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Genius or NIMBY?

Hawaii has unorthodox plans to help control homelessness in the 50th state:

Plan would buy airfare to send Hawaii homeless to mainland
Honolulu Advertiser, January 25, 2009

Homeless service providers are supporting a proposed state-funded program that would provide airplane tickets for people who have come to Hawai'i from the Mainland and then find themselves homeless — and stuck.

State Rep. Rida Cabanilla, chairwoman of the Housing Committee, said she plans to ask for $100,000 this legislative session for a pilot program that would fly people who have recently arrived from the Mainland and are now homeless back to where they came from.

Relocating to Hawaii seems like an exotic idea. Who wouldn't want to live somewhere that feels like a permanent vacation? But because the cost of living is expensive and jobs are scarce which can result in homelessness. As much as 19% of the shelter population in Hawaii were in the state for a year or less before finding themselves homeless. As a result, Hawaii is funding programs that provide individuals who find themselves homeless soon after their arrival with a plane ticket home.

Other states employ similar techniques but it seems more extreme in Hawaii because the state is so isolated. When I first read this article I thought that it sounded like an obvious case of Not In My BackYard Syndrome (NIMBY) but now I'm not so sure. They only offer the tickets to people who want them and they make sure that services are in place wherever home is before sending someone away. For those who will return to family and friends, or service providers, who know them and care about them this ticket could be the ticket out of homelessness.

Boston Homeless Census

Tonight I made the pilgrimage downtown for the Boston Homeless Census. All communities that receiving funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) for the Continuum of Care (CoC) need to conduct an annual "census" of people who are experiencing homelessness. It consists of literally counting every person in the streets (and shelters submit their numbers too) on a given night, usually in January.

My partner and I didn't find a single person in our assigned area, but I still didn't consider the evening a waste of time. My partner had 15 years of experience working with youth in the city of Boston. I learned about how the Department of Youth and Families responds to gang violence, conflict resolution, and treatment of the family (not just the individual). It was a great learning experience; much more valuable than adding tick marks to our sheet.

When goodby is the absence of goodbye

Tonight I found out that "Will,"* one of my favorite guys at CASPAR (the shelter where I volunteer weekly), hasn't been around lately because he got housing. Of course I'm glad that he got housing but I'm reminded of why it stinks to be a volunteer and not a full time staff.

As a volunteer I never really get to know these guys (and some gals). I'm only there one day a week so even though I develop rapport it's only surface deep. I often can't tell when they are making up stories to pull one over on me. Tonight one told me that he had a partial lobotomy when he was 26, staff confirmed that this wasn't true but I believed it for a good 15 minutes.

When Will told me he was going to get an apartment I figured that some optimistic caseworker was putting silly ideas in his head. Turns out that the optimistic caseworker was right and I never had a chance to say goodbye.

I'm truly going to miss him, he was at the shelter the whole year and four months that I've been going there. Every week he'd tell me my eyes were so blue with such curiosity that I am certain that he doesn't remember the majority of our conversations. He was inappropriate enough to make me blush but not so bad that I was truly uncomfortable. And he had great stories. I'll miss him but I don't know if he ever even knew my name.

*Name changed to protect confidentiality

Tour of the Boston Rescue Mission

This weekend I had the opportunity to tour The Boston Rescue Mission (BRM) with Boston Cares. The shelter began in 1899 and is one of the oldest in Boston. Services available at BRM are extensive, including men's and women's recovery-focused programs, a halfway house, meal programs, and a women's re-entry program. We got to see the space that houses several of the services and the Saturday morning outreach in the Boston Common. The outreach was probably the most interesting part, BRM sets up a table in the Common and hands out hot food to anyone who wants it. By the time we got there a line had already formed and there was another group handing out clothing from tables nearby. I'm sure I've been in the Common on Saturday mornings before but this weekend I saw it in a new light.

Health Care for the Homeless

I'm at the Health Care for the Homeless (HCH) conference in Phoenix AZ. I'm learning a lot and doing some fantastic networking but all of this excitement gets me hyped up and gives me all kinds of energy which I would really like to get out in a run but I'm meeting co-workers for dinner at 6:30 and it's currently 5:55.

