Causes of Homelessness
Folks ask us frequently what causes homelessness. Sometimes, our funders want to know about the circumstances of the people staying at the Aloha. Other times, there are students doing research, church groups or other people who are concerned about the problem and want to know why there are so many people on the street.
Perhaps the perspective you will hear from us at the Aloha Inn is different in some ways. From our experience, and the historical record, we recognize that homelessness is a politically created problem and it has a political solution. Many people will ask, why is this person homeless? They expect to hear about family crises, drug or alcohol abuse, physical or mental illness or a lost job. The answer I would give is that in the large majority of cases, housing is just too expensive.
In our society, a family crisis are not a new invention. Neither are drug or alcohol abuse, illness nor unemployment. I'll be the first to state that these are usually the precipitating events before Aloha residents became homeless, but that is not the root of the problem. The vast number of people homeless in the United States is a new phenomenon. It is because so much cheap housing has been torn down and because wages have not kept up with housing costs. There have always been some people who lost their place to live and couldn't find another, but only a very small number compared to how many people are without housing now. This is the worst it has been since the Great Depression!
In 1983 when I started working at the YWCA Women's Shelter downtown, it was a small, short term program. We had vacancies almost every day, and fairly often we would not fill up completely. I remember one woman who came in to apply to the shelter one afternoon in 1983 or 1984. She looked old, poor and disheveled. I thought she was a "bag lady," a not particularly respectful term fashionable at that time for older, mentally ill women living on the streets, toting their belongings with them in bags. She was not a bag lady, though. She lived downtown at the Calhoun Hotel, an old building which was a residential hotel - meaning small, cheap apartments. The Calhoun was going to be redeveloped and she had been given an eviction notice. She had very little money and was trying to figure out a temporary place to stay until she could find another cheap room to rent. She knew she was going to have a real hard time finding a place on her small income from Social Security.
I don't recall if she ended up staying at the YW or not. I do know that the Calhoun is no more. The building now is the Palladian Apartments, with rents for studios and one-bedrooms ranging from $550 to $900 (with just one vacancy at $650 at this writing). That is more than what an old person on Social Security will get in a month to live, eat and clothe themselves on.
The Calhoun was one of many, many buildings in which a lot of people lived on pretty cheap rent, which were redeveloped or torn down for high rise office buildings (some of which were never built, others of which did not fill up with tenants for many years, others of which went into bankruptcy from over-speculation) and other developments which served the rich and not the poor.
Between 1960 and 1980, in the area of Downtown Seattle, First Hill and the South Lake Union area, 15,622 units of housing were lost. Seventy percent of the units were hotel units and the vast majority of those were probably low-income units. Those units were lost to development pressure. Between 1973 and 1983, the value of downtown residential real estate rose by 1,000 percent. Rising real estate prices create opportunities for developers to convert low-income housing units to more profitable purposes.
Many hundreds of units of housing were destroyed for the Convention Center, for example. A much smaller number were rebuilt and those new condos are very expensive. The Waldorf Apartments, a low-income apartment building housing mostly old people, was torn down in 1998 for the current expansion of the Convention Center. The people who lost their housing in the destruction/construction boom of the 80s & 90s couldn't afford to rent in the few and fancy new places put up. Some found other places to live; some ended up in shelters; some lived on the streets; some died.
By 1985, the shelter at the YW was always full. You had to be really lucky and call just at the instant that someone was moving out, in order to get a bed there. The length of stay went from two weeks to three weeks to two months to the current, insufficient limit of five months. Back then, you could find a place to rent after a couple weeks. Now, it takes months of looking and saving money and sitting on long, long waiting lists. The waiting list for subsidized housing from the Seattle Housing Authority is from six months to over two years.
What it means now is that if a person runs out of money for whatever reason, and they don't have a family or friends to help them out, they become homeless because it is so difficult and expensive to rent an apartment. Twenty years ago, if you ran out of money you might be stuck for a little while, but you could rent a cheap room downtown and live there till things got better for you. Those cheap rooms are nearly all gone now.
The development which eliminated these cheap places to live resulted from conscious political decisions, both by politicians and the voters: the city government allowing older buildings to be abandoned till they rotted; speculation in the real estate market, which was encouraged by excessive risky loans allowed by bank regulators until so many savings and loan companies crashed and were bailed out with taxpayer money; the hotel industry pressuring the city of Seattle and Washington State governments to build the Convention Center in a crowded spot downtown where housing would be torn down, instead of over at the Seattle Center where there was room for it; a great transfer of wealth upwards in our current economic boom; and, a lack of planning for keeping housing affordable to all levels of income.
