To satisfy the federal requirement for the information that is needed to fairly distribute available funding, the people experiencing homelessness are counted every year. House the Homeless blog has taken an extended look at the “how” of the annual point-in-time count, which could be described as “different strokes for different folks.”

In a way, it’s good that communities can use different techniques, because if somebody discovers how to do it right, they can share that information. Just imagine, if one city could figure out how to correct the numerous flaws, and create a process that is humane, safe, dignified, and productive of justifiable results. If a community could demonstrate a good common-sense approach, their procedure would no doubt be gratefully adopted all across America.

In Texas, during the stipulated time period this January, 300 Austinites under the auspices of ECHO (Ending Community Homelessness Coalition) fanned out to enumerate the unhoused. At the beginning of February, a newspaper report stated that the number of homeless people in Travis County had decreased by 39% since 2008.

For the Austin American-Statesman, Andrea Ball learned that in the field of homelessness alleviation, despite favorable statistics, workers “on the ground” are sometimes unable to discern much improvement. Many advocates, like Alan Graham of Mobile Loaves and Fishes, question the usefulness of the annual count, saying it’s a faulty measure. He pointed out that conditions on the appointed count day may vary wildly from one year to the next. Success is influenced not only by the meteorological weather but by the law enforcement climate, which may at any particular time “crack down” in ways that drive the chronic homeless further into hiding.

In the original reportage there was some confusion about daily and weekly figures relating to shelter admissions in Austin. Apparently, the total of homeless people, inside and outside, amounted to less than the number of people who use the inside shelter in a single day. Much depends on these numbers, we are reminded by Richard R. Troxell of House the Homeless.

Richard was invited to share his thoughts with radio station KLBJ-FM, and in preparation wrote out his thoughts, some of which are rather caustic:

Excellent news! The number of people experiencing homelessness has been dramatically reduced in Austin by 39% since 2008! Or so you think if you believe the front page headlines in The Austin American Statesman. It is not until you read the 3rd page of the story that you learn that the 2012 count of the homeless (2,121) in the woods, streets, and shelters was less than the actual daily number of people served in the shelters alone (between 2,650 and 2,750 on a daily basis).

Richard also asks how much sense it makes to count people at dusk or in the dark of night. He also finds the 24-hour concept to be flawed, and fears that trying to get it done all in one day is counterproductive. He writes:

Why don’t we count them over a two week period? Because the federal government is afraid of a possible multiple survey responses by homeless folks. The same people might fill out the questionnaire more than once, and skew the numbers. For starters, this assumes that anybody is willing to do it more than once. Do we really think that homeless folks will rush to complete multiple forms? They probably don’t even like doing it once. And the result is, the numbers are skewed even more.

We could best count the folks experiencing homelessness by asking Willie Nelson to throw a bash. We’d get the city of Austin to cordon off a part of Zilker park, suspend the No Camping Ordinance and the No Sit/No Lie Ordinance, and hold a three-day love fest called ‘Everybody Counts.’ We could count and survey the homeless to our hearts’ content. We’d get the highest head count ever, and bring more federal dollars to Austin than ever before.

This homeless count process that has been used since 2000 has always been flawed, dangerous, and foolish. But now the flaw is glaring and staring us all in the face, on the front page of our paper, and on the Internet, and if you think HUD is going to accept these results then you have another think coming. On the other hand, if HUD does accept these results then we’re all in bigger trouble than I think.

With the federal government setting the minimum wage at $7.25 per hour, rendering more and more people homeless every day, do we really think we are decreasing the tsunami which is homelessness at the rate of 39% since 2008? How in the name of common sense is that possible?

The homeless community nationwide remembers advocate, activist, and hunger striker Mitch Snyder with great respect. In the face of controversy about the numbers he had cited, Snyder once remarked that the homeless can best be counted once they have been brought inside.

What could hasten that day? Please proceed to the Universal Living Wage…

Reactions?

