Cleveland Heights Gives Away Their Homeless Dollars

Cleveland Heights Can't Find Enough People In Danger of Homelessness

From the minutes posted on the Cleveland Heights Website for City Council Meeting April 20, 2011:

"Previously, council authorized the City Manager to enter into an agreement with Cuyahoga County for expenditure of funds received by the City from the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development for the Homeless Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program. The agreement actually provided for the County to administer Six Hundred Ninety Nine Thousand Eight Hundred Ninety Four Dollars ($699,894.00) in funding that was to go to Homeless Prevention services to qualified Cleveland Heights residents. During the course of administering the program we expended less money than we expected to and there has not been enough demand to use all of those funds just for Cleveland Heights residents. Although I will say we have spent over $136,000.00 that have helped 67 Cleveland Heights households and 200 persons. It has been a good expenditure of money, we are just not able to spend this all for Cleveland Heights residents by the deadlines imposed by the program. We believe it is in the best interest to enter into a revision of this agreement.

Section 1 of this resolution authorizes the City Manager to amend the agreement with Cuyahoga County to allow the County to administer the remainder of the funds by giving priority to Cleveland Heights residents but also provide Homeless Prevention services to eligible persons in portions of Cuyahoga County outside of Cleveland Heights. We are providing a minimum of 20% of the remaining funds be utilized for Cleveland Heights residents. I offer Resolution No. 40-2011(PD) for passage tonight.”

Mayor Kelley accepted Resolution No. 40-2011(PD).
Roll Call: Ayes: Montlack, Stephens, Tumeo, Wilcox, Caplan, Kelley
Nays: None
Resolution passed.

This is incredibly sad that with 500 evictions a year in the Cleveland Hts. municipal court, they could not figure out a way to distribute the funds to keep people from leaving the City. Anyone that has faced or will face eviction between November 2009 and July 2012 living in Cleveland Hts, should be angry that the City could not figure out a way to keep this money within their borders. City officials requested these funds so what was the plan for distributing the funds? It is a shame that Cleveland Hts. does not have an infrastructure like Lakewood Service Center to help prevent homelessness. These funds could help with rental assistance. They could pay back rent to avoid eviction, and help with the rent during a temporary setback with income to support housing.

NEOCH tried to reach out to the City and the Mayor last year to offer our help to get these funds to residents of Cleveland Hts. and we were ignored. Not enough people knew that these funds were available, and those who did find out had a hard time with the bureaucracy that was constructed to get the assistance. The City of Lakewood was able to figure out how to use their funds, so why couldn't Cleveland Hts set up a process? We proposed a system that would meet people at the court house door, and inform them that there was help available. It is unfortunate that we could not work with Cleveland Hts officials to keep people from being evicted within the city.

Brian
Posts reflect the opinion of those who sign the entry.

Calling Advocates in Cleveland Heights

Photo image by Pleasure Simmons from the Grapevine photo project of 2007

Advocacy Alert: Cleveland Hts. Spend Your Stimulus Money to Prevent Homelessness!!!

Overview of the Problem: In 2009, Cleveland Hts. received $715,000 to help prevent homelessness as part of the federal stimulus program. The city pooled their resources with Cuyahoga County and the City of Cleveland--$13 million dollars to serve any low income in the county facing eviction. Last year, there were approximately 500 people who faced eviction at the Cleveland Hts. Municipal Court. By January 2011 (16 months after receiving the funding), Cleveland Hts. has only used 12.2% of their available funding or $87,000. The Federal government says that the City must have 60% of their dollars expended by July 2011 or it is redistributed to other communities, and all money must be spent by July 2012. In July and October 2010, NEOCH contacted the Cleveland Hts. agency overseeing these funds requesting the hiring of an attorney to be stationed at the court to help with evictions and to refer those facing eviction to the Cleveland non-profit distributing the funds in order to spend down the Cleveland Hts funding. No one from Cleveland Hts. ever even acknowledged our letter.