Additionally, wages have not gone up nearly as fast as rents and housing prices. It is national policy in the U.S. to keep wages as low as possible, in order to make more money for stockholders and business owners. Many more people are wage earners than are stockholders or business owners. (Read the business section in the newspaper - this is not a secret) But rents go up as high as landlords can push them, based on the desperation of people to have a place to live. In 1980, voters in Seattle rejected a rent control initiative. That was a political decision.
Some people will argue that development is natural and cannot be artificially controlled, or society will stagnate. But we have all kinds of laws regulating commerce and development for the good of society, such as regulations on safety of products. Other Western countries have successful laws which encourage or require a fair development of housing, so that if you build a complex, a certain number of the units have to be affordable to people who earn a low wage. It won't sink the project, and it will help people have enough places to live, so they in turn can be more productive citizens.
I believe that the solutions to homelessness are higher wages, cheap government subsidized housing, urban planning which encourages housing for all income levels, an end to corporate welfare, and restoration of social services for people who need help (which is about all of us, at one time or another). This would take a big commitment by the people of our city, state and country, but it is possible!
Right as I type this, I am chatting with two Aloha Inn residents standing in the lobby. Mitchell says, "If we didn't blame the victim and if we worked together, we could solve these problems." Peter says, "I remember from the 60s and 70s that social spending was high, and we didn't have such a big deficit. In the 80s the deficit went way up, and the conservatives blamed it on social spending. That's wrong. What caused it? In a word, greed. Government support for the rich instead of the poor."
I believe in government and social solutions to homelessness because in our democracy, our government is by and for the people. It's us. It's the most efficient and accountable way for all of us to come together and work for our common needs, not just the needs and profits of a few. I don't believe in a dog-eat-dog world. I believe in faith, hope and love, as guiding principles and as a way to live.
Flo Beaumon, Aloha Inn Program Manager
Archdiocesan Housing Authority Management Team
Perhaps the perspective you will hear from us at the Aloha Inn is different in some ways. From our experience, and the historical record, we recognize that homelessness is a politically created problem and it has a political solution. Many people will ask, why is this person homeless? They expect to hear about family crises, drug or alcohol abuse, physical or mental illness or a lost job. The answer I would give is that in the large majority of cases, housing is just too expensive.
In our society, a family crisis are not a new invention. Neither are drug or alcohol abuse, illness nor unemployment. I'll be the first to state that these are usually the precipitating events before Aloha residents became homeless, but that is not the root of the problem. The vast number of people homeless in the United States is a new phenomenon. It is because so much cheap housing has been torn down and because wages have not kept up with housing costs. There have always been some people who lost their place to live and couldn't find another, but only a very small number compared to how many people are without housing now. This is the worst it has been since the Great Depression!
In 1983 when I started working at the YWCA Women's Shelter downtown, it was a small, short term program. We had vacancies almost every day, and fairly often we would not fill up completely. I remember one woman who came in to apply to the shelter one afternoon in 1983 or 1984. She looked old, poor and disheveled. I thought she was a "bag lady," a not particularly respectful term fashionable at that time for older, mentally ill women living on the streets, toting their belongings with them in bags. She was not a bag lady, though. She lived downtown at the Calhoun Hotel, an old building which was a residential hotel - meaning small, cheap apartments. The Calhoun was going to be redeveloped and she had been given an eviction notice. She had very little money and was trying to figure out a temporary place to stay until she could find another cheap room to rent. She knew she was going to have a real hard time finding a place on her small income from Social Security.
I don't recall if she ended up staying at the YW or not. I do know that the Calhoun is no more. The building now is the Palladian Apartments, with rents for studios and one-bedrooms ranging from $550 to $900 (with just one vacancy at $650 at this writing). That is more than what an old person on Social Security will get in a month to live, eat and clothe themselves on.
The Calhoun was one of many, many buildings in which a lot of people lived on pretty cheap rent, which were redeveloped or torn down for high rise office buildings (some of which were never built, others of which did not fill up with tenants for many years, others of which went into bankruptcy from over-speculation) and other developments which served the rich and not the poor.
Between 1960 and 1980, in the area of Downtown Seattle, First Hill and the South Lake Union area, 15,622 units of housing were lost. Seventy percent of the units were hotel units and the vast majority of those were probably low-income units. Those units were lost to development pressure. Between 1973 and 1983, the value of downtown residential real estate rose by 1,000 percent. Rising real estate prices create opportunities for developers to convert low-income housing units to more profitable purposes.
Many hundreds of units of housing were destroyed for the Convention Center, for example. A much smaller number were rebuilt and those new condos are very expensive. The Waldorf Apartments, a low-income apartment building housing mostly old people, was torn down in 1998 for the current expansion of the Convention Center. The people who lost their housing in the destruction/construction boom of the 80s & 90s couldn't afford to rent in the few and fancy new places put up. Some found other places to live; some ended up in shelters; some lived on the streets; some died.
