Can a City Really 'End' Homelessness?

[Art Vandelay]

Can a City Really 'End' Homelessness?

Last week, the city of Phoenix made a startling announcement. The Arizona capital had previously identified 222 chronically homeless veterans living in the city, more than half of them veterans of the Vietnam War. These were men and women who'd been living on the streets for more than a year, or who'd been repeatedly homeless across even longer stretches of time. On average, they'd been without housing for a total of eight years. And many of them were living with multiple, compounding problems: unemployment, substance abuse, mental and physical illness.

Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton said last week that every last one of them now had a roof overhead. The city has effectively ended chronic veteran homelessness, according to the mayor, a lofty-sounding policy goal that no other U.S. city has achieved.

Phoenix did this – prioritizing housing first, then wrapping other services around it – with $1.8 million in local general funds, and another $6.5 million in federal grants. As of Veteran's Day last month, there were still 56 veterans on Phoenix streets. But the city council unanimously approved an additional $100,000 to place each one in housing by Christmas, meeting a year-end goal that had attracted the attention of other cities and President Barack Obama.

On the eve of Christmas, even the White House was touting the accomplishment as evidence that the same can be done nationwide by 2015. And several other cities, including Salt Lake City and Philadelphia, have already been chasing the same goal.

Veterans as a group make up about 10 percent of the total homeless population in the U.S. (or about 58,000 out of 610,000 according to the Department of Housing and Urban Development's census this year). But they often benefit from greater financial resources and political urgency than exists to address homelessness more broadly (for instance, in the form of support from the Department of Veterans Affairs).

Stanton, however, is arguing that the resolve and model Phoenix has demonstrated – combining local and federal funds, non-profit, government and business groups – should now be thrown at the challenge of homelessness more generally. As he put it earlier this week on The Rachel Maddow Show:

The strategies that we're using to end chronic homelessness among veterans are the exact same strategies that we’re going to use to end chronic homelessness among the broader population. This model – doing right by our veterans – is exactly how we’re going to do right by the larger population.​

http://www.theatlanticcities.com/neighborhoods/2013/12/can-city-really-end-homelessness/7958/

 

[Art Vandelay]

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[QueEx]

Thanks for this. I am a member of the board of directors of a nonprofit corporation whose purpose is providing supportive services to veterans, particularly housing and mental health. The board and employees will be pleased and invigorated by Phoenix's success.

Again, thanks.

Qx

 

[Art Vandelay]

Thanks for this. I am a member of the board of directors of a nonprofit corporation whose purpose is providing supportive services to veterans, particularly housing and mental health. The board and employees will be pleased and invigorated by Phoenix's success.

Again, thanks.

Qx

 

[Art Vandelay]

Housing The Homeless Not Only Saves Lives -- It's Actually Cheaper Than Doing Nothing
Posted: 03/25/2014 7:44 am EDT

It's cheaper to give homeless men and women a permanent place to live than to leave them on the streets.

That’s according to a study of an apartment complex for formerly homeless people in Charlotte, N.C., that found drastic savings on health care costs and incarceration.

Moore Place houses 85 chronically homeless adults, and was the subject of a study by the University of North Carolina Charlotte released on Monday. The study found that, in its first year, Moore Place tenants saved $1.8 million in health care costs, with 447 fewer emergency room visits (a 78 percent reduction) and 372 fewer days in the hospital (a 79 percent reduction).

The tenants also spent 84 percent fewer days in jail, with a 78 percent drop in arrests. The reduction is largely due to a decrease in crimes related to homelessness, such as trespassing, loitering, public urination, begging and public consumption of alcohol, according to Caroline Chambre, director the Urban Ministry Center’s HousingWorks, the main force behind Moore Place.

One tenant, Carl Caldwell, 62, said he used to go to the emergency room five to seven times a week, late at night, so he could spend the night there. “You wouldn’t believe my hospital bills,” Caldwell, who hasn’t had health insurance for years, told The Huffington Post. Caldwell was a teacher for 30 years and became homeless five years ago, when he lost his job and his roommate moved out.

