The report refers to housing and homeless shelters as temporary and emergency shelters, permanent supportive housing, transitional housing, construction and repairs, and others.

For 2021, the report estimates the community housing & homeless shelters market size at $17.4b. This means taxpayers spent over $17 billion spent JUST on housing for the homeless. This does not include services, public maintenance, healthcare, street cleaning, etc.

The majority of industry revenue comes from tax dollars from federal, state, and local government-funded homeless and housing assistance programs.

The Annualized Market Size Growth for the Community Housing & Homeless Shelters in the US between 2016–2021 is 5.2%. In other words, the market grows 5.2% each year.

The report also states the poverty rate is expected to increase in 2021, posing a potential opportunity to the industry for increased revenues because of an increase in homelessness.

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A KQED article provided very clear examples of why the homeless –  or anyone for that matter –  would sleep anywhere but a homeless shelter.

A 2017 public health inspection of one shelter in LA, found 17 health code violations, including evidence of rats, roaches, suspected mold, and issues with waste storage and disposal.

In a residential hotel in downtown L.A., a Department of Mental Health client reported bathrooms that were “trashed daily” with toilets that “don’t flush.”

Complaints of homeless people getting sick in shelters with body lice, head lice, and other communicable diseases like MRSA, an infection that is resistant to treatment with many antibiotics.

“Mold in the bathrooms, blood on the walls, just a variety of issues that are really unacceptable,” said Eve Garrow who works on homeless issues for the American Civil Liberties Union. “People with disabilities may try to use shelters and very quickly decide they’re unable to manage their mental health conditions in those shelter spaces.”

What appears to be a huge problem, is there’s a lack of accountability of meeting quality and service benchmarks. There’s no single public department in charge of proactively making sure shelters are clean, safe places to stay. Only when enough complaints are filed, an inspection usually is performed.

The post Rats, roaches, bedbugs, mold, bloody walls, and broken facilities at homeless shelters appeared first on Citizens Again.

According to the New York Times, San Francisco affordable housing cost around $750,000 to build per unit, for a two-bedroom apartment. The average costs of construction in San Francisco is 13 percent higher than in New York, 60 percent more expensive than Chicago, and 75 percent more than in Houston.

The high cost is attributed to of course the land, as well as the construction workers which earn about $90 an hour on average, and about a quarter of the cost go towards government fees, permits, and consulting companies.

And a good amount also goes towards attorney fees to deal with all the paperwork which can typically tie up property development for years.

The image above is of 1064 – 68 Mission St. in San Francisco. Here are the details of that project:

• 258 units (studios)
  • 156 units for chronic homeless people
  • 100 units for homeless seniors
  • 2 manager units
• $160M to build
  • $144M development
  • $0 land (city owned and donated, $36M value)
  • $16M for service center
• $625K per unit ($760K w/land)
• 5 years (press release to keys)

This is a beautiful building. But San Francisco has over 5,180 unsheltered homeless, according to a 2019 count. San Francisco will need at least 20 more buildings just as big to handle their homeless population – that is if it hasn’t grown in the past 2 years since the count.

Citizens Again will cost substantially less and will be built to safely accommodate much larger populations with more services, at a lower cost.

By building outside the urban core, and by building a single location, Citizens Again can utilize economies of scale to bring down the overall costs. From the early conceptual estimates, it’s believed the entire City – which will have a capacity of up to 150,000 population – will cost a total of $3 billion. That breaks down to approximately $60,000 per unit (about 50,000 total units). This also includes costs for services, on-site hospital, healthcare, and much more.

The post San Francisco’s affordable housing for homeless costs $750,000 per unit appeared first on Citizens Again.

In 2017, Los Angeles had 222 tent encampments.[1] Seattle had over 400 tent encampments.[2] In the same year, California’s Caltrans cleaned up over 7,000 homeless encampments throughout the state’s roads at a cost of $10 million, a 34% increase compared to the previous year.[3]

When cities get enough complaints from citizens, officials tear down the encampments and haul away the trash and bring in hazmat crews to try and sanitize the area.

In 2018, Sacramento cleared out 741 homeless camps[4] and removed over 1 million pounds of trash along their river parkway. In a single encampment under a bridge, over 32,000 pounds were removed[5]

But with no place to live, the homeless just move down the road, and the process starts over again. It’s a never-ending cycle.

  [1] http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-homeless-how-we-got-here-20180201-story.html

[2] https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/washington/articles/2017-11-06/homeless-explosion-on-west-coast-pushing-cities-to-the-brink

[3] http://www.dot.ca.gov/milemarker/docs/articles/2018/Q1/MM-2018-Q1-homeless-camps.pdf

[4] https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/homeless/article212213364.html

[5] https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article160423019.html

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But because of the availability of land, as well as lawsuits from the public who don’t want homeless housing in their neighborhood, housing for the chronically homeless in Los Angeles is spread all throughout the LA County. This creates a patchwork of housing sites, with redundancies in staffing and services, and many times caseworkers are required to travel to the locations.

With the Citizens Again City, having a single location would allow many more supportive services for a greater number of people, resulting in a lower cost. And by being located away from neighborhoods, the public wouldn’t oppose the location (known as NIMBY – Not In My BackYard).

Of course, Citizens Again isn’t for everyone; but it’s a viable option to provide more housing, with more services, for more homeless, for a lower cost to taxpayers.

The post Homeless housing is scattered across Los Angeles appeared first on Citizens Again.

In 2017, Los Angeles opened its waitlist for housing choice vouchers. It had been closed for new applicants for 13 years. Households selected to receive vouchers would only have to pay 30 percent of their income in rent, with the rest paid by the government (taxpayers).

