In this episode we switch it up, and Dr. Marisa Zapata is the one answering the questions about rates of homelessness, affordable housing, and how to help those living unsheltered. Community leader and housing advocate Shannon Singleton gets to ask the questions that many community members have. She is the former executive director of JOIN, a local nonprofit that provides street outreach and housing placement support to individuals and families experiencing homelessness.
Editor’s note: This episode was recorded before Shannon Singleton announced her candidacy for Multnomah County Chair, and is not meant as an endorsement of any campaign.
In this episode we switch it up, and Dr. Marisa Zapata is the one answering the questions about rates of homelessness, affordable housing, and how to help those living unsheltered. Community leader and housing advocate Shannon Singleton gets to ask the questions that many community members have. She is the former executive director of JOIN, a local nonprofit that provides street outreach and housing placement support to individuals and families experiencing homelessness.
Editor’s note: This episode was recorded before Shannon Singleton announced her candidacy for Multnomah County Chair, and is not meant as an endorsement of any campaign.
Dr. Marisa Zapata:
Hi, you all. I'm Marisa Zapata. And this is the podcast where we examine homelessness by talking to researchers and experts who of course include people with lived experience of homelessness to understand what we're missing in the headlines and soundbites. In each episode, we will help clear up misconceptions about homelessness and to answer what it would take to prevent and end homelessness in Portland and beyond. Who am I. I'm an Associate Professor of Land Use Planning at Portland State University. I'm Director of PSU's Homelessness Research and Action Collaborative, a research center dedicated to reducing and preventing homelessness, where we lift up the experiences and perspectives of people of color.
Speaker 2:
In this episode, we switch it up and Dr. Marisa Zapata is the one answering the questions. Shannon Singleton, community leader and housing advocate asked Dr. Zapata about homelessness rates, affordable housing and how to help those living in shelters. This episode was recorded before Shannon Singleton announced her candidacy for Multnomah County Chair, and is not meant as an endorsement of any campaign. This episode was recorded outside. So you might hear the sounds of an occasional bus or passers by. Thank you for listening.
Shannon Singleton:
So HIA, thank you. You know, we're hearing from a lot of folks that they think that homelessness has increased. Do you think homelessness has increased over the past 18 months?
Dr. Marisa Zapata:
I actually don't think it's increased. If it has, it's a very slight amount. I think what people are responding to is that they're seeing an increase of people staying in place. Because of COVID protections, the city and the county and the state really followed the CDC, the Centers for Disease Controls, advice to not be moving people around while we were trying to manage COVID. Because of that, we did see people who were in camping areas and those populations coming together more, which is actually good for a lot of reasons in terms of doing outreach and vaccinations. But that has led to the public perception that we have seen an increase in homelessness.
Dr. Marisa Zapata:
Because of the federal policies, the state, and the county's policies that have gone into effect around eviction moratoriums, we have not seen the massive evictions that we would expect at this point in time, allowing people to stay in their homes. Now, my concern is that we will see a massive increase in homelessness as eviction moratoriums expire.
Shannon Singleton:
Absolutely. And do you think, this services measure was passed months ago, and so folks are, a lot of people wondering why is it taking so long? Why aren't we seeing a change in street homelessness?
Dr. Marisa Zapata:
It's so frustrating and it's heartbreaking, right? You look outside and you see people who are truly suffering on the street. Right now, again, we're not seeing more people, but we are wanting to know why aren't we being able to serve these folks faster. And the primary reason for that is that it takes a long time to get housing to happen, right? So you've got to buy buildings or you've got to apply for funding to be able to make your building happen, to do construction.
Dr. Marisa Zapata:
The timelines can be quite long. And until we figure out how to have affordable housing come online faster, we are going to see this time delay. The reality is also that service measure, any kind of revenue measure, takes a long time to stand up, right? It's not as simple as, hey, I paid my tax this year and tomorrow all the money will go out. We're seeing that with the Oregon Housing and Community Services Department, trying to get rent assistance out, it takes a long time to build the infrastructure to actually get money out. It takes a long time to build the infrastructure to get services online. And so all I can keep saying to everyone is to please be patient, to understand that those things are in motion and they're happening.
