What is Happening With County Homelesness?

Jan Eaton (Community Women's Shelter), Ruth Gillett and Sheri West (OHS) and Cathy Alexander (Mental Health Services) (sitting) at the June County Council hearing on Shelter Standards. Photo by Pleasure Simmons.

Cuyahoga County Homelessness 2011
The County Office of Homeless Services (OHS) "Advisory" board only meets every other month.  The last meeting was in November 2011, and we haven't written much about the County for the past few months.  At their last meeting they worked to clarify the definition of homelessness to include transitional programs, which was causing confusion for the Mental Health/Alcohol and Drug Boards and their staff.   This will all have to be updated again as the newly passed HUD rules are implemented locally which dramatically redefines homelessness.  This new definition will only confuse the entire community (Thanks Congress).  The Board also expanded to include a representative of the Cleveland Metropolitan School District--a very good idea.

The Housing First group (overseers of permanent supportive housing programs) has decided to expand to include families and young adults as the HUD rules change to allow for a small portion of federal dollars to go to these populations.  With the huge increase in family homelessness in America over the last three years (including Cleveland), this makes sense if not a little late.  Progressive cities such as Minneapolis and Denver expanded to include families years ago using state and local resources since HUD dollars were not available.  These communities have done a much better job in addressing the problem of homelessness, because they have not chased the federal gravy train, but instead set about solving homelessness and found the dollars to implement their strategies.  We did learn from the Housing First group that there is not really a solid source of funding for the supportive services associated with these properties.  This is concerning in that if HUD moves on to a new trend will these severely disabled people be left in apartments without case managers? Also, will we see the same problem we saw with Public Housing when they got rid of their social workers repeated with Permanent Supportive Housing?

We regularly criticize the Office for having the most talented and knowledgeable people sitting around the table, but wasting those opportunities never doing anything of substance.  From the surveys conducted by a consultant to OHS, it seems like one quarter of the board is similarly dissatisfied.  A lot of this frustration came up in the discussion as the "advisory" made plans for the next three years.  They attempted to put in writing some goals for the Office of Homeless Services, and I heard concern from many of the members that the Board should be working more on solving community problems and bringing more resources to address homelessness.  There is also some confusion if the "advisory" really advises anyone and are staff, elected officials or county bureaucrats really listening to the advise?

One of the best things that the OHS accomplished this year was to remain committed to universal access to shelter in Cuyahoga County by negotiating overflow beds for this winter.  With the disabled men's shelter gone and the building being used for offices and the VOA using their facility for other purposes, we were worried that we would not have a place for overflow mats.  Gillett assured us repeatedly that there would be overflow, and in the end she negotiated over 100 spaces for overflow of the men's shelter in Cleveland.  This is always difficult but important for Cleveland to keep the population inside and safe.  OHS staff, Ruth Gillett, attended the November Homeless Congress meeting, and heard from the men that they wanted the County to host a meeting of all the shelters to clarify the rules for staying open during an extreme weather situation.  Last year, on an especially snowy day in January a few of the shelters closed while others stayed open.  There did not seem to be clear guidance to all the shelters about the Cuyahoga County snow emergency policy.  This meeting has yet to be called.

Ruth Gillett did attend the November CAHA meeting about homelessness in Cleveland.  She presented some interesting statistics for the group:

• The Office was established in 1993 and federal allocation of dollars to Cuyahoga County has grown dramatically from $1.4 million in 1989 to over $34 million in 2010.  
• There are 1,122 shelter beds and 868 Transitional Shelter beds in Cuyahoga County.
• 22% of the funds go to emergency shelter, 12% goes to transitional housing, 49% goes to permanent housing and 5% goes to supportive services, and 12% goes to prevention services.  (0.0% goes to public policy/advocacy/dispelling myths--FYI).
• Using the deeply flawed management system, Gillett claimed there were 5,208 un-duplicated individuals using the shelter system in 2010.  So, using those numbers (which are probably way off) we spent $6,528.41 per person to get those individuals into housing.  (An apartment at fair market rent is around $7,236 for a one bedroom unit in Cleveland.)
• Gillett tracked only 471 families using the shelters in 2010 with 645 kids using her deeply flawed management system. (the schools served over 2,000 school aged children in the same time with an broader definition of homelessness that the Department of Education uses.)
• Using more credible statistics, Gillett claimed that 50% of the population stay less than 30 days in a shelter, but 20% stay more than a year.
• Ruth Gillett presented statistics on the one day count of homelessness.  These are of no use to the community since so many people are missed on this one day count compared to other cities. 
• Currently, there are 470 permanent supportive housing units open with a goal of 1,000

Gillett also identified a few problems with the current system in her presentation.  Those included:

• Homeless people cycle through the shelters
• There are minimal prevention services.
• There is a mismatch of need and access to resources.
• The homeless system is inefficient. 
• The current shelter system is not very effective. 

