The forgotten victims of the sub-prime crisis
Foreclosure to Homelessness: The Forgotten Victims of the Subprime Crisis
In June 2009, our national allies, the National Alliance to End Homelessness (NAEH), the National Coalition for the Homeless, the National Health Care for the Homeless Council, the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth, the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty, the National Low Income Housing Coalition, and the National Policy and Advocacy Council on Homelessness, released Foreclosure to Homelessness: The Forgotten Victims of the Subprime Crisis. It provides insight into the contribution that foreclosures have had on 2008 homeless populations.
Click here to read the full report.
The purpose of this study was to better understand the connection between homelessness and the recent uptick in foreclosures.
Methodology for this study involved surveying 178 organizations across the country that provide services to homeless or very low income individuals and households, including shelter providers, transitional housing providers, food assistance organizations, legal aid, etc. The study concluded that roughly 10 percent of the 2008 homeless population had been directly impacted by foreclosure.
Interestingly, of those surveyed, shelter providers and transitional housing providers reported a lower proportion of individuals homeless due to foreclosure than other types of service providers. This may be because other agencies, such as food assistance providers or legal aid, serve those who are very low income or on the brink of homelessness. To that end, when housing and shelter agencies are isolated from other types of service providers, the portion of those homeless due to foreclosure decreases to 5 percent.
This study, however, is not the only data available to provide perspective on homelessness due to foreclosure. The National Alliance to End Homelessness generally looks to quantitative data collected by Continuum of Care organizations that submit Point-in-Time counts and HMIS data to HUD for trends and information about homelessness. Some communities collect data beyond what is required by HUD to better understand the forces that cause a person to lose their home. Two such communities, San Francisco and Indianapolis, included “foreclosure”, on their January, 2009 reasons for homelessness survey.
Conclusions about homelessness that are rooted in community-level data collection provide the most accurate information about the primary causes of homelessness. Since collecting this data is not federally-mandated, the format for gauging the root causes of homelessness is not standardized. However, the results of these community-level surveys are valuable for navigating the gap between the results of the Foreclosure to Homelessness survey and community-level data collected during the most recent homeless census.