Lakewood received over $900,000 from the federal stimulus. They kept their money within the City and partnered with Lakewood Christian Services to spend the funds. In January 2011, Lakewood had allocated 67% of their funds to help prevent evictions.

Why is Cleveland Hts. not spending their money? Why are they not responding to partner agencies in the community that offer to help?

What can you do? Ask your elected official?

Mayor Ed Kelley
216/291-4756
mayorkelley@clvhts.com

Vice President Phyllis Evans
216/321-5378
Hon_phyllis_evans@clvhts.com

Nancy McLaughton
CDBG Program Administrator
216/291-4845
nmclaughlin@clvhts.com

Or attend the Cleveland Hts. City Council meeting on the First and Third Monday of the Month.

They take questions and comments from the public at the beginning of the meetings. Check out the schedule here. The Next meetings for the Committee of the Whole are:
April 11 at 5:45 p.m.
Wednesday April 20 at 5:45 p.m.
April 25 at 5:45 p.m.

If you get any reply, please let us know since no one is talking to us. Thanks to the Sun Press for publishing our letter two weeks ago, and thanks to Channel 5 WEWS taking up the issue.

UPDATE 4/7/2011: Last night, Channel 5 WEWS did a nice report on the Cleveland Hts. issue, and the reporter was able to interview a resident of Cleveland Hts. who could not get enough assistance to stay in the city. The end of the story was interesting in that it seems that the City is content to give the money over to the County to use. As a resident of Cleveland Hts., I object. The City took the money from the federal government, but has done very little to make sure that people facing eviction will be able to stay in place. Why accept the money and then give it to some other community for help when there are residents of Cleveland Hts who are facing homelessness? It does not make any sense.--Brian Davis

Brian
Posts reflect the opinion of those who sign the entry.

How Are the Homeless Stimulus Funds?

Homeless Prevention and Rapid Rehousing

Ruth Gillett of the Office of Homeless Services attended the last Cuyahoga Affordable Housing Alliance meeting last week. Media are not allowed to quote anything from that meeting, but I can pass along the stats from the presentation. Cleveland received $14 million (including money from the State of Ohio) in 2009 to be spent over 30 months. According to the OHS stats, we have spent $3.17 million in Prevention and Rapid Rehousing Assistance as of 12/3/2010 which translates to 2,658 households helped. For some reason they did not have a breakdown by agency as of 12/3/2010. The three largest providers of services (Cleveland Mediation, MHS, and Eden) are all spending above the average amount necessary per month to assure that all the money out by July 2012. But they did get a late start in spending money and did not really start spending until the first quarter of 2010.

All of these stats need to be taken in context. The assistance can be something as small as identification fee or can be one year of rental assistance. It can be moving expenses to relocate to better housing or paying off back rent. The funds support the Housing database in Cleveland, housing search specialists, and housing case workers. There are an average of 12,000 evictions just in Cleveland and 22,000 evictions in Cuyahoga County, and recent estimates are that 45,000 are in need of subsidized housing locally. Housing instability is increasing locally with the foreclosure crisis spreading out to outer ring suburbs, and the lack of development of new affordable housing options to match the units that are taken off line. One example of the serious need locally is the fact that the Parma Housing Authority opened the waiting list for the 400 vouchers that they have available and over 20,000 people applied for these vouchers. On another note, the agency running HPRP in Dayton, the Dayton Urban League, closed up shop two weeks ago which puts a hardship on those facing eviction in Montgomery County.

The County released statistics for the month of October 2010 which showed:
74 people got an intake at the shelter doors, and 20 were "diverted" to some other housing option and 7 were given "fast track housing." The rest (47) went into shelter or disappeared. On the prevention side, 81 intake referrals were done and 99 households were served for an average of $1,182 per individual household. I have no idea how more households were served than intakes done, but those are the stats we got.

