Solutions Sidebar: Housing as a Human Right with Maria Foscarinis

Subsidized permanent housing is no longer a given for the chronically homeless. Instead, the government is directing more than $3 billion in funds to pay for transitional housing, addiction treatment and state outreach. Not everybody is on board, including Maria Foscarinis. She has ideas on how the Housing First model could be resurrected and details other programs she sees as effective.

Interview guest: Founder of the National Homelessness Law Center and author of “And Housing for All,” Maria Foscarinis.

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Transcript

Ann Thompson:

The term Housing First prioritizes permanent housing for people experiencing homelessness.

Maria Foscarinis:

The people who participate in Housing First are able to maintain their housing and their homelessness has ended.

Ann Thompson:

Founder of the National Homelessness Law Center and author Maria Foscarinis says it's an effective model, but burdened by both a lack of funding and affordable housing. Now the Trump administration is pivoting, shifting resources away from housing first instead to work requirements and mandatory treatment for addiction or mental illness. HUD Secretary Scott Turner,

Scott Turner:

Taking it from just housing to now housing and treatment. We have to put the accent to the root. What is the root cause of homelessness, mental illness, drug addiction, drug abuse.

Ann Thompson:

This and other policy changes have Foscarinis, author of the recent book And Housing for All, concerned.

Maria Foscarinis:

I think it's disastrous, it's catastrophic shift.

Ann Thompson:

There are policies which are reducing homelessness. She points to examples in her book,

Maria Foscarinis:

Like in Seattle, it was just enacted local level social housing developer. So that's the kind of effort that I think is possible and it is a sign of hope.

Ann Thompson:

Why past efforts to end homelessness have failed and what has to change to achieve long lasting solutions? Stay tuned for a solution sidebar and my colleagues, Hensley Gere Jr. and Emiko Moore will join me at the end for some takeaways. Let's get into it. This is Brick by Brick Solutions for a thriving community.

Ame Clase:

Brick by Brick is made possible thanks to leading support from Greater Cincinnati Foundation, AES Foundation and George and Margaret McLane Foundation, with additional major support from Laurie    Johnston, The Robert & Adelle Schiff Family Foundation, Murray and Agnes Seasongood Good Government Foundation and more. Thank you

Ann Thompson:

Maria Foscarinis, founder of the National Homelessness Law Center and author of the new book And Housing for All. Welcome to Brick by Brick.

Maria Foscarinis:

Thank you very much. Good to be here.

Ann Thompson:

Let's talk about the term Housing First. What is it and how has it worked?

Maria Foscarinis:

So Housing First is a program that model that says the way to address homelessness is to provide housing first. So it's exactly what the name says it is. First you provide housing and then if people need more than housing, for instance, mental health treatment, substance abuse treatment, job training, provide that after the person is stably housed. This is a program that has been developed for over many years and it is supported by many, many studies. It's been proven to work is a very effective program. People who participate in housing first are able to maintain their housing and their homelessness has ended.

Ann Thompson:

What do you make of upcoming changes from the Trump administration to the federal funding model and the idea that the unhoused will have work requirements and mandatory treatment?

Maria Foscarinis:

I think it's disastrous. It's a catastrophic shift for many reasons. I mean, for one thing, the work requirement is absurd. Many people who are homeless actually do work but don't earn enough to pay for housing. People who are able to work, many people are disabled and thus unable to work. But for those who are able to work, the key issue is that they can't afford housing. It's not that they're not being forced to work. So I think that's just an absurd requirement. A mandatory treatment has been shown not to be an effective approach. Housing First is premised on the idea that you don't require treatment. You offer treatment and you offer it from people who are experienced in this kind of mental health care and who are able to have success in getting people over time to accept treatment once they are stably housed. So requiring treatment and requiring work, these are failed strategies from the past that we now know are not effective. So this makes absolutely no sense to revert back to something which does not work.

Ann Thompson:

To be fair, not everybody thought housing first was a good idea and they say we've given it time and let's move on to something else.

Maria Foscarinis:

Right. Well, the thing is, yes, maybe we've given it time. We haven't given it the funding and the resources it needs to work. When you have a program that has been proven to work through multiple empirical studies, evidence-based studies, and you don't fund it to scale, you can't draw the conclusion that it doesn't work. It works for those that it is funded for. So when it is funded for those people who actually receive it, it does work. That's what the evidence shows. The problem is that only a fraction of people who could benefit from this program actually is able to receive it because the funding is just not there. That is the problem with housing first.

