The charitable and nonprofit organizations that serve the homeless population use a variety of programs and techniques to aid people without housing, and they say they're bracing for major cuts to a program for the most chronically homeless individuals.
It's called Permanent Supportive Housing. Also known as Housing First, the program places individuals who meet the definition of chronic homelessness – many with disabilities, substance use disorder and untreated mental illness – in stable, subsidized housing. And it does so before beginning the process of moving them into treatment programs and other services.
"We're talking about folks that were formally chronically homeless, right, people living unsheltered, on the street, the folks that nobody wants to see living outside," says Brian Koziol, executive director of the Virginia Housing Alliance. "Nobody wants to see people living under overpasses or in the woods. It's immoral and it's inhumane"
Koziiol says Housing First works. It keeps people stable, and in a location where service providers can find and help them.
"It is the most cost-effective intervention that we have come up with to date," Koziol says. "When you get people into housing that provides supportive services, all of a sudden you reduce emergency room visits, you reduce police calls, you reduce reliance on other social services and programs."
Jay Brown, CEO of Commonwealth Catholic Charities, says permanent supportive housing is more than 90% effective at keeping people housed, as borne out by multiple studies. But the program is threatened by major funding cuts. The US Department of Housing and Urban Development floated a policy shift under President Trump that could push an estimated 3,200 people across Virginia out of Permanent Supportive Housing.
"The challenge is when you reduce the amount of resources that are available for people to exit homelessness, what you wind up with is people who stay homeless for longer," Brown says.
Advocates are pushing back with legal action, and organizations are still sorting out what happens next. Commonwealth Catholic Charities operates Housing First programs in Richmond, Hopewell, and Roanoke. In Roanoke, the program has 42 slots, and the HUD policy change could slash 21 of those.
"The biggest challenge for us," Brown says, "is how do we make sure that that we don't see a massive surge in homelessness again because people who have been housed through these permanent housing interventions become homeless again, and then the intervention that becomes available is not designed for people who need the help the most."
Brown says that should the policy change go forward, the nonprofit will try to replace those permanent housing slots with transitional housing, which is available for people who enroll in treatment programs. But it's not a one-to-one replacement, as individuals who now benefit from Housing First aren't necessarily eligible for the replacement. Other service providers are bracing for the blow, too.
"It's vital," says Matt Crookshank, Roanoke's human services coordinator, and leader of the Homeless Assistance Team. "Not only will those 21 people that'll be without housing, it'll reduce the capacity of our community to provide that service. So that's less housing we can provide to that high-need population, so it's a critical loss."
Brian Koziol says it's taken decades to orient homeless assistance programs around Housing First and the results it delivers. Dismantling the program would be a major setback.
"Once you lose that infrastructure, the work to rebuild that infrastructure is monumental," Koziol says. "So it is really incumbent on us all to do what we can to make sure that safety net infrastructure is still viable."
Commonwealth Catholic Charities and other service providers are still evaluating their options and figuring what comes next.
