Pledge for Homeless Families in Seattle

Mayor Schell's Zero Homeless Family Pledge

Program Solving in Public Administration

Charles Amankwaa, Kimberlie Mosley, Luby Harvey

Tom Darling

Evaluation Questions

Mission, Strategic Goals, and Objectives

Proposed Budget, Budget Narrative, and Work Plan

The number of homeless families in the City of Seattle has become a major issue that needs to be addressed. Currently, single males in the streets account for 63% of homeless people while 17% are women and the other 20% are families and youth. In Seattle alone, there are more 700 homeless single women and homeless families with children.

In June of 1998, Mayor Paul Schell made a pledge that there would be no homeless families with children or homeless single women on the streets of Seattle by Christmas of 1998." (Norton, 2006). The pledge by Mayor Schell can be accomplished within six months as he indicated though there are several potential challenges that need to be overcome. This problem relates to receiving immediate funding for shelter and assistance. Moreover, homeless families may have been on the streets for a long time and they may feel uncomfortable going to a shelter where they will be meeting new people and may have to share a room or space with others.

Working with Alan Painter, we have come up with several recommendations in order to resolve the problem. We have provided a timeline in order to meet with City Government, State Government, Federal Government, The Homeless Advisory Groups, Operation Nightwatch and the United Way. The process of coming up with recommendations also involved reviewing areas in Seattle with temporary housing and places with vacant lease. After examining these areas in Seattle and contacting King County regarding prices, the achievement of this pledge may involve moving homeless families from Seattle to King County where housing may be cheaper. However, this may not be a suitable option because it will generate more problems relating to temporary housing and increase the possibility of families going back to the street. Therefore, the ideal way of resolving the problem is to find suitable places in Seattle.

In this regard, providing houses for homeless families in the City of Seattle would involve making extra space or floors within existing shelters. This is an ideal alternative because it's significantly cheaper than constructing a new shelter. While some people would have to sleep on the floors in the shelters, they would still be off the streets. Secondly, we examined the possibility of allowing some of the families stay in our home in order to have zero homeless families on the streets. There are several big homes in the City of Seattle with two or three people but can hold more than 10 people. We developed a white paper and presentation for Alan Painter as well as documents for Department of Social Services and the Department of Health and Human Services to see if they would allow a nurse to work in home for each homeless family with children or single women.

To achieve these initiatives, we are proposing a budget increase of 50% from the Federal Government and the City government now. This will result in us providing additional space for the homeless families with children or homeless single women. Furthermore, the additional 50% budget will allow us to have funding to provide the necessities to the additional 812 people that we are trying to provide shelter for. In case, there are additional people that we need to try and find shelter for, the amount would increase.

We are proposing a property tax increase. The property tax increase would cause addition revenue for the city of Seattle. However, it could also cause more people to be homeless because of the increased amount required. We have prepared several cost-benefit analyses in order to make sure if we are provided the additional funding now, there would be savings in the future. The benefits would outweigh the cost in the future.

Mainly working with the United States Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), we will be able to receive the type of funding needed to get the remove the homeless families with children and the homeless single women. By requesting an exception apportionment from HUD, we are able to provide additional housing and shelter for the homeless. This will be processed in the month of October. Working hand-in-hand with HUD, we are able to build stronger relationships and share our stories with other cities in King County. We would also request additional grant money to build the facilities from HUD. This grant money would be used to purchase an additional four shelters in Seattle.

By working with VA, we are checking to see if any of the homeless families with children or homeless single women are Veterans. If they are, VA will be able to help get them off the streets and provide them with the necessary benefits needed to keep them healthy. They would also assist us with finding shelter for the Veterans with families or single women.

We are also working with Operation Nightwatch to get an updated count of homeless families with children or single women on the streets. The technique used by Operation Nightwatch helps in capturing everyone in the homeless population. This partnership will help ensure we are not missing one person that falls into the category of the pledge made by Mayor Schell. Operation Nightwatch assures us the mechanism they are using is capturing the correct data and not missing any of the homeless.

Speaking with King County, we discussed our plan to meet Mayor Schell's pledge. Our discussion regarding current budget needs and the reduction of this need in the future went well. The recommendations will help achieve Mayor Schell's pledge to provide shelter to the homeless within six months. These suggestions will help achieve this through increasing partnerships between federal agencies, researchers, and private sector towards developing, managing, and promoting the City of Seattle.

II. Introduction and Background

The city of Seattle is on the verge of providing shelter for all of homeless families with children or homeless single women. Right now, there are more single males than anyone else on the streets. The single males represent 63% of the population on the street. The single females represent 17% of the population on the streets and the families and youth represent 20% of the population on the streets. A pie chart is below showing the percentages of single males, single females, and families with you.

