
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, June 12, 1995                   TAG: 9506130012
SECTION: EDITORIALS                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

HOMELESSNESS: HOORAY FOR HIP

VIRGINIA lawmakers are often - and often justifiably - criticized for doing more to respond to social problems than to prevent them. In 1989, however, the legislature set up an initiative that has helped save hundreds of families from falling into the hole of homelessness.

For that effort, the Virginia Coalition for the Homeless gives a good share of credit to Roanoke Del. Victor Thomas. Thomas is one of only a few lawmakers, coalition leaders say, who have taken the plight of the homeless to heart, and have persistently prodded the General Assembly to act more effectively to reduce their numbers.

The Virginia initiative, called the Homeless Intervention Program, or HIP, was one of the first of its type in the nation. The Children's Defense Fund recently cited it as exemplary among state governments' efforts to prevent homelessness.

HIP focuses on families that, ordinarily self-sufficient, find themselves on the brink of losing their homes because of unexpected financial emergencies. They are families for whom an illness, an accident or a job layoff had made it temporarily impossible to pay the rent or make mortgage payments.

Administered through the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development, HIP makes available to such families short-term grants or loans to relieve the financial crisis and the imminent danger of eviction or foreclosure. Assistance is funneled to families in need via 10 community organizations across the state, including, in this region, Total Action Against Poverty and New River Community Action.

Begun with a modest $1 million state appropriation, HIP in its first year, 1990, served 1,770 Virginians. Nearly half of those helped were children. About 55 percent of the households receiving help were headed by women; the families were about evenly divided between black and white.

Families received help for an average of three months, at an average cost per family of $1,562. By contrast, in 1990 the average cost in Virginia for housing a family in a homeless shelter for three months was $4,403.

That's one measure of cost-effectiveness. There are others. Many homeless shelters in Virginia, for instance, don't allow families to stay together. (The Roanoke area is one of few in the state where shelters try to keep families intact.) What often happens is that an evicted family must split up. Sometimes, the children must be placed in foster care, at taxpayers' expense.

Too often, the children's schooling is seriously disrupted. Bumped around, physically and emotionally, they may start failing in school, and eventually drop out. Need anyone be reminded of the future social costs this might entail in terms of joblessness, welfare, drugs and crime?

Sensibly, the '89 legislature concluded that helping a family in crisis hang on to its home is better than later trying to salvage a family that has undergone the shattering effects of homelessness. The legislature has subsequently built on the HIP program, which through 1994 provided emergency financial assistance to 14,000 people in 5,000 families.

The latest coalition study found that homelessness increased statewide in 1994, and counted 15,000 children in Virginia who were housed in shelters last year. Trying to establish accurate figures on homelessness is difficult, but the coalition's tally at least suggests a need for intensification of prevention efforts. Even so, thanks to lawmakers like Thomas, many Virginia children will be sleeping tonight not in temporary shelters, but in the security of their own beds in their own homes.

by CNB