Rapid Re-Houseless:

Action Needed for 126 people from Rapid Rehousing being kicked to the streets

Rapid Re-Houseless:

Action Needed for 126 people from Rapid Rehousing being kicked to the streets end of April!@# 

Monday April 15th 2024 at City and County Building (1437 Bannock St) 

Press Conference: 3:30-4:30pm

Deliver Demand Letter: 4:30-5pm

City Council Public Comment: 5-5:30pm

At the end of April, 126 people who were housed through rapid rehousing in a “housing surge” two years ago will be facing the streets and shelters again. We can not stand for these people to be kicked back to the streets!!! The City cannot claim big success in housing people, only to quietly kick them back to the streets two years later!@# 

Rapid Rehousing is a method of connecting people with housing to rent (leased in the residents name and liability) and then assisting the person(s) with rent costs (usually having the resident pay ⅓ of their income toward the rent and the provider pays the rest). This method sounds great, until you realize it is only temporary – most Rapid Rehousing only lasts for a few months to two years. In the case of this Rapid Rehousing contract, it was two years. 

The “housing surge” that housed these 126 people through rapid rehousing was part of a (mostly) federally funded initiative with Covid-19 dollars directed to local governments to disperse to agencies to house houseless people. We did an analysis of the breakdown in housing connection claimed in this housing surge which can be found here. In brief, only 22 of the 389 housing connections the City claimed were new long term housing opportunities. 126 of these were Rapid Rehousing. Now these people are getting kicked back to the streets. 

The City distributed federal funds to organizations to administer this program but never made any plan to secure long term vouchers or permanent housing of any kind for these people. Now some workers in these agencies are scrambling trying to figure out housing options for these people, but there is no resources allocated and no collaboration between the City and these agencies to make and resource a plan for these 126 people to stay housed. 

Case managers, who were supposed to be helping these residents over these past 2 years, were given no resources to connect them to, told mis-information (including telling residents that they should not worries because they should be getting a long term housing voucher at the end of the time), and the turn over rate for these case managers was so high making it near impossible for them to provide consist assistance. 

Instead, individuals are blamed and told they should have gotten their lives together in the last 2 years to be able to afford the $1,000-2,000 a month rents. 

Of note, this is the same plan the Mayor has for most of the “housing connections” for people in the “house” 1000 program now. Of the 495 housing opportunities the Mayor has funded for residents of the “house” 1000 sites (which should be 2,000 people by the end of this year), 200 of those are rapid rehousing vouchers. Furthermore, the Mayor is turning to rapid rehousing directly for another large number of people as the main “pathway to housing.” All these Rapid Rehousing vouchers are for one to two years. Come 2025 or 2026 these people will all be right back on the streets with no attainable housing. 

We are demanding IMMEDIATE action to secure housing for these 126 people being kicked to be “Rapid Re-houseless” at the end of April. 

We demand…

• Transparent data on how many people housed through rapid rehousing in this 2022 housing surge have gotten permanent housing and how many have no permanent housing and are facing houselessness again.
• A series of meetings with the purpose of securing a plan for housing for all these rapid rehoused residents before the end of the month – to include Mayor’s office, HOST, all agencies overseeing contracts for this rapid rehousing (including direct case managers and housing specialists working with rapid rehoused clients), us (HAND), and any residents of this rapid rehousing who wish to attend. 
• Housing for all rapid rehoused residents being kicked to the streets. This could include solutions such as…
  • The City fund Project Based Voucher units for all these residents
  • The City give a grant to CCH to house all these residents in their existing vacant units
  • Extend Rapid Rehousing funds, including case management, until all residents have permanent housing 
  • Secure housing vouchers from DHA for all residents
  • Other solutions…
• Create an actual permanent housing plan for all being pushed into rapid rehousing from “house” 100 sites.

Join us in making these demands heard, April 15th 3:30pm at City Hall. 

And if you have not yet donated to support one of the individuals affected by this rapid re-houseless plan, donate to support Teri who is speaking up advocating for herself and all others being kicked to the streets… Donate herehttps://gofund.me/e97a9033