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Monday, March 18, 2024
March 18, 2024

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Luncheon eyes help for more homeless

Annual fundraiser celebrates successes, notes need for more

By , Columbian staff writer
Published:

Call 360-695-9677. If you are not homeless but behind on rent or doubled up, call at 3 p.m. Tuesdays.

Homelessness in Washington and across the nation has declined significantly since the height of the Great Recession, according to a report from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development released Thursday. The report data reflected the annual single-day “census” of homeless people — called the Point-In-Time count — that’s conducted every January by local agencies working on the problem.

In January 2014, there were 18,442 homeless individuals in Washington, according to the report. That’s 19.4 percent below the January 2010 peak of 22,878 homeless people. In the shorter term, state homelessness dipped sharply from 2012 to 2013, but then rose slightly again in 2014 — 4.4 percent, or 782 homeless individuals.

In Clark County, annual Point-In-Time counts zigzagged during the height of the Great Recession, but more recently the total number of homeless individuals has dropped — from 1,020 in 2012, to 703 in 2013, to 695 in 2014.

Call 360-695-9677. If you are not homeless but behind on rent or doubled up, call at 3 p.m. Tuesdays.

Nationally, HUD reported, there were 578,424 homeless individuals counted in January 2012. That’s a 33 percent drop since 2010 and a 10.5 drop since 2013.

Silver said that these numbers reflect people who were literally homeless or living in shelters but don’t include “couch surfers” living temporarily with others. That masks the true extent of the problem, he said.

— Scott Hewitt

In a passionate talk before a crowd that cares about homelessness, Andy Silver considered three children he knows.

One is his 1-year-old daughter. Silver, the executive director of Clark County’s Council for the Homeless, said during Thursday’s 15th annual fundraising luncheon that he recently attended his first parent-teacher conference to check on her progress. Ridiculous, he thought — but when the preschool teacher pulled out charts and graphs full of “early learning indicators,” he was struck by the foundation of caring and support his daughter already enjoys. It means a future of possibility, he said.

Kaya is another 1-year-old he knows. She spent her first three months homeless, Silver said, and her family was too preoccupied with survival to worry about anything like education. Then they came to the Council’s Housing Solutions Center and got placed in stable housing. They’ve been there for a year. Kaya is thriving today, he said, and may well enjoy “the same connections” as his own child as she goes forward in life.

Twenty-five years after the Council for the Homeless started offering the most basic care for homeless people — finding them space in local emergency shelters — experience, data and a growing nonprofit scene in Clark County combined to launch the Housing Solutions Center. It’s a clearinghouse where people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness can go for a thorough assessment and, hopefully, quick connection with a local program that fits their specific needs.

“We have the solution,” Silver said. “We know how to do this.”

The Housing Solutions Center opened in 2012, and it can match people with many sorts of programs and assistance. Among those are help for chronically homeless individuals and for low-income families; for single mothers and children fleeing domestic violence; for people who are temporarily disabled or receiving mental health treatment; for homeless youths; for clean-and-sober only and for addicts only; for drug court graduates; for single men; for veterans; and for certain low-level sex offenders.

But then there’s the third child Silver knows. Teddy lives in a car. His parents came to the Housing Solutions Center eight months ago, but they still live in that car and they’re likely to stay there for a while yet, Silver said.

Homelessness in Washington and across the nation has declined significantly since the height of the Great Recession, according to a report from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development released Thursday. The report data reflected the annual single-day "census" of homeless people -- called the Point-In-Time count -- that's conducted every January by local agencies working on the problem.

In January 2014, there were 18,442 homeless individuals in Washington, according to the report. That's 19.4 percent below the January 2010 peak of 22,878 homeless people. In the shorter term, state homelessness dipped sharply from 2012 to 2013, but then rose slightly again in 2014 -- 4.4 percent, or 782 homeless individuals.

In Clark County, annual Point-In-Time counts zigzagged during the height of the Great Recession, but more recently the total number of homeless individuals has dropped -- from 1,020 in 2012, to 703 in 2013, to 695 in 2014.

Nationally, HUD reported, there were 578,424 homeless individuals counted in January 2012. That's a 33 percent drop since 2010 and a 10.5 drop since 2013.

Silver said that these numbers reflect people who were literally homeless or living in shelters but don't include "couch surfers" living temporarily with others. That masks the true extent of the problem, he said.

-- Scott Hewitt

How can that be?

“We know what they need. We just don’t have enough resources to help Teddy’s family to get back on their feet,” Silver said.

There aren’t enough private landlords willing to accept government low-income housing vouchers when they have their pick of tenants in a tight rental market, he said. And there isn’t enough money and quick support in the system to prevent families like Teddy’s from landing in their car to begin with, he said. Despite the Housing Solutions Center and all those programs, Silver said, 115 local families are still waiting for the Council for the Homeless to help them.

Affordable housing is the real solution to homelessness, Silver argued. The latest thinking in fighting homelessness is an approach called Housing First, which holds that the essential building block of a stable life is a stable place to live. The idea is it’s best to speed homeless people into stable housing and then embrace them with other services, instead of requiring them to jump through difficult hoops — getting jobs, kicking drugs — with no support and no roof over their heads.

“Housing is that transformational change,” Silver said, “no matter what the person’s challenges are.” All of which flies in the face of the notion that homeless people choose to be homeless, that they are “different than us,” that they deserve their fate.

In other interviews with The Columbian, Silver has said that a track record of success is developing for Housing First projects — with better outcomes for homeless people and lower costs for society. A 30-unit Housing First project has been proposed for chronically homeless people by the Vancouver Housing Authority for a vacant lot across the street from Share House on West 13th Street. That project, called Lincoln Place, is still being planned.

Too many people “don’t think that housing is the answer for homelessness. I need you to be ambassadors,” Silver told the room.

According to Silver, it would cost $1.2 million to house every family on that waiting list of 115. “We could help them that day, not months later,” he said.

Good deeds honored

Longtime board member Cheryl Pfaff was honored for her 25 years of dedicated service to the Council. Pfaff is a former social worker and community activist who has served on numerous boards and committees; Council president Gary Akizuki called Pfaff “the institutional knowledge of the council” with sophistication about “what works and what doesn’t.”

“To many people in this community, Cheryl is the Council for the Homeless,” Silver said.

Pfaff’s thank-you speech was brief — in keeping with her typical modesty, according to many. “After 25 years, thank you to all of you,” she said. “Because of the council and all of you, lives are changed for the better every day.”

Also honored were the founders of an initiative called Good Deeds With Beads, which grew out of the St. Andrew Lutheran Church. Lori Lemley, Lori McDonald, Debra Burch and Janelle Renoud started making beaded bracelets and selling them for $5 to raise money for laundry soap for the homeless.

The good feelings and good results sparked by that effort blossomed into an ongoing project to sell bracelets and use the money to help homeless people overcome small but significant barriers to housing and employment. Work boots and tools, eyeglasses, replacement ID cards and even rental deposits are examples of what the money has bought.

Learn more at http://www.councilforthehomeless.org

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