What the Pandemic Taught Us About Eliminating Homelessness

“For a brief moment in time, funding materialized that cured long-intractable problems like reducing child poverty, funding unemployment at a dignified level and functionally ending homelessness in cities like St. Paul,” writes Bill Lindeke in MinnPost. But now, “The money has run out, and policymakers and shelter providers are facing the grim prospect of going back to the less humane way that our society treated people before COVID.”

Sarah Liegl, the director of the St. Paul’s Project Home, praises the benefits of single-room occupancy (SRO) housing that became possible during the pandemic. “The influx of money taught us there’s a much better way. It’s amazing. Families can come in and have their own room and lock their door, and we’ve seen a huge increase in the number of families finding housing.”

As federal funding dries up, the model looks less sustainable. “Without help, it leaves a bleak outlook for shelters focused on individuals, like the former Bethesda Hospital site in the Capitol Heights neighborhood,” Lindeke writes.

Advocates are hopeful that the success of pandemic-era programs will convince state legislators to allocate more funding to programs that support SRO shelters. “It might be the first sign of possible change in a field that’s long been seen as an almost Sisyphean struggle against an inevitably victorious foe.” As Lindeke points out, “The U.S. government just proved that it can fix long-standing social ills, and the hope is that a large state surplus can keep the county’s unsheltered families in their stable homes.”