grant included a technology stipend of $5,000 for PSH providers who were implementing electronic medical record software to comply with Medicaid requirements. It also included support for increased overhead costs associated with the Medicaid transition, such as staff training, additional back office administrative support, and hiring and retention incentives.

The investments are already paying off. Since the launch of the new Medicaid Benefit in DC, providers have been reimbursed a total of $22 million for delivering housing supportive services to over 4,500 Medicaid beneficiaries.

“Partnership funding helped us get our infrastructure and initial staffing in place so we could hit the ground running and start serving people experiencing homelessness as soon as the city assigned them to our caseload,” Chapman Todd, Principal at Jaydot shared. Jaydot is one of DC’s newest PSH providers, and a Readiness Grant recipient.

“Thanks to their support, we are now serving 70 households.” 

“By reducing some of this financial burden, the Partnership has allowed us to focus on supporting and stabilizing our most vulnerable clients in housing,” added Brendan Haley, Director of Single Adult Programs at Everyone Home DC. “They helped to supplement the difference between our income and expenses while we transitioned our clients into housing – which helped us to grow and take on more clients.”

New PSH providers weren’t the only ones who benefited from the additional support. Long-time PSH providers also shared how the Partnership funding proved transformational to the way they operate.

“This grant has been critical to our ability to ramp up,” shared Corey Mendez, Deputy Chief Operating Officer at Housing Up. “In addition to incurring hard costs for things like new billing software, we’ve incurred new costs given the need for increased staff time to manage the complex Medicaid billing process. Funding from the Partnership was essential to helping us make the transition to Medicaid.”

Cornelia Kent, Friendship Place’s Vice President of Administration and CFO, agreed. “The Partnership grant helped offset costs for our new Credible billing software system – a tool that allows us to bill both Medicaid and DC’s Department of Human Services accurately and efficiently, for around 400 participants each month.”

The Partnership is continuing to engage PSH providers and monitor the progress of the Medicaid implementation to identify additional systems investment opportunities. Ultimately, the Partnership hopes that these investments will not only continue to leverage millions of dollars in new federal resources but, most importantly, position providers to provide high-quality services and support to people experiencing homelessness in DC.

To learn more about earlier stages of this project, check out our previous blog posts Investing In the Future of Homeless Services: How Medicaid Is Driving Systemic Change In DC’s Fight to End Homelessness and  Investing in Nonprofit Capacity to Leverage Federal Funds to End Homelessness.

Partnership to End Homelessness Celebrates Four Years of Impact

On October 11th, friends and supporters of the Partnership to End Homelessness gathered at the Festival Center in Northwest DC to commemorate the fourth anniversary of the Partnership to End Homelessness and discuss the progress in the city’s fight to end homelessness.

“We believe that ending homelessness in DC is possible. And it will take all of us working together to accomplish it,” Jennifer Olney, Senior Community Investment Officer with the Partnership to End Homelessness shared. “We have made progress, but we know we have more work to do.”

Since its launch, the Partnership has leveraged and aligned over $18 million in private sector resources. At the same time, advocacy efforts have resulted in over 4,000 permanent supportive housing vouchers to end homelessness for 3,106 individuals and 1,217 families.

The event focused on the Partnership and our community’s collective progress in the work to end homelessness and featured remarks from Theresa Silla, Executive Director of the DC Interagency Council on Homelessness, key philanthropic partners such as Allison McWilliams, Executive Director of the Naomi and Nehemiah Cohen Foundation, and a panel of nonprofit leaders and advocates with lived experience of chronic homelessness.

Christy Respress, President of Pathways to Housing DC, has worked with individuals experiencing chronic homelessness since the ‘90s and has long been a champion of the “Housing First” approach adopted by the DC Government – a model that prioritizes permanent housing for individuals and families, which creates a platform for pursuing other goals.

“Housing First is a proven model,” Respress explained. “We know it works. Now we just need to get the resources and hold ourselves accountable to get things done.”

“We know we can end homelessness because we have made so much progress reaching families experiencing homelessness,” Silla shared. “What we need now is to apply that same thinking to our single adult population – and our unaccompanied youth – and invest in new resources to meet their specific needs.”

Attendees also heard from Rachelle Ellison, Assistant Director, and Robert Warren, Director, at the People for Fairness Coalition.

Rachelle Ellison (Assistant Director) and Robert Warren (Director) at the People for Fairness Coalition

 “I was homeless for 17 years before the Housing First initiative model helped me,” Ellison shared.

“Once you have that housing, you have the foundation – you can do anything you want to do.”

Ellison and Warren pointed out that while housing is by far the most critical (and costly) need, there are a host of other supports needed that help people stay in housing, such as access to healthcare and addiction recovery treatment, and access to case workers and service providers. Strengthening case management and service provider capacity has been a key focus for the Partnership for the past two years. Part of this work included helping permanent supportive housing (PSH) providers access new Medicaid funding that increases our community’s resources to invest in critical supportive services.

They also shared the importance in leading with lived experience and giving advocates who have previously or are currently experiencing homelessness a seat at the table with funders and government partners so they can better advocate for themselves and the needs of their community.

“We are so grateful for private sector funding that has given Rachelle and I a chance to advocate for change,” Warren shared. “Now we need your continued support so more can join us.”

“I know you see Rachelle and I sitting here; my hope is that you can see every unhoused member of the Washington DC community as well.”

DSC_0348.jpg

Partners then heard from Jim Knight, CEO of Jubilee Housing, a partner in the Partnership to End Homelessness’ impact investment efforts to build and preserve affordable housing for extremely low-income households.

“A vast percentage of people in our city are paying more in rent than they can afford,” Knight shared. “Investing in affordable housing allows us to alleviate that pressure so they can better provide for their future and their children’s future.”

“The impact of these investments can live on for generations.”

Thanks to partnerships with Jubilee Housing and Enterprise Community Loan Fund, the Partnership has helped create and maintain over 500 new homes affordable to extremely low-income households. Many of those are reserved for populations with specific needs such as seniors or returning citizens.

Martin Mellett, VP of External Affairs at Jubilee Housing leads a walking tour of Columbia Heights, including several service providers and affordable housing projects under development.

Following the panel discussion, attendees joined a walking tour around the neighborhood, which included stops at several affordable housing projects under development. Along the way, participants visited sites of multiple service providers including Mary’s Center, Columbia Road Health Services, Christ House, and the Sitar Arts Center – all within short walking distance of the homes. The hope is that the proximity, combined with new partnerships, will help residents gain access to all the resources they need to succeed.

“This Partnership is truly a partnership,” Olney shared at the event. “Nothing that we do would be possible without all of you working together with us. We thank you for your contributing your time, your expertise, and continued investment towards our shared vision to end homelessness in our city. Together we can build a community where everyone thrives.”

To learn more or to make a contribution to the Partnership to End Homelessness, visit our website where you can also learn more about Impact Investing and see our 2023 Impact Report!

For more information about how you can be involved in the Partnership to End Homelessness, contact Jennifer Olney at [email protected]

Bringing it All Home: How DC Can Become the First Major City to End Chronic Homelessness

Last month, The Partnership to End Homelessness hosted a special donor webinar to discuss a landmark report on chronic homelessness in DC.

The report by the DC Fiscal Policy Institute (DCFPI), “Bringing it All Home: How DC Can Become the 1st Major City to End Chronic Homelessness and Provide Higher-Quality Services” outlines a series of recommendations to DC policymakers and funders. The report also answers the ongoing question about the cost of ending chronic homelessness.

“The mission to end homelessness and create safe and affordable housing in our nation's capital for extremely low-income households has never been more important -- or more achievable,” shared The Community Foundation’s President and CEO Tonia Wellons. The Partnership to End Homelessness partnered with The William S. Abell Foundation to co-fund the report.

