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Race to End Homelessness Archives - ChangingMedia

Jul 11
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Maybe City Planners Think Your Arms Are Tired

By | Homelessness, The Race to End Homelessness | 3 Comments

I’ve always thought of London as a friendly city. The only city to thrice host the Olympic Games, London hails itself as an welcoming destination city. That is, if you’re an Olympian, or a tourist. Not if you are experiencing homelessness. 

Recently, London installed spikes outside apartments to prevent anyone from sleeping on the ground. The instillation came about a month after one man was seen sleeping outside. The one-inch spikes are not the first of their kind, and are known to exist in other parts of the United Kingdom and Canada. London mayor Borris Johnson, to his credit, called the spikes not only “anti-homeless” but also “stupid.”

He was not the only one. You may have even seen the spikes on social media, as outrage spread across London and internationally. Perhaps it was the political shaming, or the large-scale social media blitz that protested the spikes, but news reports indicate they were removed earlier this week.

This is hardly the first example of creating an environment unsuitable for homelessness. If you have ever looked at a park bench or a subway stop and wondered why the city planners were so worried about people having a place to rest their arms, they probably weren’t. Benches with multiple armrests, divided only wide enough to sit, are too narrow to lay or sleep on, dissuading homeless people from staying the night.

photo: TimberForm

Among all this techniques for making cities unwelcoming, a Canadian company created an installation that is both humanitarian and an act of advertising genius. Notice that not only do these city benches not have intrusive arm rests, but they actually prop open to create a temporary rain shelter. Inside are directions to a RainCity Housing, an organization that specializes in working with low-income individuals to meet basic needs.

vancouver homeless bus bench

photo: Huffington Post

Decisions as small as armrests matter greatly if that armrest ruins your bed for the evening. The steps we as city planners, politicians, social workers, and concerned citizen take to develop and improve our hometowns truly do affect the lives of many people, and these small injustices could easily go unnoticed if you are not the person impacted. This time, Toronto leads the way in providing both shelter and dignity to homeless individuals in Canada- perhaps other cities can also design a place for all residents, giving even the impoverished a place to call home.

 

 

Apr 11
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Homelessness, Have You Heard of it?

By | Homelessness, The Race to End Homelessness | 2 Comments

Do you know the kinship you feel when someone mentions your favorite obscure band, or makes a reference to a movie you thought you were the only person to have ever seen? That feeling that someone else stumbled onto this awesome music/movie/media on their own, and now you can discuss it? Sometimes that’s how I feel about the issue of homelessness.

I realize that’s an odd thing to say, since I work in homeless services and read articles on homelessness and even write about what I’m learning, reading, and thinking here in The Race to End Homelessness. I just mean that outside of those dedicated circles, it seems as though homelessness is an issue people are uncomfortable discussing. Telling people about my job at parties will often send them heading for the snack table, or at least grasping for a subject change.

That’s why I was surprised when I read the United Nations April 2014 report that criticizes the United States for several often discussed controversial policies – Guantanamo Bay, NSA surveillance… and one less publicized issue – the poor treatment and criminalizing of Americans experiencing homelessness. It wasn’t just that the content of the report that stunned me, (although the findings are quite astounding) but rather that the issue of homelessness is finally a talking point at an international level.

Of course it would be preferable if this were an issue the U.S. could address domestically and not be embarrassingly criticized on an international stage, but as long as criminalizing those without a home is a problem that persists in the United States, it deserves worldwide attention. If the United Nations committee on Human Rights calls a practice, “cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment,” will we see change in the way cities treat homeless individuals? Approaching homelessness as a crime has been consistently demonstrated not to work, illustrated most recently by James Boyd, shot multiple times for camping in the mountains of Albuquerque, and Jerome Murdough, imprisoned for sleeping in a New York City stairwell and then left to roast in a 100+ degree jail cell. Even so, many cities and policies seem determined to prove that homelessness is wrong via arrests, fines and other punishments. Instead of sticking a homeless person with legal charges or bail that will keep them stuck in poverty, the UN report recommends state and local governments “ensure close cooperation between all relevant stakeholders … to intensify efforts to find solutions for the homeless in accordance with human rights standards.”

It is my hope that the United Nations recommendations will not be the last international look at the treatment of those experiencing homelessness. We need this issue in the news, in the UN committee reports, and on the minds of government leaders and individual people. Criminalizing homelessness is an issue that threatens the lives of hundreds of thousands of vulnerable American people, and it is too important to have it be an obscure issue we are uncomfortable discussing.

