Housing aid: End of a lifeline

By his own count, Victor Gomez has lived in 28 states since leaving his native Indiana. He's been homeless for the better part of 20 years. He worked odd jobs in construction before damaging his wrist in a drunken leap off a bridge in downtown Minneapolis four years ago.

"I don't know what got into me," he says about the jump, although he knows why he used to drink so much: "I didn't feel no cold."

For the past three months Gomez, 44, and his wife, Linda, have shared a two-bedroom apartment in south Minneapolis. St. Stephen's Human Services found the place for them, and Minnesota's Emergency General Assistance (EGA) program got them in the door -- it provided the funding for Hennepin County to cover the Gomezes' $939 damage deposit.

"There's no way they would've been able to save enough money to get into an apartment," said Jennifer Ritter, a housing case manager with St. Stephen's.

Now Emergency General Assistance and the state's Emergency Minnesota Supplemental Aid (EMSA) program are on their last legs, prompting county officials and homeless advocates to forecast an uptick in the number of the destitute -- especially single adults -- living on the streets.

Starting next Monday, the $8.6 million programs will be gone. They were eliminated through unallotment by Gov. Tim Pawlenty to close the state's yawning budget gap. The cuts will remain in effect through June 2011. Hennepin County, the state's most populous, is the biggest recipient of EGA and EMSA funding, receiving $4.3 million last year.

In recent months, one-third of state households getting Emergency General Assistance were in Hennepin; for Emergency Minnesota Supplemental Aid, the figure is 41 percent.

State points to stimulus funds

State officials said that federal stimulus funds are available to take up the slack.

Chuck Johnson, assistant Human Services commissioner for children and family services, said that Hennepin County can draw upon an additional $16 million the state will get this year in Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) funding.

The county also has received $1 million in stimulus funds for its Homeless Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program. Minneapolis got $5.5 million for the same program.

"I hope at the local level that they're coordinating their plans around Rapid Re-Housing and the TANF emergency dollars to help offset, to the degree they can, the loss of EGA and EMSA," Johnson said.

But that's not an ideal solution, said Tom Pingatore, program manager with Hennepin County's Economic Assistance department. Part of the problem, he said, is that TANF money goes to families with children, not single adults or childless couples like the Gomezes.

Moreover, he said, families that got help from TANF often later found themselves turning to Emergency General Assistance to stay in their homes or make a utility payment.

"You take the emergency program out, you increase the homelessness program," Pingatore said. "It's going to hit a point where a good share of these folks will progress to the eviction stage and the shut-off stage, and we'll see an increase in homelessness."

Price of homelessness

In a 2007 study to gauge the price of homelessness, Hennepin County found that 266 people had cost the county $4.2 million over five years for some 70,000 nights in a shelter, jail or detox facility.

More recently, St. Stephen's compared how much six homeless people had cost Hennepin County and Minneapolis for both the year before and the year after they were placed in housing.

The year they were homeless, the six cost the county and city about $95,000 for time spent in jail and at the workhouse, detox center, shelter and emergency room. The year they had housing, the cost came to about $16,000 -- an average savings per person of $13,000.

By cutting back on housing funds, said Marcia Fink, basic needs director for the Greater Twin Cities United Way, "We're not really saving the community money over time. There's going to be a cost, long-term."

Cathy ten Broeke, who manages Minneapolis and Hennepin County's joint effort to end homelessness, said Emergency General Assistance funds have been used to help homeless veterans pay the damage deposit on homes they secured with Section 8 vouchers.

Ten Broeke called Pawlenty's 2004 initiative to end homelessness in Minnesota, which committed nearly $200 million to the cause in new money, tax credits and bonding, "one of the best tools I've seen during my time working." But eliminating EGA and EMSA, she said, shows that the governor is "not paying attention to the big picture."

"He's done some things that have been really important, and I think he's shooting himself in the foot if he wants to see some results," she said.

Results are also what Nathan Ulseth, 20, is after. Since he moved into a Brooklyn Center apartment this summer with the help of a $630 deposit from the EGA program, Ulseth -- who has lived in a shelter and done time for drug violations -- is thinking for the first time about his possibilities.

The apartment, he said, "opens the door for new thoughts -- it opens so many doors ... It's been the backbone of every positive decision I've made. Without that I would be on the corner drunk, asking people for money. It put me a step forward."

Kevin Duchschere • 612-673-4455