The planning process to end homelessness has taken two years to complete and has utilized the energy, talent and resources of over 200 persons. Why would these individuals dare to believe that this goal is attainable?

The best answer is that we have to. We have reached what Ervin Laszlo calls "the tipping point," the "critical point of unsustainability," in regard to homeless service delivery in Evansville and Vanderburgh County.

"The tipping point comes to any complex physical, social, or political system when it reaches a critical point of unsustainability, as evidenced by vast changes occurring rapidly," (Laszlo, You Can Change the World: The Global Citizens’ Handbook for Living on Planet Earth, 2003)

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The statistics that indicate rates of homelessness and predetermining factors for homelessness have reached alarming levels.

On average, on any given night there are 429 individuals residing in emergency shelter or transitional housing programs in Evansville. One third of these individuals are children under the age of 18.

In addition, there are an estimated 30-40 individuals living in places not meant for habitation (under bridges, in parks, etc.)

Shelter utilization rates from spring 2002 to spring 2003 increased 18 %.

The 2000 Census indicated that Vanderburgh County had the highest homeless percentage per capita of any Indiana county.

Vanderburgh County also had the highest rate of single female head of households of any Indiana county in the 2000 Census. Single headed households are one of the groups most at risk of homelessness.

Vanderburgh County’s percentage rate of poverty for 2000 was 11.2 % compared with the state level of 9.5 %. Among families with children under the age of five, the rate dramatically increases to 20.4 %.

Average rates of filings of evictions in small claims court exceeded 3,100 annually for each of the last three years.

The waiting list for the Section 8 program is up to two years, Project Based Section

8 is up to one and one-half years, and for public housing up to six months. The number of applicants on the waiting list for local Section 8 vouchers consistently runs over 1700, but there are just over 1900 vouchers available.

According to the 2000 Census, 8,215 Vanderburgh County households are paying more than 30 % of their income on rent. This means that 37.6 % of our renters are paying rates that are higher than the percentage considered "affordable."

654 home mortgages were foreclosed in 2003, a 31 % increase over 2002. Rates for 2004 are expected to continue to increase.

2,705 bankruptcies were filed in 2003 in the ten-county Evansville Division.

Requests for financial assistance in the first half of 2004 are estimated to be 16.5 % to 30 % higher than in 2003 by local providers.

Our existing homeless programs are currently operating at capacity. Families seeking shelter are turned away daily. Men’s shelters often resort to offering mats on the floor when all their beds are filled. Waiting lists for transitional housing programs exceed capacity rates for the next 10 years. The current demand for services consistently exceeds availability.

Unemployment is not always the problem. Many of our homeless are working but do not earn wages that support the necessary expenses of life. Housing cost increases have outpaced changes in the minimum wage. In 1992 a clean, well-maintained one bedroom apartment could be rented for $225.00.Today, that same apartment rents for $340.00. This equates to a cost increase of 51 % over a twelve-year period. Incomes, particularly low wage and fixed incomes, have in no way kept pace with this rate of cost increase.

This report could simply advocate for more shelters. But in the last fifteen years we have taken that approach and while it has met immediate needs, it has done nothing to stop the growth of homelessness. Shelters are designed to provide crisis and emergency services, not to provide the permanent solutions needed to break the cycle of homelessness. Our "build it and they will come" philosophy has been more than successful. The more facilities and programs we create to meet the growing demand, the greater the demand has become.

The cost of operating at least 18 specialized programs is expensive and highly dependent upon private and governmental funds to continue operations. It is estimated that we invest over six million dollars per year to keep our current programs operating.

And at this point we cannot afford not to operate these programs. The impact to the community would be increased numbers of street dwellers, increased use of emergency rooms, increased utilization of jail beds, increased use of state hospital beds, increased unemployment, increased Child Protection Referrals…. and the list goes on. However, continuing these programs is becoming increasingly difficult because of dwindling public and private funding sources.

The Task Force to End Homelessness has considered these facts, and has become convinced that we cannot continue to "manage" the issue of homelessness through crisis intervention. Delivery of services to the homeless in Evansville and Vanderburgh County has reached the point of un-sustainability, our "tipping point." This is why we have chosen a different approach, that of redirecting our resources and energies to end homelessness.