“[Ending chronic homelessness] is not only a moral imperative; it’s also a matter of racial justice,” DCFPI Executive Director Erica Williams shared. “Nearly 83% of individuals experiencing homelessness in the District are Black – even though Black residents make up just 44% of the District’s population and 73% of those living below the poverty line. Historic and current day racism are what got us to this result.” 

The recommendations come after DCFPI hosted a series of focus groups with experts, including case managers and individuals with lived-in experience with the Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) system. DCFPI also conducted a thorough analysis of DC homelessness data, including the annual Point in Time surveys.

DCFPI outlines Chronic Homelessness Funding into three primary categories: Tenant Vouchers & Services, Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) or Site-Based Funding, and Stipend Incentives for Providers and Case Managers. Of the three, PSH represents the biggest need for investment.

DCFPI outlines some of the average expenses in each category.

In addition to the budgetary recommendations, the report also outlined a series of five systemic changes where public and private funding is needed. These recommendations include speeding up the PSH leasing process, strengthening case management, improving and clarifying the rules of site-based PSH, addressing behavioral health needs, preventing homelessness, and better meeting the needs of the aging population.

When asked about some of the biggest challenges, Kate Coventry, DCFPI’s Deputy Director of Legislative Strategy who authored the report, pointed to inefficiencies in the PSH system and the alarming increase in the number of seniors experiencing homelessness.

Of 1,924 PSH vouchers made available in FY22, only 427 – just 22 percent -- were used to house individuals. The delays in implementing vouchers – which originate from a number of factors, including unwieldy application requirements and case manager shortages - can sometimes prove fatal; especially for seniors experiencing homelessness. Seniors account for nearly 40 percent of the region’s single adult homeless population.

Point-in-Time Counts for the Greater Washington Region by age demographic (Credit: Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments)

“We need to figure out why older people are experiencing homelessness more – and how we can better serve them within the PSH system,” Coventry explained. “Our shelter system is not designed to meet the safety and needs of older people. That’s why we need to prioritize getting them into stable, affordable housing.”

“Homelessness is not a lake; it’s a river,” Coventry added. “People are becoming homeless and exiting homelessness all the time – as providers, our objective is to keep people moving along their housing journey, while at the same time advocating to address the challenges that brought them here in the first place.”

Coventry was joined on the webinar by Rachelle Ellison, a Senior Mentor Advisor with the People for Fairness Coalition who participated in a focus group behind the report. When asked how philanthropy should get involved, Ellison emphasized the need to continue to fund service providers and advocacy efforts -especially those that are led by people with lived experience.

“What we need are more passionate people doing this work,” added Rachelle Ellison, Senior Mentor Advisor with the People for Fairness Coalition. “We need more case managers – and we need to re-examine the requirements to become a case manager so that more people with lived experience can become involved in the work.”

“The Partnership to End Homelessness recognizes the importance of building the capacity of the PSH system and of our PSH providers,” said Silvana Straw, Senior Community Investment Officer and Philanthropic Advisor with The Partnership to End Homelessness. “Together with our donors and investors, we continue to invest in the construction of more PSH housing units, and in the capacity of PSH providers to bill Medicaid and leverage ongoing federal funding.”

“The Partnership to End Homelessness is also committed to funding our advocacy partners who are leading this work around policy and practice change,” Jennifer Olney, Senior Community Investment Officer with the Partnership to End Homelessness added. “Without the public funding that they continue to fight for, much of this work would not be possible.”

“We look forward to continuing our investment in the capacity of PSH providers and building a more just, equitable system. Together, we look forward to helping DC become the first major city to end chronic homelessness.”  

For more information on how you can get involved, contact Jennifer Olney at [email protected] or Silvana Straw at [email protected] or visit our website to learn more about The Partnership to End Homelessness.

Statement on Proposed FY2024 DC Budget

As a foundation committed to ending homelessness and increasing deeply affordable housing - and to leveraging private sector investment for these purposes - we are deeply troubled that the proposed FY2024 DC budget represents a major step backwards in our collective effort to address homelessness and housing instability, after years of laudable progress. By cutting programs that prevent homelessness and by failing to expand housing opportunities for people experiencing homelessness, the proposed budget would likely lead to a major increase in evictions, a growing number of residents living in unsafe or unhealthy conditions, an increase in homelessness, and wider racial and economic inequity in DC.

Despite some signs of economic progress, the reality for most DC residents with low incomes, nearly all of whom are Black or Brown, is much starker. Rents are rising sharply, even in rent-controlled units, while high food prices are increasing hunger and food insecurity. The phase out of federal pandemic aid has led to cuts in SNAP benefits and a risk that many will lose Medicaid coverage. It is no wonder that nearly 40,000 DC renter households pay more than half their income for housing or that emergency rental assistance funds (ERAP) ran out less than half-way into the year. People are having to make difficult choices between paying for rent, food, or prescriptions.

This is no time to cut programs vital to ending homelessness and increasing housing stability. Yet, the proposed FY 2024 budget would cut ERAP by more than 80 percent and cut the Project Reconnect homelessness prevention program in half. It would provide no funds to expand permanent supportive housing for people experiencing homelessness, stopping progress that has been made every year since 2014.

We urge the DC Council to reverse deep budget cuts in critical housing and homelessness programs, and to use the budget to make continued momentum toward ensuring everyone in DC has housing they can afford.

Budgeting to End Homelessness: A Letter to DC Mayor Bowser

Dear Mayor Bowser:

I am writing on behalf of the Greater Washington Community Foundation and its Partnership to End Homelessness Leadership Council. We are very grateful for your ongoing leadership to reduce homelessness, and we applaud your bold third-term goals to advance economic and racial equity. As you work to develop your Fiscal Year 2024 budget proposal, we ask that your agenda for equity prioritize ending chronic homelessness and making substantial investments in affordable housing for DC households with extremely low incomes (0-30 MFI). In addition, we urge you to take steps to connect DC residents experiencing homelessness with the substantial number of vouchers funded for this purpose in recent years.

As you know, the Partnership to End Homelessness is a collective effort of private sector business leaders, philanthropists, and national and local nonprofits working to ensure homelessness is rare, brief, and non-recurring. The Partnership provides direct investments to strengthen the homeless services system and increase the supply of deeply affordable and supportive housing in every ward of the city. We know that the private sector and philanthropy play an important role in supporting and funding efforts to end homelessness. However, we also know the city’s success depends on the leadership of the DC government in both adequately funding and skillfully implementing evidence-based solutions.

Our FY 2024 budget recommendations align with the recommendations of our community advocacy partners. The recommendations below reflect several realities: the ongoing economic instability resulting from the pandemic, the need for continued funding to end chronic homelessness, the challenges DC has faced to implement the vouchers funded in recent years, and the enormous need for deeply affordable housing. Our recommendations are as follows:

Expand Permanent Supportive Housing and Targeted Affordable Housing to end chronic homelessness: We recommend:

• $36.6 million in Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) to end chronic homelessness for 1,260 single adults

• $18.9 million for PSH for 480 families and $58.4 million for Targeted Affordable Housing for 1,920 families. These investments would end homelessness for all families who are living in shelters or struggling with the uncertainty and challenges of Rapid Re-Housing.

Support Emergency Rental Assistance for all who need it: One-sixth of DC residents with low incomes are behind on their rent. Meanwhile, rents continue to rise sharply, even in rent controlled units. The pandemic and its ongoing impacts highlight the critical importance of funding emergency rental assistance at much higher levels than before the pandemic. Due to the combination of rising rents, the higher numbers of eviction filings and the higher number of actual evictions, sustained and increased ERAP funding is needed to avert preventable evictions and increases in homelessness and housing instability. We recommend:

• $117 million in FY 202 to fund DC’s ERAP program.

