Emergency Solutions Grant

How Should We Spend Our ESG Dollars?

The Homeless Congress in cooperation with NEOCH, the City of Cleveland, the Cuyahoga County Office of Homeless Services, and the Bishop Cosgrove Center are hosting a meeting to discuss the new Emergency Solutions Grant funding. This is a new pool of funds that were intended to replace the stimulus funding from 2009.  It is hardly a replacement since we were given around $5 million per year for preventing homelessness in Cuyahoga County and the new allocation in 2012 will be around $600,000 to $700,000.  This is all because of the push in DC to cut, cut, cut, and cut until it hurts.  The program has been effective in serving thousands in Cleveland, but it will have to be scaled back because of funding from the federal government.

The Emergency Solutions Grant funding is distributed to Cuyahoga County and most every Continuum in the country.  In accepting these funds, the City/County must adjust their Consolidated Plan.  The Homeless Congress is having a special meeting on Tuesday February 28 at 1 p.m. at the Cosgrove Center to hear input from consumers of homeless social services about their recommendations in utilizing these prevention dollars.   The Office of Homeless Services is hosting another public meeting for social service providers and other members of the public on 

                                              Friday, March 2, 2012

                                              9:00 - 10:30 AM at

                                              the ADAMHS Board, 6th Floor

                                              2012 W. 25th St.--the old bank building kitty corner 

                                              from the West Side Market.

Parking is available on the street and at the West Side Market.  Parking is not available in the ADAMHS Board lots. Also, do not park in the depressing shopping center across the street or your call will be towed.

 

Congress passed the stimulus in 2009 to get the economy going, and with the housing crisis there was a huge pool created to prevent homeless.  There was an attempt to get this money on the street quickly, and so they dumped this money into existing programs.  Cuyahoga County received $14 million to be used between July 2009 and July 2012, and is just about out of funds.  Just for context, the program served 10,224 individuals between September 15, 2009 and December 31, 2011.  There were 2,074 families were served which is made up of 4,441 children.  Five percent of the total are veterans and 29% have some long term disability which makes it difficult to find housing.  Of the 6,800 who left the program before the end of 2011, 32% receive Social Security as their primary source of income with another 8% were receiving Social Security Disability, and 38% had some earned income but if they did not receive help they would have become homeless and had to live in a shelter. 

The program has funded legal help, mediation assistance,  the housing website, eviction prevention, rental assistance, housing search help, case management, and education of tenants of their rights when facing an eviction. We will have to figure out how to sustain these services with additional state or local dollars or figure out how to keep people out of the shelters with only about 15% of the money we had before. 

Brian

Posts reflect the opinion of those who sign the entry.

Quick Notes

Photo by Pleasure Simmons

A Couple of Comments:

The Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless publishes an e-newsletter with updates, save the dates, things you can do to help, statistics, and resources.  If you are paid member of the Coalition, you can receive the e-newsletter called the E-Bridge every 15 days. Contact NEOCH if you are not receiving your newsletter or you would like to get on the list. Here are a few of the updates that may be helpful:

**The CMHA Housing Choice Voucher waiting list for the next five to six years was released yesterday.  You can get the information from the same website that you applied or your client applied.  You will need to have the number that was generated when the individual applied to see if that number was selected.  Only 1 in 6 people had their number drawn (64,000 people applied).  Here is the link: http://www.applycuyahogacounty.tenmast.com/ and click on lottery results. 

**The new rules for the Emergency Solutions Grant were released yesterday.  The federal government gave Cleveland approximately $13 million as part of the American Stimulus funding to prevent homelessness and to get people back into housing quickly.  These stimulus funds run out next year, and the Emergency Solutions Grant is intended to replace these funds in the community.  As with all things government, they are a sad replacement with only $590,000 going to Cleveland to replace the $4.5 million we spent previously on prevention and rapid rehousing activities.  Here is the link to view the new rules.  We do not know how these funds will be used locally, but NEOCH is pushing for a small amount to go to maintain HousingCleveland.org.

