The numbers on homelessness in Pasadena are now official, and they aren't good. We can no longer pat ourselves on the back and say that we've reduced homelessness by 58%, as was true several years ago. The number of our homeless neighbors living on the street increased 33% in the past year, the second year in a row that the numbers have gone up. There has been a 65% increase in homeless residents over the age of 50. We also learned that 50% of our homeless neighbors were living in Pasadena when they lost their housing, and the high rents are a major cause of homelessness in our city. On Monday, May 1, we went to hear the City Council's reaction to these disturbing statistics. Below is our response to what we heard from our City Council.
But first, the stats:
RESULTS OF THE COUNT:
A growing number qf people in Pasadena are homeless. On the night of the 2018
Pasadena Homeless Count, there were 677 people experiencing homelessness, 18%
more than in 2017 (575). • The sharpest Increases were seen among those living
on the streets, in parks, encampments, vehicles, or other places not meant for
human habitation.
During the 2018
Homeless Count, 462 people were living on the streets, or 68% of the total
homeless population. That number is 33% higher than the number of unsheltered
persons in 2017 (347).
• People living on the streets are our neighbors. Half
(50%) of respondents living on the street were living in Pasadena when·they
most recently lost their housing, up slightly from 2016 ( 48% ). · ·
• The homeless population in Pasadena is
getting older. Between 2016 and 2018, there was a 65% increase in the number
of persons over age 50 who were homeless; from 153 in 2016 to 253 in 2018.
• Impacts of the housing crisis evident. There
was a significant increase (36%) in the number of persons who did not meet
HUD's definition of chronic homelessness, . meaning they were not homeless for
more than 12 months or did not have a qualifying disability (including
substance use or mental illness). For this population, high rents and a
shortage of housing caused them to fall ·into homelessness. In 2016, the
housing cost burden for the lowest-income renter households in Pasadena exceeded 100%, meaning their income was not enough to cover rent. . The full
report is available on the Pasadena Partnership to End Homelessness website, at
www.pasadenapartnership.org/homeless-count-reports.
Skyrocketing rents are a major factor in the rise of homelessness, a fact that the City Council has yet to acknowledge or is willing to do anything about. (They all oppose rent control.) Here's what I was
able to find about rents in Pasadena from rent jungle:
As of March 2018,
average rent for an apartment in Pasadena, CA is $2345 which is a 2.99%
increase from last year when the average rent was $2275 , and a 1.07% increase
from last month when the average rent was $2320.
One bedroom apartments in Pasadena rent for $2138 a month on average (a 1.92%
increase from last year) and two bedroom apartment rents average $2709 (a 6.68%
increase from last year).
To afford a
two-bedroom apartment, a family would have to earn $97,000.
That means over half
the families in Pasadena are cost burdened, pay over 30% of their income on
rent. Many low-income families are paying more than half their income on rent. Most city workers and teachers cannot afford to live in Pasadena, which is why the School Board supports rent control.
Here are our responses to what we heard on Monday night's City Council meeting:
An Open Letter to the City Council
We want to commend the Housing Department for
producing such a well-researched report on the current state of homelessness in
our city. We need good solid data like this in order to make good policy.
We are also grateful to the City Council for
showing interest in addressing the escalating homelessness crisis in our city. The
need is urgent, and growing. And our homeless residents won’t go away. As we
learned from this report, over half are Pasadena residents, and many are
elderly.
We agree with Mr. Madison that having homeless
people sleeping on the sidewalks is bad for business. But studies show we can’t police our way out of this problem. Homeless people need to sleep somewhere. As Dana Bean
of Union Station has said, the “key to ending homelessness is housing,” not
fining or jailing, our homeless population.
Some homeless people are “service resistant”
because they don’t want to live in shelters (and few of us would choose this
option!). But as the Mayor rightly points out, the vast majority would happily
live in an apartment if they had a chance to do so.
We agree with Mr. Tornek that ending homelessness
seems “intractable,” but that’s because of a lack of political will, not lack
of resources. The City has land and can access funding that would significantly
reduce homelessness in our city. For example, the Heritage Square South
property could house 69 out of 80 homeless seniors in our city, practically
ending homelessness among our elderly population. It would also reduce our
homeless count by over 10%. That’s not insignificant. We need to find out how
many homeless Pasadena residents could be housed in the four or five other
city-owned properties.
We commend Mr. Wilson for pointing out that now is
the time to address this crisis since the economy is doing well and funding is
available. If the City waits too long, and the economy tanks or the funding in
DC dries up, we won’t have the resources and our homeless problem in Pasadena could
escalate, as it did in Los Angeles.
We commend McAustin and Kennedy for asking the
Housing Department to provide a list of city-owned properties that could be
used for permanent supportive housing. We also feel it’s a good idea to ask
developers how many units could be developed on each property so we will know by
how much we can reduce the current homeless population if we utilize city-owned
land. Can we house 10%, 20%, 50% or maybe more of our homeless population?