Shannon Singleton:
When do you think we'll start to see some changes?
Dr. Marisa Zapata:
So I think we're going to have people start being housed immediately. What people in the public really think is, needs to see changes, to see a reduction in unsheltered homelessness. And from what we can tell, we're not expecting there to be significant changes for three to five years. And I think that that hasn't been something that people have really talked about in public. And I think that, we can engage with public community and say, this takes a long time.
Dr. Marisa Zapata:
And so again, people may not realize that mental health services are essential to helping a number of people, particularly some of the people you see outside in being able to come inside. We have a serious shortage of mental health professionals in this state. And unless we are able to create a better pipeline, this is going to take a long time to actually happen. This is especially acute for people of color. So we know that the most important area of healthcare, to have somebody who looks like you and understands your experience as a person of color as a mental healthcare. Mental healthcare, the disparities of number of professionals of color, even worse.
Shannon Singleton:
So three to five years can be a long time. What are things that should be happening in the meantime for folks who are still stuck sleeping outside?
Dr. Marisa Zapata:
So when I think about really trying to connect supportive housing services, the measure that has gone through and trying to really think about what is homelessness, the first thing I go to is relationships. So we know what ends homelessness is housing, but we also know that what helps people be ready and want to try to move into housing, to trust the providers and the government to actually help them be housed and be comfortable and safe, requires that deep connection. And so what I would love to see is that we are hiring mental health professionals, case workers, psychiatrists, doctors, who are actually able to bridge that relationship, to start building those relationships, to create a streamline to bringing people inside.
Dr. Marisa Zapata:
And that's not what people expect to hear, right? They're usually like, oh, wait, no, wait, what about this? Don't we need bathrooms? Sure. We do need access to bathrooms. We tend to think about bathrooms as we need porta potties. Well, when you think about downtown, we have so many bathrooms, right? Even at my home institution, Portland State University, we have bathrooms galore, we have showers, right? We don't need new facilities. And that's different for places where people are camping on land. And so we do want people to have access to basic hygiene. So are we thinking about expanding the Portland Loo? Right. So the Portland Loo is this great public access toilet facility. You could incorporate showers into it, self cleaning, right? There's a lot of great things that go with that. But I think we need to start first with these relationships, even understanding who needs what, who is living outside and then bringing services to them.
Dr. Marisa Zapata:
I know one of the big things that frustrates the public and can start to create a public health risk to people experiencing homelessness is trash. And so I think first we have to understand that a lot of the trash actually comes from housed people. And so we do know that housed people are dumping trash. So we know when dumpsters were put out on the Springwater Corridor, for instance, that they were put at the ends of the trail and housed people use them to get rid of their things. We know that that is not necessarily coming from people who are unhoused. But certainly people who are unhoused have sanitation needs. And so what you want to be thinking about is how to actually serve them. Now, my big point is always like, I'm housed. The trashcans are in my house. I like roll the little thing onto my curb and it's totally fine.
Dr. Marisa Zapata:
Someone comes to me. And we're actually expecting people who are suffering, potentially at their worst moment, to like do something that I don't get to do with the privilege of being housed. So the Bureau of Environmental Services, for instance, of the city of Portland is doing amazing pilot project with RV pump outs. And so they're actually going to RVs and pumping out the sanitation. So there are a number of things that I think are what we would consider low hanging fruit that will be time consuming and costly, but would provide the humanitarian support that I think we're interested in.
Shannon Singleton:
Absolutely. You talked about the privilege of housing and being housed. And I'm just curious, what do you say to your colleagues at PSU or other folks across the country who are in your same line of work in research about how do I as a housed person, who has that privilege, how do I engage in being a part of solving this problem?
Dr. Marisa Zapata:
Well, let me start with what you don't do, which is show up with a new tech solution to my world. I actually think that this is the bigger challenge right now with a lot of housed people. People are very moved. They're very upset, understandably, and they want to help. But then the help is I want to come and give you the thing I do, not showing up and asking, what do you need me to do? How can I support the ongoing work? And again, a lot of this is changing hearts and minds, it's reaching people.
Shannon Singleton:
So what are you bringing into your classes?
