Policy
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Homeless Held Hostage by Catholic Church in D.C. Fight for Gay Marriage
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The Plight of Homeless Sex Offenders
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VA's Bold Goal: End Veteran Homelessness in 5 Years
The Audacity of Home
Published November 20, 2009 @ 09:12AM PT
If there were ever a time for the Obama Administration to fulfill its promise of restoring Hope for America, re-prioritizing the promise of "a Home for all" is the ideal start. The sum of our devastating housing and economic crisis, combined with the recent findings from the international human rights community, prove that there is no better time to move housing to the top of the federal policy agenda.
Today, I'm taking a step back. Away from the details in the news, away from the constant flow of comments, the banter. Today I want to talk about something so simple, so basic that most of us take it for granted.
Home.
A Home is a basic necessity. Something so basic that it's easy to forget. We see homeless people, we hear about programs designed to serve them, we read the news of the worsening crisis. Yet we're desensitized to the severe psychological implications of not having a home. We're numb.
A Home helps to ensure safety, health, and well-being. It is our base, a place we can always return to. We identify with our Home - with the structure we live in, the town and state it's in, the schools it's near. A Home is safety, it is opportunity. For many people, it is even identity. It is not far-fetched to say that our ability to hope is directly related to having a Home.
U.S. Senate Tackles Veteran Homelessness
Published November 10, 2009 @ 07:53AM PT
Today, the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs will tackle veteran's homelessness. More specifically - how to end it. This hearing comes one week after VA Secretary Shinseki made a bold commitment to ending veteran homelessness.
The hearing is happening now... you can watch it live or catch an archived video of the testimonies.
Check back later for a breakdown of what was discussed and what this could mean for the greater effort to end veteran homelessness.
Tackle Homelessness, Lower Health Care Costs
Published October 19, 2009 @ 07:07AM PT
Homelessness and health care are inextricably linked; the conversation about one simply cannot happen without addressing the other. A thorough understanding of the health costs associated with homelessness must be included in the debate surrounding health care reform. I think HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan said it best: "If we want to talk health care reform, including lowering costs, we must tackle homelessness'
Homelessness and health care are cyclically linked. Homelessness can be a burden on our health care system, and a lack of health care can cause/aggravate homelessness. These are the points made resoundingly clear by Nan Roman, President of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, in a Huffington Post piece this week.
She noted four important points that should be circulated widely:
1. Not everyone living in poverty is eligible for Medicaid.
Non-disabled, childless adults are not eligible. Mothers with health conditions with children in healthcare are not eligible. Young adults aging out of foster care are not eligible. The list goes on.
2. Not every eligible homeless person is enrolled in Medicaid.
A 1996 nationwide study found that only 25 percent of single homeless adults were enrolled in Medicaid. So what do the remaining 75 percent do when they need to be treated? See point number three.
3. Leaving homeless people uninsured is costly and ineffective.
With fewer resources and less access to medical care, uninsured homeless people will often leave medical conditions untreated. When their health becomes so poor that they do seek treatment, they will often go to the emergency room. This is taxing for both a person's health, hospital resources, and communities who must foot the bill.
4. Poor health and expensive healthcare are causes of homelessness.
Untreated illness leads to disability, which leads to an inability to work, which leads to job loss. Unemployment remains the leading cause of homelessness. Medical expenses - insured or not - are the leading cause of bankruptcy. In other words, health care reform may have a huge, unintended effect: preventing homelessness.
Health care reform has the potential to benefit many people, but particularly those who are most vulnerable among us.
Image: Center for American Progress
Nat'l Corporate Privatization BIDs for Local Anti-Homeless Cadres
Published October 10, 2009 @ 06:00AM PT
In major city after city across the United States a trained corps of quasi-security agents are being hired and trained by business to function outside the official law enforcement aegis to drive homeless people away from "business districts."
The parent corporation, SMS Holdings, has subsidiary units in several different service sectors, including maintenance and security. The company has been wooing and partnering with groups of local businesses banded together as "Business Improvement Districts" (BIDs) to install private-sector, uniformed teams to patrol these city areas and, in part, seek to target homeless populations with efforts designed to control and even remove homeless citizens. These "services" include preventing "panhandling" and "loitering."
The language is often veiled and euphemized, in public relations and sales use, so that calling the police and trying to rid the area of homeless is even sometimes expressed as "helping" them. For instance, in cities with little by way of any actual "services" for the homeless, the premise is still to "direct them to services" and "help" them get off the streets. Or at least the streets that the SMS Holdings subsidiary BLOCKbyBLOCK garners contracts to patrol and control in these ways.
From the company's website promotion, under "Keep It Safe":
"Address 'Quality of Life' Violations to Include:
• Panhandling (non-aggressive & aggressive)
• Loud or intimidating Behavior
• Solicitation
The company currently claims contracts with 33 cities and is intently seeking more, with specializations in assisting the local BIDs to arrange for "matching fund" tapping of public monies, whether civic, state and/or federal.