The OHS staff are proposing a "NEW Approach" to address homelessness.  This includes:

• Close the front door to homelessness by putting more resources into prevention activities and diversion activities.  (We have discussed diversion activities in this space earlier this year.) Better discharge planning and the creation of a real central intake where everyone gets a unified screening with a clear path outlined to get out of homelessness.)
• Open the back door which means using HUD funding to develop permanent housing and affordable housing options for those experiencing homelessness.  There should be more short term rental assistance funding available and housing subsidies.  Finally, Gillett's plan includes more permanent supportive housing to serve those who have been homeless for a long time.  
• Need to focus on shortening the length of time people are homeless.  Gillett suggests that this can be accomplished by helping people rapidly exit from shelter (Are there a lot of people hanging out at the shelter for longer than necessary because it is so fun to live without privacy or keeping your stuff safe from theft?)  Ruth Gillett suggests moving toward home based case management for those leaving homelessness.  She is proposing re-thinking assessment of household needs to focus on housing stability.  Finally she is suggesting that we connect people with mainstream resources for ongoing assistance. 

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

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.

NCH Statement on McKinney Vento

National Coalition for the Homeless Voices Concern Over Homeless Legislation

National Coalition for the Homeless

Statement on Enactment of the

Homeless Emergency Assistance and Rapid Transition to Housing Act

(S. 896/P.L. 111-022, Enacted May 20, 2009)

The National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH) issued the following statement upon enactment of the Homeless Emergency Assistance and Rapid Transition to Housing Act (HEARTH Act). The legislation, which reauthorizes the McKinney-Vento homeless assistance programs of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, was included within the larger Helping Families Save Their Homes Act of 2009 (S. 896, P.L. 111-022). President Obama signed the legislation on May 20, 2009.

The National Coalition for the Homeless commends Congress for taking action to reauthorize the McKinney-Vento homeless assistance programs of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness. This action represents the first formal reauthorization of HUD’s homeless assistance programs since 1992 – a reauthorization long overdue. Moreover, the wide margin of support for the addition of the HEARTH Act to the Helping Families Save Their Homes Act of 2009 is indicative of the bipartisan interest among Members of Congress in responding to homelessness. NCH congratulates U.S. Senators Jack Reed (D-RI) and Christopher “Kit” Bond (R-MO), former Senator Wayne Allard (R-CO), U.S. Representatives Gwen Moore (D-WI), Judy Biggert (R-IL), and Geoff Davis (R-KY), the late U.S. Representative Julia Carson (D-IN) and other Members of Congress who played leadership roles in assuring reauthorization of HUD homeless assistance programs.

From NCH’s perspective, the enacted version of the HEARTH Act is a mix of favorable and disappointing provisions. Among the provisions of the HEARTH Amendment that enjoy NCH support:

• Adds additional homelessness prevention activities and populations at risk of homelessness into the current Emergency Shelter Grants program, which is renamed Emergency Solutions Grants.
• Allows Congress to finance the renewal costs of permanent housing projects initiated with HUD McKinney-Vento funds from the Housing Choice Voucher account.
• Increases the administrative expense limit for project sponsors.
• Prohibits shelter and housing projects receiving HUD McKinney-Vento funds from requiring a family to separate any child or youth member of the family from the whole unit as a condition for the family’s admission into the shelter or housing.
• Improves collaboration between Continuum of Care jurisdictions and HUD-funded homeless assistance providers and local educational agencies with regard to homeless child and youth access to elementary and secondary education.
• Requires the Government Accountability Office to conduct a study on rural homeless assistance, including offering recommendations on the appropriate federal agency or agencies to administer a rural homeless assistance program.

In other areas, the legislation falls short of NCH’s aspirations. Among them:

· The authorization level for HUD McKinney-Vento programs is set at $2.2 billion in FY 2010, far below the minimum $3 billion level of annual funding need identified by NCH and other homeless advocacy organizations, particularly as homelessness prevention activities are introduced as eligible activities into HUD McKinney-Vento programs.

· The bill relegates homeless people and service providers to consultative roles in the Continuum of Care application process, rather than assuring them decision-making roles.

· The new definition of homeless individual for HUD programs (and by extension other federal, state and local programs that use the HUD definition of homelessness) continues to exclude several subpopulations recognized in other federal law to be homeless, including homeless families living in shared housing for more than two week duration and single adults and childless couples living in shared housing due to loss of housing and economic hardship. Furthermore, the new definition is overly complex and likely to prove unwieldy for people to understand whether or not they are eligible for homeless assistance, or why they may be eligible for some homeless programs, but not others.

· The bill permits jurisdictions with low rates of homelessness to use Continuum of Care funds for people who are not homeless under the HUD definition but are homeless under other federal definitions, but limits this flexibility for jurisdictions with higher rates of homelessness, thus creating inequity in access to HUD-funded homeless assistance services across jurisdictions.

