ALICE Households and Invisible Homelessness

From "Devoured Houses" in The Wages of Peace

More common than someone experiencing homelessness or extreme poverty are very low-income households that earn too much money to qualify for help, or are overlooked by

churches and organizations but are at risk of homelessness or other vulnerable situations. Children in these households are at higher risk of adverse childhood experiences. These families are known as ALICE households: asset limited, income constrained, but employed. ALICE is a household with two working parents, perhaps one working full-time and one part-time, who bring in approximately $55,000 a year. They might be spending 50 percent or more of their monthly income on rent, and after other basic needs such as utilities, food, gas, car payments, and especially childcare, they are struggling. They do not have enough disposable income to save. If the car breaks down or someone needs to visit the

emergency room, they could be in trouble. Many of us are accustomed to seeing people experiencing homelessness or other people in poverty. But the federal poverty line for one person for 2023 is $14,550, which translates to just under $7 an hour working full-time. As noted earlier, the hourly minimum wage in Washington State is $15.74. Just about anyone can walk into any fast-food restaurant and earn $17 an hour. But that won’t go far enough to rent an average apartment in my region. Most households are ineligible for social service benefits if they earn more than 200 percent of the federal poverty level. There were many social service benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic, but as that funding dwindled, we reverted to having few services available besides food subsidies. A significant risk to these families is the massive rent increases we have seen recently. I have met with families who

were already struggling financially and who then received notice that their monthly rent would increase by $200, $300, or sometimes $500. This often forces a family to look for a

new home, which requires competing with all the other families struggling to pay increasing rent. Many landlords have increased the number of months’ rent up front to filter out the competition and riskier tenants. An ALICE household, not having had any disposable income for years, does not have the $3,000 to $5,000 in upfront costs to move into a new

apartment. Families work, fight, and borrow to make these transitions work, but when rents increase, a few more families fall through the cracks. An ALICE family may be easy to overlook in part because they are not (yet) homeless. A single parent spending 60 per-

cent of her income on rent who has fallen behind on other bills may not currently be homeless, but that family is on that trajectory. It is only a matter of time or a matter of the next

car breakdown or illness. Still, they are distinct from families, children, and youth who are already unhoused. I managed the human services department for a small local city for a time. Part of my job became going around the community explaining that we should spend less energy fretting about the tent encampments popping up. Yes, this is a problem we need to deal with. But there is another category of homelessness that is more urgent and which we cannot see on the way to the grocery store. When families with children become homeless, they are not as likely to pitch a tent on the street. Some go to a homeless shelter, but those are temporary solutions that are often full. Most families either move into their vehicles or start couch-surfing. Often, living in a car will become couch-surfing, especially in

extreme weather. It is becoming more common to see one- or two-bedroom apartments with several families squeezed into them. This is also risky because if the landlord discovers this, it can lead to eviction for all the families, increasing the number of households looking for somewhere affordable. Without a massive investment by the federal government, it is unclear how we will solve the country’s burgeoning homelessness crisis. Once someone becomes homeless, they are very likely to acquire a mental health and substance abuse issue regardless of whether they had one beforehand. Providing multiple years of housing and rehab for everyone who needs it would require tremendous time and money. While we continue working to mitigate homelessness, our communities have many ALICE families. These families are an excellent place for us to invest our resources because we can

help those working adults navigate toward better-paying jobs and prevent future adverse childhood experiences for the children and youth in those households. It is much more affordable, has a more straightforward pathway to success, and is one of the best long-term investments in our communities. There are many other ways we are devouring houses,

including the subtle ways we encourage exploitation and lock people into poverty. One complex issue that serves as a good example is work requirements for federal benefits. Most

people would agree that someone who can work should do so rather than depend on social services and public funding. However, since the 1996 welfare reform efforts, we have gone

too far in the direction of reducing and restricting benefits. The social service system is much less robust, and the available resources have many restrictions and requirements. People must be working to be eligible, and they must be willing to take a job quickly. This makes sense, except in most cases, people are compelled to take poverty-wage jobs. So if someone is not eligible for a social service if they turn down a job, they must take a job even if it pays close to the minimum wage, with which almost no one in the United States can afford rent. Therefore, a system that is supposed to serve as a safety net while people prepare for and seek out good jobs locks people into poverty wages. Much has been written about the opioid crisis and the billions of dollars in profit from drugs such as OxyContin.

Much has been discussed about tipping culture in the United States and the shockingly low minimum tipping wage. Many decry the volume of undocumented workers from whom Americans receive low-cost goods and services. Parents with young children struggle mightily to make ends meet until their children age into kindergarten or other publicly funded

schooling options. Transportation, infrastructure, and schools in low-income communities are chronically underfunded and overlooked. Health insurance is simultaneously costly and

unusable due to high deductibles and copayments. How, then, do we proceed?