20-25% of all 'homeless' actually have housing

Hundreds of millions are spent yearly on so called homeless that are in fact housed.

Approximately 20-25% of all homeless people have apartments or immediate access to other types of housing. They spend most of their time on the streets in tents to be with their friends and do things they may not be allowed to do indoors. This young man pictured has housing but spends most of his time on the streets with his friends. He goes to his apartment from time to time but also always has a tent he can stay in. I know dozens of homeless right now who are in his identical situation. They have state-funded housing but spend 80% of their time on the streets.

The problem is that 20-25% is costing communities millions of dollars yearly due to limited oversight, poor tracking tools, lack of outreach, and a very ineffective point-in-time count. I came up with that number based on how many people I have interviewed and what they disclosed to me. In the last five years, I have interviewed over four thousand people throughout the United States.

About a thousand of them shared with me they already have housing or immediate access to housing. They simply choose to live outdoors. This homeless woman nodded out in her tent and had three apartments when I met her. Because she was not required to give her real name, she identified a loophole and signed up for three apartments at three different non-profits. Two of the apartments she now has for life. She never went indoors and instead subleased her places to her homeless friends as a way of generating income to pay for her drug habit. This is more common than people think. Apartments are often occupied by people not on the lease or remain empty for years. In the eyes of the social service system, everything is in compliance. They placed somebody into their housing and that gets then a checkmark. At the end of the fiscal year that can show that somebodi’s name is attached to the specific apartment. As long as the checkmark remains and the lack of verification exists the NGO will continue to receive funding year after year.

Just in Oregon alone the governor has proposed nearly $2 billion for the next two years to maintain and build more homeless related programs, including housing.

This of course is only state funds. There are multiple other sources of money being utilized for homeless services. If my estimation is anywhere near (20- 25%) this means hundreds of millions every year are spent on homeless people who aren’t homeless. All of this could be prevented with accurate metrics. I worked though in social services for two decades and the dirty little secret is a majority of them have strict rules about not having measurable results a.k.a. metrics into the grants meaning once they receive the money they’re under no obligation to produce results. They justify this by stating that the homeless are complex and unpredictable and producing regular positive results is unfair. I agree they are both but also know that with the right approach, a high percentage of homeless will come around and accept help. It is by no means easy. It requires regular contact, flexibility and a strong understanding of our dysfunctional system.

Photojournalist Tara Faul checking on a homeless woman

What once was a cause has become a multi-billion dollar industry. The Homeless Industrial Complex will never support metrics, measurable results, or adequate tracking tools because if they did, they would lose billions. The clean-ups alone are big business.

This crew was about to remove his tent. He plans to just walk away and then get a new free tent a few blocks away. He will do this over and over and over and over and over again. Until there is true oversight and metrics that can effectively track there is no way to tell who’s Homeless and who isn’t.