Homelessness: "the worst may be to come for many people."

While anyone who has been paying attention to the working poor and the poor knows, times are getting tougher by the minute for them.  What many folks don't realize however, was succinctly pointed out by Nan Roman, Executive Director for the National Alliance to End Homelessness:

"There just aren't enough units for the number of people who need them."

Those of us who've had to try and house folks have known that the crunch for "affordable" units has been beyond severe for damned near a decade now.  But something else has happened since the housing market imploded; many of the rentals that folks used to be able to snag by landlords desperate to fill vacancies are nowhere to be found anymore.  Even the dives are rented as soon as a sign appears on a lawn, and landlords have become oh so selective in the clientele they rent to.  Credit checks, background checks, huge deposits, ridiculous rules and restrictions, all conspire to keep out everyone but the most perfect of renters.

No telling how long that's going to last, but given that we haven't even hit the bottom of the housing market yet, I'd say we're in for a long stretch.

Something else important in this article that folks don't realize either; it does take a while for the new face of homelessness to hit the bricks.  These people are fighters and they typically try every option, every possibility, before the bottom falls out.  When the sheriff shows up and sets them out on the sidewalk, they are typically 3+ months behind in all their utilities, are either going through foreclosure or are being sued by landlords for nonpayment of rent, and when those things hit the credit report, they can kiss goodbye any chance at renting damned near anything besides some lowlife predator's garage or backyard shed.

If  the amount owed has been turned over to collections, it's like breaking a mirror; the eviction/collection shows up for 7 years (in some cases, longer) on those reports.  Along with the credit report,  Tenant Screening Agencies will list you in their database, and any landlord looking to protect his/her investment will instantly roundfile an application that comes up "TSA positive."

So Joe and Sally move into Mom and Dad's, or Uncle Bob and Aunt Phyllis's house, if they're lucky.  This creates immediate tension, no matter how good your family dynamic is.  It ain't never good to impose on relatives and friends, and we've all heard countless tales about close family members who overstay their welcomes during the holidays.  In that situation, the houseowners know their guests are temporary; you can imagine how quickly the tolerance fades when the departure date is TBD.

The good setups last about a year.  After that, Bob and Phyllis approach Joe and Sally, and with eyes diverted away, tell them that they've "done all they can" and "it's expensive enough for the both of us." Joe and Sally get the message and move what few belongings they have to the car, if they're still lucky enough to have one.  If not, they begin wondering who to turn to.

That's when those of us who work in homeless services get the call, and by this point, Joe and Sally are in so much trouble from so many angles that getting them squared away becomes a massive undertaking. 

Unfortunately, we're broker than Joe and Sally, and those who pay us to provide services are currently moving the furniture out of the building and getting ready to turn the utilities off.   We got nuthin, and because they don't suffer from mental health or substance misuse (yet, anyway, if they're lucky) they get nuthin.
See, the system has been so overstressed that in many cities, we only provide service to people who are not just considered chronically homeless, but "most likely to die on the streets within the year."
This determination is usually arrived at through a tool called the Vulnerability Index (VI), created by Dr. Jim O'Connell, a pioneer in street medicine and deeply respected by folks like me.
The VI is an incredibly important method of identifying those at serious risk on our nation's streets, and has saved a lot of lives.
Unfortunately, there can be a downside to the VI, but I want to clearly point out that this is in no way the fault of the VI itself, but rather how a city prioritizes its resources. 
See, often what ends up happening is that cities are so damned poor that they don't have enough resources to go around.  As such, they prioritize how those scarce resources will be used.  The VI ultimately saves cities money by housing those individuals who are costing the city the most while existing on the street.
Great.
Except that if you're not considered "trimorbid" (having co-occuring mental health, substance abuse, and medical issues) after taking the assessment - if you were lucky enough (or unlucky, as the case may be) to be around when the surveyors actually performed the assessment (they continue using a VI performed in Nashville in the fall of 2008 and I remember it well because I was part of the team. I don't think they've redone the survey since then) - you're often shit outta luck and are relegated to the end of the service line.
Now, you would think that, as a city saved money by removing the sickest individuals from our streets and funneling them through a SOAR program to connect them with disability income and medical insurance, the city could use some of those savings gained to bolster sagging social services.
You would be wrong because it doesn't work that way.

