Why do Floridians Become (and Remain) Homeless?

 

In 2000, more than 67,000 men, women and children were homeless in Florida's streets and shelters on any given night. Three to four times as many Floridians were homeless at some point during the course of that year. This does not include hundreds of thousands of others living on the brink of homelessness. Even as we recover from a recession, our state enjoys great prosperity and remains a destination for millions of tourists annually.

Therefore, it's fair to ask why, in a state where so many relish our quality of life, so many of our neighbors become and remain homeless. The answer to that question is complex and multi-pronged. In short, homelessness is caused (and made worse) by both personal and societal factors. Those factors work together in diverse ways, and each individual's and family's situation is distinct.

This brief document presents statistics and other information that provides some perspective regarding the many reasons why homelessness remains a crisis for Florida, in spite of the increased availability of federal and state homeless funding in recent years.

For simplicity, the causes of homelessness are divided into three major categories: 1) lack of affordable housing, 2) lack of adequate income, and 3) lack of needed services and treatment:

Many Floridians are Homeless Because They Cannot Afford Housing

NOTE: The term "extremely low-income household" means a household with an income of less than 30% of the area's median income, adjusted for household size. For example, in 2002, an extremely low-income family of 4 in Orlando had an income of $16,410 per year or less.

A worker in Florida needs to earn a wage of $13.35 per hour in 2001 in order to afford to rent a 2-bedroom apartment. That amount is 9.5% higher than the wage needed to afford such housing one year earlier.

1. For every 100 extremely low-income renters in Florida, there are only 64 units of housing that are affordable to them, the 5th most severe shortage in the nation. The shortage is far less critical for higher income "low-income" households.

2. 61% of extremely low-income Florida renters pay more than half of their income on housing. In Orlando, such a 3-person family has AT MOST $615 available each month for ALL other expenses, including food, transportation, child care and health care. By contrast, only 1% of renter households with incomes greater than 60% of area median pay more than half of their income on housing.

3. 90%a of Florida's public housing authorities report that the wait time for a family to receive a Section 8 voucher (rental assistance), if they can access the waiting list at all, exceeds 6 months.

4. On average, a disabled individual receiving Supplemental Security Income (SSI) in Florida would need to spend 104.4% of his or her monthly income in order to rent a one-bedroom unit.

5. More than 367,000 individual Floridians relied on a $545b SSI payment as their source of income in Florida in 1999.

6. Of 101,708 income-restricted units of rental housing created by the Florida Housing Finance Corporation during its history, only 81 of those units were affordable to extremely low-income households.

7. A comprehensive nationwide survey of homeless personsd found that the most frequently reported reason for their homelessness was the inability to pay the rent.

8. An estimated 130,000 to 150,000 Florida households faced evictione in 2001.

9. Many Floridians are Homeless Because Income and Other Financial Resources are Insufficient to Meet Basic Needs. More than 1 million (16.3%) of Florida's 6.3 million households enumerated in the 2000 Census had incomes of less than $15,000 per year.

10. 176,000 Florida workers earned an hourly wage of $5.15 per hour or less in 2000. Of Florida's 3.8 million hourly wage workers, 28% of them earned less than $7.15 per hour.

11. A comprehensive nationwide survey of homeless personsd found that 44% were employed during the previous month, although only 20% had steady employment. Average income during the previous month was just $367.

12. Fully one in five Florida children live in poverty, up from 18% in 1990, and 30% of children live in families where no parent has full-time, year-round employment.

13. Only 27% of unemployed workers received unemployment compensation in Florida in 2001, 5th lowest in the nation.

14. Welfare caseloads have dropped by 71% since welfare reform, from 200,292 families in September 1996 to 59,570 families in May 2002.

15. Of 1995-96 welfare recipients, only 51% were foundf to be employed in Florida in 2000, with only 13% working the equivalent of full-time and earning a wage of at least $9.00 per hour. Meanwhile, only 2% were still receiving cash assistance only. A full third were neither working nor receiving any form of public assistance in Florida, and therefore had no known source of income whatsoever.

