HUD Secretary Donovan Talks Homelessness

Published July 30, 2009 @ 05:44AM PT

This morning we're hearing remarks by Shaun Donovan, the 15th Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary and Chair of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness.

8:35am - Introduction by Nan Roman. Secretary Donovan acknowledges that Nan has influenced five HUD Secretaries... phew.

8:38 - Donovan: "Serving the homeless is hard work even in the best of times. During times like these, it is the work of angels."

8:39 - A civilized society does not allow someone to live on the streets, or die on the streets.

8:39 - Talking about the "myth" that some people want to live on the streets. He said he learned during his time in NYC that

8:40 - "We know that we can end homelessness... ALL homelessness."

8:41 - We've moved on to the costs of homelessness, both in the traditional sense and touchy-feely sense.

8:41 -Thanks to good RESEARCH, we know more about the causes, effects, and solutions of homelessness then ever before. Another call for good research. 8:44 - 56% increase in rural and suburban homelessness, proving that homelessness is not just an urban problem and affects everyone in every type of community.

8:45 - Every homeless person shares one trait: they lack housing they can afford. Before there was a housing crisis, there was an affordable rental housing crisis. Wow - refreshing to hear HUD talking about rental housing for low income people instead of making "home ownership possible."

8:48 - Two great federal updates: HUD FY2010 budget involves capitalizing the Housing Trust Fund for the first time and, just yesterday, they heard that Congress is allocating additional funds to rental vouchers, thus putting some funds behind the promise to prioritize the creation of affordable rental housing.

8:51 - In light of the HPRP funding, and the new focus on prevention and rapid rehousing, Donovan is asking for a comprehensive review of HUD programs (CDBG, etc.) to ensure that they are working towards preventing and ending homelessness.

8:54 - Donovan says they're close to naming an Executive Director for the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness. Who will replace Mangano?

8:55 - "Let me be as clear as I can: We will develop a federal strategy to prevent and END homelessness in the United States."

8:57 - Wow: "There are more homeless Vietnam veterans today than the number of troops who died in that war."

8:59 - No surprise... now we're hearing about the link between homelessness and health care. Comprehensive health care reform will prevent thousands of families from becoming homeless.

9:00 - Creating decent, affordable housing is one of the best strategies for promoting good health.

9:02 - "Simply put - if we want to tackle healthcare reform, if we want to lower costs, we must tackle homelessness." -Donovan

9:04 - He acknowledges that ending homelessness is a question of will. Ending with a nice quote about how ending homelessness is within our reach.

9:06 - "If we can spend billions of dollars on ending homelessness the wrong way... surely we can do it today the right way."

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9:02 - "Simply put - if we want to tackle healthcare reform, if we want to lower costs, we must tackle homelessness." -Donovan

Actually, that's only about half right. While homelessness contributes to and even causes health problems or worsens them or complicates them, health problems and our health care "system" along with our what, 30 years or so now of failing to reform it, vastly contributes to homelessness especially among certain types of health problems. So in many ways, each contributes to the other and fixing both will help with the other and its costs.

Mental illness for example, since that's one thing with which I'm painfully familiar thanks to personal and family experience. When the institutions were closed, the mentally ill were more or less kicked out onto the streets with no real preparation and with nothing put in place to replace the institutions - like the promised outpatient clinics. So you have untold thousands of mentally ill, known mentally ill, let out of institutions, into a society who for the most didn't want them (and to a good degree still doesn't want us) and which often discrminates at a painful level against the mentally ill despite all applicable laws. You find those people unable to get treatment - which serves to worsen stigma and discrmination - because the promised outpatient clinics STILL (what is it now? 30 or more years later?) don't exist or access to them depends upon the patient having Medicaid or Medicare which requires tons of documentation and even more so if childless because you'll need to be certified as disabled or they'll need to do the often impossible, get a job and survive both the probationary period AND the pre-existing condition exclusionary period to get care that way. Or you find people like my Dad, who - due to a mix of stigma and fear of what he'd heard of treatment - absolutely, positively would not under any circumstances go in for an evaluation. Not that I can entirely blame him as much as he clearly needed it. I've seen a lot of public mental health providers of the sort of quality that they shouldn't see live patients - and you know the providers are bad when the local homeless can name the agencies and tell you the quality issues for each one, accurately (including ethics and/or law violations). But no one wants to fix it, since after all it's ONLY public health and worse still, public MENTAL health.

You want to get the mentally ill off of the streets, yes they need homes - but the ones who've slipped into homelessness also need access to appropriate services. What we've got doesn't cut it. The services, where even available, often are so bad I wouldn't send my worst enemy's dog. See how tangled the mess is? This is why I wrote my petition.

Posted by Danetta Amschler on 07/30/2009 @ 12:14PM PT
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I live in a HUD building now and the building that I live in is a elderly and disable building, and we need help from the staff who is stealing from us, they have been ripping us off for years now and nothing or no one can stop them, they come in your house and take what ever they want from you, they no that they can get away with it because they have keys to everything so there is no sign of break-in.

I currently live in Seagate Village at 1450 Locust Ave,in Long Beach, CA 90813. The staff names are [Nate the maintenance man] Opee the cleaning lady] and Admir the security guard. What do we suppose to do about this we have tried every thing about this situation but is always told that there's no sign of break-in....

HUD this is one of your building do SOMETHING!!!

Posted by lacy peterson on 07/30/2009 @ 03:11PM PT
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What does solving family homelessness for kids and communities look like? Check out the documentary about one community in America and the people in it who are solving family homelessness.

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=606A3D1DA49C4609

Posted by NORTH COUNTY SOLUTIONS FOR CHANGE on 09/15/2009 @ 06:37PM PT
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Author

Shannon has worked in homeless shelters and service organizations in San Francisco, the Triangle region of North Carolina, and currently in the greater Boston area. She is a graduate student studying housing and urban policy at Tufts University.