Source: “Travis County Homelessness,” Statesman.com, 02/04/13

Funding for low-income housing projects is decided in part by the federally mandated annual count of people experiencing homelessness. Looking around at how it is done in different parts of the country, it’s easy to see that not everyone agrees about the way things should be, or even about the way things are.

Only last month, from San Francisco, the director of the Western Regional Advocacy Project voiced discontent, calling the census “hit-or-miss” and its result “an unreal number.” Paul Boden presents a case that the head count is ineffectual in showing an accurate picture of what actually goes on with programs designed to alleviate homelessness.

The accuracy is certainly questionable. An example he gives ends with the suggestion, “You figure it out,” and when a person stops to do that, an amazing conundrum emerges.

In 2011, the Department of Housing and Urban Development said that America contained 636,017 homeless people. (This is the same HUD, by the say, that since 1996 has sold or demolished 210,000 housing units.)

Yet, in the same year, the Department of Education reported the number of homeless school children as 1,065,794. In other words, the number of homeless school kids is much larger than the total number of homeless people — a logical impossibility. And the million-plus figure doesn’t even begin to count those kids’ parents.

Boden seems to imply that the homeless count is not a meaningful activity but an empty pro forma ritual. Actually, it’s more than an implication. He says:

The headcount doesn’t show us anything… Point-in-time counts are a minimum number, always. They undercount hidden homeless populations because homeless persons are doubling up with the housed or cannot be identified by sight as homeless. Families and youth most often are among the undercounted. On cold winter nights, churches often open their doors, and anyone forced to sleep outside will try to escape the raw elements. Children sleeping in vans hardly will be visible.

An uncredited editorial from the Deseret News talks about how numbers somehow showed that Utah’s population of “chronically homeless” has been reduced by 70% in seven years. Yet, somehow, on any given night, there are more homeless people than ever before. This presents a vision of agencies struggling heroically against an overwhelming trend.

According to the author, the count, which is carried out by volunteers:

[…] doesn’t take into account the ‘at-risk’ population that lives just on the verge of homelessness, which some experts suggest also has grown. Furthermore, the surveys have shown an increase in the number of entire families thrust into at least temporary homelessness…

In North Carolina, the Herald Sun asked Minnie Forte-Brown of the Homeless Services Advisory Committee for her take on the census, which was:

One night, the nation counts. No way does that say we’ve counted everybody.

The reporter goes on to say:

It rained the night of the count, which may have driven some to dry shelter. Even in good weather, though, at best this is a representative sample. It can’t take into account the homeless who — for one reason or another – go out of their way to remain unseen, squatting in abandoned buildings, living in cars or camping in the woods.

Pat LaMarche reported for The Huffington Post that the state of Texas has around 95,000 school-age kids. The distribution is very uneven, with one out of 10 American kids in that demographic residing in Texas, and House the Homeless will be taking a closer look at the beautiful city of Austin next week. Meanwhile, critics on the national scale are unhappy with the status quo for many reasons.

Joel John Roberts of Poverty Insights articulates some of them:

If you look at the last few decades, this country has dramatically ignored real solutions to ending homelessness… Political leaders grandstand in front of television cameras, ‘Homelessness should not be tolerated in this country!’ But when the lights turn off, political business continues as usual. Homeless agencies practically beg for resources to help the lines of people wanting help. But the number of homeless persons in this wealthy country continue to be obscene.

Roberts encourages readers to learn about the “100,000 Homes” campaign, which almost 70 American cities have signed on to, and which reports a success number of 38,575 people housed by its efforts.

House the Homeless co-founder Richard R. Troxell knows far too well about the inaccuracy of the homeless count and declares that the current policies of the federal government are the greatest single fabricator of homelessness in this nation. To that end, he is in the process of collaborating on writing the nation’s first White Paper on the subject. It’s entitled “Homelessness Prevention” (at its core). Stay tuned.

Reactions?