The big change over the last three months were that a Ruth Gillett and a couple of the service providers decided that there would be some changes in the program. These changes were not approved by any oversight body in the community or homeless people or the broader homeless social service providers were not given the opportunity to comment on the changes before they were implemented. As of October, only those individuals currently living in subsidized housing can get eviction diversion/prevention funding. That is right, only those who already are assisted by the federal government every month now can get access to eviction help. These individuals would not need as much support since the federal government pays some of their rent. The most expensive and difficult population to serve, families with children, who enter the shelters will not be eligible for rental assistance unless they were living in public housing, had a voucher or were in a HUD funded building.

The NEOCH staff and board frustration with the system is the lack of transparency by the County in making these decisions. We also have concerns that the social service providers are keeping this program quiet to prevent a flood of people trying to access these funds. There is not a standard referral system to get these funds. We keep asking for the best process for referral of potential clients, and no one will give a definitive answer. There is no process even for people in subsidized housing written down anywhere that says go to this location or call this number in order to get help. In Cincinnati, there is one telephone number to call to get an interview. The rental assistance distributed from July 2009 to July 2010 by CEOGC locally also had a telephone system set up to schedule an appointment. For this program there is no set way to access the dollars mostly out of the fear about a riot as the City of Detroit experienced.

Our final frustration is the fact that the intake for diversion and rapid rehousing is done at the two entry shelters. This is the first time in our history that rental assistance was linked to shelter. Our fear is that more people will show up for a shelter bed just to get the rapid rehousing dollars. Since every shelter is already full every day, we do not need anything to attract additional people to the shelters. Maybe the Cuyahoga county reform will provide some transparency to the federal stimulus dollars being implemented by the County. We can only hope.

Brian
Posts reflect the opinion of those who sign the entry.

**Blog Update As of 12/20/2010** In an effort to have full disclosure, Dan Joyce of Cleveland Mediation Center called today objecting to this blog entry. He refused to engage in "back and forth" about these issues, but wanted to make sure that we were aware that some of the things in this blog are not correct. Dan said that it was not true that they only give assistance to those in subsidized housing. He also said that some are approved for assistance, but don't receive it until the next month, and that is how the numbers can be more than the number requesting assistance.

Dan has never published exactly what the qualifications are for homeless prevention and where a person goes to get these funds, so it is no wonder there is confusion in the community. Also, in full disclosure, Dan was not at the Ruth Gillett presentation at CAHA, so I do not understand how he has the ability to clarify the information given out. It seems strange that a person not at a meeting would call to clarify my perception of the information given out. That is how things work in the community with some of the non-profits. It can be frustrating especially if you are homeless or in danger of becoming homeless and you depend on agency staff to be open with the information. All of these are federal tax dollars, but it is sometimes like pulling teeth to get real information about how to access help in the community. Dan did not address all the other concerns that I expressed in the blog, and I am not holding my breath that he will in the future.

How is the Stimulus Working for Homeless People?

Homeless Prevention Dollars in Cuyahoga County

In 2009, in the wake of the housing collapse, the federal government provided millions to cities to help prevent homelessness. The feds pumped money into existing programs so that they did not have to put a bunch of dollars into creating new infrastructure. In Cuyahoga County, we received $14 million that had to spent by 2012. The money was to be used to prevent homelessness, and to quickly move people back into housing if they became homeless. The City received $9.8 million, and gave it all over to the County. This may seem counter-intuitive since the FBI has set up camp around the Ontario Ave. County headquarters, but the City Council members had to go on summer break. The City of Lakewood took their $900,000 out of the pool, and they are using those funds for eviction prevention with the assistance of Lakewood Christian Services. Cleveland Heights decided to pool their money again with the County and so gave their $750,000 to the County Office of Homeless Services for distribution.

