Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - August 1, 2024, Winnipeg, Manitoba THINK TANK COMMENT EDITOR: RUSSELL WANGERSKY 204-697-7269 ● RUSSELL.WANGERSKY@WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM A7 THURSDAY AUGUST 1, 2024 Ideas, Issues, Insights It’s time to move on from the Houston Model M ANITOBA politicians are fixated on the “Houston model” as the solution to home- lessness. The obsession began prior to the recent provin- cial election when Wab Kinew, then leader of the Opposition, pointed to the Houston model as the approach his government would take if elected. Since then, Houston has seen a trail of Manitoba delegations. In September 2023, Winnipeg Mayor Scott Gillingham and his housing adviser visited Houston. In March 2024, the Free Press sent a reporter, and a CBC reporter followed in May 2024. This past week, Manitoba’s housing minister took a delegation of 26 people to Houston. Houston is celebrated for its success in greatly reducing homelessness, however investigative journalists in the U.S. have revealed the same issues that Manitoba housing advocates have long pointed out, having seen the limitations of a similar ap- proach used here. What is so special about Houston? It turns out, not much. Gillingham reported being impressed “that all organizations work under one plan, with a network of members using a data-sharing system…” Perhaps the mayor didn’t know that Winnipeg has a similar system. End Homelessness Winnipeg (EHW) was estab- lished in 2015 to co-ordinate the homeless- serving sector to end homelessness in 10 years. The Coalition for the Homeless of Houston/ Harris County (CFTH) may have some useful insights for EHW. But the emphasis on co- ordination distracts from the more fundamental problem — the lack of housing and supports that require significant government investment. Rather than pointing to the failures of com- munity organizations, governments need to take responsibility. For example, the City of Winnipeg should co-ordinate with the province to ensure that new rental housing being developed through programs like the federal Housing Accelerator Fund (HAF) include units, and supports, for the most vulnerable. Politicians are excited about Houston’s “Hous- ing First” approach. The homeless serving sector in Winnipeg embraced the Housing First model long ago. They have also learned that the model isn’t sustainable if it relies on housing people in the private market with subsidies, as Houston does. Houston’s housing advocates are now learning this, too. The CFTH has helped many people access housing with Housing and Urban Development (HUD) department vouchers. Similar to Manito- ba’s Rent Assist and the Canada Housing Benefit, HUD’s vouchers provide financial subsidies to cover the gap between what households can afford and market rents. But there are problems. Many without a per- manent place to live are not eligible for vouchers. There is also a growing shortage of housing affordable to very low-income households. HUD assisted housing accounts for only five per cent of housing stock in Houston and the Nation- al Low-Income Housing Coalition shows that Houston ranks second worst in the country with only 19 affordable units for every 100 low-income renter households. Further, 80 per cent of extremely low-income renters are considered “severely cost burdened,” paying more than 50 per cent of income on rent. The lack of affordable private rentals combined with declining social housing is making it diffi- cult to sustain the voucher system that Houston’s model relies on, especially with COVID-19 funds expected to dry up. The CFTH estimates home- lessness could increase by 60 per cent (5,200 peo- ple) by 2026 if they can’t replace these funds and source an additional $35 million to $50 million in new annual funding. Houston is also seeing many people return to homelessness after being housed in private rentals because of weak tenant protections. The city has among the highest rates of eviction in the country. One critical analysis refers to Houston’s market-driven approach as “a shell game with tenants moving from place to place, courtroom to courtroom, and few chances for long-lasting relief.” Some landlords would rather evict tenants than respond to requests for repairs, which means tenants are also prone to live in poor conditions out of fear. Manitoba has experienced many of these same issues after housing people in private rentals with Rent Assist. We have learned that the only sustainable solution to homelessness is through a comprehensive approach that includes a robust supply of social housing, wrap-around supports, and strong rent and tenant protections. Manitoba’s Right to Housing Coalition carefully researched its comprehensive Social Housing Ac- tion Plan which was released in the fall of 2023. The Manitoba government has been well briefed on it and it is making some progress aligned with aspects of the plan. It needs to do more. A more progressive approach to learn from is Finland’s. It adopted Housing First in 2008. But unlike Houston, it takes a comprehensive approach, combining investment in the supply and maintenance of social housing while provid- ing wrap-around support for tenants. Helsinki, Finland is known across the world for its success in ending homelessness. Its approach is more closely aligned with the Manitoba Social Housing Action Plan and what the Manitoba government has begun to do, albeit on a smaller scale than needed. Examining policy solutions in other jurisdic- tions can be informative, but we need to recog- nize when they don’t live up to the hype. Manito- ba politicians have given the Houston model far more attention than it deserves. The Manitoba government should focus on scaling up its more comprehensive approach by further expanding social housing, increasing investment in commu- nity-led supports, expanding tenant protections and investing in mental health supports and public health measures to support people who use drugs. Shauna MacKinnon is a professor and chair of the University of Winnipeg’s urban and inner-city studies department. Democrats discover the power of ‘weird’ IN the summer of 1946, The Adventures of Super- man, a popular radio show for kids, began a story arc called “The Clan of the Fiery Cross.” In it, the Man of Steel takes on a shadowy xenophobic organization that, quite intentionally, resembled the Ku Klux Klan. The head of the clan is an evil manipulator, but the rank and file are presented mostly as dopes. In one scene, the Grand Scorpion dismissively refers to his followers as “suckers” and “little nobodies.” It comes out that he’s only after their monthly dues; the racism was the tool, not the goal. The storyline was suggested by a man named Stetson Kennedy, who had infiltrated the KKK and approached producers with the idea of using pop culture to humiliate the organization. Appar- ently, it