Provide sufficient staffing to put residents into PSH: A shortage of case managers and outreach workers has made it hard for the District to connect residents who are eligible for PSH with housing. This failure contributes to the inability to help residents move from tent encampments to their own home and results in human suffering and widespread frustration.

• We urge you to provide enough funding in the Department of Human Services for the staffing needed to ensure every available unit of PSH is connected with a resident experiencing homelessness.

• We ask you to work closely and urgently with the DC housing Authority to identify and implement collaborative solutions to address long processing times for vouchers.

Preserve Public Housing, Expand Affordable Housing: Housing is the solution to homelessness. We urge you to make a substantial commitment to affordable housing for households earning 0- 30 percent of the Median Family Income (MFI). Expanding deeply affordable housing, paired with targeted funding to end homelessness, will create the long-term housing stability needed to provide security to all DC residents and to make homelessness rare, brief, and non-recurring. We recommend:

• $60 million to repair and preserve public housing.

• $17.3 million for 800 Local Rent Supplement Tenant Vouchers, to assist those on the DC Housing Authority waitlist.

Support safe and affordable housing for targeted populations: The District’s housing investments should take into account the unique needs of certain populations. To that end, we recommend:

• $18.6 million for housing for victims of domestic violence, including building new permanently affordable housing, supporting transitional housing, and providing emergency housing support. Collectively, this will support 166 families.

• $1.3 million to provide tenant vouchers to 60 returning citizens

Create storage options for people experiencing homelessness: One of the traumatizing consequences of experiencing homelessness is the inability to safely secure and maintain one’s belongings. We recommend:

• $1.5 million to create storage options for 600 residents experiencing homelessness.

Expand non-congregate shelter for people experiencing homelessness: The District should take steps to transform its shelter system to make them smaller, safer, and trauma informed. Shifting away from large congregate shelters is essential to supporting the dignity of unhoused residents but also to help them recover.

Continue to invest in homelessness prevention: We urge you to expand programs that help prevent homelessness, including Project Reconnect, an effective and low-cost program that enables people to exit homelessness quickly.

Support efforts to end youth homelessness: We recommend:

• $25 million to increase youth homelessness provider contracts to account for inflation and provide providers the opportunity to administer recruitment and retention bonuses to staff. (DHS)

•  $1.7 million to create a traveling mental health unit to meet the mental health needs of unaccompanied youth experiencing homelessness. This unit will meet youth where they physically congregate to increase access to mental health support. (DBH)

• $1.1 million to create a targeted workforce development program for unaccompanied youth experience homelessness mirroring the Youth Works model which not only provides workforce supports but wraparound services (DOES)

As the District works to address serious ongoing challenges and the impact of the pandemic, including high levels of housing instability, it is imperative to continue prioritizing actions that will advance racial and economic equity and meet the needs of DC residents with the lowest incomes. Not only is that the right thing to do, but it also is essential to DC’s future. Stable and affordable housing is the key to creating healthy communities, which in turn supports school success, promotes public safety, and narrows DC’s racial income and wealth gaps.

Thank you again for your leadership and commitment to ending homelessness in our city. We urge you to make 2024 the year that DC makes bold and significant investments to end homelessness and to increase the supply of deeply affordable housing for extremely low-income households.

Sincerely,

Tonia Wellons

President and CEO, Greater Washington Community Foundation
Chair, Partnership to End Homelessness Leadership Council

Housing: A Social Determinant of Health

Neighborhood & Built Environment (Housing) is one of the five social determinants of health, as identified by the US Department of Health and Human Services.

In DC, 80 percent of residents’ health outcomes are driven by socioeconomic factors, compared to just 20 percent driven by clinical care. Access to safe, quality, affordable housing – and to the supports necessary to maintain that housing -- constitute one of the most basic and powerful social determinants of health.

Research demonstrates that housing and health are inextricably linked:

• Poor health is a major cause of homelessness. Chronic physical and behavioral health conditions can lead to loss of income and contribute to the loss of stable housing and episodes of homelessness.

• Lack of stable housing makes people sick. People experiencing homelessness are at higher risk for infectious diseases, injuries due to accident or violence, the exacerbation of chronic physical conditions like diabetes, mental illness, or addiction, and death due to exposure. Homelessness has been found to “age” people up to 20 years beyond their chronological age.

• Homelessness makes it harder to heal. Homelessness complicates efforts for health professionals to successfully treat chronic conditions, illnesses, and injuries. Discharging a patient from a hospital to a safe and stable environment is critical for proper wound care, compliance with recommended treatments and medication regimes, and access to healthy foods and a place to rest and recuperate.

The Partnership to End Homelessness knows that housing is healthcare and that housing increases economic mobility. Access to quality, affordable, supportive housing can prevent illnesses and help successfully treat health conditions

The Partnership works to increase health equity and improve health outcomes for DC residents through its investments in the development and preservation of housing that is affordable to households with extremely low incomes, including Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH). PSH is an evidence-based practice that combines permanent affordable housing with comprehensive support services for people who have experienced chronic homelessness.

Through its direct grantmaking and impact investing programs, the Partnership supports the creation of housing for extremely low-income households.

One example of this work is a recent project from Jubilee Housing. The EucKal apartments will create a combined 50 units of housing that will be affordable to very low-income individuals and residents of permanent supportive housing. This project was made possible through a $500,000 recoverable grant from The Community Foundation to support Jubilee Housing’s development of PSH and other housing investments. In addition to the EucKal project, this funding was also leveraged to purchase four buildings in Adams Morgan and Columbia Heights to create 120 new units of housing for residents with low incomes. Jubilee plans to further expand its reach by creating housing to serve families, returning citizens, and individuals exiting homelessness. The organization hopes ultimately to provide housing to approximately 317 individuals annually, across 102 permanent units and 18 single room occupancy units.

Learn more about The Community Foundation’s Impact Investing Programs

Enterprise Community Loan Fund Impact Note

In partnership with Enterprise Community Loan Fund, the Partnership offers an Impact Note - an impact investing option for donors seeking to make a difference in the housing space. To date $14.8 million has been invested through this initiative, which has been leveraged to create and preserve 482 homes affordable to low-income households making less than 50% of the area median income. Projects have also included 96 units with supportive services and 192 units serving senior residents. Check out our 2022 Enterprise Community Loan Fund Impact Report to learn more about our investments and impact.

To learn more about how the Partnership’s investments in ending homelessness improves health outcomes for DC residents, contact Jennifer Olney at [email protected] or Silvana Straw [email protected].

Leading the Charge to Prevent Evictions and Increase Housing Stability in DC

Living in the Greater Washington region is expensive. Nationally, the Greater Washington region consistently ranks in the Top 10 Cities with the Highest Cost of Living – with high rental costs being a primary factor. However, in recent years the COVID-19 pandemic and economic downturn have exacerbated the issue – leading to widespread housing instability – especially for low-income Black and Brown residents.  

According to a 2021 report by the Urban Institute, almost one in two Hispanic/Latinx renters and more than one in four Black renters are worried about paying next month’s rent. As rental costs continue to rise, so too are evictions – which could lead to increased homelessness.

Through our Partnership to End Homelessness and its housing justice efforts, The Community Foundation has strived to be at the forefront of this issue.

In the summer of 2021, The Community Foundation was invited to participate in the White House Summit on Eviction Prevention, where we had a chance to meet with and exchange experiences with fellow housing leaders across the country.

Following the Summit, we joined with the DC Bar Foundation to convene what would become the DC Eviction Prevention Co-Leaders Group. Facilitated by The Urban Institute, the group is a coalition of key nonprofit, philanthropic, and government leaders that united to help expedite the distribution of emergency rental assistance, reduce the number of evictions, and increase overall housing stability. The overall goal of the Co-Leaders Group is to establish a cross-sector collaborative approach to prevent eviction and displacement of tenants in DC with low incomes and stabilize their housing for the future. Key leaders included representatives from Housing Counseling Services, Inc.; Bread for the City, DC Superior Court, the Department of Housing and Community Development, the Department of Human Services, the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development, the Office of the Tenant Advocate, and others.

