FACTS ON HOMELESSNESS IN WASHINGTON, D.C.
More than 16,000 people are homeless in Washington, D.C. over the course of a year1, which is almost 3% of the population, one of the highest rates in the country.
On an average day in 2006, approximately 9,369 persons in the District of Columbia were homeless or receiving homeless services, a 13% increase since 2004.2 46% of these individuals are “chronically homeless,” meaning they have been homeless for more than a year.3
In the D.C. metropolitan region, 51% of area’s total homeless population resides in Washington, more than in all of the surrounding MD and VA counties combined.4
There are only approximately 2,000 emergency shelter beds available year-round for single adults in D.C., and 171 emergency shelter units for families.5
The number of homeless families seeking shelter in DC more than doubled over the last five years – increasing from 1,276 families in fiscal year 2000 to 2,839 families in fiscal year 2006.6 In 2006, families made up 33% of Washington, D.C.’s homeless population.7
The wait for emergency family shelter is at least 6 months, and only 11% of the homeless families that applied in 2006 were placed in emergency family shelter.8
In 2004, approximately 16% of the District's poor experienced being homeless at some time during the year.9 More than 15,000 D.C. residents used homeless services in 2005, including 8,764 individuals and 6,623 persons in families.10
Approximately half of the District’s emergency shelter beds are in facilities that are only open overnight, forcing homeless persons onto the streets during the day.11
Two large downtown-D.C. emergency shelters for men closed in 2004, Gales and Randall, and were replaced by shelters in far more inaccessible locations in the city, creating significant challenges for the single men’s homeless population.
The number of “hate crimes” targeting homeless individuals are on the increase, according to the National Coalition for the Homeless. More than 380 homeless persons were attacked nationwide between 1999 and 2006, resulting in 156 deaths.12
D.C. Human Services funding cuts since the 1990s have resulted in a reduction in homeless services funding, including a decline of more than 80% in the number of apartment-style shelter units for homeless families, elimination of a program that provided emergency assistance to 13,000 families and individuals, and a 40% reduction in the value of cash assistance for families with children, after adjusting for inflation.13
WHY ARE SO MANY PEOPLE HOMELESS?
Washington, D.C. has the 4th highest poverty rate in the country, with an overall poverty rate for 2005 of 17.7%.14 36% of children in D.C. lived below the poverty line in 2003, up from 30% in 2002, compared with a child poverty rate of 18% nationally.15
More than 1 out of 4 – 26.9% - of DC families with children live at or below the poverty line. This is the highest rate of family poverty in the nation.16
Washington, D.C. has the widest income gap between rich and poor of any city in the country, with the poorest fifth of D.C. residents earning an average of $6,126 a year, while the richest fifth earn an average of 31 times that much, $186,830.17
From 2003 to 2005, salaries in the range of $20,000 rose only 5.4 percent, not enough to keep up with rising prices, but for jobs that pay $60,000 or more, salaries rose 12.4 percent, well above the 6.8 inflation rate.18
The unemployment rate in D.C. was 6.4% as of August, 2005, notably higher than the national rate for the same time period.19 Homeless individuals with no phone or address stand a slim chance competing for jobs in an already tight job market.
