Mansfield Rising’s Ideas of March: Housing First for Mansfield

MANSFIELD — In 2023 alone there were 257 students in Mansfield City Schools experiencing housing insecurity.

Mansfield has a poverty rate which is double the national average.

For kids experiencing homelessness, there are not enough shelter beds or accessible affordable housing options to meet their needs.

Often times, couch surfing is the only attainable solution for these kids, leaving them vulnerable and in dangerous situations.

Unsafe and unstable housing situations lead to students neglecting school, making their own futures uncertain. These kids are helpless victims in their situation, and the community should help them.

What Mansfield needs is to adopt a Housing First philosophy to reframe how we approach homelessness.

Providing housing options that welcomed tenants regardless of eviction records, addiction and financial insecurity would create a safe environment for children while they are still in school to focus on their education in hopes of building a successful future.

It would allow them to have a functional family environment so that they can grow and learn along with their parents and siblings.

A dream would be to convert Brinkerhoff School into an apartment style Housing First living facility for these children and their families. It would be essentially self-sustainable, with tenants being given jobs such as maintenance, gardening, cooking, and cleaning.

Nan McCartney

Housing First is a methodology that has successfully been implemented and dramatically reduced or even eliminated homelessness in cities across America. It is a proven, humane and cost-effective strategy for reducing homelessness.

Housing First works by assuming that everyone is housing-ready, regardless of: evictions, criminal records, addictions or mental illness.

People are allowed into housing FIRST, and then support, life coaching and direction are provided to carry them into a sustainable future.

Housing First is not a specific program, but rather a service model based on flexible and adaptable principles that would be tailored to fit Mansfield’s need because it is a philosophy and not an organization.

Housing First can serve to unite existing organizations in Mansfield currently working towards ending homelessness, and ensure alignment in their outputs.

It will look like an umbrella, led by a core group and partnering with local organizations and landlords to create an efficient and effective system.

This new perspective can start small and scale itself organically with time.

It will take time and energy for Housing First be accepted across the city as the standard approach to housing insecurity, but doing so will provide safer and more sustainable solutions to end homelessness.

Author’s perspective

We asked Nan McCartney to go into a bit more detail on this project, and here are her thoughts.

“I want to initiate something that will create lasting and sustainable change and that is why Housing First is my project for Mansfield Rising 2.0.

“Going into this, my goal was to propose something that will help Mansfield on the deepest level, by helping our people. 

“I had concerns that with the addition of Intel and the industry that will bring to central Ohio that Mansfield will inevitably experience significant growth, and the people that have called Mansfield home for generations will get left behind. 

“Our city is made up of our people, and I think that they deserve to be protected.  

“I didn’t know what this would look like until I really started researching, and what I thought might be as simple as rent control, is a much more complicated issue. 

“Mansfield’s poverty rates are staggering and our children aren’t being given fair chances to create lives for themselves, continuing the vicious cycle. 

“We have so many driven and passionate people already fighting for these causes, but unfortunately the numbers continue to rise and people continue to suffer. 

“I looked for real solutions, for evidence to back them, and that is what led me to Housing First. 

“Housing First has allowed cities all over America, all over the world, to drastically decrease homelessness and even reach levels of net zero. This may seem out of reach, but if they can do it, so can we.

“These cities have created detailed guidelines that we can adopt and adapt to fit our needs.  This will unite all of the organizations that already exist within Mansfield, and get everyone on the same page.

“By working together with a common goal and initiative, we can put funding to use in the most effective ways and create real change.  By investing in our people we are investing in our future.  

“I see this as humanity in the deepest sense. Seeing people for who they are as humans, not for any labels that may have been given to them. Giving everyone a second chance regardless of their past, because everyone is capable of change.

“This will look like giving people homes, beautifying our city, reducing poverty rates, increasing graduation and attendance rates, and creating a strong community.  

I believe that the priority should be placed on our children first. The hope is that in our future, all Mansfield City School children who are housing insecure will have access to safe housing for them and their families to carry them through graduation.

“A dream would be to convert Brinkerhoff School into an apartment style Housing First living facility for these children and their families. It would be essentially self-sustainable, with tenants being given jobs such as maintenance, gardening, cooking, and cleaning.

“Everyone benefits from this project, but in order for it to work we need everyone who is already working to fight homelessness to work together and adapt these principles.

“At the end of the day we are all human, and we are strongest when we put aside our differences and let love unite us as a community. 

---

---