One size never fits all

Homelessness is sometimes about addiction or abuse

One of the many disadvantages of the political culture in which we live is that it is absolutist.

That is, there is a tendency to insist that there are “answers,” and that for each social and political question there is one answer.

Moreover, this absolutist mindset means that someone who questions the “solution” is suspect: His or her motives are questioned.

A good case study is the matter of housing for the homeless.

A new and lauded approach is becoming dominant in many American social service agencies and local governments. It is called “rapid rehousing.”

This is a relatively new model that makes a lot of sense — for people for whom it is an obvious fit. The trouble is that one size does

not fit all. Not in any housing, antipoverty or public policy.

Rapid re-housing, and its close relative “housing first,” is backed by the National Alliance to End Homelessness and many other groups that do much good and seek to do more.

The idea is to help people obtain permanent, independent housing (usually a modest apartment), quickly (through subsidies), and make sure the client remains housed (with help from caseworkers and other forms of support).

As opposed to?

As opposed to long waiting lines for low-cost public housing and as opposed to shelters and transitional housing.

Rapid re-housing targets people with low- to moderate-level problems and needs. Housing First is slightly different. It seeks to house a much broader sampling of the homeless population.

The problem is twofold. First, not every homeless person is ready for independent living, or ever will be, even though both programs emphasize training in home maintenance and support programs for some. Second, because rapid rehousing is all the rage now, it is easily winning funding and there is a worry that shelters will be dangerously underfunded, or even unfunded, both by governments and foundations.

Shelters are not reassuring places for many people. They are disturbing places, because the people in them are in trouble. Ditto for transitional housing.

But we will always need shelters and transitional housing.

And the people who run them and work in them, generally, do the Lord’s work.

Here are two types of people who are not equipped to go into their own homes soon after becoming homeless: addicts (especially those who are mothers with small children) and victims of domestic abuse.

Both types of people cannot live alone in the early months of their self-reinvention. They need a residential program and they need to live in a supportive community.

Both types of people also need an extended stay because the nature of their recovery is that it is long and because they need a certain degree and period of protection from their old lives.

Women who have been abused or who have addictions tend to stay in residential programs — the ones that work — for up to a year, or more.

The advocates for these women and these programs are not hardhearted, or intellectual or programmatic reactionaries. They are realists working at the street level.

Our local politics and policy making should be open-minded enough for funders and policy makers to listen to all viewpoints. We cannot let ideology, or even idealism, blind us. We must always remember that one answer does not address all problems; one size does not fit all people.

Rapid re-housing is a good response for relatively stable individuals whose luck has turned south. It is a sound antidote to slow and disparate bureaucracy. But it is not the answer for people who need extended residential support.