A week ago, teams of volunteers and homeless service providers fanned out across northwest Michigan, armed with flashlights, supplies and clipboards, searching for people experiencing homelessness.
The effort was part of the annual Point-In-Time count — a nationwide survey conducted each January to estimate how many people are experiencing homelessness on a single night. The data helps the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development track trends and determine how federal funding is distributed.
While the count itself hasn’t changed, how HUD may use that data could soon look very different.
“[It’s] not really a census, but just a one-night snapshot," said Ashley Halladay-Schmandt, director of the Northwest Michigan Coalition to End Homelessness.
This year's preliminary count showed 25 people living without shelter in northwest lower Michigan. That number is lower than people experiencing homelessness, a broader term that encompasses people in unstable living situations, living at temporary shelters and more. That number is closer to 260, according to monthly data from the coalition.
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For years, PIT data has helped guide funding toward Housing First programs — an approach that prioritizes placing people into stable housing without preconditions like sobriety or employment. The model has been widely adopted across the country and in northwest Michigan.
But last November, HUD released $3.9 billion in proposed funding opportunities that would have shifted priorities away from Housing First models and toward transitional housing and treatment-based programs.
That proposal is now on hold — for now.
On Dec. 23, a federal judge ordered HUD to revert to its previous funding framework after concluding that the plaintiffs in the case (National Alliance to End Homelessness, et al.) had "established a strong likelihood of success on the merits, irreparable harm, and that the balance of equities and public interest favor the Plaintiffs."
“It was essentially grading you on performance measures that we had no idea were performance measures,” Halladay-Schmandt said. "It was actually reducing your ability to be competitive if you were doing what HUD asked you to do."
When that now contested funding opportunity was initially announced, the Northwest Michigan Supportive Housing said they would likely close 20 of their 75 permanent supportive housing units.
In that same funding opportunity, said Halladay-Schmandt, communities that continue to struggle with homelessness would even get less funding.
"There was a metric in that NOFO that stated, if your PIT count has increased, you get less points and you're less competitive for funding," she said. "This is just my opinion [but] it could be the administration's way of backing their anti-Housing First rhetoric to say, 'Well, Housing First doesn't work because we've been doing Housing First for all these years and homelessness is still increasing.'"
"We’ll find out in June. I think the writing’s on the wall."ASHLEY HALLADAY-SCHMANDT |Director of the Northwest Michigan Coalition to End Homelessness
Critics of Housing First programs say it can take anywhere from eight to 20 permanent supportive housing units to help one chronically homeless person leave the streets.
One is the Cicero Institute, a conservative think tank. They argue that homelessness is often rooted in addiction and mental illness, and that providing housing without requiring treatment or sobriety doesn’t address those underlying issues.
From their perspective, Housing First programs don’t reduce homelessness so much as increase demand, pointing to long-term rises in homelessness nationwide.
But Halladay-Schmandt says it's more complicated.
"There's a lot of things that contribute to increases in homelessness, not just the policy," said Halladay-Schmandt. "It's the economy, how much housing is available in a community, and how much housing is affordable for people in a community."
For the next year, Housing First organizations will stick with what works for them. Halladay-Schmandt said that over 95% of the people they house maintain their housing over twelve months.
“We have the evidence that Housing First works,” she said. “We've housed more chronically homeless people in the past two years than we have ever, and those are the folks who have the most acute service needs and who have been homeless the longest."
In the meantime, housing providers will continue operating under the existing funding structure. But in June, HUD is expected to release new funding opportunities that could clarify whether Housing First programs will continue to be prioritized — or whether providers will be forced to pivot.
For her part, Halladay-Schmandt seems skeptical there will be a return to Housing First programs.
“We’ll find out in June,” Halladay-Schmandt said. “I think the writing’s on the wall and I’m very interested to see what HUD’s alternative proposal looks like.”
