Homelessness Discussion

Photo Courtesy of Karen St. John-Vincent

These are questions that were submitted to us through our on-line forum.  If you have a question or comment click here to submit it to us and we will post your question or comment as well as a response on this page.

Comment:

08/02/01

                                                                                        Mr. Steve Greenwell

                                                                                        Lakewood Christian Services

                                                                                        1412 Marlowe Ave.

                                                                                        Lakewood, Ohio 44107

Mr. Brian Davis

Executive Director

Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless

Dear Brian,

Having served as Director of Lakewood Christian Service Center for three years, I am well aware of the programs the NEOCH provides to offer voice and empowerment to people who are homeless. The Grapevine is a valuable community resource for information and expression. Our agency has entered into a partnership with NEOCH to help homeless persons achieve housing stability through the Bridging the Gap Program.

We are pleased to support the work of NEOCH with an annual agency donation.

I believe that all service providers that have programs to assist people who are homeless have a common goal to help these persons move from homelessness to stability. The Cleveland area is blessed with many organizations that offer assistance and services. However, it is always important to listen to community feedback and evaluate our programs. Your organization can play a unique and important role in facilitating open communication between those in need of services and service providers.

I must state my disappointment to the recent survey displayed on the NEOCH website Falls short in providing a much –needed service of two-way communication. The survey represents a good first step to listen to the experience of individuals in the community. However, it seems to me that it would be in the best interest of persons who are homeless for their advocate organization to verify the accuracy of statements about programs so that appropriate information is provided for the entire community. It would be unfortunate for persons in need to read the survey on the NEOCH website and make erroneous assumptions about programs that may indeed be helpful.

I would like to clarify what I perceive as some inaccuracies about the programs at Lakewood Christian Service Center that were presented in the survey:

1. It is a misperception that those living in the suburbs rather than the inner city do not experience housing crisis. There are persons that become homeless while living in Lakewood. Over 80% of the persons who have assisted through our Supportive Housing Program were last residing in Lakewood before becoming homeless.

2. The HUD grant that provided the funding for our Supportive Housing Program stipulate that we serve in the western suburbs – the services this program are not limited to Lakewood.

3. Some, but not all of the services here, are limited to Lakewood residents. Lakewood Christian Center receives funding from the city of Lakewood to assist residents who face a housing crisis. The City of Lakewood dictates the use of these funds.

The HUD grant that Lakewood Christian Service Center received in 19998 enabled us to employ one full time worker to assist homeless people plan for self-sufficiency and help them to obtain services from the area housing assistance programs for which they may be eligible. When our agency applied for this grant it was because we listened to homeless people in our community that state these services seemed to be lacking in the western suburbs. Over the past two years there have been 62 people into our Supportive Housing Program and 30 of them have obtained transitional or permanent housing. I believe the numbers demonstrate that our Homeless Outreach Worker provides a much-needed service for people in the western suburbs who face a crisis of homelessness.

Perhaps there is a need for better communications so that other providers and persons

in our community. I believe NEOCH can play a very valuable role in that process. However, it is important that program information be accurately reported so to best serve those in need.

Sincerely,

Steve Greenwell,

Executive Director

Cc: Ruth Gillett

NEOCH Response:

Dear Mr. Greenwell:

Thank you for your comments regarding the report that we were paid to gather from homeless people. We will place your comments on the website with this response under the discussion section. I am afraid that you misunderstood the purpose of the survey. We were not commissioned to do an objective research project to look at homeless services, which is the reason the comments did not appear in the Homeless Grapevine. We would have had to offer space to every social service provider to answer the comments made by homeless people.

I have to say that from your letter I do not think that you understand the role of the Northeast Ohio Coalition for Homeless in the community. After much deliberations and with the input of homeless people, our members, some providers, and a team assembled by the Mandel School at Case Western Reserve, NEOCH decided our role in the community was to amplify the voice of homeless people. Out of deference to the role the City/County Office of Homeless Services; NEOCH is not a coordinator of services or an organizer of social service providers. We feel that it is the responsibility of OHS to "facilitate open communication between those in need of services and [the] service providers."

Regarding the Continuum of Care survey, NEOCH was hired by the County Commissioners to solicit comments from homeless people about all the programs that were up for renewal this year. Upon accepting this money, the County Commissioners indicated that we should not limit our report to only those two dozen programs up for renewal. We were not hired to get provider comments. While your comments were important, they were not within our scope of service. We believe that OHS should have commissioned this study earlier in the year and then asked each provider to respond, but that was not my decision.

