Homeless Book Club Meets

How is Your Government Handling Homelessness: TALK!

The poorly named "advisory" board of the Office of Homeless Services met this last week. This group has all the right people at the table, but they advise no one. They talk a great deal about homelessness, but rarely act. It is a good chance to get together every other month and talk about homelessness similar to homeless book club. Can you believe that your government convenes a meeting only every 60 days to address homelessness? If it is any comfort to you they do meet for two hours every 60 days.

Again, nothing was decided, but we did get to hear a few updates. They are moving closer to having all the big shelters in the database so that those numbers will actually make sense. Right now the numbers are useless, but that does not stop the Federal government from publishing the results and using those numbers to tell us that they are "solving" homelessness. We heard a misguided presentation by the State Disability advocates and their "Home For Good" campaign to find service dollars for the permanent supportive housing programs. We have discussed how supportive housing is oversold and a Hummer of a program when the community needs many Ford Festivas instead. It took real courage for the group to accept the recommendation to renew the funding for all the existing programs currently funded by the federal government.

There was some discussion of working on a Central Intake point, but this is a concept we can expect to see in 2018 since the County is in charge. We heard about the plans around hospital discharge--no mention of the horrible Channel 3 story. The most interesting part of the meeting was the update on North Point Transitional Shelter. Remember this was the facility opened January 15, 2008 because Aviation was closing. The experiment is now five months old with only one month left for the 160 residents who opened the place. Here are the numbers:

The demographics of the North Point population:

• Only one-third of the men had one year of homelessness or more.
• 66% were addicted
• 55% had recent experience with the criminal justice system.
• 25% had un-addressed child support issues.
• Only 14% are veterans
  

Currently here are the statistics:

• 71% are now working.
• 14 are determined not to be able to work, and the shelter is looking to transfer them.
• 5 have moved into housing
• 16 were discharged mostly for violating rules.
• 19 left on their own.
• 15 have not been able to find a job.
• Average income at this time is $8.75 (below the housing wage and the living wage).
• They guess that 20-25 went back to Lakeside Shelter

What does this all mean? It is hard to find affordable housing even with a job. There are a number of people who were screened out of the program and they were kicked out or left on their own. This might have been because they had to select so many people in such a short period of time. The men are not finding jobs that will make it easy to find housing, and a lot of people will have to leave in June or ask for an extension. The one good piece of news is that the County agreed to give the men a year grace period in collecting child support payments while they get back on their feet.

The average number at Lakeside shelter was only 370 in April, down from 401 in March. The County hopes that a large number will be moving out of North Point in the next month so that there is no need for overflow at Lakeside. We shall see.

Brian
Update: East Side Catholic closed in December, and the Catholics turned off the heat, but not the water. So the pipes burst and the building is no longer usable. There are a few providers looking at filling the hole left by the East Side Catholic shelter serving 30 families, and now they will have to find a new building.

Posts by Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless staff and Board.

Correction

Regret the Error

I got a call from the Plain Dealer reporter about the posting on East Side Catholic back in December. Stan Donaldson did not like the fact that I did not call him to ask about the article he wrote, and was concerned that I wrote, "Stan D. never asked Ruth Gillett why she could not have kept the shelter open or forced a change in leadership." Donaldson is correct that this sentence is difficult to verify and is factually incorrect. I am sorry for the error.

What I intended to say was that the Plain Dealer did not print the heart of the story and what matters to all of us working on homeless issues. The heart of the story is what does Cleveland do to replace or bring these beds back into service? Family homelessness is out of control and we need every bed, unit, opportunity for families we have in the community. I do not fault reporter Stan Donaldson, because my experience is that getting a solid answer from the County about homelessness is nearly impossible.

One thing that I learned about East Side Catholic that was never printed was that the agency was $1.5 million in debt. I do not know who loaned these guys over $1 million. There was just no way that this organization could continue, but did we have to lose the beds? There are rumors of another organization stepping in to take over the beds, but those details have not been finalized. The families who have had to split up over the last month because every bed is full would have appreciated a deal worked out before East Side Catholic closed.

Brian
Posts by Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless staff and Board.