Source: “Homeless head counts help no one,” SFGate.com, 02/05/13
Source: “In our opinion: Counting the homeless,” Deseret News, 02/08/13
Source: “Rhetoric won’t solve homeless dilemma,” The Herald-Sun, 02/24/13
Source: “About 1 in 10 Homeless Kids Live in Texas,” The Huffington Post, 02/19/13
Source: “We Cannot Count on Homeless Counts to end Homelessness,” PovertyInsights.org, 02/07/11
Image by John Jewell.

Before we get started, let’s just mention that Richard R. Troxell, co-founder of House the Homeless, has once again been quoted in the national media, this time CNN.

Last time, we finished up with a mention of a guy in New Jersey who wanted to go to jail so badly he publicly consumed alcohol in front of police officers. But rather than time in a penal institution, they just gave him a ticket. It’s a pathetic story and an illustrative one, but with not much damage done to society in general.

And then you get people whose desperation causes serious consequences to others. Last month, in York City, PA, a man who had only been able to afford one night in a motel set a fire just before check-out time. He surrendered to the authorities, as he had intended to do all along, because he had nowhere else to go, and jail looked pretty good right about then.

The fire turned out to be more than he had bargained for. (The possibility of a defective alarm system is under investigation.) An employee suffered burns, fortunately minor, and the fire did $750,000 worth of damage to the place. Plus, it made several more people homeless.

This isn’t only happening in the U.S. In September, word came from Ireland of a man who was mugged and severely beaten, and who then became an assailant himself, attacking paramedics who tried to come to his aid. Then, Oliver Cleary punched a police officer, and that got him arrested for sure, which turned out to be okay with him.

Deborah McAleese reported for the Belfast Telegraph:

District Judge Bagnall said she would consider suspending a prison term. But standing in the dock Cleary shook his head and the judge asked his lawyer: ‘Is a short custodial sentence more helpful in the longer term?’

After speaking to Cleary, the lawyer said: ‘Bizarrely, he would prefer a short custodial sentence because he has nowhere to go to.’

Ms Bagnall agreed to sentence Cleary to one month behind bars for disorderly behaviour.

And it isn’t only jail that people are trying to get into. Last May, in a small Kentucky town, a 27-year-old woman made a desperate bid for accommodation in a domestic violence shelter. Scott Sutton reported:

[Ashely] Basham claimed she was walking in the parking lot of a Murfreesboro Walmart last Saturday when her ex-girlfriend stabbed her multiple times with a knife. Police investigated and saw injuries to the woman’s stomach, shoulders and legs. The injuries were so severe that she had to get staples in her leg.

Further investigation revealed that it didn’t happen that way, and the wounds were self-inflicted. Basham was arrested for filing a false report, but there doesn’t seem to be any further news on whether she went to jail, the hospital, or the shelter.

Crazy as it seems, things are set up in such a way that imprisonment is the best answer some people are able to find to the overwhelming challenges of life. One such person is commemorated in a song called “Joe,” written by Mike Laureanno of Providence, RI. One verse goes like this:

Every now and then a day in jail is warm
Three hots and a cot
A misdemeanor works like a charm
The sergeant knows his name
Slips him some change

One last thought — a recent House the Homeless survey learned that:

[…] 47% of the survey respondents, have been given a ticket with a court date only to show up on that date and be told to return sometime in the future either because the accusing officer did not show up and/or because the ticket had not yet been processed in the system.

HTH has been told this is a regularly occurring event with multiple returns per ticket. Note that if at any time, the person experiencing homelessness fails to report on the assigned/reassigned date, the ticket ‘goes to warrant’ and the individual becomes subject to arrest and jail time. A class ‘C’ misdemeanor (e.g., no camping ticket) is a criminal offense and serves to be one a more barrier to housing, employment, and escaping homelessness.

So, the lesson here is, when living outside gets too miserable and jail seems like the better alternative, a person does not even need to be violent or larcenous. All they have to be is unable to keep up with a Kafka-esque runaround.

Reactions?