By 1985, the shelter at the YW was always full. You had to be really lucky and call just at the instant that someone was moving out, in order to get a bed there. The length of stay went from two weeks to three weeks to two months to the current, insufficient limit of five months. Back then, you could find a place to rent after a couple weeks. Now, it takes months of looking and saving money and sitting on long, long waiting lists. The waiting list for subsidized housing from the Seattle Housing Authority is from six months to over two years.
What it means now is that if a person runs out of money for whatever reason, and they don't have a family or friends to help them out, they become homeless because it is so difficult and expensive to rent an apartment. Twenty years ago, if you ran out of money you might be stuck for a little while, but you could rent a cheap room downtown and live there till things got better for you. Those cheap rooms are nearly all gone now.
The development which eliminated these cheap places to live resulted from conscious political decisions, both by politicians and the voters: the city government allowing older buildings to be abandoned till they rotted; speculation in the real estate market, which was encouraged by excessive risky loans allowed by bank regulators until so many savings and loan companies crashed and were bailed out with taxpayer money; the hotel industry pressuring the city of Seattle and Washington State governments to build the Convention Center in a crowded spot downtown where housing would be torn down, instead of over at the Seattle Center where there was room for it; a great transfer of wealth upwards in our current economic boom; and, a lack of planning for keeping housing affordable to all levels of income.
Additionally, wages have not gone up nearly as fast as rents and housing prices. It is national policy in the U.S. to keep wages as low as possible, in order to make more money for stockholders and business owners. Many more people are wage earners than are stockholders or business owners. (Read the business section in the newspaper - this is not a secret) But rents go up as high as landlords can push them, based on the desperation of people to have a place to live. In 1980, voters in Seattle rejected a rent control initiative. That was a political decision.
Some people will argue that development is natural and cannot be artificially controlled, or society will stagnate. But we have all kinds of laws regulating commerce and development for the good of society, such as regulations on safety of products. Other Western countries have successful laws which encourage or require a fair development of housing, so that if you build a complex, a certain number of the units have to be affordable to people who earn a low wage. It won't sink the project, and it will help people have enough places to live, so they in turn can be more productive citizens.
I believe that the solutions to homelessness are higher wages, cheap government subsidized housing, urban planning which encourages housing for all income levels, an end to corporate welfare, and restoration of social services for people who need help (which is about all of us, at one time or another). This would take a big commitment by the people of our city, state and country, but it is possible!
Right as I type this, I am chatting with two Aloha Inn residents standing in the lobby. Mitchell says, "If we didn't blame the victim and if we worked together, we could solve these problems." Peter says, "I remember from the 60s and 70s that social spending was high, and we didn't have such a big deficit. In the 80s the deficit went way up, and the conservatives blamed it on social spending. That's wrong. What caused it? In a word, greed. Government support for the rich instead of the poor."
I believe in government and social solutions to homelessness because in our democracy, our government is by and for the people. It's us. It's the most efficient and accountable way for all of us to come together and work for our common needs, not just the needs and profits of a few. I don't believe in a dog-eat-dog world. I believe in faith, hope and love, as guiding principles and as a way to live.
Flo Beaumon, Aloha Inn Program Manager
Archdiocesan Housing Authority Management Team
Facts about Homelessness in the United States of America
See the fact sheet from the National Coalition for the Homeless.
The Seattle King County Coalition for the Homeless has current local and national information.
See the Washington State Coaliton for the Homeless's excellent fact page for statewide data.
The annual One Night Count of homeless people gives a snapshot of the people staying in shelters and a count of people observed sleeping outside in the middle of the night in Seattle, Washington.
For more information, contact the Seattle/King County Coalition for the Homeless.
Tara Connor (206) 374-9409 ext. 119
Dan Wise (206) 283-6070 ext. 304
For the latest on rental costs (too high) and apartment vacancies in the Puget Sound area, look up the Dupré & Scott Apartment Advisors website.
For an excellent, comprehensive report on how housing costs exceed workers' wages, look at Out of Reach, on the National Low Income Housing Coalition website. You can pull up data for any locality in the U.S.
The Seattle King County Coalition for the Homeless has current local and national information.
See the Washington State Coaliton for the Homeless's excellent fact page for statewide data.
The annual One Night Count of homeless people gives a snapshot of the people staying in shelters and a count of people observed sleeping outside in the middle of the night in Seattle, Washington.
For more information, contact the Seattle/King County Coalition for the Homeless.
Tara Connor (206) 374-9409 ext. 119
Dan Wise (206) 283-6070 ext. 304
For the latest on rental costs (too high) and apartment vacancies in the Puget Sound area, look up the Dupré & Scott Apartment Advisors website.
For an excellent, comprehensive report on how housing costs exceed workers' wages, look at Out of Reach, on the National Low Income Housing Coalition website. You can pull up data for any locality in the U.S.