Asir Santiago’s family of seven was living comfortably on his construction worker’s salary, but then the car died, he was laid off and he had to have a tumor removed from his knee. Suddenly, the rent was two months’ overdue and homelessness loomed.
“I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t know where to go. You start to panic,” said Michelle Velasco, 31, his girlfriend and stay-at-home mother of their five children. “I didn’t want to be out on the streets.”
Desperate, Velasco sought rental assistance from a network of social services agencies designed to keep people out of homeless shelters. A check for $875 paid the overdue rent, saving the Chicago family from possible eviction and almost certain personal and economic free fall.
Intervention before a person or family becomes homeless saves taxpayer money, advocates say, because it is much less expensive to pay for rent relief than shelter care, and it spares people–especially children–emotional upheaval that can take years to overcome.
But because of higher-than-expected demand for help, not everyone is getting the lift Velasco and Santiago did. State homeless-prevention funds intended to last a year have been exhausted in weeks, so people asking for assistance with rent, utilities and security deposits may not get what they need or may have to wait for it.
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Almost 20 percent more people in Chicago last year needed preventative assistance or shelter than the year before, according to a report on homelessness.
In the last several months, calls to Catholic Charities for help with rent and other bills have shot up from 900 to 2,000 a week. The Chicago-based Metropolitan Tenants Organization said it first saw a doubling of rent-eviction calls in August. More people cited unemployment as the reason for falling behind.
Agencies’ funds are not keeping pace, and the outlook for getting more money in the state budget to be released this month is not good, advocates agree, because of a revenue shortfall caused by the slowed economy.
“There’s definitely more requests than money,” said Brady Harden, president of Inner Voice, an organization under contract with Chicago to disburse funds to 18 emergency-shelter programs.
“Many of our people are just that one check away from being evicted or losing power. Once the eviction process starts, things really go downhill. When people are evicted, it’s the suddenness of it, having your life and the life of your children interrupted,” he said.
“Rent relief” and “homeless prevention” became part of the safety net after the Illinois General Assembly unanimously passed the Homeless Prevention Act in 1999. Brenda Hanbury, bureau chief for homeless services and supportive housing at the Illinois Department of Human Services, said it had became clear that providing meals and beds was not enough.
More than 5,000 families have been saved from homelessness since 2000, she said.
Prevention saves money.
“For every dollar you put in, you save $3,” said Matthew Hanafee, executive director of the suburban-based Illinois Coalition to End Homelessness.
It costs an average of $3,400 to shelter a family of three for two months, the state says. The average amount of rent relief is about $450, homeless agencies report.
Prevention advocates have found that a little bit of help often can make a big difference for a family experiencing unemployment, a medical emergency or a delay in receiving other assistance.
“There are so many families paying 50 or 60 percent of their salaries on rent,” said Julie Dworkin, a senior policy specialist at the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless. “One crisis, any small thing is going to put you behind on your rent because there is no room in your budget for unexpected expenses.”
The demand for assistance is straining agencies, which are disbursing their funds at a faster-than-expected pace.
It took only six weeks in the fiscal year, which began in July, for $2.5 million in state funds to be distributed by homeless-prevention agencies, Dworkin said. An additional $482,000 in federal funds was available for rent relief this fiscal year and was distributed through the United Way in Chicago and suburban Cook County. The amount provided to the area each year is determined by a formula using the local unemployment rate, said Bob Egan, director of national programs and initiatives for United Way in Chicago. With the state’s revenue gap, agencies fear funding for the new fiscal year won’t be commensurate with need. Prevention advocates say they could use many times more than the allocation they received last year, Dworkin said. Only $1 million was budgeted last year, but that was supplemented with an additional $1.5 million when need became evident.
Hanbury declined to say how much her department requested from the state for homeless prevention for the new fiscal year. Tom Green, spokesman for the Department of Human Services, said that part of the budget has not been set.
Security guard Darnell Span turned to Inner Voice a couple of months ago for help finding an affordable apartment and making the initial payments. He, his girlfriend, Star Wilson, and their two infants were evicted from their Dolton home after his work hours were reduced and he fell behind on his $1,000-a-month mortgage.
They stored their furniture in a neighbor’s garage for a few months while they floated from home to home, sleeping on relatives’ couches.
“It gets slow. You get behind,” said Span, 24. “We didn’t have Christmas.”
By the time he applied for help, Inner Voice had no more funds, but the agency helped Span find an apartment on the West Side for $550 a month. He plans to pay the security deposit in monthly installments.
Prevention agencies require that those seeking help show they can meet their rent or utility obligations after receiving assistance, said Joan Schwingen, a program director of Chicago Connections, which distributes funds from the city and state to more than 30 agencies. Aid cannot exceed three months’ rent, she said.
Even prevention funds couldn’t help Marquette Park resident Lilia Marquez, 40. She had made it in Chicago for 18 years without asking for help, she said, but now she’s not working and her husband’s hours were reduced. They fell three months behind on the mortgage, but didn’t qualify for assistance.
An income-tax refund check helped–temporarily.
“I won’t lose my patience. Yes, I worry,” Marquez said. “I don’t want to lose my house.”
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