Ann Thompson:

There have been a number of recent decisions involving the unhoused. One was Kentucky's passage of the anti-camping law in April, 2024. Another was the Supreme Court opinion a few months later making it easier for communities to find ticket or arrest the homeless even when there aren't any more shelter beds. What do you make of those decisions and what does it say about the current mindset surrounding homelessness in America?

Maria Foscarinis:

Well, so the decision from the Supreme Court a year and a half ago was a terrible decision and it basically stopped in its tracks progress that was being made from the recognition under prior law that you can't arrest your way out of homelessness. You can't simply punish people and expect them to then stop being homeless. The basic premise of this approach is that people choose to be homeless. People live outside because they like it, that that's their choice. That's false. That's not the case. People are on the streets because housing costs are so high. Most people in this country experience the impact of the high cost of housing, people who are poor, people who are earning very low wages, who don't have resources, who are disabled. Those are people who really cannot afford housing at all. And we know that the available assistance to help people with housing costs is totally insufficient.

Only one in four people poor enough to be eligible for housing assistance actually receives it. So what's driving homelessness is the high cost of housing, making it a crime to be homeless by punishing people for sleeping outside, for example, will do nothing to lower housing costs. What the Supreme Court did a year and a half ago in the Grants Pass case was say, was knock out a key argument that advocates had been using to challenge laws that criminalize homelessness, that criminalize sleeping in public. And so what that did was it opened the flood gates to cities and states and the federal government to use these criminal responses to homelessness instead of housing, which we know is the solution.

Ann Thompson:

You've spent four decades trying to end homelessness and protecting the rights of those experiencing it. This issue could be polarizing and we can't even agree on a definition. What is yours and what percentage of the population has experienced it?

Maria Foscarinis:

Homelessness is a defined term. It's defined in federal law. There are different definitions. There's a very, very narrow definition which is used by some federal agencies which says you're homeless if you're living on the street in a public place or if you're in a shelter. Then there's a more expansive definition that includes people who are doubled up because they've lost their housing. I think that that's the better way to think about homelessness. Housing instability is kind of a broader term within which we can think about people who are homeless. So if you've lost your housing, you have nowhere else to go. You're sleeping on your friends or your relative's kitchen floor, I think you're homeless and the definition is not so critical. It can make a difference in terms of how resources are allocated, but in terms of conceptualizing the problem, housing instability is affecting a lot of people right now. A lot of people are just in this paycheck away from being homeless, and I think if we can think of it in that term, we can make it actually less polarizing and we can think of it as an issue that a lot of people can relate to. A lot of people worry about not being able to make the mortgage payment or make the rent. So I think the broader definition helps us think about this and helps us come up with solutions.

Ann Thompson:

How do today's numbers compare with those at the beginning of your career? And if nothing is done, where do you see homeless numbers headed in the future?

Maria Foscarinis:

So I think it's the crisis is getting worse and numbers are inexact. There are no really accurate numbers, but the indications are that homelessness is increasing. Certainly the affordable housing crisis, which is easier to measure, is increasing the percentage of people who are paying over 30% of their income in rent is increasing the percentage of people who are paying over 50% of their income in rent. These are the people who are just a step away from becoming homeless. So overall, the crisis is increasing and it's been increasing for the past 40 years.

Ann Thompson:

In your opinion, what have been some of the most damaging government policies over the years when it comes to homelessness?

Maria Foscarinis:

So the most damaging policy was defunding housing, cutting housing, federal funding for housing, which really was a trigger that launched the crisis of homelessness to begin with. That started in the early 1980s when President Reagan came into office on campaign promise to cut the impact of the federal government, cut the footprint of the federal government, and he did this by slashing the social safety net, including housing. Housing programs were dramatically cut. So that's I think, the most damaging thing that happened on a parallel track. There was also a very damaging narrative that Reagan's promoted, which is that people are homeless by choice, that this is an individual problem. People make poor choices. They choose the so-called lifestyle of homelessness and basically it's their fault. And this has continued, this narrative has continued to this day and it enables policies like criminalizing people, punishing people for being on the street, even though in reality they have no choice and it's pretending that they're out there because they don't want help. And that's just simply not true and it's very damaging.

Ann Thompson:

But how can housing be a right in the US when the government is out of money? Who has to step up?