Last year was the first time that I came to this conference. At the time, I had been at my job for just under six months and I was incredibly overwhelmed by the conference. It made me realize how little I really knew about the homelessness world even after a half year of working in the field. This year has been a completely different experience; I can read through the list of sessions and know what they all mean, I'm seeing people that I know and people who I have emailed back and fourth with, and I have interesting and provoking questions to add to the conversations. There are still moments that make me feel like I know nothing at all but they are few and far between.

I can't wait to get back and apply what I'm learning to my work... and go for a run.

Project Homeless Connect: Beyond a One Day Event

Project Homeless Connect is a one day one-stop-shop model for persons experiencing homelessness. The idea of a "one-stop-shop" and "no wrong door" is something that you often hear about in homeless services and Project Homeless Connect is an embodiment of this idea. It brings community leaders come together to bring services, from housing to haircuts to ids to giveaways, together in one place. There have been more than 300 events in over 170 communities in less than three years. Each event stands alone and is organized by the community in which it takes place. It's so cutting edge that they are using videos on YouTube to spread the word:


One of the major criticisms of Project Homeless Connect is that it is a ONE DAY one stop shop. It would be impossible to bring together all of these services in the career-fairish way that Project Homeless Connect does on a daily basis but there are some programs that are beginning to try to deliver a breadth of services with one point of entry.

For the City's Homeless: A One Stop Center
Mercury News, May 17, 2008

[Christine Burroughs] described how the new operation would work for an estimated 7,000 chronically homeless folks in the county and thousands more in danger of losing their homes. Caseworkers would determine their housing needs, physical and mental health, and qualifications for government, insurance or other financial assistance. The next step would be to help them apply for benefits and services.

I've blogged about homeless sex offenders before, but I hadn't realized how accepting some counties are of returning people to the streets until I read this article from Washington State:

No easy fix to homeless sex offender problem, state corrections chief says
Herald Net, May 4, 2008

Corrections officials across the country confront daily the challenge of sex offenders without an apartment, shelter or motel room to bed down at night.

In Florida, when authorities ran out of places in ­Miami-Dade County in 2007, they set up an encampment for sex offenders under a bridge linking Miami to Miami Beach.

Say what? Aren't encampments usually technically illegal?

Q: I'm not sure if living under the Snohomish bridge is legal. So, if Torrence got arrested for illegal camping, he might have landed back behind bars and might have made the state liable for something.

A: I had not thought about that. I wasn't aware that it was illegal. If he got violated he would be back in custody. That would be an interesting situation. It is my understanding we chose that site in coordination with local law enforcement. It is not atypical of what we've done in other parts of the state.

I was floored by how naive the Secretary of Corrections in Washington, Eldon Vail, was about homelessness and how nonchalant he seemed in his answers. I actually thought that this paper was satire until I found another article from the Seattle times:

A Bridge as a Last Resort
Seattle Times, April 30, 2008

David J. Torrence, who assaulted a 16-year-old girl in 1995, had completed his latest prison term (for failing to register as a sex offender.) He had no place to go. So officials gave him a sleeping bag and a rain poncho, then told him to stay under this bridge, 9 p.m. to 6 a.m., until further notice.

"We're not proud of it," says Mary Rehberg, parole officer for the state Department of Corrections. "We did it because this is what it has come to. Under a bridge is the best of the options we had left."

I trust that the Seattle Times isn't satire. This housing of sex offenders thing is a huge problem and we need to work to resolve it. Granted everyone deserves housing, not just the sex offenders and other ex-cons, but my concern lies with discharge planning from hospitals or foster care as well. How can we expect to have someone in care, often for extended periods of time, then be able to take care of themselves when they leave without support? Think of when the Mental Institutions closed, a lot of people blame homelessness today on that one event. Granted we know that homelessness is more complicated than that but poor discharge planning and case management leads many individuals to be discharged to the streets or unable to sustain themselves in the situations that they are discharged into.