The group’s weekly meetings have increased collaboration and produced tangible results to prevent evictions in DC. For example, the group has been able to ensure the presence of housing counselors in courtrooms during eviction hearings. It created a “last-mile” payment system to ensure tenants are not evicted for small remaining balances left after government assistance has been received. These convenings also led to improved communication with the US Marshals Service, which carries out evictions in DC and procured additional federal rental assistance for those at risk of eviction. In addition, the coalition has increased community outreach and door-to-door canvassing to reach tenants at risk of eviction.

Recently, several members of the Co-Leader group co-authored a report released by The Urban Institute titled, A Collaborative Framework for Eviction Prevention in DC. The report outlines current efforts to prevent evictions and recommends areas for strengthening the system of providers and agencies touching the system. The report recognizes that “the high cost of housing in DC relative to what many people can afford to pay requires a long-term commitment to increase affordable housing and economic opportunities in DC alongside the approach presented in this eviction prevention framework.”

However, despite these efforts, there is still much work to be done. Eviction filings and actual evictions have significantly increased since fall 2022. Clearly, the threat of an eviction crisis has not ended.

The Co-Leaders Group continues to serve as a conduit for leaders to come together on a weekly basis and address our community’s specific challenges. Together we continue the difficult but critical work to prevent evictions and increase housing stability.  

For more information on our efforts or how you can contribute, please contact Silvana Straw at  [email protected] or Jennifer Olney at [email protected].

Housing Justice Grants: Building Power to End Homelessness

Photo Cred: Miriam’s Kitchen

The Partnership to End Homelessness (The Partnership) is pleased to announce $395,000 in grants awarded to eight organizations and coalitions leading systems change efforts in DC. Selected nonprofits receive up to $50,000 in funding to support work to end homelessness and increase the supply of deeply affordable housing.

When we launched the Partnership to End Homelessness, we knew that to end homelessness we needed to focus on systems change. While philanthropic resources are limited, they can have an exponential impact when invested in the right places – specifically in efforts to transform structures, systems, policies and power dynamics that perpetuate racial inequities.

These investments in the infrastrucutre of advocacy and systems change organizations across the city have led to historic public sector investments in deeply affordable housing and ending homelessness. This wouldn’t have been possible without the work our grantees and partners do to build power in communities who have been disproportionately impacted by homelessness and housing instability.

Each year our grants prioritize funding for efforts that are developed and led by people with lived experience. These are people who are or have been directly impacted by homelessness and housing instability. Here’s what some of our grantees have shared about their work to build leadership and power in these communities.

Photo Cred: Miriam’s Kitchen

Miriam’s Kitchen

At Miriam’s Kitchen, we are committed to seeking input from our guests – the true experts on what it will take to end homelessness in our city. We believe that in order to truly create real change, we must move beyond simply gathering advice and feedback from our community. We need to create opportunities for leaders to raise their voices and to be heard. We must create space for our community members to learn, and grow, and feel supported. And, most importantly, we must allow leaders to lead. Community members deserve – and we know our work will improve when – they have true opportunities for leadership and decision making throughout our organization and across DC.

Last month, we launched the Guest Advisory Board, our newest (but certainly not our only) initiative to elevate guest decision making across Miriam’s Kitchen’s advocacy and programmatic work. We’re thrilled that this phenomenal group will meaningfully participate in Miriam’s Kitchen’s Strategic Planning process. With guest leaders comprising roughly half of our Strategic Planning Committee, we’re thrilled to see what comes of this powerful collaboration!

DC Fiscal Policy Institute

DCFPI leverages its analytic, legislative, and strategic capacities for systems change, building collaborative campaigns in partnership with grassroots groups, school leaders, service providers, and movement partners to amplify community voices and build community leadership in impacted communities. We elevate the lived experience of those unhoused, experiencing homelessness, and most harmed by unjust policies, centering them in our research, policy development, and advocacy. We do this to both enrich our work and ensure more unified and powerful voices advocating for collective goals that are reflective of and responsive to the experiences of residents facing racial and economic oppression.

DCFPI has an ambitious vision for the District—one of shared abundance and collective liberation, where Black and brown residents are able to live to their fullest. With our new strategic direction, we’re prioritizing our time and resources for partners rooted in Black, brown, and immigrant communities that have direct experience with the policy issues we work on – like those unhoused or experiencing homelessness – taking the time to deepen those relationships with an eye to longer-term, collaborative campaigns that can power more transformational change.

Housing Justice Grantees

• DC Jobs with Justice

• DC Fiscal Policy Institute

• Empower DC

• Fair Budget Coalition

• Miriam's Kitchen

• ONE DC: Organizing Neighborhood Equity

• People for Fairness Coalition in partnership with Serve Your City

• The Washington Legal Clinic For The Homeless Inc

Join the Partnership to End Homelessness Leadership Council!

Do you know a private sector leader in DC who is passionate about ending homelessness?

The Partnership to End Homelessness is recruiting for the next cohort of our Leadership Council. The Partnership was created with a goal of leveraging and aligning private sector resoruces (financial and otherwise) to increase the supply of deeply affordable housing and to end homelessness in DC.

Over the past three years, the Leadership Council has been instrumental in our work to align over $14 million in private sector resources and joined our partners in advocating for historic public sector investments.

As we look forward, we know we have more work to do. We also know the private sector must be at the table and coordinated in order to build the system we need to ensure everyone has safe and stable housing.

The Leadership Council has three primary objectives:

• Engage private-sector stakeholders and networks in work to end homelessness and increase housing stability in DC.

• Provide financial investment and other resources to support the strategic priorities of the Partnership to End Homelessness.

• Participate in budget advocacy, policy advocacy, and public narrative change efforts using personal and professional networks.

To learn more about our Leadership Council, please review this document.

If you know someone who is passionate about ending homelessness and can help advance this work, complete this brief form by February 28, 2023.

Advocates Hold 10th Annual Vigil for Dozens who have Died without Housing

On a night when temperatures were expected to drop below freezing, friends and advocates for DC’s Homeless Community huddled around an empty coffin at Luther Memorial Church, honoring of the 70+ DC Residents who have died without housing in 2022.

“Today we say goodbye to over 70 people – 70 people that are no longer with us, but whose memories we will always carry,” Donald Whitehead, Executive Director of the National Coalition for the Homeless shared prior to the procession in what could only be described as an impassioned eulogy.

Donald Whitehead, Executive Director of the National Coalition for the Homeless addresses friends and advocates at Luther Memorial Church.

“These were unnecessary deaths,” he continued. “Most of them preventable and would not have happened in a safe, decent affordable home. For most of them, there was no funeral; no headstone; no accolades read out – regardless of their accomplishments in life. Because they were forced into homelessness, it is up to us – to this congregation of the willing to say, one last time “we’re glad you were here”.

“It is in their memory – and in memory of thousands of others across the US – that we must change the conditions of this country – and we must do it today! We must end homelessness – and we must end it now!”

On each pew, sat a list of names of those who have died without housing in 2022 (thus far). While many of their stories and pasts remain untold, the data that is available reveals a grim narrative. The average age of the deceased was 55 – with the oldest being nearly 80 years old.

Perhaps most concerning to housing advocates is the number of deaths that were nearly prevented. More than 60% of those on the list had received a housing voucher but died before they could be housed – a troubling statistic that underscores one of the most glaring pitfalls of the current housing system.