So while we have a couple of spectacularly important and successful programs, to access them, you've got to be damned near knocking on death's door.
The new faces of homelessness don't look like that....yet.  They are still relatively healthy and get more than a mite pissed when they're told they're "not eligible" for the paltry crap our community tries to pass off as "services." About the only exception to this is if you happen to be a veteran, and while the US military has become the nation's largest employer, for many of us, the price that might be paid for a job with them is beyond the price we're willing to pay (and I'm not willing to dig into the deeper issues around a military that provides all the jobs and the available benefits to those who serve, causing a vicious cycle of an ever-increasing military and ....nope, not going there).
Yep, I agree completely with Nan Roman that the situation facing us is "worrisome."  And I gotta say, I appreciate Nan's self-control here, because frankly, I'd say the situation is "fucked" for many who are the new faces of homelessness. 

Alexander Eichler 

Homeless Rate Ready To Rise As Stimulus Cash Runs Out: Study

Although the recession has officially been over for two years, the worst may be to come for many people.
Job losses rose during the last few years. So did wages -- barely. Foreclosures went up, as did the number of poor people for whom rent eats up at least half the paycheck. And a federal program believed to have made a major difference in keeping homeowners off the streets is due to expire in a few months.
All in all, the conditions are right for national homeless rates to start rising soon, according to a new report that examines many of the large-scale economic factors that force people out of their homes. The report, published Tuesday by the National Alliance to End Homelessness, suggests that a delayed wave of pain may be coming for low-earning renters and homeowners.
"It takes a while for people to become homeless," said Nan Roman, president and CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit. "They don't enter the shelter right away."
"We are very concerned that homelessness is going to go up," Roman added.
For homelessness to start climbing just as the unemployment rate begins to deflate might seem counterintuitive. But such is the nature of homelessness, which tends to lag behind other macroeconomic trends.
During 2009 and 2010, for example -- a period when unemployment grew by leaps and bounds, and foreclosure filings increased at record rates -- homelessness in America actually dropped by 1 percent.
But the economy has experienced only limited growth since then. Millions are still out of work, and millions more aren't earning enough to cover basic living expenses. More and more homeowners and renters are edging toward a desperate situation.
According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness report, while the national homeless rate fell by 1 percent, the number of people living "doubled up" -- that is, lodging with friends or family for economic reasons -- rose by 13 percent in roughly the same time period. The number of unemployed people climbed by 4 percent. And the number of people in poverty who spend at least half their income on rent climbed by 6 percent.
Such changes all suggest trouble down the line. Living doubled-up is often a step on the road to no home, according to the report. A person in a doubled-up living situation has a 1 in 12 chance of becoming homeless within a year.
Other economic circumstances are putting additional pressure on low-income Americans. Many people simply aren't paid enough to afford a place to live, while others may be looking for rental units that aren't available in a market wracked by foreclosures.
Average real income for the working poor -- those who hold jobs but still live below the poverty line -- was just $9,413 in 2010, according to the report. On that income, the report states, one-bedroom apartments are unaffordable virtually everywhere in the country.
Meanwhile, the foreclosure epidemic is likely steering would-be homeowners into rental properties instead, which makes the market more competitive for renters.
"There just aren't enough units for the number of people who need them," Roman told HuffPost. The lack of affordable housing, she said, is the nation's "other housing crisis."
This aspect of the housing problem is likely to grow more pronounced in 2012 and 2013, as the number of foreclosures is expected to swell. By the end of next year, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York recently predicted, there could be as many as 5.6 million homes in foreclosure.
Making matters still worse is the impending end of the Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program, a $1.5 billion federal initiative funded through the 2009 stimulus package that both Roman and her organization's report credit with keeping the national homeless rate from ballooning during the economic downturn.
According to Roman, HPRP, as the program is known, focuses on preventive efforts, offering aid to renters and homeowners at risk of losing their place of residence. The program provides rental assistance to low-income households, helps those relocating find a new place to live and mediates discussions between landlords and tenants.
"A billion and a half dollars is a lot of money in terms of homeless assistance," said Roman.
But the money is almost all gone. A spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development said that virtually all HPRP activity will have ceased by September of this year. And with the federal government contemplating massive spending cuts, the future of national homeless assistance looks cloudy.
In two weeks, HUD will conduct its annual point-in-time count, when volunteers in more than 3,000 locations across America try to conduct a one-night nationwide head count of homeless people.
The 2011 count produced a estimate of 636,017 homeless individuals, a figure that represented a 2.1 percent drop from the year before. Roman said that anecdotal evidence suggests the numbers are rising now.
"We're certainly hearing from some places that demand is going up in the shelter system," she said. "It's worrisome."