There isn't much that we as individuals can do to help this one, it has to be a nationwide systematic change.

My Travels and GLBTQ youth

It's been a while because it's been hectic. Last week I was in Walnut Creek CA delivering a training with my organization. We had roughly 130 homeless service providers play hokey from their daily routines to network and learn. They were the victims of my very first experience of a trainer ever!

On Monday, the 7th, I started the day co-training a session on outreach to persons experiencing homelessness. My co-trainer has been doing this for quite some time so he was cool and calm, though I think I may have come off as a bit nervous (thankfully only one evaluation confirmed this). I had some slides to present and I talked about some of the findings from a project that I worked on last year. I hadn't been able to put as much time into prepping as I would like because later that afternoon I was presenting a session on my own with content that I had developed... in less than a solid week.

My session, which I did twice, was on GLBTQ youth experiencing homelessness. While estimates in the general population range from 3-10% of the population identifying as GLBTQ, between 20-40% of homeless youth identify as GLBTQ. They experience more trauma, rejection, abuse, mental health issues, harassment, and stigma than their heterosexual peers. It's a topic that I've done some research on and I'm really interested in pursuing in my further work. The tough part is that the language is always changing and I'm not embedded in the GLBTQ "community" in my area (if there is one) so I don't know what I am and am not supposed to say some of the time.

Lucky for me I got some really talkative people in my sessions, five the first day (seven if you count my two cheerleader co-workers) and ten the second... out of 130 people total. There isn't a lot of interest around these issues, I even had someone tell me that they didn't have any of those kids. People forget that those who identify as GLBTQ aren't running around with a sign that announces their sexuality to the world. I'm hoping that I'll get to play a part in helping some people recognize this and start to think about how to make their programs more friendly.

The sessions went really well, the conversation was lively and I didn't even get to finish my slides! Now that I've done it once I am really excited to hopefully get to try it again sometime soon and maybe develop my training into some other products for my organization? But for now I need to shift gears and get back to data.

Making a Connection

Recently, I went out in the outreach van with staff at the shelter where I volunteer. The night van operates more like a taxi service than an actual outreach service. They drive around and pick up people who are called in, either by themselves or by hospitals, police, and storekeepers. One of our pick-ups on this evening was at a local hospital. A 21-year-old man that had come in earlier that day was being discharged and since he didn't have anywhere to go they asked him if he wanted them to call us.

A common topic in homelessness literature is how difficult it is to engage people and get them to come into services. Not this guy. Speaking fast enough to impress the most talented speed talker, he was quick to tell us that this was his first shelter visit, even though he had been homeless before. This was the first time I had ever been a part of someone's first night, and the first night is often important to get people to come back for more services. I followed the lead of the program staff and kept quiet while the boy rapidly asked a string of questions. To me, the staff seemed distant and preoccupied with driving the van and filling out paperwork but every once in a while they would interject with the questions that I have read about but never really saw in action.

"What do you do? Do you drink..."

They created a nonjudgmental environment by normalizing substance use.

"I'm glad that you went to the hospital to get checked out"

They showed that they were concerned with his safety and that they recognized the importance of his decision to seek help.

"Do you know where you need to go to get benefits?"

They were knowledgeable and knew exactly where to send him to get an ID, section 8, and other benefits.

I have done so much reading about intakes and first time interactions with people but watching these two seasoned outreach workers was a unique experience. There was this flow to the conversation and it worked. I know it worked because before we got to the shelter the young man said "You guys are good people." I'll never know if he was trying to make a good impression or if he was being honest. But I do know that it will be a while before I forget how seamless that that interaction was.

Black Man Guilty of Murder

Homeless Man Guilty of Murder
The Gazette, 2/10/2008

A jury has found Joseph Roy Martin, a Montreal homeless man with a drug and alcohol problem, guilty of second degree murder.

On Sunday morning, the six men and six women, who had been deliberating since Friday, found Martin, 33, guilty of fatally stabbing 48-year-old Alain Lachapelle.