While living on the street, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. The disease was particularly challenging for Caldwell, who said he spent his days “trying not to get robbed or killed” and trying to find bathrooms and shelter from freezing weather. Since he moved into Moore Place when it opened in March 2012, Caldwell has gained a regular doctor and has undergone radiation. Now his cancer is in remission. Without having to worry about where he will sleep, he can take his medicine regularly and keep it in his mini fridge.

“Moore Place saved my life,” Caldwell said. “When you’re homeless, you are dependent on everybody. Now I am independent and can give back." Caldwell said he regularly helps feed homeless people now and has reconnected with family members he hadn’t spoken to in years.

Chambre said she expects Moore Place tenants’ mental and physical health to continue to improve with consistent access to health care. “The idea of having a primary care doctor was just a fantasy when they were living on the street,” said Chambre. “Now they all have a regular doctor.”

Moore Place is the first homeless facility in Charlotte with a “housing first” model. Housing first is based on the notion that homeless individuals can more effectively deal with other issues –- such as addiction, employment and physical or mental health -– once they have housing. The other permanent housing facility for the homeless in Charlotte does not follow the “housing first” model, requiring sobriety as a prerequisite.

“Charlotte also has several large shelters with very robust front doors,” Chambre said. “But you have to also have a back door -- a way for people to escape homelessness. Shelters are overcrowded, with people living there for years, which defeats the purpose of emergency shelters.”

Moore Place tenants are required to contribute 30 percent of their income -– which for many residents comes from benefits like disability, veterans or Social Security -– toward rent. The rest of their housing costs, which total about $14,000 per tenant annually, are paid by a combination of private and church donations, and local and federal government funding.

The land and construction for the facility cost $6 million, which Chambre predicted will be surpassed by the millions of dollars the facility will save in health care and incarceration costs.

The UNCC study is one of several studies that have found that providing housing first reduces the overall cost of homelessness.

UNCC assistant professor Lori Thomas, who directed the study, said she found the health care and incarceration improvement among the tenants particularly notable, given how vulnerable the tenants are. Most tenants have two or more disabling health-related conditions, and nearly half suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, the study reported.

“This compassionate perspective is a better way to honor the humanity of a person, but it also works from a fiscally responsible perspective,” Thomas said. “This really is a win-win.”

 

[thoughtone]

 

[Art Vandelay]

 

[thoughtone]

 

[Greed]

LAPD killing lays bare enduring horror of Skid Row

LAPD killing lays bare enduring horror of Skid Row
As the country’s homeless districts gentrify, the City of Angels’ has only grown more violent and squalid. What can be done?
By Andrew Romano
12 hours ago
Yahoo News

A grainy cell-phone video of several LAPD officers shooting and killing an unarmed black man made national headlines Monday, reigniting the debate about race and law enforcement that was sparked last summer by similar incidents took place in Ferguson, Mo., and New York City.

But the sad news from L.A. should also call attention to a systemic, festering problem that devastates more Angelenos, day in and day out, than sporadic police shootings ever could.

It’s called Skid Row, and it’s where the man identified only as “Africa” was shot.

“I think this tragic event is more a reflection of Skid Row itself than a reflection of the police or the man who was killed,” the Rev. Andy Bales tells Yahoo News. (Bales runs the Union Rescue Mission shelter and has worked on Skid Row for 10 years.) “We’re asking the LAPD to maintain peace in a horrible environment. Skid Row is full of people trapped in an untenable living situation — a Twilight Zone they can’t escape.”

If you don’t live in Los Angeles and you think you know what L.A.’s Skid Row is like, think again. Nothing anywhere else in America compares. San Francisco’s Tenderloin is tiny. Seattle’s once-destitute Skid Row is dotted with cool galleries and cafés. And the Bowery in New York is now home to the New Museum of Contemporary Art and a sprawling Whole Foods complete with its own craft-beer emporium.

