Last week HUD released the 2021 Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR) to Congress - Part 1 (AHAR) which reports the results from the most recent annual point in time (PIT) count held in January 2021. If you are not familiar with the PIT count, it is an annual nationwide count of homeless people on a single night.

The AHAR placed Delaware second highest among states in the proportional increase of its sheltered homeless population. Specifically, “Fourteen states reported increases in the number of people staying in shelter between 2020 and 2021. … States with the largest percentage increases were in Vermont (160%), Delaware (56%), and Arkansas (35%)” (page 13).   

Fifty-six percent looks like a huge increase. But I’m going to argue that it may be a sign that Delaware’s doing something right. 

This substantial increase in the sheltered population came during a transformational systemic shift from sheltering Delaware’s homeless population in congregate (emergency shelter and transitional housing) to non-congregate (hotels and motels) settings. Housing Alliance Delaware (HAD), which coordinates Delaware’s PIT count, noted in a May 2021 press release how: “on the night of the 2021 PIT, 839 people [in both family and individual households] were temporarily sheltered in a hotel or motel in Delaware, compared to 50 people in 2020 [while] congregate emergency shelter beds decreased by more than 100 beds. In addition, bed utilization was at an all-time low of 48% on the night of the PIT.”  

This means that those counted in the PIT while experiencing homelessness in hotel and motel settings increased 16-fold from 2020 to 2021, while those in congregate settings actually decreased by 23 percent over this period (from 965 people in 2020 to 740 people in 2021). It also means that the State of Delaware, who funded the hotel and motel stays, grew in 2021 to shelter more people than all of Delaware’s other homeless services providers combined.  

This shift came about during the COVID-19 pandemic. Homeless services providers were forced to reduce capacity in their congregate facilities while people became much more reluctant to stay in these places. In the meantime, the State, through its Division of State Service Centers (DSSC), greatly expanded their limited hotel and motel voucher program to place households (individuals and families) who had COVID-related housing emergencies or who were homeless and who needed to quarantine, in hotel and motel rooms.  

A study that I did last year that examined family homelessness in Delaware shows an additional aspect to this transformation. While the numbers of homeless families in DSSC-funded hotels and motels in a single night increased along the lines of what I just described, the total number of homeless families that DSSC served over the course of 2021 actually declined a little. This means that the rising homeless numbers noted on the PIT count did not come from more families experiencing homelessness but because those families who were homeless stayed in the system longer. And, indeed, we found that, for a homeless family staying in a motel, the average stay tripled, from 19.2 days in 2020 to 62.4 days in 2021.

Nationwide, the AHAR reports that “the share of emergency shelter beds for people experiencing sheltered homelessness located in non-congregate settings increased by 134 percent” (page 3). This is clearly a high rate, but one that is far lower than the rate in Delaware. Delaware, in the face of the pandemic, went to heroic lengths to provide hotel and motel vouchers to accommodate the state’s homeless population. In doing so, they did not so much take on more people; instead they increasingly provided stays in hotels and motels for extended time periods. This not only provided homeless households a respite from the pandemic, but also from a very difficult housing market. Ironically, Delaware’s accommodating nature manifested itself in an increased PIT count number.

In 2022 this may reverse itself. By all indications, the State has been scaling down its hotel/motel voucher program during the latter part of 2021 and into 2022. DSSC Director Renee Beaman, during the Delaware Continuum of Care’s 2021 Quarterly Meeting in January, announced that DSSC was providing motel vouchers for 482 people at that time. This contrasts with 839 people from a year ago. The exit destinations of those whose motel vouchers ended are unclear. But this downsizing occurred while the Omicron variant of COVID-19 was raging, and while housing remained in tight supply. On a positive note, fueled by this reduced provision of hotel and motel vouchers, my prediction is that Delaware will see a marked drop in its homeless count for the 2022 PIT.