Indy advocates, studies say reducing homelessness starts with increasing affordable housing
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Advocates are increasingly trying to reframe the issue of homelessness as a systemic problem stemming from failures in economic and housing development rather than blaming individual drivers such as addiction, mental health or employability.
“This is an economic development issue,” said Chelsea Haring-Cozzi, executive director of the Coalition for Homelessness Intervention & Prevention, or CHIP, in Indianapolis. “To have robust economic development, we’ve got to have intentional housing development, and getting people to kind of understand those connections I think could be a powerful way to try to move this [issue] forward a little bit.”
While mental health and other factors still play a role in homelessness, numerous studies have emerged to show the cost of housing has become “unsustainable” for a growing portion of the population and has become the primary barrier to escaping homelessness.
There are short-term solutions for homelessness, Haring-Cozzi said. However, she said those conversations should take place in tandem with introducing more affordable housing into the community.
“We can’t talk about homelessness without talking about the larger kind of economic housing conditions that continue to drive what we see in terms of homelessness,” she said. “It’s really about availability and access to housing, and then the ability to have a wage that can maintain that housing.”
The pandemic escalated the housing crisis, said Amy Nelson, executive director of the Fair Housing Center of Central Indiana, especially when it comes to rental costs. There are a limited number of units available, she said, and even then, those units may be in substandard condition and increasing in price. Other fees and costs beyond rent and utilities have also been increasingly tacked onto monthly payments, Nelson said.
“Housing is so critical to our daily living in how we go through our day and what options we have, whether it’s to build generational wealth or have healthy homes or kids having access to quality schools or transportation,” she said. “It comes down to housing.”
Musical chairs of housing
Amy Nelson, executive director of the Fair Housing Center of Central Indiana, speaks about the Indianapolis housing market and barriers to housing people face.
Scarcity in housing availability leads to higher rents that price out people who already have difficulty accessing housing. People with the fewest options, Nelson said, are those with low to moderate incomes, children or disabilities.
Those barriers reduce tenet flexibility to find better options.
According to a 2022 Fair Housing Center of Central Indiana report, Marion County renters were paying $200 to $300 more per month in September 2022 than they were prior to the pandemic, with rents increasing as much as 20% to 30% depending on the area.
The overall rental rate in the county rose from $929 in January 2020 to $1,126 in September 2022. Rents have continued to rise over the past year.
According to National Low Income Housing Coalition data, the annual income needed to afford a two-bedroom rental at HUD’s Fair Market Rent is $39,526, which boils down to a wage of about $19 an hour. The organization estimates that 26%, or 199,050 renting households in Marion County, are considered extremely low income. Recent Census data records a median household income of $54,321 and a 16.4% poverty rate.
Vacancy rates are another factor making affordable housing tough to find, experts say. In the Fair Housing Center of Central Indiana report, the rental vacancy rate was measured at 6%, the lowest rate in 20 years. The Census reported that Indianapolis is not alone, and both homeownership and rental vacancy rates are nearing historic lows across the country.
Analysis from the National Low Income Housing Coalition estimates the state has a shortage of 120,796 rental homes that are affordable and available for extremely low-income renters.
All of this is happening at a time when wage growth is not keeping up with inflation, said Roxy Lawrence, the IU Public Policy Institute’s director of the Center for Research on Inclusion and Social Policy.
Housing affordability is tied to multiple economic factors, experts say, including the price of groceries and utilities.
“When we talk about evictions, people always just talk about people’s inability to pay rent,” Lawrence said. “But also, it’s that people are trying to figure out, ‘OK, I need to pay my electric bill during the summer to keep my AC on; I also need to pay my gas bill during the winter to keep my heat on. And so do I pay that, or do I pay my rent?’”
Roxy Lawrence, the IU Public Policy Institute’s director of the Center for Research on Inclusion and Social Policy, speaks on how rental prices and evictions are more significant causes of homelessness than substance abuse or mental health issues.
Blemished records
Higher rents can lead to more eviction filings, Lawrence said, which can stain one’s record and add another barrier to achieving housing. Indiana is a landlord-friendly state, she said, so there are fewer resources to protect and assist tenets through that process.
Evictions often stay on a person’s record, meaning future landlords can see that as a reason to deny future housing, according to a study from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s research office. It said research shows evictions disproportionately affect single moms, low-income renters, people of color and households with children. It described evictions as “catastrophic and commonplace.”
When housing inventory tightens, Nelson said that means housing providers have the opportunity to be more selective about who they let move in. Other tenant-screening barriers include credit scores and criminal records. People can also be punished for blemishes on their records that are mistakes, Nelson said, mentioning retaliatory eviction filings and accounting mistakes.
“What ends up happening very often is families then can’t move somewhere else, and they’re forced to pay those higher rents,” she said. “All of that, it just puts so many of our families in such a challenging position where one accident or one problem that wasn’t your fault can result in you being homeless and not having somewhere to live.”
The impact of housing
In the 2022 book “Homelessness is a Housing Problem,” researchers Gregg Colburn and Clayton Alburn found rent costs and rental vacancy rates correlated with regional rates of homelessness in ways that substance abuse, local politics and other factors didn’t.
While there is a trend of “criminalizing” homelessness and moving around encampments, Haring-Cozz said that is not a solution. Cities and towns are relying on police presence and emergency rooms, she said, but that does not build housing that can solve a long-term problem.
“It comes out of probably frustration but very misplaced frustration,” Haring-Cozzi said. “We just need everybody to, you know, align and invest in the solutions and not invest in BandAids.”
Haring-Cozzi said people at all levels of society suffer from mental health issues and substance abuse — whether they are housed or not. But without a permanent and safe home, staying on medication and receiving care become significantly more difficult, she said.
Who takes responsibility?
Experts say reducing homelessness takes a community effort, meaning it has to be a collaboration between government policies, philanthropic initiatives and the private sector.
Some government policies, Haring-Cozzi said, may include more protections for tenants, prompting the private sector with guided, incentivized development and subsidizing housing. The private sector also could build different types of housing shown to be needed in a community and lower barriers to living in their properties. Philanthropy fills in those gaps. Those conversations have been positive so far, she said.
Blame falls squarely on the state, according to Nelson. For the better part of a decade, she said, the General Assembly has passed bills favorable to the housing industry, which has stripped municipalities’ abilities to build affordable housing, protect people from housing discrimination and create regulatory practices like landlord registry programs and rental inspections.
Lawrence said it’s critical the housing piece is solved, so people can begin to address other issues like mental health treatment or employment.
“Once they secure housing, then you begin to address other social service needs that person might have,” she said. “The really cool thing about this is that you’re making sure the person has access to housing, and then you’re also addressing any sort of underlying factors, stressors that might be contributing to the substance use disorder or the mental health issue.”