Heading Off Homelessness
New organization pushes for national agenda
The Louisiana Weekly
May 24, 2004
by Lisa O'Neill
Brad Paul usually arrives on Monday morning at just about the same time the Common Grounds Coffeehouse opens at Hope House. Homeless men and women wait for the doors to open to come in, drink their morning coffee, and to rest in a comfortable space for a few hours. Paul ventures upstairs to his office to tackle the very issue that has manifested in the lives of those sipping downstairs.
Paul is the executive director of the National Policy and Advocacy Council on Homelessness, a newly formed homelessness policy organization which opened its Southern Regional Office in New Orleans early this year.
Founded last December by members of the former policy team at the National Coalition for the Homeless, NPACH is an organization seeking to connect the work being done in the homelessness field with the policy decisions being made in Washington, D.C.
"D.C. was this insular world of policy makers and advocates that are self-defined as experts on the issue," Paul said. "What happened, to our eyes, is that people had lost touch of what was happening in the field and were talking about homelessness in sort of a vacuum."
So when the board of the National Coalition for the Homeless was forced to lay off its entire policy staff due to financial difficulties, the group decided to create a new organization to continue working on the issues. Their time will be spent working on three issues: public education, policy work and technical assistance to community groups working on homelessness issues.
One aspect of their policy work that continues is advocating for the "Bring America Home Act," a bill introduced by Rep. Julia Carson (D-IN) in the 108th Congress. Paul was the chief architect for the bill, which he spent a year and half writing.
Currently co-sponsored by 48 representatives including Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA), the Bringing America Home Act (BAHA) is a comprehensive bill that addresses homelessness through addressing its many issues including housing, health and income.
"It's a package of policies and proposals to change the course of the federal response to homelessness. It's the first legislative vehicle, since modern homelessness emerged in the 1980s, to address that," Paul said.
Underneath the intricate bill language is a foundational philosophy that housing is a basic human right. Paul said that because the issue of widespread homelessness was so new in the 1980s, everyone thought it was a passing emergency and legislation was set up to address it as such.
"It was the appropriate response at the time but never got at the root of the problem. It just dealt with the symptoms, but we've never addressed the source of the problem -- which is that the federal government has slashed the HUD budget by 60 plus percent over the last 20 years," Paul said.
BAHA also includes a bill that exists in stand alone form as well. The National Housing Trust Fund, a bill with versions in both the House of Representatives and the Senate, would authorize creation of a dedicated revenue source established in Treasury for Affordable Housing with the goal to create 1,500,000 affordable units over next 10 years through building new units or rehabilitating and preserving existing units.
Paul said he is unsure of the fate of these legislative initiatives in the current political climate, but what is just as worrisome to NPACH is pressing legislation involving changes in the Housing and Urban Development Department budget.
The Bush administration's budget proposal for 2004-2005 includes a Flexible Voucher Program which would change the way that Section 8 vouchers are calculated and would result in a 40 percent cut in the program over the next five years. Under the Section 8 program, low-income tenants pay about 30 percent of their income for rent and receive federal subsidy for the remainder.
"As far as I'm concerned, that's the only real housing issue that anyone needs to be working on because if the proposed cut goes through, we're going to see a huge spike in the number of homeless people," Paul said.
If the proposed 2004-2005 budget request is approved, the Section 8 housing voucher program will have a shortfall of $1.6 billion once inflation is taken into account.
It would mean a loss of 250,000 vouchers in the first year and just under 1,000 vouchers in the city of New Orleans, according to a study by the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials.
One problem Paul sees in policy decisions is the sometimes narrow view of homelessness that does not take into account people living in unstable conditions -- those doubled or tripled in a home or one paycheck away from being on the street. NPACH is committed to getting people educated about issues surrounding homelessness and housing crisis in the U.S.
One of NPACH's major goals is to show how homelessness is everyone's issue by engaging the media and popular culture. Their major public education initiative, Rethinking Homelessness, will be active both in schools and in community forums.
"We all agreed that we need a little rock 'n' roll...We need musicians, artists and writers popularizing the work we are trying to achieve," Paul said. "I first got involved in the issue with the 'Housing Now' March in 1989. To hear people talk in D.C. now and elsewhere, you'd think that never happened. The goals have become so incremental and modest."
By getting writers, artists and musicians involved in the issue, Paul thinks NPACH can get back to the root of art in social change, dating back to authors like Zora Neale Hurston and John Steinbeck and musicians like Woody Guthrie.
"We want to remind people that the face of homelessness is so varied -- it's families, children, and individuals, the people who are working full time jobs but aren't making enough for rent and live in shelters. No one wants to admit that we have a society that functions in a way where we can have people working full-time, but they can't afford a place to live," he said.
Born in Baton Rouge and raised in Florida, Paul said it feels good to be back in the South. Staff made the decision to place the regional office in New Orleans out of a desire to have it in the South -- where staff members had preexisting connections, where there is growing political sway and where homelessness is experienced in many facets.
However, the largest reason has to do with their public education program, Rethinking Homelessness.
"If we were going to tell the story from the field, then we needed to look at it in ways that defied the common image and location that people have, which is the proverbial guy on the street corner in big Northeastern cities: New York, Boston, Philly," Paul said. "Because New Orleans is a city which is deeply poor, it also provides a place to create new ways of rethinking the issue, especially when you talk about housing. You've got abandoned housing, poor housing stock, people living doubled and tripled out. It fits with what we are trying to do -- get homelessness off the street and in a bigger perspective."
Having the regional office at Hope House, a local multi-ministry social service agency that serves low-income and homeless people in the Lower Garden District, has been an ideal situation, Paul said.
"The reality of the work we are doing is right in front of us," he said. "I like to be around people who are working on the issue and not isolated from it."
In addition, Hope House is located just next door to the former site of the St. Thomas Housing Development, a locale that Paul appreciates.
He said, "It brings housing issue into sharper focus with what was St. Thomas next door. You see the consequences of federal decisions on a neighborhood. This place knows what housing crisis is. It's a perfect match for what we are trying to argue -- that homelessness is inextricably connected to poverty."
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