The University of Arizona Southwest Institute for Research on Women has released its most recent update to its report on Housing Insecurity Indicators and Potential Homelessness Estimates for Arizona and Pima County. This report measures current housing insecurity with newer census data.

Download the report here.

This most recent survey wave contains multiple pieces of concerning news.

•  In the previous survey wave, collected September 20th-October 2nd 2023, the proportion of non-current renters in Arizona was 11.5%. In the most recent survey, conducted October 18th-30th 2023, this proportion fell modestly to 9.4%. While the proportion not current on rent payments decreased, the proportion of these non-current renters viewing eviction in the next two months as “very likely” increased to 19.9% (up from only 5% last survey wave).
• In October of 2023 we observed the largest monthly count of eviction filings in Pima County since the onset of the pandemic with 1307 eviction filings. Eviction filings continue to increase despite the strong economy and the relative slowing of rent price increases over the past year
• Housing insecurity among Arizona renters remains stubbornly high despite historically low unemployment. Rising rents and inflation are likely the central drivers of this disconnect, especially for households with limitations on their ability to benefit from the strong labor market.
• Lower-income and BIPOC Arizona households remain disproportionately likely to report being not current on their rent payments and finding it very difficult to meet usual expenses. 39% of Black Arizonan heads of households reported finding it very difficult to meet usual expenses in the past week in this most recent survey. This situation was also reported by 25% of Hispanic or Latino heads of household in Arizona, and over 40% of households earning less than $25k a year (surveyed this wave).

There is continuing good news to report on rents.

• The positive macroeconomic situation has continued to hold steadily at both the national and state levels. The unemployment rate in Arizona, 4.0% in September, is a modest increase relative to a low of 3.4% this past May but remains well below historical averages.
• Mortgage holders in Arizona continue to be in a strong financial position relative to renters. Only 6.3% reported being not current on mortgage payments (up modestly from a low of 3.5% in August of this year). However, among these non-current mortgage holders concern about the likelihood of foreclosure in the next two months is at the lowest levels observed in these surveys to date. Further good news is that since, roughly, February of 2023, counts of calls to 211 from Pima County indicate a substantial decrease in calls related to housing and shelter, utilities, and food requests between February and July.
• In the fall of 2022 Tucson rent prices began decreasing on average, albeit very modestly. In the Spring of 2023 of rent prices in Tucson registered modest upticks in median/average rent prices. Despite these increases, seasonally adjusted metrics of Tucson rent prices increased only 3.3% between September 2022 and September 2023. This is a substantial slowdown in the rate of rental price increases we have seen in recent years. In addition, there is unambiguous good news in the rental vacancy rate, which has been trending upwards since the end of 2021, and hit an 8-year high in the 2nd quarter of 2023. On the other hand, only 47% of all Arizona respondents reported they had not experienced pressure to move in the last 6 months. 10% of Arizona households reported reducing or not paying expenses for basic household necessities (such as medicine or food) “almost every month” in the last 12 months in order to pay an energy bill. Only 50% of households reported “never” being in this situation.

Download the report here.

Panel on older adults experiencing homelessness and/or domestic abuse on December 1, 2023 at 9am at the 320 N Commerce Park Loop

This panel will host representatives from the following organizations: 

• Stop Abuse and Financial Exploitation of Elders (SAFEE)
• Emerge! Center Against Domestic Abuse
• City of Tucson
• University of Arizona Southwest Institute for Research on Women (UA SIROW)

The agenda for the discussion will be the following: 

• Introduction & Overview of Older Adult Homelessness Trends and Experiences  (15 min)
• Discussion of Qualitative Findings Related to Older Adult Homelessness from Homeless Needs Assessment (10 minutes)
• Overview of ARC and Needs of Older Adults in Shelter Care  (10 minutes)
• Overview of Continuum of Care, Coordinated Entry, and Older Adult Resources (10 minutes)
• Overview of Shelter and Services Provided by City of Tucson and Experiences/Needs of Older Adults in Care (10 minutes)
• Overview of Older Adult Domestic Abuse Issues/Trends and Resources (10 minutes)
• Q&A – From Moderator and Panel (25 minutes)

Register at the link below to get more information about quarterly free trainings from the Administration of Resources and Choices. 

This flyer below is also available here for download. 

TPCH Continuum of Care Program Grant Committee to Host First of Three Sessions on Community-Wide Performance

Session 1: Increasing Income
Thursday, October 19, 2023, 9:00-11:00am
Abrams Public Health Center
3950 S Country Club Rd, Tucson, AZ 85713

We look forward to hosting community partners for a conversation about increasing income among participants in our homelessness and housing programs in October. This session is part of a series hosted by the Tucson-Pima Collaboration to End Homelessness (TPCH) Program Grant Committee, which is responsible for monitoring and providing technical assistance to local programs. The Program Grant Committee also plans to host sessions related to bed utilization and prompt access to housing over the next few months.