I do not understand your three clarifying points that you included.

1. No where in our document does it say that homeless people do not come from suburban locations. The comments specifically address the barriers constructed by Lakewood Christian Services in serving people in need because they are not residents of a western suburb. This was federal money allocated by Cuyahoga County and therefore there can be no residency restriction on the use of your Outreach Services. I have to let you know that a member of the Continuum of Care review committee who was homeless in the last two years had the same experience as those who commented in our report. This formerly homeless person said that she sought services at your agency and was told that she needed to bring a referral letter. Upon securing a referral letter, this individual was given the name of another agency, which could possibly help. While providing referral information is important, that service is currently being done by the First Call for Help. I believe that the service that you were funded to oversee is broader than a referral source. This is to say that the Committee accepted other information besides the report that I submitted to decide on renewal funding.

2. As a HUD recipient, you cannot limit your service to only those in the western suburbs. This is clearly spelled out in your grant agreement with Cuyahoga County. If a person becomes homeless from Cleveland, you must serve that person if they show up at your door and your case worker has the time. There is no problem to focus on the western suburbs, but to deny services to homeless people because they come from the wrong city is not acceptable.

3. Again the report makes no comments that dispute that some of your services are restricted to people in Lakewood. It is my belief that some of the volunteers at your facility do not understand the various funding streams and the limitations of those funding sources. They may need to be trained that the Outreach program is open to all homeless people while the pantry and other services are only for Lakewood residents.

Again, we are not disputing the usefulness of your one full time outreach worker or the need for such a program. We hope that you will accept the Continuum of Care report as constructive criticism by the people who use or attempted to use your services. We believe that you and other social service providers have the budget and resources to get your message out about your services. Homeless people do not have the ability to respond, criticize or get their stories out in the public marketplace of ideas. We are one of the few opportunities left in the community that homeless people have that provides an uncensored voice. Please view this report as a Homeless Consumer Reports, which listed test results from people who tested your product.

NEOCH appreciates your agency offering the programs the Coalition for the Homeless helped create to your clients, and we hope that you will continue work with homeless people. We cannot serve the provider community with the same vigor as we serve homeless people. This split loyalty causes a conflict of interest. Where do we come down when homeless people are being swept and service providers do not think the idea is "all that serious?" Where do we come down when service providers make decisions based on finances and public relations to the detriment of homeless people?

We will continue to advocate on behalf of homeless people. We will continue to meet with them on a monthly basis to talk about gaps in services. We will continue to attempt to fill those gaps in services identified by homeless people. We will represent the interest of even those homeless people that are not viewed as desirable. We understand that this means that we will step on the toes of providers, government officials, and religious organizations. I trust that now that you know our position, we can continue developing our partnership. In the end our goals are the same, but we may take different paths to get to a place where no one is forced to be without a home.

Sincerely,

Brian P. Davis

Executive Director, NEOCH

Question:

    Driving through downtown Cleveland, one cannot help but observe a large number of abandoned, yet reasonably sound buildings. We are also aware of our city's large homeless population, which will increase dramatically with the growing loss of jobs and the uncontrolled rise in heating bills.
    A less obvious fact is that most of the new buildings downtown and the stadiums have received enormously lucrative tax abatements and low interest --indeed, in some cases, no interest --loans from the city. Is it possible to mount a campaign to force these real estate moguls to provide the funds to re-develop these vacant structures as single room occupancy dormitories for the homeless? The cost of this project would be but a fraction of the amounts they have received and the benefits to the entire community would be immense. Perhaps, the religious community and the labor movement will join in a demand along these lines.

NEOCH response:

While I am not sure that the heating bills will cause homelessness, there are many other factors that will have a huge impact on the number of people that find themselves on the streets. Those include the reductions in affordable housing, the poverty pirates that target low income people for exploitation (pay day loan agencies, rent to own centers, and predatory lenders), and finally the changes in the welfare system. Other states are beginning to make progress against poverty pirates and have pools to address the affordable housing crisis. In both Pennsylvania and New Jersey they have recently passed laws to exempt families from the five year welfare time limits.