The County came up with their own plan for how to distribute the $13 million, and sub contracted with EDEN development corporation to distribute rent money, Mental Health Services to provide case management and administer the central intake to determine eligibility. Legal Aid, CTO, CMHA, Famicos, Catholic Charities, and the Department of Aging all received funds to help people prevent evictions. The Cleveland Mediation Center handles the payments to landlords in order to prevent evictions. We were told originally that only one third of the dollars would go to staffing and 2/3 would go to direct assistance to clients. This has proven to be difficult, and additional staff are being hired to keep up with the incredible demand for help during these difficult economic times. Money was set aside to pay for Housing Cleveland website and to purchase birth certificates and identification for homeless people as well.

Officials have had to engage in a "course correction" because things are not going as planned. Too many people are eligible for the funds and thus flocked to get help for their eviction. This has only increased over the last two months since the other pool of eviction diversion funds has dried up. CEOGC received a separate allocation and blew through their money in one year helping hundreds of families from becoming homeless. Through June the County was distributing twice as much for eviction help compared to those being placed in housing to get them out of homelessness. The Cleveland Mediation Center is overseeing the money to prevent evictions way faster than expected. They were so overwhelmed that they were setting up appointments after the hearing at eviction court. This usually meant that the individual would have to relocate to a new apartment, which is certainly not ideal. Now it looks like there was so much demand that they are going to limit rental assistance to only those in subsidized housing. Some in the community are angry that these decisions are made without any community input or oversight, but that is how things go in the County.

The other piece of the program is rapid rehousing, which is currently operated out of the two main shelters in Cleveland. With eviction diversion or homeless prevention, the County can provide rent to keep a person in housing. The other side of the HPRP stimulus dollars is the rapid rehousing and the agencies administering the rehousing program help find housing and then do follow up services to make sure the person will stay in housing. Many out in the field still wonder about the wisdom of giving away money at a shelter that are already overcrowded, but that is the plan. County and steering committee members defend both sides of the program saying that it is a new experiment and never before tried on this scale. The problem is that it is also time limited and we only have 19 months left to get it right.

Cleveland Hts seems to have backed the wrong horse here. They were one of two suburbs to get their own allocation. Lakewood officials pulled their money to use within the city limits, and have been giving money out at a rapid clip to prevent evictions. In fact in 2009, they were giving more money out than the entire rest of the County. But Cleveland Hts pooled their money with Cuyahoga County and were only able to serve 32 people through June 2010. The County wide average is that those receiving help average $825 per household as part of homeless prevention/eviction diversion. This means that Lakewood has served around 350 households since October of 2009 when the program began. Cleveland Hts has served 32 households or they have used around $26,000 of their $750,000 that the federal government provided as part of the stimulus.

So, here are the numbers from October 2009 to June 30, 2010:

Total prevention dollars spent: $906,996 or 1,190 households
Total Rapid Rehousing dollars spent: $412,602 or 1,548 households served
The total number of households re-housed is 232 from the Rapid Rehousing side.

We haven't had enough time to see if people are becoming homeless again, and since there is no central access point for all shelter it might never be possible to access these numbers. We still have to see if those facing eviction in non-subsidized housing will turn to the shelters in greater numbers because there is not rental assistance money available to prevent evictions as part of the course correction. We do know that thousands have been helped, and without these dollars the shelters would be overwhelmed. But the shelters are still completely full almost every day of the last year, and we still cannot provide a bed to everyone in need. It is unfortunate that we never get to discuss, as a community, strategies to use $14 million in the best manner possible instead of decisions being made based on the abilities of staff or agencies or course corrections made at the whim of the providers.

Brian
Posts reflect the opinion of those who sign the entry.

Homelessness Around the United States

Local Reports April 2010

National Coalition for the Homeless Met in DC this last Week

Minnesota

Significant growth in homelessness within the State. They are working on a Tenant Bill of Rights in Minnesota— it would cap late fees, require receipts provided by landlord, and guidelines for screening tenants. Applications for an apartment would have to be provided an apartment in the order they were received. Denied for a subjective reason, the tenant would get any fee back. The state is facing massive cuts in emergency assistance.