Slides available for download here: CoC Program Grant Committee_Increasing Income Session_10.19.2023

Our October session will focus on increasing income for individuals in housing programs (rapid rehousing and permanent supportive housing), which has been an area where our CoC programs have consistently struggled. We hope this session can serve as a tool to examine current practices, explore new strategies, and develop a plan of action to support program participants. 

Specifically, this session will: 

• Review the ‘increasing income’ (at annual assessment and exit) performance measure and data collection procedures
• Identify top best practices currently being used and top barriers to helping increase income
• Identify deep-dive presentation topics related to increasing income for upcoming TPCH General Council session(s)

Please have all who plan on attending register using this form so a calendar invite can be sent to them. 

Slides available for download here: CoC Program Grant Committee_Increasing Income Session_10.19.2023

The Arizona Data Landscape Project is a joint effort of all 3 CoC across the State of Arizona:

• Arizona Balance of State CoC (AZ-500)
• Tucson/Pima County CoC (AZ-501)
• Phoenix/Mesa/Maricopa County CoC (AZ-502)

The project was designed to gain a better understanding of how data is leveraged to support persons at-risk of and experiencing homelessness by analyzing technologies that interact with the homeless response system and the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) implementations.

Download the report here: Arizona Data Landscape Project Final Report 11.24.2023.

The Arizona Data Landscape Project resulted in the following:

• Review of 3 HMIS implementations and a multitude of other non-HMIS data systems leveraged in the homeless response system
• Analysis of the Arizona Data Landscape Project survey (123 respondents)
• Completion of dozens of one-on-one interviews and focus groups
• Development of a Final Recommendations Report

The Final Recommendations Report is a culmination of the research done to understand how data is leveraged across the State of Arizona to support people at-risk of and experiencing homelessness and provides recommendations to implement to optimize use of data and technology to support the response to homelessness.

The University of Arizona Southwest Institute for Research on Women has released its most recent update to its report on Housing Insecurity Indicators and Potential Homelessness Estimates for Arizona and Pima County. This report measures current housing insecurity with newer census data.

Download the report here.

This most recent survey wave contains multiple good signs:

• The positive macroeconomic situation has continued to hold steadily at both the national and state levels.
• The unemployment rate in Arizona, 3.6% in July, remains below historical averages.
• In the previous survey wave, collected June 28th-July 10th 2023, the proportion of non-current renters in Arizona was 9.3%. In the most recent survey, conducted July 26th- August 7th 2023, this proportion rose to 11.9%.
• While the proportion not current on rent payments increased, the proportion of these non-current renters viewing eviction in the next two months as “very likely” fell to 3.7%. This is down from 12% in the previous survey wave and one of the lowest proportions on this metric observed to date.
• The proportion viewing eviction as “somewhat likely” also fell to 30% of non-current renters, down from 55% in the previous survey wave.
• Mortgage holders in Arizona continue to be in a strong financial position relative to renters. Only 3.5% reported being not current on mortgage payments (down modestly from 5.4% in the previous survey). Among these non-current mortgage holders concern about the likelihood of foreclosure in the next two months is near the lowest levels observed in these surveys to date.
• Further good news is that since, roughly, February of 2023, counts of calls to 211 from Pima County indicate a substantial decrease in calls related to housing and shelter, utilities, and food requests in the last 5 months. That said, most of these metrics registered small increases relative to these declines in August.
• There is unambiguous good news in the rental vacancy rate, which has been trending upwards since the end of 2021, and hit an 8-year high in the 2nd quarter of 2023. 60% of all Arizona respondents reported they had not experienced pressure to move in the last 6 months.

While these improvements are welcome news, housing insecurity among Arizona renters remains stubbornly high despite historically low unemployment (and contrasts with the comparatively strong financial position of Arizona mortgage holders).

• Rising rents and inflation are likely the central drivers of this disconnect, especially for households with limitations on their ability to benefit from the strong labor market. Lower-income and BIPOC Arizona households remain disproportionately likely to report being not current on their rent payments and finding it very difficult to meet usual expenses.
• There is disappointing news to report on rents. In the fall of 2022 Tucson rent prices began decreasing on average, albeit very modestly. In the last few months all three summary metrics of rent prices in Tucson have registered upticks in median/average rent prices. This is terrible news, but we need to wait to see if this is a trend or a just modest variation over time. 
• 8% of Arizona households reported reducing or not paying expenses for basic household necessities (such as medicine or food) “almost every month” in the last 12 months in order to pay an energy bill. Only 53% of households reported “never” being in this situation.
• Monthly counts of the number of people entering the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) in Maricopa County indicate a continuing increase in the number of people experiencing homelessness in recent months.
• Nationwide, individuals reporting that they have serious disabilities continue to be disproportionately likely to report being behind on rent payments.

Download the report here.