Housing vouchers for homeless, mentally ill raise concerns

A group of people experiencing homelessness say they’re confused why they received housing vouchers for people with mental illness when they’ve never been diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder.

People living at Warren Residences, a St. Francis property, said they recently received their long-awaited vouchers. “Mental Health Center Denver” is listed as the agency through which vouchers were received.

Jacque Findley wondered if people with mental illness are being denied housing opportunities with the vouchers being misdirected. She also wondered if having “mental illness” printed on the front of the voucher would lessen an applicant’s chances of signing a lease.

“Upon speaking further with Jacque, she expressed concerns that these vouchers were specifically meant for those with mental health issues, and that she and her peers, who had never been treated nor diagnosed for such, were receiving these vouchers under the threat of being evicted from their current program if they did not use them,” Housekeys Action Network Denver reported in a news release.

Forced into boxes

According to HAND, Findley’s concerns have merit. “Houseless individuals are often forced into different qualifying boxes in order to be able to access resources, including applying for housing opportunities,” according to the news release. ‘This further complicates and lengthens the process, ultimately excluding many as a means of managing very limited quantities of housing.”

In the news release, HAND quotes Paul Boden from Western Regional Advocacy Project. They took the quote for HAND’s recently released housing report, “Pipe Dreams & Picket Fences: Directions from Denver’s Houseless People on Housing Needs and Priorities in the Context of Today’s Public Housing.”

Says Boden, “Instead of denying people for housing, they set up systems of intake and screening designed to maximize the number of people deemed ineligible for service so as to not admit to the fact that there isn’t anywhere near the adequate slots for housing, or treatment, or even emergency shelter at this point. When you don’t have the capacity to meet the demand, you make it harder to become eligible.”

Voucher process unclear

According to HAND, the snafu over the vouchers is indicative of a larger problem. “This speaks to a larger issue of program staff not properly/thoroughly explaining the process to voucher recipients. Concerns of misappropriation of federal funds meant for mental health arise when the voucher funding process isn’t clear. According to “Pipe Dreams & Picket Fences,” out of 786 houseless respondents, less than 50 % knew what a housing voucher was and how it worked. With such a gap in education of housing vouchers despite being lauded as the primary pathway to housing today, more needs to be done to increase transparency around this process.”

In the meantime, HAND warns against the precedent the mental health vouchers set. “While the duress and oppression faced by houseless people can over time affect one’s mental health, automatically classifying this demographic as a whole as inherently mentally ill is problematic in its own right. If this were the case, wouldn’t poor or low-income people also be categorized as such? What does it mean when we interchange houseless, and all members of its population, with mentally ill?”

Voucher denied

According to HAND, one voucher recipient tried to use theirs at a property suggested by case managers. That person did not receive housing. “The property manager gave excuses as to why they would not accept it without outright stating so.”

HAND believes Mental Health Center Denver should not be listed on the voucher. “It seems irresponsible and inappropriate for any mention of mental health needs to be listed on a housing voucher and becoming information shared with landlords,” according to the news release. “This is not only unnecessary, but also a violation of privacy and health information for those who do receive services through a mental health program. It should not be another factor weighed in landlords’ decisions and could be easily removed from the documentation, so they are indistinguishable from any other housing vouchers issued by the state.”