Itzcoatl Ocampo: Charged With Murder of 4 Homeless Men

The first thought I had was whether any of the men Mr. Ocampo allegedly murdered were vets themselves, given the high number of veterans who experience homelessness. 

Itzcoatl Ocampo/Anaheim Police Department

The second thought I had was whether Mr. Ocampo's service tour played a role in creating the mental conditions one must have to step over the line and begin taking lives.  That the deaths were done with a knife and were particularly brutal, with large numbers of "stabs" on each victim, tell me that this man was angry....raging...about something broiling within him.  Using a knife brings one very close to the actual death, and as a rational person who abhors violence of any kind, I would think that if you did have to kill someone, you'd certainly not want to be right on top of him/her while they were dying. There is just something particularly vicious in my mind about anyone who kills with a knife in this way. 
I do want to say "Thank You" to those individuals in Orange County who acted relatively quickly and did so with sufficient levels of police and resources to catch this man before he was able to do more damage than he already had.  People experiencing homelessness are often ignored or have their concerns minimized by a public that continues to remain ignorant of the extreme risks one must take every night while living homeless and trying to find a place to rest for the evening. 
Let's hope mr. Ocampo, if found guilty, not only spends the rest of his life behind some very secure bars, but also that his alleged crimes help spur a successful passage of a national hate crime bill that includes "persons experiencing homelessness."

Veteran Charged in Slayings of Four Homeless Men

By IAN LOVETT

Published: January 17, 2012

SANTA ANA, Calif.—The Iraq war veteran accused of killing four homeless men in the past month stalked his victims before striking, enjoyed the media coverage of his crimes and had a list of future victims at the time of his arrest, according to  Orange County prosecutors.

Related

• Suspect in Killings of Homeless Men Has Family Link to Homelessness (January 17, 2012)

• Pinkberry Co-founder Arrested in Beating of Homeless Man (January 18, 2012)

Tony Rackauckas, the Orange County district attorney, viewed posters Tuesday of four homeless men killed in the past month.