“Of the 70 people who died without housing, 81 percent were Black,” explained Jesse Rabinowitz, the Senior Manager of Policy & Advocacy who helped compile the list as part of Miriam’s Kitchen’s The Way Home Campaign.

“As a city, we paint ‘Black Lives Matter’ on the sidewalk – clearly, we need to do more to ensure that Black Lives are not dying on the sidewalk.”

Following the service, the participants filed out onto 14th Street where they followed the empty coffin on a mile-long march towards Freedom Plaza.

For some in the procession of fifty or so participants, this was their first time at the annual vigil – which has become something of a somber holiday tradition in the homeless community.

For those at the front of the procession; the pallbearers – especially those with ‘lived experience’ of homelessness, this was their 10th time – a decade milestone that represents far too many cold sleepless nights and far too many friends needlessly lost.

“I know the feeling of the hard concrete before the cold,” Andrew Anderson, Outreach Director with the People for Fairness Coalition shared. “It’s part of why I do what I do – getting out on the streets and giving hope to those that need it the most. ‘Cuz I know how hard it can be.”

“We’re all outreach directors in our own right,” he added. “Any time you go the extra mile to give hope to the homeless in any way you know how. While many – especially those out in the cold tonight – want to give up hope, we know that housing is a human right. As long as there is a collective of the willing to fight for that right, there is hope.”

People for Fairness Coalition (PFFC) hosts this annual vigil each year and is a partner of The Community Foundation through our Partnership to End Homelessness.

To learn more about our work and how you can get involved visit www.endhomelessnessdc.org. To learn more about PFFC and how to support their work visit pffcdc.org.

Nonprofit Partners Outline Key Factors in the Fight to End Homelessness in DC

As the Partnership to End Homelessness celebrates its three-year anniversary, the Partnership’s staff and Leadership Council are taking time to reflect on the Partnership’s accomplishments and to begin planning for our work ahead.

In order to better understand what has changed since the Partnership launched and where we go from here, the Partnership invited several partners and experts to join our most recent convening. These experts shared their perspectives on the changing landscape of homelessness in DC and emerging challenges that require the support of private sector leaders.

Here are the top three takeaways from the conversation with Marisol Bello, Executive Director of the Housing Narrative Lab, Lara Pukatch, Chief Advocacy Officer at Miriam’s Kitchen, Theresa Silla, Executive Director of the DC Interagency Council on Homelessness, and Robert Warren, Director of the People for Fairness Coalition.

1. The stories we tell about the causes of homelessness drive the solutions we create and the policies we make. Since the end of the critical phase of the pandemic, there has been an increasing focus in local and national media on homelessness being a result of bad choices made by individuals. This unfortunately has led to more calls for punitive actions against people who are experiencing homelessness, such as criminalization of camping.
   This growing narrative ignores the fact that the primary causes of homelessness are failures in systems like housing, healthcare, and criminal justice. Research demonstrates that by telling this true story, we can focus our collective efforts on supporting proven solutions by addressing the root causes of homelessness. We can all become storytellers and make change by speaking out and influencing our families, friends, and organizations.

2. Advocacy drives change, and we can all be advocates. In the past two years, the District has invested a record number of resources in ending homelessness in our city. This is in part thanks to the advocacy of those with lived experience of homelessness and our advocacy partners – together with members of the private sector -- who have tirelessly lobbied policymakers to make these historic investments. Making a meaningful impact can be as simple as sending an email or making a phone call. We all have a role to play as advocates.

3. We can end homelessness for everyone in the District if we “hold fast and stay true.” The fight against homelessness has made many exciting strides in recent years. Since 2015, family homelessness is down by 80 percent. Veteran homelessness has also fallen – down by 50 percent since 2017. But we cannot become complacent – we need to continue our work to end family and veteran homelessness through tested, proven practices.
   
   At the same time, we need to take what we’ve learned in the family and veteran systems and apply that knowledge and intensity to addressing homelessness among single adults and youth.  

The Partnership to End Homelessness will be continuing the conversation over the coming months.

If you’re interested in learning more about the Partnership’s plans, and how you can support this work, please contact Jennifer Olney at [email protected].

Investing in the Future of Homeless Services: How Medicaid is Driving Systemic Change in DC’s Fight to End Homelessness

This year, the Partnership has been working to support nonprofit PSH providers as they transition to Medicaid billing. Our partnership with nonprofit providers, advocates, and government agencies makes us uniquely positioned to identify and support projects like this. In addition to support for individual organizations, investing in the system as a whole is an essential piece of our work to end homelessness. To learn more about the project, check out our previous blog post Investing in Nonprofit Capacity to Leverage Federal Funds to End Homelessness.

This year, DC launched a new Medicaid benefit that will fund permanent supportive housing (PSH) services for people experiencing homelessness -- allowing the city to leverage an estimated $20+ million in new, annual federal resources through Medicaid. The move also frees up local funding to be reinvested towards other human services programs in DC.

The new funding could be a breakthrough in our region’s fight against homelessness; specifically for our PSH programs -- one of the leading nationally-recognized solutions to chronic homelessness.  

However, this exciting funding unfortunately does come with a slight catch. In order to access it, DC’s nonprofit PSH providers must first make significant changes to the ways they’ve traditionally worked, adopting new policies and practices to ensure they can successfully bill and provide services under the new Medicaid model. Providers also need to improve their infrastructure to support the expanded human resources, accounting, evaluation, and compliance functions that come with this funding.

“It was scary at the start,” said Chandra Dawson, the Chief Permanent Supportive Housing Officer of Friendship Place. “As the person responsible for PSH at Friendship Place, I asked myself can I do this? How do I help my team do this?”

Recognizing the challenges that nonprofits – particularly smaller, BIPOC-led organizations – might face in making this transition, the Partnership to End Homelessness made a grant to provide technical assistance for twenty-six PSH providers through The Corporation for Supportive Housing (CSH), a national leader in supportive housing.

PSH providers were enrolled in CSH’s Supportive Housing Medicaid Academy, a six-week series of two-hour trainings where they learned how to enroll themselves as Medicaid providers. Topics included the how to enroll clients, how to supervise, budget, and bill under the Medicaid model, and how to comply with Medicaid regulations. In addition to group sessions, CSH also provided individual, one-on-one technical assistance to each organization.

Chandra Dawson, Chief Permanent Supportive Housing Officer of Friendship Place participated in CSH’s Supportive Housing Medicaid Academy.

Another benefit of the Medicaid Academy was that it allowed providers to meet and learn from each other. “Before this project, we had few opportunities for interaction and conversation with each other,” Dawson added. “It was great to have a dedicated space to exchange ideas, ask questions, and collaborate. I have experienced increased opportunities to meet and strengthen my relationship with other providers”

CSH also conducted individual assessments to assess providers’ readiness, identify remaining organizational capacity gaps, and make recommendations for improving organizational capacity. Even after completing the Academy, graduates continue to receive one-on-one technical assistance from CSH as they begin the process.

“CSH continues to give us feedback on our performance as we work on completing this transition,” Dawson added. “They are also really good about soliciting feedback from us to pass on to DHS; which is important while DHS develops policies at the agency-level that will impact us and other providers on the front lines.”

However, Dawson says the Medicaid transition isn’t just about changing billing procedures. It’s about changing the way that service providers operate.

“Our clients can often feel overwhelmed by all the systems they have to interact with,” Dawson explains. “They can feel invisible or unable to advocate effectively for themselves. As their service provider, we have a responsibility to lift that burden.”

“As a result of this Medicaid transition, there are additional “eyes” both within and outside of Friendship Place looking at our performance. Moving forward, we’re increasing our expectations for our case managers, as well as for our supervisory staff and program leaders. We hope this higher level of accountability will translate into a higher standard for service delivery, which should correlate with better housing and well-being outcomes for the people we serve.”

