Mayor Schell Zero Homelessness Program

This case study focuses on a pledge made by Seattle’s Mayor Paul Schell on June 2, 1998. He pledged to rid the city of homeless families with children or homeless women by Christmas. Schell was known as a no-nonsense visionary and it was exciting to hear that he had such a passion for the homeless.
As a former developer, it was no surprise that Schell was committed to housing. He enjoyed the support of both Democrats and Republicans including the manager in the case, Alan Painter who shared the mayor's commitment and enthusiasm for reducing homelessness in the city. Painter had dedicated his professional career to serving the needs of the homeless but he was concerned about how the mayor's pledge would actually become reality. Painter knows the current strategies and capacities of the city to address homelessness, but now must develop a strategy to fulfill this new pledge. The case describes homelessness in Seattle, current programs and strategies implemented by the city government, and the mayor's pledge. The case ends with Painter wondering how his agency and the city will respond to the mayor's pledge.
King County has one of the nation's best-established point-in-time counts of homeless people. The One Night Count remains the largest community-organized count in the United States. Since 1980, the Seattle/King County Coalition on Homelessness (SKCCH ~ pronounced "Skitch") and Operation Night Watch have organized the One Night Count of people who are without shelter.
The One Night Count has two parts: 1. A survey of emergency shelter and transitional housing providers about who is staying in their programs or facilities on that night. Staff from the King County Community Services Division, Homeless Housing Program coordinates the survey. 2. A street count of people who are homeless, without shelter and staying outside, in vehicles or in makeshift shelters. SKCCH has expanded the count from its downtown Seattle origins to include parts of 11 suburban cities and unincorporated King County and Metro Night Owl buses.
One limited measure of the growth in homelessness is the increase in the number of shelter beds over time. A 1991 study examined homelessness "rates" (the number of shelter beds in a city divided by the city's population) in 182 U.S. cities with populations over 100,000. The study found that homelessness rates tripled between 1981 and 1989 for the 182 cities as a group (Burt, 1997).
A 1997 review of research conducted over the past decade (1987-1997) in 11 communities and 4 states found that shelter capacity more than doubled in 9 communities and 3 states during that time period (National Coalition for the Homeless, 1997). In two communities and two states, shelter capacity tripled over the decade.
These numbers are useful for measuring the growth in demand for shelter beds (and the resources made available to respond to that growth) over time. They indicate a dramatic increase in homelessness in the United States over the past two decades. Additionally, in the U.S. Conference of Mayors report from 2008, 19 of the 25 cities reported an increase in homelessness from 2007. More specifically, 16 cities reported an increase in the number of homeless families.
Also, due to the recent foreclosures crisis, homelessness has been on the rise. In the U.S. Conference of Mayor’s 2008 Report, 12 of the 25 cities surveyed reported an increase in homelessness due to foreclosures and another 6 didn’t have enough data to be sure. Thirteen of these cities had adopted policies to deal with the recent increase in victims of the housing crisis, but 10 cities had not implemented new policies.
There are several policies dealing with homelessness. In 1980 the government decided to start sending funding to the homeless, but it was not until 1984 that shelters were built to accommodate and feed them. However, nearly seventy percent required the homeless to attend a religious ceremony and spend only a couple of nights there. In the 1987 McKinney Act the problem with homelessness became known as a huge social problem. Later on, the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 amended the program explicitly to prohibit states that receive McKinney-Vento funds from segregating homeless students from non-homeless students, except for short periods of time for health and safety emergencies or to provide temporary, special, supplementary services. The Chronic Homelessness Initiative. The Bush Administration established a national goal of ending chronic homelessness in ten years, by 2012. The idea of a 10-year plan to end chronic homelessness began as a part of a 10-year plan to end homelessness in general adopted by the National Alliance to End Homelessness (NAEH) in 2000. The following year, then-Secretary Martinez announced HUD's commitment to ending chronic homelessness at the NAEH annual conference. In 2002, as a part of his FY2003 budget, President Bush made "ending chronic homelessness in the next decade a top objective." The bi-partisan, congressionally mandated, Millennial Housing Commission, in its Report to Congress in 2002, included ending chronic homelessness in 10 years among its principal recommendations. By 2003, the Interagency Council on Homelessness had been re-engaged and charged with pursuing the President's 10-year plan. The Administration has recently undertaken some collaborative efforts to reach its goal of ending chronic homelessness in 10 years. On October 1, 2003, the Administration announced the award of over $48 million in grants aimed at serving the needs of the chronically homeless through two initiatives. The "Ending Chronic Homelessness through Employment and Housing" initiative was a collaborative grant offered jointly by HUD and the Department of Labor (DOL). The initiative offered $10 million from HUD and $3.5 million from DOL to help the chronically homeless in five communities gain access to employment and permanent housing. Section 8 is the core housing program that helps extremely low-income families accommodate the gap between their incomes below 30 percent of the median income for each community. The government assists homeless families by awarding grants and vouchers. Vouchers are available to the families who are most needy and they are used to pay for housing found in the private market. Currently there are policy changes in who receives vouchers and there will be a reduction in the amount of vouchers granted to the homeless population.
On May 20, 2009, President Barack Obama signed the Homeless Emergency Assistance and Rapid Transition to Housing (HEARTH) Act of 2009. The HEARTH Act amends and reauthorizes the McKinney-Vento homeless Assistance Act with substantial changes. The HEARTH Act of 2009 consolidated HUD's competitive grant programs, created a Rural Housing Stability Program, changed HUD's definition of homelessness and chronic homelessness, supplied a simplified match requirement, increased prevention resources and increased in the emphasis on performance. The primary purpose of the legislation was to provide principal definitions regarding homelessness. The following terms: "homeless," "homeless individual," "homeless person," and "homeless individual with a disability.”
By its very nature, homelessness is impossible to measure with 100% accuracy. More important than knowing the precise number of people who experience homelessness is our progress in ending it. Recent studies suggest that the United States generates homelessness at a much higher rate than previously thought. Our task in ending homelessness is thus more important now than ever.