With Federal Government Cutbacks, Most of Homeless Funds Come From Grass Roots : Housing Money Scarce Despite Vote for Bonds

In the aftermath of the election last week, housing the homeless remains a burning issue, fueled by federal cutbacks in construction financing.

Voter approval of Proposition 84, a $300-million state bond issue, should provide some relief, but homeless advocates are not optimistic about getting aid from Washington after George Bush is inaugurated as President.

As Jill Halverson, director of the Downtown Women’s Center on Skid Row in Los Angeles, expressed it: “We’ve already had eight years of no national funding for low-income housing, and with Bush, we’ll probably have more of the same.”

Help must come from many sources, Halverson said, and it is, though many of the sources are just starting to offer help.

For some time now, it has come from the grass roots, where there are many examples of the saying, “One person can make a difference.”

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter have been the most visible examples. For a couple of years now, the former President and his First Lady have stumped for Habitat for Humanity, a nonprofit, Georgia-based group of volunteers who build and remodel low-cost homes.

The Carters not only stump. They sweat. Besides writing about Habitat in their book “Everything to Gain” and being photographed in T-shirts bearing the “Habitat” name, they hammered and sawed alongside other volunteers in 95-degree heat to restore five abandoned houses in a Philadelphia slum.

The Carters also helped refurbish low-income housing in Chicago and a large tenement building on New York’s Lower East Side.

The 12-year-old organization has built or renovated about 3,000 homes, averaging about $25,000 in value when completed. It offers interest-free, nonprofit housing loans to the poor, to be paid back into a revolving fund to help somebody else in need.

Habitat has 10 regional offices in California, but Jim Purks, in the Americus, Ga., headquarters could count only four houses that have been rehabbed by the group in this state. “The high price of land is a big hurdle in California,” he explained.

Habitat has plans to build 100 low-cost homes in the San Diego area. “We’ll do it in a blitz,” he said, “doing 20 to 30 in a week.” But that won’t be until 1990.

On Los Angeles’ Skid Row, near Halverson’s center, the Los Angeles Mission’s new, $11.25-million, privately funded facility will lodge 300 homeless people, but that won’t be until September.

The mission’s current facility can take care of only about 100 men, but a month ago, the Christian organization purchased a four-bedroom house near downtown to take care of a few women.

“We just couldn’t wait any longer,” the Rev. Mark Holsinger, director of the Mission, said. “We had some women in real crises out there.”

Jill Halverson, founder of the 10-year-old Downtown Women’s Center, is happy with the center’s 3-year-old hotel for 48 residents. “But we still need some major, coordinated efforts to build large numbers of housing units throughout the community that people can afford. And we need all types of housing--for singles, families and the elderly.”

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development built such housing through its Section 8 program, but in 1981, these construction activities gave way to rent subsidies administered as certificates by local housing authorities.

The plan was to spread the poor throughout a city, enabling them to live in middle-class neighborhoods instead of being grouped in low-income housing projects. Unfortunately, there haven’t been enough certificates to meet the need, even government officials concede.

That prompted this from a federal government employee who asked for anonymity: “When I walk down the street and see a family standing in line at the Midnight Mission, I think maybe it would be better for them to live in a low-income environment. At least they’d have a roof over their heads.”

Houses in Foreclosure

In the first presidential debate, Bush said that he wants to see more vouchers, or Section 8 certificates, and more tenant control of housing projects.

Months ago, Carl D. Covitz, HUD undersecretary, said the homeless solution is not simply a roof over their heads but also job counseling and mental-health therapy. HUD has been quietly paying off banks for houses in foreclosure, then giving these houses to nonprofit corporations for use by the homeless.

HUD also has been leasing the houses to cities for $1 a year to shelter the poor, but most cities have been skeptical of the program, voicing concern about opening homeless facilities in middle-class areas.

Two nonprofit corporations, however, have taken possession of HUD houses in Ontario and Pomona, and the homeless are now occupying these.

Expects Another Crisis

HUD also gives block grants to cities, which can use the funds to house the homeless. Ontario has earmarked $70,000 to $100,000 this year for the House of Ruth, to shelter abused women.

And HUD gives emergency-shelter grants. Oxnard recently received $35,000 this way.

Halverson expects another crisis as the cold sets in. Builder Nathan Shapell’s idea, Building a Better Los Angeles, announced with much fanfare in May, 1987, raised almost $1 million from the building industry, but those funds were dispensed among 42 different agencies and provided some temporary, but no permanent, shelter. And the builders’ coalition, set up as a one-year project, has been disbanded.

“You can build shelters like tent cities, but they are not real housing ,” Halverson noted.

For that kind of housing, there is a new entity that is building on a small scale. It is the California Equity Fund, announced in October.

Money for Dwellings

Through the fund (an affiliate of the New York-based nonprofit Local Initiatives Support Corp.), 12 California corporations, including one home builder (Kaufman & Broad with $1 million), invested $10.75 million to create housing for low-income residents. The investments will create 300 dwellings.

“Will this solve the problem of housing the homeless? Certainly not. But will it make a difference? Yes,” said Anita Landecker, program director.

The investments, used by the investor corporations as a tax shelter, will be used to produce single-room occupancy and family housing, with rents from $250 to $500 a month in East Los Angeles, Pico Union, Skid Row and South-Central Los Angeles. Sixteen units are nearly completed in the Pico Union area, and 28 units were just finished in East Los Angeles.

“We also just completed 28 units in West Hollywood, with some units reserved for people with AIDS,” Landecker said. That project was co-developed with the nonprofit West Hollywood Community Housing Corp. Each of the Fund’s developments is jointly developed with a nonprofit entity, the fund representing 30% to 50% of the cost.

Redevlopment Agencies

“We are far from the solution, but there is no one else building for low-income families,” Landecker said, echoing Halverson’s lament that there is “no federal support system for new low-income housing.”

On the state level, three bills (AB 4566, AB 4567 and AB 4235) were signed into law this fall requiring redevelopment agencies to spend millions of dollars now sitting idle, on low-income housing.

On another hopeful note, the Home Builders Institute (educational arm of the National Assn. of Home Builders) and Urban Land Institute will co-sponsor a national symposium Thursday and Friday to discuss programs and policies to help eliminate homelessness in America. The symposium will be held at the Washington Hilton hotel in Washington.