Aug 30
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Proceed Directly to Jail: Do Not Pass Downtown

By | Homelessness, The Race to End Homelessness | No Comments

Lawmakers in Columbia, South Carolina, are worried about you. Yes, you — even if you don’t live there. They’re worried you won’t want to visit them. They’re worried if you do visit, you won’t patronize their businesses. They’re worried that if you do visit and you try to buy something, you’ll be afraid to get out of your car. It turns out Columbia city officials are much more concerned about you — a potential visitor — than about some people who currently reside in the city. In order to protect you, the city council passed a plan to outlaw homeless people from the downtown area.

Richard Blasser, a business owner in Columbia explained that the homeless “scare people.” To quell the scariness, City Council put an end to homelessness, just not in the way service providers and social justice groups might have hoped. There was no Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness used, no input gathered from service providers or people experiencing homelessness. Instead, City Council member Cameron Runyan wrote a plan on his own, a provisional version of which was approved by the council, and which will be reviewed in full in September.

It is now illegal to be homeless in Columbia. Anyone found committing the crime of homelessness in the downtown area will be asked if they would like to be transported to the city shelter, the city jail, or if they would like to leave town (and as appealing as it might sound to leave a city as intolerant as this one, there is no assistance provided for this option). Since the city shelter contains 250 beds, it is unclear where the remainder of the city’s estimated 1,500 homeless individuals should sleep.

By trying to become a thriving economic center, the Columbia City Council has placed their city last in the race to end homelessness. Michael Stoops, from the National Coalition for the Homeless, even awarded the plan with the title of “most comprehensive anti-homeless measure that [he had] ever seen proposed in any city in the last 30 years.”

At the same time, Interim Police Chief Ruben Santiago seems unwilling to let his city lose this race so easily. Santiago opposes the police involvement proposed by the plan. City Manager Teresa Wilson has also expressed confusion in regards to implementing the proposal, and has not yet allocated police to enforce its rules. While Santiago and Wilson are still in talks with the City Council, Santiago stands committed to the rights of Columbia’s homeless. He has stated that he and his team are not about to coerce people into jail because homelessness is not a crime.”

In Columbia, Chief Ruben Santiago is doing more to change his city for the better than the City Council, and others can learn from his admirable stance and follow his lead. The ideas of the Columbia City Council may not be law everywhere, but these baleful attitudes exist across the country. May every city be lucky enough to also have a voice protecting these supposed “criminals,” because only then can it move forward in the Race to End Homelessness.

 

Apr 25
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Fewer Baltimorians Headed HOME

By | Homelessness, The Race to End Homelessness | No Comments

They’re back! If you’ve attended a Baltimore Community Association meeting this month, you’ve seen them: armed with letters, announcements, and news from the state’s capitol, legislators have finished a three-month session in Annapolis and returned to the city. As they make the rounds and reconnect with constituents, there is a lot of good news to discuss. While there was much impressive work accomplished, many housing advocates hung their heads at the news that one important piece of legislation had failed — again.

The HOME Act, had it survived in Annapolis, would have required landlords to accept any kind of legal income as a rent payment. Understandably, this would have been good news for people who are experiencing homelessness but hold a Section 8 Voucher. The voucher program is a federal plan that allows tenants to pay 30 percent of their income and provides subsidies to cover the rest of the rent. Despite the ghastly-long waiting list for vouchers, the theory behind the program is that a voucher holder can choose where to live rather than residing in a particular low-income building or neighborhood. This sounds good in theory, but obtaining one does not necessarily lead to housing because many property owners can legally refuse to house tenants who intend to pay with a voucher. (Income discrimination also affects people who use Social Security or pension programs to pay their rent, so the HOME Act could have created increased housing security for many people).

By not passing the HOME Act, this behavior will continue in Baltimore City. Missteps like this one place Baltimore behind other cities in the race to end homelessness. Eleven states and 30 cities have already passed laws prohibiting income discrimination, including Philadelphia, New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia and Boston. If each of these cities is able to allow their citizens equal housing choice, why does Baltimore allow landlords to cater specifically to wealthier tenants?

You can probably guess the answer. Fear and stigma surround homelessness, even in cities that have pledged to end it. There might be abstract support to end homelessness, but it becomes dicey when a formally homeless person is about to become your neighbor. It seems people are much more comfortable donating a dollar from inside a car than passing a low-income person in the hallway of their building. This “Not In My Backyard” mentality deters landlords from accepting Section 8 voucher holders, for fear it might upset other tenants. In reality, low-income housing has been shown not to decrease property values.

Recently, speculation surrounding sequestration suggest that Housing and Urban Development (HUD) budget cuts could actually lead to some current Section 8 tenants having their voucher revoked. In New Orleans, 700,000 recently awarded vouchers were revoked last month. It is unknown which cities will be forced to follow suit.

Baltimore should make every effort to preserve the Section 8 vouchers that have allowed low-income individuals safe and affordable housing. It is unacceptable to reverse someone’s path to housing stability. Even more crucial is a system to provide a voucher system that actually works. By working with HUD, federal policy makers, and local landlords to reduce stigma, income discrimination, and evictions, Baltimore could pull ahead in the race to end homelessness.

