Although the overall number of homeless individuals in the Lynchburg area over a calendar year continues to rise, they are homeless for less time than ever before because of a growing number of programs designed to help them.
“Our average length of time that someone experiences homelessness is now down to 23 days, which means that even though we have more people entering homelessness within a calendar year in the Lynchburg area, we have less that are homeless at a point in time because as soon as they become homeless, the entire [Central Virginia Continuum of Care] has a better coordinated effort to address homelessness,” explained Sarah Quarantotto, executive director of Miriam’s House, a nonprofit dedicated to fighting homelessness and a member of the continuum.
The average length of time an individual experienced homelessness in Lynchburg in 2017 was 45 days.
The Central Virginia Continuum of Care is a network of direct homeless response providers such as Miriam’s House and partner agencies including Horizon Behavioral Health, the Community Action Network and Lynchburg City Schools. The groups work together throughout the year to identify gaps in services for the homeless population and create strategic plans to meet those needs.
The continuum also performs a Point-in-Time Count of the area’s homeless population each January. This year’s numbers were just released and show a 10.4 percent decrease in the total number of homeless individuals on a single night in Lynchburg since 2017.
In 2017, the region had 101 homeless households and 125 homeless individuals.
This year, there are 90 homeless households and 112 homeless individuals living in the area.
The annual count of the number of homeless residents and their circumstances is required by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for any communities that receive federal homeless response grants, according to Quarantotto.
She said the community’s two housing intervention programs — rapid re-housing and permanent supportive housing — have expanded rapidly during the past few years, giving individuals more options when they become homeless.
“They are getting assessed, they are getting triaged into the right program and they’re getting quickly re-housed back into the community,” Quarantotto explained. “It’s not just a waiting game until they save enough money to pay their security deposit and first month’s rent — it’s that there’s an actual intervention that can help them do that.”
Miriam’s House’s Community First program is one of the area’s rapid re-housing options. It works to get families into stable housing quickly, and Quarantotto said the program has expanded during the past two years thanks to a $100,000 state grant in 2017 and another $100,000 grant in 2018.
At the local and national levels, officials have identified four priority subpopulations of those experiencing homelessness — veterans, families, youths ages 18 to 24, and chronically homeless individuals who have been homeless for more than a year and have a long-term disability affecting housing stability — that must be addressed.
The permanent supportive housing programs in Lynchburg have a longer intervention period than rapid re-housing and address the unique needs of the chronically homeless population, Quarantotto said. These individuals have more barriers to stable housing, requiring additional support from community organizations.
In Lynchburg, the point-in-time rates for three of the priority subpopulations — veterans, families and the chronically homeless — have declined steadily since 2015. Between 2015 and 2018, the population of homeless families declined by almost 68 percent, the chronically homeless population decreased more than 66 percent and the veteran homeless population decreased more than 44 percent.
“When you look at these priority subpopulations of chronically homeless, veterans and families, the decrease in that population is because they are targeted by specific homeless response programs,” Quarantotto said. “So when they become homeless or in a shelter, we have a really clean way that they are referred to those programs, and they get assistance almost immediately.”
The youth population also has decreased since 2015 but rose from seven homeless individuals in 2017 to 18 in 2018. This follows trends for overall homelessness throughout the calendar year, Quarantotto explained, but is higher than the other subpopulations at a point in time because the area currently does not have specific programs targeting homeless youths.
This will change in July, when the Community First program will expand to include homeless youth. Quarantotto said the process will mimic the current Community First program for families and will provide rapid re-housing services for homeless individuals age 18 to 24.
As part of the program, Miriam’s House will partner with Horizon Behavioral Health, which recently received a $2.2 million grant from the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration to provide psychiatric care and case management for homeless youths.
Quarantotto said it is difficult to pinpoint a specific reason for the overall homelessness increase in the area but explained a community’s homeless population usually reflects its poverty rate.
“Typically, communities that address poverty show a decrease in homeless counts because people have access to better jobs [and] they have access to affordable housing,” she explained. “… I think it’s been a positive that the community has started to focus on poverty, and homelessness is obviously that extreme end of poverty.”
Rick Hughes founded the nonprofit Warm Streets to fill in “chinks” in the area’s homeless services. The organization provides new socks to homeless individuals and delivers donated furniture to those moving from homelessness into a permanent residence. In the past two years, the organization provided furniture for 14 previously homeless veterans.
He said it is important to remember those that are homeless are still part of the Lynchburg community.
“Homelessness isn’t insurmountable. When we come together, we can take care of it. People still have problems … but at least they can have a place to sleep at night,” he explained.
Quarantotto reiterated that although the point-in-time numbers are decreasing, it doesn’t mean Lynchburg is out of the woods yet.
“People hear that the point-in-time numbers are down, and what they hear is that homelessness is not a problem. That’s not what we’re saying,” she said. “We are doing a really good job at … doing all that we can to really address it, but it’s still an issue. [It’s] bigger. That’s policy, and that’s system, and that’s so much larger than what we can accomplish. That’s creating more affordable housing, creating more higher-wage jobs, all of these safety nets that take a community.”