The Back Story

East Side Catholic: Three Years of Trouble

I want to give some clarity to the story in today's Plain Dealer, because it did not paint the full picture of the death of East Side Catholic. First, I gave the story about the near death of this shelter to most of the media repeatedly since March 2007. Stan Donaldson, the author of the Plain Dealer story, was not happy with our criticism of the Public Square stories that he wrote. He did say he saw the posts in this blog. (I have to wonder if that is why I was not quoted in the PD story?)

We wrote a letter to every funder of East Side Catholic in early 2004 raising our concern that the shelter was having problems, and they needed to intervene to save the shelter. The most glaring omission from the PD story is the impact on the community of the closing of the shelter. This is a family shelter, and so they serve the fastest growing population of homeless people in our community. It is only 32 beds, but they are extremely valuable beds. With the reduction in the number of domestic violence beds in our community and now this shelter closing it is a body blow to Cleveland. The Cleveland Public Schools told me that there were 26 children in this shelter as of last week. Stan D. never asked Ruth Gillett why she could not have kept the shelter open or forced a change in leadership.

The vote by the Office of Homeless Services Advisory, of which I am a member, was not characterized correctly in the paper. The vote was to withhold their program from federal funding, but not to close the shelter. I supported the vote (one of the few unanimous votes in the history of the OHS Advisory). NEOCH also wrote to the shelter leadership to ask that they stop the battle with the County and get their house in order. No one voted that the shelter should close. We had a long discussion, and were told that the goal was to reform the shelter and keep them open. Ruth Gillett assured us that they would work for keeping the shelter open, because we could not afford to see a reduction in the family shelter beds. It should also be noted that the shelter was put "on notice" three years ago, and allegedly came back, but were back "on notice" by Ruth's office within three months. East Side Catholic was a train wreck for years, and Ruth, as the conductor of all public funds for homeless programs, could not figure out a way to prevent the closing of this facility.

NEOCH was never invited into the discussions with the shelter to try to save the beds. The Alcohol and Drug Board and the United Way funded the program and with all their big wigs could not save the shelter beds. The Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority made a mistake in giving their treatment program, Miracle Village, to East Side Catholic and then not keeping a close eye on the agency. The City and the local foundation community could not put enough pressure on the East Side Catholic Board of Trustees to clean house and keep this valuable resource alive. But the County took the lead, and so must take the blame for this failure. Ruth Gillett repeatedly met with the shelter and selected the course of action to be taken against the shelter. This course led to the death of the shelter this month. Ruth must take responsibility for this failure and tell us in the community how we are going to fill this hole.

A word of warning to the community: this is not the end of the story. There are a series of shelters who will be in the same position over the next few years. It looks as though Family Transitional shelter was given a reprieve from closing by being taken over by West Side Catholic, but the writing is on the wall. The federal department that funds shelters, services and housing for homeless people has moved away from shelters and services. In many other cities nearly all of the transitional shelters have closed. I believe that there are two or three more shelters which will close in next two years. We have tried to convince the County to diversify the funding for the shelters for six years now, and our warnings have fallen on deaf ears. Almost all the shelters receive 80% of their funding from the federal government. In a time of growing national debt, war funding, and a health care funding crisis, shelters are unfortunately going to feel the squeeze.

Brian
Posts by Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless staff and Board.

Your Government Inaction

Family Shelter Closing

East Side Catholic Center announced on Monday that they would be closing on December 21, 2007. This 32 to 40 bed facility has stopped accepting families for their emergency shelter, and will work to relocate their residents over the next two weeks. In addition, East Side Catholic administered a program called “Miracle Village” in collaboration with Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority, and has announced that this program will also shut down. Miracle Village provided treatment for women with a chemical dependency and could serve up to 135 women. The agency has had financial issues for three years, and County officials were not able to provide assistance to keep the programs operational while family homelessness is the fastest growing subpopulation within the homeless community.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development released a report “Assessing the Number of Homeless People in the United States” in February 2007 and found that nationally 48% of the homeless population were a part of a family. This translates to over 9,000 members of a family in Cuyahoga County were homeless in one year or 5,000 people were age 0 to 17 years old and found themselves without housing in the most recent figures available. Family homelessness is on the rise, and the service providers are not keeping up with the calls for help. The Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless is calling on government officials specifically, the City/County Office of Homeless Services to figure out how to keep these services operational in one of the poorest cities in the United States. While shelters are not the answer to homelessness, they are an essential part of our safety net to keep families together while they struggle to get back into housing.

