Homelessness Sprawls into the Suburbs

From D.C.’s downtown business district and inner city to the suburbs and beyond, homeless people confront similar challenges. Food, shelter, transportation job opportunities, guidance and support are universal needs for people in crisis.

But even with the growing number of service providers, some resources, especially food and informal outdoor shelter, can be hard to come by in D.C.’s sprawling suburbs.

“The geographic size of the country is really an issue,” said Sharan London, executive director of the Montgomery County Coalition for the Homeless (MCCH).

Nancy Taxson, executive director of Homestretch in Falls Church, Va., voiced a similar concern. “The transportation problems are huge. You’re limited in the jobs you can find because … the [public] transportation is not that good.”

The District offers a relatively dense concentration on the services single adults use. One local man, homeless for a year, said, “compared to Maryland or Virginia, you can walk to food and everything here. You have one, two, three spots to eat of get clothes, and it’s all walkable.”

To help solve this problem in some suburban areas, “one-stop service shopping” has concentrated government benefits offices – and sometimes private agencies – in common locations.

Donny, a resident at the men’s emergency shelter operated by the MCCH in Rockville, is able to get some of the help he needs at the shelter. For other services, he takes the bus to Progress Place in Silver Spring. “For the homeless, this does work,” he said.

But distances, and therefore travel times, are still greater than they are in the District. And when a parent must get a child to and from day care, the difficulty is magnified. So Homestretch, a provider of transitional housing and other services to families with children decided to confront this problem. While working with clients to find jobs and affordable housing, it also tries to find donated cars so that clients can travel between work, school, day care, and home.

The District’s relative density, though, can cause problems of its own. The past year has been marked by the closing or relocation of several D.C. shelters. This is driven in part by upgrades, but intense competition for downtown properties makes it harder to expand or relocate a facility. The result is uncertainty for the most vulnerable homeless people.

And for poor suburbanites, reaching both jobs and affordable housing is an ongoing challenge. Taxson described a balancing act between these two necessities, one that is especially difficult for families who need more living space.

“The further out you get in Northern Virginia, the cheaper the housing, the bugger the properties,” she said, adding that such a move also means more time on the bus.

The suburban landscape also shapes the shelter options available to homeless people. In the District, people may find shelter in doorways and abandoned buildings or under elevated roadways. The suburbs don’t offer the same sheltered spots.

“We have a lot of people living in the woods,” London said.

One homeless man who panhandles near Capitol Hill says that he sleeps in abandoned buildings after having had a few bad experiences in local shelters. However, without such accommodations in the suburbs, panhandlers are few and far between.

PERCEPTIONS

Advocates warn that scarcity of choices like this in the suburbs, as well as the dispersal of services and casual employment or panhandling opportunities, can be misleading.

“Urban homelessness looks different from suburban homelessness. It’s not as visible as it is in D.C.,” London said.

Taxson added: “They’re son hidden. … There’s poverty here, and you just don’t see it.”

Indeed, an annual survey conducted by the metropolitan Washington Council of Governments hows that there are significant numbers of homeless people across the region. Last January, the Council of Governments counter 1,500 homeless people in Montgomery County, 1,371 in Prince George’s County, 1,926 in Fairfax County and city and Falls Church, and 408 in Arlington County. These numbers include people with no shelter, people in emergency shelters or housing, and those living in permanent supportive housing.

The District had the highest tally of homeless people, with 8,253. The District also has the highest poverty rate in the area; in 1999, one in five D.C. residents lived in poverty, far above the area and national averages.

Homelessness and poverty is increasing throughout the region as minimum wages and housing costs grow farther and farther apart. The Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments reports that across the region, rents outstrip the earnings of low-wage workers.

“It’s very expensive to live in Montgomery County. What we don’t have are abandoned buildings and low-cost rental housing. People are homeless because they don’t have a place to live,” London said.

PLANNING

When contemporary homelessness became well known a quarter-century ago, it created a lasting image of urban slums and downtown streets, where homeless people would either “rough it” on park benches or find slim comfort in gritty emergency shelters.

But for public and private service providers, experience has demonstrated that things are not nearly so simple, and that every part of the Washington are needs to respond to deprivation and crisis.

Michael Ferrell, executive director of the Washington D.C. Coalition for the Homeless, said “There was a challenge to the suburbs to do more – and they have done more.”

Increasingly sophisticated planning and service delivery in the District and in the suburbs reflects these changes.

Meanwhile, poor and homeless people do their best to stay afloat. And service providers try to identify opportunities for their clients in an ever-changing mix of urban and suburban neighborhoods.

“We need everybody living in our community,” London said. “That’s what makes it rich and vibrant.”


Issues |Shelters


Region |Maryland|Montgomery County|Virginia

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