In downtown L.A., however, as many as 54 blocks — between Third Street and Seventh Street, from Alameda to Main — are almost entirely given over to the homeless, the limbless, the drug-addicted and the mentally ill. Battered tents line the boulevards. Mountains of garbage block the sidewalks. The air smells like urine, feces and burning crack. And everywhere there are people — dazed, disheveled, disabled; stretched out on lawn chairs or sprawled on the pavement; some scoring heroin from marked tents, others injecting it between their toes in plain sight, mere blocks from some of the hippest new bars and restaurants in town.

And that’s just during the day. At night, Skid Row gets considerably hairier.

The shooting occurred shortly before noon Sunday in the 500 block of San Pedro. According to published accounts from the LAPD and various eyewitnesses, police were responding to a 911 call reporting a possible robbery in the area when they encountered Africa scuffling with another man inside a tent. The cops ordered Africa to come out; he refused.

A confrontation ensued. The graphic, disturbing video, which was later posted on Facebook, shows the police punching and Tasering the man before one of them appears to shout, “Drop the gun! Drop the gun!” Five shots are fired. Africa was pronounced dead at the scene.

Whenever police shoot and kill a civilian, society asks the obvious question: “How did this happen?” And rightfully so. Los Angeles’ independent inspector general and district attorney are both planning to investigate the shooting “very, very carefully,” according to Police Commission President Steve Soboroff.

But the answers they are likely to find — there are now multiple eyewitness videos circulating online, and at least two security cameras and one police body camera also captured the altercation — may be fairly clear cut: the LAPD is claiming that Africa grabbed an officer’s gun and that the cops felt compelled to use deadly force.

The more difficult questions, perhaps, are the ones that fewer Americans will ask. Why was a troubled man who reportedly spent 10 years in a mental facility living in squalor on the streets of the nation’s last dedicated homeless district? Why was he surrounded by as many as 6,000 men, women and children in similarly dire straits — 2,000 of whom sleep on the sidewalks? How can a place like this even still exist? And what can be done about it?

Since the 1800s, homeless people have gathered in the area southeast of L.A.’s historic core. First they came because Los Angeles was the last stop on the train; then L.A. emerged as a major immigration hub. The location made economic sense. As Heather MacDonald wrote in 2007, “Farmland surrounded what is now downtown, requiring workers for the fields, for the adjacent factories that processed the produce and for the railroad that shipped it out. Skid Row’s cheap hotels, saloons and theaters catered to these transient single males.”

In 1975, the city decided to adopt what it called a “Policy of Containment,” deliberately concentrating social services in the area. The move coincided with a decline in the enforcement of statutes against public intoxication, vagrancy and loitering. As a result, the population of Skid Row skyrocketed, and lawlessness metastasized like a cancer. Toxic bacteria coated the ground. (A city study once showed that the sidewalks of Skid Row have up to 30 times the bacterial contamination of raw sewage.) Naked women stumbled down the street. Men were stabbed in broad daylight. Hucksters and dealers had finally found the perfect place to prey upon the most vulnerable elements of society: the handicapped, the elderly, the mentally ill, the addicts trying to turn their lives around. They became a captive clientele.

“The idea years ago was, ‘Let’s corral everybody in this area and then turn our backs on them so we can enjoy life in the rest of the beautiful city,” Bales says. “We wound up with 2,000 people on streets and predators moving in to feed their addictions. It’s everything you can imagine. People prostituting themselves for cash. People robbing other people. Violence for uncollected debts. It has become survival of the fittest.”

