Cuts shred safety net, leaving more families homeless

SOUTH FAIRMOUNT – Eliza Morrison, her 4-year-old daughter and newborn triplet sons are one step away from living on the streets – one of 19 homeless families seeking shelter night-to-night in Hamilton County.

Greater Cincinnati, like much of the country, is experiencing an unprecedented surge in the number of homeless families living on the streets and in crowded shelters.

"I have never seen this many families come to us from sleeping in a car," said Darlene Guess, director of client programs at Bethany House Services. "We had a mom and son come to us from an abandoned building. I have never seen an onslaught of families coming here from the streets."

Strategies to End Homelessness, the leading local authority on homelessness, said families have never been in such dire straits. An analysis of the county's needs is expected to be released Thursday.

A steady reduction in federal money available to communities to help house the homeless is causing the crisis. More than 72,000 families nationally lost rental assistance last year, the result of government spending cuts called for in the Budget Control Act of 2011.

Money projected in Hamilton County to keep families in their homes in 2014 – $750,000 – is one-third the amount available in 2011.

Her high-risk pregnancy forced Morrison, 32, most recently of Westwood, to stop working as a restaurant server, a job she had held at full-time hours for 10 years. She could not work, so she did not get paid. Her landlord evicted her in March. Creditors repossessed her car.

Morrison gave birth to triplets nine weeks ago. They delivered 10 weeks early and spent seven weeks in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center.

When her three sons were well enough to go home, she had no place to go.

Home for the past two weeks has been a living room in the eight-bedroom Bethany House shelter, which she found in an online search.

"I am just happy to have a place to be," Morrison said Wednesday as she changed a son's diapers on a plastic pad. At night, a mattress is moved into the room for her and her daughter. Her three sons sleep in car seats lined up on a couch.

But now, Bethany House has no more room. Its eight bedrooms, two small lounges and the living room are filled with homeless families.

With limited resources, local agencies served 483 people – individual homeless people and families – in prevention programs through June 30 of this year.

In 2011, 2,820 people received services in Hamilton County ranging from rent and utility assistance that allowed them to stay in their homes. More money was available, too, to pay for support housing and other bridges over homelessness.

In 2012, 1,870 people received assistance. In July 2012, a three-year, $3.6 million homelessness-prevention program paid for by federal stimulus money ended. So in 2013, the number of people getting rent or utility help dropped here to 942.

Homelessness assistance has proven successful: 97 percent of Hamilton County households receiving that federal prevention money from 2009 through 2011 avoided shelters, Strategies data show.

"That resource is one of the main reasons why homelessness declined in those years," said Kevin Finn, executive director of Strategies, a nonprofit that applies for and manages homeless prevention money for the city of Cincinnati and Hamilton County. "It preserved housing for those most at risk of becoming homeless."

The number of families in shelters through the first six months of the year is 241, which projects to fewer than the 656 that received shelter in 2013. The reason, Finn said, is that families are forced to stay longer in shelters because they have no other housing options.

In addition to Bethany House, four agencies provide or manage shelters for homeless families in Hamilton County. Together, they serve about 1,000 families a year.

One of the agencies is the Interfaith Hospitality Network of Greater Cincinnati, which coordinates housing for homeless families through its network of 90 local religious congregations. Twenty-seven provide housing, and 63 provide volunteers, meals and supplies.

"Our shelters, the whole family network, is always full," said Georgine Getty, Interfaith executive director and former head of the Greater Cincinnati Homeless Coalition.

"What is new – in the 15 years I have worked in homelessness – is the number of families coming to us straight from the street. These aren't people who are coming to us from doubled-up situations."

Doubled-up is a homeless term used to define a homeless family that is living with relatives or friends in their home.

Family homelessness often increases in June and July, when income-tax returns dry up, ending a money source that had been used to pay rent or compensate family members or friends for allowing them to double-up, experts say. Doubled-up living conditions are more palpable during the fall and winter when children are in school. They're more likely to end once summer vacation begins.

Another reason for the increase in family homelessness is how Hamilton County followed the lead of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to focus on chronic individual homelessness, Getty said.

"It's a natural consequence," she said. "For five years, we have prioritized individual homeless and not increased our ability to serve families."

At this point, Getty said, the county's family homelessness system is able to meet between 20 percent and 30 percent of the need, a rate, she said, "that is dropping every year."

The trend is national.

"Here in D.C., we have an unprecedented crisis in the number of families needing shelter beds overwhelming the number of shelter beds available," said Jerry Jones, executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless in Washington.

"What Cincinnati is facing is not unique in any way." ⬛

HOW TO HELP

Bethany House Services is spending money it doesn't have budgeted to pay for motel rooms for homeless families. To date during this current crisis, it has paid for six families to live in motels. To donate, go to www.bethanyhouseservices.org/donate or call 513-557-2877. The mailing address is 1841 Fairmount Ave., Cincinnati, OH 45214.