‘Homelessness is a Housing Problem’

Debbi Rabalais is the new director of homeless services for Guilford County, and she’s confident she’s the one for the job. The role, which she started last week, is positioned to help those experiencing homelessness and to help curb the numbers.

Before Rabalais started working in homelessness prevention, she spent 17 years in banking.

“When I left, I was a VP in corporate banking,” Rabalais said. “But I decided to do something that made a difference.” 

She went back to school, got her bachelor’s in social work, and has been working in the field ever since. 

For the last 15 years, Rabalais worked in Tarrant County, Texas, the third-largest county in the state. There, she primarily worked at the Presbyterian Night Shelter, the largest provider of homeless services in the area, serving more than 2.2 million people. 

When she began her role as vice president of programs, the organization ran five initiatives. When she left, it had grown to 11. Now, she hopes to bring that expertise and experience to Guilford County.

Rabalais has family in Durham and always looked to retire in North Carolina. But then she started thinking how nice it would be if she could make an impact here, too. 

“When I saw the job, I said, ‘That’s the job for me,’” Rabalais said. 

While the role is new, the work of homelessness prevention is not. Rabalais will work with the existing Continuum of Care, a network of staff and providers required by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development for local entities receiving federal funds. As part of the CoC, the county has a CoC board, a program manager, and three specialists. Rabalais’s job will be to implement strategy across the network and see where things can be improved.

What Worked in Texas?

Some of the most successful programs Rabalais helped implement in Texas included the day shelter—which Greensboro has in the form of the Interactive Resource Center—and what they called Rapid Exit.

The latter was a program wherein the city provided funds to people experiencing homelessness, but on the cusp of attaining housing. Some just needed enough money for a deposit on an apartment or to pay for an application and fees. Rabalais and others found many were working homeless who had a hard time saving money while looking for housing.

“We asked, ‘What if we could provide some of that initial upfront cost?’” Rabalais said.

The results spoke for themselves. 

The Rapid Exit program, combined with other efforts, helped the county go from moving 300 people into housing per year to about 1,200 per year over a 10-year period.

“We saw a significant drop in homelessness,” she said. “And we found that returns to homelessness were very low.”

The idea is based on a housing-first philosophy, which has been taking off within the housing sphere in recent years. Rather than trying to solve the symptoms of homelessness—like addiction or mental health issues—-it prioritizes getting people into housing first, then providing support for other things.

“I think years ago, if you would have asked me what the cause of homelessness is, I would have said mental illness, addiction, or low incomes,” Rabalais said. “Those certainly keep someone homeless longer, but there are lots of folks with mental illness, addiction with low incomes who remain housed.

“Really, one of the biggest things that we’ve learned nationally is that the primary cause of homelessness is lack of affordable housing.”

That’s why the direct funds, which they used to help pay landlords, were so significant.

“It’s Maslow’s hierarchy of needs,” Rabalais said. “It’s Psychology 101. Unless you have that bottom rung taken care of, it’s really hard to work on that next level.”

While the idea may seem radical, there is already at least one organization working on direct funds for people experiencing homelessness. Held, a Greensboro-based organization, has been giving money to those in need with no strings attached. The model, as Rabalais saw in Texas, is working.

In addition to direct funds, Rabalais said having a landlord-engagement program worked well. Staff worked with local landlords to accept clients and set up a landlord-mitigation fund to help offset costs.

The programs stem from the idea, Rabalais said, that the real cause of homelessness is the rising cost of housing and rent.

“When fair-market rent increases and incomes don’t increase to match, that’s where you see more homelessness,” she said. “So really, I think seeing that as the primary cause of homelessness has been the change. Not that those other issues shouldn’t be addressed, but you have to have some kind of mechanism for housing that is affordable for all different sectors of the population.”

A Push for Affordable Housing

While the lack of affordable housing is a primary factor in growing homelessness across the country, Rabalais joins Guilford County at a good time. In the last few years, the city of Greensboro has made a concerted effort to put affordable housing and new housing at the top of its priority list.

In 2020, the city crafted an affordable housing plan, which aims to increase housing by 2030. And in 2025, the city began its Road to 10,000, a push to create 10,000 new housing units by 2030. The latest numbers show 2,651 homes are either under construction or have been completed as of this month.

“I do believe that homelessness is a housing problem,” Rabalais said. “There just isn’t enough affordable housing in enough communities.”

Towards the end of her time at Presbyterian Night Shelter, the organization expanded into constructing its own housing. They developed permanent supportive housing and supportive housing providing access to services like case management, drug and alcohol treatment programs, and job training onsite. 

But it’s not one municipality or entity’s job to fix homelessness, Rabalais said. It has to be a collaborative effort.

“It is my belief that the homeless service system is a safety net for the failure of other systems,” she said. “Like the criminal justice system, where people are released and don’t have a place to live, or the foster care system. People who don’t make it in those systems fall into homelessness. That’s why it takes all those people working together to alleviate homelessness.”

Rabalais, who has only been on the job for about a week, said she’s working to meet with as many community partners and departments as possible to get a clear picture of what’s happening in Guilford County.

“I want to work in partnership with service providers to improve processes,” she said. “To make the case for the work they’re doing, not go in and change their programs, but to provide some context based on my experience.”

Then, the real work begins.

“To me, success looks like a system that works together,” Rabalais said. “That significantly reduces homelessness, that creates interventions that shortens the time that folks are homeless, and other communities look to us and ask, ‘What are you doing? We want to do that as well.’”