· The legislation limits flexibility of jurisdictions receiving Continuum of Care funds to spend resources on the full range of eligible activities by establishing priorities, incentives, and bonuses for some activities over others.

· The legislation limits flexibility of jurisdictions receiving Emergency Solutions Grant (formerly Emergency Shelter Grant) funds to spend the full amount of ESG resources on emergency shelter, outreach, and essential services.

· The bill codifies into law the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) without assuring privacy protections for homeless people or controlling use of HMIS data for decision-making.

· The bill misses the opportunity to elevate the Executive Director of the Interagency Council on Homelessness to a Senate-confirmed position, or to have the ICH Director report directly to the White House rather than to an annual rotation of Cabinet secretaries.

· The bill’s definition of “rural area” for purposes of a new rural homeless assistance set-aside program permits metropolitan cities within some western states to remove themselves from the main Continuum of Care program and instead secure funds through the rural account.

NCH regrets that the above-mentioned weaknesses in the legislation were not adequately addressed in the HEARTH Act prior to passage. However, we will work with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and other stakeholders to assure implementation of the HEARTH Act in a manner as inclusive and protective as possible as the law affords for people experiencing homelessness and for homeless assistance service providers. The brief two-year authorization period for HUD McKinney-Vento programs provides a quick opportunity to ask Congress to redress weaknesses with the new law.

NCH thanks the many individuals and organizations who over this past decade educated us about the challenges in addressing homelessness in their lives and in their communities, who helped us shape our policy recommendations for HUD homeless assistance reauthorization, and who responded to our repeated calls for action.

We urge individuals and organizations who encounter barriers to accessing HUD homeless assistance programs as a result of the new law to report those concerns to their Members of Congress. Please also report them to NCH so that we may attempt to rectify challenges through HUD policy, regulation, or Congressional action.

NEOCH, the Cleveland Homeless Coalition, agrees with these comments along with our previous posts. We had such high hopes for this legislation, but we will have to continue to work on these issues.

Brian

Posts reflect the opinion of those who sign the entry.

McKinney Vento Law Signed

Obama Signed Housing and Homeless Law

This is an example of having to vote for a big bill that will help millions despite some of the negatives. The Helping Families Save Their Homes Act was signed into law on May 20 by President Obama. There are so many good things in this bill, but there are some big problems in the homeless piece of the legislation. Overall, the new law begins to address some of the huge problems within the housing market and corrects some of the problems in previous foreclosure bills. The press release from the White House about the bill only mentions briefly the homeless piece of the legislation.

• The flawed foreclosure bill from 2008 was corrected to help those homeowners underwater with their mortgages. There is also a provision to permit modification of federally guaranteed farm loans.
  
• The law attempts to increase lending, and will extend the increase in deposit insurance. It will increase borrowing authority for the FDIC, and will allow the credit union administration to create a stabilization fund to allow America's credit unions to lend.
• This law establishes protections for renters in foreclosed homes. This is one of the most important components of the law in that existing leases will be honored and will require a minimum of 90 day notice before an eviction can take place.
  
• The new law will allow borrowers to know who owns their loan, and they must be told when their loan is sold or transferred.
  
• The law, if given proper appropriation, will significantly increase funding for homeless services and will prioritize funding for homeless families.
  
• Fraud enforcement and recovery act, which bring brokers and other private mortgage institutions under the criminal code. This new law prohibits the manipulation of the mortgage lending business.
  
• The law corrects problems from the TARP legislation, and extends commodity futures and options market into the anti-fraud statutes. The law will hire additional fraud prevention and enforcement staff to investigate and prosecute fraudulent activities in the mortgage industry.
  
• Overall, the law will strengthen the federal government's regulatory and enforcement power to prevent future instability in the housing sector.
  

The homeless portion of this bill was given scant attention by the White House or the media, but this is actually a major step forward. All of the legislation that impact homeless people are wrapped up in the McKinney Vento law, but that has not been renewed by Congress since 1992. This was hold over legislation from the last Congress. The bill made it through the House, but did not clear the Senate. It was disguised as the HEARTH Act, but the real HEARTH Act was introduced by Congresswoman Julia Carson who passed away. This was a compromise legislation that is going to cause a lot of anxiety in the field. There is a tension in DC between those who are big supportive housing advocates and those who want to serve every homeless person. There is also a split between privacy activists and those who feel that it is in the best interest of the United States to count homeless people.

I stand firmly on the side of those who believe that homeless people should be able to remain private even if they want a bed from a publicly funded shelter. Of course, I want everyone to have access to housing assistance, and not just those with a disability or those who have been homeless for a long period of time. Here are the problems with the "HEARTH" portion of the law that was passed:

• The definition of homelessness was expanded, but not to the much better Department of Education definition. The problem for the local community is that the new definition is several pages long and will be very difficult for the local shelter case worker to figure out if the person in front of them meets the definition.
  
