New Homeless Czar for Federal Government

Ohioan Named Director of InterAgency Council on Homelessness

The office of InterAgency Council on Homelessness within the federal government has not produced much except some press releases and newsletters about how great the US government has done in solving homelessness. This in the face of ever increases in homelessness in the United States. The world's last superpower that can put a man on the moon, build a movable staircase and a way to turn the desert Southwest into a giant suburb with the invention of air conditioning but we cannot find housing for everyone living in America. Very few in the public have heard of this office, and any drive in the downtown of any city in America would lead to the conclusion that this office has failed miserably. It is supposed to get all the cabinet members together to work across bureaucracies to reduce homelessness. All the usual department heads are represented (HUD, HHS, VA, and Education), but also at the table is the head of social security, the department of labor, homeland security, transpiration, and energy. All these powerful people or their representatives at the table and all we have to show for it is a good newsletter?

Barbara Poppe from Columbus and the Community Shelter Board was just appointed Executive Director. I have a long relationship with Columbus as most of my family live in the capital city. I have known Barbara for years as the wife of the State Housing and Homeless director, Bill Faith, and as a competent leader of the Community Shelter Board. She kept down controversies in Columbus, and had an iron hand on the homeless social services that operate in Central Ohio. Poppe was the person politicians and the media turned to when they had problems with homeless people, and in exchange she controlled all the resources. She put in a plan to reduce homelessness among men, but never got around to address the issue of people with a sexually based offense who cannot find housing. She did a good job of putting Columbus on the map with regard to fighting to reduce homelessness, and she traveled the country teaching others. Poppe was the first in Ohio to recognize the need for supportive housing for long term single homeless people, and had to admit last year that family homelessness saw a steep rise in Columbus. Poppe had the confidence of the leadership of Columbus, but rarely interacted with people experiencing homelessness.

I have some experience with national homeless policies and with Ms. Poppe. I am in the perfect position to give Ms. Poppe some advice in her new role as the Director of the InterAgency Council on Homelessness. I met with her predecessor on four different occasions and walked out on two meetings with Mr. Mangano. I know what the spin that the Interagency Council has delivered over the last few years and the fact that there was just publicity coming out of the Interagency Council.

Dear Barb:
Congratulations on your appointment to the Interagency Council. We are honored that the administration recognized someone from Ohio as having made progress on homelessness. Since I have known you for years, I feel that I can pass along a few suggestions for your new job. Take them or leave them. As a 15 year observer on national policy I do have some expertise on the inter-workings of government. I met with Phil Mangano a number of times until I got tired of his same old song and dance routine. By 2006, we began arguing for a change in leadership at the IAC, and local activists pledged that they would protest any gathering that featured Mr. Mangano in Cleveland. Our objections were that he was not critical of all the cuts that hurt homeless people in housing subsidies and never said anything about the horrible federal response to Katrina. We felt that as the Homeless Czar he needed to raise concerns over federal policies that harmed those without housing.

My suggestions for the new office are:

1. Don't follow your predecessor's example. Don't fly around the country championing how great the federal government is doing when our problems are mounting in each of our communities. You do not have to the public relations arm of the administration.
   
2. We need you in DC pushing for change. We need help from the administration and the cabinet to make it easier for homeless people to find stability. We need each of these departments on the council to put forward objectives to reduce homelessness. An example is reducing the time it takes to approve disability assistance or increase enforcement of the exploitation of low income workers especially by temporary labor companies.
   
