Back to Business

The holidays have come and gone, and now it’s back to business as usual. The magic that the period from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day manages to wield is gone, and now we have to face reality again. For the homeless, that reality can be very grim.

For me, that reality came crashing around my head when I got a response from an application that I had filed in July for housing in an apartment complex through the Department of Mental Health’s subsidy housing program. I had filled out all the required paperwork, had submitted the required documents and had waited for months as the management changed hands repeatedly. I had had to reapply twice because, as I had been told, my paperwork was incorrect one time and, later, my paperwork was no longer up to date the second time because so much time had passed since the original application. All in all, I made four trips to this property to apply and waited for five months. Then I finally received the notice that I was ineligible because of my credit history, a factor that was never mentioned to me that would be considered. If I had known that my credit history would have been questioned when I first applied, I would have known not to bother at all, as it was my deteriorating credit that led me into homelessness. However, when one considers that a DMH housing subsidy is paying for all but an insignificant part of the rent, why was that an issue at all?

Somehow the rules governing subsidy housing programs need to be made clearer for the consumers than they are, but they remain a mystery. When I began looking for housing, it was my understanding that any property that appeared on the DMH approved list – as was the above mentioned property – agreed to accept the subsidy as payment for the rent, and the matter of a credit check would not arise. Topics such as background checks for criminal past might apply, but clearly a person who is homeless is homeless for a reason, and if subsidized housing programs are to succeed, they need to accommodate persons whose credit histories may be problematic, which it would seem that the subsidy program intends to do – or do they?

Finding subsidy housing in good neighborhoods can be difficult in itself. The list that the Department of Mental Health publishes twice a month features properties in various parts of the District. Those properties in the more desirable areas are taken quickly; those that appear in less desirable areas tend to linger on the list for long periods of time. The pressure that consumers often face to take any property just to utilize their subsidies and to move later if they are not satisfied can prove to be disastrous in some cases; the case of a mental health consumer who lived on Savannah Street who was shot back in April is a case in point.

Meanwhile, I have spent five months waiting for a ship that would never come in. I will have to keep looking with my case manager for housing, but I cannot be sure that the housing that I will see in the future will be in a neighborhood as safe or that the housing will be as good as what I already saw and hoped to occupy. I am no stranger to disappointment – disappointment paved the road to homelessness for me – but that does not mean that I welcome it, nor does that mean that I appreciate the veiled threats that I have already received from the Department of Mental Health to take the next apartment I see or lose my subsidy forever. Maybe the DMH would like for me to end up like the consumer who lived on Savannah Street. I maintain that every consumer has the right to expect to be safe and secure in a housing situation. That notion may seem very radical, but it is the notion that I support. It is the notion that I advocate for every homeless person so that homelessness should exist no more.