• Prevention and rapid rehousing will be a eligible activity under the Emergency Shelter Grant funds. This is helpful if there is a significant increase in ESG funding. If there is not then emergency shelters will have to compete for funds from the new projects being funded as part of the homeless prevention stimulus funding.
  
• The Homeless Management Information System will now be a part of the law, and case workers may have to collect a lot more personal information from their clients. These systems are expensive and rarely provide useful data. In Cleveland, this system is a big drain of resources to a corporation down in Louisiana that has yet to give us anything of value.
  
• Consolidated the various homeless programs under one program to make it easier for communities to access these dollars. This could present problems for rural communities.
• A set aside for 10 percent of the funding must be used for homeless families. Again a good idea, but it takes the away the decisions at the local level and forces those decisions to a bureaucrat in DC.
• In addition, there are goals to reduce family homelessness to 30 days or less as well as an incentive program to develop rapid rehousing programs for families.
  
• The new law will require 30 percent of the funding for permanent housing for people with serious disabilities. This a good concept, but it forces small communities to use their resources for permanent housing even if that is not the priority.
  
• Families are added to the offensively named "chronic homeless" definition. This would allow heads of households who have been homeless for a long period of time could gain access to some of the housing resources previously available only to single adults.
  
• Finally, there is a provision that prevents age discrimination of children. This is not a big deal in Ohio, because the state had outlawed separation by the shelters of 14 year old or older boys from being separated from their parents.

The big picture is that the law will help millions of homeowners, renters and yes, even some homeless people. The bill could have been so much better. The homeless portion of the bill could have help move toward an end of homelessness in America. We waited 17 years since the McKinney Vento bill was reauthorized. I hope that we do not have to wait until 2026 to get another homeless bill through Congress.

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

Melville Charitable Trust

Every Night I Hear Melville is Looking for Solutions?

So, does anyone else wonder how many more years the Melville Charitable Trust will be looking for a solution to Homelessness? Every night I hear on NPR that it is funding "All Things Considered" and working on finding solutions to homelessness? So, how is it going for them on this quest for the Holy Grail? Have they found a solution yet? Homelessness has increased every year for the past 20 in Cleveland, so the solutions have not made it to the Midwest. I went to their website and here is what I found:

What We've Learned

After working with more than a hundred grantee partners for over a dozen years we are now convinced of the following:

1. Homelessness is a solvable problem.
2. Decent, safe, accessible and affordable housing is indispensable to solving the problem of homelessness.
3. Providing housing with support services to those who have enduring disabilities is the smart, humane, cost-effective solution to long-term homelessness.
4. Our society has more than adequate economic capacity to invest in the housing and provide the services that can eliminate homelessness anywhere in America.
5. Government agencies and officials, as well as our elected representatives on the local, state, national levels must be in the forefront of efforts to end homelessness, investing significant resources in housing and service programs that lead to individual and family independence.
6. All that is needed to eliminate homelessness in America is the political will to do so.

I think that they could have stopped at #2, but what do I know? So, they have funded the National Alliance, and are big supporters of the Bush 10 year plan strategy. Some of those 10 year plans will expire next year, and I doubt that any city in America will declare victory. So, where are we? In most of America, homelessness is worse than it was 10 years ago. We have built a whole bunch of permanent supportive housing, but have no plans to fund those services long term. We have decimated public and the voucher program in America, and very few are successfully lobbying on their behalf. We have more poor people. We have more populations who find themselves homeless for longer periods of time. We have more families, more individuals from suburban and rural communities, more seniors and more young people becoming homeless. These populations are increasing, and we have seen a steady population of single men. We have fewer jobs that pay a decent wage, more people without health care, more civil rights violations against homeless people, and less housing for poor people.

I cannot think of many areas in the life of homeless people that are better. There are fewer benefits available to homeless people. There are fewer lawyers. It is harder for a homeless person to vote in America. So, the state of homelessness is worse, and yet Melville keeps pumping money into NPR and looking for solutions? What is NPR doing to reduce homelessness by the way? I have to wonder that all the money spent on staff, advertising, shelters, permanent supportive housing projects, National Alliance, and NPR would have helped more people by just providing a family a housing voucher for one year. They could have paid for an entire year of housing for 1,000 people in Cuyahoga County over the 10 years if they had just given away $6.5 million dollars to us. That would have doubled our Shelter Plus Care program and increased our Voucher program by over 7% with $6.5 million.

I hope that all national groups will re-evaluate the decisions (funders, government, and service providers) that have been made over the last 10 years. I hope that activists will look for solutions that do not take a decade or more to come to fruition. We need to have a massive investment in housing. We cannot lose anymore housing. We have to have put people to work and provide those on disability with more money to survive. Or at least we could provide a housing voucher along with their disability check. It is time for a change, and maybe a new statement on All Things Considered for Melville.