Miami Florida

Sex offenders going into hotels after the encampment under a freeway overpass was fenced off. Miami held as a model city in the Continuum of Care, but there are issues with budget cuts and expanding populations. Florida house passed the homeless hate crimes legislation. Looks good for passage in the Florida Senate.

Ft. Lauderdale

HPRP not doing well, and much is going to moderate incomes. State has cut homeless funding. Broward cut 50% of their services due to the downturn. Several large shelters have closed. Transitional shelters have had to close. Cut beds, services and hours to deal with budget cuts. Proposal to continue to criminalize homelessness in Ft. Lauderdale and Oakland Park will fine people who give food and money to homeless people. Increasing number of homeless and decreasing number of beds. No programs for the long term homeless. Alternatives to incarceration coalition established to try to reduce prison stays and long term punishments and mandatory minimums. Florida has a huge problem with one of the worst rates of incarceration in the United States.

Indiana

Continued budget cuts and HPRP has supplanted local dollars, and so there are more shelters and services closing locally. The state is defunding shelters, and more attempts to make it illegal to be homeless. Poor use of the HPRP funds for smaller groups especially in the rural communities.

Puerto Rico:

They do a poor job in receiving funding from the United States federal government. Worst managed HOME program in the United States, which has opened the door to greater scrutiny. Feeling threatened over HEARTH act, and attempts by local planning groups that could block grant of all those federal dollars. Have not been able to open an affordable housing project because of local bureaucracies, and while the buildings are done they have not been able to move in and now have become targets for vandalism. New protocol on how homeless people are served in the courts. There is a law that gives the rights to people who find themselves homeless, but it is ignored in the local community. Census told the population that they had to have an address to work for the Census.

Atlanta, GA

Shelter facing foreclosure is in court, and proving that you can operate without funding. Residents of the shelter do a lot more to operate the facility. 99.9% of staff are still hanging around without funds. Local grassroots organizations excluded from Neighborhood Stabilization and HPRP. There is some danger of losing the Foreclosure money (Neighborhood stabilization), which would go back to the Federal government. Massive demolition of public housing, 50% cut to public transportation, and privatization of the last public hospital..

DC

Catholic Church not going to close the shelter over the DC gay marriage issue. Big cuts that resulted in decrease in the number of shelter beds. They have closed the winter shelters for the spring/summer/fall. Family homelessness is increasing. Incidents at the shelters have increased including a death where an individual was turned away and died of exposure on a bench outside of the shelter. They have seen an increase in the incidents between shelters and staff because of the budget cuts.

Little Rock, Arkansas

Coalition is still on life support. Talked to the Mayor of Little Rock, because of city being named one of the meanest cities. Paid homeless coordinator in Little Rock to help. Another Little Rock About 1% of the population is homeless in the state of Arkansas. shelter closed because of a lack of funds.

South Carolina

State does not have any state dollars for homelessness—all dollars are pass through from the federal government. State initiative to require homeless veteran’s a preference over all other populations for a shelter bed and first for services. This did not pass. Defeated an initiative to be able to evict tenants within 15 days without going to court. Magistrate could appear without the tenant and get rid of the tenant. Four police officers arrested for Civil Rights violations in Greenville They have pled out after an investigation by the FBI. State HPRP is not being spent. At the local level it is being allocated at a good pace. Homeless awareness is increasing because of the NCH VISTA program educating the community. One City Administrator in Greenville has indicated a willingness to talk about ending homelessness. This is unusual for a public official in South Carolina. over the beating of a homeless person.

Montana

No more Montana Council for the Homeless by the Governor, and they may switch to become a private non-profit. Statewide HPRP going to the usual suspects. It is given out, but difficult to find in some communities. Information has spread and made a run on many of the programs.

