Facts on homelessness
Get the facts on local homelessness and Share:
• 110 people housed at Share emergency shelters (Share Orchards Inn, Share Homestead, Share House) on Nov. 18.
• 100 additional people housed via the cold-weather Winter Hospitality Overflow project (two local churches that offer their floors) plus additional shelter capacity at Share.
• 2,154 bags of food were distributed to more than 90 local schools and Head Start programs Thursday, the weekly backpack day when Share volunteers pack and deliver bags to hungry children to take home from school for the weekend.
• 80,000 hot meals provided in 2013.
• 100 households per month got case management and rental subsidies in 2013.
• 800 people reached through Share’s outreach program in 2013.
On the Web
http://sharevancouver.org/
www.councilforthehomeless.org/
http://homeforward.org/
Agency officials who work with homeless populations in Clark and Multnomah counties championed a no-barriers, “Housing First” approach to protecting the most vulnerable street people during a brown-bag lunchtime session Thursday at the Vancouver Community Library.
Facts on homelessness
Get the facts on local homelessness and Share:
• 110 people housed at Share emergency shelters (Share Orchards Inn, Share Homestead, Share House) on Nov. 18.
• 100 additional people housed via the cold-weather Winter Hospitality Overflow project (two local churches that offer their floors) plus additional shelter capacity at Share.
• 2,154 bags of food were distributed to more than 90 local schools and Head Start programs Thursday, the weekly backpack day when Share volunteers pack and deliver bags to hungry children to take home from school for the weekend.
• 80,000 hot meals provided in 2013.
• 100 households per month got case management and rental subsidies in 2013.
• 800 people reached through Share's outreach program in 2013.
Housing First means providing chronically homeless people — many of whom are dealing with mental and physical health problems as well as substance abuse issues — a stable roof over their heads.
It doesn’t require them to kick their addictions and get clean and sober first; it doesn’t even require them to get services once they’ve been housed. That’s why it’s called no-barrier housing, said Rachael Duke of Home Forward, the public housing authority for Multnomah County.
Home Forward has operated a large Housing First building, Bud Clark Commons, at the edge of Portland’s Pearl District since 2011. Now, the Vancouver Housing Authority is moving ahead with plans to build Lincoln Place, a smaller but similar building, in downtown Vancouver. City of Vancouver planners are studying the formal application for Lincoln Place now. If all goes according to plan, construction could start this spring and finish up within a year.
Lincoln Place will be a 30-unit studio apartment building, according to Andy Silver, the executive director for the Council for the Homeless. It’ll be right across West 13th Street from Share House, which will provide case management services for the building. Another local nonprofit, Community Services Northwest, will provide mental health treatment.
Chronically homeless people in Vancouver will be selected for permanent residence based on a “vulnerability assessment” that’s aimed at determining who is likeliest to die if left on the streets, Silver said.
The question of services — just what sort and how intensive? — are a sore point for critics of this project. Some have maintained that the target population is so troubled and ill, any building aiming to house them must be just as much a medical and psychiatric facility as a dormitory.
Duke seemed to underline that point as she described 130-unit Bud Clark Commons and the intensive connection it provides between housing and medical services.
“It’s super-important to have both for some people to be successful,” she said. She said there are three mental health professionals on-site at Bud Clark Commons, plus a medical “prescriber” on call. The building also hosts periodic skin-care clinics; skin wounds and problems are common among people who are exposed to the elements for long stretches.
But, she said, just as important is that tenants have choice in the matter. Forcing services upon troubled people who tend not to get along with others, who don’t like authority, who don’t “fit in,” tends to turn them off, she said. But having the services available for folks to opt in gives them a feeling of control over their own destiny.
She credited the “skill and art” of the staff at Bud Clark Commons with building trust and relationships with tenants, and offering services “over and over and over again” until some of the most reluctant tenants finally said yes.
“When you bring people inside and give them the opportunity to get better, some work hard to continue that process,” she said.
All of which has led to improved health for many building residents and demonstrable health-care cost savings for society, she said. Duke said that 70 percent of Bud Clark residents have opted into case management; 84 individuals are getting mental health treatment and 41 are getting addiction treatment. Studies have shown that there’s an overall reduction in Medicaid costs for people in the building of 45 percent — or $9,000 per resident per year.
“If you make it voluntary, you end up with much better results,” said Silver.
There are other benefits beyond percentages and dollars saved, she added. Duke said she’s watched families reunite for the first time in years; she’s watched grandparents meet their grandchildren and enjoy holidays together for the first time; she’s seen people experience “less trauma” than they would on the streets; and she’s seen them die with dignity instead of despair. There’s about one death per month at Bud Clark Commons, she said.
“They do come in with (maladies) you get if you’ve lived outside for a long time,” she said. “I didn’t expect this when we started out, but it’s an important part of what we do.”
The building is considered permanent housing. You can get evicted for various bad behaviors and lease violations — but not for using drugs, she said.
Andy Silver emphasized that “Housing First” and Lincoln Place are aimed at the chronically homeless — a small sliver of the general homeless population that uses up a large percentage of services like emergency medical and law enforcement calls. Despite being a small group they are the most visible in public, he said.
Silver addressed head-on the conventional wisdom that people who are addicted don’t deserve public assistance: “Should my money go to support somebody who’s using in the building? Where’s the accountability?”
His response was to turn that logic upside-down. “Where is the accountability for our community? Severe mental illness is not a choice. We know how to help these people but we are choosing not to provide it. Instead we are telling people, ‘Go sleep outside when it’s 20 degrees — and beat your addiction out there before you come in here.’ “
Share statistics
Also speaking during the event was Amy Reynolds of Share, a multifaceted local agency that cares for the homeless and hungry. Reynolds reviewed overall homeless statistics and Share’s offerings. She said that 695 people are homeless in Clark County on an average night, according to the latest single-day count last January; that 100 people filled up every nook and cranny of additional winter-spillover space in shelters and churches this past Tuesday night; that Share served over 80,000 hot meals in 2013; and that Share’s backpack program filled 2,154 bags with food to send home with needy children at over 90 local schools on a recent Thursday morning.
“Hungry children is something we should all be concerned about,” she said.