The process has also inspired Friendship Place to look at ways to improve all their programs, not just PSH: “In the past, program design has been primarily led by our program staff. However, Medicaid requires us to work collaboratively with team members from finance, evaluation, compliance, and human resources to develop strong quality assurance practices.”

“As we’ve documented workflows and updated policies and procedures in preparation for this transition, we’ve identified ways that we can work more efficiently across the organization.”

As a Partnership, we’re excited to share that many of the city’s PSH providers have already successfully enrolled in the Medicaid benefit and most providers should be billing Medicaid by early 2023.

The Community Foundation Applauds Housing Investments in DC Budget; Urges Continued Action

Dear Councilmembers, 

As we begin the new fiscal year, the Greater Washington Community Foundation and its Partnership to End Homelessness Leadership Council thank you for the substantial progress made toward ending homelessness through the FY 2023 DC budget. Thanks to your efforts, hundreds of individuals and families facing chronic homelessness will have the dignity and security of a permanent home, putting DC on a path to ending chronic homelessness. That is a truly amazing accomplishment that should be celebrated.  

The Partnership to End Homelessness (PTEH) is a collective effort of private sector business leaders, philanthropists, and national and local nonprofits working to ensure homelessness is rare, brief, and non-recurring. The Partnership members engage directly to end homelessness in DC, but we know that public-sector investment, aligned with private sector resources, is the only way to ensure that everyone in our community has the stability that housing provides.

The progress made in the FY 2023 budget is laudable. We thank you for adopting a budget that provides permanent supportive housing to 500 individuals and 260 families, funding to help 400 families facing expiring Rapid Rehousing subsidies, and $51 million for badly needed repairs to public housing.  We also applaud the provision of $444 million for the Housing Production Trust Fund, with a commitment to meeting the target that 50 percent is used to serve households with incomes below 30 percent of Median Family Income.

The budget is the necessary first step of the process toward ending homelessness, but not the end. It will be critically important to take steps to ensure that funds are put to use effectively, with assertive steps to implement them and with active Council oversight. In particular, we urge you to work with the DC Housing Authority to ensure that new vouchers are made available quickly and that public housing repair funds are used well. We appreciate the legislation adopted by the Council, that allows voucher holders to self-certify their identity, and other efforts to remove barriers to leasing up a unit. We urge you to do even more to ensure that residents can use their voucher quickly and easily to get into a home of their choice.  And we fervently ask you to meet the HPTF requirement to target households with extremely low incomes, which has not been met for years.

Beyond that, maintaining the progress in the FY 2023 budget is critically important and will require greater future investments in deeply affordable housing and eviction prevention, places where the FY 2023 budget fell short.  As we start looking toward the FY 2024 budget – it is never too early – we are concerned that the District’s budget did not provide enough funding for all families with expiring Rapid Rehousing subsidies, and did not create a plan for fixing that program’s serious problems. We urge the Council to pass pending Rapid ReHousing reforms, and for the mayor and Council to fund them in the next budget cycle. The 2023 budget also seriously underfunded emergency rental assistance and provided a very small number of LRSP vouchers compared with the need. These must be priorities as we continue to work toward our shared goal of ending homelessness in DC.

Thank you again for your leadership and commitment to ending homelessness in our city. We look forward to continuing to work with you to ensure everyone in DC has a safe and stable place to call home.

Sincerely,

Tonia Wellons

President & CEO
Greater Washington Community Foundation

Co-Chair Partnership to End Homelessness Leadership Council 

Flex Funding Reshapes Fight Against Homelessness

By Jennifer Olney, Senior Program Officer, Partnership to End Homelessness

In late 2019, the Partnership announced its first round of grants for “flex funding” programs to support four local nonprofits that provide Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) for people experiencing chronic homelessness: Miriam’s Kitchen, Open Arms Housing, Pathways to Housing, and Friendship Place.

These two-year grants were intended to help expedite housing placement and increase stabilization for single adults experiencing homelessness by providing funds that could cover small but critical expenses, such as fees to obtain IDs, that are essential to obtaining housing.

Flex Fund Impact Story: John was living in one of the city’s Pandemic Emergency Program shelters before being assigned to the Pathways to Housing Permanent Supportive Housing program in early 2021. The Pathways team quickly jumped into action to help him find housing before his rental voucher was set to expire. The team used Partnership flex funding support to provide transportation so John could view available apartments. He found a unit he liked and was approved to move in several days after he submitted his application. John moved into his new apartment in July 2021, starting his new chapter in safe and stable housing.

Soon after these flex funding grants were awarded, the world changed. With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, The Community Foundation quickly pivoted to provide emergency response support to the region, and the Partnership in turn moved to allow its grantees to use their flex funding grants even more flexibly to respond to new challenges.

This flexible approach , spurred in part by the pandemic, aligns with The Community Foundation’s shift toward implementing a trust-based philanthropy approach to our work. We believe it is important to support our grantees in allocating their resources to where they are most needed, making room for greater innovation, responsiveness, and impact.

Now, more than two years later, we are happy to see that this approach paid off. The grants not only demonstrated that flex funding could accomplish its original goals, but also served to respond to new needs that PSH clients faced due to the pandemic.

Our four top lessons learned:

• Flex funding can help reduce the time it takes to move people into housing. Flex funding was used by all the grantees to pay for critical expenses such as identification documents, apartment application fees, transportation to see available apartments, and movers. Open Arms Housing used some of the funding to help support a staff person dedicated to working directly with landlords to locate available units and lease up clients quickly. Three out of four grantees reported significant reductions in the time it took them to move clients into Permanent Supportive Housing.

• Flex funding can help increase equitable access to housing: Miriam’s Kitchen reported that some apartment buildings, generally in safer and more desirable neighborhoods, now charge additional “holding” or “amenities” fees (generally about $300). These additional fees create a significant barrier for people who have little or no income. The organization used some of the flex funding to pay these fees to secure more attractive apartments for clients – supporting clients’ mental and physical health by providing them with more choice in their selection of housing, and the ability to feel comfortable and secure in the housing and neighborhoods that they choose.

• Flex funding helped meet people’s COVID-related needs during the pandemic. The pandemic and resulting social distancing brought many new challenges for everyone – especially for PSH clients. Flex Funds allowed grantees the flexibility to meet some of those needs. For example, flex funds were used by grantees to cover the purchase of cell phones and cell phone plans for clients so they could stay in touch with their case managers when face to face meetings were not possible. These phones could also be used by clients to keep in touch with family, friends, and other members of their support networks and reduce their feelings of social isolation. Flex funding was also used to help provide clients with groceries, medicine, and PPE and COVID testing costs so they could stay safe and healthy.

• Flex funding can help make a house a home. All the grantees used flex funding to purchase home furnishings, groceries, cleaning supplies, holiday gift cards, and other household items for their clients. Open Arms Housing reported that although the donation of household items to their organization decreased during the pandemic, flex funding allowed them the ability to purchase items to ensure that their clients had what they needed for their new homes.

We are grateful for the commitment of our donors, who made these grants possible. The Partnership is committed to continuing our work to expedite housing placement and helping people remain stably housed. We hope you will join us.

Partnership to End Homelessness Awards Housing Justice Grants in Honor of Waldon Adams

The Partnership to End Homelessness (The Partnership) is pleased to announce $350,000 in grants awarded to seven organizations and coalitions leading systems change efforts in DC. Selected nonprofits receive $50,000 in funding to support work to end homelessness and increase the supply of deeply affordable housing.

Systems change is the intentional process of working to make population level change for whole groups of people by disrupting and dismantling the structures of cultural, social, and economic systems that perpetuate inequities. There are many ways to transform and disrupt systems. We know that in order to end homelessness, we must create systems that center people experiencing housing instability and homelessness and that prevent homelessness in the first place. To do that, we focus on efforts developed and led by people most directly impacted by homelessness and housing instability.

