Event Summary: The New Suburban Homeless

The Asset Building Program hosted an event last week to examine the rise of suburban homelessness and the broader impact of the Great Recession on homeownership and the American middle class. We invited Monica Potts, senior writer for The American Prospect, to discuss her new piece “The Weeklies,” which takes an intimate look at a cohort of newly homeless families living in hotels in suburban areas. Janis Bowdler, Economic Policy Director with the National Council of La Raza, weighed in on the interplay of the foreclosure and housing crisis with family wealth, community resilience, and the social safety net. Reid Cramer framed and moderated the conversation.

In welcoming the speakers and audience to the event, Cramer noted what a central and important aspiration homeownership has been for many American families over time. While not without its risks, homeownership has historically offered many people stability, access to community resources, and an effective wealth-building strategy. The housing crisis called much of this into question and highlighted the need for effective financial regulation and adequate consumer protections to mitigate risk. He noted that one of the key contributions of Potts’ style of journalism is to bring nuanced and deeply personal narratives from families affected by the Recession into the broader policy conversation.

Potts began by framing her latest piece as part of a larger body of work examining wealth, affordable housing, and racial disparities. Potts went to the Denver area to examine the relationship between the dramatic boom and bust of the housing market and the corresponding rise in suburban poverty rates. The families profiled in her piece are living the harsh realities captured in the data: once self-identified middle class homeowners, these families lost their homes during the crisis and now live at a local Ramada Inn, renting by the week (hence the moniker “The Weeklies”). Many, Potts noted, were uncomfortable identifying themselves as homeless or even poor and have an accompanying avoidance of seeking public support. She reports that they feel abandoned, forgotten, and incredibly frustrated with their lack of options. With very little affordable housing in the region and long waiting lists for housing vouchers, they are stuck in limbo, barely treading water as they hope to make the leap back to homeownership or stable renting. The community is struggling but has created a “new normal,” seen perhaps most poignantly through the experiences of the children affected. (Potts describes how new school bus stops have emerged to pick kids up at the hotels and their challenges trying to complete homework in such a chaotic and cluttered environment.)   

Bowdler pointed out that this particular “brand” of homelessness has occurred in communities across the U.S. When foreclosures struck (often in the wake of job loss, a sudden balloon mortgage payment, or both), many families coped initially by doubling up with relatives or friends, which masked the size of the problem somewhat but still caused a great deal of social and economic disruption. A 2010 NCLR report on the impact of foreclosures on children found some commonalities to the experiences that Potts’ piece chronicles. Bowdler noted several major challenges in supporting homeless families: many school systems are overwhelmed both by the extent of the problem and by a lack of information on which and how many students are affected. Furthermore, as Potts also discovered in Denver, many parents across the U.S. are deeply uncomfortable seeking help publicly for a variety of complex reasons. Bowdler also points to several key policy implications of Potts’ work. She identifies putting an end to foreclosure rescue scams, which was part of the financial trouble for at least one featured family, and addressing federal funding cuts to foreclosure prevention programs as important policy targets moving forward. Furthermore, Bowdler made a broader call for holistic and inclusive economic recovery: if individuals cannot successfully re-enter the economy during the recovery, there is an economic and social ripple effect that hurts us all.

Questions from the audience highlighted both the short and long term challenges of dealing with chronic homelessness in the wake of the Recession. While some public forms of assistance have proved to be quite responsive to the Recession (such as SNAP), others have been less so (such as TANF and housing assistance). Generally, benefit levels across programs are so low that families are not springing back to pre-Recession stability. Additionally, specific conditions for receiving public support or participating in a shelter program often make demands of families that they are unable or unwilling to meet. Furthermore, the unique challenges of suburban homeless families have not always been met by systems developed in urban contexts. Inadequate transportation, limited community knowledge of public supports and eligibility requirements, and forms of race and class-based stigma create significant barriers to locating and receiving support.

Thank you to all who came in person and watched live online! Anyone who missed the event or wants to see clips again can find a full recording of the event here.