What do the cities of Dallas and Seattle have in common with Appalachian communities in West Virginia and Kentucky? For Lindsay Knotts, these disparate locations all have something to teach us about finding solutions to homelessness.
Last year, homelessness increased 18% in the U.S., and Knotts knows that effectively responding requires scaling proven strategies. It will take investment, time, and perseverance, and as Enterprise’s senior director of policy focused on homelessness, Knotts sees it as her job to make sure policymakers stay focused on strategies that work and build more support for them. “I'm motivated to stay a part of this work to end homelessness because I know we can solve it – communities are doing it each day, despite mounting pressures and challenges,” said Knotts.
Ensuring long-term housing stability is a key concern for Enterprise. As one of the largest Low-Income Housing Tax Credit syndicators in the country, one out of every five tax credits we invest goes into permanent supportive housing because we know it is the most effective way of ensuring people experiencing homelessness can get connected to housing and remain stably housed long-term. We recently spoke with Knotts about the importance of partnership and persistence, and advancing proven strategies for the long haul.
You recently joined Enterprise as senior policy director for homelessness. What are your aspirations for this coming year?
Right now, we have an opportunity to build and strengthen partnerships between the homeless service system and the affordable housing system at all levels to advance proven solutions. We all feel the strain that inadequate housing supply and access puts on our communities, and there is a direct relationship between an uptick in homelessness across the country and a lack of adequate, affordable homes and the range of supportive services we all need in our communities. We can dramatically decrease homelessness if we focus on evidence-based practices that quickly connect people to the housing and services they need, such as investing in rental assistance and permanent supportive housing.
I’m also focused on changing the way we reinforce support for solutions to homelessness, drawing on the scholarship of Dr. Tiffany Manuel, the social scientist behind TheCaseMade and my former boss. We need people to understand that the aspirations they have for themselves, their families, and their communities are supported by the work to end homelessness and create more affordable housing.
You talked about the importance of partnership and collaboration to create new opportunities and respond to the need that we have right now. What is most promising and how can we individually and collectively promote this kind of constructive engagement?
We need to build a bigger choir — one that includes multiple voices across disciplines and sectors and experiences.
Naturally, housing finance agencies and developers who prioritize deeply affordable housing can help ensure that folks at all income levels have access to the housing that they need quickly.
Strengthening partnerships between the homelessness service system and schools to really understand what's going on in students’ lives can help identify families who might be on the brink of homelessness and connect them to permanent housing as quickly as possible.
Some states have been unlocking the potential of Medicaid to cover housing costs and services that support housing stability, including health and behavioral health care services. Finally, we need to get out of our silos and echo chambers, and we need to reach more everyday people in our own communities. Now more than ever, we need folks across the political spectrum and people with all kinds of lived experiences to ensure that their perspectives, strengths, and expertise are reflected in housing policies at the local and national level.
How did you first become interested in ending homelessness and what inspires you to remain focused on that goal today?
I’ve always been moved and motivated to respond to injustices. I grew up in rural West Virginia, which is where I now live again with my family. And I have seen the legacies of policy failures that play out in my home state— and in the lives of my family and the people around me. This is a place that has suffered from disinvestment for decades, and where people have been really pitted against each other. There are many ongoing challenges playing out today. But at the same time, this is also a place where there's a lot of strength and creativity and a legacy of really caring for and fighting for each other.
I’m a social worker by background and that’s my entry point into this work. Homelessness has always seemed so deeply solvable in a country where we have so much abundance.
I'm motivated because I know we can solve homelessness and ensure communities have an abundance of housing and support that benefits all of us. Even while the numbers rise, we’re ending homelessness every day by connecting folks to stable housing and supportive services in their communities. We need to increase investments in upstream interventions that ensure people aren't becoming homeless in the first place and reduce persistent disparities among those who experience homelessness.
That's inspiring. What do our friends, relatives and neighbors not understand about this issue and efforts to end homelessness and how do we help people overcome misconceptions?
It’s important to understand that this work takes time – to develop affordable housing, to connect people to it, to do the many pieces of the work that can both prevent and end homelessness.
We need to have a clear roadmap so that we can say to communities, this is our plan. This is what must happen year by year to bring affordable housing and supportive services online and who needs to be at the table with us to do it. And here is how we are going to be accountable to the public to show progress over the long haul.
We need both long- and short-term solutions to homelessness, ensuring that we are focused on expanding housing supply, while also responding to people who are outside or living in encampments in a way that promotes humanity and safety for them and the entire community.
What are some of the bright spots now? Solving homelessness for veterans has shown some good progress.
Yes, and there are others — they all have one thing in common: collaboration by partners across communities. For example, Dallas, Texas is driving down the number of people experiencing unsheltered homelessness through a street-to-home model, which brings health and behavioral health support directly to people living outside through coordinated outreach. And, when we incentivize landlords with benefits like guaranteed rent upon lease up, people get connected to housing more quickly.
My former colleagues and partners here in West Virginia are working closely with their partners in Kentucky to share best practices to prevent and end homelessness across these two states. I am also thinking about Enterprise partner Downtown Emergency Service Center in Seattle (DESC), a multi-service agency providing safe shelter and permanent housing options for people with chronic health conditions experiencing chronic homelessness. DESC has seen tremendous success in ensuring that people with intensive needs have the support they need to thrive and exit a cycle of homelessness.
Veteran homelessness is certainly a success, and we have so much to learn from how a high-quality healthcare system combined with rental assistance coordinated at the federal level can essentially end homelessness for a group of people.
What would it look like for us to replicate that for all people experiencing or at risk of homelessness? It would mean ensuring there is enough housing that people at all income levels can afford. And it would take deep investments in and coordination with our health and behavioral health care systems to ensure that everybody has access to the kind of healthcare that they need to be stably housed. I have a lot of hope that with the right investments and alignment of purpose, we can make this a reality for everyone.
Learn more about the solutions Enterprise supports to end homelessness.
