Single-Loop Learning, Double-Loop Learning and Homelessness – Part II – Rethinking Our Investments

The idea of single-loop learning and double-loop learning can be further useful in thinking about how we, as a nation, have decided (implicitly and explicitly) to address the modern homelessness crisis.

All one needs to do is look at how much we spend on the main federal program to house the homeless, the Continuum of Care Program: $2 billion. That may sound like a lot of money, however, out of a budget of $4 trillion, it is a drop in the bucket. One aircraft carrier, for comparison, costs $13 billion.

Especially over the last decade, we have become extremely skillful at building systems that maximize the impact of these $2 billion. However, as a nation, we have not explored the idea of significantly adding to that funding. We have accepted the governing variable that around $2 billion, in 2017 dollars, is enough to defeat a social ill that has been with us for forty years and counting.

Underinvestment in housing for those who are in critical need of help is not confined to the fight to end homelessness. We see this also in what the federal government calls “worst case housing needs.” “Worst case needs are defined as renters with very low incomes – no more than 50 percent of the Area Median Income (AMI) – who do not receive government housing assistance and who pay more than one-half of their income for rent, live in severely inadequate conditions, or both.” While those experiencing homelessness at any one time, number around 554,000 persons, this other category includes around 8.3 million households! 

It’s not that we don’t invest in housing, in aggregate; it is just that federal support for housing is heavily skewed towards those on the upper rungs of the economic ladder. Will Fischer and Barbara Sard present this in a strikingly visual way. Here are just two of their charts:

 

 

They further clarify that, “The federal government spent $190 billion in 2015 to help Americans buy or rent homes, but little of that spending went to the families who struggle the most to afford housing… Federal housing expenditures are unbalanced in two respects: they target a disproportionate share of subsidies on higher-income households and they favor homeownership over renting. Lower-income renters are far likelier than homeowners or higher-income renters to pay very high shares of their income for housing and to experience problems such as homelessness, housing instability, and overcrowding. Federal rental assistance is highly effective at helping these vulnerable families, but rental assistance programs are deeply underfunded and as a result reach only about one in four eligible households.”

Of course, this is still only part of the story. Dr. Barbara DiPietro, who shared these charts with us, also shared this fascinating video, which clarifies the larger picture of income inequality in America, and how it is driven by policies we, as a nation, have put in place:  

 

Barbara urged us to think about all the policy decisions we have made as a nation. Nothing is preventing us, as a society, from investing more in ending homelessness. Nothing is preventing us from investing more in housing for those on the lower rungs of the economic scale, than we do for those on the upper rungs. Nothing is preventing us from enacting policies that will make all the investments we make, as a nation, in a more equitable manner. We can create a more equitable society, with much less income and wealth inequality.

 

 

However, there is only one way we will get there. We can’t just engage in single-loop learning. We can’t just adjust what we do. Different strategies and actions alone will not help. We need to break out of our current paradigms, and engage in double-loop learning. We need to question the values and beliefs that led to the current crises, in which we find our nation. We need to change the governing variables, and act upon them. Will we have the courage to do so?