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

Mangano Must Go!!

More Harm Than Good

The Washington Post did a profile of Phil Mangano, the Director of the Interagency Council on Homelessness today. (Thanks to CynDe for sending the link). I guess Mr. Mangano is working on securing a job in the Obama administration. There was some mention in the article from NPACH advocates about Mr. Mangano's problems, but they did not go into enough detail. There was also a feature on one of the NPR programs Tell Me More yesterday about Mr. Mangano in an effort to bolster his resume. Anyway, I don't think that the NPR host or the Post gave enough of the other side of the story on Mr. Mangano. Here is my impression of Mr. Mangano from my position in Cleveland and Board Member of the National Coalition for the Homeless. Bottom line for President Elect Obama get rid of Mr. Mangano. Send him back to Boston to write his memoir on the relationship between his struggle against homelessness and the abolitionist movement, which can sit on the shelf next to all the Ten Year Plans to End Homelessness.

Why Mr. Mangano should be fired, and why he has caused great harm to homeless people in America:
1. Hurricane Katrina: The largest number of people made homeless in a few short days in the history of the United States. It would seem that the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness would take the lead in the recovery effort. Since Mr. Mangano had instead focused on "long term homelessness," they had no ability to deal with natural disasters and were as unprepared for Katrina as the rest of the Executive Branch. Mangano never spoke up and said that there was a problem or that the administration dropped the ball in the destruction of one of America's great cities.

2. The Phrase Chronic Homelessness: This expression came into vogue under Mr. Mangano. I and many homeless people hate this phrase. It sounds like a disease that homeless people have contracted. Does it catch or spread through some kind of airborne pathogen? Homelessness is already a politically charged expression that many homeless people hate to use, but add the word "chronic" and it is like being tagged with the label "Black Plague Victim."

3. Malcolm Gladwell is Wrong: The entire theory that Mr. Mangano champions is based on Malcolm Gladwell's 2000 book The Tipping Point. Gladwell has a history background, and is a writer/journalist. He is not a social scientist or a researcher. He is a good observer of culture and then attaches scientific principles. It is a good read for the masses with simple explanations of complex problems. Basing public policy and millions of dollars on the work of one British/Canadian writer seems extreme to me. Hey, I like George Carlin, but I would never suggest that we put all our health dollars on Broccoli as the cure for Cancer as Carlin had recommended. I have talked about this flawed Malcolm Gladwell strategy here and here and here. Basically, Gladwell followed one homeless guy around and found that he costs our society a bunch through incarceration, emergency room, and mental health care costs besides shelter and food costs. This is all correct, but as I have said many times is that if you remove this guy from the system and put him in housing the emergency room and jails are not going to pay the shelters the money they saved so that the shelters can serve others. The other issue is that a focus on long term homeless does not work for every community in the United States. It may work in Boston and New York City, but this policy is harmful to Jeffersonville, Indiana and Lorain County, Ohio. There is not one policy created in Washington that will cure homelessness throughout the United States.

3. He never criticized his Boss: Mangano was a good soldier for the Bush administration. He travelled the country racking up huge frequent flyer miles spreading the gospel that George W. Bush cares about ending homelessness in America. This was the biggest spin campaign in the history of politics. It was all a big show with ribbon cuttings instead of offering real solutions or real money. They pulled the rug out from under Public Housing and gave the cities chump change for permanent supportive housing. The Mayors got to champion a brand new apartment building, but did not see that the Public Housing was falling down around their cities. Mangano took money from shelters and put it into brand new buildings for the long term homeless. He never told us how to pay for the long term management of these buildings, but they sure looked nice when they opened. Mangano never said anything bad about the Bush administration lack of a real housing policy (until this last week). The HUD budget submitted by Bush to Congress has for the past seven years called for major cuts to the major housing programs, and Mangano never said anything about how this would only increase homelessness.

4. Ten Year Plans Are Fake: Mr. Mangano cannot speak for more than six minutes without using the phrase "ten year plans". The first 10 year plans were passed in 2000, so we should start seeing an end to homelessness in those cities in 2010? The dirty secret is that many of these plans were only to solve long term homelessness or 10-20% of the population. While we spent a substantial portion of our resources (every new dollar for five years) on solving 10-20% of the problem. The damn broke over the last two year and many of cities were flooded with homeless people while HUD was focused on single adults with a disability. Most of the plans are sitting on the shelf. Others are discredited and forgotten, and the few that are left are suffering because of the recession. In Cleveland, family homelessness is way worse than it was in 2002. We did all this work on providing 400 new apartment units for single adult homeless people with a disability and it has not had any impact on the shelters or homelessness. There are five people waiting for help for every person we took off the streets. The ten year plans in almost every city will be quickly forgotten as soon as the ink is dry. Besides, why do we have to wait 10 years to solve homelessness for everyone?

