Pay Now--or Pay Later : Spare the state homeless program the budget-cutter’s ax

Since 1988, California has helped hundreds of thousands of homeless families secure shelter. The Homeless Assistance Program (HAP) provides cash for emergency housing and also helps with deposits and first- and last-months’ rent needed to get into permanent housing.

The program is needed more than ever as increasing numbers of families get caught in layoffs and other setbacks caused by the weakening economy. The economy has also put the state in a budget crisis that, added to other problems with HAP, has made it a likely target for budget cuts. But it should remain a priority.

Establishing the program settled a 1986 class action lawsuit brought by the Western Center on Law and Poverty in Los Angeles. A judge ruled that children must be allowed to live with their own families rather than be relegated to foster care if their parents become homeless. By being tied to the federal Aid to Families With Dependent Children program, the $80-million-a-year program costs the state about half that.

But the program hasn’t been problem-free. State auditors say that some recipients use rent stipends for other purposes or fraudulently seek grants from more than one county. County social workers have difficulty monitoring cash grants. These and other problems have brought the program into question.

Ways of preventing fraud, perhaps by using vouchers instead of cash or directly paying landlords, are under study. But it would be short-sighted for the state to substantially gut the program.

Aside from humanitarian considerations, common sense says children raised in stable homes are less likely to engage in costly anti-social behavior than those raised on the streets. So an important question for state government is whether to pay now or later. A recent study by a Los Angeles pediatrician indicates that more than one-third of homeless mothers were foster children themselves. That’s a cycle of poverty that the Homeless Assistance Program helps to break.