Other cities have set up abatements and housing developments. Some cities require a developer to either build affordable housing or contribute to housing trust fund before they will grant an abatement or zoning variance. We have heard discussions about constructing this linkage, but it does not exist at this time. But by now there has been so much free development that the horse is out of the barn. NEOCH would certainly support a plan to require a linkage between tax abatements and loans and housing developments.

Single room occupancy housing is an apartment with support services. Sometimes it is an efficiency with a social worker on staff to make sure that the residents do not return to the streets. Sometimes the facility takes people right off the street and other times only out of the shelters. It is one of the best paths off the streets. It is proven and is greatly needed in Cleveland. Housing has proven to be more cost efficient than shelters and certainly more humane. These are the strategies that BREAD, a religious organization in Columbus, organized around to develop a dedicated pool of revenue to produce housing. NEOCH agrees that benefits would be immense.

Over the past decade, First United Methodist Church of Cleveland has operated emergency overflow shelters for men, women, and children on behalf of the city of Cleveland and Cuyahoga County. The shelter for women and kids was right here in our church facility at E. 30th Street and Euclid Avenue.

In the entire time of the operation of these shelters, and several times in the Forum section of this paper, I have advocated for shelters designed specifically for this purpose with facilities that can adequately deal with the number of people living on our urban streets. My advocacy has been before our county commissioners beginning with Tim Hagan, Mary Boyle and Jim Petro. It has occurred as an officer of the old Coalition on Homelessness chaired by City Councilman Jay Westbrook and convened by Mayor Michael White, and it has brought me before such groups as United Way and the Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless (NEOCH), when it was served by a reputable and honorable director in Brian Gillooly.

In all my work, both as a shelter provider and advocate for the special needs of the homeless, I have warned about the conditions in which we are placing homeless people as a result of not having facilities designed as homeless shelters. People have heard me. County and city officials have been effective and caring in trying to overcome not-in-my-backyard problems in locating adequate shelter space and meeting immediate needs of an often-difficult population.

In recent years, however, the very problems in the conditions of inadequate emergency overflow shelters that I have described have been said to be caused and perpetuated by the shelters we have operated. It has been painful and deeply frustrating to have our shelter program so unfairly discredited.

Several factors have contributed to this. Currently, NEOCH is, unfortunately, led by a duplicitous director. Our community is not well-served by his dishonest "advocacy" for homeless people. Second, there is enormous pressure to raise operating funds from dwindling resources. Social agencies are competing to stay in operation, while the needs of the people whom we all serve increases. This financial reality creates negative competition.

Finally, the number of people who are homeless is increasing each month. This has been so for the last five years. Drug and alcohol addiction, spousal abuse and mental illness continue, in record numbers, to drive people out on the sometimes mean streets.

In spite of it all, First Church continues to work to be a part of the solution to the problems and hardships that people who are, or become, homeless experience.

REV. DR. KENNETH W. CHALKER

Cleveland

Chalker is senior pastor of First United Methodist Church

The Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless responds:

Over the past five years, NEOCH has taken on the role of amplifier of those who are forced into a homeless situation. We hold monthly meetings within the shelters and social service organizations that serve homeless people in an effort to listen to what concerns homeless people. Until last year, our single biggest complaint was "the sites." These sites were the "shelters" that Rev. Chalker and his organization Cornerstone Connections created and supervised.

These facilities had operated for ten years as an easy way for the County and City to claim to address their homeless citizens. They were relatively inexpensive to operate, with salaries actually decreasing for the staff over the years they operated. They opened the doors of three public buildings and one garage every night and homeless people would sleep on mats on the floor. These mats were never cleaned. They had a box of blankets that were rarely cleaned available to the residents. The bathroom facilities were inadequate, and the men and women had to leave at six a.m. The conditions were worse than the animal shelter and the kicker was that the staff treated the clients worse than dogs. They were disrespectful, condescending, and openly contemptuous of those who were forced to sleep at the sites.

The Coalition began having meetings with those who used the sites in early 1999 and running stories in the Grapevine. We were amazed to hear the language from the facility staff when a client raised a concern, and in full view of the supervisors. They would say that the clients stink and are criminals. They said the most horrible things in front of supervisors, NEOCH staff, and County staff. When we heard the level of disrespect in public, we knew that it could only be worse at night when the clients had to face these same staff members without outside witnesses. We realized that this was an urgent situation and we had to act immediately. We had to stop the retaliation, intimidation, and the horrors that these men and women were facing at the sites.