worked. In Kennedy’s memoir, he describes attending a meeting after the Superman episodes began air- ing, and watching hell break loose: “When I came home from work the other night,” one member complained, “there was my kid and a bunch of others, some with towels tied around their necks like capes and some with pillowcases over their heads. The ones with capes was chasing the ones with pillowcases all over the lot. When I asked them what they were doing, they said they were playing a new kind of cops and robbers called Superman against the Klan.” The man continued: “I never felt so ridiculous in all my life! Suppose my own kid finds my Klan robe someday?” This story has fascinated me, a former English major, ever since I learned about it in the 2005 book Freakonomics. It’s all about the power of word choice, rhet- oric and peer pressure. Kennedy’s disgruntled Klan member had presumably joined the group because he wanted to seem powerful and noble to his loved ones, and powerful and terrifying to minority groups. But then he was forced to see his own actions through the lens of Superman, at which point he realized that maybe his fellow citizens didn’t see him as heroic or scary. They just thought that he was kind of … lame. Which brings me to “weird.” If you hadn’t noticed, Kamala Harris’s support- ers have rolled out a new line of attacks against Donald Trump. Whereas the former president may have previously been heralded as a super- villain and aspiring dictator, Harris’s surrogates are more and more just describing him as a big weirdo. “He’s just a strange, weird dude,” Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) told an assembled group of 60,000 “White Dudes for Harris” at an online fundraiser Monday evening. Walz is, if not the inventor of this tactic, its most skilled propo- nent. “These guys are just weird,” he laughed at another recent speaking event, later continuing: “We’re not afraid of weird people. We’re a little bit creeped out, but we’re not afraid.” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg on MSNBC commented that vice-presidential candi- date J.D. Vance’s remarks about childless women were “a really strange take,” and said Vance’s “weird style” was going to bring about “weird pol- icies.” Later, Buttigieg went on The Daily Show and told Jon Stewart that Vance had “turned out to be,” as he described it, “odd.” Clearly, at least some of this rhetoric has start- ed getting to at least some Trump surrogates: “This whole ‘they’re weird’ argument from the Democrats is dumb & juvenile,” posted Vivek Ra- maswamy on X. “This is a presidential election, not a high school prom queen contest. … Win on policy if you can, but cut the crap please.” “I wish (I) knew a better way to describe it,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) replied. “Your party’s obsession with drag shows is creepy. Your candidate’s idea to strip the vote away from people without kids is weird. The right-wing book banning crusade is super odd. It’s just so so far outside the mainstream.” In various television appearances or speeches, Walz has described his word choice as a deliber- ate way to take the wind out of Republican sails. Yes, Trumpy rhetoric might be bullying and au- thoritarian, Walz has said, but bullying behaviour is often just masking cowardice. But I think that the exchange between Ra- maswamy and Murphy — and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who chimed in with, “Be- ing obsessed with repressing women is goofy” — more accurately gets at the dynamics at play. A central pillar of Trump’s campaign is the idea that liberals are perverted misfits who want to tear down American values. Married men and women who have children are normal, but couples without children, or parents without partners, or children with two dads, or women who have two children but also once had an abortion — those people are morally deficient. All of this is old-school puritanism, but Trump brought it all into a pep rally atmosphere. Not only was it morally correct to pass judg- ment, but it was also festive and fun. They were strong; libs were weak. They were right; libs were wrong. They were with the prom king, who was telling them they were awesome, and the libs were outcasts in the library, probably being read to by a drag queen. “Weird” intrudes on that narrative. It doesn’t entirely upend it, but it does plant a seed of doubt. What if, instead of being admired or feared, they are instead being laughed at? What if, instead of edgelords, they are actually just the kids in the corner eating glue off their hands? “They called us weird so I’ll call them weirder,” said Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), according to an X post — but “weird” is an insult that doesn’t work both ways. Gay kids, trans kids, cat ladies and horse boys have already spent an entire lifetime being told they were weird, and they have learned to wear it as a badge of honour if they need to. But when your whole political movement is based on a return to some Pleasantville vision of American normalcy, “weird” actually hurts. It’s not great to wonder whether, in the eyes of your fellow citizens, you’re just kind of lame. At a broader level, what “weird” does is reject the entire premise of the Republican platform, something that Democrats have seemed to be doing more frequently since Harris took over the ticket. In the White Dudes for Harris online rally, which featured speakers such as Mark Hamill and Josh Groban, one early speaker lamented that, “When white men have organized, it was often with pointy hats on,” and that “masculinity as a trope has been ceded to the MAGA right.” Other speakers used their time to argue that the most fundamental characteristics of mas- culinity — strength, the ability to provide and protect — were qualities demonstrated by the left, not the right. “They have Kid Rock, Kevin Sorbo and a dolphin aficionado,” offered actor Josh Gad, best known as the voice of Olaf in Disney’s Frozen franchise. “We have the Hulk, Samwise Gamgee (and) Luke Skywalker.” Is any of this going to work? I don’t know. But it seems like a more effective strategy than, say, calling Trump’s supporters a “basket of deplor- ables,” as Hillary Clinton did during the 2016 election. “Deplorable,” it turned out, could easily be transformed into “badass” in the eyes of some supporters. “Weird” doesn’t work like that. Because it’s not about a collection of behaviours. It’s about an unpleasant fug that gets on you and follows you, one that you can’t even fix because you can’t even smell. In the parlance of Michelle Obama: They go low, we go “ew.” - The Washington Post SHAUNA MACKINNON MONICA HESSE CALLAGHAN O’HARE / FREE PRESS The skyline of Houston is seen on Feb. 14 in Texas. Houston has had significant success in getting people who were once homeless into housing, but is its system right for Winnipeg? ;