Blog: Waiting for Homeless Housing in Los Angeles
Niamh Costello
For those transitioning from homelessness to permanent housing in Los Angeles, some degree of waiting is inevitable. Homelessness is the number one public issue in Los Angeles and continues to grow despite ongoing and varied efforts to address it. Although there are numerous services aimed at helping people experiencing homelessness move into stable housing, waiting lists for permanent housing remain long, with demand outpacing availability. While some strides have been made in increasing access to services and shelter, the number of shelter beds available can serve only a small fraction of the homeless population. The availability of long-term housing options remains severely limited, limiting shelter move-on and leaving many without stable options.
Across homeless service provision, waiting is so commonplace that it might not seem worthy of scholarly attention. In his sociological account of the extended waiting faced by benefit claimants in Argentina, Auyero (2012) notes that when he proposed to study waiting, he was met with some perplexed reactions; the topic ‘was, most academic audiences seem to suggest, tackling the obvious (that poor people wait) and the perennial (that it has always been this way)’ (p. 19). Scholarship has addressed the phenomenon of waiting across a range of public services. The transferability of findings about waiting in welfare context, however, are limited to the case of waiting for housing on several grounds. First, there has been a tendency to focus on the wait for cash benefits amongst those eligible for them. This limits transferability to the housing service context, where coordinated access systems allocate housing matches through a system of prioritization, rather than eligibility. Moreover, the examination of waiting has mostly taken place in the context of access to cash welfare benefits, which have limited relevance to the housing field, where there are significant challenges in understanding and making legible service eligibility.
Context
Early on during my ethnographic field work amongst homeless service providers in Los Angeles, I observed both that a huge portion of unhoused service users were waiting for access to resources, and that they did so for exceedingly long periods of time. Participants often reported to have been waiting months, or years, for a housing placement, and through access to their case files, I was able to triangulate this information. Amongst the reasons that unhoused Angelenos wait extensively for housing, some are obvious; the city faces a shortage of affordable housing and with thousands of people experiencing homelessness, the number of available units is far from sufficient to meet the need. However, the focus of my investigation is rather how people experiencing homelessness experience and respond to these extended periods of waiting.
Responses to Waiting
After being enrolled in the city-wide register for permanent housing placements, unhoused Angelenos can wait anything from days to years to receive a housing match. Per guidance issued by the Los Angeles Homeless Service Authority and in line with federal expectations, placements are offered with respect to vulnerability, based both on categoric variables and a vulnerability index score. Through provisional analysis of ethnographic observation, I find that homeless service participants respond to and resist what they understand will be lengthy periods of waiting in several ways, several of which are outlined below.
‘Hurry up and wait’
Many participants recognize the scale of unhoused need in Los Angeles and approach seeking housing with an expectation of a lengthy wait. Amongst participants, there is an understanding of the highly bureaucratic nature of homeless service delivery and the expectations of service users to manage these demands. Some participants will therefore diligently follow the process laid out to them, hoping that indicating their commitment will result in the swiftest pathway to homeless resolution. While at times expressing impatience, participants commonly refrain they are waiting their turn, or that they will just have to “hurry up and wait”.
Avoidance
Initially, some participants will seek to avoid the waiting process altogether, looking for immediate solutions and lobbying staff to do so. Participants put in considerable effort to sidestep the waiting list by challenging the accuracy of the procedures, requesting exceptions, or highlighting their own vulnerability. In many cases, efforts to bypass the waiting list stem from a misunderstanding, either about the true length of waiting times or about the case staff's ability and willingness to explore alternative options. This approach can be effective, but this is rarely the case, and participants risk frustrating case staff and harming their service provider relationship.
Lobbying
Finally, some participants seek to progress their case by recruiting local decision makers, county supervisors, or community advocates to promote case progress, with varying degrees of success. Staff noted that while these actions didn’t lead to quicker progress, they often resulted in staff resentment rather than positive change for the participant. Participants understand the risk of “pushing too hard” but undertake the risk irrespective.
Consequences and Implications
These findings have two implications to homeless scholarship. First, examining waiting amongst homeless service users reveals how waiting produces uncertainty and despair amongst participants. For unhoused Angeleno’s waiting within the homeless response system, there are few productive pathways to achieve movement; nevertheless, participants undertake responses to waiting that reflect an effort to express agency and participate in the process of otherwise passive waiting.
Second, these responses to waiting challenge suggestions that people experiencing homelessness are service averse. While some of the responses to waiting outlined can be viewed as critical of service expectations, these actions seek to increase or hasten access to services, not avoid them altogether. To continue addressing this misnomer, greater attention to unhoused interactions with waiting and other aspects of the homeless bureaucracy are needed to detail the barriers within the homeless to housing pathway.
Citations
Auyero, Javier. Patients of the state: The politics of waiting in Argentina. Duke University Press, 2020.