We also commend Mr. Kennedy for wanting to have a
“Blue Ribbon Commission” to address this crisis. However, we feel it would be
better to have an Affordable Housing Commission that could provide ongoing
advice and help the City Council make prudent and effective decisions
regarding our city’s growing housing crisis.
We agree with the Mayor that it is costly to house
homeless people—as much as $450,000 per unit. But much of that cost could be
covered by federal and state dollars. If inclusionary funding is used for
permanent supportive housing, and not spent exclusively on affordable
homeownership, we could leverage inclusionary dollars to create permanent
supportive housing that would significantly reduce homelessness at reduced cost
to the city. This would improve the quality of life for everyone in the city. Fewer
homeless people means fewer people complaining to the Mayor!
We also agree with the Mayor and others who feel
it’s time to revisit and revise the inclusionary policies so that we can create
more affordable housing for our city. In order to capture more affordable units
within density bonus properties, we need to increase the percentage of set
aside units.
The Mayor says we need immediate solutions, and creating
housing takes a long time. This is true, but we feel that both immediate and
long-term solutions are needed. We need to provide funding for homelessness
prevention and rapid rehousing—a cost effective way to reduce homelessness. We
also need to make plans to house a growing homeless population while we still
have land and resources to do so.
Several Council members spoke of refurbishing
abandoned buildings and purchasing hotels. This possibility is worth exploring but
there are some caveats. It’s extremely expensive to purchase and refurbish a
motel, even a cheap motel or run-down property. Where will the City get money
to buy these properties? It certainly
doesn’t make sense to purchase a dilapidated property, displace the low-income
residents, and then build permanent supportive housing. In Los Angeles there are lots of virtually
abandoned properties that can be refurbished for homeless residents, as
happened recently with the historic King Edward hotel. But where are such
abandoned properties available here in Pasadena?
We commend Mr. Gordo for wanting the Housing
Department to explore multiple sites, like Shakey’s. We will need more than one site if we’re
going to reduce the homeless population in our city.
As Mr. Gordo rightly
implies, we need permanent supportive housing throughout our
city. The City Council of Los Angeles has made a commitment to have
permanent supportive housing in every district of the city. We urge this City
Council to do likewise. This is the only way to prevent an “oversaturation” of
permanent supportive housing in one area of the city.
Mr. Gordo brings up
the question of “social justice.” For him, social justice means not having too
much affordable housing in one area. Yet when it came to getting rid of a
“blighted” liquor store, he was willing to make an exception and ask the City
Council to use inclusionary funds to build affordable housing in an area
“saturated” with affordable housing. The City Council agreed to do this because it felt
that this exception served the public good.
We would like to see
the City council make a similar exception for Heritage Square South since
housing the homeless is also a public good. Unlike Summit Grove, the Heritage
Square property was purchased with HUD and other funding for affordable housing
and is an “affordable housing asset,” Selling this property for exclusively
commercial use would mean forfeiting a million dollars in HUD funding. Housing
homeless and poor elderly people is true social justice.
The Mayor seems to
feel that it doesn’t make sense to spend $450,000 to create a unit of housing
for a homeless senior. That seems like a lot but spread over a 30-year period,
that’s $15,000 per year, which is a lot cheaper than the average rent for a
one-bedroom apartment in this city.
The Mayor also says: Why
should the least able to pay receive the most expensive housing? Actually elderly people of means pay a lot more on housing than what is spent to house homeless seniors. It costs $12,000 a month (at least) to house elderly rich folk in Montecedro. It isn’t cheap to house the elderly and provide the services they
need. The average cost of assisted living in
California in 2017 iwas $4,050 / month. That’s nearly $50,000 per year. Studies show that it is a lot less expensive to house homeless seniors than let them sicken
and die on the street.
What are the
financial benefits of housing homeless seniors? Homeless seniors generally cost
society more money in health care than younger and healthier homeless
residents. Though it is counter-intuitive, research shows that it is less expensive
to house homeless people than to let them live on the street. A Rand study showed
that housing homeless residents has saved the county $1.20 for every
dollar spent on housing and supportive services.[1] According to an Economic
Roundtable study, the cost of a homeless
individual living on the streets in LA County was around $5038 per month, vs
$605 per month when they were provided with supportive housing. These costs
increase with the age of homeless individuals. Based on this study, we can
estimate the cost to Pasadena of having 69 homeless seniors living on the
street to be around $4,171,464 per year. Housing these Pasadena residents in supportive housing
would run around $500,940 (most of which could be covered by Measure H funding), a savings of $3,670,524. This would be a huge
financial benefit to our City. [2]
On Sunday, March 11, around thirty people of faith mostly from Northwest Pasadena gathered on the city-owned property known as South Heritage Square. We had learned that Vice Mayor John Kennedy had raised the possibility of using this property for permanent supportive housing for our homeless neighbors, and we prayed that the City Council "defend the rights of the poor and needy" (Proverbs 31:8-9) by housing homeless seniors on the land where we stood. 
We feel it would be better to house homeless seniors with dignity (as is already happening at North Heritage Square) rather than let them live and die on the streets like animals. God made his intention clear: "let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream" (Amos 5:24).
