The Fredericksburg Regional Continuum of Care’s Homeless Helpline is the primary access point for housing assistance in Planning District 16, which includes Caroline, King George, Spotsylvania and Stafford counties as well as the City of Fredericksburg.
But from July through December of 2024, the helpline was only able to refer one in 10 households to shelter out of the 1,256 who called seeking assistance, according to the Homeless Response Systems Gaps Analysis report performed by the Technical Assistance Collaborative (TAC), a Boston nonprofit that focuses on homelessness, human services, healthcare and affordable housing.
Only 6% of the households, representing 3,200 people, were referred to prevention, while 1% were referred to problem-solving and diversion programming. More than four in 10 households (a total of 500) in a six-month period weren’t offered any referral because there was no capacity to assist them, according to the report.
“So, I think the hard thing about the helpline is that it ended up being a catch-all for any housing resource and not only people who are currently or expected to experience homelessness in the very near future,” said Sam Shoukas, the housing and community health program director for the George Washington Regional Commission, which serves the planning district. “So, if someone falls behind on their rent or they’ve gotten a ‘pay or quit’ [notice] or being taken to court for eviction, those aren’t people who are technically homeless, but they’re calling the helpline for assistance.”
The helpline’s limitations were just one troublesome aspect of the report, which also noted that housing in the region is becoming increasingly unaffordable, eviction rates are on the rise and racial disparities are disproportionately affecting Black households.
“This report offers a roadmap, not just for service providers, but for local governments, community leaders and funders,” CoC Board Chair Cait Woodward said. “It’s more than a set of recommendations, but a call to action for every part of our community to come together and help build a system where no one falls through the cracks.”
Disparities aren’t Black and white
While Black households make up 60% of those served in homelessness prevention programming in the region, only 40% exit to a permanent destination. On the other hand, white households comprise 30% of those in prevention programming, and 60% exit to a permanent destination. Shoukas said that while the CoC has examined racial disparities for several years, the issue has many layers.
“There are more people of color falling into homelessness than what poverty alone can explain,” she said.
A total of 2% of Black households had a Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH) move-in date compared to 4% of all households, 5% of white households and 13% of Hispanic/Latino households.
Among families exiting the homeless system in the region, 63% of Black families departed to a permanent destination, including subsidized and non-subsidized housing or moving in with family members or friends, compared to 80% of white families and 71% of families overall.
The report noted that the trends involving race aren’t uncommon, either in Virginia or across the nation.
“Households of color are disproportionately impacted by tenant-screening practices that include credit history, criminal background checks, eviction history, and minimum income requirements, which create systemic barriers to accessing private market housing,” the report stated.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development identifies the regional CoC as “largely suburban.” Fredericksburg is listed as urban, with most of the area’s unhoused population located in the city. Stafford is considered predominantly urban; Spotsylvania is predominantly rural; and Caroline and King George are rural.
The report found that households from the other four localities are less likely to connect with CoC services than their counterparts in Fredericksburg.
“I think it is a challenging area with the amount of rural area that we’re covering and the city being as small as it is,” Shoukas said.
City residents more aware of resources
Fredericksburg is the only locality with a public transportation system, and the other areas have limited access to public transit that connects them to the services, most of which are in the city.
This disparity contributed to Fredericksburg residents accounting for 33% of the helpline calls, 39% of shelter referrals and 31% of the referrals to prevention despite representing only 17% of the CoC’s population living in poverty and 16% of McKinney-Vento students. The McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act is a federal law passed in 1987 that ensures educational rights and services for children experiencing homelessness.
On the other end of the spectrum, Spotsylvania residents make up 35% of the region’s population living in poverty, 48% of McKinney-Vento students and 32% of eviction filings. However, the county only accounts for 16% of referrals to prevention and 14% of people in shelters or seen by street outreach employees on the night of the winter Point in Time count this past January.
Stafford makes up 31% of the CoC’s poverty population and 30% of families severely burdened by the cost of housing.
“Several families reported traveling out of state to join other waitlists in an attempt to get long-term affordable housing,” the report noted of the region’s northernmost locality. West Virginia is one common destination for families in the Fredericksburg area seeking subsidized housing.
Survey and stakeholder responses also identified a lack of affordable childcare and minimal support with workforce development as factors limiting sustained employment and housing stability in the region.
The TAC report also addressed two developments in the past year — a law-enforcement-driven effort in Spotsylvania to clean up homeless encampments and the GWRC’s creation of a street outreach position.
The report concluded that the removal of the encampments is a strategy that is not focused on access to shelter or housing and “therefore may not permanently resolve the issue.”
“Focus group attendees who had experienced unsheltered homelessness said they did not opt to stay outside and would have come inside if offered an emergency shelter bed,” the report stated.
The street outreach team has “limited capacity” to fully reach and address the needs of unsheltered households, the report concluded. CoC members who were surveyed identified affordable housing and low-barrier shelter as the resources most lacking to support homeless families in the region.
Many PSH resources are dedicated to veterans, and while that effort has been successful in limiting veteran homelessness, there is no family PSH effort unrelated to veteran services.
On top of that, approximately 1,600 units or 24% of the region’s federally assisted affordable rental housing units, including Section 8 and HUD-insured properties, will lose subsidies by 2029 and another 2,200 or 33% will lose subsidies by 2033.
A ‘low-barrier’ approach is needed
The TAC provided recommendations that would assist the region’s CoC in improving the operations of the homeless response system.
The report recommends creating a clear, low-barrier approach for homeless families to access permanent housing resources using an existing coordinated entry system.
The TAC suggested the Rapid Rehousing in Virginia program, which is designed to quickly move homeless individuals and families into permanent housing, as an initial intervention. Once a household demonstrates a need for a longer-term intervention, it moves on to permanent housing or a long-term subsidy. This frees up Rapid Rehousing for another household.
The report also suggested that the CoC explore partnerships with Low-Income Housing Tax Credit units, the Section 811 Project Rental Assistance program and multifamily housing providers. According to the report, CoC staff could benefit from regular training on the housing-first approach and housing-focused practices, which are methods of addressing homelessness by prioritizing immediate, permanent housing to individuals and families experiencing homelessness, without prerequisites or barriers to entry.
“Survey results demonstrated some staff had not been trained in housing-first or housing-focused case management within the last two years,” the report stated.
For Shoukas, there weren’t any surprises in the gap analysis report. She said the CoC is working to analyze the data and come up with implementation recommendations for an upcoming strategic plan renewal.
“I think the biggest thing we saw [from the report] was that even though we have a really strong system, there are still just not enough resources in our community to respond to the issue of homelessness,” Shoukas said … “I think the gap analysis highlighted things that most of our providers already knew — lots of people are asking for help and there’s not enough services in our area.”
