Chicago’s Ten Year Plan: Is It Working?

The city of Chicago is in their third year of implementing their Ten Year Plan to end homelessness. Here's an article about this.

(At least they are implementing their plan. Here in Los Angeles we are in our third year of still creating our plan.)

Like many other cities in America, Chicago’s plan is centered around replacing their homeless shelters with permanent housing (specifically patterning their plan after the “Housing First” model.)

Chicago Mayor Daley says there has been progress since the kick off of their plan. Critics disagree. Who is right?

The mayor says they have increased the number of permanent housing units for the homeless from 3,600 units in 2002 to 4,900 units in 2005. They also decreased the number of shelter beds from 5,800 to nearly 3,900 beds since 2002.

The Chicago Coalition for the Homeless says the city is closing homeless shelters before the resources are available to replace them. The mayor’s office says there are 6,715 homeless in Chicago and 5,000 are in shelters.

Let’s look at Los Angeles… there are around 90,000 homeless people in the County of Los Angeles, and nearly 13,000 shelter beds.

So clearly, L.A.’s Ten Year Plan should not decrease shelter beds. In fact, we need a lot more to help get people off the streets.

The preliminary L.A. plan is proposing the development of 50,000 permanent affordable housing units in the next ten years. That is a good number. As long as the resources to build these units are new funds, and not as a result of de-funding shelter or services. (L.A.’s Ten Year Plan should be announced in mid-March.)

Back to Chicago… their Coalition says there were 13,108 homeless in Chicago. Nearly double the projected number from the mayor’s office. I wrote an op-ed piece in the L.A. Times last summer on this “Homeless Numbers Game.”

It’s amazing that our society argues over numbers, as if they are numerical economic projections rather than numbers that reflect real lives struggling on the street.

HUD Includes One-Stop Service Centers In Their Priorities

Every year, the Department of Housing and Urban Development publishes their guidelines for their annual funding for housing and homelessness. It is called the SuperNOFA (Super Notice of Funding Availability). Each year they spend more than one billion dollars on a national level.

In the 2006 SuperNOFA, along with permanent supportive housing, they have included the importance of establishing One-Stop Assistance Centers. The idea is to house services for the homeless all under one roof. So a person who is homeless has easy access to services. The model here in Los Angeles is the PATH Mall.

Here is what the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness said about this:
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Today’s notice underscores the Administration’s commitment to end chronic homelessness, noting, “President Bush has set a national goal to end chronic homelessness. HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson has embraced this goal and has pledged that HUD’s grant programs will be used to support the President’s goal and better meet the needs of chronically homeless individuals.” According to the Notice, applicants are encouraged to target assistance to chronically homeless persons by undertaking activities that will result in creation of permanent and permanent supportive housing, as well as services, including the use of one-stop assistance centers or service coordinators to ensure that persons experiencing chronic homelessness have access to a variety of social services.
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Santa Monica Makes Top Ten Meanest City In America?

Remember when the “Republic of Santa Monica” opened their arms to those who were homeless, providing shelter and food for all? Well, the National Coalition For The Homeless thinks this beach-side city, just west of Los Angeles, is no longer welcoming to the homeless. Here's an article.

The coalition says Santa Monica is the ninth meanest city toward the homeless in America.

Imagine that… a small city that spends nearly $2 million to help their homeless, that has one of the best social service networks in the region, and that is creating some innovative approaches to helping the homeless, is also deemed “mean.”

Frankly, I don’t get it. Yes, they have ordinances that are intended to encourage homeless people to transition off the streets and into services and housing. Yes, they feel that keeping their streets safe is important. They understand that people living on the streets are at risk of getting sick or being harmed.

But mean?

I guess the cities that do nothing are nice? Cities that provide no funding for services and housing for the homeless, and also have no anti-panhandling, anti-overnight sleeping ordinances are nice?

That doesn’t make sense.

The cities that are desperately trying to help people on the streets, by providing services and housing, and passing ordinances that are encouraging people to transition off the streets are considered “mean.”

Frankly, I would rather associate with a city that is trying to do something to help those on the streets, than cities that are doing nothing.

Let’s evaluate a city’s approach to homelessness based on positive actions, like services and housing.

Let’s deem the “meanest” cities based on what they DON’T do.

USC Business Students Hear How Nonprofits Are In The Business Of Helping People

I was privileged to be invited to speak to a class of USC business students last night by a friend, Ralph Plumb, who is the former CEO of Union Rescue Mission. Another good friend, Larry Adamson, the CEO of Midnight Mission, also spoke.

The class was a Social Entrepreneurship course designed to train students to approach not-for-profit management in a more entrepreneurial manner.

I spoke on how non-profit management differs from traditional business approaches. The idea that we collaborate more than compete, that we (as nonprofits) seek to give and share rather than take.

I also talked about how key business principles are paramount in the operation of nonprofits. The idea of developing a cost-effectiveness approach to operating programs, investing in staff, technology, and communications. The idea that strategic partnerships and creative marketing are essential if we are to survive.

I also shared how two books have influenced my approach to nonprofit management--"Good To Great" and "The Tipping Point."

It is so important for not-for-profit agencies to “marry” the principles of non-profit management with business management in order to operate effectively.

