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Solutions to
Homelessness
for Community Leaders to Undertake
I. Communities must develop a plan that involves housing and homeless
services
Find a Community Leadership(s) to facilitate the coordinate a plan. This plan must have the majority of providers, foundation, community leaders and government willing to support outcome. There is a need for accurate profiles and trends on homelessness and poverty in the community, and certainly, homeless people have to be brought into the process as partners.
Five critical areas to address:
Affordable housing
Supportive housing services
High Risk and Chronic sub groups
Intensive prevention strategies
Comprehensive health strategy
Outcomes:
Each government entity has a role
Extensive cost estimates must be outlined
Costs for not following the plan must be outlined
Communities must have a prevention plan to keep all new people out of the system.
Case workers need to go to visit all those who are in danger of entering the system (families facing eviction). The central telephone referral entity would dispatch the workers, and they would have to have the resources to keep people in their housing or place them directly into housing with case management without entering the shelter system. There is a need for a dedicated pool to prevent homelessness.
Communities must have a local effort to build, develop and fund housing plans for homeless people
Chronically homeless people are a fraction of the total population, but use most of the resources. If the community can place these individuals into housing with a great deal of support services we save a great deal of money. Communities need a dedicated pool of money to build new housing, renovate housing, and develop housing opportunities for homeless people. They need to have a plan for the best path into housing for special populations.
All Social Workers must first address housing stability then offer other support.
All licensed social workers should be involved in the quest for housing stability for homeless people. It is a waste of money and time to try and offer assistance to a homeless person. Treatment, literacy building, health care services have more of an impact for people with stable places to return to at night and to those that do not have to worry about their housing situation. If every social worker from job counselor to welfare case worker to hospital discharge social worker assisted people with their housing, fewer people would fall into homelessness. At this time, we each have our specialty and we defer housing stability to "someone else."
Homeless agencies should keep people in shelter and move them into housing.
At this time, many homeless organizations in an effort to not contaminate the entire shelter population will immediately evict homeless people that come back drunk or high. This denies the science of addiction, which usually involves relapses. Take away privileges, begin eviction proceedings but do not link housing to social services. Eviction is the punishment in society for violations of a lease. Why would the social services have a higher threshold for homeless people than those living in the private sector when these individuals need guidance and nurturing environments? Even if the individual is given thirty-day notice to leave, the shelter should attempt to relocate them to a treatment center or similar facility.
Communities should adopt a living wage tied to the cost of housing for all jobs in the region.
Studies have found people have to work 80 hours at minimum wage or find jobs that pay $10.10 per hour to afford the fair market rent in Ohio. Communities need to require employers to pay adults an income tied to the fair market rent which are updated yearly. A component of this is to deal with plantation and exploitative nature of the temporary labor organizations in urban centers. Low skilled workers need an alternative in order to break the cycle of poverty.
VII. Communities need to provide access to information and technology.
Most cities have resources to assist homeless people, but do not have an effective way to distribute information about those services. Homeless people need places to go to get access to information and technology and learning centers.
VIII. Agencies must be held to performance standards that place people in housing.
To often we allow social services get a pass because of their good deeds, but never are asked for proving their impact on the community. Homeless service providers must be held to a standard that requires them to place clients that seek help into housing with annual performance goals. There also must be an attempt to move people as fast as possible out of the homeless situation. Shelters are not always the answer for homeless people. Many people can be successful with a less intrusive level of intervention. Studies have shown that families and those with mental illness can be more successful going directly into housing with support services.
IX. We all must learn to forgive and forget.
We consistently, over the last ten years, have moved to punishing an individual for life for mistakes. Felons, people with poor credit, and those with previous evictions are punished by not being extended housing and even employment. Those who serve their time or seek legal relief from their debts should not be forced into a homeless situation for life. Communities must figure out ways for those that make mistakes to reintegrate into society. It serves no one to continue to punish these individuals so that these individuals are desperate or depressed or both.
Homelessness among youth needs to be addressed.
Those who graduate from foster care without a stable family, runaways, and youth that were abused and exploited are not ready for the responsibility of paying bills and living independent of a family. Social workers have a difficult time working with youth, because all of the traditional responses are inappropriate. Landlords will not accept youth and jobs that pay a decent wage are nearly impossible to find. Young people 17 to 24 need added attention, educational opportunities, life skills, and counseling. Any plan developed in a community around homelessness needs to pay special attention to homeless youth.
Access to comprehensive health care and prevention care is critical
We have seen a growth in the medically indigent who sacrifice their housing for medicine or for an expensive operation. Universal health care would solve this problem, but short of that communities need to develop special protocols for homeless people who are in need of medical treatment.
Massive increases in Mental Health counseling needed for low income individuals.
Too often we treat the triggering factor for an individual's homelessness, but we never get around to treating the reason the individual turned to drugs or crime. There is such a huge demand for mental health counseling most communities have prioritized only those with a severe mental illness (those who are a danger to themselves or others.) as deserving of counseling and support. States need to adopt mental health parity so that individuals will get the same health coverage for mental illness as with other health problems. By adding counseling services for people with any depression, personality disorders, and other obstacles to stability, we will all live in a healthier community. People could work through the anxiety and rage from a history of sexual abuse or child abuse.
Solutions
Resources:
National Coalition for the Homeless
National Alliance to End Homelessness
National Low Income Housing Coalition
Center for Poverty Solutions 2521 North Charles Street Baltimore Maryland 21218-4635. 410/366-0600