PHOENIX — The number of homeless people living on Arizona’s streets keeps going up while the money being spent on the problem keeps going up with it.
Arizona lawmakers allocated more money than ever before this legislative session to try and address the problem - a record $210 million, between two different state funds to pay for housing and shelters.
“It’s terrible for the neighborhood. It’s terrible for the people that are living out there,” said Bill Morlan, president of Electric Supply Inc.
Morlan’s Electric Supply Company sits in the middle of Phoenix’s largest homeless encampment in the area around the Human Services Campus known as "The Zone."
“There is more money, but in my opinion, there's still not enough money,” Morlan said.
The ABC15 Investigators analyzed the state’s finances and found Arizona’s Housing Trust Fund has been underfunded for more than a decade. The fund pays for affordable housing, rental assistance, and programs to help the unhoused but during the Great Recession lawmakers capped funding at $2.5 million a year, which is not a lot of money to pay for costly housing.
In 2019, lawmakers increased funding to the Housing Trust Fund to $15 million. Last year, they budgeted $60 million.
This year, Arizona lawmakers allocated more money than ever before to the housing fund - $150 million. State leaders also budgeted an additional $60 million for a newly created Homeless Shelter and Services Fund.
“I’m really pleased that this is a historic level of investment,” said Joan Serviss, director of Arizona’s Department of Housing.
The Department of Housing is responsible for giving out the hundreds of millions of dollars now being spent to address Arizona’s housing and homeless crisis.
Serviss said the state is playing catch up to build the affordable housing it needs due to the historic lack of funding but hopes these record funds will soon help put a dent in the crisis.
“It is going to take some time,” she said. “But there needs to be an ongoing, dedicated source of funds going into the housing fund.”
“It takes a long time to get housing built. And in the meantime, we’ve got 900 and some odd people sleeping in tents within half a mile of where we stand,” Morlan said.
The Department of Housing already allocated $20 million of funding from the Homeless Shelter and Services Fund. The City of Phoenix was given the largest amount of $13,300,000.
The ABC15 Investigators will continue to follow the money and where this historic funding is spent.