16. Many Florida children live on the brink: 4% live in households without a telephone, while 7% reside in households without a vehicle.

17. In December 2001, 46,800 Florida children were on a waiting list for subsidized child care, jeopardizing their parents ability to work.18


Many Floridians, particularly those with disabilities or special needs, are homeless because of inadequate access to needed services and supports.

From available data, less than 10% of homeless persons in Florida with a need for mental health and/or substance abuse treatment services actually receive services from a DCF service provider.19
More than 335,000 Floridians (2% of the total population) are estimated to be detained in a Florida prison or jail at some time over the course of a year. Of these persons, approximately 65% will have a psychiatric and/or substance abuse disorder.

20. Many are released to the streets without access to housing or treatment.
Over 92,000 adults with serious and persistent mental illnesses and 79,000 children with serious emotional disturbances in Florida are not receiving the publicly funded treatment services they need.

21. Approximately 25% of the 25,000 inmates released each year from Florida prisons do not have an identified place to live upon release.

22. In 2000, 126,629 domestic violence crimes were reported to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. Homelessness often results when victims of domestic violence flee abusive situations.

23. Some 46% of homeless personsd report having one or more chronic health conditions, such as arthritis, high blood pressure, diabetes or cancer. Nevertheless, 55% percent reported having no medical insurance.

Selected Examples of the Causes and Effects of Homelessness

Sam25

Sam grew up in a middle class family where he was the oldest of three children. He was a junior in college studying engineering when he was hospitalized for the first time and diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. His family took care of him for years, but eventually his father died and his mother no longer had the ability to provide the support she had in younger years.

After Sam lost contact with his family, his condition deteriorated, and he has been hospitalized and incarcerated several times since then. During one stretch of stability, he lived in a single room for several years, paying his rent with disability benefits. But in the early 1990s, Sam was sent to prison after breaking the window of an appliance store and injuring a police officer. While in prison, Sam took medication every day and functioned relatively well, but when he left prison he had no way of getting his medicine. He'd also lost his disability benefits and his housing.

Today Sam is homeless. He sleeps in a park, eats out of garbage cans, panhandles and drinks malt liquor to help him cope with the voices he hears in his head. He does not see a psychiatrist; he has neither benefits nor insurance. Sam hears things other people do not. He hears agents from the FBI planning to capture him, kidnap him and hurt him. He often talks back to the voices he hears.

Most recently, Sam was arrested on a misdemeanor charge. After sitting in jail for 21 days due to an inability to post bond, Sam is offered the opportunity to plead no contest and receives a sentence of community service. His public defender advises Sam that this offer is a good deal and he should take it. Sam pulls himself together enough to get through the procedure of pleading guilty. His overtaxed public defender tells him where and when to go for the community service and, as an afterthought, suggests that Sam see a doctor and get some medicine.

Sam agreed to everything and walked out of the courtroom barefoot. He still had no benefits or insurance or any idea where he might find a doctor, if he wanted one. He lost the piece of paper with the information about community service almost immediately, and went back to the park where he usually sleeps. He did not show up for community service. Three weeks later, Sam was found sleeping in the entrance foyer of a building on a cold night. He is arrested for trespassing and is sent back to jail, this time in deeper trouble for also not having performed his required community service.

Janette

Difficulties arranging child care and transportation had already cost Janette several jobs, and the loss of financial and moral support after a break-up left her scrambling to hold it together for her three young children. This latest crisis cost Janette another position, which in turn resulted in her eviction shortly after the beginning of the month.

An expected child support payment won't help enough to put together the deposit she needs for a new place, if the money arrives at all. Janette doesn't seek much help from social service agencies, concerned that someone may try to take her children away. Food stamps help a little. She put her name on the waiting list for public housing and Section 8, but a worker there told her it would be at least 6 months before she could hope to be notified of an available housing unit or voucher.