Maria Foscarinis:

So we can dispute the idea that the government is out of money, the government is not out of money, but it's choosing to spend the money it has on things that are different than housing. So the government is not out of money when it comes to military spending, for example. It's not out of money when it comes to tax breaks for people who don't need them for the super wealthy. So it's a matter of priorities, how we spend our money, just like anything, I mean people make decisions about their budgets all the time. The country can make decisions also about how it chooses to spend its money. It can also make decisions about how it regulates private entities and is it incentivizing luxury buildings? Is it incentivizing affordable housing? So that's how it's a question of the choices we make. I think this is what it comes down to.

There are choices involved here. Governments make choices. People make choices in the sense of what governments we choose, what leaders we choose to make these decisions, and homelessness is not inevitable. We didn't always have mass homelessness in this country. And we also have examples from other countries like Finland, which has merely ended homelessness. It has a right to housing in its constitution. So it's taken that human right, put it in its constitution and it has funded the resources to make it a reality. So there are different choices that the United States is a wealthy country, but it's using its wealth to make a very small percentage of people even more wealthy and leaving behind people who are extremely poor, but also increasingly a broad swath of people who consider themselves middle class.

Ann Thompson:

I hope you're enjoying our conversation with Maria Foscarinis, founder of the National Homelessness Law Center and author of And Housing for All. There's more still ahead following this short break. This is Brick by Brick.

Ame Clase:

Brick by Brick is made possible thanks to the generous support of so many, including Diane and Dave Moccia, P & G, The Camden Foundation,  The Stephen H. Wilder Foundation, TJ and Susie Ackermann, Patti and Fred Heldman, a donation in memory of Frank and Margaret Linhardt, and more. Thank you. We couldn't do this work without you.

Mark Lammers:

Hey, we all have a different story even if we grew up in the same neighborhood or city, especially if we're talking about housing stories. Hi, my name is Mark Lammers, executive producer for Brick by Brick. Growing up, I lived on the west side of Cincinnati in a single family home, but I've also experienced apartment life in good and bad settings in a number of different cities. I learned a lot from those times in my life and from my journey as a whole. Now we want to hear about your housing story. That's the new audience question that's live on our show pages@thinktv.org and cetconnect.org. Log in and hit the green button to share your journey and what you learned from it. We hope to share some of your experiences and lessons as we move forward on Brick by Brick so we can all get smarter together. Thanks.

Ann Thompson:

Welcome back to Brick by Brick. I'm Ann Thompson. Let's get back into our conversation with Maria Foscarinis and Emiko, Hernz and I will be back at the end for some reflections. You point to Finland and Vienna for solutions as well as Kansas City and Seattle. What are they doing that the rest of the country and world isn't?

Maria Foscarinis:

Right. So Finland has acknowledged housing is a right and it spends money to subsidize housing and to create what it calls social housing, which is kind of like our public housing, which has been systematically defunded and demonized and allowed to fall into terrible disrepair. So it's almost become like a dirty word in Finland. They call it social housing and it is housing that gets government subsidies. So it's not just up to the private sector. It's not just up to the market which is driven by profit to create this housing. They're also programs that provide subsidies for people who need even more help. And then it's not just, I mean I emphasize housing because that's critical, but it's not just housing. It's also healthcare, mental health supports for people who need it. Substance abuse treatment, help with childcare for families, help with other, with job training.

So it's a whole panoply of supports that is in place and that's a real social safety net that we used to have to some extent in the United States and it's been slashed and there's also a national and narrative that this is a good thing, that this is something that people take pride in and that national leaders believe in and promote. So I think that is all critical. Vienna has a somewhat different model of social housing. It's had it for a long time in Vienna. It's very clearly mixed income housing, so it's not limited to people who are poor. It's different income groups live together in social housing and it's very much supported by the society there and it's invested in by government because it's hard to create housing that's truly affordable if you leave it up to the private market. Private market looks for profit and the way to make sure that there's housing that's affordable is by making it something that government invests in. Vienna is a little bit different because in Vienna, the city owns much of the land on which housing is built, and so it has an advantage there, but it also has a commitment to this social housing.

Ann Thompson:

I want to drill down on a pilot program in New York, funded by a church group. How does it work?

Maria Foscarinis:

So that is, I think that's a program that seeks to help college students experiencing homelessness, which is a growing problem across the country. So these are students who are going to college and they're literally homeless and it's kind of, it's shocking, but it's true. And this program in New York is actually funding housing for these students so that they can have a secure place and stable place to live and actually concentrate on their studies eventually graduate and get out of this cycle, which is really important. It's a church group that is funding. This is very significant and it's really, but it's only funding a fraction of the need, and that's sort of the story of homelessness. There are solutions that are out there.