Dr. Marisa Zapata:
Ways in which people are addressing homelessness or thinking about homelessness or more importantly, the structures that have produced homelessness. That's where I think so many educators and researchers have so much knowledge and power. It's not like the best widget to make the train go faster, all the train people hate that. But instead, it's really about, well, how can I bring my knowledge and skillset to undoing, questioning and pushing back on the structures that have produced homelessness, particularly for people of color.
Shannon Singleton:
So you sit at some tables where there's folks who have power over funding or health services are designed. And again, coming back to this, it'll take some time to implement. Are there things that folks at those tables could be doing to help expedite things?
Dr. Marisa Zapata:
So I think what I'm seeing at a lot of the tables, at least what I'm experiencing, is a bifurcation, right? It's a division. And the sides are really, we're going to make a lot of camps and maybe not think through clearly what those should be like or how they could actually help people or the problems with that approach. And we're going to end homelessness. And I think that that is creating a lot of division and friction. I'm not a political mastermind.
Dr. Marisa Zapata:
I don't know why people are going to the extremes, but it's not helping us move forward in the conversation, particularly I think for the public. I think that there's a lot of machinations behind the scenes and people trying to figure things out, position themselves for the next election. But for the public, it's not actually going to help public education to continue that extreme. That's what we try to do at the University is fill that gap up and to say, hey, there's actually some stuff going on here we need to think about. We can't ignore people who are unsheltered. We do need to end homelessness. So what do we actually do with that? And it's been very, very hard to not be able to have those conversations at some of these tables.
Shannon Singleton:
And how to find that balance of interventions.
Dr. Marisa Zapata:
Yep, absolutely. That's the conversations these spaces should be having. It's what we should do best. It's just not happening right now. And I think the people who lose are obviously people experiencing homelessness, first and foremost, but then also the public at large. Voters backed a measure, a powerful measure. It's going to be one of the largest supportive services measures in the country. I don't know that people appreciate how unique it is to have a dedicated funding stream, to be able to support people who are experiencing homelessness or on the cusp of that. And we don't want to lose their support and we don't want to miss the chance to have them really think through, how do I show up? How do I help people who are unsheltered or living outside or living in cars right now? And then how do I actually make sure and hold accountable our elected officials in actually producing the housing and the services that they have pledged to do with our tax dollars?
Shannon Singleton:
How do they show up? How should they show up to address homelessness now?
Dr. Marisa Zapata:
Yeah. So again, no tech solutions. Stop coming up with your own magical ideas. And I mean this quite seriously. People, I think don't understand how much time people spend in homelessness meeting with people who have recently discovered that they care about homelessness and going through their ideas. And so I think that that actually takes a lot of energy and focus off of doing the actual work. So with everything, to me, if you want to support community that is vulnerable or marginalized, it's showing up to those spaces where people are already working and then making sure that you are doing what they're asking you to do. And that does not mean, and I think this is one of our challenges, listening to one or two people,. I think that one of the things that we're struggling with in the region is understanding what the scope and scale of homelessness is.
Dr. Marisa Zapata:
My center did a report where we looked at and estimated how many people across the year really experienced homelessness. Now, one of the issues with homelessness, and everyone starts to close their eyes the moment I start talking about this, is that there's like 25 million definitions of homelessness. And that matters for the government too, right? You got one government entity saying, it's this. Another one saying this, and this program gets funding for this.
Shannon Singleton:
And prevention's a different system than-
Dr. Marisa Zapata:
Medicaid's a different thing. If you need assisted living. And everyone's just like, oh my God, what are you talking about? Homelessness becomes, as a researcher, I just want to know what is the problem we're trying to solve. And if the problem is somebody who lacks a safe and secure place to sleep and live regularly, that includes the people that you see outside, the people living in RVs, the people living in warehouses or motels. That also includes people that we describe as living doubled and tripled up.
Dr. Marisa Zapata:
And that's people who are for no other reason, being forced to live often at severe overcrowding rates. Meaning that we're taking a family of four and adding them to another family of four that was already living in a two bedroom apartment. They're violating lease rules. If they have government assistance, they're violating that rule. So everyone's now at risk because you couldn't imagine having your cousin's family have to go to a shelter. And it's understandable that you wouldn't want someone to have to go to a shelter. But what risk are you taking on?