Perhaps next year Baltimore will be able to catch up to other cities. Until the next legislative session, income discrimination presents a significant barrier to housing, one that will slow Baltimore in its plans to end homelessness.

IMAGE CREDIT. Hasdai Westbrook.
Mar 29
0

The Keys to Housing and Health

By | Homelessness, The Race to End Homelessness | No Comments

Last week’s tragedy in Baltimore’s City Shelter showcased the many faults of homeless shelters. Both in Baltimore and nationally, these places can be overcrowded, unsafe, and not equipped to work with people who might be mentally ill or combating addiction. Having never stayed the night at a shelter, I am wholly unqualified to evaluate which of these shortcomings is the most serious, but my biggest gripe with shelters is something else.

The biggest fault of homeless shelters is simply that they are only ever meant to be temporary. The most commonly mentioned solution when people discuss homelessness actually does nothing to alleviate homelessness. Someone can stay in a shelter every night for a year- or longer- and be no closer to permanent housing. Homeless shelters are only a band-aid on a potentially deadly issue. Despite the human and financial costs to homeless shelters, these institutions do nothing to improve the lives of those who stay there.

Shelters, like band-aids, serve a purpose. Immediate resources are not unimportant, but they cannot be the only solution we offer those who experience homelessness in our cities. This week, fellow ChangeEngine author Robyn Stegman suggests that even when people are experiencing homelessness, they have the right to their own money and to make their own decisions. Housing First is the radical idea that people have a right to housing. Housing first programs focus on housing people as rapidly as possible, providing supportive services, and providing a standard lease (without mandated therapy).

For years, the path out of homelessness required jumping the hurdles of finding employment, remaining clean from drugs and alcohol, and maintaining a mental health regimen. Many programs that serve homeless citizens impose such rules on their clients before they will help find them housing. In 2005, Health Care for the Homeless, a Baltimore health care agency, moved 30 people who were about to be evicted from a local park into their own housing and found that nearly all of these individuals were able to remain housed. Having housing led many people to successfully secure an income and participate in mental health treatments.

Here’s the shocking thing about a program that doesn’t require its users to be clean, employed and seeking treatment before they are allowed a safe place to live: it works. In a New York City study, 84 percent of active drug users housed remained in their housing. This statistic is higher than what plenty of social service programs achieve by requiring clients to abstain from drugs and alcohol before “earning” housing. In Seattle, housing people who were chronically homeless and addicted to alcohol (without requiring clean time) not only allowed for most study participants to remain in housing — it reduced costs for the city by $2,449 per person, per month.

Baltimore’s 10 Year Plan to End Homelessness relied heavily on the Housing First Model when it was written in 2008. In Chicago, Housing First is one of three pillars of the plan to end homelessness and policy makers in Los Angeles, Boston, and New Orleans are discussing the merits of this practice. Earlier in 2013, consultants for Baltimore drafted a new version of the 10 Year Plan to End Homelessness, which mistakenly does not provide enough resources for Housing First to reach its full potential. Moving people experiencing homelessness into sustainable shelter should be a priority for any city that is looking to save lives and money. Revisions of the plan are ongoing.

For some reason, many people think that safe, affordable housing is a carrot we can hold up as an incentive to force others to make huge life changes. If shelters were used only as temporary places to stay instead of consolation prizes, we would see a dramatic decrease in not only the number of people experiencing homelessness, but also the number of people struggling with debilitating mental illness and addiction. Cities could literally hand people they keys they need to overcome addiction and maintain their mental health. Housing is not a prize for the healthy — housing is a human right.

IMAGE CREDIT: Pembroke Financial
Mar 15
0

Sticks and Stones Can Break Your Bones

By | Homelessness, The Race to End Homelessness | One Comment

Most people have certain words they hate. Moist. Slacks. I hope not too many people stopped reading just then. For me, the phrase that makes me cringe is “those people.” Unless you are literally talking about a specific number of people near you, it is just not appropriate. Usually, this is a phrase used to fuel stereotypes. “Those people are homeless because they are drug addicts,” or “Those people are too lazy to get jobs.”

Word choice matters. Just like mass stereotyping, labeling people who are homeless can affect the way in which those who are not homeless understand and relate to this population. Instead of “homeless person,” many people in social service or outreach work generally prefer the term “person experiencing homelessness.” It may be a mouthful, but the extra second it takes to say can be the second when someone realizes that homelessness is a condition, not a definition. “Homeless” is not an adjective to describe a person, but rather a measure of the person’s housing situation. It is not the whole picture of an individual. People experiencing homelessness should not be reduced to being evaluated by their lodgings.

