Housing program deserves to survive

Opinion editor's note: Editorials represent the opinions of the Star Tribune Editorial Board, which operates independently from the newsroom.

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For 40 years, a little-known program in St. Louis Park has labored to deliver services and housing for low-income mothers and their children who have suffered trauma.

That trauma can come in many forms, including addiction, homelessness, joblessness and domestic violence.

The program, called Perspectives, combines housing with the support and services so needed for these mothers to break the cycle of trauma for themselves and their children and get a fresh start. That includes child care, addiction recovery, mental health support — all within five apartment buildings that house some 50 families.

It is a laudable program that has won a number of awards across the decades.

Regrettably, Perspectives appears to be on the verge of financial collapse, according to a Star Tribune news story. Earlier this month it abruptly ended its children's programming and clinical services, but is promising residents they will not be evicted.

So why would a program that is successful by most measures be wracked with $3 million in debt, an amount equal to its annual budget?

The answer appears to lie in a well-intentioned, if perhaps misguided, switch in federal policy to what is called "Housing First." Federal housing funds go to programs that agree to provide housing without precondition or barriers to entry.

That is contradictory to the ethos of a program such as Perspectives, which prides itself on its ability to deliver a complete package of housing and support services to ensure mothers dedicated to long-term recovery are given a safe, nurturing environment in which to recover and rebuild their lives. Safe is a key element here. The crime and chaos that goes hand-in-hand with active addiction threatens that safety and can jeopardize hard-won progress.

Founder and former CEO Jeannie Seely-Smith attributes the program's financial difficulties to the switch in federal policy. In a recent interview with KSTP-TV, Seely-Smith, who stepped down earlier this year, said that seven years ago, in order to continue receiving the federal funds that typically are a mainstay of such housing programs, Perspectives gamely tried to meet Housing First requirements.

That meant accepting actively addicted individuals, rather than those committed to recovery. The result, she said, was disastrous. "We would have apartments that were destroyed," she said in the interview. "It was like, you know, a round peg in a square hole. It just did not work."

Unable to turn away even heavy drug users, the once clean and quiet sober community started to suffer. Emergency calls shot up. If clients didn't want to talk to case manager or take part in services, they didn't. Moreover, Perspectives was unable to bill insurance for such services, leaving the bills to mount.

Housing First is not a recovery model, Seely-Smith said in a Star Tribune interview. "It's basically warehousing people to get them off the street." Programs like Perspectives, she said, are "breaking the cycle."

Last year, Perspectives reverted to its original model, even though that meant losing those precious federal funds. Combined with other financial issues, the agency plunged deeply into debt.

Housing First's commitment is guided by the belief that people experiencing homelessness must, before anything, have a stable place to live. The National Alliance to End Homelessness notes that the approach "is guided by the belief that people need basic necessities like food and a place to live before attending to anything less critical, such as getting a job, budgeting properly, or attending to substance use issues."

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) cites evidence that Housing First has worked to increase stability of housing and decrease levels of homelessness. The policy has its detractors as well, who counter that without resolving the issues underlying the reason individuals are homeless, long-term stability may remain out of reach.

There should be a place for unconditional housing. Many of the chronically homeless struggle with mental health and addiction issues but still need a place to live that is not a tent or a car or an emergency shelter.

However, to prioritize such federal housing funds to the exclusion of programs such as Perspectives seems a mistake. Surely there must be room in the HUD budget for proven recovery programs such as Perspectives that have quietly lifted families out of homelessness and dysfunction for so long.

And if adequate federal funding remains out of reach, we fervently hope city, county and state officials will work to find a way to keep Perspectives open so that it can continue helping recovering families.