Baltimore, MD

Mayoral transition difficult after the Mayor was forced to resign. She was very good for homeless people despite the scandal. The United Way initiative to end homelessness and continue the 10 year plan is still on track. All HPRP went through the United Way to administer the funds. Money is going out in large numbers.

South Dakota

Major issues in trying to distribute HPRP and lots of complaints with state for changing guidelines periodically. No state money going into local homeless services. Safe home program --32 long term homeless units is the cornerstone of the City’s project and they have now walked away from the program. No local dollars in Souix Falls from City. The City has established a zero tolerance for kids in the shelter to try to get them back into housing quickly. Indian reservations are the hardest hit.

Sacramento, California.

Massive deficit and massive proposed cuts. Hate crimes legislation introduced. Massive cuts to human services at the local level, and huge Continuum of Care cuts. Advocates want a safe ground to organize themselves with temporary structures while they search for housing. They won the lawsuit—got $250,000 to buy back tents and stuff after the police came in and destroyed their camps. Advocates have also registered hundreds of people and did a candidate forum focused on housing and homelessness. Training in May over HEARTH planning for the future. State HPRP is not going out very quickly. Better at the local level and trying to link the employment programs. Religious community organizations are trying to match HPRP funds in Sacramento. Director of Hunger and Homeless Program now including re-entry stuff into their work.

Denver

Sustained a huge budget cut for Health Care for the Homeless fund in order to fill gaps in the state budget. Cut the general assistance funds to single adults. After protests state government had to reverse the GA cuts and they never went into effect. Also advocates convinced them to reinstate the $2 million of the $3 million cuts to Health care for the Homeless. HPRP is given to the state Coalition and there is a match from TANF families. Some agencies are getting the funds out, but others are struggling. No ability to do training. Started construction on a 98 units of affordable housing that will include a work component in which they get homeless people to do the labor on the project then get first preference. Took over the HMIS system, and assure that privacy protections are in place. Colorado Springs has the homeless computer system is contracted to the local sheriff to manage. The State Coalition has told them to stop this or they will no longer have access to the management system or the funds that goes with it. Down the road the health care reform bill that just passed Congress will help our constituents including the leveraging of Medicare resources.

Taken from notes at the National Coalition for the Homeless Board meeting this past weekend April 2010 by Brian Davis

Posts reflect the opinion of those who sign the entry.

Explaining Housing Programs

Housing 101 by Cleveland Tenants Organization/BTG

For social service, counseling and housing professionals working with the Homeless Prevention Rapid Rehousing Program in Cuyahoga County.

Housing 101: The HPRP Program, a guide for practitioners. Sponsored by the Homeless Service Agency Network, Bridging the Gap, and Cleveland Tenants Organization.

Friday, April 30^th 2010 from 9 am to 12:30 pm. (registration begins 8:30 am).

at Stella Maris auditorium. 1320 Washington Ave Cleveland, OH 44113.

Over the past year Housing 101 has held a series of well received and attended seminars and classes on a wide range of housing issues. This fourth class will concentrate on the new Homeless Prevention and Rapid Rehousing Program, which is one of the largest housing programs aimed at the homeless populations that we have seen in years. We will hear from local experts who are working day to day with the program on the goals of the program, how it operates and how agencies can help their clients benefit from it.

Class Fee: $15

Continuing Education Credits: 3 hours for counselors and social workers.

To register contact: Randy Cunningham at

Bridging the Gap/Cleveland Tenants Organization.

3631 Perkins Ave, Suite 3-A 4

Cleveland, Ohio 44114

216-431-0616 or e-mail btg (at) clevelandtenants dot org

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Dayton Job Center

Massive One Stop Center for Jobs....

