Three years left in Patrick's plan to end homelessness

But homelessness has doubled in the last two years

Massachusetts gets a mention at Change.org's  Ten Most Notable Homelessness Stories of 2009.  Apparently one-third of all the homeless families sheltered by the state iofMassachusetts last year stayed at motels.  (Number Ten, however, is actually about the uncounted "hidden homeless" families who fly under the radar of homelessness by moving to a hotel when they've run out of other options. )

Paying for families to live in a motel is a crying shame; the only worse thing the state could do would be to leave these families on the street.  The Commonwealth of Massachusetts pays $2.8 million a month to house 1000 families.  Interestingly, the state would only spend $800,000 a month to takes those thousand families and put them in $800 a month apartments.  What's wrong with this picture?

Back in January, 2008, Gov. Deval Patrick announced his Five Year Plan to End Homelessness, which included the merger of  the Department of Transitional Assistance (DTA) emergency shelter services with existing Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD).  The three main goals of the plan were to

• Identify and help people at risk of homelessness.
• Create more affordable housing.
• Help create economic stability for families to make sure they don't slip back into homelessness.

Now, these are great goals-- homelessness advocates support them--  but at least some of us were concerned, back then, that the state had little new money to help meet these goals and instead planned to fund them by cutting shelter services in a diversity of ways.  Western Mass lost its oldest family shelter, Jefferson House, as well as several other shelters in our area. Eligibility rules were tightened and stays were shortened.

The very next month, prefaced by the summer's  housing crisis, the recession hit.

If the five year plan was malnourished to begin with, two straight years of financial crises and budget cuts have been devastating.  We are entering year three of the five year plan and homelessness in Massachusetts has doubled. The bureaucracy has been as slow as as the Titanic in steering a new course for its strategy to end homelessness, and each time a recession recedes it leave more and more people like jetsam on the shore.  I don't see an end to homelessness coming any time soon.

Photo from Curtis Gregory Perry's photostream at Flickr.

New Haven shelters: are homeless turned away?

Some homeless people are saying that they've been turned away from shelters in New Haven and they're worried about what's going to happen as the weather turns colder.

According to WTNH Channel 8, one woman who made it in to the Columbus shelter last night has been turned away in the past when the shelter is full. A spokesperson for Columbus House says homeless people are bussed to another emergency shelter.

Interestingly, New Haven, Ct., with a population of 123,600 people, has five shelters where single people can go while Springfield MA, with a population of 150,000, has three, only one of which accepts women.

Could This Help Springfield?

A Las Vegas housing developer is working with the city's mayor and local high school students to convert shipping containers to emergency shelters. Looks like they could make good housing, also! The city has quite a large number of vacant lots in its portfolio...see video at KVBC TV.
For some really upscale use of shipping containers, check out Noticias Arquitectura.

Wasn't this a Law & Order episode? & other homeless news

LAW & ORDER: Insurance agent Richard James and a co-defendant are on trial for felony murder in NYC for taking out life insurance policies on at least three homeless people and then killing them.

CAN'T SEE THIS HAPPENING HERE: Mayors in Nevada rallied for $20 million in funding for transitional housing for the homeless. Apparently they were inspired to action after lawmakers and homeless advocates spent a snowy night in tents back in February on the lawn of the Nevada Legislature.

ON THE OTHER HAND, THIS SEEMS LIKELY: The Democratic National Convention is coming to Denver next summer, so the city plans to keep its winter-only shelters open through the summer and for 24 hours instead of just overnight. Black Star News

NO DUMPING HERE..JUST BACK AND FORTH FROM HOSPITAL TO SHELTER: LOS ANGELES -

LOS ANGELES - A paraplegic man with a broken colostomy bag was found crawling in the gutter. An elderly woman, wearing only a hospital gown and slippers, was dumped on the street by a taxi called by the hospital.
For years, few people took seriously reports that Los Angeles hospitals were taking sick, confused and homeless patients by ambulance to the city's notorious "Skid Row" and leaving them there.
Today, Los Angeles city officials and a major hospital group announced a deal they hoped marks the beginning of the end to the dumping of vulnerable people in an area thought to have the highest concentration of homeless in the country.
Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, the nation's largest non-profit health-care provider, agreed to find shelter places for all homeless patients it discharges in Los Angeles.

It will also contribute US$500,000 to homeless services on Skid Row including a free legal clinic, a shelter bed database and extra beds for recovering patients. More at New Zealand Herald.