Specifically in Seattle, there are over 700 homeless single women and homeless families with children. We have provided Alan Painter with a timeline in order for us to meet with all the key players so we can eliminate the homeless issue in Seattle. Since the pledge was made in June 1998, we have meetings set up with Program Managers and Alan Painter the second week of June. We are discussing the problems, objectives, risk and challenges in order to achieve the pledge. The over 700 is not a confirmed number. We are projecting 812 homeless single women or homeless families with children, based off a report by Operation Nightwatch. This was an increase of 16%from 1993 to 1997. Therefore, keeping the same percentage of 35% (single women) and 35% (families with children). How are they defining families with children? Operation Nightwatch is counting children under 18 with an adult. This could be combination of people to include one parent with one child, one parent with many kids, or two parents with one kid, or two parents with multiple kids. It will be difficult to achieve the pledge because so many people are on the streets and more could come that would not be included in the numbers now. The Program Managers will work with us, the Program Analyst, to prepare our evaluation questions, evaluation design, data collection, data analysis, proposed presentation and utilization plan, proposed budget and narrative description.

During the third week of June, we met with Mayor Schell and Alan Painter to discuss the pledge, goals and objectives. We discussed the problems that we ran into, as far as trying to receive immediate funding for shelter and assistance. We let Mayor Schell know we will achieve the goal within the six-month he stated in his pledge. The Mayor is aware we have set up meetings with the King County, State Government, Federal Government, United Way, and Operation Nightwatch. We explained to the Mayor there may be some resistance from the homeless families with children or single women. They have been on the streets for a long time and they may feel uncomfortable going to a shelter where they will be meeting new people and may have to share a room or space with others. Mayor Schell just wants to make sure we do our best to fulfill his pledge.

During the fourth week of June, we met with the Community Service Division, Support Staff. Meeting with the Support Staff was needed in order to make sure we all were on the same page as far as meeting the pledge made by Mayor Schell. The Support Staff had ideas about being able to provide additional benefits once we were able to find additional shelter. They discussed their great relationships with the Department of Veterans Affairs and had several key points of contact that would be willing to provide additional funding for the benefits of homeless families with children and/or single women that were Veterans. They also wanted to be a key player in assisting us with the pledge because the Department of Veterans Affairs could be rewarded for helping the city of Seattle eliminate 37% of the homeless population. Because the percentage of single males on the streets of Seattle are so high, Department of Veterans Affairs is also interesting in finding out how many of the single males, on the street, are Veterans. They want to assist them as well, even though this would not help the pledge presented by Mayor Schell. The Department of Veterans Affairs is all about helping all Veterans. Therefore, it is their mission to assist those Veterans that are in need of shelter and benefits. After speaking with the Support Staff in the Community Service Division, the Program Analyst wanted to follow up with the Program Managers again on any updates.

III. Evaluation Questions

The pledge is a bold one and one that may be accomplished within the six-month period. However, we have come up with some additional questions that may be asked if this accomplished. OCDETF program has been asked several questions about several aspects of their program. Some of the questions I asked, OCDETF was able to come back with a response. Other questions took are still pending with them. Some of the questions we asked are specific to their overall performance measures and goals and some were specific to different locations where there are high numbers for homeless people issues. We have asked the following questions:

1. Is it really possible to have zero homeless families with children if we are not including males?

2. Even though the Mayor made the pledge, how would this affect the city of Seattle?

3. While we are providing shelter for the families with children or single women, will this affect the property taxes in Seattle for the people that stay near these areas where the homeless are?

4. If the federal government is able to provide additional funding now and in the near future but has a huge across the board reduction in the future and is not able to provide the funding the fund now, what methods will we use in order to come up with additional funding in order to pay for the shelters and traditional housing?

5. Has there been any controversial issues going on with the performance of the city's budget that could be affected more if we ask to reallocate more funding specifically for the homeless initiative?

6. Are there any additional federal government agencies or state government that should be involved in the OCDETF program?

IV. Data Collection

The first week of July, we met with the Program Managers on the monthly status updates from our conversation with the Support Staff, in the Community Service Division. The Program Managers advised that meetings are set up with the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Housing and Urban Development within two weeks. We discussed the possibility of meeting with Kings County in the month of July as well. It is our job to let Kings County know that we are interested in reallocating money for some of our initiatives that are not mandatory and move the funding to our homeless initiative budget. Discussing the possibility of working with King County to see if they could cut another city's budget to provide additional funding to us now was not an easy conversation. Since their fiscal year started in January and ended in December, they would have the flexibility to allocate funds to us now in order to help us complete the task at hand within in the six months stated. We provided King County with a cost-benefit analysis showing them that if they provide the funding now to assist us find additional shelter, there would be savings in the next six years. This would mean the budget for Seattle would decrease if we accomplish the huge task at hand. The exhibit below shows the costs now, the benefits now and later, and it also includes the discount rate for accomplishing the task before inflation occurs in the future.

