Archive for Homelessness

| January 16, 2013
No comments

Homeless in the New Hampshire Winter

Harrisville, New Hampshire

Harrisville, New Hampshire (Photo credit: Dougtone)

The stereotypical image of a homeless person is usually portrayed in a highly urbanized setting. Just as population is spread across the country, filling both urban and rural niches, so is the chronic problem of homelessness. Small towns and the countryside have more than their fair share of people sleeping rough, and sleeping rough at this time of year can be deadly.

Look at Cheshire County, New Hampshire. Homelessness is a rising problem, fueled by many factors. For one thing, according to Chris Sterndale, executive director of Cross Roads House, the state and local budgets have cut back extensively on mental health funding. The effects can be seen not only in rising homeless numbers but also in a rise in the proportion of them suffering mental illness. Ten years ago the mentally ill comprised one-third of the homeless population, not its one-half.

The biggest factor is hardly surprising – economics. The New Hampshire Union Leader reports:

Overall, though, mental illness is not the driving cause of homelessness; low wages mixed with the lack of affordable housing are the biggest factors.

“In many cases, it’s the working poor. Just because they don’t have a place to sleep this month, it doesn’t mean they are that much different from the other low-income people around us,” Sterndale said. “A lot of these are families that have young kids, and if you can’t earn enough for rent, child care and transportation, something’s gonna give.”

Housing costs in the Seacoast area have only gone up despite the recession, he said. “In a lot of places around the country, rent came down as we went through this first part of the recession, but that didn’t happen here.”

After the Seacoast area, Nashua has the highest rent prices in the state, Brady said, because of its proximity to Massachusetts.

People working in the Bay State who are making higher wages move into Nashua for the lower cost of living compared with that in Massachusetts, pushing the working poor out of housing.

On top of that, northern New Hampshire residents are moving to the area looking for work.

These are not the type of concerns that come immediately to mind when most people think about homelessness, but they are still valid. Every child, every person, left without shelter in the snow is important.

The texture of the problem changes from community to community, although many things remain constant. For instance, rehabilitative approaches are proven effective, and with the rising percentage of mentally ill among New Hampshire’s homeless they make an obvious tactic to embrace. Even so, most of the affected rural areas lack the density of resources larger cities possess.

None of the problems we seek to address is simple. Each one exists in a complex web of community, economic factors, and opportunity. While we seek big picture solutions we also need to keep in mind that each area has slightly different needs, requiring that those approaches be tailored on the local level in order to achieve maximum effect.

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta
Category: Homelessness | Tags: , , , ,
| January 10, 2013
No comments

The Cost of Homelessness

The Campaign to End Child Homelessness, an initiative of The National Center on Family Homelessness, is at the forefront of the battle to ensure stable housing and well-being for families and children. The National Center is a well known source of state-of-the-art research in this field.

Between the Great Depression and the 1980s, family homelessness was nearly non-existent. Since the ’80s it has become epidemic. Organizations like the National Center are vital for helping us acquire the best possible information from which to proceed.

Speaking of information, their new brief covers a subject we bring up frequently here on the blog: the cost of homelessness. Let’s take a look at these latest numbers, shall we?

Housing
Emergency shelters provide temporary housing for people who have no other place to stay. For families with children, however, emergency shelters are often more expensive than permanent supportive housing.

• Emergency shelter beds funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Emergency Shelter Grant Program cost approximately $8,000 more than the average annual cost of a Section 8 Housing Certificate.
• The prevalence rate of childhood foster care among children experiencing homelessness is 34 times the childhood foster care prevalence rate among all U.S. children.18 The adjusted marginal cost associated with foster care is $60,422/child annually.

Health and Mental Health Care
Emergency rooms are often the primary place where families experiencing homelessness go to receive health care. Lack of regular preventive care results in repeated emergency room visits, higher rates of hospitalization, and more costly treatment.

• Hospital stays for people experiencing homelessness average four days longer than their stably housed peers, for an additional cost of approximately $2,414 per stay.
• By the age of 12, 83 percent of children experiencing homelessness have been exposed to at least one violent event. These children are 15 percent more likely to need mental health services to recover from the impact of trauma when compared to their peers. The average annual cost for mental health services for children is $2,865 per episode.