Our second round of Housing Justice Grants are made in memory of our Leadership Council member, Waldon Adams, a fierce advocate for ending homelessness who was tragically killed in 2021.

This grant opportunity provides flexible funding to the seven organizations below to support their advocacy, organizing, and other systems change efforts. This funding can be used for local and federal advocacy efforts, community organizing and education, or even infrastructure to increase the capacity of these organizations and coalitions. It can be used for staffing, messaging and communications, research, or meetings and events. We know these grantees share our goal of ending homelessness and increasing the supply of deeply affordable housing and it is important to us that we support them, as the experts in how to make that happen.

SYSTEMS CHANGE Community Partners

• DC Jobs with Justice

• DC Fiscal Policy Institute

• Empower DC

• Fair Budget Coalition

• Miriam's Kitchen

• ONE DC: Organizing Neighborhood Equity

• The Washington Legal Clinic For The Homeless Inc

Last year, the Partnership awarded our first grants to advance housing justice. Together with tenants and people with lived experience, our community partners led efforts to secure:

• historic budget investments resulting in Permanent Supportive Housing for over 2,300 households;

• $50 million for public housing maintenance and repairs;

• protections for neighbors experiencing homelessness during the pandemic;

• investments in rental assistance to ensure housing instability during the pandemic; and

• more just and equitable housing policies.

These grants were made possible thanks to generous partners and donors to the Partnership’s Grantmaking Fund.

Read on to learn more about a few of our partners, their work, and strategic priorities to transform and disrupt systems and advance housing justice. 

WORKING WITH TENANTS TO BRING ABOUT SYSTEMIC CHANGE

Empower DC’s work emphasizes the housing needs of DC’s lowest income residents, those earning 30% of the Area Median Income or below, including people with disabilities, the retired, low wage earners and people coming home from incarceration or experiencing homelessness. Empower DC received $50,000 to engage in community-led planning to expand deeply affordable housing and to preserve existing affordable rental housing, including public housing.  

“While DC has affordable housing laws that other cities envy – like Inclusionary Zoning (IZ), and the Housing Production Trust Fund – in reality, these programs have not stemmed the tide of displacement or addressed the need for low- income housing. DC’s existing policies and practices systemically fail to address the need for housing at this lowest income level, targeting instead incomes at 60 or 80% of the Area Median Income when units are built with public subsidy from the Housing Trust Fund or set aside by developers through IZ.

Empower DC addresses this inequity by organizing with people who need deeply affordable housing, including public housing residents, to push for greater investment in and protections for low-income tenants. Using policy, budget, planning and even legal strategies, Empower DC centers the expertise of low- income Black and Brown DC residents with lived experience of housing instability, elevating their voices as visionaries and champions for their communities. For more information or to get involved in Empower DC’s work, go to www.empowerdc.org.”

-          Parisa Norouzi, Executive Director, Empower DC

WORKING TOGETHER TO SECURE LIFE-SAVING HOUSING INVESTMENTS

Driven by the truth that housing ends homelessness, Miriam’s Kitchen and The Way Home Campaign community worked together to secure historic investments to end chronic homelessness in last year's budget. Now, Miriam’s Kitchen is working hard to ensure that this funding translates into life-saving housing for our neighbors experiencing homelessness. Miriam’s Kitchen received $50,000 to build capacity to push for resources, policies, and implementation that prevents and ends homelessness, and to enhance and expand The Way Home Campaign, a citywide movement to end chronic homelessness.

“Through our leadership of The Way Home Campaign, we continue to convene various stakeholders, including people with lived experience of homelessness, service providers, and advocates, to identify and advocate for policy solutions needed to quickly and effectively implement the over 2,300 new Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) vouchers available this year. Additionally, we, along with local and national partners, have spent much of the past year pushing back against Mayor Bowser’s harmful approach to homeless encampments and ensuring that our neighbors living outside are treated with respect and dignity.  

Mayor Bowser releases her budget proposal on March 16. This is a critical time to ensure that she hears from community members like you! Click here to urge Mayor Bowser to fully fund the recommendations laid out in Homeward DC 2.0, her strategic plan to end homelessness. To read our full budget recommendations and to join the over 7,000 individuals and 110 organizations pushing DC to end chronic homelessness, please visit www.thewayhomedc.org.”

-          Lara Pukatch, Chief Advocacy Officer, Miriam’s Kitchen

Historic Opportunities in the Fight to End Homelessness in DC

By Jennifer Olney, Community Investment Officer, Partnership to End Homelessness

As the Mayor and City Council are considering the FY2023 budget for DC, we face a historic opportunity to end chronic homelessness in DC. Last year, the DC Budget made significant investments in Permanent Supportive Housing, a proven solution to end housing instability for individuals who have experienced homelessness for an extended period of time and who struggle with complex health challenges such as mental illness, addiction, physical disabilities, or other chronic conditions.

This year, the Partnership to End Homelessness is working with our nonprofit, government, and public sector partners to build on this progress and leverage both federal and local resources available to end homelessness and make even more investments in long-term solutions.

We know that our investments alone will never end homelessness and that public sector resources must be targeted to support our neighbors who are struggling with homelessness and housing instability. That is why we created the Partnership to End Homelessness – to bring together public and private sector around a shared strategy to ensure all our neighbors have a safe, stable, and affordable place to call home.

We hope you will consider joining us in this critical work. There are three immediate and exciting opportunities to help advance the work of the Partnership in 2022:

1. Securing Public Sector Investments for housing and ending homelessness
   Last week, we sent a letter to Mayor Bowser asking her to use the revised 2022 budget and 2023 budget to continue to address housing challenges — specifically by expanding Permanent Supportive Housing, as well as Rental Assistance and Eviction Prevention.

   In addition to our own advocacy, we’re making our second round of housing justice grants to support our nonprofit partners leading budget advocacy and other essential systems change efforts. Last year their work secured historic investments, including almost 2,300 new vouchers for Permanent Supportive Housing. You can read more about those grants and how to get involved here.

   If you live or work in DC, we encourage you to get involved! Our elected officials need to hear from you. Tell them that increasing access to affordable housing and ending homelessness are a priority and that our future will be stronger if we do these things. Our partners at The Way Home Campaign have made it easy, click hear to send a letter now .
   

2. Investing in our nonprofits to leverage federal resources to end homelessness
   DC has an opportunity to leverage up to $20+ million in annual federal resources for Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) services in DC. This year, DC will launch a new Medicaid Benefit that will provide higher reimbursement rates for nonprofit providers and new and ongoing federal resources for ending homelessness in DC.

   In order to successfully leverage these resources, nonprofits will need to adopt new practices, quality control checks, and new or updated internal systems related to human resources, accounting, and compliance functions. We are working with our partners to raise critical funds to invest across the system to ensure all nonprofit partners, including smaller Black and Brown-led organizations, are ready to make this transition and leverage these new resources.

   Learn more in our recent blog post or support this work now by contributing to our Grantmaking Fund.

3. Ensuring housing stability through rental assistance and eviction prevention

   One of the key roles that we, as philanthropy, can play is that of convener. In response to the devastating effects of the pandemic and economic crisis, for over a year now, The Partnership has been working with Urban Institute and The DC Bar Foundation to convene key partners – including local government, philanthropy, legal services, landlords, and housing counseling organizations – to prevent evictions and connect tenants to available rental assistance.

   We know that our Black and Brown neighbors have faced higher rates of unemployment and eviction during the pandemic With 21,000 DC residents currently unemployed, we cannot stop working to ensure tenants can stay in their homes. We will continue to advocate for additional resources for tenants and to work with our partners to develop new systems that support tenants and their landlords to increase housing stability.

