Finish the fight on homelessness
“We have more will than wallet.”
That’s what President George H.W. Bush said in his 1989 inaugural address as he listed the social problems facing an America headed for a recession.
Homelessness, a perennial challenge, was one of them.
But we’re learning in Charlotte we can do much more than just wring our hands about this problem. We can attack it. Thanks to an array of thoughtful community initiatives, homelessness is down four years in a row, according to a new report by the UNC Charlotte Urban Institute.
We have an estimated 2,000 homeless. That’s a 29 percent decrease since 2010, or about 800 fewer people spending any given night on the streets, in a shelter, or in transitional housing.
The per capita homelessness rate fell 1.2 percentage points in that time. Also, chronic homelessness, perhaps the toughest part of the problem, fell 36 percent over the past five years, according to another recent survey.
All of this is happening despite the fact that Charlotte is one of the fastest-growing metro areas in the country.
Why are we making progress? Because social service groups, government, the faith community and the business sector have come together around holistic solutions such as Moore Place, the 85-unit housing complex for the chronically homeless.
Researchers estimate the three-year-old complex has saved Mecklenburg County $2.4 million by not only giving the chronically homeless someplace to stay, but also giving them the kind of “wrap-around” services that trimmed the number of emergency room visits, jail beds and other costly services they typically require.
That’s encouraging. Still, members of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Coalition for Housing say we remain far from our civic goals of ending chronic homelessness by 2016 and ending and preventing all homelessness by 2020.
The estimated number of homeless veterans is up 10 percent from 2010 and up 18 percent in the past year. The number of people in emergency and seasonal shelter is up 23 percent since 2010, and up 13 percent in the past year. You need only drive along North Tryon Street, where many of the homeless congregate, to see how real the challenge remains.
Still needing support is an $11 million campaign to build and run a new 100-unit facility for the chronically homeless, and find additional scattered-site apartments. Also unclear to advocates: How much support the cash-strapped city of Charlotte can provide to the $20 million A Way Home housing endowment for housing and rental aid for families and veterans.
Local leaders say they need additional Moore Place-style housing and more rent subsidies for regular apartments.
“We have a lot more work to do,” County Manager Dena Diorio told the editorial board this week.
Charlotte surely has enough “wallet” to keep pushing such worthy efforts forward.
The question we all should ask ourselves: Do we have enough will?
This story was originally published May 15, 2015 at 4:05 PM with the headline "Finish the fight on homelessness."