Education
Children experiencing homelessness have higher drop-out rates than their stably housed peers. Only one in four students who have experienced homelessness graduate from high school.

• Students who drop out of high school earn on average $200,000 less over their lifetime than high school graduates.
• The net lifetime contributions lost to society after accounting for the costs that would be incurred to improve education are $127,000 per non-graduating student.

There you have it, more clear cut numbers that show how much public money is getting squandered. That alone should be enough of an argument– even for those whose compassion is not engaged on the subject. Even the most “business only” perspective must accede that the bottom line demands action.

One reason that we focus on the cost angle so much is because of all the budget tightening going on across the country. While things are improving, there are still misguided politicians pushing short-term cuts that produce massive long-term debt. Many of the measures we endorse may be slightly higher in up-front costs, but they produce massive savings that increase the longer they are in effect.

There are people on both sides of the political aisle who get it wrong, and people on both sides who get it right. It is not a partisan issue. Just look at the numbers I shared above; they are simple facts and non-partisan by nature.

It is far more expensive to do nothing!

Category: Homelessness, Humane Exposures | Tags: , , ,
| January 2, 2013
No comments

Homelessness, ideals, and profit margins

Homeless

Homeless (Photo credit: Niklas)

Last month the Department of Housing and Urban Development made an announcement that slipped by mostly unnoticed in the holiday furor. The department reported that the number of homeless people in the U.S. declined slightly in 2012, a drop of 0.4 percent to 633,782. The numbers show a continuous five year trend during which the U.S. has reduced homelessness by 5.7 percent even as the poverty rate grew by 20 percent. It should be noted that this announcement is based on a count on a single night last January.

The editors over at Bloomberg seem confident that they have isolated the cause:

The solution, it seems, lies not in publicly sheltering the homeless for sustained periods but in ensuring that they quickly secure their own places to live.

This approach was first applied to the chronically homeless, who made up 16 percent of all cases in 2012. These individuals almost always have disabilities such as mental or physical health problems or addictions. As a result, they fare poorly in conventional homeless programs, which may require compliance with the rules of an emergency shelter — such as sobriety — before allowing them entrance to a transitional shelter. Further compliance, including treatment for substance abuse, for instance, may be required before they can qualify for permanent housing support.

The alternative strategy places the chronically homeless directly into permanent housing while also connecting them to services to address their other challenges. Most will need this support, at government expense, for life. Yet such comprehensive assistance is probably cheaper than leaving the chronically homeless on the streets, because they often end up in hospitals, detox centers or jails, all on the taxpayer’s dime. Those services cost the public $2,897 per individual per month, according to one study in Los Angeles County, versus $605 for supportive housing.

Once more we see the comparison between short-term expense and long-term savings thrown into sharp relief. There is certainly a lot of public money to be saved in finding more effective ways to combat homelessness, but it also brings up another chronic issue: service providers.

No matter what sort of program gets implemented, it all comes down to how efficiently it is done. Within the for-profit prison system we see justice take a sideline to occupancy quotas and profitability. When talking about homeless issues it is likewise important to remember that many of the service providers seeking public money would be out of business if the homeless problem got solved.

I started thinking about this after an interaction with a homeless blogger named Thomas Armstrong in our Google community about homelessness. Here are the paragraphs that stuck with me:

I am increasingly concerned, and am hearing that others’ concerns are increasing, about a lack of help for mentally ill people in Homeless World Sacramento.

There is a feeling that all the public agencies and nonprofits are shirking responsibility to help those who suffer most and are most in need of help. Instead, the homeless-help industry’s interest is turned near-entirely to getting disability incomes for veterans and chronically homeless persons, which sounds more laudable than it is. The reason vets and the chronically homeless are getting so much attention has everything to do with MONEY — that is so the charities can get buck from these homeless people in exchange for services and so that charities can do their crocodile-tears donations-seeking dance.

The state and county remain in fiscal trouble. It is known that services they provide or fund to help poor or mentally-ill people were among the first to be severely cut or ended in response to the budget crisis beginning three or four years ago. Advocates for the mentally ill and families that include a mentally ill member are not politically powerful.

