One year ago, Associated Ministries was awarded a contract by Pierce County to provide Centralized Intake and Homelessness Prevention. We dubbed this program Access Point 4 Housing, or AP4H. As we end our first year and look forward to the next, we want to explore what the view looks like from our perspective.
Far more people are homeless or at-risk of becoming homeless in Pierce County than anyone understood; that is the big takeaway from our first year of operations. The need is beyond the scope of government, and beyond the reach of all of the exceptional organizations attempting to meet it. The need is so great that we can only approach it by organizing ourselves as a stronger community, one that insists homelessness is unacceptable, and that we will personally and collectively act to prevent it.
Beginning With a Fresh Perspective
A few years ago, a conversation began in Pierce County that mirrored one occurring at the national level.
Instead of primarily reacting to homelessness, several questions were asked:
What if we acted to prevent homelessness? What if we stabilized households where they live now and kept children in their schools, instead of attempting to rebuild stability after households lose so much? What would it look like to build upon the strengths that individuals and families already have, and to tailor services to that household? What if we could help households become so strong that they would never need to ask for our services again?
Responses representing the best thinking about these questions were formalized in two documents: Pierce County’s Strategic Plan to End Homelessness and Strategic Plan to End Homelessness in Families. These two plans begin to flesh out the steps involved in developing a prevention model, including tailored services, as well as educational and vocational opportunity.
One of the first steps in developing a prevention model is to coordinate the services that already exist. Historically, resources in Pierce County tended to exist in silos. At a time when a family or individual was under enormous stress, they needed to call every resource on a list until they happened upon an agency that could assist them--or concluded that no one could help. While agencies might keep count of the number of people being turned away, no coordinated tracking occurred. The household could become nameless, and voiceless, and their needs left unmet. And no one in the system would know for sure how many such households were left out there fending for their own needs.
Associated Ministries was awarded Pierce County’s contract for Centralized Intake in November 2010, with funding released on December 1. The turn-around time to begin operation was very brief, with a start date of January 31. The number and types of staff positions that were needed and the workload that was expected to be delivered by the program were based upon the best understanding at that time of the “landscape”--the estimated number of households at imminent risk of becoming homeless and the capacity of the system to provide housing and other supportive help to them. The goal of Access Point 4 Housing was ambitious: a single point of entry for anyone at risk of losing housing.
On January 31, the doors and phone lines for AP4H opened. The anticipated landscape exploded immediately. Every voice mailbox filled. Associated Ministries’ very modest lobby was overwhelmed, with 50-60 households walking in each day. For the first few months, the AP4H call center averaged 1,500-2,000 unduplicated requests for assistance, and the total phone call volume exceeded 3,500 calls, each month. AP4H continues to receive about 1,200 new requests monthly. The original planning had anticipated only 400-500 requests for assistance each month.
Where We Began and Where We Can Go Together
The need for assistance far outstripped the housing and shelter provider system capacity to meet it. To respond, AP4H added staff beyond the contracted number, and brought in every intern and volunteer Associated Ministries’ building could hold. While sometimes coming close, the overall system has not been able to respond to every request for assistance AP4H received. For the thousands of households that have been assessed by AP4H, Pierce County has only had resources to meet the needs of twenty-three percent (23%) of those seeking assistance in 2011.
The Accomplishments
Balanced against the weight of unmet need, what has AP4H accomplished? Surprisingly, quite a lot.
In collaboration with other providers, AP4H built a system to track available resources, and housing openings are being filled. AP4H also provided rent and utility assistance in novel ways, including shallow subsidies to help households over a few months, and pooling resources with other agencies when needs were great. Because AP4H exists, more households are receiving prevention and re-housing assistance and staying housed instead of falling into homelessness.
A collaborative system has been built that reaches out into areas of need in Pierce County. Access Point 4 Housing Specialists are hosted by other organizations at satellite locations in Puyallup, Lakewood and on the Key Peninsula. An additional site will soon be located in Graham. AP4H offers extended hours in Tacoma and Puyallup so that working households have the flexibility to be seen in the evening. The silos that have existed in the past are being transformed by frequent and routine cross-agency training, consultations, and information sessions.
For the first time, accurate data is now being gathered that describes our community’s needs. That data paints a disturbing picture of rising household instability. Over sixty percent (60%) of the households contacting Access Point 4 Housing have never asked for rent assistance or other prevention help before. Within this percentage, two groups stand out: households that exist on fixed incomes, and who are experiencing reduction or elimination of their benefits; and working households impacted by crisis - an injury or illness, a reduction in employed hours, a marital separation. Only 15% of the households contacting AP4H are single individuals; over 50 % are single mothers and another 8% single fathers. African -Americans are affected disproportionately, constituting only 7-8% of the County’s population but around 40% of the requests for assistance. The majority of referrals originate outside of the City of Tacoma—the need is everywhere.
A remarkable team of Housing Specialists, reflecting diversity, experience and expertise, has demonstrated a sobering level of commitment to the day-to-day work of Access Point 4 Housing. It has been challenging work on the front lines of a system that is still deciding how to adequately meet the level of need that is now fully evident.
Finally, and perhaps the most significant accomplishment: AP4H has provided a vehicle for the empowerment of the people it serves. In the uncoordinated system, it was easy for households to go unnoticed, un-served, and voiceless. That’s part of why the level of need was so dramatically underestimated. By creating centralized intake, a system was built to hear client voices--at Associated Ministries, at the County and City government level and within the community. Now the responsibility is to affirm and attempt to address that voice as a community.
Continuing the Work Together
Access Point 4 Housing will continue to coordinate with other organizations so that a system that ends homelessness in Pierce County is created because the focus is on preventing it in the first place. Associated Ministries has begun a process of reaching out to congregations and the community at large to find new ways to increase the amount of affordable housing that exists in our communities. Advocacy, volunteerism and other practical support are the first steps in developing an infrastructure of privately funded affordable housing.
We look forward to these conversations. Thank you for your support during our first year of Access Point for Housing.
For a full data report contact:
Greg Claycamp, Director of Access Point 4 Housing at:
gregc@associatedministries.org
