Renewing Our Commitment to End Homelessness in Orange County
COVID laid bare the struggles of many in our community. By acting together with urgency, we can make our community truly inclusive and welcoming for all.
Blame it on El Nino, or climate change, or perhaps Duke trying to find a way to avoid visiting the Dean Dome this basketball season, but regardless of the cause, this winter has been noticeably colder. For most in our community, that means more nights by the fire, ordering UberEats instead of going out, and maybe a higher heating bill. But for a small and vulnerable group in our community who are living unsheltered, it can mean a critical threat to their health and even life. Fortunately, local governments and service providers have plans for those “white flag nights” where folks can seek shelter. However, the need has continued to grow beyond previous years leading to a dedicated group of Orange County employees, Inter-faith Council for Social Service (IFC) volunteers, Chapel Hill Transit staff and crisis first responders scrambling to cobble together space, staffing, transit and supplies to meet the additional need using the Southern Human Services Building in Chapel Hill.
With many more nights forecasted below freezing before winter’s end, those systems and staff will be stressed to a breaking point due to highly limited resources and growing needs. This January alone, there were 14 nights of temperatures of 32 degrees or below where emergency cots have been assembled to provide critical warmth and food for our unsheltered neighbors. The number of people arriving on these nights has risen to as high as 27. And the need for this extra emergency shelter is in addition to the 18 cold weather cots provided by IFC throughout the winter and the year-round shelter beds provided at the IFC Community House and IFC HomeStart programs.
Homelessness spiked 12 percent nationwide in 2023, with more than 650,000 people unhoused, the highest number recorded since data collection began in 2007. Orange County is not immune to this trend, as evidenced by the stress on services, such as the cold weather cots, provided by our local safety net providers and the data collected by the Orange County Partnership to End Homelessness. The need only continues to grow.
In a community as well off as ours, how can this be the case? How can we so easily look away or forget those who, due to a complex mix of causes such as a lack of supportive and low-barrier housing and services, rapidly increasing housing costs, job loss, and cuts in state and federal funding for case management, are forced to live without the dignity that each of us deserves. How have those most vulnerable among us instead become scapegoats for everything from failed businesses to imaginary crime waves? How do we ensure we lead with compassion - which means committing to housing first and eradicating homelessness - rather than pointing fingers? And how do we move forward guided by our understanding of the historic and current systems of inequalities that have created and sustained poverty and suffering?
In Orange County, we pride ourselves on our progressive values as a community. We strive to be inclusive and welcoming. We believe that everyone should be treated with dignity. We share a desire for everyone to get and keep a roof over their heads. Ensuring long-term access to safe and affordable housing is fundamental to achieving this shared vision. Making sure that everyone has safe, stable housing benefits us all by creating a diverse, healthy and strong community.
Thanks to our community partners, we have the data, information about the evidence-based best practices, and the input from those with lived experience to understand the root causes and what must be done to successfully address them. Now is the time to make the short and longer-term investments that will tackle not just temporary and emergency housing needs, but will also address underlying issues, such as a lack of accessible housing, a lack of landlords who accept housing vouchers, the persistent underfunding at the state and federal levels of our behavioral health systems and services, jobs that pay a liveable wage with health benefits and more.
These are the root causes of our community’s homelessness challenges. And together, we have the resources we need to get it done. The gap that has prevented us from ending homelessness in Orange County, despite the fact that we know how to do it, is not resources but commitment. We have lacked the political will, the willingness to fully collaborate, the cross-sector engagement across public, private, faith-based, and nonprofit entities that this complex issue demands. That must change now - together we can do more.
We must commit now to permanent, evidence-based, and compassionate solutions to make homelessness rare, brief, and one-time in Orange County. This includes building systems that will be able to respond to housing instability and homelessness quickly and efficiently into the future. It is urgent for our community - including elected bodies, non-profits, local institutions, and impacted community members - to elevate a response to this crisis in Orange County. We must move forward on a plan that:
Acknowledges that the leading cause of homelessness is a lack of affordable, accessible housing options
Centers a rapid rehousing and housing first approach, with supportive services tailored to individual needs
Provides robust support for IFC, CEF, SOHRAD and others on the front lines
Invests in short- and long-term solutions including bridge housing, crisis services and permanent supportive housing
Commits to addressing the underlying causes of homelessness, including long-standing and enduring systemic racism and racial disparities
Prevents criminalization of poverty or homelessness.
This is not the time to look away or to point fingers. COVID laid bare and exacerbated the struggles of many in our community and we need to double down on real problem-solving approaches that acknowledge the complexity and challenges while centering dignity and compassion. By acting with urgency together, we can make our community healthier, safer and truly inclusive and welcoming for all. Orange County government, with its leadership position and convening power, should act quickly to bring all community partners together - including housing and social service nonprofits, those with lived expertise, faith communities, UNC and UNC Healthcare, schools, businesses, and local governments - to reaffirm and update commitments, and move forward with renewed urgency.