READING \u2014 Groups that serve unhoused people in Berks County may have to abandon a proven housing model or risk losing millions of dollars under expected rules from the Trump administration.<\/p>\n
The president\u2019s threat to end financial support for Housing First programs comes as the county experiences record amounts of unsheltered people. At the moment, nonprofits responsible for providing housing are stuck in limbo without further guidance.<\/p>\n
Housing First programs are designed to have few, or even no, barriers to individuals obtaining reliable and permanent shelter, because once people are housed, it becomes more attainable to meet their other needs. Once sheltered, individuals also receive wrap-around services, such as job training, substance use support, or mental health counseling.<\/p>\n
To turn from Housing First policies would be a total \u201cparadigm shift\u201d of the current way cities and nonprofits address homelessness, said Jack Gombach, the City of Reading\u2019s managing director.<\/p>\n
Elise McCauley is assistant director of the Berks County Coalition to End Homelessness<\/a>, which works with a network of nonprofits to use federal funding on a slew of local projects, including permanent housing options. As the nonprofit sector navigates both federal and state budget delays, McCauley said these groups fear loss of services, layoffs, furloughs, and even closures without funding.<\/p>\n \u201cIt’s gonna get really scary, really quick,\u201d McCauley said.<\/p>\n President Donald Trump signed an executive order in July instructing the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to end support for Housing First policies. HUD has yet to release guidelines for next year\u2019s grant applications, which are typically due at the end of September. But internal documents obtained by Politico<\/a> show HUD is preparing significant funding cuts for permanent housing programs.<\/p>\n Berks County is seeing a growing number of individuals experiencing homelessness for the first time, according to the yearly Point in Time count<\/a>. The PIT count cannot represent the exact number of people facing homelessness, but it acts as a base number for the next year.<\/p>\n In June, a count found 677 people experiencing homelessness, including 257 people without shelter and 324 people in emergency shelters. The count represented the highest number of unsheltered individuals ever recorded in the county.<\/p>\n What does Housing First mean?<\/p>\n Historically, people experiencing homelessness had to meet certain criteria before qualifying for permanent housing. Housing First policies opened the door for support more quickly, regardless of a person\u2019s extenuating circumstances.<\/p>\n Depending on the city or county, outreach workers normally evaluate unhoused individuals and determine that person\u2019s level of vulnerability. Their personal information is then put into the Homeless Management Information System<\/a> for workers to keep track of what services the person has received, where they normally sleep, what organizations work with them, and other distinguishing factors. If housing becomes available for that person, their local caseworker notifies and helps them.<\/p>\n Before Housing First policies became the norm in the United States, those individuals may have needed to prove sobriety for a certain amount of time or have a stable job before being housed. However, the approach has changed because housing experts<\/a> have said people without reliable housing have a hard time maintaining good mental health, financial stability, or sobriety.<\/p>\n Once housed, they gain more access to tools to help them stay so.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can’t put somebody in a house who hasn’t successfully been housed before and expect them just to know what to do,\u201d McCauley said.<\/p>\n The policies can seem abstract to people who do not work with the unhoused, McCauley said. National homelessness collectives, including the Berks coalition, think Housing First is one of the most effective ways of keeping people in housing while also lowering costs for others.<\/p>\n Cities with a rising homeless population tend to have higher emergency, policing, and hospital costs, McCauley said.<\/p>\n \u201cHousing First isn’t just about being nice to people,\u201d she said, adding \u201cIt’s more than that. It’s also a benefit to the whole community.\u201d<\/p>\n What did Trump\u2019s executive order say about Housing First policies?<\/p>\n