It has been estimated that a two-parent, two-child family needs $59,942 a year to live in the District,20 yet the official poverty line for a family of four is $19,157.21
As of 2004, the District had an estimated 79,000 residents who were uninsured, most of whom work in low-paying jobs without employer-sponsored health insurance.22
For the year 2006, the Fair Market Rent (FMR) for an efficiency apartment in Washington, D.C. is $948 a month. The FMR for a 1-bedroom unit is $1080; 2-bedroom, $1225; 3-bedroom, $1580; and 4-bedroom, $2068.23
In the District of Columbia, a worker earning the Minimum Wage ($7.00 per hour) must work approximately 140 hours per week in order to afford a two-bedroom unit at the area's Fair Market rent.24 Put differently, a full time minimum wage worker with 2 children only earns 32% of the income necessary to pay average monthly living expenses.25
The Housing Wage in the District of Columbia is $23.56, which is 357% of the minimum wage. This is the amount a full time (40 hours per week) worker must earn per hour in order to afford a two-bedroom unit at the area's Fair Market rent.26
TANF (formerly AFDC), the cash welfare program for families, was increased in 2006 for the first time in twenty years. The new benefit levels, 1 person--$257; 2--$320; 3--$407; 4--$498; 5--$573; 6--$674; 7--$773; 8--$855; 9--$940, are still far below the amount needed to afford housing and other essentials in the District of Columbia. There are more than 16,000 families who receive TANF in the District, including 30,000 children,27 and families trying to get off of welfare faced a wait list for subsidized childcare of almost 2,000 as of July, 2004.28
The maximum amount of Food Stamps available in the District is $155/month for 1 person; $284/month for 2 persons; and $408/month for 3 persons. For those who get TANF or other cash assistance, the amounts are even less.29
The amount of the monthly grant for Social Security’s SSI Disability program is $623 for 2007. It usually takes an average of 2 years after applying to obtain these benefits, and the only temporary source of income in D.C. for single, disabled adults in the meantime is Interim Disability Assistance (IDA), which pays only $257/month.
80% of households in the Washington area with annual incomes under $10,000 and 50% of households with incomes under $35,000 are paying rents that are “unaffordable,” with households earning less than $8,500/year spending over 80% of their income on housing.30
For households which earn under $10,000, the number of affordable housing units available falls short of the need by 13,800 units, or 44%.31 Between 2000 and 2004, the District lost 7,500 units of affordable housing.32
At least 63,000 D.C. residents -more than one in nine – are addicted to drugs or alcohol, double the national addiction rate.33 Yet the budget for D.C.’s Addiction Prevention and Recovery Administration was cut by $3 million in 2003, and decreased an additional $2 million between 2003 and 2005, and there are long waits to get into detox or the few residential treatment beds which exist. As a result, D.C. assists only 14% of its addicts.34
While the District spends approximately $42.45 per capita on drug and alcohol prevention and treatment, it spends $1,257 per capita on criminal justice efforts.35
Washington, D.C. leads the U.S. in per capita incarceration, and at least one third of the D.C. Detention Center’s approximately 3,500 inmates suffer from severe mental illness, for which they often do not receive adequate treatment.36 Nationally, mentally ill state prison inmates are more than twice as likely as other inmates to report living on the street or in a shelter within the last 12 months.37
Incarceration makes it more likely that a person will end up homeless, due to separation from social networks, lack of adequate medical and mental health treatment, and failure to provide adequate discharge planning, according to a 2005 study published in the American Journal of Public Health.38
383,000 people were served by the Capital Area Food Bank in 2005, a 39% increase from 2001. 50% of the people seeking food support in the area had jobs.39
WHO IS HOMELESS?
In the D.C. Metropolitan Area, approximately 26% of all homeless people are mentally ill, 30% are substance abusers, 10% are physically disabled, and 9% are veterans.40
19% of single homeless individuals and 31% of adults in homeless families in Washington, D.C. are employed.41
Families represent 33% of DC’s homeless population. Among the homeless singles population, men account for 82% of those in shelter, and women 18%.42
In Washington, D.C., 82% of homeless people are African American, 5% are Caucasian, 12% are Hispanic, and 1% are Asian.43
At least 40% of homeless families in the D.C. area have been homeless more than once.44
An estimated 50% of all persons in families in the District shelter system have experienced domestic violence.45
The percentage of homeless individuals in Washington, D.C. who suffer from mental illness and/or substance abuse is approximately 70%. The percentage of homeless persons in families who suffer from mental illness and/or substance abuse is around 53%.46
The District is paying at least $4.3 million a year to incarcerate and “treat” a minimum of 100 mentally ill homeless persons every year, but the actual number of homeless, mentally ill individuals who end up in the D.C. Jail is likely far higher, as are the costs.47
The new applicant families for shelter in 2004 included an estimated 6,993 children.48
Over 2,000 homeless youth seek services in D.C. each year,49 far more than the 81 emergency shelter beds for homeless youth available in the District.50
IS THERE ENOUGH HOUSING FOR EVERYONE?