I am not trying to exaggerate small problems, and vocabulary is a molehill next to the mountain of homelessness. A friend told me that she recently saw a mother and child walk past a person sleeping on the street. As they passed, the mother instructed the little girl to spit on the person. Actions like that speak louder than any phrasing can. Still, the distinction between “homeless people” and “people experiencing homelessness” is important to service providers, lawmakers, politicians, and the public — those with and without housing.  This verbal reminder can serve as a strong tool; it reinforces the powerful idea that people are experiencing homeless today, but it does not have to be this way. Their “experience” can end.

Many cities have drawn up 10 Year Plans to End Homelessness. By defining individuals as homeless people, there is no room to understand a person’s many other traits and qualities. In Baltimore City’s 10 Year Plan to End Homelessness, the city’s homeless population is referred to only once as “people experiencing homelessness,” and more than 40 times as “homeless people.” Plans in other jurisdictions are written in much the same vein.

The particular words in each city’s plan probably will not be the reason it does or does not work, but the culture that is created with each phrase shapes the attitudes of those who are involved. If the writers and the planners in each city truly expect to see an end to homelessness, that should be reflected in the language used to describe people who are experiencing it.

IMAGE CREDIT. Courtesy of Leah Stirewalt.
Mar 01
0

You Can’t Slam A Revolving Door

By | Homelessness, The Race to End Homelessness | 5 Comments

I have never stayed overnight in a hospital. My only real surgery was to remove my wisdom teeth. After that, I vaguely remember being walked by my mom to a waiting car, brought home, and allowed to sleep — in my own bed — for the better part of the next 24 hours. Even with the puffy cheeks, it was worlds better than the common post-surgery experiences of someone who doesn’t have someone to pick them up, some way to transport them, and some place to sleep.

Medical recovery for someone who is homeless means taking open wounds, broken bones and compromised immune systems out into the elements. You don’t get to stay an extra night in a hospital bed just because you don’t have another bed to move to. Some Medical Respite Centers do exist, providing a place for those without housing to recover, but only in limited quantities. There are 25 beds for medically fragile homeless people in Baltimore City, 104 in Boston, 30 in Denver, four in Austin, zero in Detroit and zero in New Orleans. Even when beds are available, patients are not always referred to them.

Perhaps busy hospital staff believe that the homeless are the responsibility of shelters, not medical centers. In Los Angeles, a hospital recently got a $125,000 fine for “dumping” as many as 150 patients in homeless shelters. This is hardly a medically sound plan, because shelters cannot even accept patients if their health needs are too great. A person with an oxygen mask, an open wound, or a contagious disease is typically not allowed in a shelter. Even inside the shelter, patients run the risk of having their prescriptions lost or stolen. Not surprisingly, this often lands the recently discharged back in the hospital — this time, in the emergency room — with infection or complications from their treatment. Hospitals can become traps for the people experiencing homelessness — a revolving door of disease and disarray.

What might be the easiest first step to improving recovery — asking an individual if he or she has a place to go — is hardly implemented when talking with patients. One study found that only 44 percent of homeless patients were asked about their housing accommodations for the night after their discharge, and 11 percent spent the first night after leaving the hospital outside.

The right questions and improved resources can change the health outcomes for homeless individuals. In California, hospital discharge procedure for the homeless sometimes includes a bus pass. In Austin, the founder of a city housing program proposed a new policy, in which he suggests patients not be sent away from medical care if they lack a safe and stable place to go. The plan, called Discharge No One Into Homelessness (DNOIH), is only a petition now, but its implementation could help improve health among homeless populations.

Over 200 cities in the United States have developed 10 Year Plans to End Homelessness, yet homeless patients are often discharged without so much as a plan for the next 10 hours. If we cannot ensure short-term health, there is little hope for more long-term change.

IMAGE CREDIT. Courtesy of Global Good Group.
Dec 07
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Why The Numbers Matter: How Can We Measure Homelessness?

By | Homelessness, The Race to End Homelessness | No Comments

Four Thousand. Working at an organization that provides services to those experiencing homelessness, I often find myself trying to explain to others the depth of homelessness in our city. When I do that, I find myself repeating the same number: 4,000. Four thousand, as I’ve said nearly as many times to my family and my friends, is the number of people who are homeless on any given night in Baltimore City.

I both love and hate the statistic. Read More

Nov 23
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The Race to End Homelessness

By | Homelessness, The Race to End Homelessness | 4 Comments

There are many complicated, impossible problems facing this county. After working for a housing nonprofit for five months, I’ve learned that homelessness doesn’t have to be one of them. I got involved with housing and homelessness work because I thought it was one of those big, impossible problems: how can anyone work, learn, or live healthily without a place to lay his or her head at night? With an average of 4,000 people homeless on any given night in Baltimore City and winter quickly approaching, it seems like there is someone on every street asking for my spare change, but it doesn’t have to be this way.
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