Dayton features the largest one-stop employment center in the United States called the Job Center. It is a huge--renovated old warehouse that was updated to be roomy, well lit, and easily accessible social service headquarters. It is basically, the Virgil Brown Building in Cleveland, part of Tri-C- and many social service providers housed together in an 8.5 acre campus. There are colorful floor panels so that people do not get lost. They have a huge cafeteria, and now some of the homeless providers are moving into the facility. There are charter schools and colleges have satellite offices in the building. Many government entities have offices in the building, and it is on the bus line. The big health care provider is right down the street and the Thrift Store is right next to this building.

We gathered for a meeting of all the Homeless Coalition's in Ohio. It was an awesome building, and made us all envious that we did not have a similar facility in our home cities. The Job Corps, Job Bank, Dress for Success type programs, GED classes, job training classes, Social Security, and youth services were all available at the Center.

The One Stop Center opened in 1997 and was funded by federal and local resources. WEA was first funding to help people get back to work. It eliminates duplication and reduces travel time to get help. It is in an old Federated (Lazarus/May/Macy's) Department Store warehouse that is now operated by County Government but the funding went to St. Vincent De Paul to open it quickly. Just the job bank with computer terminals for looking for jobs serves 3000 individuals per day. It is the biggest in county (8.5 acres). It was a risk to set this up, because it was unknown if other providers would want to set up shop in the facility.

• 18 conference rooms for meetings.
• It facilitates collaboration among agencies with quarterly meetings of all the directors.
  
• All the partners are briefed when big layoffs are coming.
• Development folks are now visiting and advertising the place as a community attraction to set up shop in the Dayton area. They champion that it will be easy to recruit labor through the Job Center.
  
• - They do have remote center for people subject to mass layoffs with specific case management. For example , the set up next to GM plant closing.
• The Vet Center is right down the street as well.
• Re Entry Program starting Feb. 16 starting Specialized Employment Center – training, screening, skills assessment supportive partnership Job Club will help Social Services partner with other agencies. (110 individual per year) Will try to help find a Job mostly soft services.
  

Other items from the meeting:

• Appalachia –The shelter served 164 People in 2009. They had to turn away 36 while 84 were turned away in 2008.
  
• They are working on funding and revising their structure to try to get help to shelters in the rural communities.
  
• Fundraiser was very successful in January with 521 people showed up and did a simulation about homelessness.
• - Homeless Prevention and Rapid Rehousing is going well and getting out to the right people.

Cincinnati –
Talked a great deal about the Hate Crimes Forum that they organized after two recent events.

Columbus

The local groups are still trying to replace Barb Poppe who headed the Community Shelter Board and now is the new Homeless Czar in DC. The Columbus Coalition is working on workforce development. Their October conference went well in combining the religious and secular services.

Helping to employ people and try to work out all the details. They are proceeding forward on hiring a full time director. Their VISTAs are looking at a home deconstruction project in Dayton to look at replicating that in Columbus. They have 541 vendors for their street newspaper in Columbus, and 40 regular vendors. They have conducted a writing workshop with 3 volunteers who help.

Dayton

They have a new Mayor, and are waiting to see what the new priorities are locally. They are working on a community organizing project, which will look at the 10 year plan within the County. They have hired a national assessor to see how people are served within the homeless community especially to the Permanent Supportive Housing. There has been a good deal of media attention over a group of homeless people who were moved out of the woods and then into a neighborhood. Dayton Daily News did a story about a group that wanted have these guys removed from their neighborhood. The neighbors are really angry. The community groups are relocating some of the men to other places to keep them safe. With the move to the Job Center, they have space to help with a furniture donation program. A new site was opened with plenty of land that there is a thought to open up a Social Enterprise or Farm as part of the project where the residents can make money while residing in the housing.

Brian Davis

Posts reflect the opinion of those who sign the entry.

Local Reports from Around United States

Local Reports from the National Coalition Meeting

I attended the National Coalition for the Homeless meeting a couple of weeks ago. Here are a few things that I heard around the country.