5. Homelessness Has Grown: Bottom line is that a person should be measured on the success based on the numbers of people suffering. If you are appointed homeless czar and homelessness increases: you get fired. If you are paid to coach a football team and they lose 12 out of 16 games in a season: you are fired. If you are put in charge of rebuilding Iraq, and it breaks out into Civil War: you get fired (or you get the medal of freedom--but that is a different problem). Despite HUD trying to reclassify homeless people or change their status, by nearly every measurement there are more homeless people than there were at the start of the Bush Administration. We do not trust the HUD count, but I do trust the Cleveland Public School numbers. The school district has had a program to serve homeless children for 20 years, and they saw a 40% rise between 2006 and 2007. Even though we have developed more shelter beds in Cleveland, we still have people sleeping on mats on the floors in our shelters. More homelessness means the guy in charge has to go.

6. Families are Suffering. When I started working with homeless people, families were served first and were provided the most resources. This changed with Phillip Mangano who forced shelters and homeless services to focus on long term single adults. Now, families have to split up, and they spend much more time homeless in Cleveland. They have a hard time finding rental assistance, and children are on the move in great numbers. There are long waiting lists for housing, and a Mom has little chance of finding help with rent. We removed welfare with time limits, and now families struggle to keep their heads above water with stagnant wages. The Homeless Czar rarely talked about families. Mangano did not see the Foreclosure Tsunami that has destroyed many cities in America, and caused such pain to families. He never said that the Bush push for a "homeownership society" might not be the best policy for everyone. There is now a five year wait in Cleveland for families to get a rent subsidy for housing thanks to Bush policies.

7. He Never Criticized Bad City Policies. For the past dozen years, many cities that Mr. Mangano visited were developing policies that only made homelessness worse. They were passing anti-sitting or panhandling laws to make it illegal to be homeless. This would only extend the time a person will not be able to find housing or a job. It is a fact that those with a criminal background have a harder time finding stable housing or a decent job. Never when Mr. Mangano was shaking these Mayor's hands did he raise the issue of bad local policies. He had a great speech and heaped praise on these Mayors for their fake 10 year plans, but never said anything about sending the police out to arrest people sleeping on sidewalks. We never heard anything about compounding the problem with incarceration of mentally ill people. It is like presiding over the ribbon cutting of a new dam, and ignoring the screen door built into the center of the dam.

8. We Needed Some Coordination Among the Federal Agencies. The InterAgency Council was supposed to break down barriers in serving homeless people. It was to coordinate all the federal departments so that the HUD rules match those of Health and Human Services, the Department of Veteran Affairs, Education and Labor, etc. This never happened. We still do not have a common definition of homelessness among the agencies. Everyone of the agencies have done stupid things that harm homeless people. They do not work together to reduce the time it takes to be judged disabled or speed up the employment help. They do not have a common screening mechanism or work together to have one agency provide supportive services while the other provides housing. The federal government is just as dysfunctional for homeless people as they were when this crisis started in 1984.

Mr Mangano: you were wrong about the policies to end homelessness and you were silent on the injustices done toward homeless people over the last eight years. There are still 22 days to get the Medal of Freedom from this White House. It is time to move on; take your Powerpoint and look at a job again in the entertainment industry. Hey, how about traveling the country pushing a 10 year plan to restore the status of the Compact Disc?

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

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.

No COHHIO Conference for Me

Researchers Lead Us Down the Wrong Path

There is such a limited amount of research about homelessness in the United States that a few good papers will get you a long distance on the public dole. Dennis Culhane from the University of Pennsylvania is one of those researchers who actually took the time to figure out where homeless people were coming from and how long they stayed homeless. This was very useful information, but the conclusions drawn by Mr. Culhane were far off base. Culhane did research in NYC and Philly, two cities that have very little in common with Cleveland or Toledo, and nothing in common with Lorain or Sandusky, Ohio. He has parlayed this research into regular gigs with federal agencies and speaking engagements around the country. All of us in the field have to pay for his sketchy science.

Every agency funded by the federal government now has to try to count homeless people coming in the door no matter how bad the undercount or the infringement on the privacy rights of our clients. We have to do a one day count that has no basis in reality. Think of the the "guess the jellybeans in the jar" game. We have to bear the bulk of the costs of all these distractions taking us away from actually getting people housing at the local level. The Culhane research brought us the terribly expensive Permanent supportive housing option, which we talked about in December and NEOCH has a policy paper that the Coalition published about the problems with supportive housing. In the end, we are no closer to ending homelessness in America then we were 20 years ago.

