County Advisory Looking for Homeless Members
The Cuyahoga County Office of Homeless Services is looking for homeless people to serve on the board. The Board decides on the regulations for operating a shelter in Cleveland (but does not enforce these regulations) and which agency gets the funds. Most of the rest is just discussing homelessness locally. Here is the flyer created by the OHS staff.
They are going to select 2 to 4 homeless people to be on the board. Below is the application to print out. Applications are due by June 17. The application asks if you were "literally homeless." This is a bizarre expression created by HUD that makes no sense. HUD has been using it to clarify that the person meets the HUD definition of homelessness, but that is the most limiting definition. It does not include those living in a garage or basement, doubled up with a friend, just out of jail, living in a motel or a bunch of other scenarios. it is not the understanding of homelessness that the man-on-the-street would use. It is actually the figurative definition of homelessness, but in this backward world of homelessness "literally" means "figuratively" and vice versa. Weird.
The application does not ask when the person was figuratively homeless so they can avoid people who had their most recent experience with homelessness in the 1980s or 1990s. Also, it does not indicate how the committee will decide between one homeless person over another. There are no demographic information if they would want to get representation from a certain group (LGBT, veteran, families, or youth, etc.) Hopefully, this will be corrected for 2017.
Brian Davis
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