Source: “Police: Homeless man said he torched York City motel so he could go to jail,” YorkDispatch.com, 02/04/13
Source: “Homeless man begs to be jailed,” BelfastTelegraph,co.uk, 09/15/12
Source: “Police: Homeless woman stabs self for free room,” WLOX.com, 05/17/12
Source: “2013 HtH Civil Rights Survey Summary,” HouseTheHomeless.org, 02/27/13
Image by ibm4381 (John Benson).

On March 3, 2013, the Austin American-Statesman banner masthead read, “’Living Wage’ Proviso Targeted.”  (See the article, “Dallas legislator aims to stop wage requirements in incentive deals.”)

Apparently, the Dallas legislature does not want Texas municipalities, Austin-led, to require companies to pay “living wages.” The federal minimum wage is $7.25/hour, but Austin, like the federal government, has now plucked an imaginary number out of the air and dubbed it a “living wage” at only $11.00/hour. For the moment, let’s put aside the issue as to whether or not a municipality should be able to exercise its power position of employer to extract better wages for its employees.

To be clear, $11/hour is not a living wage.

A living wage is an amount that ensures that a person working 40 hours in a week will be able to afford basic: food, clothing, shelter (including utilities), and public transportation. In Austin, it is $13.10/hour. This is calculated by using a 40-hour-a-week job, spending no more than 30% of one’s income on housing ( a national banking standard), and HUD’s Section 8, Fair Market Rent Formula. It is also calculated based on the cost of an efficiency apartment in Austin, which is $681 on average.

To pay a lower wage can result in economic homelessness. At this pay scale, 3.5 million people will again face homelessness in our nation this year.

Image by Ari Moore.0

In a neglected film called Fast-Walking, James Woods portrays a prison guard whose relationship with a prisoner called Wasco is complex. This Wasco guy delivers one of the finest soliloquies in cinema, a rant about how much he loves it inside those walls. The prison is his world, where he is the uncrowned king.

Fortunately, most people don’t feel that way, and besides, each prison can only have one king. In jail, there is little opportunity for career advancement, and a very good chance of being assaulted or catching tuberculosis.

For these reasons and many others, humans don’t really enjoy being inmates. Why, then, is there a trend of people intentionally trying to get locked up?

Last July, in Missouri, a 25-year-old woman bashed in the rear window of a police patrol car and did it some further damage, then went into the station to confess. She told them she was homeless and wanted to go to jail. The police obligingly arrested her and placed her on 24-hour hold. There doesn’t seem to be any news of what happened after that.

In the same month, in Florida, a 19-year-old man called the police to report a robbery, and a fleeing suspect, armed with a knife, whose description matched his own. When he was apprehended, the youth told the police he had just wanted to be arrested. Didn’t he realize he could have been shot on sight? Apparently, it’s possible for a person to be so desperate, such a detail doesn’t matter. Fortunately, he was only arrested, charged with making false statements to the police, and held with bail set at $1,000. Which, in this case, might as well be $1 million, because the person had no intention of paying, because he wanted to be in jail.

Also last summer, in Washington state, an 18-year-old broke into a house and subsequently told the authorities he had wanted to be arrested because he had nowhere to go. Two months later, however, he ran away from a work crew, but had no luck finding food or transportation, and was re-apprehended a couple of days later. The episode added substantially to his sentence, which may have been exactly what he was aiming for — but of course, with no more outdoor work details. How out-of-options does a person have to be for any of this to seem, even remotely, like a good idea?

In Santa Monica, CA, a 63-year-old man broke into a restaurant, was stopped for questioning nearby, and happily explained to the police what he had done and how. They charged him with burglary, and took him to jail, and a judge named $20,000 as his bail.

On the other coast, in Florida, a homeless man who relieves his condition with periodic spells in jail has perfected a technique. Apparently, he always contacts someone in the same condominium complex, and asks them to call the police. Stephanie Wang writes:

He’s done it about 30 times since 2009, jail records show, as often as twice a month and a couple of times with an added burglary charge. Sometimes, he racks up multiple counts of trespassing in one trip… Early Sunday — not four full days out of Pinellas County jail from his last arrest — Treasure Island police say Santiago remained faithful to his routine. He didn’t seem to be drunk, on drugs or crazy, an affidavit noted. Around 5:30 a.m., 58-year-old Santiago went back to jail.