Enlarge This Image

Alex Gallardo/Reuters

Itzcoatl Ocampo, 23, was charged on Tuesday with four counts of murder. If convicted, Mr. Ocampo will face a minimum sentence of life in prison and could face the death penalty.
Although the Orange County district attorney, Tony Rackauckas, would not say whether he planned to pursue capital punishment, at a news conference Tuesday, he called Mr. Ocampo “a vicious killer” and offered grim details of crimes that he said grew more brazen and more violent as the killing spree went on.
“The defendant planned the murders in advance, stalked his victims looking for the right opportunity to execute them,” Mr. Rackauckas said. “He had additional victims already selected.”
Mr. Ocampo, who was honorably discharged from the Marine Corps in 2010, stabbed the first victim more then 40 times on Dec. 20, starting while the victim was asleep on the street, Mr. Rackauckas said. The second victim was stabbed more than 50 times on Dec. 27. The third was stabbed more than 60 times on Dec. 30.
Neither Mr. Rackauckas nor the police would speculate about possible motives for the first three murders. By the time of the fourth murder, on Friday, news of a possible serial killer targeting homeless men dominated media coverage in Orange County, and multiple law enforcement agencies had assigned hundreds of officers to the case.
John Berry, 64, a homeless Vietnam War veteran who had slept by the riverbed in Anaheim for years, was pictured in a Los Angeles Times article about the killings. That picture, Mr. Rackauckas said, led Mr. Ocampo to make a target of him.
“The defendant specifically sought this victim out for participating in this article,” Mr. Rackauckas said.
On Thursday, Mr. Berry contacted the Anaheim police to say he thought he was being stalked. They encouraged him to go to a shelter, or to accept some kind of police protection, but he refused, preferring to stay on the street by himself, said Chief John Welter of the Anaheim police.
Then on Friday, Mr. Ocampo passed through both checkpoints that the police had set up to help find the killer. He spoke to officers but did not arouse suspicion. Mr. Berry was killed just after 8 p.m., in a busy shopping center with dozens of witnesses.
After Mr. Berry’s slaying, Mr. Ocampo was chased by civilians into a nearby mobile home park, where he was captured by the police, his face and hands spattered with blood. A large knife, which Mr. Rackauckas said was likely the murder weapon in all four killings, was found nearby.
Mr. Ocampo, who was being held in medical isolation Tuesday, is scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday. His lawyer, Randall T. Longwith, said he did not yet know how his client intended to plead, because neither he nor family members had been able to speak with him.

A version of this article appeared in print on January 18, 2012, on page A10 of the New York edition with the headline: Veteran Charged in Slayings of Four Homeless Men.

"Over 4 million Americans report that they have been unemployed for more than 12 months—the largest number since records were first kept in 1948"

Some weeks ago (maybe months, as time flies when you're having so much fun getting a ginormous project for SAMHSA up off the ground and running full steam), I was listening to NPR or some other form of great "liberal" media and one of the talking voices mentioned that it wasn't until several years after the Great Depression had ended that people began calling it by that name.  As I recall, the guest on the radio show said that while the country was neck-deep in the grips of the worst economic disaster this country had ever seen (at least at that time, anyway),  important figures of the day referred to the situation very similarly to the way we are hearing about our own situation today, "economic woes," "financial turmoil," "tough times," etc.

I mention this because I think, once the dust settles and we regain some sanity and clarity in what happened and how we eventually swung the pendulum back towards caring for "we the people" instead of "we the corporations, banks, Wall Street and the "1 percent," we will look back on this time in America and understand clearly that we were in the midst of the "Greatest Depression." 

I remain an optimist that we will indeed regain control of our government at some point and bend it back to the will of the people.  I don't fool myself though, on how long this may take and recognize that it could very well end up taking longer than my lifetime has left to correct the terrible consequences of poor leadership, greed and corruption that - while ever-present in some capacity within our system - seems to have become the primary mode of operation for politicians over the last 30 years. 

New studies show growth of poverty, class tensions in US

By Kate Randall
14 January 2012

Two new studies document the growth of poverty in America and heightened awareness of the social tensions arising from the conflict between the rich and poor. Both deal with the impact of the recession and reflect rapid changes in both the economic conditions and consciousness of wide layers of the population.

“At Risk: America’s Poor During and After the Great Recession,” published by the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University Bloomington, focuses on the growth of poverty as a result of the economic downturn, and the performance of the US “safety net” in response.

