Idaho Policy Institute Shoddy Research Presented to Boise Task Force on Homelessness
Ignorance or deception?
I am on vacation in Hawaii, but it’s cloudy and early, so I decided to check out the latest on Boises Shelter Better Task Force.
The video of the Week # 6 Taskforce has not been posted, but I was able to review the “homework” assigned to the task force for this week, and I am quite disappointed in the work of the Idaho Policy Institute at Boise State in their policy paper called SITING EMERGENCY HOMELESS SHELTERS COMMUNITY OPPOSITION AND SUPPORT
First the paper purports to address the issue of Interfaith Sanctuary’s proposal to build a new emergency shelter in the City of the Boise.
The paper then goes on to study several case studies in different cities across the US. Of course the case studies give a distorted view of the success of some of the shelters and their effects on the local neighborhoods, but that is to be expected.
But what I take exception too is the end of the report when despite clearly stating the issue at hand is emergency shelters, the authors fall for the same bait and switch gaslighting that we have seen all along in this debate.
The authors acknowledge the key concerns of the community, but they then try and minimize the neighborhood concerns by referring to a study that has nothing to do with the Emergency Shelters.
First they ignore studies which clearly show adverse impacts by emergency shelters, but instead say their is no cause for concern by summarizing a study that says there is “no significant change to either property values or crime.”
Their reference for this statement is a 2008 paper called The Impact of supportive housing on surrounding neighborhoods: Evidence from New York City. by the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy at New York University.
What they hope, is that no one actually goes and reads the paper to see if it’s relevant.
If anyone did read it, they would see that the paper is written specifically to address the concerns of supportive housing vs “group homes” in neighborhoods.
I am going to state it clearly. An Emergency Shelter is a group home, it is not supportive housing. Furthermore, what Interfaith Sanctuary proposes is not supportive housing, despite trying to state they provide supportive services.
The scope of this study by the Furman center is clearly stated in the footnotes.
To quote directly: (emphasis is mine)
Supportive housing is defined as permanent, affordable housing with on-site social services for formerly homeless, disabled and at-risk individuals or families. Residents in supportive housing developments, unlike those in temporary or transitional housing options, sign a lease or make some other long-term agreement;
Interfaith Sanctuary’s Emergency Shelter, is not permanent, does not require residents to sign and lease, and is not designed for long term living.
One of the arguments that the neighborhood has made is that the Emergency Shelter system that Boise uses is not the most effective model of helping the homeless, and that supportive housing as defined above is.
Yet here we have proponents of the shelter either outright trying to deceive the public by using that very proof to justify something completely different, or displaying a complete lack of knowledge on the nuances of the debate about how to serve the homeless population.
Furthermore, the Idaho Policy Initiative completely ignored the relevant studies that address the impacts of homeless shelters on the local neighborhoods.
The most rigorous study of the crime and homeless shelters is the 2018 paper called Effect of Emergency Winter Homeless Shelters on Property Crime by Faraji, Ridgeway and Wu at the University of Pennsylvania which utilizes random Emergency Shelter placement in the City of Vancouver to determine that:
We found strong evidence that the presence of a shelter is associated with an increase in property and mischief crime, with a decreasing effect with increasing distance from the shelter. When shelters open we find that within 100 meters of the shelter total property and mischief crimes increase by 56.3%.
Inevitably the proponents of the emergency shelter will try and say that this only covers property and mischief crimes, but it should be noted that the authors specifically weren’t able to study crimes against persons, since the Vancouver police do not release that information.
The other issue that the Idaho Policy Institute mentions in property values. And yet again they fail to cite the only relevant research having to do with Emergency Shelters called Close to Home: Does Proximity to a Homeless Shelter Affect Residential Property Values in Manhattan? by New York City Independent Budget Office which finds a clear impact on property values located by emergency shelters.
While I have tried to hold off on commenting on the Boise Shelter Better Task Force because I wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt on impartiality, I couldn’t let this attempt at gaslighting go un-addressed.
I call on the Idaho Policy Initiative to formerly retract their policy paper, and for the Task Force to extend their deadline to address these points.
Otherwise, I will have to conclude that this whole Task Force exercise is rigged and illegitimate.
Forgive any grammatical errors. I typed this is a rush while on vacation.
Wow! Thanks for following up on this research. I tend to trust the work that Idaho Policy Institute (and their lead researcher, who I won't name here). This will certainly raise my 'critical thinking' awareness when looking at their publications. I have looked a great deal into their New Path Home report, and even with all of their financial assumptions, the reality is that their specific type of PSH is unsustainable (we are seeing the indicators of this as funding sources start to dwindle away and the City has to take on a more significant burden of operational funding)
Unfortunately, this is one of the many dominoes that has fallen in place (strategically by City Leadership) to coerce the Task Force to recommend a poor location for an unsafe and ineffective shelter model.
My hope is that City leadership, non-profit leaders, advocates for the housing insecure, and all Boise citizens will look at this issue as critically as you have.
As a first responder in the Shoreline area, I know that large low-barrier congregate shelter (the IFS model) is not safe! The families and individuals experiencing homelessness are not safe in a congregate shelter, and the surrounding community public safety suffers.