In a competing and high-paced world of MTV, ESPN, and iPods, the only way we (as nonprofits) are going to capture the attention of supporters—especially the next generation of charity supporters—is to change the way we operate programs, and change the way we create and project our message of hope.

With the thousands of people floundering on America’s streets, we nonprofits must change our worldview, our corporate cultures, and our strategic planning in order to seriously address societal issues like homelessness.

Larry Adamson shared how his 92-year-old homeless program acknowledges the importance of change, even though it is difficult to overcome corporate traditions. Acknowledgement is the first step. PATH constantly struggles with change, even at the young age of 22.

Can we nonprofit homeless agencies make the changes necessary to effectively address homelessness?

I certainly hope so… for the sake of all the people on our streets.

HUD’s Top Five List: Five Ways To Prevent Homelessness

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has published their study called, “Strategies for Preventing Homelessness.” Here's their study.

It is a report that features successful homeless prevention strategies in six different communities.

The study highlights five effective strategies to prevent homelessness:

- Housing Subsidies. This provides subsidized housing for people who cannot afford market-rate rent.

- Supportive Services Coupled With Permanent Housing. Another term is “Housing First.” This means providing affordable housing that is linked to services that will the help people who are living in the housing program (i.e., mental health care, substance abuse treatment, etc.)

- Mediation in Housing Courts. Helping renters and landlords mediate their disagreements so the renter doesn’t end up on the streets.

- Cash Assistance For Rent or Mortgage Arrears. Help people with their rent or mortgage before they lose their housing. If they end up on the streets it is more expensive to get them back into housing than it would be to simply help them make a payment or two.

- Rapid Exit From Shelter. Develop programs that get people out of emergency shelter as fast as possible and into permanent housing.

“Hit and Run” Teens Finally Caught

The two Florida teens who beat a homeless man to death were finally caught. And they caught a third suspect, as well. Here's the article.

Thanks to a surveillance videotape, and 100 tips from students, parents, and neighbors. The community stepped up to find these killers.

Amazingly, the suspects’ families told police that the teens had left the state to hide with relatives in Tennessee and Indiana. Why would their families encourage them to hide?

Clearly the hatred values of these teens were instilled in them by their families.

This form of “hit and run” is disgusting…

In First Place… Housing First

The Los Angeles Times reports today on the movement spreading across the country, and within Los Angeles, toward solving homelessness through “permanent supportive housing”—or what many call, “Housing First.” Here's the article.

The idea is to place people who are homeless—specifically the chronic homeless—directly into an apartment, with the support services in the building. It is an idea that organizations, like Los Angeles-based Beyond Shelter and Washington, DC-based National Alliance To End Homelessness, have promoted for years.

The Bush Administration has embraced it as their strategy toward funneling HUD dollars.

Here are some of the points:

- Concentrate on the chronically homeless. These are the people who have been homeless for longer than one year, or have been homeless at least three times in the last four years. You know them as the ones who visibly wander our streets.

- Critics say that this emphasis on chronically homeless is because the business community is “pushing” to make their streets clean.

- Those who support Housing First say that the old system of social services doesn’t work. The old system is called the “continuum of care.” This was created by HUD when Clinton was in office and when Andrew Cuomo was the HUD secretary. This system helps a homeless person transition from program to program—street outreach, emergency housing, employment, mental health or substance abuse care, to permanent housing. Critics of the “continuum of care” say that this won’t help the chronic homeless who usually drop out of the system before they reach permanent housing.

- Critics of “Housing First” say that helping only the “chronic” homeless ignores the rest of the homeless, including homeless families.

- Critics of “Housing First” also say that this is just another expensive form of creating public housing for the poor. They say that public housing didn’t work back in the 1960s, and we don’t know if it will work today.

I think that we need to do both “Housing First” AND develop a better, more strategic “Continuum of Care” here in Los Angeles. With 90,000 homeless—35,000 of them who are chronic—we have a large problem.

Building 35,000 permanent supportive housing units would be expensive. If it costs $50 million to build 300 PSH units, it would cost $4 Billion Dollars to build 35,000 PSH units! And we would still have 55,000 non-chronic homeless on the streets.
So our community needs to develop a comprehensive, strategic, and cost-effective approach to reaching all of the homeless.

A simple “Housing First” approach is not realistic, unless our community is willing to invest Billions.

(Maybe the Governor would be willing to set aside $5 Billion of his $222 Billion Infrastructure Bond money for L.A. County’s homeless problem? I wouldn't hold your breath.)

Correction To My N.Y.Times Quote…

In an article in the New York Times today, I was quoted as a doubter of the Los Angeles Homeless Count numbers. Here's the article.

I want to formally state that I do not doubt the numbers. I simply said that clearly the numbers are not 100% accurate, since in many census tracts the homeless numbers were estimated.

Here is my quote in the article:
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Another advocate, Joel John Roberts, the chief executive of the nonprofit People Assisting the Homeless, said he was not sure whether to take all of the results as gospel. A spokesman for the Department of Housing and Urban Development said all the homeless census reports they received would be reviewed to evaluate their reliability.

But Mr. Roberts said, "This is the first time in many years that the city of L.A. and county of L.A. are stepping up to the plate and saying we are deal with this problem."