Thank you for your keen interest in protecting the public from Government waste, Senator. Having intimate knowledge of one of the items on your 2008 list, I have to wonder if you are misguided about all of the items on your list. I worked on the Community Voice Mail program in Cleveland, and know that it can help thousands of people for around $20 a person per year. It will save the community hundreds of thousands of dollars. Since you are so far off the mark about Voice Mail, how many more of the items in your report are equally off base? As you are aware this is from your report:
"Voicemail for the Homeless -- Ohio ($15K)You guys in DC waste millions on prescription drugs, Medicaid, Defense contractors, and rebuilding Iraq why pick on a small program helping homeless people? As a doctor, I would have thought you could understand the need for Voice Mail for homeless people. How does a person staying in a shelter schedule a follow up test at a medical clinic without a telephone? How can extended family get in touch with a relative who is staying in a facility that cannot release even the names of the people in the shelters? How does an employer extend a job offer to a person who does not have a stable place to live? How does a landlord get word back to a person sleeping in their car that they passed their credit/background check and can move in?
While the homeless in Summit County struggle to find food, shelter and clothing, this Ohio community made sure they were not lacking in one essential service: voice mail. A $1 million Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) will carve out $15,000 for the free voice mail service. Interestingly, the community spent only $10,000 of the same CDBG grant on transitional housing for “homeless single parents.”
The ability to have contact with the world can dramatically shorten a person's homelessness. In Cleveland, Voice Mail was successful in 60-70% of the people who were enrolled in the program. We served 3,000 people a year with the program, and with more funding we could have served more people. I am sure that the $62,000 per year we spent on the Voice Mail program in Cleveland saved the community at least 10 times that amount. It reduced shelter costs, health care costs, unemployment costs, mental health care, criminal justice expenses, cash assistance, and Medicaid costs. Instead of condemning this program, you should be championing this program as a one of the most cost effective in the United States. I would ask you to name one other program that costs $20 for one year and has a 60-70% success rate in helping people find housing, a job or other help.
One thing that we can agree on is that the country would be best served if the private sector would pay for this service. We believe that this should be part of universal service in the United States as defined by the Telecommunication's Act. Congress had the opportunity to require voice mail as part of the tax collected by the phone companies. Or the public utility telephone companies should pay for voice mail systems across the United States so that every homeless person has a telephone number and a place to get messages. Criticizing new technologies that can help people reduce the time spent homeless makes you sound like a Luddite. By the way, as long as we are talking, the Continuum of Care funding which supports almost all the transitional housing programs in the country needs to be doubled or tripled. The federal funding has remained static for four years, and it only pays for the renewal of the shelters as they were originally funded. Basically, most shelters in America have not received a cost of living increase for a decade or more. Please give the shelters a budget increase and Akron will not need to spend any CDBG dollars on transitional shelters and they can fund other innovations in the future.
Brian
Posts by Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless staff and Board.
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