There were 600,000 applicants for just 20,000 spots on the list.

And this was 4 years ago. Imagine how long the list would be, considering the problems with the pandemic from this past year, as well as increased immigration (which increases the demand for affordable housing, and competition for jobs), rising rents and housing costs, inflation, and other issues.

Homelessness will increase. We need to prepare for the future.

The post 600,000 applicants for 20,000 affordable housing vouchers appeared first on Citizens Again.

Compare these 120 sq. ft. shelter that costs $58,000 per year, to the Citizens Again proposed solution costing approximately $4,000 per year, per person with many more facilities, amenities, activities, and services than this Tuff Sheds proposal.

The post Tuff Shed housing for Sacramento homeless costs $58,000 per person, per year appeared first on Citizens Again.

Overall, LAHSA-funded shelters had a 78 percent utilization rate, well below the 90 percent required in their contracts.

Inspectors also found that 25 of those facilities were failing to meet the minimum standards required by their contracts to get homeless people off the streets for good.

The post Los Angeles Homeless Services: half of shelters not filling their beds for the homeless appeared first on Citizens Again.

• No pets allowed
• Danger of sexual assault
• Threats of violence
• Fear of contracting illness / disease
• Worry of Theft
• Hours of operation incompatible with work hours
• Difficult to sleep due to noises
• Endanger disabled individuals
• Loss of personal control (check-in time, eating, sleeping, waking, checkout, etc.)
• Lack of privacy
• Fear of crowds
• Forced religious services
• Personal belongings not allowed inside
• Rejection based on drug or alcohol use (or perception of usage)
• Separation of family members (due to gender/age restrictions)
• Lack of handicapped accommodations
• Disrespectful check-in process
• Fear of contracting parasites like lice, scabies, or bedbugs
• Discrimination against LGBTQ people
• Denied entry due to mental illness

And many times it’s just not their choice to live outdoors, but a lack of available beds in their area.

The post Here’s why not all homeless want to use shelters appeared first on Citizens Again.

I showed them a picture of the city, and in less than a minute, I explained the mission of this effort, the features and the amenities of the city, and what I was hoping to achieve. They quickly understood it, and latched onto many of my ideas and beliefs that I didn’t mention to them – so I knew there was validity in this idea.

Their own words are a stark contradiction to what most people think of the homeless: drug addicts that want to live on the streets, and this is the life that they want. Watch the video for the transcription of the conversations below, and you’ll understand that the homeless are human beings that need a second chance in life.

Testimonial Transcription

Woman 1: Yeah I’d be interested in getting off for me and my dog to have shelter and away from the elements and feeling safe.
Duane: Yeah and you think other people would be interested?
Woman 1: I think there are a lot of people that would be interested.

Duane: Now, would you live there?
Man 1: Yes! In a New York minute! Yes! I’d live up here, right on the tenth floor.
Duane: Do you think other people would like to live there?
Man 1: Yeah, I know a lot of people that would like to live there.

Woman 2: It’s a beautiful program, and Betty Jean Jeffries will agree and help support this.

Duane: What do you think about the idea?
Man 2: I think it’s a good idea I think you know homeless get off drugs and give them self-esteem to become productive citizens.
Duane: Yeah, would you want to live there?
Man 2: Of course! I would trade drugs for a place
Duane: Yeah, trade drugs. Okay and you think other people would want to live there too?
Man 2: Of course! There’s lots of people asking how do they get into a place and yet Navigator doesn’t help them as much.
Duane: Okay great. Thank you.

Woman 3: I’ve been stalked and terrorized on the streets and now I’m being terrorized where I live at a board and care, and this would be very nice to me and I’d appreciate something like this.
Duane: And it’d have room for your little friend there too.
Woman 3: You know if it’s safe and secure it’s an okay thing to do.

Duane: Okay so sir, would you be interested in living in the city here?
Man 3: Yes, yes I would. I think it’s a great idea. I’d be something good for the homeless it would keep their mind busy. And they’d have activities there, they’d have things to do, they wouldn’t have to go too far.

Woman 4: I think it would be great and I would want to live there because it would give someone another chance because everyone’s that homeless isn’t it just drug addicts or you know mentally crazy. People will have things to happen they have people that pass away or you know a lot of tragedies that happen they cause people to be homeless. And it would be a great thing to have a second chance.

Duane: What do you think? Would you want to live there?
Man 4: Yes I would like to live here any place that has a roof over my head. You know, I used to have a car, you know my car got impounded. My son’s Godfather you know he’d like to (unintelligible)…
Duane: So you would live there?
Man 4: Yeah (unintelligible)…

Duane: So what do you think about the program?
Man 5: I’m down.
Duane: So you think you’d live there?
Man 5: Yeah.
Duane: You think other people might be interested too?
Man 5: I’d get a couple of friends of mine (unintelligible)…
Duane: What about it sounds good for you?
Man 5: Get off the streets.

Duane: Ok. Great. What do you think?
Woman 5: All right yes. So this is what I think. I think this is a very valid reason because this is way the area would be secure and you can house them in different sections and be able to take care of them and meet their needs in that within that development. I think you should really look at this.
Duane: Would you want to live there?
Woman 5: Oh I definitely want to live here in a secure area!
Duane: Yeah. Do you think other people would like that too?
Woman 5: Of course, of course! But you know what I think it is, is that some people don’t even understand that those ARE the needs that they need to be met and so I think that that it’s important to teach them on how to go about living a better life. And I think here in America we’re not doing that. But if we teach him, they’ll come. They’ll come!

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