Ann Thompson:

What has Houston done with its way Home program and because of that, it reported a 53% drop in homelessness.

Maria Foscarinis:

So Houston made an effort to get people into housing and using, again, this housing first model of getting people into stable housing first and then addressing whatever additional needs they might have. Some people just need housing, but other people also need different kinds of services. So this was a program that came where the whole community came together. It had political support from the mayor who launched it and it had some support from the federal government. This also dependent on affordable housing being available. So at the time that this started, there was inexpensive housing available in Houston and that turned out to be critical because as that started drying up the program and the efforts started running into trouble and has not been able to perceive in the way that I think it hoped to.

Ann Thompson:

So it's a proven fact as you know that keeping somebody housed is not as expensive as trying to get them housed after they're out on the streets. And Cincinnati looked to Maidstone England for a solution where the community there used data analytics, things like if the person had gotten a shutoff notice or if they had applied for food benefits to contact the person and say, Hey, we realize you're having problems. We have funds, we can help you. I think LA also has a version of this in California. Do you have any thoughts of using this method to keep people housed?

Maria Foscarinis:

Yeah, I mean that's called preventing homelessness and that's a good idea and there've been efforts like this around the country for decades. But again, the issue is, the question is are they adequately funded and are they more than pilot programs? Yes, helping people before they become homeless is the smart thing to do, and sometimes it really is just a matter of pretty discreet limited help for a short period of time and it makes a lot more sense than to allow the person to get into homelessness. Yes, but it has to be at scale.

Ann Thompson:

What do you see in the future for the unhoused given these solutions and more?

Maria Foscarinis:

So I think there are some easy solutions and there had been a proposal to make housing vouchers universal, and I think that would go a long way to ending homelessness be a pretty dramatic, so right now, housing Choice vouchers are the main federal housing assistance program for people who are very poor and only one in four of those poor enough to be eligible for these vouchers actually receives it because they're not funded. This is a program that depends on appropriations, annual appropriations from government, from the federal government, from Congress, and it's not an entitlement. So if it were an entitlement, that would be something like Approach is starting to approach treating housing as a right. Everybody who qualifies could get it, that would make a dramatic difference. This was something that had been proposed by President Biden in his Build Back better proposal that was torpedoed and never advanced.

I don't think it's the perfect solution because in essence, this funds the private landlords and it's not the same as creating social housing, which is public, but that is something that would make a dramatic difference. It's not complicated. The only way it's complicated is politically is convincing Congress to actually do this, but there are also these solutions at the local level which are actually starting to emerge now. Even in these sort of difficult times, like in Seattle, there was just enacted on a local level social housing developer and that means a local agency that is charged with investing in social housing. And this was a campaign that was led by a group that is an advocacy group for unhoused people called House Our Neighbors, and so they campaigned for this. They started out without public support for this and through a public education campaign and a lot of organizing, community organizing, they were able to get support and get this enacted at the local level in Seattle, and then they were able to take the next step to get it funded through a referendum where almost 60% of voters voted for this. Again, following a massive public education campaign and organizing and starting again from a deficit position, they were able to get this enacted. This just happened earlier this year. So that's the kind of effort that I think is possible and it is a sign of hope.

Ann Thompson:

All right. Well, we'll continue to follow that. We always like to end on a positive note. What does a thriving community look like to you?

Maria Foscarinis:

Yes, so I think a thriving community is one where everyone's humanity is recognized and people's needs are recognized as well, that people are not just left to try to survive on their own. And if you lose your job too bad or if you can't make the rent, you're out on the street. I think a thriving community is one where everybody can have the basics that they need to survive and also to contribute so that everyone can contribute to a community, which is hard to do if you don't even have a place to live.

Ann Thompson:

Well said. Maria Foscarinis, founder of the National Homelessness Law Center and author of the new Book And Housing for All. Thanks for being on Brick by Brick.

Maria Foscarinis:

Thank you so much, Ann. Appreciate it.

Ann Thompson:

Remember, if you're interested in digging deeper into our conversation with Maria Foscarinis about solutions to decrease homelessness or want to learn more about Brick by Brick in general, there are plenty of web articles and videos. Go to cetconnect.org and think tv.org and we'd like to hear from you. Click on one of the big green buttons to share your feedback. It's time for us to find out what the rest of the team thinks and we welcome to the microphone, Emiko Moore.