**We have to thank both Congressman Kucinich and Congresswoman Fudge for being two of only 46 members of Congress that signed onto the letter asking HUD for additional funding for homelessness.  It looks as though both the Senate and House are going to provide level funding for the third year in a row for homeless assistance.  This is amazing since we have seen huge cuts to the housing programs, the emergency assistance funding cuts, and other mainstream programs will face the budget hatchet.  While there are huge federal cuts demand is increasing with all the shelters bursting at their seams and the 2009 stimulus dollars will run out to prevent homelessness in 2012.  Nearly every American city needs a huge boost in homeless dollars to keep up with demand, but we are getting the same as we received in 2008.  It is going to be a rough summer next year when many unemployed families are displaced and will not be able to afford rent.  The letter that they signed onto can be found here. Please call their local offices to thank them for looking out for homeless people.  (Fudge is 216-522-4900 and Kucinich is 216-228-8850.)

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.

Coalition Updates

Photo by Sabrina Otis

County Council and Hand Up Gala and Updates

Thanks to Channel 5 WEWS for attending this last Thursday Homeless Congress meeting. We also want to thank Phyllis Crespo candidate for District 7 County Council for showing up at the September meeting and Jeff Kipp for attending the October meeting. Crespo indicated written support for the standards, Kipp expressed support but did not provide support in writing. We have posted the update County Council supporters on our website. At this time, we have two County Executive candidates out of the six who support the legislation. We have at least one candidate from every district except District 6,8,10. We have Republicans, Democrats, Green party members and Independents who support the potential legislation. Also, thanks to WTAM for doing a story on the shelter standards.

The Hand Up Gala is coming together nicely with musicians on board, some local celebrities will be serving and hosting the event. The meal is planned, and we are gathering menu items. We have sent out the invitations and are preparing the guest list. If you want to donate to this event it is easiest to go here or directly here.

Quick Takes:

• Minneapolis/St. Paul requires their shelters to provide a change of address for everyone that enters the shelter. This is great for voting participation rates. Cuyahoga County requires all publicly funded shelters to do the same, but no one actually verifies this so I am not sure it happens like it did in the past.
  
• Without the eviction assistance that we had available because of the stimulus last year, the shelters in Cleveland better be prepared for large numbers of overflow. Last winter, we had nearly $2 million available to families struggling with their housing. This year, basically only those in a subsidized housing or living in Lakewood will have access to rental assistance.
  
• I attended the ESOP gala last night, and got to hang out with some of the best housing people in the City. Judge Pianka, Dennis Kucinich, Jim Rokakis, and of course the staff of ESOP, CTO, and NEOCH were all present. If the people in that room could take control of the mortgage/foreclosure problem in our community, we would have this problem solved by December.
  
• One more thing about the ESOP Gala...There were so many bankers represented I was surprised that one did not get on stage and say, "Since there are so many homeowners/ former homeowners in the audience, if anyone comes across the origination documents for millions of mortgages could they pass them forward or drop them in the lost and found in the lobby of the hotel. "
  

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

Legal Assistance Schedule Posted

Where to go for a Street Lawyer?

NEOCH has struggled over the last three years having had to layoff nearly all of our employees and relying more on volunteers and national service members, but one thing that we are proudest is that the community of homeless people have not suffered because of our financial issues. We were able to transfer all of our programs to other social service providers and maintain those services in the community. Our housing program and voice mail system are under the direction of other agencies and are still providing services in the community. We are working on finding funding for the Homeless Grapevine newspaper.

One program staff that we were forced to eliminate in 2009 was the director of Cleveland Homeless Legal Assistance, but with the help of the Metropolitan Bar Association and volunteers from a bunch of local law firms and the Cuyahoga County Law Library we have kept the program in operation. We still have volunteer attorneys going to the shelters and drop in centers and offering legal help. We will also have an intern this summer working on strengthening the program.

The schedule for the Legal Program is on our website now here. If you are homeless and need to discuss non-criminal matters with an attorney, you can go to the Wednesday clinic at the May Dugan Center. If you are staying in the 8 shelters that have a monthly clinic, you can talk to the attorney about a security deposit that you may not have gotten back or a check from an employer that was held. In addition, the Bar still maintains a monthly divorce clinic to teach people how to file for divorce on their own. The lawyer can answer questions about visitation of a child in custody of the County or a child support order. They can help with an expungements or landlord tenant issues for those who are currently homeless or in imminent danger of becoming homeless. This is a wonderful service that serves over 300 people per year.