The basis of the Culhane theory is that by removing those who have been homeless for long periods of time, the community can save 60-80% of their resources. This is a great theory on paper, but in real life it does not work. If we could just save the excess water dumped on Northwest Ohio and transfer it to drought stricken Atlanta, all would be right with America. This theory does not work with weather and it will never work for people. But Culhane is milking this theory for all it is worth. How does this play out in the local community? Our shelters are starved of cash to the point that they are all closing. Public housing has had to cut all of their supportive services and has no money to renovate their buildings for years. There is no money to house poor people or families because all of our resources go to those disabled individuals who have been homeless for years.

I will not be attending the COHHIO conference featuring the ivory tower theories of Dennis Culhane. We slog through every day trying to clean up the messes made by researchers living 1 million miles from the streets of Cleveland.

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

What is Happening to Homeless in America?

National Coalition for the Homeless Meeting in DC

First, just two weeks ago we identified Alphonso Jackson as the worst HUD Secretary in history. Today, the Washington Post had a front page story on how bad the HUD Secretary was as he exits this week. Check out Jackson's improper emphasis on homeownership, while easing scrutiny of mortgages. Maybe this colossal failure will force HUD to return to the safe rental housing, but I doubt it. Home ownership is the American dream, and people vote for dreams no matter the costs.

I was in DC last week for the cherry blossoms and the National Coalition meeting. The best part of the meeting is going around the room to find out what is happening in the local communities. I have to say that even though Anita from Georgia was not able to make the meeting, Atlanta is certainly one of the worst places for homeless people in the United States (besides New Orleans). In fact, having visited there last year I have to believe that Atlanta is the future New Orleans. They are at war with poor people, and have eliminated almost every shelter and now working on eliminating public housing. When you isolate poor people and the City is struck by tragedy (a lack of water, tornado, fire, terrorist attack, etc.) hits the city, low income people suffer disproportionately. [Photo by Kevin Cleary from Cosgrove Center in Cleveland].

Here is a rundown of things going on around the country:
Baltimore: The Mayor of Baltimore is putting extra effort into addressing homelessness. She shows up at the shelters unannounced. She volunteers at the shelters with her senior staff, and has started to make progress with a planning process, a push for advocacy, and two replacement shelters.

South Carolina: More barriers put in place by the State legislature to building affordable housing. New rules based on NIMBY issues. They passed a Housing Trust Fund, but

Virginia: Advocates concerned about the new rules for the homeless mentally ill in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings.

Los Angeles: The biggest concentrated disaster area in the country for homeless people has to be Skid Row Los Angeles with thousands of homeless people sleeping outside every night. In response police are cracking down on "quality of life infractions" by issuing 15,000 jaywalking tickets last year. City officials have rejected the 10 year plan because it was based on "need," which they determined to be unreasonable. They want a re-write the plan based on the number of resources available.

Kansas: Still working on a planning process, and have developed a few new housing resources in Wichita.

Arizona: Phoenix has a foreclosure crisis that is out of control. Tuscon has seen an increase in hate crimes against homeless people. The state is in such financial crisis that they are proposing stealing money from the State Housing Trust Fund to offset their expected $1.7 billion deficit.

Colorado: Denver is making progress on the development of permanent supportive housing goals, and they are committed to not disrupting the lives of homeless people during the Democratic political convention in 2008. They opened a 20 bed facility for vets using tax credit financing, and have recently built 100 units of new housing.

Austin, TX: They are looking at opening a park with tents, mobile homes, and other entry type housing opportunities to ease people back into permanent housing. This is an interesting experiment that we will have to keep an eye on. I have never seen this type of mixed housing sharing a space.

Minnesota: Advocates are working on funding their permanent supportive housing goals, but they want their projects to include families. Ohio needs a similar plan.

DC: They are working on a Housing First fund. One of the bigger shelters is closing down after the loss of a separate shelter last year.

Jeffersonville IN: They are suffering under large numbers of foreclosures, and people coming to the shelters in need of help. They have made some progress in coving the uninsured in Indiana. Jeffersonville was rocked by the suicide of a local Iraq War veteran who fled South and crawled into a drainage ditch in Florida and died because of symptoms associated with PTSD.

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

PBS Program Look at Homelessness

Finally Someone Asks the Administration about Their Cuts

David Brancaccio of the great news program NOW finally asked the Bush Administration about their dramatic cuts to housing at the same time they are "solving" homelessness. I have waited for five years for the answer to this question. At least Mr. Brancaccio asked the question, but there was no answer; just spin. Brancaccio asks Philip Mangano, leading homeless car salesman for President Bush, about all the cuts proposed by the Administration in the face of claiming to "solve homelessness."

BRANCACCIO: Does it frustrate you when you see this administration, in its budgets, cutting back money for programs like that?

MANGANO: No one has an intent, whether in Congress or in this administration, to increase homelessness, but we're still wrestling with how to best apply housing resources to get a better effect. It's only as we've concentrated resources on people experiencing chronic homelessness, to create change where change was thought to be impossible. The promise of that, is that as the numbers of people on the streets go down, that will re-moralize us to invest more in the other populations.