Shannon Singleton:
Well, and in some communities, and I think probably most communities of color, the idea of you not taking somebody in, whether an auntie, a cousin or some sort of distant relation or a friend of your mothers who happens to live in town, that's not really an acceptable answer to not take somebody in.
Dr. Marisa Zapata:
Absolutely.
Shannon Singleton:
Can you talk more about the hidden homelessness, the folks we don't see out on the street and who we think they are, and really who is that impacting the most?
Dr. Marisa Zapata:
First and foremost, when you talk to people who are, people of color, people working in communities, it's like you said, to us it's a little more foreign to imagine not trying to take someone in. And I think I don't want to ever set it up as like white people are heartless. People of color have more love and compassion. It's again, just different what I describe as survival mechanisms. We have different ways of thinking about what survival looks like and means. And I will talk to Latinos and African Americans who are like, oh, wait, that friend of a friend's cousin who slept on my couch for a year was homeless?
Dr. Marisa Zapata:
Yeah. Yeah. They were. But again, there's also stigma amongst households that they don't want to be labeled as "homeless" in communities of color. And so they may not identify that way. But we know when we talk to providers of color and people of color, that homelessness is more disparate and where you really start to see the intense disparities are within communities of color living doubled up. And I want to just be clear across the nation, African Americans, Black people, 13% of the population. Black people represent 40% of people experiencing homelessness. And that is on the very narrow definition that does not include doubled up. When we start to think about including doubled up, the people who can't be seen, we're really thinking about a magnitude of scale so much larger. So in our study, we looked at estimating and taking the double up estimate, that's the school's estimate.
Dr. Marisa Zapata:
We took the school's number and these other numbers, and when we looked across the three counties of the tri county area, we estimated that about 5,500 people lived unsheltered across the year. So at some point in time, they were unsheltered. When we added in the schools and the children and the families for the doubled up count, we were much closer to 40,000 people. And so, at some level that gives a lot of people like, oh my God.
Shannon Singleton:
The scale is so big.
Dr. Marisa Zapata:
Yeah. And I think we also have to be prepared for that mentally. We've got a lot of great revenue measures. They will help. But at the end of the day, we've got a much larger population than we're ready to really understand.
Shannon Singleton:
So how do we solve homelessness? Can we?
Dr. Marisa Zapata:
I absolutely believe we can solve homelessness.There might be some people who have a hard time living inside. And I think that we also have to think about the fact that the longer that we leave people outside, the harder it is to bring them inside. And so we're thinking about this in a very long timeframe. The one thing that solves homelessness, and it always seems very flip, is in fact housing, right? I always like to be like, it's in the definition, you all, the word homelessness, home. So yes, housing is going to be what fundamentally provides an end to homelessness. And of course, it's not as simple as just saying, build a little thing and it'll be fine. Particularly for people who've been outside, we're looking at people who've experienced trauma, certainly from living outside. People who need healthcare, people who need to feel like they're not going to get kicked out of their housing next week. We need to be thinking about tenant relationships and supporting tenants who are living in apartments and being able to be stable in those units.
Dr. Marisa Zapata:
Again, fundamentally, what we're talking about is simply providing that housing unit first. Housing first has been the mantra of homeless services for a long time. Housing first is the number one proven success strategy for ending homelessness. What this means is that I am just saying, here's your house, here's your apartment. We invite you to come inside and we will offer you so many wonderful services. But you don't have to participate in them. You don't have to stop using drugs or alcohol if that is something that is part of your life. And we will be here. You can come and go as you please. And we will be here to help you as you need it and as you start to trust us to actually support you.
Speaker 2:
That was Dr. Marisa Zapata, Director of Homelessness Research and Action Collaborative and host of Understanding Homelessness podcast, talking with Shannon Singleton, community leader and housing advocate and former Executive Director of JOIN, a local nonprofit that provides street outreach and housing placement support to individuals and families experiencing homelessness. If you'd like to learn more about our guests and browse the suggested reading lists for each episode, check out our website, understandinghomelessness.org. Thanks for listening.