One of the more significant problems facing the homeless in Nashville in their quest for help is the wide dispersion of available service providers around the city. Because essential services are scattered hither and yon, folks are often forced to travel fairly long distances in order to obtain assistance. Since very few of the Homeless I know own legal, road-worthy vehicles, most are left with two means of travel: foot and bus.
Because bus passes are prohibitively expensive, foot travel is by far the most common means of transportation and for many of the Homeless, it is an agony they must endure daily. Walking may not seem so bad for those of us who don't have to do it regularly but trust me, strolling in Nashville can be exceptionally difficult, especially when the mercury has passed the 100 degree mark. Added to this is the exasperation of discovering that the person you walked 3 miles to see is out sick for the day, or has changed appointment times - little things that happen to us all the time but because we have cars and phones, are nothing more than minor inconveniences - and you begin to grasp the difficulties facing "pavement pounders" on a daily basis.
Another problem arising in this "quest for fire" is how to fit a meal into the day's trudge - if you're needed at Metro General at 10 and lunch is being served at 11:30 over at the Community Care Fellowship on the other side of the river, it looks like you'll either be going hungry or without medical attention. And let's not forget the scarcity of bathrooms for foot travelers in the city of Nashville.....The examples are endless here and I won't bore you with more, but I think you get the picture.
Back in 2004, Houston worked to alleviate this travel dilemma for their Homeless by providing free bus service to them for essential services. I performed a Lexis Nexis search to determine the long-term efficacy of this service but came up empty-handed, so I cannot provide hard evidence on the general outcome of the effort, but it certainly sounds like a valid, cost-effective and reasonable solution to the travel dilemmas facing our own Homeless population.
I wonder whether MTA would be willing to work with service providers to establish some type of program that would accommodate this need? I know they provide discount passes to the disabled, but these passes still cost $$$ and are typically unrestricted, allowing travelers the ability to go anywhere a bus line is established. Perhaps we can find a way to restrict "free" travel to service providers only, or maybe restrict times in which one can ride the bus using this particular "pass?"
Surely there is a solution - is anyone willing to step us and begin searching for it?
They may not have homes; they do have a bus.
One rider, Yolanda Gilliard, a homeless woman wearing a mishmash of clothes and carrying a plastic bag filled with food and personal belongings, took the bus to the county hospital to have her arm examined after she lost feeling in it. The ride saved her a more than three-mile walk from a homeless outreach center where she had eaten breakfast.
She joined others like her on the 40-seat bus, a free service that gives some of Houston's 12,000 homeless a better chance of making needed trips to clinics, shelters and social service agencies.
"This bus comes in handy. Trust me, we needed it," said Gilliard, who has lived on the streets or at shelters for several years. "There's nothing but love on this bus."
Dubbed Project Access, the program, one of the few in the country, marked its first year in August. It was developed by Healthcare for the Homeless-Housto
"People are able to actually get to the appointments that are going to ultimately help lead them off the streets. So there is a very practical sense of success with this," said Frances Isbell, the organization's executive director.
Project Access gives the homeless "hope and dignity, and a sense that people care," she said. "That's really important, because . . . if somebody has been on the streets for very long at all, hopelessness becomes a way of life. You lose hope, and how much effort [do you then] put into something that may help get you off the streets?"
Programs such as Houston's are important because often the services homeless people need are scattered, making it difficult for individuals to get treatment, look for work and make it back in time to get in line at a shelter for a meal and bed, said John Lozier, executive director of National Health Care for the Homeless Council in Nashville.
The cities and regions that provide free transportation for the homeless include Cincinnati, Kansas City, Mo., San Francisco, Seattle, southwest Illinois, Orlando, Cheyenne, Wyo., southeast Missouri and Florida's Broward, Dade and Monroe counties.
Still, "we're nowhere near providing the level of care needed by the homeless population, which is a terribly ill population," Lozier said.
Healthcare for the Homeless-Housto
Using a $120,000 grant from the city, the group contracts with charter bus company Coach USA to run the route from 7 a.m. until about 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. The annual cost is $155,000, with the difference made up by donations.
On the bus, Gilliard struck up a conversation with Emmanuel Akioyamen, who came to Houston in January from Philadelphia to be closer to his 4-year-old son. Akioyamen said he left the East Coast with very little. After arriving in Houston, he began living at the Star of Hope Mission, which offers shelter to several hundred men, women and children. It was a chance to begin anew and be a father. The boy lives in Houston with his mother.
Akioyamen, 24, has taken the bus to get copies of his Social Security card, birth certificate and an ID card to help him get a job and eventually his own place. On this trip, he was visiting organizations with employment services and interviewing for jobs.
"It's just using the resources out there to help you out," Akioyamen said. "I left everything and came down here to start over. I wouldn't trade it for nothing. I might be down, but I'm not out."
David S. Buck, president and chief medical officer for Healthcare for the Homeless-Housto
"It's a pretty tough world, and on the bus people are helping each other," Buck said. "It's very friendly, warm."