Emiko Moore:

Hello

Ann Thompson:

And Hernz Laguerre Jr.

Hernz Laguerre Jr.:

Hey everyone.

Ann Thompson:

Hey guys. So Emiko, this was a lot to think about. What was your takeaway or takeaways?

Emiko Moore:

For me this interview underscored how layered this issue is and the disparities in how it can be addressed. I did find it interesting to hear what Finland has been doing and that they have this national narrative that gives a sense of pride instead of the stigma that we often have here towards the homeless. I also found it really surprising to hear that the rising number of college students that are homeless, this is really stunning information to me.

Ann Thompson:

Yeah, that was definitely eye opening, and I know critics say on a big scale that they haven't seen results when it comes to Housing First. Even the author said that only a fraction of the people who could benefit from housing first are able to receive it because the funding is not there. And maybe one of the reasons is that there is not enough affordable rental housing. In fact, there is a national shortage of it and among states, the supply of affordable and available rental homes ranges from 17 affordable and available homes for every 100 extremely low income renter households. That's in Nevada to 62 in North Dakota. In Ohio, that number is 40. Hernz?

Hernz Laguerre Jr.:

Yeah. There were really three things that stood out to me during your interview and one Maria saying that housing is a right. Mary Burke Rivers executive director of Over The Rhine Community Housing agrees with that. She shared that sentiment with us, and there's a lot of research that shows once you get housing correct, everything kind of falls in afterwards. Also, the other statement that she said that she refuted, I guess, about the government running out of money, she said something that echoes something that a late great Tupac Shakur used to say that the government has money for war but can't feed the poor. So I thought that was very reflective of that and also when she said the private sector isn't enough to create affordable housing, all these statements just made me think of public and private partnership being the answer to creating more affordable housing and to helping with the homelessness crisis because the public sector brings subsidies, regulatory frameworks, alignment with long-term policy goals. The private sector brings capital expertise and then they're the folks accountable to get the job done. It appears that if we maybe prioritize not the how and who as much as getting the outcome for who's responsible for maintaining it, it appears that that may be a solution to something that we need to solve.

Ann Thompson:

You're right, you raised a good point that it is all about priorities. Emiko?

Emiko Moore:

And I just think that the efforts have to be long-term and sustained. They can't just do pilot programs and then quit it really in order to solve it. It does need to be long-term.

Ann Thompson:

Well, it's a complicated issue and there aren't any easy solutions, but we'll be following efforts to try to house more people. Thanks for your thoughts, guys.

Hernz Laguerre Jr.:

No problem.

Emiko Moore:

Thank you

Ann Thompson:

We hope you're enjoying the holidays. We are too. Here's what's coming up on December 24th, building more affordable housing with a smaller footprint.

Nils Peterson:

So we do need more housing, especially if we want to sort of promote affordable housing, but we also need to figure out ways to have less environmentally destructive housing

Ann Thompson:

A solution sidebar with researcher and author Nils Peterson and on January 7th, a conversation on neighborhood solutions with four key Dayton voices.

Adam Blake:

We need to be following the neighborhood, not leading the neighborhood, and it's very important that people are organized, that they have a voice and that they use it.

Ann Thompson:

Then we'll be back with another investigation on January 21st. Stay tuned. 

That's our show. We hope you learn something and want to share it with your friends and family. If you like what you heard, please rate and review our podcast. It can help make it easier to find. For Emiko Moore and Hernz Laguerre Jr. I'm Ann Thompson. We'll be back soon with more solutions. Take care.

Our show is produced, hosted an edited by me, Ann Thompson with reporting and story editing from Hernz Laguerre Jr. and Emiko Moore. Our Executive producer of Mark Lammers. Audio sweetening provided by Mike Schwartz. Zach Kramer runs the lights and cameras. Derrick Smith is our production specialist and Jason Garrison is our production manager. Kellie May heads up our marketing and promotions, along with Mike Shea and Bridgett Dillenburger. Elyssa Stefenson handles the website and Josh Lusby and Steve Wright are our designers. Bill Dean and Andres Kruza are the engineers for the show and our Chief Content Officer is Colin Scianamblo. Our music is from Universal Production Music. Brick by Brick: Solutions for a Thriving Community is a production of CET and ThinkTV, Southwest Ohio PBS member stations.