Every day, people go to homeless shelters as a place of last resort. But some shelters, like the Marshall House in Hartford, Conn., are trying to help by turning people away.
At the shelter, run by the Salvation Army, intake staff members like Deborah Rucker are using an approach called “shelter diversion” or “problem solving.” Rather than supplying a bed and a blanket, Ms. Rucker helps people figure out if relatives or friends could help. She might make a phone call to a parent or a cousin to start that conversation. She can also buy gift cards for basic supplies, pay a utility bill, get new furniture or offer cash — small incentives to help make a doubling-up arrangement work.
On a cold October morning, Ms. Rucker sat with Margaret Guzman; her boyfriend, Alex; and their 2-year-old son, Jayden, in a drafty intake room at Marshall House. The family had been evicted and was running out of time to find another place to live. They feared they would have to spend the winter sleeping in their car. That poses a lethal risk for Jayden, who was born prematurely, does not yet walk or talk and requires an electrical outlet for a nebulizer for chronic lung disease.
Ms. Rucker said she had no beds for them, but then asked, “Do you have any family?” Around a small round table, she began to gently probe. What about Ms. Guzman’s mother, who lives nearby? No, her apartment was too small, and Ms. Guzman’s siblings already lived there. What about Alex’s mom? She has cancer, and it seemed too much to even ask. They kept talking while Ms. Rucker listened.
Ms. Rucker was using a diversion approach pioneered by the Cleveland Mediation Center nearly 20 years ago. The techniques are meant to resolve interpersonal conflicts that might also address homelessness. Studies have shown that millions of people double up with loved ones. But when relationships fray and the arrangements end, people turn to the streets or shelters. Even then, many people who are homeless stay in touch with relatives.
Doubling up is uncomfortable, stressful and in no way a long-term solution for people experiencing homelessness. But the shelter system itself can be very difficult to escape.
Shelters often force people out in the mornings and dictate when they can return, making it difficult to hold jobs at hours that don’t fit the schedule. It’s hard to do a phone interview with other shelter guests chattering in the background, or to look presentable if you haven’t been able to bathe or wash your clothes. Once in a shelter, the risk of violence rises and health deteriorates. Shelter diversion is meant to catch people before they slip into that hole.
Diversion is not designed for everyone. Those with mental illness or who abuse drugs or alcohol present challenges beyond even the most hospitable relative. And for those fleeing domestic violence, a guarded shelter might be the safest option.
But diversion can help many others who just need a little time or a relatively small amount of cash to return to stability. “These are the people who really might be able to get out, if we just don’t make it any harder for them,” said Sarah Day Chess, who trains people around the country in diversion methods.
Shelters from New Jersey to Oakland, Calif., have started using diversion, though the practice is still fairly new. There is still little research on its long-term outcomes. Connecticut adopted diversion statewide about a decade ago and has tracked some data. In Hartford, 18,000 people have been diverted since 2015; only 244 of them later entered shelters between 2016 and 2019. Connecticut cannot say for certain what happened to those thousands of diverted people, but the state’s overall homeless population has dropped substantially in the past decade.
Those figures are encouraging signs that diversion is helping, said Dr. Margot Kushel, the director of the Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative at the University of California, San Francisco. Connecticut, she added, has “done so much right.”
Ms. Guzman and her boyfriend had come to Marshall House terrified and angry because no one they had turned to offered any help. But as they talked, an option they hadn’t previously considered emerged: What about Alex’s sister, Jesenia? Ms. Guzman called her and explained their situation, adding that Marshall House had offered to pay one of her bills. She hoped Jesenia could help them. Otherwise, they would be sleeping in a car.
“I wasn’t going to allow that,” Jesenia said.
Four children in one bedroom
Jesenia works as a home health aide, but the client she had been caring for had recently died, and she didn’t yet have another job. With no income, she worried she would not have enough to pay bills, much less give her children Christmas gifts. If Marshall House paid her gas bill, as they were offering, she could pay down a debt she owed on another.
