To curb the growing population of the District's homeless, Mayor Adrian Fenty installed a Housing First plan in April that promised to move 400 people into permanent housing by Oct. 1.
According to the Community Partnership for the Prevention of Homelessness Web site, more than 6,000 D.C. residents are homeless. "What we are proposing is a new approach to serving our chronically homeless neighbors," Fenty said in a news release.
Individuals will be chosen based on the length of their homelessness and any chronic physical or mental disabilities they may have.
On a broader scale, the initiative hopes to provide a total of 2,500 homeless persons with permanent housing and support services by 2014.
Housing First will provide not only an apartment, but psychiatrists, nurses, employment consultants, social workers and addiction specialists. Their services will be dispensed on an as-needed basis to aid homeless individuals.
Administered by the Department of Human Services (DHS), $19.2 million has been invested into the Housing First Fund. The city will contract various agencies to aid in the apartment searching process as well as to offer mental, emotional and job assistance.
One such organization contracted to work with DHS is Pathways to Housing D.C., with an office located in Northeast.
Pathways to Housing D.C. is a replication of non-profit Pathways to Housing, Inc. in New York City that began in 1992. Since its inception in 2004, the mission statement of the D.C. branch has been to "end homelessness for people living with psychiatric disabilities by providing housing first and giving support and treatment for their recovery and integration into the community."
Christy Respress, director of Programs and Development, said that over the past four years, the organization has helped a total of over 130 homeless individuals.
The number of people helped annually has been dependent on the financial income of the organization that is acquired mainly through vouchers, awards and subsidies.
Pathways to Housing D.C. executes its services through an initiative begun in the 1970s, the Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) teams. ACT teams are interdisciplinary and community-based, spending about 80 percent of their practice out in the various communities.
"All [homeless individuals] receive intensive mental health services according to their needs and what their goals are for themselves," Respress said.
Pathways to Housing D.C. works and negotiates with city landlords and housing management companies to obtain apartments for their homeless clients. "All of our housing are in scattered sites…it is based on consumer choice," Respress said. "Most people don't want to live in programmed apartments."
Thirty percent of the client's income must go toward payment of the monthly apartment rent. Homeless individuals are guaranteed permanent housing in which they are free to stay for however long they wish.
The way these clients can lose housing is the same way that any other apartment tenant does - by not complying with the lease agreements set forth by the landlord and by creating disturbances.
Landlords are guaranteed monthly rent payments through the program. In addition, "Some landlords want to help their communities become better. They want their buildings to be good places to live and themselves to be good partners," Respress said.
In terms of other advantages of Pathways, "When compared to jails, hospitals and shelters, [our program] is extremely cost effective," Respress said.
According to the Pathways to Housing D.C. Web site, its annual cost to completely service and provide for one client is about $20,000- $22,000.
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