People like Grace King and her son are not only counting on us, their lives may just depend on us to get our acts together sooner rather than later.

I really don't enjoy saying "we told ya you are wrong" to those who claimed the last couple of years that "homelessness" was decreasing.  Those of us who either provide direct service to people experiencing homelessness or support through training and skill building those who do KNEW that the data agencies and organizations were using to give us the numbers were not just skewed and wrong, but dramatically off target.

The recent Hunger and Homelessness report by the United States Conference of Mayors indicates that homelessness has increased by 25 percent in the last year alone, and women and families are the fastest growing segment of that population.

I've been a voice in the chorus for years now that has been desperately trying to raise awareness that there is a new face to homelessness.  The old stereotype of the gutter drunk passed out in an alley  - known in the jargon of homeless providers as "chronic inebriates/chronically homeless"  - while still around, make up a far smaller percentage of the entire cohort of people who are homeless.  The reason their numbers are dwindling while homeless families and women are rising is simple; due to ridiculously scarce resources, we as a society have had to carefully target those considered "high end" service users who are also the most vulnerable and likely to die if left on our city streets any longer.

This approach relies on a Vulnerability Index (VI) or a Vulnerability Assessment Tool  (VAT) that helps outreach workers and homeless service providers prioritize and target those individuals, and then utilize ever-dwindling resources into getting them housed and ideally, wrapped with support services to help in the transition from street to home.

Sounds great in theory, and let me be clear here that I'm fully supportive of the use of the VI and the VAT as one  tool in a well-stocked toolbox we need at our disposal to end homelessness. 

But part of the problem is that when cities implement the VI or VAT and target the most "vulnerable" people, they often don't have anything left for everyone else who may still be homeless, but don't rise to the "priority" level of vulnerability as defined by the VI or VAT.

So, while you may see a woman with her child in line at the soup kitchens, trying to survive and keep her kid in school, her situation is dire in most places.   She's got "nuthin comin" from the "safety net" of welfare and/or family support agencies because she and her family don't rise to the level of "vulnerability" needed to get them to the top of the priority list. 

As a result, today you're more likely to see folks like Grace King in the video below, living day to day or week to week in hotels or sleeping in her car in a Walmart parking lot than you are to see one of the long-term chronically homeless individuals pushing a buggy or panhandling on some city street.

There's something very wrong with this picture.

While there continue to be efforts and agencies that work with families experiencing homelessness, what is lacking is affordable housing, cash to help those cover the costs of move in, and a better way to determine and prioritize  what constitutes "vulnerability."

Importantly, the homeless service provider world continues to approach the global situation of  service delivery in a penny-wise and pound foolish manner.  We have strict eligibility requirements for those who try to access services and although the rationale behind the criteria is sound, the reality, especially in times of very tight budgets, makes a folly of our best laid plans.  We will deny a person who needs $400 to help pay their rent any support because they're not "homeless." Then we will spend $10,000 on that person once they lose their housing to get them re-housed and back on their feet.  This happens over and over and over again.

Granted, it should not have to be the taxpayer's burden to continually bail out those individuals who mismanage or waste their money and find themselves "imminently homeless."  But why we cannot implement a temporary "payee" setup similar to the Social Security Administration's Payee Service for those who are either incapable of managing their money or never learned how to budget for a month is beyond me.  Keeping people housed is cost effective and benefits the "greater good."  It's a simple solution that could be instituted immediately for anyone who is housed but on the verge of homelessness and could be set up  on a temporary basis while inexpensive peer support could be wrapped around the individual and/or family to help them learn budgeting and financial management skills.

We can do better, much better than we're doing now.   People like Grace King and her son are not only counting on us, their lives may just depend on us to get our acts together sooner rather than later. 


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