We wrote letters, got the newspaper involved, met with Chalker, and turned up the heat to assure that the County would take action. In our meetings, Chalker was polite and seemed sympathetic, but was very defensive. He said that he would investigate our charges and get back to us. No response was ever given and no staff member was ever disciplined. We kept the pressure on, and in the summer of 1999 the Commissioners announced plans to open a new facility for men. By the end of the year the Salvation Army had taken over the facility with a brand new staff, which met our deadline that we had set for the County.

We feel justified in saying that our advocacy was not misplaced. On the first night the Salvation Army took over, 25 more men came into the facility for shelter. These are men who were sleeping on the street the night before. By February of 2000, there were 100 more men inside the sites than when Cornerstone Connections ran it. Isn’t the purpose of a shelter to get people inside so that they do not freeze on the streets?

We were not finished. We continued to pressure City and County officials to get the women out from under this horrible situation. In April of 2001, Catholic Charities will take over the operation of the women’s site, and Ken Chalker will be out of the homeless industry. This is one of the reasons he has only negative things to say about the "duplicitous director." We can understand that most people would be angry with the agency that put their staff out of a job.

After ten years of providing floor mats to our citizens, the community is leaving that system behind. There was extensive discussion within the Coalition concerning our role in prolonging this misery for so long, and what we could have done differently. We have learned a great deal that we hope will prevent a similar situation from developing.

1. We should never allow the government to defer its responsibility to its citizens, even out of humanitarian concerns. Government will always take the path of least resistance if given the choice. We allowed a cheap, inefficient system to keep people homeless for years, and only in the last few years demanded a change.

2. Never accept an "I owe you" from the government—they will never pay up, or they will take the money from those who gave up the most. The shelters were full every night, so we accepted a promise from the County and City that they would open more facilities in the future and in the meantime we would open these "overflow shelters" which became the sites. Trouble was, they never got around to funding the new facilities or finding creative ways off the streets for the huge number of chronically homeless people in Cleveland. Why would the government fund new housing or support services when they have these warehouses that are inexpensive to run? They went about creating playgrounds for the rich, which were cleaned by the residents of these "overflow shelters."

3. Never allow the government to create a facility that is exempt from standards especially in a City that has very weak oversight capacity. The overflow shelters were exempt from the State shelter standards, and they abused that privilege. They never found the money to improve the standards nor did a massive fundraising drive to get the women and children off the floor. They never passed the hat to take better care of the mentally ill and fragile populations that lived in their sites. Things got worse over the years. Cleveland does a horrible job of providing oversight of the social service industry with special neglect of those serving homeless people. The overflow shelters were on their own, and they could do whatever they wanted.

4. Homeless people have to be part of the management team of the facility. They have to serve on the Boards of the agencies. They have to meet with those funding the services, and they must take more ownership over the shelters and services. If we as a community had listened better to our homeless citizens, we would have realized this was a huge problem sooner. We cannot have the entry point to the homeless system be so deplorable that we break people’s spirit.

5. It takes more than a big heart to provide service to homeless people. Most of the people who acted as upper management of the sites all the way up to Rev. Chalker are very kind people with a great deal of sympathy for the cause. This does not always translate into effective management or the selection of quality staff. We need skilled staff with the ability to promote and act on solutions.

6. It is critical that we listen to those using the service. Advocates cannot take action without the support of those using the service or the direct beneficiaries. Without the support of the residents of the sites this advocacy would have failed. The people who were staying at the facility attended the pubic meetings, and expressed their concerns. Many of the residents attended a rally outside of the sites, and a few met with the media and the County employees.

7. Shelters like the sites are what make people afraid of locating a shelter in their neighborhood. If you treat people with such disrespect they are going to rebellious acts to keep their dignity. This causes problems in the neighborhoods and especially for the businesses in the neighborhood of the sites. The sites operated by Cornerstone Connections and First United Methodist Church were operated so poorly that it is no wonder community development organizations, neighborhood groups, and elected officials are unified in opposition to social service providers that serve homeless people.

8. There are some agencies that operate in Cleveland that waste our resources. We pay them basically to babysit grown citizens. They are not moving people into housing or empowering them to move into stable living arrangements. We need to fund the best and let the others pursue some other endeavor. We cannot keep carrying organizations that only serve to employ social workers. The resources are too precious to waste on outdated or under-performing organizations.