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

Cleveland Media Forgot About Homelessness in 2010

Top 10 Homeless Stories Missed by the Cleveland Media in 2009

There were so many stories in the homeless community from 2009, and below are the top 1o that were missed by the local media. I was thinking back to 20 years ago and how many options there were to get stories into the media. Every radio station had at least one reporter and there were magazines that featured news, and we had weekly newspapers from all over the community. Now there are blogs but very few feature general news stories that are not opinion driven.

Here are the stories that were missed in 2009:
1. Despicable Process for Distributing Stimulus Dollars. President Obama helped get $1.5 billion out to the states and communities for preventing homelessness. Cuyahoga County received $14 million. There was one story in the Plain Dealer that focused entirely on a NEOCH vs. the County dispute over these funds. The story was much bigger and was the prime example for why voters distrust County government. The City let down their constituency by just giving their $10 million from the Stimulus over to the troubled Cuyahoga County. A good plan was developed by homeless people, service providers and advocates which was set aside by the County and for some inexplicable reason a different plan was funded. So far in the first 2 months only 10 people were given housing help. So much for stimulating the local economy.

2. Homeless Memorial Day 2009. We read the names of 45 people who passed away over on the first state designated homeless memorial day. This was the 23rd time we have presented the homeless memorial day, and the first time no media showed up to cover the event (except the Grapevine).

3. Homeless Stand Down 2009. Again, an important event with over 2,000 homeless people in attendance. This year no media showed up to cover this huge social service fair. We had entertainment, 60 health care/social service groups, and hundreds of volunteers. No television, no radio news reporters, and no special interest coverage.

4. Huntington Bank Help with North Point Transitional. Introduced in late 2008 and early 2009 was a new effort to get homeless people to start using the banking system. There are so many poor people excluded from the banking system, which manifests itself in the proliferation of payday lenders. Huntington Bank has stepped forward to help guys who are trying to rebuild their lives with support in getting a bank account. A good program that has received no publicity.

5. County Publishes Blueprint for Change. As part of the stimulus dollars and the new focus on prevention efforts, the County Office of Homeless Services published a new strategy for how to end homelessness on July 1, 2009. This document got ZERO coverage in the media, and is a fairly radical departure from what was done in the past. The document had zero input from homeless people and very little input from homeless shelter providers. It was also unfortunate that it came out one and half months after all the groups submitted proposals for how to use the prevention dollars. Maybe it is better that this got no coverage, so that it will be easier for this document to quietly fade away.

6. Shelters Overflowing even in the summer. The New York Times, Washington Post and other papers did stories about the overflowing shelters in their cities due to budget cuts and the instability in the housing sector. There was a brief mention on WCPN, but for the most part the story did not get any coverage in Cleveland.

7. Many work while living in the shelters. This is on the list every year, but it is a good story that never gets enough attention. The mythology is that most people living in a shelter or on the streets are lazy. No one ever does a story about how these guys get up at 4 a.m. to try to get sent out to work at the Temp. company. No media tries to dispel some of these horrible myths about homelessness in America.

8. Failures of the Alcohol and Drug System and its impact on the Imperial Ave. murders. It was said over and over that most of the women killed on Imperial Ave. were substance abusers, but I never saw one story breaking this down. What happened to the alcohol and drug addiction system and the safety net that we pay for as tax payers? Where was the breakdown? Did these women try to get help? Why do we base most of our treatment on outpatient assistance? Why does the alcohol and drug system not follow people long term and why don't they help with housing? How does this system work or how does this system fail poor people? There was such a wealth of stories about the failures of government to protects its citizens from this predator that just never got any coverage.

9. Tough Decisions Made By the Shelters in this Bad Economy. There were a number of stories this past year about the problems of suburban hunger and the growing issues with pantries. I never saw similar stories about the struggles within the shelter community. Cleveland has seen a loss of six shelters in the last six years, and none of the shelters have seen a cost of living increase from government. They should all be given metals for the ability to keep costs under control in the face of flat funding from the government. Despite the rumors, no shelters gets paid based on the number of people entering the building. All the shelters get a set yearly budget and have to figure out how to make that work.