In December, a person experiencing homelessness in New Jersey conspicuously flaunted an alcoholic drink in front of the police, in hopes of being taken to jail. The officers disappointed him by only throwing away the drink, and writing him a ticket.

(To be continued…)

Reactions?

Source: “Homeless woman shatters patrol car window, happy to be arrested,” ConnectTriStates.com, 07/16/12
Source: “Homeless man made false report to get arrested, police say,” Gainesville.com, 07/30/12
Source: “Homeless Man Changes Mind About Okanogan Jail,” The Wenatchee World, 08/30/12
Source: “Homeless Man, 63, Breaks Into Santa Monica Bistro Then Confesses To Police,” Santa Monica Mirror, 10/01/12
Source: “Police: Homeless man’s path to jail starts at Treasure Island condos,” Tampa Bay Times, 10/07/12
Image by GuerrillaGirls.

Last time, House the Homeless looked at some of the erratic ways in which people experiencing homelessness are counted during the annual attempt to define the extent of this social disaster. A question that might come to mind is, “Who says erratic is bad?” On the contrary, it’s good that communities have latitude to conduct the homeless census in whatever way is compatible with the bioregion, etc.

Who knows? Some municipality might come up with a better idea, one that could be adapted by others to the benefit of all. But ever since the federally mandated program started in 2005, there has been dissent, directed at either the whole concept in general, or some aspect of it.

In 2011, word came from Fremont, Ohio, that:

Despite recent data released by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development showing homelessness is on the decline in the region, one local shelter director said the problem is just as prevalent as ever.

The story quoted the executive director of Fremont’s Liberty Center, Margaret Weisz, who may have spoken for many of her colleagues when she said:

Those numbers are misleading. In reality, homelessness is actually up. We have seen about a 30 percent increase over the last two years.

In Illinois, Susan Frick Carlman listed some of the things wrong with how the DuPage County census was made:

[…] driven in part by programming cuts at local domestic violence shelters, the county saw a 24 percent increase in families turning up at emergency and interim shelter sites during the latest fiscal year.
Also absent from the formal homeless equation are people who resort to friends and relatives when they lose their own homes — a practice advocates call ‘couch surfing.’

In the fiscal year that ended June 30, there were 1,486 people who used emergency shelters and other interim housing. Last year the number was 1,512.

That’s a difference of what, 26 individuals? In a year? The 1,486 remaining homeless people, divided by 26 per year… Extrapolate it out — that’s 57 years to get the rest of them under a roof. Some people have an unusual definition of progress, for sure.

The journalist also mentioned that:

Among other things, the yearly report found that workers must earn more than twice the minimum hourly wage of $8.25 to afford the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in the county.

More than twice the minimum hourly wage, did you catch that? Meaning, even if Mama and Papa are both working full-time, it’s not enough.

Ken Korczak is a freelance journalist who covers environmental, energy, poverty, and political issues. Last year, he pointed out that North Dakota had the supposedly best economy in the entire United States, with a “stunningly low” unemployment rate of 3%. Then he asked, if the economy is so vibrant and the unemployment number so tiny, why are the homeless shelters in Grand Forks and Fargo turning away hundreds of applicants every night?

As a possible answer, Korczak recommends a program led by Dr. Jill Stein, the Green Party’s 2012 Presidential nominee, and Cheri Honkala, The Green New Deal, whose literature states its goals as ending unemployment and debt in America. Their point of view is based on a belief that the system is rigged by the two dominant political parties, which might as well be one party, since they are both totally controlled by corporations. They also believe that corporations will not voluntarily pay appropriate wages, and are all too eager to reduce employees and export jobs.

The program could be financed, Stein says, by:

[…] shifting from an economy in which the majority — the majority — of our discretionary budget is spent on war and the occupation of other countries, to an economy that provides the secure, just, peaceful future we all deserve.