The Pew Research Center survey, “Rising Share of Americans See Conflict Between Rich and Poor,” reveals that “the issue of class conflict has captured a growing share of the national consciousness,” and that increasing numbers say there are “very strong conflicts” between the wealthy and those at the bottom.

The Indiana University study shows how the extended duration and severity of the economic downturn has “inflicted long-lasting damage to individuals, families, and communities.” In particular, the authors point to the growth of the “near poor” and “new poor” as a result of the recession.

The study cites long-term unemployment as one of the major factors contributing to the growth of poverty. Over 4 million Americans report that they have been unemployed for more than 12 months—the largest number since records were first kept in 1948. If the long-term jobless lose their unemployment benefits before the economy turns around, the study warns, the ranks of the so-called new poor will swell between now and 2017.

The authors note that the growing ranks of the newly poor come under conditions where large numbers of Americans are already impoverished. According to official government measures, 46.2 million Americans—about 15 percent of the population—were living in poverty in 2010. This number rises to about 16 percent when using a new “Supplemental Measure,” which accounts for shortcomings in the official measurement.

While economists designate June 2009 as the official end of the recession, the Indiana University study notes that the number of people living in poverty is still expected to rise, due to the slow pace of the recovery. Between the years 2006 and 2010 the proportion of people living in poverty has increased by a staggering 27 percent, a trend that is highly likely to continue. This recent increase in poverty has hit young people between the ages of 18 and 34 particularly hard.

The performance of the American “safety net” under these economic conditions has been inadequate and uneven. So-called entitlement programs, including food stamps (SNAP), Medicaid and Unemployment Insurance, which operate with mandatory (if insufficient) funding, have been more responsive as jobs are lost and incomes fall.

By contrast, programs such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), which replaced traditional welfare beginning in 1996, and federal housing assistance have lagged behind need. The study notes that moves under way in Congress to cut the federal budget deficit are likely to result in significant cutbacks to these programs.

Initiatives such as the 2009 federal stimulus package, which somewhat cushioned the blow of poverty in the recession, are also unlikely to be renewed. Additionally, while poverty continues to deepen, many cash-strapped states are making cuts to programs such as unemployment insurance, temporary cash assistance, Medicaid, TANF and other services for low-income individuals and families.

The Pew Research Center Survey finds that the growth of poverty and the inability of federal and state programs to respond to it are having a dramatic impact on the way wide layers of American society view growing social inequality.

The study of 2,048 adults found that about two-thirds of Americans (66 percent) believe that there are either “strong” or “very strong” conflicts between the rich and the poor. This is an increase of 19 percentage points over views studied in 2009. Three in ten Americans, or 30 percent, now feel that there are “very strong conflicts” between rich and poor—double the proportion compared to 2009, and the largest percentage holding this opinion since the question was first asked in 1987.

When evaluating the divisions within US society, survey respondents ranked the conflicts between rich and poor ahead of three other potential sources of tensions: between immigrants and native born, between blacks and whites, and between young and old. In a 2009 survey, respondents cited the tensions between immigrants and native born as the greatest source of conflicts.

The perception that class conflict was the leading source of tension was held across virtually all demographic groups, with younger adults, women, Democrats and African Americans somewhat more likely to hold this view.

The Pew researchers note that this dramatic change in attitudes “may reflect the income and wealth inequality message conveyed by Occupy Wall Street protesters across the country in late 2011 that led to a spike in media attention to the topic.” The study points to growing public awareness of the shift in wealth distribution in America that was reflected in the Occupy movement and popular sympathy for the protests.

The authors cite US Census Bureau data showing that the proportion of overall wealth—a measure including home equity, stocks and bonds, and other personal possessions—held by the top 10 percent of the population increased from 49 percent in 2005 to 56 percent in 2009, a 7 percent rise in just four years.

The Pew survey, alongside the data on poverty presented in the Indiana University study, indicates how such indices of social inequality are finding expression in the sentiments of wider layers of the US population as this economic turmoil deepens and persists.