V. Data Analysis

Us Program Analyst, along with the Data Analyst, and the Budget Analyst conducted research on the homeless in Seattle. We viewed specific locations in Seattle where the homeless population was higher than in other areas. We discussed this information with Operation Nightwatch as well. This was critical information in order for us to know the specific areas that had the highest people on the streets. This information was used to strategic think about what was going on in those areas. Were the property taxes too high in those areas? Is there a recession that caused so many people to be homeless recently? Was the homeless population even in different areas of Seattle or were some areas higher due to a specific circumstance?

We reviewed the areas where we had temporary housing and places that had vacant lease space. As we are conducted our research, we want to be able to come up with a good recommendation, as far as location for additional shelters. This means we went all over Seattle looking at vacant lease spaces and we also spoke to King County to see about prices in other areas within King County. In order to solve this problem, we may have to end up moving the homeless from Seattle to another city within King County that may be cheaper. There would be resistance for this solution as well. Seattle is the place where everyone wants to be due to the beautiful weather year round. There is a lot of rain in Seattle. However, no one needs central air or heat due to the temperature being between the 60's and 80's all year round. With moving people to another city in King County, this would affect someone that we may home into temporary housing. If the homeless families with children or single women do not get back on their feet within a year, they may be faced with being removed from the temporary housing. This would include them possibly going back on the streets, of a new city within King County that does not have great weather year round. Therefore, we want to try and stick with staying in space within Seattle.

All of the analyst reviewed the Seattle- King County consolidated plan and came up with recommended changes. In the consolidated plan, we brainstormed the idea of making additional space or floors within the shelters we already have in place. This would be a lot cheaper than building a new shelter. Plus, we are on a strict timeframe of have zero homeless families or single women on the streets by Christmas of 1998. Building a new shelter would be difficult to do, even though we have friends and business partners that may be able to accomplish it within the six-month period. The analyst discussed the possibility of moving additional people in the rooms. Some people may have to sleep on the floors in the rooms in the shelter. However, they would be off the streets. This would be an easy solution to help move some of the single females off the streets. In the shelters, currently there are two people to a room. However, we can get an additional two to three people per room and they can rotate who sleeps on the bed and who sleeps on the floor. When it comes to getting families with children in a space, we would need to make sure we try to keep them close as possible to one another. This could mean the children may be in a room with other children, while the adults are in the rooms with other adults. They would still be able to see one another.

As we are still in the month of July discussing ways in order to have zero homeless families on the street, we thought about the possibility of allowing some of the families stay in our home. There are a lot of residence in the city of Seattle that has big homes with two or three people. However, the homes could hold up to ten plus people. We prepared a white paper and presentation for Alan Painter to see if any residence would be willing to allow homeless single women or homeless families with children to stay with them. We prepared a document for the Department of Social Services and the Department of Health and Human Services to see if they would allow a nurse to work in home for each homeless family with children or single women. With this in place, a nurse would take care of them and make sure they are doing what they need to get in a better situation. The Department of Social Services could assist with the drug and alcohol problems that are occurring in Seattle. Another idea we thought about was having some non-profit groups, like the United Way, speak to the homeless, if they were able to get moved into people's homes. The United Way would mentor them and get them prepared to interview for work, public speaking, assist with the proper attire to work. This would let them know that we all of us collectively care about them and their well-being. We know all of the residents of Seattle would not agree but the ones that do, we would count to see how many people we can get off the streets.

Working with the Operation Nightwatch, we could get an updated count of homeless families with children or single women on the streets. We want to make sure the mechanism they are using is capturing everyone in the homeless population. Trying to fulfill the pledge mentioned by Mayor Schell is a task already, but we want to make sure we are not missing one person that falls into the category of the pledge he made. Operation Nightwatch assures us the mechanism they are using is capturing the correct data and not missing any of the homeless. After speaking with Operation Nightwatch, we want to sit down with the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Department of Social Services.

