If we plan to tackle the problem of homelessness, a growing issue both locally and nationally, the first task is to acknowledge the complexity of the problem, the varied reasons that people find themselves homeless, and, therefore, the varied paths to regain a place in society.
Once a person in modern society is rendered homeless the barriers to re-entry are far greater than are usually appreciated by the housed population. Once left without four walls and a lockable door pretty much everything housed people take for granted becomes a challenge. What contact address to give as a place for people or agencies trying to help? Cell phone? Where do you charge it? Still holding down a job? Where do you bathe, clean and store your clothes? How do you keep your few belongings from being rifled through or stolen while you’re working or gone to the public library for the air conditioning or seeking assistance? Prepared food is expensive, but without access to means to cook and preserve food… Where are toilet facilities available? Will the police come by while I’m away and throw my belongings in a dumpster?
The ”Housing First” model offers substantive relief from all these challenges by providing basic living quarters first of all. Basic housing provides a foundation (and an address) from which to work with a client’s other issues, which might include drug use and/or mental health. “Housing First” was developed and supported by social research over the last thirty years: first provide a basic, safe place to be, then work on the other issues. (Click Housing First for more.)
When a “Fall Symposium” to discuss the issue of homelessness in Spokane is announced by Hello for Good, a coalition of local business people, one might reasonably expect that “Housing First” would be discussed as a major part of the solution.
The introduction to the Symposium to be held Thursday, September 1, at 8AM at the upscale Davenport Grand Hotel certainly sounds promising—even collaborative:
Please join us on September 1st for an educational discussion on homelessness and its effects on our region. Engage with “renowned experts” [the quotation marks are mine] on this complicated topic to understand solutions, challenges, and data-driven decisions.
This event is hosted by Hello for Good, a coalition of private businesses committed to helping Spokane community members connect to important resources and take advantage of opportunities that will help them thrive. Through a collaborative effort with business owners, leaders, and community members, we strive to create full-spectrum solutions that address addiction recovery, housing, education, job training, and employment to create real and lasting change.
The collaboration and balance implied by that introduction is belied by the featured speaker, Dr. Robert Marbut. Dr. Marbut is the chief spokesperson and proponent of a homelessness solution ideology which he characterizes as “Housing Fourth”, a characterization by which he underlines the stark contrast between his approach and “Housing First”.
Chris Patterson is one of the co-chairs of Hello for Good and, presumably, one of the organizers of the September 1 Symposium. In an article in the Spokesman last May, Mr. Patterson was hired by Hello For Good after serving as a regional administrator in the Department of Housing and Urban Development in the Trump administration.
Contemporaneous with Mr. Patterson, Dr. Marbut, the featured speaker, “served as the Executive Director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness…after being appointed by then-President Donald Trump.” (Dr. Marbut left that position less than a month after Trump left office.) It seems entirely fair to imagine that Mr. Patterson was aware of Dr. Marbut through his position in the Trump administration and fully aware of Dr. Marbut’s ideology concerning homelessness.
Dr. Marbut’s position is articulated in his wikipedia article [a link worth reading in full for perspective on Dr. Marbut’s ideology]:
“I believe in Housing Fourth" — awarding permanent housing after residents have shown their personal lives are in order. "I often say, 'Having a home is not the problem for the homeless,'" Marbut told the magazine Next City. "It’s maintaining a financial stability that allows you to maintain your homestead.”
As with many polarizing Trump appointees to government agencies, it appears that Dr. Marbut was chosen for precisely because his ideology was at odds with agency he was supposed to direct. Here’s how The National Low Income Housing Coalition characterizes Dr. Marbut’s tenure:
Robert Marbut left his position as executive director of the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH) on February 16 [2021]. Mr. Marbut’s tenure at USICH was defined by his rejection of evidence-based best practices and endorsement of dehumanizing and ineffective methods for addressing homelessness.
Mr. Marbut rejected “Housing First,” a proven strategy that prioritizes finding safe, stable, accessible housing for people experiencing homelessness before addressing other problems, like substance abuse or untreated mental health issues. The efficacy of the Housing First model is supported by two decades of research and has been identified by USICH as a best practice for ending homelessness.
One of the other two speakers at Hello For Good’s September 1 Symposium is Paul Webster, a blustery fellow representing an entity he founded called the “Hope Street Coalition”. I urge you to visit the website and see for yourself. Look for substance amid the glitz and the general statements. There is no record of any program the organization actually runs or has brought to completion. The primary purpose of the website is for Mr. Webster to showcase (as “News and Media”) his opinion pieces. The title of one of his articles reveals his partisan stance: “Homelessness: Biden’s Plan to Combat It Is Recycled and Feeble.” Tucked away with one of the articles is a note that Mr. Webster served “most recently as Senior Policy Advisor at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. HUD is a large department, but it is hard not to wonder if Mr. Patterson became acquainted with Mr. Webster and his ideology in that setting.
A third speaker, Jon Ponder, is the founder of “Hope for Prisoners”, a faith-based organization based in Las Vegas whose mission is to aid prisoners in re-entering society. Pastor Paula White recently joined the board of Hope for Prisoners. Her prosperity-gospel, televangelist ministry is based in Florida. She controversially served as chair of the “evangelical advisory board” in the Trump administration.
We would all like to solve the homelessness crisis that plagues not just Spokane, but communities with high housing costs (the factor most correlated with homelessness) throughout the nation. We also can acknowledge that for some homeless people taking advantage of a “Housing Fourth” style offering (like the Union Gospel Mission) is the best way forward. That said, this Hello For Good Symposium exclusively offers a forum to only contrary “experts” representative of a minority ideology of homelessness is a poor excuse for a gathering meant to help attendees “understand solutions, challenges, and data-driven decisions”. It would be a difficult to assemble a more partisan Republican speaker panel than the speakers Hello For Good is offering. This is not collaboration. It does, however, shine some light on Mayor Woodward’s comment that homelessness needs to be made “less comfortable”.
Some who attend the Hello For Good Symposium will have their biases confirmed. Some, having little acquaintance with the issue, will accept the Symposium as the distillation of expert opinion on homelessness. Meanwhile, as the attendees listen to Dr. Marbut, Mr. Webster, and Mr. Ponder in air-conditioned comfort, people who actually serve on the ground with the homeless, like Julie Garcia of Jewels Helping Hands and Maurice Smith of Rising River Media and a host of others, will be out actually doing the work.
Keep to the high ground,
Jerry
P.S. If you are unfamiliar with the movement and documentation of “Housing First” I urge you to click that link and become acquainted. Too often we (myself included) are lulled into thinking that groups like Hello For Good must know what’s best—and we stand aside in a position of ignorance as they roll over better evidence. It is time for that to stop.
P.P.S. I can’t get Chris Patterson’s comment about Hello For Good, “We’re not focused on supporting the mayor or the City Council. We don’t work for them, they work for us” out of my head. Hmmm. I thought, perhaps naively, that the Mayor and the City Council were supposed to answer to the voters who elected them, not just a monied, ideologically driven group of local business people.