3. Please don't pit one population against another. Veterans vs. families or disabled vs. long term homeless or single adults vs. young people was the hallmark of the previous administration. It is going to take a much larger pie to solve these problems, and not just slicing the existing pie into smaller and smaller pieces for all these worthy sub-populations.
4. Please don't tell us to go use the mainstream programs. That is like telling us to go find the gold at the end of the rainbow. We all know that the mainstream programs (public housing, cash assistance, disability, etc.) are not accessible or have years long wait for help. It is an insult to keep bringing this up when there is nothing there, and we have all tried to find help with mainstream programs.
5. We need the other departments to start thinking of ways to serve homeless people. Why can't the Department of Health and Human Services take more of a role in solving homelessness? HUD is the leading funder of the shelters and services, but why can't some of the other departments help support the shelters? Why can't HHS set up a pool of funds to provide supportive services such as health care, voice mail, transportation, and mental health services at the shelters? Or why can't the Department of Labor provide employment training at the shelters?
6. We need real outcomes that lead to real reductions in homelessness. You did a very good job in Columbus requiring the shelters to prove their worth. We need something similar at the national level for all federal funding.
7. Don't forget about Civil Rights. Employment, housing, and health care are all important to ending homelessness, but civil rights issues are just as important. You never really addressed this in Columbus, but there were not huge threats in Columbus. In some cities this is the single biggest problem facing homeless people. If a person is regularly arrested because they cannot fit into the shelter, it will take them years to get off the streets. We all pay a huge bill for their incarceration, medical bills, and mental health services because we cannot help these troubled individuals off the streets. It is hypocritical for American cities to take money for shelters then turn around and make it illegal to be homeless or sleep outside or beg for money. This is an issue, Barb, that we need you to address.
8. We need you to ease the regulatory burden on the shelters and services. Please help us cut through the red tape in order to do good. Push for unified reporting forms for both public and private sector funding. We need you to help with oppressive regulatory guidelines and impossibles obstacles put in place to help people.
9. With the political will we can end homelessness. Not in five years or ten years or if something else happens, but we can end homelessness today if we wanted to. There is enough housing in this country. There are enough resources, but we are just not using those resources to put people into housing. We need you to convince Congress and the White House to fix health care, improve access to jobs and make housing a human right.
   

Brian Davis

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Hilda, We Need You

Low Wage Workers Exploited: Worse for Homeless People

The New York Times detailed a study released this Wednesday, which showed a majority of low wage workers faced recent exploitation. A good article that is even more prevalent problem within the homeless community. We have tried to assist low income workers to complain to the US Department of Labor when they are ripped off by an employer. A Department of Labor complaint was not worth the paper it was written on over the last five years. No one followed up. If they did follow up, they would demand more paperwork that was held by the employer or they would delay until after the two year deadline passed. There was never any investigation done or any heat ever put on the employer.

There is so much exploitation of homeless people in employment matters especially among the temporary labor companies. They illegally nickel and dime the workers with fees that often drop their wages below the minimum wage. They try to discourage workman's comp. claims even paying their own doctors to convince people that they do not need to file a claim. We need you Department of Labor Secretary Hilda Solis to step up and start enforcing the existing laws. These men and women do the worst back breaking work in our communities, and then at the end of the day one-third of their pay is stolen by their Escalade driving supervisors. They get sent out to clean out dumpsters, paint in 120 degree heat, or lift huge pieces of equipment on or off the factory line, and they deserve all of their pay and more. These men and women are the heart of our economy, and have earned a hard days pay, but when they leave the agency they don't even have enough money for a motel room. They never can save enough money to afford rent even after trying to work as many hours as they can get.

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

They Look Down on Us

Europeans Can't Believe the State of America

I watched today's 60 Minutes about the Remote Area Health care charity that provides assistance in the United States. It is a disgrace to see that we claim first world status, but we cannot provide basic health care to the population. For those who did not see it, please check out the link. Basically, these groups who would set up volunteer health care camps in the Amazon started setting them up in the United States because of the demand. The reporters visited one in Knoxville where the group was staging a Stand Down type program for the uninsured or under-insured, and thousands showed up asking for help. The charity had to turn away 400 people because they ran out of time and supplies. We are all so worried about the rationing of health care if we had socialized medicine. If the current system does not ration care then I don't know what that looks like. The whole health care system needs scrapped and we need to start over with a new health care system.

Because of this foreclosure story, I have been talking to journalists from Europe. Yesterday, I talked to Italian Public Television and a few weeks ago to a Scandinavian television journalist team. They were in Cleveland to follow up on the foreclosure story, and were shocked by the state of homelessness in America. They could not believe that families were homeless and living in cars and shelters. They did not understand how families had to split up in order to get shelter. The Italian TV people were amazed by the state of temporary labor. It seems that they could not understand how people could work full time and remain homeless. They did not understand the exploitation on the job or that chronic health conditions could lead to homelessness. They look down on us. For those who do not get to talk to people from other countries, like me, this is quite a come down. We are constantly told that this is the best country ever by the media and our movies and that no country can compete with the United States. Then we fall hard when we talk to European visitors. We have become the jungle country that Europeans visit to point, stare at, and take pictures before going home. How did this happen?

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