Phoenix approved $1M to keep its largest homeless shelter open. The director says it isn't enough
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Last week, Central Arizona Shelter Services, the state’s largest homeless shelter, was at a precipice: facing a $1.5 million shortfall.
The shelter — which was integral in clearing out “The Zone” last year — was going to have to shut down 24-hour services. Business owners near the downtown campus started voicing concerns that a reduction in services would send people back onto the streets, and bring back the encampment just months after it was successfully cleared.
Then, the Phoenix City Council stepped in at the last minute, unanimously approving $1 million in stopgap funding to keep CASS open. But, it’s not a permanent solution for the shelter, as the number of people experiencing homelessness in Arizona continues to climb.
Lisa Glow is the CEO of CASS, and she joined The Show to talk more about it.
LAUREN GILGER: Good morning, Lisa, thanks for coming in.
LISA GLOW: Good morning.
GILGER: OK, so what is this city funding mean for CASS at this point? Will you be able to stay open 24 hours a day?
GLOW: It's a stop gap and it helps us reduce the shortfall of 1.5. We still have some other funding to raise by the end of March. But as you said, we have a crisis in homelessness and the demand has never been greater. We are a 24/7 operator both at our adult shelter and our family shelter. And we are not the only ones who have scaled up in this crisis. So the crisis was with homelessness is going to continue. We have a lot of first time homeless and inflation is rising. And so we're going to see more and more people.
I wanted to set that context and also explain that what happened in the pandemic is we were all very fortunate CASS and other providers to receive a lot of COVID money. So we scaled up in response to that and this time for the first year ever in at least a decade or more, we did not get state general operating dollars for our two shelters. That's how we got to this point. And then Phoenix stepped in as you said, helped us to close that gap, but we're going to have an ongoing gap going forward as well.
GILGER: So this has to do with the sort of the, the so called ARPA cliff, right? Like the American Rescue Plan Act, money drying up in lots of places, but also with state agencies not giving you the money they had given you in the past. How far does this get you? This is about a year of funding for you at this point.
GLOW: This gets us through June this fiscal year. So we're going to have an ongoing need for more consistent support from government. And I, I want to talk a little bit about the state because the state has been a partner for a long time, but the state has never significantly funded homelessness until last year. There was a one time fund, a homeless shelter fund and we are going to be lobed to be able to continue to have those kind of dollars going forward. Emergency shelter is the stop gap, the life saving measure for so many, not just here at CASS and in Phoenix, but throughout the state.
So we are going to continue to advocate for that increased funding because until we have enough housing, we have to shelter people, keep them off the streets. We had over 1,000 street deaths in Maricopa County last year. And that's a reality. So, I wanted to make sure people understood the context and how important it is to advocate that we have consistent sustainable government funding.
GILGER: Let me ask you one more question about the context there. As I mentioned, the the Zone was cleared out not too long ago. This was right next your shelter. You know, hundreds up to 1,000 people and I think a certain point living on the street there, those people have been moved out and into shelter in, in various forms. What has that meant for CASS and for shelter capacity. I mean, can you handle it?
GLOW: So, CASS went from 470 to 600 beds as well as 24/7 services, meaning people stay in all day. We've always been a 24/7 service provider. We've scaled up with new programming, but we didn't get the commensurate scale up in funding from government. So it is a sustainability question for us to be able to stay at that level. And that's what our board has been talking about. How do we stay at such a high level of operations? We are the state's largest longest serving emergency shelter. The need is not going away.
So, that's the question, how do we sustain at that level? We're really strong in our private fundraising efforts. We get support from nearly every municipality and now Fountain Hills is even stepping up to provide funding and they don't have a huge homeless problem there. But it's a question that we have to ask. It's a bigger question for the system as well. And again, I go back to the need for consistent government support because we've scaled up. Now, we have the COVID cliff. We have to make sure we keep people off the streets.
GILGER: Let me ask you about what's behind this rise in homelessness. We've heard so much about this. But what are you seeing on the ground? Were you hearing from people who are becoming homeless? You mentioned people who are becoming homeless for the first time.
GLOW: Right, as rents continue to escalate, especially here in Maricopa County. We have, I believe the unfortunate distinction to be Number one in evictions in the country or number two, it it varies. People are becoming homeless who cannot afford a place to live and we have a lack of housing. 270,000 affordable units across the state and shelter is the first place where people come. So we need to do all of it. Some of the populations becoming homeless in record numbers are seniors. They're about 30% of our population. We have a rise in youth homelessness. We have a rise in veteran homelessness and in chronic homelessness. So we know who we're serving. I, I want to go back for a second and talk about the Zone though.
So it was a real positive thing when the Zone was cleared out. There was a lot of pressure on Phoenix. We are keeping at that high level of beds. That was a response in order to get more people off the streets, some nights were at 650. And they also opened up a lot of different hotel temporary programs when those programs have to close, that's going to put more homeless individuals also on the streets. So we're not out of the woods by the clearing of the Zone. The city also did a very unique thing and they opened up a safe outdoor shelter, camping space, which is a positive and they can take up to 300 people there. I think they have around 50 there right now. So there are a lot of things in place. But what's that long term sustainability? What's our commitment there? And that's the concern, right.
GILGER: So what are the possibilities you're looking at? Like when business owners last week started to, to step up and say, hey, listen, we don't want a reduction in services here because we don't want the Zone to come back. Is that a real possibility if you don't get this funding going forward?
GLOW: Absolutely. I mean, we do not want to have to scale down beds or cut any services. It's just too essential. So everything is being discussed at the board level. It's a reality because we have to be able to sustain our operations.
GILGER: Last minute for you, Lisa, tell us what your options are on the table when you're looking at ongoing funding. Is this something you're looking at the state level? Is it federal? Is it a piecemeal approach?
GLOW: It's really all of it. I think the state is an important partner and last year was there was a one time homeless shelter fund that we had lobbied for that needs to continue. So we'll be lobbying for that to continue. There is going to be more federal money coming down the pipeline. There are opioid dollars we can pursue. We've always had a piece meal approach. However, to emergency shelter, I've been doing this for 6.5 years. We've got to have more consistent sustainable support so whatever avenue it comes from. We recently got licensed to become a Medicaid agency. So we're diversifying funding. But it's not just a CASS problem. This is a systems problem for our people that are becoming homeless for the first time. So there's many, many other layers but for us to be able to stay at that skilled up level, we need ongoing government support.
GILGER: All right, we'll leave it there for now, Lisa Glow, CEO of CASS, joining us. Lisa, thank you for coming in. I appreciate it.
GLOW: Thank you very much.
