Here's what went down at the meeting Thursday, and I apologize for the delay in getting this out here; I've been scrambling once again to get ahead of what the committee is going to ask for this coming week and I had a plethora of personal piddly things to attend to, including back-to-back Xmas parties yesterday and a honey-dew list as long as my arm in preparation for our families to come spend the holidays with us a week before Xmas.
The committee hashed out a close date for the camp based on what we determined to be the barriers for folks at the site. While we were able to get six months, thanks to some compelling examples of the types of barriers folks are likely to encounter, some on the committee were arguing for as few as 100 days.
To say things were contentious at times would be, well, definitely no exaggeration. Denis Huey, a local citizen, truck driver and regular visitor to the camp over the past four years, took some serious umbrage at a comment from Tom Turner concerning the proposed container-housi
Ultimately the committee decided that we had until June 1st, 2009 to get those folks who were either one of the original members at the camp during the time of the very first census or who had arrived after that point and were also considered vulnerable per our vulnerability assessment survey.
Basically that meant that of the 43 residents we counted in our last canvass of the camp, 32 of them would be eligible for "priority" assistance from outreach and service agency personnel.
Let me be very clear here. This doesn't mean that each of these 32 individuals will receive housing. Rather, we will work with each of them to ensure everyone has valid ID, birth certificates, social security cards, TB tests we will work with them to help them overcome barriers such as lack of rent money, deposits and utility hookups, and wrap around services as needed. The remaining 11 who aren't eligible for this priority assistance will still be able to receive services, although I'll have to use the traditional route, but I gotta say that there is simply no way I can go down into the camp and tell one person I'll help, then turn around and tell another person "sorry, ya got nuthin comin."
HOWEVER - and this is a BIG however by the way - as we work through folks on the list, if it turns out that an individual on the list has barriers so significant that obtaining housing for him/her is extremely unlikely, that person will be checked off the list as "completed" when we determine that we are unable to assist him/her any further.
Let me say a couple of words about this before folks start crying foul about this. While we'd like to make sure everyone has access to housing, at least here in Nashville there are some things that will keep you from housing no matter how hard we might try to get you in. If you've got an arson charge, significant drug dealing convictions, serious felonies, sex crimes, these all work to bar an individual from housing. This isn't true for every place in the nation, but it's the reality here, so if a person has one or more of these "barriers" it's going to be next to impossible to get them off the streets in a traditional sense.
Because of that, it is conceivable that we could work our way through the list quickly for those we can assist. At that point, we may then determine, either through the individual's own admission or through background checks done by landlords, that several are essentially "unhousable" because of their own barriers. Those individuals would then be told that there is little we can do for them, the committee would declare them "serviced to the best of our ability" and scratch them from the list.
If we get to number 32 on say, April 29th and we either get that person housed or tell them nothing is available, city officials may very well order the camp closed at that point.
I'm reasonably certain they would grant a short warning period in which people could get their belongings and get out before a deadline but I can just about guarantee that if and/or when we get to that point, there won't be any haggling on the dates and Metro PD will waste no time in enforcing the order.
Camp resident Wendell Segroves made a great point on this whole situation that bears repeating:
"The ten year plan to end chronic homelessness in Nashville, now in at least it's fourth year, has picked up a grand total of 84 units in its entire time of existence. In 2006, they stated that they'd need to pick up at least 200 units each year from that point just to reach their original goal. Since that amendment to the ten year plan, they've been able to add a whopping 34 more units. Now those same people are ordering outreach workers to place 32 people into housing that they were supposed to ensure would be available, and to do it in a fraction of the time it's taken them to get just 118 units of the 1,800 they promised they'd get over the next ten years. That is ridiculous."He's got a point, eh?