They believe this could be done by returning military spending to the level of a decade ago, and by “getting rid of an array of other corporate welfare schemes — such as billions in subsidies to oil and coal companies, banks and others,” says Korczak.

There is more to say about the methods of counting people experiencing homelessness. The counting is useful and necessary, if there is to be a fair appropriation of funds. But aside from sheer numbers, there are other questions it is very useful to ask.

House the Homeless recently released the conclusions of its 2013 Civil Rights Survey. As co-founder Richard R. Troxell says:

We strive to hear what people have to say about their situation and involve them in creating and pursing viable options.

These paragraphs contain some amazing stuff. People are turned down for housing. Reason given: because they are homeless. Without the proper 30-minute warning, they get ticketed for sitting or lying down in public. When they show up for a court date, the journey is wasted because they are told to return another day. (This runaround had happened to about half of the survey’s respondents!)

More than a third of them had been wrongfully deprived of belongings, by the police, and an even one-third had had their identity papers confiscated. It is very difficult for someone experiencing homelessness to obtain a useful ID. To have their ID cards, birth certificates, discharge papers, or whatever, taken away, could be the equivalent of a death sentence.

Reactions?

Source: “Liberty Center director: Recent numbers of homeless are misleading,” TheNews -Messenger.com, 03/14/11
Source: “DuPage homeless numbers defy pigeonholing,” The Naperville Sun, 02/22/11
Source: “Homeless numbers grow rapidly,” Examiner.com, 09/18/12
Source: “2013 HtH Civil Rights Survey Summary,” HouseTheHomeless.org, 02/27/13
Image by mikecogh (Michael Coghlan).

On January 1, 2013, House the Homeless (HTH) held its 13th annual Thermal Underwear Giveaway Party. While there are between 4,000 and 6,000 people experiencing homelessness in the Austin Metropolitan area, there are only 607 emergency shelter beds for every man, woman, and child.  This means that literally thousands of people will find themselves left out in the cold again this winter. 

One of our goals is to reduce the number of names read in November at the House the Homeless Annual Memorial Service (146 names of people who died in poverty were read this year). To that end, HTH outfits all takers with hats, gloves, socks, rain ponchos, scarves, and life-saving thermal underwear. Each year at this event, we invite participants to complete a survey that reflects upon their condition of homelessness.

This year, our focus is on the civil rights of people experiencing homelessness. Volunteers of HTH provided a 17-question survey. The survey team was led by Robbin Polter who interacts on a daily basis with people experiencing homelessness.

House the Homeless is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization made up of homeless and formerly homeless persons and those wishing to end homelessness as it exists today. Established in 1989, we believe that the best way to respond to homelessness is by involving those immediately suffering its condition. Rather than make assumptions about that condition, we strive to hear what people have to say about their situation and involve them in creating and pursing viable options. Below is an excerpt.

Thank you,

Richard R. Troxell

President

Survey Results:

A little over 630 people attended the event. Of those attendees, 208 completed the survey, or about one-third.

1. Completing the survey, 170 respondents were male and 47 were female. This would indicate that a greater percentage of women than men participated in completing the forms as past surveys place the female population at between 10-15% of the overall homeless population in Austin.

2. The average age of all respondents taking the survey is 45.

3. Responding were 33 veterans and 175 non-veterans (veterans comprised 18% of the total respondents.) A past HTH survey of 600+ people placed homeless veterans at 28% in Austin. Nationally, the percentage, according to the National Coalition for the Homeless, is 33% of the overall homeless population.

4. 74 people, or 36%, said that they had been hurt or abused for being homeless. The nature of what constitutes “abuse” was not specified.

5. Specifically, 28, or 13%, said that they had been sexually assaulted while experiencing homelessness.

6. Only 8%, or 16 people, reported the sexual assault to the authorities.

7. Only half of those reporting the assaults, or 8, said that the actions of the authorities satisfied them.

8. Without asking the respondents’ gender, we learned that 25 people, or an overall 12% of the respondents, took a partner in order to avoid sexual harassment.