Homeless Man Arrested after Swinging at a Davenport Cop
Quad-City Times, 2/10/2008

The man attended a press conference at Davenport City Hall. Mayor Bill Gluba and representatives of local companies such as Alcoa had gathered to voice support for the federal government giving a $40 billion contract for new air refueling planes to Boeing because the Chicago-based aerospace manufacturer would outsource work to local companies.

After the meeting Daniel Robert Stromberg, 42, asked Gluba if he could speak with Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who was not at the press conference.

Gluba said the man was obviously distraught and ranting, and city staff tried to calm him down.

According to police affidavits, Stromberg eventually left City Hall, but when he was approached by police at 3rd and Ripley streets, he tried to punch a detective.

It's not every day that you see stories like these... it's several times a day. Oftentimes the fact that someone is homeless is identified right in the headline of news articles, if not the very first word. Why is it so important to make sure that the housing status is front and center?

Then, when you actually read the article, you will oftentimes see that there is more going on than homelessness. In the cases above alcoholism and mental illness are noted to be at play. Why aren't these used as the adjective in the title? Is it because "alcoholic" and "mentally ill" are not PC? Why is "Homeless Man" PC?

Beyond the fact that the entire existence of these individuals is summed up in their homelessness, what about the fact that there is a very important word left out of the first title: Found. Even in typing the title out I accidentally wrote "... Man Found Guilty..." That's a key word in the court system today but apparently this man was so low that he didn't even deserve to have it in the title.

It's not just two random articles. Watch the news feeds, daily you will see at least two articles that highlight one's homelessness with one's bad behavior, rarely the other way around.

Your sentence is... to live as a homeless person for a whole 24 hours!

Man Sentenced to Live as Homeless
United Press International, 1/26/2008

A judge in Ohio sentenced a man convicted of stealing a Salvation Army kettle to live 24 hours as a homeless person.

Painesville Municipal Judge Michael Cicconetti gave Nathen Smith a choice -- serve a 90-day jail sentence, or live 24 hours as a homeless man and serve only three days in jail, The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer reported.

Personally, I think that this is completely ridiculous and degrading to those who do live on the streets. I understand that the judge is trying to give a sentence that applies to the crime but what does living as homeless for one night do? The man who is being sentenced knows that he's going back to his bed the next day. He doesn't have to deal with trying to figure out how he's going to get a job or how he's going to eat. Why not sentence him to volunteer with the salvation army or make a donation to the organization? Those options would connect the punishment to the crime and would actually give back to the community. I don't get what the whole frenzy is around "living as homeless," I don't think that doing this for 24 hours really teaches anyone anything except that homelessness is a joke and a game.

2008 Homeless Census

To Aid Homeless, First Count Them
Boston Globe, 1/27/2008

Despite a forecast of freezing rain, dozens of volunteers with the Plymouth County Housing Alliance plan to canvass the region Wednesday night to count the number of people who are homeless.

They will act on tips from police, churches, and social workers. Focusing largely on Brockton and Plymouth, the census takers will seek out the buildings, dumpsters, abandoned cars, and camp sites that have in the past provided shelter for people living on the streets.

Last year's count indicated 500 homeless people in Plymouth County - more than 100 living on the street, and the rest in homeless shelters. The most, 39, were in Brockton, followed by Plymouth with 23, Wareham with 21, and Hull with 19. Other area communities recorded six or fewer. Because some communities last year reported no homelessness or refused to participate, 500 is seen as a minimum number for the county.

Tomorrow night, across the country, advocates, shelter workers, and average joes will be going out into their communities to literally count the number of persons who are homeless. This includes persons staying in shelters and those sleeping on the street.

On Saturday, I had the opportunity to spend some time with Fred Berman, who does the homeless counts in Cambridge MA. In order to prepare for the census we hiked through some wooded areas looking for signs of activity and checked the streets for new ATM locations and other tucked away spots. On Wednesday, nine volunteer teams will use the "maps" that we updated to travel specific routes and systematically look for persons sleeping on the street. They will take down as much information as they can for the people that they find and will deliver services at their request. Shelters will also be providing lists of the people that they serve during the same time period.

