Drake University worked with Polk County continuum organization Homeward on a study about families experiencing homelessness in Des Moines. (Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images)
A study from Drake University, in partnership with homelessness planning organization Homeward, found that the amount of family shelters and affordable housing need to be expanded in order to meet the need from families experiencing homelessness, and the community needs to come together and try to lower barriers for those putting everything they can into finding a stable home.
Elizabeth Talbert, an assistant professor of sociology at Drake who co-led the research, said the findings weren’t groundbreaking, as those working in homelessness support already have an understanding of what is wrong and what is needed. However, having both the results and the stories of the families they worked with down on paper will help inform people and influence policy decisions.
“I think we often talk about homelessness on a systems level — a level at which it needs to be discussed — but we sometimes lose the people who are very vulnerable and also very much in need of a really intelligent, data driven conversation,” Talbert said.
Drake University faculty and students collaborated with Homeward, Polk County’s continuum of care, for the study, which is an extension of the Unsheltered Des Moines Study, released in January 2023. Talbert said the team came in under budget for the first study, which allowed them to fund further research.
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While the Unsheltered Des Moines Study brought together data from more than 150 individuals experiencing homelessness in the Des Moines metro, Talbert said they decided to work much more in-depth with a few families for the new Unsheltered Families Des Moines Study. The researchers conducted long initial interviews before following families as they went about their days trying to find housing and other necessary resources. The report listed 10 individuals who participated.
“Families were very open and were wonderful, sharing a lot of good things, bad things, hard things, with us,” Talbert said.
Angie Arthur, executive director of Homeward, said the organization supported the research through funding, providing connections to family shelters, helping to put the final report together and get the information out to the public.
Report details family stress from housing search, need for greater support
Housing was the ultimate goal for the families the team worked with, and the parents “put in a lot of time, money, effort, anxiety toward finding good housing for their kids,” Talbert said. Each of the families shared anxieties about time limits put in place by the shelters they stayed at, though extensions were available that they could ask for.
She called the moment a family enters a shelter after losing their housing, whether it’s for the first time or a readmittance, a “really acute moment of crisis” for many of them. The family members she and the team spoke with were given aliases for their privacy, and any identifying information was left out of the report.
While families expressed their gratitude for the shelters and said in the report that they gave them the chance to focus on their families and improve their situation, some had a hard time figuring out which organizations had the information or resources they needed in the housing and other processes.
“I do think the report helps people understand the situations that families experiencing homelessness find themselves in and just some of the daily challenges to transition into that permanent housing,” Arthur said.
Recommendations from the report include expanding the number of family shelters in the Des Moines area, as well as greatly increasing the amount of affordable housing available for people of different income levels and situations. Arthur said the report affirmed what they already knew the community needs.
Talbert said a centralized hub for information on the different aspects of finding housing would be incredibly helpful for families, and Arthur added that ways to help them with the various costs and fees of applying and putting a deposit down on housing should be implemented.
Homeward is working with partners to develop a five-year strategic plan for the homelessness system in Polk County, and said more information will come out early next year.
Touching on a ‘very timely issue’
This study comes at a time when the need for aid and support is growing. The number of families experiencing homelessness has grown over the past few years, Arthur said, and the waitlist of families trying to get into a family emergency center is the largest it’s ever been.
“Knowing that, and knowing that we would like to find new ways to be able to support our families in the community, this is something that we thought was important to better understand and learn from their experiences and their expertise, to be able to support the efforts that we want to do as a community to end family homelessness,” Arthur said.
The City of Des Moines passed ordinances in September banning camping in public spaces or on public property and shortening the notice period for the removal of an encroachment from 10 days to three days. Arthur said the organization doesn’t see many families who are camping or are remaining unsheltered, so the impact on that group will be small, but it will have a “significant impact” on individuals experiencing homelessness.
Whether they’re camping or living in a shelter, Talbert said giving those experiencing homelessness an ultimatum or punishment related to the way they’re living does not motivate them to find permanent housing, not when there’s already the intrinsic motivation to get themselves into a safer, more comfortable place.
There is a popular myth that the majority of people camping or living unsheltered prefer it that way, and keep doing it because no one has told them not to. Talbert said this is untrue, as only two of the more than 150 people interviewed in the Unsheltered Des Moines study indicated a wish to stay camping.
The reality is that there is not enough affordable housing in the Des Moines area, Talbert said, and it is very difficult for those going through a crisis to muddle through the process to get it.
“This has been a very timely issue for our city, and I think that there is a lot more to learn, especially as we see these numbers increasing, and there’s policy changes like the ban on camping,” Talbert said. “I am very open to this, and I do hope to … have Drake partner with Homeward into the future to see what we can learn and how we can better provide data to make really good policy here in Des Moines.”
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