Janette's mom has no space for her in her three-room apartment, but her aunt lets the family to stay on the couch for a few days at a time. Her cousin also let the family use a spare room for a while, but couldn't stand the younger son's crying and so asked them to leave. So Janette had to use the little bit of money she had to buy a few nights in a cheap motel. She breathed a sigh of relief when she returned to the room to find her kids safe after leaving them for 30 minutes to fill out a job application. When the money ran out, she convinced the motel manager to let her stay another day, and then she found a church who paid for the next three days. Then she found herself out on the street again. By nightfall, she had worked it out with her aunt to move back into her place when she returned to town the following day. It was too late to get help anywhere else, so she spread out blankets in the back seat and helped her children prepare for a night in the car.

Sources:

Out of Reach: America's Growing Wage-Rent Disparity, National Low-Income Housing Coalition, 2001.

Testimony before the House Committee on Financial Services, Subcommittee of Housing and Community Opportunity; Kathryn P. Nelson, Office of Policy Development and Research, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development; 2001.

Data generated for the Multifamily Rental Market Study (prepared for the Florida Housing Finance Corporation); Shimberg Center for Affordable Housing, University of Florida; 2001.

Public Housing Authority Waiting List Characteristics, Multifamily Rental Market Study; Shimberg Center for Affordable Housing, University of Florida, 2001.

Priced Out in 2000: The Crisis Continues, Technical Assistance Collaborative, 2001.

Statistical Abstract of the United States, U.S. Census Bureau, 2001.

Rental Housing in Florida, Multifamily Rental Market Study; Shimberg Center for Affordable Housing, University of Florida, 2001.

Homelessness: Programs and the People They Serve, Urban Institute, 1999.

Projection based on Florida Coalition for the Homeless telephone survey of selected clerks of county courts and U.S. Census data, 2001.

Profile of General Demographic Characteristics, U.S. Census Bureau, 2000.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Homelessness: Programs and the People They Serve, Urban Institute, 1999.

Children at Risk: State Trends 1990-2000, Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2002.

Failing the Unemployed, Economic Policy Institute, 2002.

Monthly Flash Report, Agency for Workforce Innovation, 2002.

Florida Education and Training Placement Information Program, Florida Department of Education, 2001.

Children at Risk: State Trends 1990-2000, Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2002.

State Developments in Child Care, Early Education and School Age Care, Children's Defense Fund, 2001.

Report of the Data Workgroup, Florida Commission on Mental Health and Substance Abuse, 2001.

Ibid.

Department of Children & Families Strategic Report, as quoted in Jails: Asylums of the New Millennium, Florida Partners in Crisis, 2002.

Florida Department of Corrections.

Annual Report, Governor's Task Force on Domestic Violence, 2001.

Homelessness: Programs and the People They Serve, Urban Institute, 1999.

Prisons and Jails: Hospitals of Last Resort, Correctional Association of New York, 2002.
Additional Notes:

Almost all of the remaining 10% of public housing authorities are in small counties.

The SSI payment for a couple in 2002 was $817.

The impact of recent efforts on the part of the Corporation and the Legislature to target some resources to extremely low-income households is not reflected in these numbers. Furthermore, some Corporation units serve extremely low-income Section 8 voucher-holders (rental assistance from U.S. HUD), but this does not amount to the creation of a new unit.

Based on a nationwide survey of homeless adults who used homeless assistance programs.

Numbers reported are eviction actions filed. Most ultimately resulted in an actual eviction of the household from the unit.

Some of those not found may no longer reside in Florida, but it is important to note that others who have left welfare came from other states during the same period.

Some of the first to leave welfare had the least significant barriers to employment. Welfare leavers in subsequent years faced more challenges and are earning at substantially lower levels than their counterparts from earlier years.

These stories represent integrated compilations from reports and anecdotes, and are not intended to depict actual persons. No real names are used.   http://www.flacoalitionhomeless.com/whyhomeless.htm 2007