Homelessness is a given for any urban area but how a community responds to it is not.
A program designed to intervene before people lose their homes through eviction is one way Kalamazoo responds and the approach is getting noticed.
Representatives from a public policy, business research and consulting firm based in Cambridge, Mass., Abt Associates, spent two days in Kalamazoo in April interviewing various partners to better understand how this collaborative approach called the
Eviction Diversion Project works.
Federal stimulus dollars earmarked to prevent homelessness or rapidly get people back into homes once they have lost them along with grants from five local foundations were used to get the project moving.
Michigan Department of Human Services Director Maura D. Corrigan and members of her staff also were in Kalamazoo recently to observe the program and learn more about it.
"I find the Kalamazoo County Eviction Diversion Project extremely impressive in terms of solving the issue of homelessness and want to take this show on the road," says Corrigan.
So why is the project getting all the attention?
"The beauty of this program is the collaboration that goes into it," says Peggy Gagen, associate director of community investment for the
Greater Kalamazoo United Way.
The project brings together representatives from the Department of Human Services, Legal Aid of Western Michigan, Eighth District Court, United Way, the City of Kalamazoo, 2-1-1 and
Housing Resources Inc., a local nonprofit dedicated to finding housing solutions for individuals in the midst of a housing crisis.
Together representatives of these groups work first to educate landlords and tenants in hopes of keeping eviction proceedings from starting and then working with tenants and landlords if the matter does make it to court.
Should the eviction proceed, legal aid representatives are in the courtroom to assist tenants and DHS workers also are available to help determine what options other than eviction may be possible.
One of the matters assessed is if the tenant is going through a short-term financial situation from which he or she will quickly recover or whether they simply can no longer afford to remain in their current living situation. The focus on whether the resident is in a financially sustainable situation has resulted in only 2 percent of those who have been through the process coming through a second time.
Because of the number of different systems that are part of the process -- the court system, public assistance and nonprofit charitable organizations -- a lot of effort went into coordination of the various moving parts.
"It really took a lot of work to get everyone on the same page," Gagen says. "We had to get the various systems coordinated because we really wanted this to be a win-win situation for landlords and tenants."
Since the project that was two years in the making got up and running in earnest in 2010 there have been 464 cases in which eviction has been prevented. The numbers of those served breaks down to 246 adults and 279 children.
The project deals only with evictions pending as a result of unpaid back rent. Other landlord and tenant issues are not dealt with.
A screening process used to help determine whether people qualify for the program is done through 2-1-1, the phone number those in need of assistance can dial to be referred, and sometimes connected, to appropriate agencies and community organizations. So far, 2-1-1 has screened nearly 2,900 people.
In the initial screening, residents can be scheduled to meet with a Department of Human Services worker who can identify possible means of assistance.
Of those referred to DHS, nearly 600 received emergency assistance. Another 377 were offered help through Housing Resources Inc.
Part of the education process is reassuring people who may have never been in such a situation that it is OK to ask for help and preferable to letting the situation get out of hand.
"One of the purposes of the project is to get people to move faster," Gagen says. "They can’t be more than three months behind in their rent because it becomes way too expensive to fill that gap."
At that point it is too difficult to catch up and little can be done to avert eviction.
A lot of work also has gone into educating landlords, Gagen says. Landlords are encouraged to work with good tenants who may have had a temporary financial set-back. "It’s expensive to evict a tenant and then refill that space."
But landlords also should not let tenants fall so far behind in the rent that they cannot repay what is owed.
Housing Resources Inc. says that the Kalamazoo County Community Action Agency reports 16 percent of Kalamazoo County residents -- an estimated 39,000 people -- live below the poverty guideline. The 2010 poverty guideline for a family of four is just over $22,000, barely enough to meet he basic needs of housing, food, and utilities. That means families and individuals are forced into making hard choices between hunger, housing, and healthcare.
The group says many people are only one emergency away from facing a financial crisis that will adversely affect their ability to buy food or make mortgage, rent, and utility payments. In the current economic climate a new group of people, who are not accustomed to dealing with such hard times have been affected.
"We can’t help everyone, but I think we are doing a good job helping those we can," Gagen says.
As others examine the Kalamazoo project those spearheading it say the program that is working in Kalamazoo might not work the same ways in other communities. "We can’t use a cookie-cutter approach," Gagen says.
But she say the lessons of collaboration that led to the solution Kalamazoo is using are valuable. "If people are willing to collaborate, to work together and make adjustments along the way, if there is a real willingness to to work together they can get this done."
Kathy Jennings is the Managing Editor of Southwest Michigan's Second Wave. She is a freelance writer and editor.
Photos by Erik Holladay.
Peggy Gagen, associate director of community investment for the
Greater Kalamazoo United Way. She worked with a large number of others from the community to develop an eviction diversion program to forestall homelessness.