There are a lot of methodological issues with the count; unduplicating clients who are found on the street and later go in for services, figuring out the best and most comprehensive ways to search for people, gathering sensitive information such as name and social security number, and figuring in the influences of weather and available services. The count does not necessarily give an accurate number of persons that are homeless in any given area, but it does give us a start.

Teens for Jeans

Teens, Jeans Team up to Help the Homeless
knoxnews.com 1/17/2008

Aeropostale wants to "Do Something" for homeless teens.

The youth-oriented clothing chain will sponsor the "Teens for Jeans" campaign with the not-for-profit organization Do Something, which encourages youth to become more involved in volunteer community work, Jan. 22-Feb. 10. The goal is to raise awareness of the rising number of homeless teens in the United States. According to statistics, a third of the nation's homeless are children under age 18.

I just wanted to male a note of Aeropostale's new campaign. It sounds like individuals who donate a pair of old jeans get 20% off a pair of new ones and that the jeans will be given to local homeless youth.

Homeless World Cup

An Inspirational Story
UEFA.com, 12/20/2007

A documentary about the UEFA-backed Homeless World Cup, an international football tournament which changes lives, will enjoy its world premiere at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, in Park City, Utah, in January.

The Homeless World Cup was this past fall. When I first read about it I thought it was an analogy or a joke but after seeing it pop up in my news feed a half dozen time I realized that it was literal, and real. Homeless players from Afghanistan, Kenya, Dublin, the US, Spain, and Russia (maybe more?) had the opportunity to represent their respective countries in a "world cup" to raise awareness about homelessness. I'm excited to see how the documentary turns out, Sundance usually has really neat films!

Homeless Youth Awareness Month

November is Homeless Youth Awareness Month, and Virgin Mobile's re*generation campaign is turning out to be one of the big players in disseminating info about the month. The re*generation campaign is a campaign to get youth involved with helping other youth.

This month I'm going to focus on youth by sharing articles and statistics, hopefully on a daily basis.

Here's the link to an article about the campaign:

Stand Up For Kids is Calling for an End to Youth Homelessness
PR-USA, 11/06/2007

STANDUP FOR KIDS, a national volunteer organization whose work with homeless youth has been acknowledged by the White House, the Honorable U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg, and key Senators and House members, has teamed up with ReCelluar, Inc. - the world's largest recycler and reseller of used cellular phones and accessories - to create a nationwide fundraising campaign. The campaign, "Calling An End To Youth Homelessness," encourages individuals, schools, corporations, and organizations to collect old cell phones and cell phone accessories to raise money for STANDUP FOR KIDS' efforts in helping runaway, homeless and street-dependent youth.

Are Shelters the Newest Yelp Category?

Homeless need Information about Where to go for Help
Currant.com, 10/21/2007

Brenda sits on a street corner while her partner, Noel, is off convincing South Green shopkeepers to let him wash windows for money. If he's successful, they'll live large tonight, maybe get some beer (for him) or soda (for her).

Recently, some members of the American Bar Association in Washington listened to University of Connecticut law professor Robert Whitman talk about people like Brenda. Whitman has never met Brenda, but as an advocate for therapeutic homes for mental health and addiction recovery, Whitman wants to start a national database of services for people who are homeless. Someone like Brenda could go to her local library, type in her zip code, and get up-to-date information on services, including phone numbers and hours.

People who are experiencing homelessness know how to use the internts just like you and I. Some have laptops that they charge and use in public spaces while others use the library computers to check email and surf the web. This innovative idea of creating a national database could help some of these individuals find the services that they need but my question is how much of an impact will the website have on service delivery? I haven't read any research and don't have hard numbers but I imagine that many people know where the services are, and if they don't know their friendly local outreach worker would be happy to tell them. My guess is that many people who are not accessing services have had bad experiences and may be hesitant to trust them again. So, while I think that this is an awesome effort, I think that it will end up being more of a tool for outreach workers and shelter staff than for those actually living on the streets. I'm curious to see how things develop.