Some have claimed that the situation on Skid Row improved with the arrival of former (and future) NYPD Chief Bill Bratton, whose department instituted its Safer Cities Initiative in 2006 in a broken-windows-based attempt to restore public order by making arrests for minor offenses. According to the City Journal, “In September 2006, there were 1,876 people sleeping on the street and 518 tents; in early June [2007], there were 700 people and 315 tents.” Meanwhile, “major felonies on Skid Row plummeted 42 percent in the first half of 2007, the largest decrease in all of Los Angeles. There were 241 fewer victims of violent crime in that period. In downtown as a whole, the murder rate dropped over 75 percent.”

But visiting Skid Row today, it’s hard to argue that the problem is any closer to being solved than it was 10 years ago. In fact, as it becomes more difficult to commit people to mental health facilities, and as California prisons release inmates early to ease overcrowding, the population of Skid Row has been inching back up. And despite the fact that Skid Row’s 107 homeless charities receive $54 million each year and nuanced community policing is now the norm — the LAPD works “in small groups that include county mental health workers and volunteers” who “ask the homeless what they need and refer them to programs and places that can help” — the neighborhood is still a dead end.

“Skid Row is a travesty as a construct. It’s a toxic environment for the homeless,” developer Tom Gilmore recently told CNN. “Nobody is going to rise up from there. It has to be unwound because it’s this Gordian knot of social neglect.”

How that knot can be undone is the most difficult question of all. The city’s Housing for Heath program, which seeks first to shelter people in “permanent supportive housing” before tackling deeper issues, is a promising start. But so far, it’s only enough for the fortunate few. Bales believes that “we need to pull out all the stops,” calling for mobile vans to “come in and care for” residents and “dozens” of new retreats designed to “take the mentally ill out of that horrendous environment.” He also insists that L.A. must abandon its NIMBY (not in my backyard) mentality and decentralize services for the homeless so that “every region can take care of its own brothers and sisters.”

“I am hoping that something — maybe this incident — will wake us up enough to have a change of heart,” he says. “Only a big embarrassment will force us to take the action we need to take.”

Money may play a part as well. Once nearly abandoned, the area around Skid Row is rapidly gentrifying. A new artisanal cocktail bar or hipster hotel seems to open every day in downtown L.A., which GQ recently dubbed “the new capital of cool in America.” More than 50,000 new residents have moved in over the past two decades. Boosters like Gilmore believe that these changes will finally make it impossible to ignore Skid Row, for reasons both social and economic. In 2014, Mayor Eric Garcetti pledged to end veteran homelessness by the end of this year. But so far, that effort, while successful, has made little impact on Skid Row itself.

“When it comes to policing Skid Row, it seems as if my fellow officers and I are keeping our fingers in the cracks of a dam to prevent it from breaking,” LAPD Senior Lead Officer Deon Joseph recently wrote. (Joseph has patrolled the community for 17 years.) “Though many people may not realize it, we are in the throes of a mental health state of emergency.”

In the wake of Sunday’s shooting, Americans will continue to debate whether the LAPD did something wrong. As well they should. But they may also want to consider why the man known only as Africa was in the line of fire in the first place — and ask whether the time has come for Los Angeles to stop tolerating its intolerable Skid Row.

https://news.yahoo.com/lapd-killing-lays-bare-enduring-horror-of-skid-row-232638430.html

 

[Dannyblueyes]

There is already more homes than homeless in America so why hasn't homelessness ended already?

I suspect it's because of property values. If you work your whole life to pay off a 30 year mortgage and the guy next to you got his house for free then your house isn't worth shit. Your 30 years of blood, sweat and careful saving mean nothing. Americans hate being equal with people they consider the dregs of society.

 

[Art Vandelay]

There is already more homes than homeless in America so why hasn't homelessness ended already?

I suspect it's because of property values. If you work your whole life to pay off a 30 year mortgage and the guy next to you got his house for free then your house isn't worth shit. Your 30 years of blood, sweat and careful saving mean nothing. Americans hate being equal with people they consider the dregs of society.

That's like saying if I work hard to become a millionaire and someone else can win the lotto, my millions aren't worth shit.