In the last two posts I've placed here, I've talked briefly about the diverse needs the Homeless population has and how each person has his/her own unique set of circumstances that aren't always easy to solve in traditional ways. This article in the Houston Chronicle highlights a significant problem facing those of us who are working towards those longterm solutions and this my friends is why those solutions to the nation's macro-societal ills will not end chronic homelessness as we know it. It is also why we must continue to make available a range of solutions in order to address the dilemma of the "35%ers."
Here in Nashville, there are a number of these "service resistant" 35%ers who have had multiple opportunities for housing and employment but are simply unable to maintain "normalcy" in traditional life settings - some are so mentally ill as to be essentially incapable of managing life on their own, they and others might be so addicted to drugs and/or alcohol that they simply cannot manage their money without making improper choices, and still others may simply want to live on the streets.
These folks will not benefit much, if at all, from increases in the minimum wage, additional affordable housing units, or large infusions of cash to assist the Homeless in job searches and transitional or longterm housing because this is not what this section of the population needs.
There is currently underway in Nashville a study by Vanderbilt that seeks to identify the hidden costs of Homelessness. I'll wager that the study finds similar results and suggests similar approaches to Houston's effort with the 35%ers.
This does however, throw a rather large monkey wrench directly into the arguments being put forth by so many of the advocacy groups who seem to think the only way to solve the problems for the Homeless is to change the fabric of our society. Granted, massive change does need to occur here in order to combat the scourge of poverty and ignorance rampant in our country. But even with the best results from an effort such as this, it will not be the panacea for all the woes facing the Homeless in America.
Helping hard-core homeless
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle
A year ago, avoiding a panhandler's gaze while idling at a stoplight, you might have heard Mayor Bill White on the radio. Don't give money to the homeless, his ads instructed us: "Help them with real change, not spare change."
White's ads directed us to the Coalition for the Homeless of Houston/Harris County, and sure enough, around $800,000 rolled in.
With those dollars, the coalition launched a "rapid rehousing" program. The idea: With three months of housing and attention from a caseworker, some homeless people can become self-supporting
Those rapid-rehousing
It's a victory — but it's a little one. Love estimates that between 14,000 and 15,000 people are currently homeless in Houston and Harris County. More than half suffer mental illness, and about half have a history of chronic substance abuse. At the current rate, rapid rehousing would help around 1 percent of the homeless each year — none of them the hardcore cases.
That's spare change, not real change.
The 35 percenters
In Houston, people who work with the homeless don't say "hard-core homeless." They talk, instead, about "the 35 percenters" — a reference to a 2005 study, funded in part by the city, that found that 35 percent of our homeless are "severely compromised by mental illness, chronic substance abuse, or mental retardation and will require lifelong, highly structured care" such as supervised housing. (Another 55 percent will likely need occasional help, such as access to food pantries, for the rest of their lives.)In Houston, only a few places offer 35 percenters both services and a place to live. The nonprofit Magnificat House, in Midtown, serves roughly 200 people a year — impressive, but hardly enough to meet the enormous need.
Instead of serving those hard-core 35 percenters, the Coalition's Love says, the Houston area "spends 90 percent of our money taking care of the 10 percenters" — that is, the 10 percent of the homeless with the best shot at becoming self-supporting
Ten percenters are the most attractive segment of the population, the ones without major mental illnesses or addictions. Think Will Smith in The Pursuit of Happyness: someone down on his luck but not permanently impaired.
Thirty-five percenters are harder to love. They often don't care about leading a normal, permanently housed life. Many get through the day by drinking or shooting up. Some talk to people no one else can see.
So doesn't it make sense to spend our limited public money on the relatively attractive 10 percenters, the people best able to leave the streets? Wouldn't it cost too much to fight chronic homelessness in the other 90 percent? Isn't real change too much to hope for?
In a word: No.
Spend some. Save more
The key is this: We're already spending money on the homeless. But we're not getting much to show for it.Ten percenters spend a lot of time in hospitals and jails, and it's taxpayers who pick up the tab.
Recently the University of California, San Diego Medical Center tracked 15 homeless inebriates well-known to the emergency room's staff. In a year and a half, those 15 people ran up hospital bills that averaged $100,000 apiece.
Cities across the country have begun taking their hard cases off the streets, and doing it for hard-nosed fiscal reasons. It's often cheaper to provide rent-free or subsidized "supported housing" — a small furnished apartment staffed with counselors — than to leave people on the streets.
Enrolled in a supported-housi
In Portland, Ore., a pilot study by city's Community Engagement Program took in really hard cases: homeless people with both mental illness and addictions. Before the program, the average cost of health care and incarceration for each client was over $42,000. When the program provided $17,200 of housing and counseling, those costs dropped to less than $10,000 a year — meaning that the total savings was, once again, more than $15,000 per person.
Cities across the country have begun aggressively moving people off the streets and into housing. In the past few years, St. Louis, San Francisco and Portland have seen their homeless populations drop by a third. Norfolk, Va., cut its homeless population by almost half in a single year.
Houston and Harris County have been less aggressive. Most money awarded to nonprofits here is federal money, "pass-through" grants that don't come out of city or county coffers. Compared with cities such as Chicago, Austin, Dallas and San Antonio, we're chintzy.
We still pay for the homeless, of course. But we pay through our hospitals and police stations.
And that calls for real change.