10. The Ability of Social Service Providers to keep the Outdoor Homeless Numbers Down. Over the last three years, despite increases in the number of people sleeping in shelters, the numbers sleeping outside in the downtown area have remained steady. This is a testament to the social service outreach units that go outside every night to build relationships with those who are resistant to shelter. The Volunteers of America, Care Alliance, Veterans Administration, Mental Health Services, Salvation Army, and John Carroll's Labre Project all provide a valuable resource to Cleveland. The media did not do any stories about these wonderful people who earn the trust of those disenfranchised from government and "the system" and in fact save many lives.

Brian

Posts reflect the opinion of those who sign the entry.

Homeless Prevention Funding: Background

Changing the Homeless System in Cleveland

A Little Background
The Obama Administration as part of the American Recovery Law put $1.5 billion into preventing homelessness and quickly moving some homeless people into housing. In an effort to not create an entirely new bureaucracy, they put the funds into the Emergency Shelter grant program even though these funds could not fund shelters. It was to be dispersed by formula and distributed the same way the ESG funds are given out. How this was distributed locally was:

• Cleveland receives $9.8 million
• Cuyahoga County receives $1.55 million
• the City of Lakewood receives $902,000 and
• City of Cleveland Hts. getting $715,000
• Later, it was announced that the state was just going to divide up their funds among the 10 largest communities in Ohio, so there was an additional $1.6 million from the State to Cuyahoga County.
  

Originally, the County had negotiated a deal in which all the funds would be pooled and one Request for proposal would be issued with all $12.8 million (not including the State dollars). In a March 11 memo to the community, the Office of Homeless Services originally advertised a May 11 deadline for applications, and then the applications would be approved by June 1, 2009. We were told that this short time line would allow the Cleveland City Council to approve the contracts at their last meeting before summer recess on June 4, 2009.

All the funds had to be given away in 30 months, and they were part of the effort to stimulate the economy. It was hoped that jobs would be created and people would quickly move back into housing or would not become homeless in the first place. There was no money for foreclosure/mortgage assistance (there was a separate pool for this help). There was no money for oversight or monitoring. The funds could go to rental assistance, outreach, preventing evictions, or moving people quickly back into housing and then paying for 18 months for rental help. They were really broad guidelines and a quick turn around time to help stimulate the economy. These were a once in a lifetime opportunity that would fund a new idea to prevent homelessness instead of just serving the emergency needs of individuals.

In February 2009, when it was announced that the Obama administration was going to include millions in the stimulus dollars to prevent homelessness in America, NEOCH along with the Cleveland Tenants Organization set about to organize a redesign of the rental assistance program as well as the shelters (see Plain Dealer article “How best to help the homeless with expected stimulus money” on February 25, 2009). We gathered together all the large providers in Cleveland in order to transform the system so that at the end of 30 months there will be fewer homeless people waiting for housing in our community. The keys to success that would have resulted in a change in the system were:

1. A new organization was to be formed to coordinate all of these resources. All the partners would have sat on an oversight committee with clear roles and will respond to the issues of housing instability in a coordinated manner. One group would do all the data entry, which were required for the receipt of the dollars.
2. Every social worker in the community would have had a tool to use to figure out the household’s risk of homelessness in order to begin to address possible homelessness before there is a crisis. We had designed a process for referrals among the 12 partner organizations so that there was more than one entry point into the system. A few of the partners (Lakeside, West Side Catholic, AIDS Task Force, and Domestic Violence Center) would offer expertise to provide specialized case management.
3. All shelter beds and all rental assistance would have been distributed out of one facility with an impartial third party professional making those decisions for the good of the community.
4. Everyone in need of housing assistance would have received a follow up call or voice mail to figure out if the assistance that they were given was effective--basically follow up case management.
5. There was a storage furniture bank funded so that homeless people could have furniture delivered as they are moving into their housing. There was some help for those who need identification financial assistance, and some help to fund the housing website in the long run.
6. Finally, there was outreach to the suburbs with placement of staff in the eastern and western suburbs to help prevent evictions. This was combined with help from Legal Aid and Homeless Legal Assistance to offer legal advice and defense against eviction for the 8% (1,600 evictions in 2008) that did not involve a person's inability to pay the rent.

