Montgomery is paying $5,720 a day to house a record 52 homeless families at motels, as the county struggles to accommodate a growing needy population when all county shelter beds are full and the economy is worsening.
“We’re meeting the need, and not one family will sleep on the streets in Montgomery County,” County Councilman George Leventhal said. “But obviously a motel is not the most desirable option from the standpoint of both the families and the taxpayers.”
Council members took $4.5 million this year from an affordable housing fund to pay for a new “Housing First” program that focuses on the construction or rental of permanent housing for the homeless.
The new program began in July, but given the nation’s economic woes, the county has been overwhelmed by the number of residents who need help, according to Uma Ahluwalia, director of the county’s Health and Human Services Department.
“We’ve made inroads into placing people into permanent housing, but the economic situation has impacted some of our assumptions,” Ahluwalia said. “People are more in need. The tightening of the housing market, the increase in unemployment and the foreclosure crisis have made it harder to move people as quickly as we’d like to.”
The county pays $110 a day per family for motel housing.
Last year there were between 35 and 45 homeless families in motels at any given time, but officials set aside less money for motels this year because they hoped the permanent housing program would decrease demand.
On Thursday, Ahluwalia told council members that if the need for housing remains steady, the county will run out of money to pay for motel rooms in April — the funds were supposed to last through June.
Sarah Mahin, spokeswoman for the Montgomery County Coalition for the Homeless, said Friday that despite the record number of families needing help, she believes the county’s new approach to fighting homelessness has been a success.
“It does take awhile to get a new program off the ground, plus we’re seeing unprecedented numbers of people around the country becoming homeless,” Mahin said. “I would argue that without this new resource, there would be even more families homeless right now. We’ve been doing a lot of work on the prevention side, trying to help people stay in their homes in the first place.”
