New USC study shows most homeless families experience 1-time crisis

More than 4,100 people used services for homeless families in Richland County over the past decade, and more than 80 percent of them used those services only once, new data shows.

The findings of a new study released by the University of South Carolina indicate that family homelessness is a temporary, not long-term or chronic, problem for most who experience it in Columbia and Richland County.

To meet the majority of family homelessness needs, the study concludes, much more affordable housing is required in the Columbia area, along with efforts to rapidly re-house families who experience a one-time crisis.

That fact is a driving factor behind one nonprofit’s plans to buy more single-family homes in the Columbia area and convert them into affordable housing.

“Why is my family invisible?” a homeless young woman once asked Lila Anna Sauls, president of the organization now known as Homeless No More. Sauls told her, “I promise you I will do everything in my power to keep you from becoming invisible.”

Expanding affordable housing pool

Given the new light shed on the needs of homeless families in the Columbia area, service provider Trinity Housing Corp., which operates the St. Lawrence Place transitional housing community in Columbia, has changed its name to Homeless No More.

It also has broadened its mission to expand services for emergency and longer-term family needs, better coordinate the area’s network of service providers and “champion the interests of homeless families.”

Homeless No More will continue to be the parent organization over St. Lawrence Place and its sister program, Live Oak Place, an expanding network of affordable homes across Columbia and Richland County.

When residents graduate from St. Lawrence Place’s two-year transitional housing program, most of them have full-time jobs and steady family income. But it still can be difficult for them to find an affordable place to live, Sauls said.

Live Oak Place recently has expanded the number of affordable homes available to at-risk families to 11, including four newly purchased or under-contract houses in Columbia and the county. It’s the program’s hope to purchase and build more, leaders said.

“It’s a drop in the bucket,” said Walter McKay, chairman of the Homeless No More board of directors. “We knew we had to get started to begin to catch up” to the need.

Families eligible to live in Live Oak Place homes earn no more than 60 percent of the area median income and pay rent based on 30 percent of their household incomes.

“If we could snap our fingers and have 5,000 additional units, they would be taken up in 30 days,” McKay said.

What family homelessness looks like here

Of the 4,113 people in 1,806 households who used family homelessness services between 2004 and 2015, before the October flood, 96 percent of them used housing services only once or twice, the USC study found. That finding shows just how episodic family homelessness tends to be, said Bret Kloos, a USC psychology professor who co-authored the study.

The study found a wide range of family homelessness patterns locally, which require different services to meet their needs. While a family experiencing a one-time crisis of homelessness needs rapid re-housing, a family in need of extended support requires a transitional housing program such as St. Lawrence Place, the study concluded.

Families in all patterns of homelessness, though, would be served by a greater supply of affordable housing, Kloos said.

“If you think about homelessness as one of the cruelest games of musical chairs you can imagine, there aren’t enough apartments, there aren’t enough chairs to get to,” Kloos said. “For families that want to work, that have contributions to make to the community, the cost of housing makes people vulnerable to this game of musical chairs.”

Families who experienced one brief crisis of homelessness over those 12 years – more than two-thirds of the families – were in crisis for an average of 54 days, the study found.

The 10 percent of families who sought extended housing support experienced a long, single episode of need averaging 17 months.

Only 7 percent of families who accessed housing services over the 12-year period required long-term support or experienced persistent housing insecurity, with three or more episodes of homelessness for multiple months.

Bigger picture

Part of Homeless No More’s redefined mission is to better coordinate area service providers to fill gaps in the continuum of care sought by homeless and at-risk families.

Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin says the city, too, is seeking coordination among not just service providers but potential private investors to work toward expanding the affordable housing pool.

City leaders and a network of advocates are “trying to create an environment where private sector capital can be used to meet public sector needs,” Benjamin said.

The city has spent a lot of time discussing possible “creative” tactics to give private developers incentives to integrate affordable and market-rate housing units across all parts of the city, Benjamin said. Those could include, for instance, leveraging or supplementing federal tax credits for affordable housing developments.

“We have a significant need for workforce housing, for affordable housing, for housing for homeless families across the city,” Benjamin said. “How do you create an environment where ... we can bring the same degree of creativity and urgency that we brought to student housing?”

This story was originally published May 10, 2016 at 1:59 PM.