RETHINKING HOUSING BARRIERS

Before the pandemic, Des Moines faced issues in housing insecurity. COVID-19 has only made it worse.

WORDS BY TAYLOR FISHER | ILLUSTRATION BY AMANDA O’BRIEN

After spending so much time in homes this past year, places of residence have become more important and meaningful than ever before.

For many people, the home has transformed into a safe place where every aspect of life intersects. For some residents of the Des Moines area, the idea of the home doesn’t provide the same safety it does for others due to housing insecurity. While the coronavirus pandemic has exaggerated the need for affordable housing in Des Moines and the surrounding area, it has also highlighted that the barriers to stable housing aren’t just limited to cost.

While it’s impossible to obtain an exact number of people facing housing insecurity or homelessness in Des Moines, Polk County Continuum of Care, responsible for allocating federal funding to community partners, attempts to gain an understanding of what the landscape of homelessness looks like in the city. One of the most important methods in collecting this information is through a biannual point-in-time count of unsheltered community members.

“Over a 24-hour period in January of 2021, 118 unsheltered were counted,” said Polk County Continuum of Care Executive Director Angie Arthur.

In addition, Arthur explains that a better understanding of the homelessness landscape can be seen through the number of neighbors served.

“Through community partnerships in 2020, 4,378 individuals received services,” Arthur said.

As these numbers depict, there is a vast and diverse need for resources related to housing and homelessness in the Des Moines area that has surpassed the amount of resources and funding available. In response to this need, community partners have developed a system of centralized intake, a prioritization program designed to provide resources to the most vulnerable.

“Centralized intake was established about five years ago and serves the most vulnerable through a vulnerability index,” Arthur said. “There are not enough resources to provide all levels of support to everyone.”

Through communication and partnerships among organizations, the centralized intake system allows funding and resources related to housing and homelessness to reach more people. While this system has been vital for Des Moines homelessness, there still aren’t enough resources to address the large number of Des Moines residents who face housing insecurity.

In addition, a variety of barriers can be detrimental for those seeking housing without resources. Bernadette Beck, homeless support service program manager at Primary Healthcare, outlines the common barriers to housing as relating to many social issues.

“As far as general barriers to housing, prior history of eviction, criminal history, mental illness, and substance abuse stacks on top of many’s struggle to obtain housing,” Beck said.

The coronavirus pandemic has only exacerbated these barriers, unfortunately. In terms of mental illness, shifts to telehealth during the pandemic can be very inaccessible.

“Our population doesn’t utilize telehealth in the same ways others would, due to lack of a smartphone or Wi-Fi, for example,” said Cynthia Latcham, executive director for Anawim housing—a Des Moines nonprofit that provides permanent supportive housing. “Mental health services are important to our population with severe

mental illness such as bipolar disorder, methamphetamine use, or schizophrenia. It’s where harm reduction comes in.”

It’s not only healthcare offices that have moved to online formats, however.

A variety of other organizations, which people facing housing insecurity rely on, have been shut down, making these resources difficult or impossible to receive. For example, Primary Healthcare’s Homeless Support Services Director Shelby Ridley directly sees this impact on social security.

“Social security benefits and help has been moved over the phone, which often have hour-long waits, or online,” Ridley said. “Navigating this new system has become a difficult barrier for many that we serve.”

In addition, YMCA Supportive Housing has noticed impacts on the mental health of its residents in permanent supportive housing “ since the beginning of the pandemic. “The pandemic has been devastating to people’s mental health. Loneliness is a big thing, people THE PANDEMIC HAS BEEN DEVASTATING TO PEOPLE’S MENTAL miss social events, HEALTH. LONELINESS IS community meals, A BIG THING, PEOPLE and not having normal support MISS SOCIAL EVENTS, groups and classes,” COMMUNITY MEALS, said Community AND NOT HAVING Engagement Director NORMAL SUPPORT of YMCA Supportive Housing Sarah Wigen. GROUPS AND CLASSES,

The pandemic has SARAH WIGEN, COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT DIRECTOR OF YMCA

SUPPORTIVE HOUSING

brought a variety of new challenges to people facing housing insecurity, including losing jobs, accessing stimulus checks, and purchasing food.

“On top of loss of jobs, a lot of our residents walk over to the downtown Hy-Vee and back,” Wigen said. “During the pandemic when toilet paper and other goods were hoarded, [residents] could walk to the Hy-Vee and there would be nothing for them. It was impossible for them to hoard groceries like others because of cost.”

Finding solutions to these changes and challenges have often required creative adaptations to the services organizations provide.

“We were able to purchase phones and minutes for people who didn’t have them,” Latcham said.

In addition, the purchasing of phones allows Anawim employees to provide certain types of support over the phone that would have otherwise required in-person meetings.

Organizations much like Anawim are attempting to stay flexible and adapt services to fit the barriers people face. As eviction moratoriums come to an end, it’s unclear how the landscape of homelessness in Des Moines will be impacted and what the full extent of the coronavirus pandemic has been to residents.

Since the prospect of homelessness in Des Moines is continuously changing, many Des Moines organizations and groups rely on support from volunteers and donors. To best support many of these organizations, it’s important to understand the nature of volunteering during pandemic-times as a whole.

“Support financially, whether through dollar gifts, by purchasing items off our Target wishlist, or donating gift cards,” Latcham said. “Every time someone moves into new housing, [Anawim] provides them with things like silverware, towels, sheets.”

Anawim also provides plenty of ways to get connected outside of financial gifts, including attending events, organizing a donation drive, sponsoring a family, or teaching others about Anawim and its mission. Anawim’s list of ways to give can be found on its website at www.anawimhousing.org/ways_to_give.

Similarly, Primary Healthcare highlights the needs for funds for the support it provides to clients.

“Donated funds can be used for I.D. or birth certificate fees. These costs are things grants don’t write in,” Ridley said.

If interested, donate directly to Primary Healthcare’s website or find a list of needed items at phciowa.org/homeless-supportservices/#donate.

On the other hand, YMCA Supportive Housing has shifted to offsite volunteer opportunities.

“[Volunteers] make blankets, kindness bags for residents, holiday cards,” Wigen said.

In addition to these volunteer opportunities, YMCA Supportive Housing is always accepting donations for its food pantry, both in monetary donations and in food items. A variety of other needbased opportunities can be found by following the Facebook page @YMCASHC. The page is also a great way to learn more about YMCA Supportive Housing’s residents, services, and values.

Those interested in getting involved with YMCA Supportive Housing at any level can contact Sarah Wigen at sarah.wigen@dmymca.org.

Regardless of where or how one wishes to get involved in the issue of housing insecurity in the Des Moines area, there are always opportunities.

“Many organizations do collections of supplies, food, and weather-appropriate clothing,” Arthur said. “[People can] visit the various social media organizations in town and they will let you know what they need.”

For a list of homeless organizations in Polk County to get further involved, visit www.polkcares.org/get-involved/volunteer/.