9. Without stating the specific nature of denial, 56 people, or 27% of respondents, reported having been turned down for housing due to their condition of being homeless. Circumstances are unknown.

10. Of the 208 total respondents, 95 people, or 46%, said a police officer had given them a ticket for sitting or lying down even though the individual had told the police officer they were disabled or too sick to move.

A previous HTH survey indicated that 48% of the people surveyed then were so disabled that they could not work. This shows consistency across the samplings.

Sadly, this question was posed more than one year after HTH had successfully worked with Austin City Council Members to bring the No Sit/ No Lie Ordinance in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. This response suggests that enactment of the changes has yet to reach its fullest potential.

11. An overwhelming 64% of people reported having been told to “move on” by police without first having been given a reason or an opportunity to comment. This indicates that not all peace officers have fully embraced the tenets of the Americans with Disabilities Act and determined the underlying cause behind the individual sitting or lying down before responding to the situation.

12. Specifically, 18%, or 37 people, said that, as a disabled person, they were denied a 30-minute warning period before they were ticketed for sitting or lying down.

13. While solicited to come to the downtown area to apply for services, 51% (more than half ), reported that they had been turned away from either the ARCH or the downtown Salvation Army due to lack of room.

14. Having been turned away for shelter, and having explained this to the police, 66, or 32% of the survey respondents, still received a ticket for either sleeping or camping. This has been ruled unconstitutional in Miami, Florida, based on the “necessity” defense.

15. 68 people, or 33%, stated that they had their ID taken by a police officer and not returned. Loss of identification can be a costly and time-consuming replacement event. While this may or may not be an intentional act, the frequency of occurrence would seem to be cause for concern.

16. 77 people, or 37% of those surveyed, had their belongings taken or destroyed by police without being given a receipt or contact person to see about retrieving their belongs. Again, such action in the Miami-Dade, Florida, courts has resulted in settlements that favor the injured parties at considerable/needless cost to the municipality.

17. 98, or 47% of the survey respondents, have been given a ticket with a court date only to show up on that date and be told to return sometime in the future either because the accusing officer did not show up and/or because the ticket had not yet been processed in the system.

HTH has been told this is a regularly occurring event with multiple returns per ticket. Note that if at any time, the person experiencing homelessness fails to report on the assigned/reassigned date, the ticket “goes to warrant” and the individual becomes subject to arrest and jail time. A class “C” misdemeanor (e.g., no camping ticket) is a criminal offense and serves to be one a more barrier to housing, employment, and escaping homelessness.

Image by roboppy (Robyn Lee).

Back in 2005, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) activated a plan that would attempt to get a handle on the number of Americans experiencing homelessness. Each community would be responsible for counting and reporting their totals. These “point-in-time” surveys would ultimately determine how much federal money would flow to the community to address the problem. There seems to be a fair amount of latitude in how they go about it.

The enumerators might be volunteers or paid. In some places, they go around on foot, but a lot of the counting is done “drive-by” style. The count is supposed to include people who sleep outside; in substandard housing (no toilet, or washing, or cooking facilities); in HUD’s transitional housing programs; and one-night-at-a-time shelters.

Confusingly, on alternate years there is supposed to be a “full count” that includes couch-surfers squeezed in with family members or friends, people scheduled for release from corrective custody or hospitals, and those in permanent supportive housing, although HUD no longer considers them technically homeless.

The first time Los Angeles County did a homeless census, they scheduled it over three days, and used both temporary employees (at $10 per hour) and volunteers, some driving their own vehicles. The 1,200 personnel went out in pairs, into a territory divided into 500 pieces.

Carla Rivera reported in the LA Times that the overall project also included “an in-depth survey of 3,300 homeless people and a telephone survey of households.” It would be interesting to know more about that. Did they just call a random sample and ask, “Is a homeless person sleeping on your couch?”

