A Taste Of Fall In The Northwest

Training in Seattle has been, as always, a real adventure.  Met a lot of great folks and made some wonderful connections, spent some quality time with Bill Hobson, the ED of Seattle's Downtown Emergency Service Center and am going to try working with a local service provider here in the Seattle area to establish a new website dealing with methadone maintenance.

As always, anytime I leave the West Coast, I'm sad to go, but I'm really excited to return to Nashville because I think I've gotten some info from DESC that will interest Clifton Harris and the gang over at the Key Alliance.

And while I'm thinking about Bill, One of the things he advocated in his presentation - and anyone who's read this blog for any length of time will know I've been advocating as well - related to the collaborative effort needed between homeless service agencies, the police and the local business community.  I still clearly recall the first meeting I attended in Nashville in my "official" capacity as an outreach specialist in our fair city; we had gathered at the Downtown Partnership's offices over on 4th street to debate an "anti-panhandling" initiative they were proposing as a result of what appeared to be an increased level of "aggressive" panhandling.  As we debated the proposal, members of the Nashville Homeless Power Project spent considerable energies lambasting the DTP for their attempt at correcting a problem the community had identitfied as something needing immediate attention - and one gentleman from NHPP went so far as to blame one of the general contractors in the room who was in the middle of a construction project downtown for the problems of those experiencing homelessness because the man was not "hiring the homeless" in the area.

Suffice it to say, a lot of feathers were ruffled, including my own, when after the meeting my own boss, BigWillyC, commented to me that one of the gentlemen who worked on the staff of the NHPP was incensed that I'd commented on the issue without first discussing my comments with him!

Now before many of my very dear friends at the NHPP come down on me like an elephant on a flea, let me be very clear here: I'm supportive of the NHPP, always have been and always will be.  Furthermore, the individual who I think made some serious managerial errors is no longer with the group and the organization has long since refocused their goals and is working overtime to help correct some of the problems that were created as a direct result of that management issue.  Jay Mazon is an amazing lady and folks like Cathie Buckner, Clemmie Greenlee, Howard Allen and John Zirker are absolute pioneers in the field of advocacy for people experiencing homelessness and I continue to learn from each of them on a daily basis.  I would battle to the end of my days for any one of those individuals and I think they know this and can count on it from me.  Any one of these co-founders of the group have done more to improve conditions for the population of homeless individuals on our city streets than most of the people I've worked with over the years, combined. 

My point here is that the actions at that meeting were really no way to build an alliance, cultivate a relationship, or attempt to work together with either the local business community or the police.  Now I realize that our reasons may differ but our goal is the same; end homelessness in the downtown Nashville area.  Who gives a crap what the motivations are?  I don't have to agree with someone's rationale., but it often helps to bring in as many players - many of whom, by the way, can bring substantial resources to the table - as possible to tackle the problems we're facing in our community.

Bill's recognition of the importance of cultivating these relationship is, I think, a very critical component in the war to end homelessness, especially when you consider that as a cause, we're not very well supported in our communities.  Ask folks to help hungry children, or disabled veterans, or abused women, and you can usually count on some pretty substantial turnout.  Ask them to assist in helping those experiencing homelessness on our city streets and while some will certainly step up to the task, it's not nearly as compelling a response.  Hence the desperate need for relationship building and collaborative partnerships.  As Howard Gentry famously said at one of our town hall commission meetings a couple of years ago, "Governement can't do it alone."

You ain't kidding, Howard.....