Slip slidin' away, or getting ready for a new day?

By G. Robert Hohler, Melville Charitable Trust

"Slip slidin' away, Slip slidin' away, The nearer your destination,
the more you're slip slidin' away."

-- Paul Simon

First, the encouraging news: Homelessness Counts, from the National Alliance to End Homelessness, reports the latest compilation of homeless "point in time counts" from communities across the country. From 2005 to 2007, a time of increased commitment by states and communities toward ending homelessness, the trend lines were moving down:

• Homeless families with children went from 303,524 to 248,511 - a significant decrease of 18%.
• The decline in the number of chronically homeless individuals was even more dramatic; from 171,192 to 123,790- a drop of nearly 30%.

So, prior to the economic meltdown, communities across America were beginning to register significant progress in the fight to end homelessness. A growing array of studies have shown that strategies and approaches that include supportive housing, prevention, rapid re-housing, and targeting have been having a cumulative and cost effective impact.

The point is, when resources from the private and public sectors are made available, we can make substantial and lasting progress -- we know what works.

Now, the bad news that comes with the foreclosure crisis and a rapidly deteriorating economy: the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities just released a telling new study on the rapidly increasing number of homeless families with children. A few of the examples cited by the report:

• From July to November 2008, compared with the same period in 2007, the number of families entering New York City homeless shelters jumped by 40 percent.
• Massachusetts reported a 32 percent increase between November 2007 and November 2008 in homeless families residing in state-supported emergency shelters.
• In Connecticut, family homeless shelters turned away 30 percent more families due to lack of bed space in September 2008 than in September 2007.
• Hennepin County, Minnesota reported a 20 percent increase between the first 10 months of 2008 and the comparable period in 2007 in the number of homeless families in emergency shelters.

These figures, along with continued dire news on jobless claims and unemployment, put into stark focus the immediate need for increased funding for homeless individuals and families within the Obama Administration's new economic recovery package. As reported last month, a broad coalition of nonprofits led by the Alliance and the National Low Income Housing Coalition is working tirelessly on behalf of the nation's homeless to ensure that these resources are included within the new legislation.

This is not going to happen without a great deal of visible support from those who care about ending homelessness - and that certainly includes those of us who are making grants and supporting the efforts of providers, nonprofit developers and community activists. Even with friends, we must take nothing for granted. We have to make a strong argument for pressing forward with the programs and approaches we've refined and developed over this past decade and a half. And this brings us to one last point: advocacy works.

It's not an accident that where we've made a significant dent in homelessness you will find enlightened and tough minded funders who have encouraging policymakers and providers to change systems, integrate effective strategies, implement evidence based practices into their programs to end homelessness. These same funders have been strong advocates with elected officials to gain the commitment of public dollars from the cities, counties, states and federal governments.

We are now at a crucial point. We must make sure that jurisdictions at every level adopt, support and promote the proven solutions, rather than fall back into short term fixes - open an armory to house the homeless overnight, put families up in motels and hotels. Instead, we must ensure that they continue to invest in permanent housing and accessible, relevant services that help people achieve self sufficiency. We need government to consider the "double payoff" of a stimulus plan for housing and social service programs, as described by Paul Grogan and Eric Schwarz in the Boston Globe.

Clearly, focusing only on long-term solutions is not as simple as it seems - there are many communities with emergency needs out there, and in some cases emergency responses are warranted. But to lose sight of our recent history's solutions-oriented, results-based - and results-achieved - approaches would surely cause us to slip slide away from our goal of ending homelessness.

G. Robert Hohler
Chair, Executive Committee
Executive Director, Melville Charitable Trust

Massachusetts Department of Mental Health Cuts More Than 100 Case Managers: the Tip of the Iceberg?

By Stephen L. Day, Technical Assistance Collaborative

I had just returned from a business trip and saw a copy of the recent Boston Globe article about the lay-off of 100 case managers. This is just the tip of the iceberg as states all across the country seek to balance budgets in the face of severely restricted revenues. It is likely there will be many more direct care staff layoffs and cuts in other community services and supports affecting thousands of people with disabilities before the economic situation improves.

There’s so much bad news facing so many of us right now that it’s hard not to lose sight of what these layoffs really mean in human terms.

The 100 case managers being laid off are probably serving about 3,000 individuals and families. Every one of these people and families has a case manager because they have a serious mental disability that makes it difficult for them to live successfully in their homes and communities.

Case managers help people get and keep the supports they need to live as independently as possible and to remain integrated in their communities. But more importantly, case managers represent a trusted human relationship with a caring person. For many people with mental disabilities this trusting relationship is essential to their own personal pathways towards recovery and self-sufficiency. This trusted relationship is more than the bureaucratic function of service planning and linking people to services. It is frequently the primary bridge between a person’s isolation and disconnection from society and their potential to find a way back to community living.

All of us depend on trusting relationships with people who support us in various ways. And all of us need human contact and support to make our ways in the world. Without the on-going support and trusting relationship with a case manager, some people with mental illness have no source of this support – no one to give them a hand as they struggle to overcome and learn to live successfully with their disability.

When you see homeless people with mental illness, or when you see people with mental illness being jailed for petty offenses, think about the fact that they might not have had a trusted relationship with some caring person who could help them in their journey away from homelessness or jail and towards self sufficiency in the community. When case managers are laid off, the people with disabilities that they serve are likely to become disconnected from sources of support in their communities. The short term savings attained through the lay-offs are more than likely to result in higher costs shelters, emergency rooms, inpatient acute acre, and jails.

What do you think? How can we ensure that those with disabilities continue to have access to the supports they may need in the face of ongoing cutbacks?


About the Author
Stephen L. Day is co-founder and Executive Director of the Technical Assistance Collaborative, a national non-profit organization that works to achieve positive outcomes on behalf of people with disabilities, people who are homeless, and people with other special needs. Steve has provided consultation and technical assistance to 35 states, over 100 local jurisdictions, and numerous national policy and advocacy organizations.

National Alliance to End Homelessness Publishes Interactive Map with State by State Data on Homelessness

The National Alliance to End Homelessness, an implementing partner for Funders Together, has published the new edition of Homelessness Counts, documenting changes in homelessness populations from 2005 to 2007, looking more closely at changes at the state level and among subpopulations.

Features of this report include:

• Comprehensive reporting in maps and tables of changes in chronic, family, unsheltered, and total homelessness at the national, state and community (CoC) level.
  
• Identification of the states and communities with the highest and lowest levels of homelessness (by subpopulation) and the largest changes in homelessness.
  
• An interactive, online map that features state profiles of homelessness characteristics, changes in homelessness from 2005 to 2007, and the economic indicators (unemployment, poverty, housing affordability) most closely associated with homelessness.
  
• Click here to access the interactive map.
  

Google Maps of Ten Year Plans and Permanent Supportive Housing Programs, Around the Country

Interested in finding out which cities and regions around the country have completed Ten Year Plans to End Homelessness, or want to find your local plan? Drawing upon a previous collection put together by our colleagues at the National Alliance to End Homelessness, we have created the following interactive map of completed plans from around the country. To explore plans and programs in your region of the country, view the larger version of the map and drill down as you wish.


View Larger Map

You may also be interested in viewing the following map, which incorporates various examples and resources for permanent supportive housing programs around the country:


View Larger Map

Hint: As you Zoom In on the second map, be sure to occasionally click on "Search Maps" to bring up new results within the region you are focusing on.