Some cities, such as Berkeley, CA, with their teams of patrolling "Hosts", have installed their own programs of similar nature. But the authority and funding of such programs can get a bit complex. These programs are blending private businesses, corporate entities and civic, public agencies, powers and... funds, of course.
In Berkeley, it's most ironic to find even federal funds earmarked to "help the homeless" spent in this way, which includes being directed by the business "bosses" to call the police on the homeless since citizens weren't doing so enough, in their opinion, in order to help rid the area of these people. And the bulk of their $200,000+ budget goes to services that have nothing to do with helping homeless people, as such. Critics locally also complain that the Hosts spend too much time sitting in cafe's, "just hanging out", and other idle past-times -- even "loitering"?
While BLOCKbyBLOCK is proud of their brightly colored uniforms, Berkeley opted for plainer brown jackets. That's jackets -- but not quite brown shirts.
Image by the author.
Laguna Beach Sanctions Safe Grounds
Published October 08, 2009 @ 09:37AM PT
This week, Laguna Beach officials faced a key decision regarding their city homeless population: outlaw sleeping in parks or sanction a designated safe grounds for the city's homeless? The city opted for the latter. Today, this shelter-less city now has a safe, regulated place for the city's homeless to stay without fear of facing arrest or crime.
Finally, a city that got it right. Refreshing.
The tiny little piece of positive tent city news arrives on the heels of several very public and very unfortunate tent city evictions. Seems public officials can't make the connection between 1. homelessness and 2. not having a place to sleep. Any homeless advocate would agree that preserving parks and benches for their intended use is fine, provided an alternative "safe ground" location (preferably near social services) is provided. This is especially true for cities like Laguna Beach that do not have a homeless shelter.
Dismantling a homeless encampment does nothing to improve the circumstances that led people to tent city in the first place. Indeed, one of the surest ways out of that camp is by connecting with a homeless provider to find a job or housing. Connecting service providers and homeless people is much more likely when those providers know where to find the un-sheltered homeless.
Besides, there is safety in numbers. Rather than hiding in dark allies or deep in the woods, these people are staying together, watching each others backs, and helping one another out. That said, no tent city is perfect (although, there are examples of tent cities done well), nor is it a long-term solution for homelessness. But it is a way of ensuring safety and order during this economic/housing/unemployment crisis, as the numbers of people on the street continue creeping up.
Thank you, Laguna Beach officials, for combining a hearty dose of common sense, a heap of reality, and a pinch of compassion to craft a short-term policy that will make life a bit easier for the city's homeless.
But please - don't stop here.
Image from DClemm's public Flickr photo stream.
Is the National Surge in Homeless Students Bailout-Worthy?
Published October 05, 2009 @ 08:51AM PT
In schools across the country, the heat is on. And we're not just talking about the chilling weather. In addition to the pressure to produce higher test scores and graduation rates, schools are also grappling with economic issues, like the gargantuan task of serving skyrocketing numbers of homeless students with tighter budgets.
The rising numbers of homeless youth speak for themselves. The National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth says there were 679,000 homeless students reported in the 2006-7 school year. As of last Spring, the New York Times reported that this total had surpassed 1 million. In areas of the country hit hard by job losses and foreclosure, these numbers are much worse. In Central Florida, for example, the number of homeless youth enrolled in schools is up 20 percent over last year. Last Spring, Fairfax, Virginia saw a 63 percent increase over the previous year.
Sure, these numbers look bad on paper. But for the schools that must keep these students in pace with their classmates, this often means resources. Resources in the form of transportation costs, counseling, food and supplies, and classroom time. One community in Central Florida will spend $17,000 just to provide transportation to 10 homeless students this academic year.
But when it comes to meeting the basic needs of the youngest among us, we cannot afford inaction. The federal requirements in place to ensure that children without a home do not fall behind in school are - simply put - good policy. What McKinney-Vento requires of schools is critical for ensuring that homeless students do not miss educational opportunities simply because they are homeless.
But these things are useless if they drain the budgets of schools that are already stretched due to the economy.
How dire must a situation be to be dubbed bailout-worthy?
Image from the Orlando Sentinel.
Watch the Speech: HUD Secretary Donovan on Homelessness
Published September 10, 2009 @ 05:43AM PT
On July 30th, Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan addressed the attendees of the National Conference to End Homelessness in Washington, D.C.
You've read the live blog, but now -- thanks to the National Alliance to End Homelessness -- you can watch the entire speech.
If you work with homeless people, have experienced homelessness, been on the verge of experiencing homelessness, or believe homelessness is unacceptable - I urge you to take 30 minutes and watch these remarks. This, my friends, is how the issue of homelessness is being framed and dealt with nationally by our federal policy-makers.
I was inspired by the Secretary's remarks. Advocates who were present were encouraged. But the real question is -- what do you think?
Image from the National Alliance to End Homelessness.