Many seemingly laudable programs can develop tunnel-vision as they seek funding, becoming out of touch with the reality on the streets. Groups like this can often be identified by their avoidance of discussions about how often the new residents are followed up and/or assisted with in-place operators wanting to see them succeed. That they need homeless people in order to keep their doors open makes their operations deserving of scrutiny.

So, how do we make this arrangement more effective? Long-term solutions are certainly proving to be far more effective at getting people off the streets and into homes, but the human element is of grave concern.

What do you think? Is there a way to deploy funding into effective programs while ensuring that it is employed both strategically and effectively? It is a thorny problem and worthy of discussion, so please share your thoughts.

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta
Category: Homelessness, Humane Exposures | Tags: , , , , , , ,
| November 16, 2012
No comments

Ending Homelessness: Kobe Bryant’s New Mission

Funny how we all look up to our heroes. For some of us they are captains of industry, for others they are comic book characters, and for a vast swathe of the American public they are sports stars. The non-fictional ones can often be found espousing causes they find important, whether out of real altruism or because they are seeking the limelight. Either way they can often provide a boost in awareness on the issues they publically endorse.

Kobe Bryant is one of those everyday heroes who comes from the world of basketball, and he is doing just that. Wednesday saw the release of a series of videos that he created in partnership with TakePartTV. The subject? Homelessness.

Take a quick look at the Intro Video in the series and then we will move on (the rest are embedded at the bottom of this post).

The Hufffington Post tells us a bit more about Kobe’s perspective on the subject:

This web series is a part of Bryant’s ongoing effort to fight homelessness in LA County, which is home to about 254,000 homeless individuals — more than any other city in the U.S.

In September, the Kobe and Vanessa Bryant Family Foundation completed renovation of My Friend’s Place, a drop-in center for homeless youth in Hollywood. Bryant will also be the honorary chair for “HomeWalk in LA” on Nov. 17. You can sign up to join Kobe’s team here .

‘There has to be something else bigger than just yourself and what you leave out on the basketball court. You have to use that to affect change and affect change in a serious way,’Bryant said in ‘Mission.’

The videos themselves take a page from our strategy: personal narrative. After the introductory videos, the rest are Kobe’s conversations with the homeless of Skid Row. Four residents of the Los Angeles Mission are interviewed. Anonymous faces resolve into: Anthony , Dennis , Kenneth , and Reggie (videos embedded at the bottom of this post).

These are real human beings who are actively trying for something better in the face of terrific odds and obstacles that change almost daily. It is hard to look into these all-too-human faces as they report from the trenches of human adversity. While you would probably pass any of them by without notice on the street, seeing these videos leaves you wishing you knew them better.

Eric Freeman on Sports.Yahoo.Com helps us keep Bryant’s efforts in perspective:

It’s important to temper our praise for what Bryant is doing here — it’s not as if he spends his off-hours volunteering at the mission or is single-handedly taking people off the streets. But appearing in this series is still very meaningful, because it ensures that more people will see this series than if he’d merely lent his name to the project or provided narration. Basketball fans follow the events of Kobe Bryant’s life. By interacting with the homeless himself, Kobe knew that he’d reveal the experiences of the homeless to an audience that may not have encountered them otherwise.

Take a few minutes and watch these videos. Meet some of the people who have slipped off the radar and see that they are not that far from you and me.

First off is Kobe’s impression of the Mission and Skid Row after walking the streets and talking with the people living rough there.

Meet Anthony

Meet Dennis

Meet Kenneth

Meet Reggie

Category: California, Homelessness, Poverty | Tags:
| September 25, 2012
No comments

It’s More Expensive To Do Nothing About Homelessness in Canada

There is a very interesting study that was recently released in Canada. The findings may provide some insight into the issues of homelessness we face here in the US.

The substantive report (150 pages of it) analyzed the costs of homelessness, including oft-forgotten peripherals like emergency medical expenses and policing. It then compared them to the cost of implementing services and programs designed to combat the problem.

Via The Vancouver Sun:

The estimated annual cost of $55,000 per homeless person takes into consideration the high risk of infectious diseases. The study says some individuals can be slow to accept treatment because they don’t recognize their mental illness, and may circulate through the court system because of a need to get drugs and food.

