Kicking Families While They're Down

Massachusetts has a bona fide homeless crisis on its hands.

The state is providing shelter for a record 2,700 families per night, including more than 630 families who are sleeping in motel rooms, waiting for a shelter bed to become available. With an economy on the decline, and unemployment on the rise, there seems to be no end in sight for the challenges facing struggling families and shelters across the state.

Even still, the state government has decided it's the right time to change the system by imposing harsh new restrictions on homeless families, according to yesterday's Globe:

The regulations, scheduled to take effect April 1, would deny shelter to families who in the last three years had been evicted from or had abandoned public or subsidized housing without good cause, and to those who fail to meet a new 30-hour per week work requirement and save 30 percent of their income.

They also would reduce from six months to three months the period families can remain in shelters after their incomes rise above state limits; force out families absent from shelters for at least two consecutive nights as well as those who reject one offer of housing without good reason; and deny benefits for families whose members have outstanding default or arrest warrants as well as those whose only child is between ages 18 and 21, unless the child has a disability or is in high school.

These new restrictions do nothing more than kick struggling families while they're down. There's no question that these new harsh restrictions will force many already struggling families out on the streets.

I understand the need for reform. But this is simply the wrong approach and the worse possible timing. Homelessness was an issue well before this recession  hit. So why wait 'til now—the midst of a homelessness crisis—to try and reform the system?

One quote from Julia Kehoe, a Massachusetts bureaucrat, was particularly unsettling: "Given our limited resources, we wanted to encourage people to find housing or stay where they are, rather than encouraging them to come into the system."

Right, because shelter beds are just so darn enticing, hoards of people will flock to them. Better put some restrictions in place!

See, these new restrictions assume that there are plenty of jobs available for low income individuals. That there is an ample stock of decent, affordable housing (located near those jobs or near public transit, no less) and that these low income families will be competitive in the housing market. Finally, these rules assume that families who find themselves homeless face no other conditions whatsoever that could be exacerbating their struggles, such as health conditions, mental illness, etc.

The underlying assumptions about poor and struggling people upon which these new restrictions are based are completely unacceptable. Yet, sadly, they are entirely too common among many (not all) bureaucratic decision-makers.

[Photo from the Globe: ''It's a catch-22,'' Grace Monteiro, with her son Keegan, said of housing regulations for the city's homeless. Monteiro, 28, has been in and out of shelters and apartments for several years.]

The views expressed here are my own and do not represent the views and opinions of my employer.