The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Ohio sees spike in homeless youth
The number of homeless people inched higher in Ohio this year.
According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Annual Homeless Assessment Report, the figure rose to 10,249 in 2018 from the previous year’s total of 10,095; a 1.5% percent increase.
This rise comes after the 2.97 percent decline in Ohio homeless that HUD reported from 2016 into 2017.
HUD determines its homeless statistics based on individuals that enter through their Continuum of Care programming which helps facilitate housing and shelter options for those that are homeless and poverty-
afflicted. These numbers are then collected through a method known as Point In Time which catalogs homeless statistics on a single day of the year.
The total number of households that sought CoC programming throughout Ohio also increased in 2018 from the previous year by 1.6 percent, from 7,582 to 7,711.
One homeless population that saw worrisome doubledigit growth from 2016 to 2017 was “unaccompanied youth” that increased 11.73 percent from 622 to 695. This 2018 statistic saw only a slight decrease to 686 unaccompanied homeless youth.
The Ohio Housing Finance Agency gathers its numbers across a much longer period of time and, as a result, factors for much larger homeless statistics.
A recent OHFA study collated information gathered from 2012 to 2016 and claims that 58,484 Ohioans received CoC housing services in 2016. This is a 82.2 percent increase from the 10,404 that HUD claim for the same year. Their 2017 numbers are even higher at 70,123 homeless living in Ohio.
A reason for the vast discrepancy is offered from Marcus Roth, the communications/development director for the Coalition on Homelessness and Housing in Ohio.
“The main difference is the HUD numbers only count the number of homeless at one point in time in January,” he said. “The OHFA report tries to capture everyone who has experienced homelessness at some point during a whole year.”
The OHFA report also highlights that the average age of a person accessing homelessness services was 28 while the average age of a household head seeking homelessness assistance was 38. The report went on to note that “neither figure varied substantially during the study period.”
The statistics that HUD offers may vary dramatically from OHFA, but both organizations recognize the increase in homeless underage youth. Similar to an 11.73 percent increase of unaccompanied youth 2016 to 2017 that HUD charted, the OHFA noted nearly a third of all individuals receiving CoC help from 2012 to 2016 were under the age of 18.
From this subset, nearly half were under the age of 5. HUD estimates 686 Ohio youths were without homes in 2018.
The OHFA report further details that “the most common client age among the entire population experiencing homelessness was infancy.” While only 7.3 percent of all Ohioans are ages from 0 to 5, 15.4 percent of CoC clients were among this age range. This demographic has seen a 53 percent increase since 2012, according to OHFA.
A significant reason homelessness statistics vary stems from the fact portions of the homeless population do not reach the shelters through which HUD performs its counts.
Al Raddatz, the founder of Sub Zero Mission, a Painesville Township charity that seeks to clothe the homeless in warm weather gear to survive winter on the streets, offered a number of reasons the homeless may forego state-run CoC services.
“Veterans will end up on the streets because they may not want to be dependent on someone else,” Raddatz said. “A lot times veterans won’t want to take up a bed that someone else could have. I’ve talked to guys that are in the shelters that feel they’re a step away from prison population. We’re not on the ground and personal enough with them to solve their particular problem.”
Homelessness, however, does not happen in a vacuum. A recent OHFA study cites nearly 400,000 households, or one-quarter of all Ohio renters, spend over half of their income on rent.
A press release issued by COHHIO drew correlations between non-affordable rental costs and ensuing homelessness.
“Eviction carries serious, long-term negative consequences for families who lose their homes, their possessions, and often their jobs and ability to find future housing,” the report stated. “Many evicted households wind up homeless.”
Another report, released jointly by COHHIO and the National Low Income Housing Coalition, echoes a similar disconnect between wage and rent. The report states the typical Ohio renter earns $12.87 an hour, which is $2.13 less than the statewide hourly wage needed to afford a modest two-bedroom rental unit.
The connection between restrictive housing costs and homelessness was not lost on activist Sage Lewis. The Akron resident took it upon himself to establish a homeless-run day center in a building that he owns which included a second hand shop, showers, food, laundry services, and internet access.
The location became so popular among the homeless they soon began camping on site with Lewis’s permission. After receiving complaints from a neighboring business, Akron City Council voted to disband the camp and forcibly remove the occupants if necessary.
Local filmmaker Kevin Naughton has been chronicling the camp’s shutdown in an ongoing series of documentaries.
“There are people who have not been housed yet,” he said. “The city promised to house everybody but they have not yet. There are 14 people who have not been housed yet that the city promised to house and then another eight people who just disappeared. They don’t know what happened to them.”