She was also raised to help. Her mother and her grandmother regularly gave relatives a place to stay. “No matter the situation, the consequences, we always help family out,” her grandmother would tell her.
The potential consequences for Jesenia were significant. She relies on a housing subsidy that limits the people allowed in the apartment to those listed on the lease. So she didn’t tell her landlord about her family moving in, fearing she might be evicted, too. “I didn’t want to risk that and end up homeless as well,” she said.
(This is why Jesenia asked for her last name to be withheld; her brother, Alex, had the same request for fear of outing her.)
Diversion shifts the burden onto families that often have few resources to begin with. One study of relatives of homeless people found that 47 percent of them relied on some form of government assistance. As with Jesenia, some aid can include limits on guests. “You’re put in this spot that’s between a rock and a hard place,” said Diana Berube, the director of Marshall House. “Do I help my family member who’s struggling and might sleep outside tonight, or do I put my own subsidy at risk and then I’m going to lose my housing and we’re all in need of services?” (Marshall House offers to negotiate with landlords when these issues arise.) Homeless people also can lose access to some benefits when they are not in shelters.
Still, families take in loved ones all the time — about 3.7 million people were doubled up in 2019, according to one study. Shelter diversion can give them a little financial support for doing so. “I think of it as increasing the number of people who could do what they already want to do, which is take somebody in,” Ms. Chess said. “A lot of people are doing this with no help.”
To accommodate her relatives, Jesenia asked her 16-year-old daughter to move into a bedroom with her three younger siblings. She left her photos of the South Korean pop group BTS affixed to the wood vanity in the room Jayden and his parents now share.
The families have settled into a mutually beneficial rhythm. Jayden’s cousins delight in playing with him. Ms. Guzman and her boyfriend took on meal preparation, making dishes like baked potatoes, jerk chicken and corn on the cob. They often pick up Jesenia’s children from their after-school programs.
In turn, they have avoided the biggest risks of entering a shelter. Jayden gets lots of attention, and his parents are able to take him to his regular medical appointments. Ms. Guzman has held onto her job at an auto-parts store, which is close enough that she can rush to the house during her dinner break.
But it is challenging. “I feel like I’m invading somebody’s house, you know?” Ms. Guzman said. “I’m using one of the kids’ rooms. Even though she don’t mind because of my son, I just don’t want to be in anybody’s space.”
Such feelings of inadequacy are common among people who are doubling up. They can be more pronounced among men, who often feel that they should be able to fully support their families, according to some studies. Those feelings certainly nagged at Alex, even if other concerns loomed larger. “I don’t like asking for help,” he said. “It’s hard not being able to provide for your family.”
Trying to halt a rapid downward spiral
Shelter diversion is not a panacea, but it should be part of the conversation about solutions, its proponents say. “Even if it doesn’t work for everybody, if it works for a certain percentage, it’s likely worth it,” said Dr. Kushel of U.C.S.F. “If you can halt that downward spiral that we know happens when people become homeless, you can at least have a chance. It’s going to make getting back on your feet easier.”
Diversion is generally cheaper than offering a shelter bed, but Ms. Chess said that shelter directors were sometimes reluctant to adopt it. There are perverse incentives not to. Funding for shelters is often tied to how quickly they move guests into permanent housing. When they divert the easiest cases, they’re left with the hardest to house.
Ms. Guzman talks regularly on the phone with Ms. Rucker, who updates her on apartment leads. The news is rarely good. Promising conversations end when the landlord asks about previous evictions. The only listings left are either expensive or dangerous.
In December, they heard that the landlord of the building where Alex’s mother lives was planning to evict a tenant. The landlord likes his mother and was willing to overlook her son’s eviction, Alex said. It was the best lead they had heard of in a while, but Alex felt conflicted.
“What’s the use of having somebody else homeless just so you could have a bed?” Alex said. “That’s not OK. That’s not fair.”
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