As of November 2006, 54,000 households were on the wait list for government-subsidized housing vouchers in D.C., and more than 30,000 on the wait list for public housing, 16,000 of whom are homeless.51
Washington, DC is the least affordable “state” in the country in terms of housing costs.52
The District’s home sales market reached new heights in 2005, with sales prices up by more than 200%, and a median sales price of $415,000—5.8 times the region’s median household income.53 This compares to $184,000 in 2000 and $154,000 in 1995,54 and puts Washington among the top 10 most expensive metropolitan areas in the nation.55
Rental vacancy rates fell from 2.9% in June 2005 to 2.1% in June 2006, the lowest rate in the nation, compared to a national average of 5.7%, while monthly rent averages jumped more than 7% from $1,722 to $1,894 over the same time period.56
25% of DC residents spend more than half of their income on housing.57
The total number of occupied public housing units in D.C. declined by 15% between 1998 and 200058, and that decline has continued due to the destruction of public housing units under the federal HOPE VI program.
1 The Community Partnership for the Prevention of Homelessness, Homeless in Washington DC: Point in Time and Annually (2003), available at http://www.community-partnership.org/homeless_facts-2003.pdf.
2 Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments, Homeless Enumeration for the Washington Metropolitan Region 2006 (June 14, 2006).
3 Id.
4 Id.
5 D.C. Department of Human Services, The Winter Plan: Protecting the Lives of Homeless People in the Winter of 2006-2007 at 2 (Aug. 28, 2006).
6 The Community Partnership for the Prevention of Homelessness (Elissa Silverman, Families In District Struggling for Shelter, Washington Post, 10/22/06 at B-1).
7 MWCOG Homeless Enumeration 2006, supra, n.6.
88 The Community Partnership, supra, n.6
9 The Community Partnership for the Prevention of Homelessness 2005, at http://www.community-partnership.org/tcp_facts_tpc.html
10 The Community Partnership for the Prevention of Homelessness, The Poverty Connection, (2005), available at http://www.community-partnership.org/tcp_facts_tpc.html
11 The Community Partnership for the Prevention of Homelessness, FY 2002 Continuum of Care Inventory: Public and Private Homeless Services in the District, (April 2002), available at http://www.community-partnership.org/documents/Gaps2001_Gaps2002_2002CoC_Inventory.xls
12 AP, Teens Surrender In Beatings Case, The Washington Times, Jan. 16, 2006, at A12.
13 DC Fiscal Policy Institute, Trends in Funding for Human Services in the District of Columbia, April 18, 2005, at http://www.dcfpi.org/4-18-05bud.htm.
14 National Center for Children in Poverty: Family Economic Security: State Policy Context 2006; U.S. Census Bureau: 2004 American Community Survey, 2005)
15 Anne E. Casey Foundation: Kids Count 2005 Data Book
16 U.S. Census Bureau: 2004 American Community Survey, 2005
17 D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute, Income Inequality in D.C. is Wider than Any Major U.S. City, (7/22/04).
18 The Washington Post, Well-Paid Benefit Most As Economy Flourishes, 7/10/06.
19 Economic Policy Institute: Guide to Creating a Basic Family Budget, 2005.
20 Paul Schwartzman, In D.C. Area Even Subsistence Proves Pricey, Washington Post, (9/14/2005)
21 U.S. Census Bureau, Poverty Thresholds for 2004 by size of Family and Number of Related Children Under Eighteen Years, available at http://www.census.gov/hhes/poverty/threshld/thresh02.html.
22The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation: Coverage and Access of Adults in the District of Columbia: Key Facts, 2004
23 Department of Housing and Urban Development, Fair Market Rents for the Housing Choice Voucher Program and Moderate Rehabilitation Single Room Occupancy Program Fiscal Year 2005, available at http://www.huduser.org/datasets/fmr/FMR2005R/map/DC_FY2005_FMR.pdf
24 National Low Income Housing Coalition, Out of Reach 2005: District of Columbia, available at http://www.nlihc.org/oor2005/data.php?getstate=on&state%5B%5D=DC