9. Finally, even members of the cloth can be insensitive to the needs of the less privileged. Ministers have a special relationship with God, but that does not preclude them from not seeing the misery that existed in their own basement. We should not presume infallibility by leaders of a religious community when it comes to working with people of low income.

The Reverend Chalker supported criminalizing homelessness with Mayor White’s policy of arresting homeless people for legal activities of sitting and sleeping. He is out of touch with the needs of his clients. We feel it might be better if First Church is not part of the solution to the problems and hardships faced by their clients. With friends like First Church, homeless people don’t need enemies. While we applaud your enthusiasm for the cause, maybe your congregation should look at other areas of service, and let professionals take over serving homeless people. You could always look at literacy or meals on wheels.

Response From Kenneth Chaulker

April 3, 2001

Dear NEOCH:

Thank you for your invitation to respond to the concerns you have posted on your website in relation to my January letter published in the Plain Dealer. I am pleased that your invitation indicated that you would post any response, unedited and uncensored.

Although Mr. Davis indicated in the invitation for response that I have never afforded myself "the opportunity to respond to (NEOCH’s) criticism," I believe I have responded in ways appropriate to my role as the pastor of First United Methodist Church. I encouraged the meetings between Mr. Davis and Cornerstone Connections Director, Barbara Williams. I was present at several of those meetings. Also, I encouraged and brokered the official meeting for conversation between NEOCH’s Executive Director with the then Chairperson of the Cornerstone Board, Mr. James Roosa. I put Mr. Davis in direct conversation with the people who officially represented Cornerstone Connections and who were the top-level authorities in carrying out and establishing policies for shelter operations.

In the NEOCH response to my Plain Dealer communication there was a statement that must be corrected. The response stated that the shelters operated by Cornerstone Connections were ‘shelters’ that Rev. Chalker and his organization Cornerstone Connections created and supervised.

Cornerstone Connections is not my organization. While I most certainly was one of the participants within it, Cornerstone Connections was and is a separate 501c3 organization which the city and county required. As a liaison between the church and Cornerstone Connections, I have voice on the Board of Directors of the organization, but not a vote. The sites operated by Cornerstone Connections as emergency overflow shelters for homeless persons were not created by Cornerstone Connections or me. The sites were set by the emergency overflow shelter program that Cornerstone Connections agreed to operate and inherited from the previous agency in charge, The Federation for Community Planning.

From the very beginning of the program to provide emergency shelter to homeless persons, there was no money allocated or available from the city and county to pay rent or to lease space for shelter use. All shelter sites were multiple use facilities owned by the county and made available for nighttime shelter without charge. The exception to this governmental ownership was First Church, which served as the site for women and children. First Church also did not charge rent or receive reimbursement for space allocation.

It is because of multiple use facilities as emergency homeless shelters that persons needed to vacate shelter spaces early each morning. Every site, including First Church, had to be prepared for its various daytime uses. Only later in the development of the emergency overflow shelter program did money become available to lease/rent space. The driving force behind this change was twofold. The first was the threat by county employees to file action against the city and county if their work places were not discontinued as overnight shelter sites. The second reason was that The Salvation Army’s Harbor Light shelter could not be made available for overnight use without cost. Subsequently, the county and city then found private donations to pay rent to The Salvation Army for shelter space.

I agree with NEOCH that the emergency shelter locations have never been close to adequate for the care of homeless persons. In fact, for over 10 years, I have advocated for an entirely different approach to the facilities available for shelter sites. Along with city and county officials, I have searched for better and more adequate shelter facilities. At every turn, owners or neighbors or councilpersons getting word of the possible use of a facility as a homeless shelter have successfully blocked any contracts. Even at First Church when the decision was made to make space available to house homeless persons in our building, our residential neighbors threatened a class action law suit to stop our providing shelter. (Obviously, they were dissuaded from that action.)

In terms of concern for homeless people and the inadequate emergency shelter available for homeless men, women, and children in Cuyahoga County and the City of Cleveland, the Executive Director of NEOCH and I are in general agreement. However, I do not agree with his methods of tearing down the providers of services as his means of advocating on behalf of, and for, the needs and conditions of homeless people.