Indiana: – There were large cuts from the Indiana State Budget—They are holding back on new Medicare enrollment to try to balance the budget. Homeless Prevention Rapid Rehousing (HPRP)/Stimulus funds for homeless people is slow going and not much going to people in Southern Indiana.

Texas: Governor refused to accept stimulus now refusing to accept education dollars. Austin held a let’s get to work forum in an attempt to fix the transitional shelters to get people to work. Workers Hotel initiatives planned to try to get Council support renovate old YMCA want to provide housing to the lowest income who may have some money but no place to live.

Florida: Still struggling with residency restrictions for sex offenders. Many Florida cities are passing anti-street feeding ordinances. Miami is proposing to license those who serve food downtown and they must provide a bathroom. HPRP is working very well, but giving out a ton of money very quickly.

Massachusetts: Legislation trying to make it illegal to provide shelter for sex offenders in the state.

Minnesota: Still trying to lobby for foreclosure protections from the Subcommittee on Housing that both Rep Waters and Rep. Ellison sit on. There is a proposed cut to General assistance. Spending more on HPRP/Stimulus toward homeless people then the state is spending on shelter now in Minnesota. The State Housing Link organization reports that only 166,000 households earning less than $25,000 per year, while there were only 82,000 units of subsidized housing. This translates to 50% of those who need affordable housing being able to find it within the state.

Montana: Governor not going after Education stimulus money. They are most likely not going to reappoint Governor’s. Council on Homelessness. This may lead to the group forming their own 501-c-3. They received a lot of press because of the subzero weather, and the impact on the homeless population.

California: - No Statewide Interagency Council in place within the state. They will not be appointed by end of the Swarzenegger term as governor. $20 billion hole in the state budget which meant a 15% cut to TANF (welfare) spending. If they do not get Federal dollars to cut deficit by $6/9 billion, the plan is to cut more from welfare, Passport type program for seniors, and the Foster care system. All this will trickle down to result in massive cuts to the County budgets. Deep cuts to Human Services planned. – Sacramento has prioritized the 10 year plan to end homelessness. They are still working on finding a permanent site for the tent city, but they are moving forward on a new basketball arena. There are groups that are trying to get a deal for help with homelessness in exchange for support for the arena.

South Carolina: Sen. Jim DeMint new hero as leader of tea party group. Senator Graham will not support any expansion of hate crimes to include homeless people. The Stimulus money for Housing/HPRP was distributed in July; so far no money has been given out yet. Special needs populations are not getting any help in South Carolina especially in the area of housing. They focus more on homeowners or the elderly for help. They got none of the Neighborhood Stabilization/Foreclosure help. There was a story about two Greenville police officers who beat up a homeless individual. The officers were put them on administrative leave. The State coalition has just been passing out info/training and sharing opportunities. They are switching to do more advocacy since they are in the bottom of almost every negative category among the states.

Atlanta, GA: - The state has serious budget problems and are putting teachers on furlough – no money left for anything. The power elite in Atlanta are allowing Grady hospital to move to a private organization. They have allowed massive demolition of Public Housing and even the privatization of the Mental health system and the prisons. There was a big story about people dying because they cannot find affordable dialysis in Atlanta. The Task force shelter building is in Foreclosure with a due date in February 2010. Borrowed money in 1998. They have a lawsuit involving the loans from that period of time when the city began de-funding the organization. Homeless people have really stepped up to keep the shelter open.

Colorado: Budget cut may terminate General Assistance, which currently helps those waiting for SSI. The Colorado Coalition saw a $3.4 million cut. They had to eliminate the mobile health clinic and close group homes, cutting salaries and implementing a hiring freeze. The good news is that the State is matching the $10 million in HPRP/Homeless Prevention money that came to the state using TANF/welfare funds. 40 organizations across the state got together to do a common assessment form. They are still opening new housing units for homeless people. Boulder successfully advocated against laws restricting camping. The Mayor has signed a moratorium on enforcement of this law.

Brian Davis

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