The study argues that if housing and support were offered to these people, it would cost the system much less – just $37,000 a year.

The report calculated that a capital investment of $784 million is needed to provide adequate housing to the 11,750 homeless people, and a further $148 million per year is required for housing-related support services.

But the study argues that after removing what the province is paying for health care, jail and shelters, and by spreading the capital costs out over several years, taxpayers could ultimately stand to save nearly $33 million annually.

The interesting part is how well these findings complement the research already done on juvenile incarceration and the incarceration of women. In our documentary, It’s More Expensive to Do Nothing, we examined the fiscal and societal gains that can be attained by implementing rehabilitative programs. They are substantive and invite and obvious parallel to the Canadian study’s findings on homelessness.

Another common thread between the two subjects is the recurrence of mental illness and substance abuse as part of the equation. These factors, if not addressed, tend to spiral out of control. Those subject to them can find themselves on a downward path that can be counteracted with the correct therapy and support programs. (On a personal note I know two people who used programs like that to get a grip on things while fighting those battles. They are now well-respected professionals in our community.)

I don’t know of any studies of this nature going on stateside, but it might be worthwhile to encourage it. Our own look at similar fiscal waste, and the human impact it has, was presented in the documentary It’s More Expensive to Do Nothing.

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta
Category: Homelessness, Humane Exposures, It's More Expensive to Do Nothing | Tags: , , , , , , ,
| September 6, 2012
One comment

Hurricane Isaac: Suddenly Homeless

Today I would like to offer something a little more personal than my usual blog posts. After the “Hurricane Isaac Experience” I would really like to share my personal perspective.

Last week we had a spot of unpleasant weather down here on the Gulf Coast that took out almost 700,000 people’s power across Louisiana. Most of them, like myself, for five or six days. Some still remain in the dark as I write this.

Hurricane Isaac not only knocked out the lights, but also sat over the area more than three times as long as the average hurricane. That means a lot of water, and a lot of people in outlying areas seeing it in their homes. The truly eerie aspect of it for those of us down here was that the storm arrived on the seventh anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.

How does this tie in with our usual topics? Easily. As the land washed away under the feet of Plaquemines and St. John the Baptist Parish residents the specter of homelessness and financial ruin became very real for much of our rural population. Thousands of residents from St. John the Baptist Parish alone became refugees, the status of their home and employment lost to view.

Make no mistake about it, homelessness looms. It is still to early to have any accurate data as the hard hit rural regions are only starting to be assessed, but the sheer volume of water has ensured that many lost everything. Just to the Southeast of New Orleans the town of Braithewaite is only now emerging from the muck.

So many of us teeter on the edge. As the recession drags on more and more families find themselves living paycheck to paycheck. The advent of a natural disaster – be it hurricane, earthquake, wildfire or something else – can suddenly leave a person both homeless and jobless.

According to the Katrina Pain Index , by Loyola professors Bill Quigley and Davida Finger, “Seventy percent more people are homeless in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina .”

In the wake of Isaac I fear we will see a similar spike in those numbers.

Category: Homelessness, New Orleans | Tags: , , , , ,
| August 4, 2012
No comments

Infographic: The Plight of Homeless Veterans

Homeless Veterans

Browse more data visualizations.

Category: Homeless Veterans, Homelessness | Tags: , , , ,
| July 26, 2012
No comments

Homeless Faces: Maurice

The homeless are not all addicts and drunkards. The current economy has thrust many educated people onto the streets, including Maurice. (Via 60 Days and 60 Nights)

55 year old Maurice Johnston lives in Boston, by way of Cleveland. He has a Masters Degree in Plasma Physics from Dartmouth College, and a masters in Electrical Engineering and acoustics from Purdue University. He’s worked over 10 years at Lockheed Aerospace & Aerodyne Research Corp. Maurice has taught in Science and physics, and took care of both his parents in their time of need. Maurice is very well spoken, (he sounds like Obama) and is very kind, so why is Maurice homeless…..

Maurice is referenced in the Boston Globe here: http://bit.ly/mSFI0O

Maurice has an in depth “LinkedIn” profile here: http://linkd.in/lK0bdJ

Maurice’s E-mail address is referenced in the video

Enhanced by Zemanta
Category: Homelessness | Tags: , ,
| July 24, 2012
No comments

Homeless Bloggers: Carey Fuller

keyboardCarey Fuller is a homeless mother of two who lives out of a van in the Pacific Northwest. She is also a blogger.