As the sun sets on the operation of emergency shelter sites by Cornerstone Connections, what has been accomplished as a result of the conflict between NEOCH and Cornerstone Connections? While time will tell on some matters, what is true now is that hundreds of homeless men are warehoused in a facility yet to meet the promised conditions and provide the range of services hailed with fanfare over a year ago. The shelter site envisioned for women and children will be farther from the center of the city than it has ever been. Location and transportation issues will make even more hardships for homeless people in terms of access to shelter. And, committed, faithful and faith-filled providers of care for deeply troubled and hurting people have been painted with a brush of incompetence and lack of caring.

It remains to be seen whether or not the physical conditions in the emergency overflow shelters will improve. To be sure, the intent of the people operating these shelters will be, as has always been the case, to provide care and support for those who need such emergency shelter.

Most sincerely,

Rev. Dr. Kenneth W. Chalker, Senior Pastor

First United Methodist Church

Question: Is there a sidewalk initiative team in Cleveland for the homeless?

Answer: I assume you mean the teams of workers that attempt to assist homeless people or actually prevent homeless people from interacting or scaring downtown pedestrians and tourists. There is not such a group in Cleveland. There are outreach workers including mental health workers and those specializing in serving veterans. These teams drive around in vans trying to build trusting relationships with homeless people. They hope eventually to get these guys into shelter and off the streets. This is a long process that takes time and patience.

The Mayor did try to get the police in late 1999 to get homeless people off the sidewalks. We sued on behalf of homeless people, and the Mayor settled the lawsuit to our satisfaction. If you check out the services section of the web site you can find the agencies that do outreach. If you check out the Homeless Bill of Rights on our website you can see our position on police acting as social workers.

Question: Where can I find out information (laws/right) of homeless people living on the street, or the rights in general of homeless people?

Answer: We will be putting together a brochure, which we will publish on our website about the rights of people on the streets as part of our Civil Rights project. We do not have anything right now. If you call Sheryl Smith at our office 241-1104 in the next two weeks she can make you copies of the cards that they give out to homeless people in San Francisco and Atlanta. There is a book by Steven Banks and Robert Hayes called the "Rights of the Homeless." I am sure that would be nearly impossible to find. You could check out some of our links on our web site especially the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty for more information.

Question: In the most recent issue of The Homeless Grapevine there are some figures and terminology about renting that I didn't quite understand. You claim that the housing wage for a one bedroom apartment is $10.02 an hour [in Ohio], which would require that a minimum wage worker work 78 hours a week to afford housing. I would like to know what these figures are based on, and could you explain what is a housing wage? Is it the same thing as a living wage? It is just not clear how you came up with these figures; I would like to see it broken down in detail.

Answer: The methodology for Out of Reach was developed by Cushing N. Dolbeare, Founder and Chair Emeritus of the National Low Income Housing Coalition. The analysis is based on Fair Market Rents (FMR) established by HUD for fiscal year 2001. State average FMRs are weighted averages for all counties (metropolitan and nonmetropolitan), based on number of renter households reported by the 1990 Census. State average area median incomes are derived in the same manner from HUD area median income estimates for FY 2000.5 Renter median income estimates are based on 1990 renter median income as percent of household median income. In other words, lacking better data, the report assumes that the relationship between renter and owner incomes has not changed since 1990. The study also estimates affordability based on the 30% of income standard used in federal housing policy subsidy programs. This standard is also a generally accepted measure of affordability.

The estimates of the proportion of renter households unable to afford the FMR are based on the national income distribution of all renter households as reported by the 1999 American Housing Survey (AHS), the most recent information available. Stated differently, if the income needed to afford the FMR is 59% of renter median and 32% of all renter households had incomes below 59% of area median in 1999, then we assume that 32% of all renter households in the state cannot afford the FMR. Again, this assumption is made because better data are unavailable.

The calculations of wages and hours of work needed to pay the FMR at 30% of income are made at either the federal minimum wage ($5.15) or the state minimum wage if applicable. These numbers assume pay for a 40-hour week for all 52 weeks of the year. However, many people earning hourly wages do not get paid vacation or sick leave, or may switch jobs and lose work time. Therefore, the wage levels cited are the lowest at which the FMR could be paid at 30% of income.

So therefore if the FMR is $400 per month for a 1 bedroom apartment then multiply that by 12 months to equal $4,800 per year. Affordability is 30% of a person’s annual salary according to the standard HUD is now using. This means that the individual would have to earn $16,000 per year to afford the rent. Broken down to the per hour salary that would be $7.69 per hour or just under 60 hours per week at a minimum wage job. By the way, the housing wage in Cuyahoga County is over $11.42 per hour last year.