25 Wider Opportunities for Women, The DC Metro Area Self-Sufficiency Standard (Oct. 2005)
26 National Low Income Housing Coalition, supra, n.24.
27 Kate Jesberg, Interim Director of DC Department of Human Services, Dec. 6, 2006.
28 D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute, supra , n. 17.
29 Department of Human Services, Division of Human Capital Development, Food Stamp Program, at http://www.dhs.state.il.us/ts/fss/foodStamp.asp
30 The Washington Post, Number of D.C. Affordable Housing Units Plunge, 9/13/2005.
32 D.C. Fiscal Policy Institute (Elissa Silverman, Families in District Struggling for Shelter, Washington Post, 10/22/06)
33 Susan Levine, Detox Center Inches Toward Better Days, Wash. Post, Sept. 8, 2005, at DC3.
34 Id.; Sewell Chan, DC Study Finds 10% Addicted, Wash. Post, Oct. 2, 2003, at B5.
35 Drug Strategies, Facing Facts: Drugs and the Future of Washington, D.C. 1999, at 1, available at http://www.drugstrategies.org.
36 Bill Myers, Critics: Detention Facilities Overcrowded, Over Budget, The Examiner, Nov. 29, 2005, at 5.
37 PBS, Frontline: A Crime of Insanity: The Jailed and Imprisoned Mentally Ill, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/crime/jailed/.
38 Carolyn Cosmos, Jail Time Increases Chances of Becoming Homeless, Study Shows, Street Sense, Oct. 2005, at 1.
39 Living on an Empty Stomach, Trend Lines, Washington Post, March 24th, 2006, from AP and Agriculture Department
40 MWCOG Homeless Enumeration, supra, n.2.
41 Id.
42 The Community Partnership for the Prevention of Homelessness, E-Newsletter, Issue III (Nov. 2006).
43 The United States Conference of Mayors, A States Report on Hunger and Homelessness in America’s Cities 2002, December, 2002, at 97, available at http://usmayors.org/uscm/hungersurvey/2002/onlinereport/HungerAndHomelessReport2002.pdf
44 Institute for Children and Poverty, Inside the Beltway, The State of Homeless Children in Washington, D.C., May 1999, at 1, available at http://www.homesforthehomeless.com/pdf%20files/InsidetheBeltway.pdf.
45 The Community Partnership for the Prevention of Homelessness, FY 2002 Continuum of Care Inventory: Public and Private Homeless Services in the District, (April 2002), available at http://www.community-partnership.org/documents/Gaps2001_Gaps2002_2002CoC_Inventory.xls
46 Id.
47 Testimony of Phillip Fornaci, Executive Director, D.C. Prisoners’ Legal Services Project; District of Columbia Council, Comments on Department of Corrections, Proposed Fiscal Year 2005 Budget, April 12, 2005.
48 DC Kids Count, Every Kid Counts in the District of Columbia, 12th Annual Fact Book 2005, available at http://www.dckidscount.org/downloads/2005%20DC%20KIDS%20COUNT%20Fact%20Book.pdf
49 Runaway and Homeless Youth Management Information System (RHYMIS), Family and Youth Services Bureau, US Dept of Health and Human Services (2005 data); and National Alliance to End Homelessness, Washington, D.C. (www.endhomelessness.org).
50 Id.
51 DC Fiscal Policy Institute, Trends in Funding for Affordable Housing in the District of Columbia, March 7, 2005 at http://www.dcfpi.org/3-7-05hous.htm.
52 National Low Income Housing Coalition, Out of Reach 2004: State Ranks Based on Two-Bedroom Housing Wage, at http://www.nlihc.org/oor2005/table9.htm.
53 Wilmeth, Katie. Affordability Issues Persist Despite Showdown. Washington Post, June 13th, 2006
54 The Washington Post, Boom Is Migrating East of the Anacostia, D13, July 6th, 2006
55 Wilmeth, Katie. Affordability Issues Persist Despite Showdown. Washington Post, June 13th, 2006
56 Downey, Kristin. Rents Rise as Apartment Market Is Squeezed. Washington Post, July 5th, 2006
57 Squires, Gregory, Affordable Housing for the City's Workers, The Washington Post, at B8 (January 25, 2004).
FACTS
ON HOMELESSNESS Updated 12/06 Page