Families, Children, and Homelessness

"To leave the world a better place-whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or an improved social condition-that is to have succeeded. That only one life breathed easier because you lived-that is success."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Current Challenges:

The fastest growing segment of homeless persons in the USA is families. As many as half a million families and over one million children stay in shelters each year. Families usually become homeless for two reasons: lack of affordable housing and deepening poverty. Poverty is often caused by deficiencies both in well paying jobs and in the availability of appropriate public assistance. Four in ten children live in low-income households and two in ten live in families whose income is below the poverty line. For these families, choices must be made among education, housing, transportation, food, health care, and childcare. Domestic violence is also a reason for family homelessness: almost half of all homeless families are fleeing domestic violence.

The District of Columbia (DC) has the highest rate of family poverty in the nation-one in four families with children lives at or below the poverty line. Consequently, DC has the highest rate of child poverty in the nation. Of District children under age 18, 34% live at or below the poverty line. There are 650 homeless families on any given day in DC and 3,000 in the course of a year. Homelessness has serious short- and long-term effects on adults and children-mental instability, learning disabilities, substance abuse, and other health problems. These challenges result in greater emergency room visits and children in foster care; they create a need for special education classes, mental illness treatment, and addiction recovery programs.

SOME's Response to these Challenges:

SOME's position is that families need to be diverted from becoming homeless through the availability of affordable housing and a broad range of programs and policy initiatives. Families should be cared for and re-housed when they become homeless, to mitigate the lasting consequences of homelessness and instability.

SOME is working to end the crisis of affordable housing in the District by constructing transitional and permanent housing. The efforts of SOME's Housing Department, Family Housing Programs, and Advocacy Department overlap to provide for many families' needs. See the Advocacy & Social Justice Department's page on Affordable Housing for more information on our encouragement of a mix of initiatives to create affordable housing units, and a Rent Supplement Program to help low-income families keep their existing units.

The Advocacy & Social Justice Department is working to enhance income streams by

• encouraging the district to develop jobs that match the skills of the work force,
• advocating for a living wage,
• supporting the efforts of SOME's Center for Employment Training and similar programs that seek to give District residents the skills needed for real, higher-paying jobs, and
• collaborating with the Fair Budget Coalition to garner district funding for a cost-of-living increase in benefit levels for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF).

Though keeping families from becoming homeless is a worthy goal, SOME is also concerned about the well-being of families that become homeless despite the best efforts of service agencies and public leaders. With the Fair Budget Coalition and the Coalition of Housing and Homeless Organizations (COHHO), we are advocating for the development of apartment-style emergency shelter units and increased case management services for homeless families.

Information and Resources

SOME's Fact Sheets

• Low-Income and Homeless Children and Families (pdf)

In the News

Local News

• "Numbers Bleak for D.C. Children"
  May 7, 2007, The Examiner
• "Mayor Promises Housing if Family Shelter Closes"
  May 1, 2007, Street Sense
• "D.C. Budget Not So Kid-Friendly?"
  April 27th, 2007, Washington City Paper
• "Families In District Struggling for Shelter"
  October 22, 2006, The Washington Post

National News

• "Affordable Housing "
  July 3, 2007, The New York Times
• "City Pulls Hotel Contract"
  May 7, 2007, WUSA9.com
• "Childhood Poverty Is Found to Portend High Adult Costs"
  January 25, 2007, The New York Times
• "Study: 744,000 Are Homeless in U.S."
  January 10, 2007, The Associated Press

Websites

• National Center on Family Homelessness, a national organization working to end family homelessness through research and evaluation, program design, service delivery, systems integration, and advocacy.
• The National Center for Children and Families, a private, nonprofit agency with a 90-year commitment to serving families in the national capital area.
• National Center for Children in Poverty, a public policy center dedicated to promoting the well-being of America's low-income families and children.

Reports

• Disparities in the District: Poverty Is Major Cause of Social Problems in the District of Columbia
  Stacey Rolland, DC Fiscal Policy Institute, November 2, 2007
• Research on Homeless and Low-Income Housed Families
  National Center on Family Homelessness
• Keeping Families Together and Safe: The Child Protection - Housing Connection
  Child Welfare League of America, 2005
• Every Kid Counts in the District of Columbia
  D.C. Kids Count Collaborative for Children and Families, 2006
• America's Homeless Children
  National Center on Family Homelessness

Testimony

• Regarding the FY 2008 Budget of the Department of Human Services
  April 23, 2007
• To the Committee on Human Services Oversight Hearing Regarding the need for Emergency Housing for Homeless Families
  February 21, 2007
• Regarding the Availability of Apartment-Style Emergency Shelter for Homeless Families
  October 30, 2006
• Regarding B16-656, Emergency Assistance Amendment Act of 2006, B16-681, Homeless Services Reform Act Amendment act of 2006, and Keeping the Franklin School Shelter Open
  May 23, 2006