One of the amazing things about the modern day is that communication and information are so ubiquitous. Because of the spread of smartphones and laptops combined with the proliferation of free wi-fi, even some of the homeless can get online.

What results is an intensely personal portrait of life among society’s discarded.

To quote one of Fuller’s pieces on The Huffington Post:

My name is not hopeless and neither is yours. Regardless of how you came into homelessness, you are still a human being. Keep sharing your experiences until the truth about homelessness becomes common knowledge — because the way things are going, it might as well be. Let’s face it. Homelessness and poverty aren’t sexy subjects to present, yet they are a growing epidemic everywhere!

What’s sad is how much the public doesn’t know about homelessness. Like the fact that there aren’t enough resources to prevent homelessness for everybody, yet most people won’t do anything about it until they experience a “qualifying event” that forces them into the ranks of homelessness or close to it.

Now here’s the kicker: once you know you can no longer keep a roof over your head, you cannot wait until eviction day and assume you can just go into a shelter for “emergency housing.” There’s no such thing because there are waiting lists and a process you have to go through to determine whether or not you qualify for help. That’s right; you have to qualify for assistance. If you don’t, there’s a big hole in the safety net you thought would be there. So be prepared to hit the cement!

Her narrative of day-to-day life as a modern, involuntary nomad is striking. From horror stories about the red tape involved in getting almost any sort of assistance to recipes for eating dandelions (commonly found as weeds in the wild) her posts take you into a world inhabited by more and more modern Americans.

Check out Tales From The Driver’s Side, her blog, or her regular contributions to The Huffington Post. It will change your perspective.n

Related articles
Enhanced by Zemanta
Category: Homelessness, Poverty | Tags: , , , ,
| July 10, 2012
No comments

The Homeless -Invisible or Ignored?

Homeless?There are many stereotypes about the homeless. To many people they are written off as alcoholics and drug addicts. Others barely register their existence. Despite the recent economic misadventures, events that have greatly swelled the ranks of the homeless, these stereotypes remain consistent.

Only someone oblivious to reality would say there is no substance abuse among the homeless. By the same token you cannot paint such a diverse group of people with a single brush.

Between the housing crash and the ailing national economy many thousands have become homeless over the past few years. Families that had opted for sub-prime mortgages suddenly found themselves on the streets. Families and parents pushed to the financial brink find themselves on the street. Across the United States people who have been living paycheck to paycheck are finding themselves sleeping under the stars.

A highly disturbing number of these these recent homeless are women, children and veterans. And still the pejorative stereotypes persist.

Cary Fuller, a homeless single mother, gave her thoughts on the subject in a recent post for the Huffington Post:

The first thing I asked him was this: “If the homeless had permanent housing and support services, would they be hanging around in parks and alleyways?” Give people something better to do and a better place to go and the majority will, I said. At this point he then said that many of these homeless could get welfare and a job to which I then said “Really? Where? How can you get a job without an address? If you’re mentally ill, who will hire you?” Once again, a blank stare from my ex-neighbor. That’s when I told him that if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem and the problem here is that too many people have the attitude that they don’t have to get involved with anything so long as they’re not affected. The truth is that everybody is affected by homelessness. When homeless people get sick to the point of having to be taken to the emergency room, who do you think foots the bill for that?

Her last observation was particularly resonant. While people may well tune out the homeless they see on the streets, their pocketbooks cannot. (This is the reason we titled our documentary It’s More Expensive to do Nothing. The cost of rehabilitating these people back into mainstream society is far less than is currently being expended.)

To the vast majority of people the homeless remain faceless. As a result they fall back on images of the rum-soaked alcoholic snoring away the afternoon under an overpass – and other caricatures.

Take a moment and meet some of them. In our book downTown:USA our own Susan Madden Lankford takes you on a visual journey into their world, where she shares their narratives.

You see these people on your streets every day. Now take a moment and really look at them.

Category: downTown U.S.A., Homelessness, Humane Exposures | Tags: ,
« Older Entries   Recent Entries »