Question: Why don't social service agency's that deal with homeless individuals communicate with each other?

Answer: There are very few forums for social service providers to speak to each other. NEOCH in its origin was the facilitator of such discussions. We have chosen a path to represent the interests of homeless people and low income individuals. This has left the homeless social services with few opportunities to meet. In my experience, they also move from one crisis to another. They are all short on staff, and short on time. Unfortunately, educating staff and constructing networks and open lines of communication are a lower priority. The provider community deal with life and death issues everyday, and communication does not always make the cut for where to allocate time. The government institutions in Cleveland have not done a good job of assuring that providers communicate with each other.

Question: What do you think is the main cause of homelessness, and what can be done to address it?

Answer: I would go to the National Coalition for the Homeless and their website at www.nationalhomeless.org and look at the section called "Who are the Homeless?" Basically, anyone can become homeless. There is no longer one group that is homeless. There is no longer one reason that people become homeless. From drugs, alcohol, a mental illness, dumb decisions, domestic violence, health problems, job problems, family dispute, stubbornness they all are factors these days. These are the triggers but what most homeless people share is a lack of family support. They have either burnt their bridges with their family or their family has all died. There is no longer a simple answer for what causes homelessness. The main factors are mental illness, drugs and alcohol, health reason, and low income jobs. We have an entire section on our website dedicated to solutions and our advocacy position. Each of these will give you a good idea as to our recommended solutions to homelessness. The simple answer is housing—safe decent affordable housing and the support services to prevent people from becoming homeless.

Question: People that are homeless ask me for money whenever I'm downtown. Is it better to give money to individuals or to agencies that support or provide services to homeless people? I want to help but don't want the money going to the wrong places.

Answer: The age-old dilemma to give or not to give that is the question. This is really more of a personal preference more than a right or wrong decision. I would never presume to tell you if ketchup and mustard are better than sauerkraut on your hotdog. Many people feel better giving directly to an individual. Sure, most of the time this money is probably satisfying some habit, but who is to say that that dollar might be the one that turns a person around. Some people use that money to self medicate and feel some comfort in the face of poverty and despair. Many feel it is none of my business what this desperate person does with the money that I give them. It is humiliating enough to have to beg for money without being audited on where that money is going. If you are uncomfortable about giving money that may go to buy alcohol or drugs, you could carry food around and pass it out on the street to panhandlers. The last argument for giving money directly to a pan handler is there is no administrative cut taken out of that donation unfortunately it is not tax deductible.

On the other side of the issue, Cleveland has a wealth of organizations that do amazing work to help homeless people. Pick carefully those organizations that are helping to solve the problems of homelessness. Pick those organizations that do not take a huge administrative fee, but are spending money on services. If the salary structure for staff at the homeless social service organizations is any indication, then most are in need. You could also tell the panhandler that you only give to Homeless Grapevine vendors. The Homeless Grapevine is one of the few alternatives to pan handling. It is a product in exchange for your charity, and it is sold by homeless and very low income individuals. With the Grapevine, you get to read the words of homeless people and you provide a dignified dollar to a low wage worker. Check out the Grapevine on this website.

February 9, 2001

Question: What are race relations like in the homeless community? It seems that people in poverty would want to ban together to fight against "the Man". Yet, the overshadowing power of race divides them. Any thoughts?

Answer: Unfortunately, when you reach the bottom of the economic ladder everyone is “The Man.”  There is some sharing of resources and thus collaboration on the streets, but for the most part the race relations mirror the broader community.  Remember that there is no litmus test for becoming homeless, and racists don’t avoid losing housing anymore than civil rights activists.   There are those homeless people that cannot stand white people and there are those that do not like African Americans. 

    The African American population is disproportionately represented in Cleveland's homeless population, which is a cause of some tension.  The scourge of poverty is colorblind.  It devastates all races equally.  It is unreasonable to expect that homeless people would suddenly lose their prejudices and hatred. 

  September 7, 2000 2:55 P.M.: Joseph Meissner

Comment---Excellent site with much good information.  Keep up the good work.

August 29, 2000 9:03 P.M.

Comment--- There is a quote by Margaret Mead that states "never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, concerned citizens can change the world.  Indeed it is the only thing that ever has." Your organization is proof of this.  Keep up the good work.