We were able to get the following groups to sign on as partners that would not compete with this collaboration: NEOCH, CTO, EDEN Inc., Mental Health Services, Inc., West Side Catholic, Domestic Violence Center, AIDS Task Force Cleveland, Mediation Center, Legal Aid Society, Cleveland Metro. Bar Association, Catholic Charities, Lutheran Metro. Ministry/2100 Lakeside. All these groups signed a non-compete contract and a commitment that they would work together to implement the plan. The goal for the collaboration was that at the end of 30 months, we would have helped thousands prevent homelessness, but more importantly we would have fundamentally transformed the system. We would have reduced the need for all of the emergency shelter beds and created a rational system for preventing people from having to go to shelter. We all understood that at least half the population does not want to go to shelter, so how do we best serve them without forcing them into a shelter?

The collaboration then applied for the $12.8 million that was coming to Cleveland. This is a little background that the Plain Dealer and others did not have the space to talk about. We will follow up with how this all broke down this summer. This is a follow up to our post from last week.

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

Homeless Prevention Funding

A Missed Opportunity

Photo by Cheryl Jones of the NEOCH Photo Project

We have sat on this story for three months. Now that it was on the front of the Metro Section of the Plain Dealer, we can begin to talk about this once in a life time opportunity. The PD story and the editorial from today do not do justice to the complete story. They did not have enough space to talk about all the issues. NEOCH was trying to bring systemic change locally behind the scenes without pushing anyone into a corner. Since the contracts for the $12 million in Stimulus dollars will be signed on Thursday, we have nothing left to lose. We talked to politicians and other providers, but we could never get the County to respond to our concerns. We will have plenty more to say on this topic, but for now here is our statement on the distribution of homeless prevention funds.

The Northeast Ohio Coalition for the Homeless feels tremendous disappointment in the poor planning that took place to distribute the Homeless Prevention and Rapid Rehousing (HPRP) funds. There was no input from homeless people, and although offered, help from the social service providers on a plan was not accepted. “The Blueprint for Change” published by the Office of Homeless Services was written by one or two people in the County, and so now the small County Office owns the system for ending homelessness locally. They are the sole architect of the system, and will need to take responsibility for its success or failure.

This was a once in a lifetime opportunity that could have fundamentally transformed the plan to end homelessness. We had the obligation to use these funds in a transparent manner with a high degree of accountability to the community as was championed by President Barack Obama and Congress when these recovery act funds were released. We could have created a large number of new jobs and invested funds into a new system to prevent homelessness. We have violated the letter and spirit of the American Recovery Act by the backward process for distributing these funds.

We are sorry that the City of Cleveland did not take advantage of the opportunity to fundamentally change the system for providing housing assistance to homeless people. NEOCH is sorry to see that more than 70% of the funds went to the City of Cleveland, and yet City leaders have taken a back seat in overseeing how these funds were distributed. The City of Cleveland needs to step up and take back the leadership of solving the problem of homelessness locally. Cuyahoga County has seen 20 straight years of homelessness, and county officials have been in charge of the problem for the past 16 years. There are no shelters outside of the City of Cleveland, and men come from the suburbs and even the surrounding counties to the shelters in Cleveland.

NEOCH shares the concerns of homeless people that there is no oversight of these funds. We hear this constant refrain at every single meeting we host with homeless people that there is no where to go to get answers about homelessness and no where to go to complain about mistreatment within the social service system. We expect the County to step forward and make sure that the use of these funds are transparent and vigorously protected to insure the community is best served. We believe that strong oversight of these funds are critical to the success of these funds.

To date, County staff have made many mistakes in the distribution of these funds, and have alienated a number of the large social service providers in this community. It will take all of the social service providers working together to effectively implement this program. The County needs to listen to experts in the community, and implement a more collaborative approach to homeless services. The biggest fears of homeless providers and currently homeless people is that in trying to do good, we are going to swamp the shelters with new people looking for help. We fear that people will hear that the two entry shelters can help with housing assistance funds and will show up at the door seeking help. All of the local shelters are already full, and we cannot fit anymore people into the shelters.

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