We know that increasing housing stability and ending homelessness will pay off, in stronger families, stronger communities, and a stronger future for this region. Research confirms that housing instability harms a child’s development and an adult’s ability to get and retain employment, and that providing housing stability creates better health and better futures for children, their families, and single adults.

This year presents an opportunity for DC. How will we respond? Ending homelessness will take everyone working together and doing their part. We hope you will join us.

The Partnership to End Homelessness works to ensure homelessness is rare, brief, and nonrecurring in Washington, DC. By joining together, we can increase the supply of deeply affordable housing, bolster our response system to help more people obtain and maintain stable housing, and ultimately end homelessness in DC

Letter to DC Mayor Muriel Bowser from the Partnership to End Homelessness Leadership Council

Dear Mayor Bowser:

We are writing on behalf of the Greater Washington Community Foundation and its Partnership to End Homelessness Leadership Council to thank you for your commitment to addressing homelessness in DC. As you work to finalize your budget proposal for fiscal year 2023, we ask you to take bold action to end homelessness and make substantial investments in housing that is affordable to DC households with extremely low incomes.

As you know, the Partnership to End Homelessness is a collective effort of private sector business leaders, philanthropists, and national and local nonprofits working to ensure homelessness is rare, brief, and non-recurring. We are committed to doing our part to end homelessness in DC. However, we know that we cannot do it alone. Public sector investment and commitment, aligned with private sector resources, is the only way to ensure that everyone in our community has the stability that housing provides.

The pandemic has emphasized how critical the role of housing stability is to everyone’s health and security. It has reminded us that far too many DC households are faced daily with housing instability and little or no financial cushion. And it has shown us what we can accomplish as a community when we commit to finding the resources to end homelessness.

As leaders in the business, philanthropic, and nonprofit sectors, we all want to live in a community that has worked to end homelessness, and we know that the District’s future will be stronger if we do. Ending homelessness and ensuring housing security will help children succeed in school, help workers be more present and productive, improve the overall health and well-being of residents, and reduce stresses on DC’s social safety net.

We are deeply appreciative that the budget for the current fiscal year took a major step toward ending homelessness, with funding to help thousands of people to move from homelessness to permanent affordable housing, and that you and the Council devoted a substantial amount of federal pandemic aid to address immediate housing security needs and create more long-term affordable housing opportunities. It is investments like these, sustained year after year, that will bring us to the place we all want: a District of Columbia where everyone has stable, secure, and decent housing that they can afford.

This is why we are asking you to use the revised 2022 budget and the 2023 budget to continue to address pre-pandemic as well as pandemic-driven housing challenges faced by so many, and to make continued progress toward ending homelessness and creating deeply affordable housing. We align with the recommendations of our community advocacy partners in calling on the District to use the Fiscal Year 2023 budget for bold action on our deepest inequities, especially homelessness and affordable housing for extremely-low income and very low income households.

Increased Rental Assistance and Eviction Prevention: The District has done an outstanding job of getting federal emergency rental assistance to those most at risk. Unfortunately, given the major lack of affordable housing, rising rents, inflation and ongoing unemployment, the need is so great that the District is running out of this resource. An estimated 40,000 DC residents remain at risk of eviction. We echo the concerns outlined in the letter submitted by DC Fiscal Policy Institute and 37 other organizations on January 27th, and urge you to invest:

• Necessary resources – estimated to be $200 million in rental assistance and $20 million in utility assistance – through ERAP or other programs. We urge you to do this now, through a supplemental budget for FY2022 or other means to tap the $566 million FY2021 surplus and higher-than-expected revenues this year.

• Substantial funding for rental assistance and emergency rental assistance in the FY2023 budget.

Expansion of Permanent Supportive Housing to end chronic homelessness: Even with the substantial investments in the FY2022 budget, under your new comprehensive plan, Homeward DC 2.0, we know that nearly 500 individuals and 260 families still face chronic homelessness. We urge you to implement your plan’s recommendation and invest:

• $25.9 million in permanent supportive housing for 500 individuals and 260 families

Investments to make homelessness truly rare, brief and non-recurring: The challenge of homelessness is not static, meaning that we cannot house those currently facing homelessness and expect the problem to end. Homelessness is affected by the continued and significant loss of affordable housing and the relentless increase in rents throughout DC– including the increase this year for rent-controlled units. In order to prevent homelessness and the long-term impacts of homelessness on our neighbors and our communities, we urge you to invest:

• $700,000 to prevent homelessness for 400 additional individuals through Project Reconnect

• $6.3 million in well-targeted Rapid ReHousing, including high-quality case management, for single adults

• $27.7 million in Targeted Affordable Housing for 1,040 households

• $24.2 million toward ending youth homelessness

• $1 million in workforce programming for homeless youth

• $558,000 to create a mobile behavioral health team than can meet youth where they are

• $1.8 million to continue the ReEntry Housing Pilot for Returning Citizens

• $1 million to fund B24-0106, the “Fair Tenant Screening Act of 2021,” and B24-0229, the “Human Rights Enhancement Amendment Act of 2021”

• $12.5 million to provide 65 units of transitional housing and 15 affordable housing units to survivors of domestic violence

Outreach and Other Services: While we work to ensure everyone has safe and stable housing, we must:

• Continue to provide PEP-V, non-congregate shelter options for residents experiencing homelessness who are at high risk of contracting and dying from COVID-19

• Fund robust street outreach, focused on housing

• Invest $300,000 in additional capital funds to build two 24-hour, 7-day public restrooms

Preserve Public Housing, Expand Affordable Housing: We urge you to use the FY 2023 budget to make a substantial commitment to deeply affordable housing for households earning 0- 30 percent of the Median Family Income (MFI). Housing that is affordable to households with extremely low-income households is the only real long-term solution to ending homelessness. This includes:

• At least $12.9 million in Local Rent Supplement Program vouchers to ensure that half of the Housing Production Trust Fund units will be affordable to people below 30 percent MFI, as required by law.

• Maintain stable funding for the Housing Production Trust Fund (HPTF) and strengthen transparency and reporting requirements to ensure the fund is meeting statutory affordability requirements.

• $17.3 million for 800 Local Rent Supplement Tenant Vouchers, to assist those on the DC Housing Authority waitlist.

• $60 million to repair and preserve public housing.

• $20 million to preserve affordable housing though the Housing Preservation Fund.

• $1.3 million to expand and provide tenant vouchers to 60 returning citizens .

In a community where over 85% of individuals experiencing homelessness are Black, addressing homelessness and investing in deeply affordable housing is a matter of racial equity and social justice. Our city and nation’s history of denying access to economic opportunity to Black people and those in other marginalized communities – relegating Black people largely to lower-paying occupations, denying access to federally guaranteed mortgages, allowing restrictive covenants and more – created the conditions we now see, where median Black household income is less than one-third median white household income and median wealth for Black households is less than one-eightieth the average white household wealth. The large majority of Black households are renters and thus subjected to the relentless increase in rents as the District develops, and most do not have the finances needed to move to homeownership, leading to displacement and/or homelessness. We have an obligation to reverse these conditions– especially as the Nation’s Capital.

Opening up opportunities to affordable housing and wealth building will pay off, in stronger families, stronger communities, and a stronger future. Research confirms that housing instability harms a child’s development and an adult’s ability to get and retain employment, and that providing housing stability creates better health and better futures for children, their families, and single adults.

Thank you again for your leadership and commitment to ending homelessness in our city. We urge you to make 2023 the year that DC makes bold and significant investments to end homelessness and to increase the supply of deeply affordable housing.

Sincerely,

Tonia Wellons
President and CEO, Greater Washington Community Foundation
Partnership to End Homelessness, Leadership Council Co-Chair

David Roodberg
CEO and President, Homing Brothers
Partnership to End Homelessness, Leadership Council Co-Chair