The third week of July 1998, we have met with the Department of Housing and Urban Development. We spoke about their current policies. We provided a proposal for them to request an exception apportionment in October 1998. The exception apportionment would have included additional funding to help us come up with additional floors or space in our current shelters. If HUD is not able to request an exception apportionment, we would request for them to provide us with grant money they still have available in fiscal year 1997. The fiscal year in the federal government is from October 1, 1996 through September 30, 1997. They still have a couple of months to get the grant funding obligated in fiscal year 1997. This would mean they funds would be off their books. Grants in the federal government are usually disbursed in third quarter (April through June) or fourth quarter (July through September). We requested a grant in the amount of $3 million dollars in order to provide additional shelter and transitional housing. The $3 million dollars that we requested would be on top of the additional funding we received from the HUD. Receiving their budget submissions, they always lapse a lot of funding in grant money, specifically for providing reasonable and fair costs on homes. We were very honest with HUD about our intentions about lowering the amount we would need from them in the future if they provide the additional funding now. HUD is in agreement with us and they will provide the city of Seattle with the additional $3 million dollars in funding within the next two weeks. This additional funding will allow us contact the shelters and transitional housing managers and see if we are able to get a contract company there to add additional space to move the homeless families with children or single women into those facilities. We provided HUD with a copy of our mission and our strategic plan and initiatives which is below:

VI. Mission, Strategic Goals and Objectives

Mission

"The city of Seattle drives to provide a 24-hour City Hall for the citizens of Seattle." The city of Seattle strives to provide shelter to the homeless.

Goal #1

Eliminate the homeless in the city of Seattle.

Objectives:

• Ensure that staffs at the shelter and transitional homes have the skills, competencies, training, and tools they need to support the customers in a changing environment.

• Strengthen our community operations that thrive on nimbleness and serving customers, both internal and external.

Goal #2

Adapt to new and emerging computer technology.

Objectives:

• Increase the number of reports that are provided to our constituents on time.

• Increase partnerships with other federal agencies, researchers, and private industry to develop, manage, and promote our city.

Goal #3

Connect with our customers in a way that solitudes our commitment to encourage public participation and always keep them abreast of what has transpired in Seattle.

Objectives:

• Expand our use of crowd sourcing tools to improve public engagement.

• Increase our web presence to broaden the reach of our exhibit and education programs and improve the quality of the visitor experience.

• Strengthen the partnerships with industry, national and international institutions, and affiliated organizations to develop cooperative initiatives that showcase the great things the city of Seattle has to offer, including civic and historical literacy programs.

The month of August is dedicated to reviewing updated status reports from the Data Analyst, Program Analyst and Budget Analyst. These reports show any new information retrieved from the city, state, and federal government. The reports also show additional recommendations from the United Way, Department of Social Services and Operation Nightwatch. We have met with Alan Painter to provide our recommendations and our proposed budget.

VII. Proposed Budget and Narrative

In the month of September, we provided a change our current budget and made recommendations for our 1998 budget. The proposed budget includes the actuals from the previous fiscal year, our recommended changes before the fiscal year ends and any additional resources that we expect to be provided in order to accomplish the tasks to eliminate homeless families with children or homeless single women. Our proposed budget is provided below for Alan Painter:

We are requesting an additional 50% for emergency shelter and transitional housing, emergency food serviced and housing related social services. This increase will allow us to have funding to provide the necessities to the additional 812 people that we are trying to provide shelter for. This would be the most needed right now with the count of homeless families and children and single women that are still on the streets of Seattle. If there are additional people that we need to try and find shelter for, the amount would increase. With the requested level in 1999, we will be able to maintain shelter, food, and social services to the people we have in temporary shelters.

VIII. Conclusion

In summation, the pledge that was made by Mayor Schell will be difficult to achieve. Although we will be provided with additional funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of Social Services and the city of Seattle, there is still a concern about being able to count all the families with children. Operation Nightwatch has some glitches when it comes to the children count. The children are in one location at one moment and then move to other locations. There is always a concern about miss counting individuals. Even if we are able to move the 812 people off the streets, there could be additional people that are homeless. With the property tax increasing, this helps the low income housing. However, this could cause some people to be without homes due to the inflation. Reviewing the 63% of single males that will still be on the streets is an issue as well. Establishing policies that will mandate other jurisdictions to provide funding to Seattle is our main objective to eliminate the homeless issues. Creating a capital planning project to work with leasing officers at apartment complexes to create additional shelter for the homeless at a discounted rate is another option we will take. Requesting emergency funds from the city or reallocating funds that may have been lapsed in the past is another option to help provide housing for families with children and single women.

References

Norton, Eileen (2006). "Mayor Schell's Zero Homeless Family Pledge." www.hallway.org

http://www.seattle.gov/pan/1998_AnnualReport/default.htm