In a forum held by the Coalition in early March 2007 around Family Homelessness we learned of:

• The funding problems faced by the family shelters because of federal policy, and we raised the issue of three of our family shelters that were in danger of closing in Cleveland.
• The significant decrease in the number of shelter beds for those fleeing an abuser in the last five years.
• The lack of oversight of the shelters, which makes it difficult for women to stay in the system and many fear using the shelters.
• The current shelter policy especially for those who are newly homeless makes it difficult for a mother and father to stay together. We heard from women who had to separate from their husbands because the entry shelters do not allow men.

With the dramatic increases in foreclosures, the levels of poverty in Cleveland, and the growing waiting lists for affordable housing, we do not need to see a family shelter close in Cleveland. I am amazed that Ruth Gillett of the Office of Homeless Services with the backing of Cuyahoga County could not figure out a way to save these programs. We had three years to put a plan in place to keep in place the shelter and treatment, but community leaders did not step in to help. I have to wonder if the County has decided that these programs are not necessary or was all their attention focused on the closing of Aviation High School overflow shelter? The shelter was put on notice two years ago after a review by Cuyahoga County officials that prevented East Side Catholic from seeking federal dollars until they cleaned up their agency’s finances, management, and program operations. At the time, the County put East Side Catholic on notice, Gillett and others made a commitment to maintain the service in the community. It is ironic that the shelter chose December 21, National Homeless Memorial Day, as the day to close since that is the day to remember those who passed away over the last year because of homelessness. Will we see an increase in the list of names read at the 2008 Homeless Memorial Day because of the inaction to save East Side Catholic?

Brian Davis
Posts by Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless staff and Board.

Shelter Showdown Set

East Side Catholic Strikes Back Against County

After the County Office of Homeless Services Advisory Board voted in January to withhold future funding until East Side Catholic family shelter found a fiscal agent to manage their money, the shelter staff and board have finally responded. They have obviously calculated that they are too valuable to the community and the County will back down. They might be right, but my experience says that the County usually wins it just takes a great deal of time and aggravation.

For those who do not remember and do not want to go back to the link, East Side Catholic received repeated warnings about problems with the shelter. The County has had issues for two years now with the shelter and the administration of the shelter. It seems that the director left and the board dissolved. There were problems with an audit, and the programming that the women were receiving in the shelter. Anyway, there were serious problems and all the Board including the Coalition for the Homeless supported the actions taken by the County.

East Side Catholic sent a harsh letter to Ruth Gillett of the County Office of Homeless Services rejecting the oversight and demanding a meeting with the Federal Department overseeing shelter funds and Cuyahoga County. "East Side Catholic refuses to forfeit its FY 2006 grant award...East Side Catholic will not waive its rights to make application for FY 2007. " The Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development gives a great deal of discretion to the local government entity to manage each of the projects. There are thousands of project sponsors in the United States and HUD depends on the local jurisdiction to provide oversight of each shelter. The FY 2007 applications are already done and currently under review. East Side Catholic already missed the local application deadline and is certainly going to be skipped.

I especially like this line from their letter, "East Side Catholic continues to have grave problems receiving complete and clear information from OHS. " Ain't it the truth. Ruth is notorious for providing incomplete and vague information. That is how she has survived in government for so long. No matter if this is true or not, the County will win. They beat Care Alliance and in the end owned the Care Alliance buildings. They eliminated University Settlement from federal funding. The County will eventually prevail. It seems that the staff and Board of East Side Catholic feel that the County is weak and can be bullied. That is a facade that the OHS staff put out, but it is not the case. There will be a long drawn out battle, which may lead to the entire program failing and hundreds of homeless families struggling to find a place to live. This is emblematic of how things work in the homeless system--no coordination, much competition, very little cooperation, lots of fights, and very little progress is ever made toward the goal of ending homelessness. The worst part of this is the negative impact this will have on a population that is already struggling in our community: homeless families.

Brian
Posts by Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless staff and Board.