Special Series
This is the final story in Spotlight Delaware’s five-part series examining homelessness in the First State. Read Part 1 here. Part 2 here. Part 3 here. Part 4 here. If you or someone you how are experiencing homelessness, available resources can be found here.
Why Should Delaware Care?
Studies show that a lack of affordable housing is a cause of homelessness. As the federal government tries to pull funding for subsidized housing, Delaware is relying more on private developers to fill the gap. But those developers face many obstacles in getting projects past the finish line.
Vinnie Profaci is homeless in Dover – the city where he grew up. By day, he walks familiar streets in the cold, and at night stays in the People’s Church shelter.
Housing in the Dover area, he says, is just too expensive. And he believes it is because there are not enough apartments for everyone who wants one.
“You’re competing with universities and institutions and 11,000 airmen,” Profaci said.
Profaci is not alone in the First State. Delaware State Housing Authority Director Matt Heckles said his agency has collected feedback from thousands of Delawareans about how to help solve the homelessness crisis.
“They’re all saying there’s nowhere to go,” Heckles said.
While shelters can temporarily help people experiencing homelessness, politicians and advocates alike agree the ultimate goal is to provide them with safe, permanent and affordable places to live.
But housing has only become more expensive, largely because of low supply and rising development costs.
Since 2019, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s fair market rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Delaware has increased by more than 40%, going from an average across the state of $1,100 to almost $1,600.
Rachel Stucker, executive director of the Housing Alliance of Delaware, said more housing could help prices go down – a classic example of supply and demand – and could help solve homelessness by simply giving everyone a place to live.
“We just need more housing, and we need housing of all types,” Stucker said. “Over time, that will decrease rates of homelessness if that keeps up with demand.”
There is currently momentum among state elected officials in Delaware to build smaller, more dense housing, such as duplexes and townhomes, as a way to decrease homelessness in the long run.
But that dense housing also often faces opposition from neighbors and roadblocks in local zoning laws. Among the biggest political controversies in Sussex County last year was over the Belle Mead development, which proposed affordable apartments along a busy, subdivision-lined highway near Lewes.
As a short-term solution to the affordable housing shortage, the Housing Alliance of Delaware and other nonprofits have been pushing state leaders to dedicate more funding to subsidize housing costs.
But at the same time, state resources are being squeezed. Beyond what could be a tight budget year, Delaware may lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal funding for subsidized housing. The cuts loom as the Trump administration attempts to cut funding for programs that use the “housing first” model that provides permanent housing to homeless people without requiring sobriety or mental health treatment.
And as housing prices continue to rise while federal support dwindles, many homeless people have no choice but to stay in temporary shelters – or end up back on the streets.
Delaware’s affordable housing crisis
In late September, engineer Michael Riemann, whose company represents developers, stood in front of a crowd of real estate agents and politicians for the opening presentation of the 2025 Delaware Real Estate Summit.
His presentation was about how Delaware, and the entire country, faces an affordable housing crisis. It was a topic that most in the room were already aware of.
Delaware is short almost 20,000 rental units for households that earn less than half the region’s median income, Riemann said, citing data from the DSHA’s 2023 Housing Needs Assessment.
The Housing Needs Assessment also shows that half of all renters in the state are “cost burdened,” meaning they spend more than 30% of their income on housing costs, which includes rent or mortgage payments and utilities.
There are many reasons why housing is getting more expensive in Delaware and across the country, like higher insurance costs and what Riemann called “mega inflation” of construction materials.
But Riemann said the main reason is that the housing supply is low. There was a general slowdown in homebuilding after the 2008 recession, and the country hasn’t caught up since, he said.
The solution, Riemann said, is building more homes – of all kinds. He cited studies showing that high rates of homelessness correlate only with the low availability of housing — not rates of drug use, poverty, weather or the generosity of public assistance.
A common metaphor for how a lack of housing supply affects homelessness uses the children’s party game musical chairs.
When there are more people than places to live, the rich find housing easily, followed by the middle-class and so on. But at the bottom of the economic ladder, people inevitably get left out because there simply aren’t enough “chairs,” or places to live.
People with disabilities, drug addictions or mental health issues may find it more difficult to find housing. But regardless, there will always be people left behind.
Heckles said while he agrees in theory that building any type of housing could help, developers in Delaware have built many new, large, single-family homes and luxury condos in the past decades, often targeted to out-of-state retirees.
“We’ve built a lot over the last 20 years,” Heckles said. “The problem is that we haven’t built the right things.”
What the state needs are smaller houses, like townhomes and duplexes, Heckles said. These types of homes are often referred to as “missing middle housing” because they are currently rarely built in the United States compared to midrise apartments and single-family homes.
Heckles said towns and counties often make it easier to build single-family homes than any other type of housing.
Those plans often don’t have to go through public hearings, meaning they won’t be delayed by angry neighbors, Riemann said.