The Coalition agrees that Housing First initiatives are great, and that it proves that mentally ill and drug addicted people can live in housing. These homeless individuals do not have to cure themselves before society offers them housing. The unspoken truths are that we are going to have a big price tag to sustain these operations, and it is a raindrop in an river of need. It is hypocritical to destroy public housing while putting millions into permanent supportive housing. The administration seems to be saying public housing is an experiment that America has tried since 1946 and we still not sure that it works so we choose to put one one thousandth of that money into the Housing First movement which we are sure will work because it is so successful over the last decade. Where does the rest of the money go that is cut from HUD and Dept of Agriculture? Iraq, defense, homeland security and drug companies are the places we have decided to put our federal tax dollars.

It was a good segment, which you can watch online. I wish more media would start challenging the spin in Washington DC.

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

Emerald Commons Ribbon Cutting

Who is Paying for All this Supportive Housing?

In the Sunday Plain Dealer, Joe Frolik, did a nice overview of supportive housing and the new Emerald Commons Project. Then yesterday, WCPN, did one hour on the supportive housing fad that is sweeping the country. We have talked about these projects in the past, and disclosed the reservations that we have for supportive housing. Today, is the ribbon cutting for the Emerald Commons project.

Don't get me wrong...These are great projects and anyone would love to live in one of these buildings. In fact, every homeless person should have access to these kind of buildings. What never gets discussed is where is all this money coming from? Dan Malthroup tried to get to this discussion when he talked about the value of the $9 million that went into the Emerald Commons project on WCPN. Unfortunately, this he did not dig deep enough on this issue. The champions of these programs keep telling the public that supportive housing saves money, but they never answer the question, "Are those systems that are seeing savings, paying for these programs?" We heard over and over that these projects save health care costs, criminal justice costs and alcohol treatment costs, but are any of these systems paying for these buildings? No, the Cleveland Clinic did not contribute, nor did the Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections and the Alcohol and Drug Board is not giving money to these projects. So, if they are saving all this money why aren't they paying the costs for the building?

Who is paying for these services and the building's capital costs? Money directed at poor people and homeless people are the individuals paying for these projects. By their own admission, the long term homeless (the only people who have access to these buildings) make up 10-15% of the total homeless population, so why are we paying the majority of the budget for these projects? Why is 30% of the homeless dollars in our community going to these projects when these groups only make up 10-15% of the total homeless population? How many family vouchers (40% of the homeless population) would $9 million pay for? How many in-patient recovery beds for the addicted (60% of the homeless population) could we buy with this money? How many vouchers with case management could we buy for those with a mental illness (32% of the homeless population)? My concern is that no one is making strategic economic decisions with the homeless money we get, and no one is talking about how we are going to fund the supportive services for these buildings in the long run.

The other big issue that the champions try to put forward is that the long term homeless use 60-80% of the resources so if we can free up these resources then we have more money for families, mentally ill, and alcohol and drug treatment. First of all I don't believe these statistics are universal for every city. Secondly, the problem with this theory is that the only way this logic works is if you solve long term homelessness, but no one is planning on solving this problem. We heard that Columbus is doing 500 units over 7 years, and Cleveland is doing 1,000 units over 7-10 years. This is not going to solve the problem and during that time another 5,000 more long term homeless will ask for help along with all the other homeless people who knock on the front door of our shelters. So, you will not close one shelter bed and demand will still be the same as before one of these units opened. There will still be the same number or more of those experiencing homelessness who sleep outside and the same number or more in shelters after all these millions are spent on supportive housing locally. Also, while not solving the problem, we are actually creating other populations like families who will be long term homeless because all the resources are used for the disabled.

It is similar to a giant vat dropping Skittles at a rate of 10,000 per year or over 800 rainbow colored Skittles per month into your bedroom. You cannot use your bedroom while 800 Skittles keep dropping on you as you sleep, so you decide to pick up the Skittles that have been on your floor the longest. You spend 30% of your monthly income on a box to hold your Skittles that you clean up. You pick up 1,000 Skittles or 143 Skittles a month out of your bedroom over seven years during which time another 70,000 Skittles dropped from the inappropriately located vat in your bedroom. Would you notice a difference between the 70,000 rainbow colored Skittles if you did nothing or the 69,000 Skittles left after spending time and 30% of your income every month for seven years trying to clean up your bedroom? You would have one really nice box of Skittles on your desk, but not much else. It is a silly example, but so is supportive housing championed as a solution to homelessness. Either get rid of the vat that keeps dropping Skittles or clean up all the Skittles as they fall or your efforts will never be noticed by the community. At the end of the seven years and the millions spent, the public is going to be ticked off that there is no visible change in the landscape except these very expensive Skittle boxes.

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