We are halfway through 2021!
"This is still a manageable problem, but we have to stay ahead of it and that takes a serious investment in prevention. We thank you for being a part of that, and helping us address the housing crisis - one family at a time." - Ali Rabe, Executive Director
Many industries are good at identifying problems once they exist. For example, the health care industry often doesn't see patients until after sickness has already struck, and providers must manage the situation with a combination of pills and procedures. This reactionary approach always comes at a cost. As Benjamin Franklin said, "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." When we wait for a problem to happen, we've already missed an opportunity.
Unfortunately in the United States, housing policies and resources often reflect this same reactionary approach to housing, with a focus on responding to homelessness after it happens. I saw the effects of this firsthand before joining Jesse Tree, when I supported local governments in the Bay Area in their efforts to end homelessness. There are 10,000+ people living outside in San Francisco alone, and much of our work was focused on spending tens of millions of dollars to fund shelters and permanent housing vouchers to support people who were experiencing homelessness - some for 20+ years. Meanwhile, hundreds of new families were being evicted and becoming unhoused each month.
One day, while talking with people outside of Glide Community Shelter in the Tenderloin District I met a young couple who had just lost their home. They still had hope and were considering their options. I also talked to others who had been homeless for years - even decades. I will never forget a man named Henry, who had lost his home in the early 2000s when the cost of housing in the area started to trend upwards. He was a regular, hardworking guy when several things happened to him at once - job loss, divorce, and a rent increase. He started staying in the shelter and never left. Here he was, years later, with a mountain of health issues and facing financial and legal barriers to getting off the street and into new housing.
The Treasure Valley's housing market is booming, so much so that our community continues to receive coverage in the national news circuit. We've all experienced it personally, somehow: either through an impossible home search, skyrocketing rents, or rising property taxes. We are all watching fields turn into subdivisions, while the cost of housing continues to go up. The housing crisis is so real - and so dire - it sometimes seems hopeless.
We do this work with the hope that our community can choose a different path than the reactionary one many other cities in America have chosen. Homelessness isn't so bad here - yet - that we can't solve it, and we must continue to work upstream. We are doing so one family at a time. There are now more government resources available to the community than ever before, with temporary rental assistance funds available through our partners at the Idaho Housing and Finance Association and the Boise City-Ada County Housing Authority. Jesse Tree is now able to directly assist around 30% of the families who apply to us for assistance - a far higher percentage than we were able to help last year. We have received more private funding than in years past - mostly from individuals like you - which has allowed us act more quickly in urgent cases in eviction court or other situations where people are not eligible or able to access government assistance in time.
Much of our success is thanks to support from people like you, who are stepping up every day to support our vision: a community where every family has a safe and stable place to live. Thank you for continuing to be a part of our work in preventing homelessness from happening to our neighbors and community. We are proud to share some of our accomplishments as we reach the halfway point of 2021.