“When a developer or a builder is making a decision about a project, they’re looking for the path of least resistance, and right now, that’s the path that’s been laid out in front of them,” Riemann said.
Gov. Matt Meyer recently signed a bill creating a pilot program to help municipalities change their zoning and land use codes to allow more affordable housing.
In September, he told Spotlight Delaware that he may force uncooperative local officials to “act in a way that delivers the housing and shelter needs to Delawareans” if the situation did not improve.
Meyer declined an interview request for this series.
But in an emailed statement in response to questions about whether he still stands by his previous statements, Meyer said he is “encouraged to see strong voluntary participation” in the zoning reform program. Eight municipalities and one county have joined.
Income-restricted housing slow to grow
Off Route 24 between Lewes and Millsboro, a construction crew was recently putting the finishing touches on a two-building apartment complex called Chapel Branch. It’s slated to begin renting its 42 two- and three-bedroom apartments in late January.
Matthew Padron is the managing director of development for Völker, the company behind the project. He described the interest in the apartments as “immense.”
“I get calls individually,” said Padron, who is not in charge of the application process. “I’m not sure how people find my number.”
But not just anyone can live there.
The apartments will only be available to those making 30% to 80% of Sussex County’s median income – or $29,250 to $78,000 for a four-person household – with different rents based on what is affordable to each income level. The company is able to keep rents low because of support from federal funding, Padron said.
Chapel Branch is only the second housing development to successfully join the Sussex County Rental Program, a program started in 2008 to encourage private developers to include affordable housing in their developments.
Padron said he thinks the program’s lack of use is because of local pushback to affordable housing developments – something he himself has faced.
Last January, dozens of residents came into Sussex County Council chambers to oppose Chapel Branch and the change to the Sussex County Rental Program that got it approved, Coast TV reported.
Michael Helwich, president of a nearby neighborhood’s homeowners’ association, was one of the residents who spoke out at that meeting. He said he helped get 500 signatures on a petition against the project.
He and many other residents were angry that Sussex County had allowed the project to move forward without any public hearings – a change the county made in 2022 to try to prevent public opposition from derailing affordable housing developments.
Helwich said he is not against affordable housing. He lived in low-income housing when he was a kid. But he said there is already too much traffic congestion on the nearby Route 24, making the road unsafe. The location also is not close to many jobs, he said.
“This just isn’t the place for it,” Helwich said.
But Padron said nearby residents have made the same argument about traffic congestion in most of the affordable housing projects he has worked on. He added that the project is along the Route 215 bus line that goes between Lewes and Millsboro.
Padron said his company wants to build two more apartment buildings at Chapel Branch if it receives more federal funding to do so. He said he is not sure how this project would be affected by the Trump administration’s stance against housing-first programs.
Helwich said he and other nearby residents plan to oppose Chapel Branch’s expansion.
Rental assistance at risk
With the lack of dedicated affordable housing in the state, many turn to rental assistance to help pay for rising rents.
These programs can help people transition out of homelessness or prevent people from becoming homeless in the first place.
Stucker said Delaware previously had a centralized program that provided rental assistance that got federal funding through the COVID-era American Rescue Plan Act. But now, rental assistance is scattered and can often be frustrating to the people who seek it, she said.
“You have to call 15 different little places that all ran out of money last month, and may or may not have more money again next month. And if they do have money, you can only get like $300 … which isn’t going to cover it anyway,” Stucker said.
And, like many homelessness programs in Delaware, those programs are at risk of losing federal funding.
Stucker said the people who will be impacted by the funding cuts will likely be those who are most vulnerable. They won’t be able to easily bounce back, which could lead to the worst case scenario.
“More people will die because they’re homeless,” Stucker said.
Who we have lost
On Dec. 21 – the longest night of the year – a dozen pastors, community advocates and Seaford residents lit their candles.
Congregated in the cold winter air outside of the Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church in Seaford, they came to remember the dozens of lives cut short by homelessness in recent years.
For Scott, who died at the Classic Motel in Georgetown, a bell rang once. For Teddy, whose burn wounds killed him after his tent caught fire, the bell rang once. And for Joyce and her 1-month-old, who died days apart, the bell rang twice.
They were among some of the 52 names read aloud Sunday night and memorialized by workers on the frontline of homelessness. The vigil, hosted by the Housing Alliance of Delaware on the winter solstice, was held as part of a national memorial meant to remember those who have died.
After the vigil, people gathered inside over coffee, tea and hot chocolate. One of those attendees, Leika Lewis, a community minister with the Unitarian Universalists of Southern Delaware said one of the saddest things they see is a funeral that nobody attends.
Worse, Lewis said, are the funerals that just do not happen.
“We have unhoused siblings who die, and we do not know their names, and too many people just forget them,” Lewis said.