Keeping it Real

Chronilcing the Invisible: A Photo Essay about Ottawa's Homeless
The Charlatan, 10/25/2007What it's Like to be Homeless in Wrexham
Evening Leader, 10/25/2007

WHEN James Graves collected his degree in electrical engineering, he didn't imagine that 10 years later he would be homeless, living rough on Wrexham's streets and having to get himself arrested to get a bed for the night.

The place he calls his bed is fraught with danger. If it isn't the fear of who might be lurking, it is the needles that litter the ground around where he lays his blanket. At night it is pitch black and damp, cold and noisy.

Even as someone who thinks about homelessness on a daily basis, I have never once thought about where I would sleep if I found myself homeless. I once had a conversation with a couple outreach workers about what time of day is best to sleep. While I said that I'd be more likely to sleep during the day, because there are more people around. They said that there more people means you're more likely to get robbed or harassed. While my heart goes out to those who face this decision every night, I'm certainly glad that it's one that I may never need to face.

Kids Can Help

Winslow Students Working to Help Homeless
Morning Sentential, 10/23/2007

Last year Kendra Littlefield's community-based learning students at Winslow High School were one of 10 national winners of a USA Weekend magazine Make a Difference Day award.

This week they are up to another good deed.

"Raising the Roof Over the Homeless" is the theme for the chem-free dance students have been organizing for the last two months, Winslow High senior Melanie Gagnon said.

St Brenden School Students Prepare Packages for the Homeless
The Providence Journal 10/23/2007

Middle school students from the St. Brendan School, a pre-kindergarten to grade eight private school in Riverside, could say that after preparing 150 sandwiches and other snacks for the state’s homeless Friday afternoon. The bag lunch was paired with personal hygiene items and socks — which were collected by the school’s lower grade students — to make it an all-school project.

Principal Joseph Renzulli said the school got the idea from a St. Brendan parishioner, Anne Pari, of East Providence. She delivers food to the homeless every Friday and Renzulli agreed the school would take over her duties one Friday.

They titled the project “Bread Lines.”

Highschool Helps Homeless
Lakeshore Advance, 10/24/2007

South Huron District High School student, Taryn Anstett handed Trevor Johnson of the Youth Action Centre (YAC) in London $365 for the centre during a presentation on homeless youth at the high school last week.
The students were told to act as lobby groups for a law project and made their primary focus of the campaign, awareness of homelessness. They went above and beyond and started by collecting pocket change from students and teachers over two days, raising the money for homeless youth. “The response was incredible,” says Anstett.

Nine Year Old to Walk to Tally For Homeless
Tampa Bay's 10, 10/22/2007

In the past three years, Zach Bonner has collected supplies for Hurricane Charley victims, raised money for the “Teaching Tools Hillsborough Schools” program, organized a holiday party for kids displaced by Katrina and given away more than 750 backpacks for needy kids.

For his efforts, President Bush last year presented Zach with a volunteer service award. But the 9-year old is not slowing down, he’s just moving on to his next big project.

There is another article that I have saved and want to write about but the sudden flurry of youth and schools working to help people experiencing homelessness deserves some attention. Service learning is a valuable tool for all kinds of social issues and is a fantastic way to bring classroom subjects to real life. I wish that I had an opportunity to participate in projects like these when I was in school but alas, in the 90s it was all about HIV and DARE, subjects that would be a little more risque to develop service learning projects around.

Edit: A couple more...
Virginia Run Students walk for Homelessness
Students Collect Pennies for the Homeless

Hunters Helping the Hungry

Hunters Helping the Hungry

Hunters Helping the Hungry is a program that enables hunters to donate venison, providing high quality protein to needy individuals throughout New Jersey. In its fifth year, will continue to operate with limited funding. Therefore hunters wishing to donate deer must also donate a minimum of $25 towards the $65 fee charged by participating butchers. Hunters Helping the Hungry is now a 501-C3 Corporation, and all donations are tax deductible.