Since the weather forecast threatened rain, the expenses included a sum for “hundreds of parkas to hand out” — to the enumerators. (Surely the reporter meant ponchos, not parkas.) The bureaucracy also had to rent a bunch of vans.

At any rate, the whole enterprise cost $350,000 out of the funds available to combat homelessness. Could the actual homeless people have used that money? Most certainly, but they must look on it as in investment in their future.

Another thing about the forecast rain, Rivera says:

… [T]he threat of wet weather probably drove some homeless people into hiding places.

There were further difficulties. A lot of homeless people who wanted to apply for the paying jobs were turned away. Enumerators were told by a police officer that Burbank had no homeless people, and to go away.

In Santa Monica, one team was twice challenged by the police, and anyway, they only found about a dozen people experiencing homelessness. To anyone who has ever visited the area where Santa Monica intersects with the ocean, this is an astonishing claim. Also, there were rumors that the local law enforcers had rousted the people experiencing homelessness just a few days before the “point-in-time” census.

In the Antelope Valley, where the government has been quite active in creating homelessness, a whole census tract:

[…] was scrapped after canvassers found the mountainous road washed out… Early morning was chosen because it is easier to locate homeless encampments in the daylight in the rugged rural terrain… [O]ne large census tract in Pacoima was abandoned because teams didn’t have transportation.

More recently, Mary Flynn shared tales how the 2013 count was conducted, in different parts of California:

In Contra Costa, volunteers counted those visible from their vehicles, while more direct interaction with the homeless population is left to the teams of qualified outreach workers who venture to the known encampments of homeless people.

The 120 volunteers went around during the day, though the director contrasted this with the technique used at a previous posting in San Francisco, where the census was done in the middle of the night. The U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness is eager to have more accurate numbers on “transitioning youth” between the ages of 14 and 24, but how accurate can the enumerators be about ages, when their observations are based on drive-by sightings?

Santa Clara county took to heart this emphasis on the young, and rather than in the early morning, sent its teams out in the afternoon, when more kids would be readily apparent. This county used homeless youth as enumerators, on the grounds that they would more readily recognize their compatriots. Apparently, young homeless people are not as easy to identify by sight, because they try to avoid the homeless “look.”

According to HUD regulations, the count has to be made during the last 10 days of January. California is one thing, but in most parts of the country, this is not the time of year when you want to be out on the roads trying to catch sight of people who have burrowed as far as possible into the crannies and crevices of the landscape to escape the cold. In midsummer, the picture would be much different, so this the wintertime census is an excellent way to keep the total minimized, on paper anyway. And California is not alone in its erratic methods — there is much more to be said on this subject.

Reactions?

Source: “Homeless Count or Are Counted,” LA Times, 01/27/05
Source: “In annual homeless census, counting youth is a challenge,” HealthyCal.org, 02/21/13
Image by Wonderlane.

House the Homeless has been looking at the ongoing mess in New York City, bad enough before the catastrophic weather events hit, and not getting any better. To suggest that conditions are worse for any particular demographic group is specious, because human misery just can’t be quantified that way. There is plenty of it to go around and dish out a share for everybody. But the the kids are, without a doubt, having a rough time.

They are homeless for a lot of reasons. The little ones are, hopefully, still with their dispossessed parents who, without a roof of their own, are keeping the family together somehow. There are “throwaway” kids, whose parents don’t mind their departure because they are unwanted reminders of previous failed marriages, and runaways who escape physical abuse or other intolerable conditions. There are young people whose sexual orientation is unacceptable to their parents, and others who have “aged out” of the foster care system.

In June of last year, homeless advocacy groups reported 17,000 minors in New York City shelters every night, and Mayor Bloomberg maintained that the city’s shelters offered a “much more pleasurable experience than they ever had before.” A Huffington Post writer gave an example of this idyllic existence as experienced by a 9-year-old child:

The girl and her mother, having been relocated to a shelter in uptown Manhattan, struggled to wake up at 4:45AM every morning to avoid being late for school in Brownsville, Brooklyn. But despite their efforts, Whitnee Layne said her daughter was at the risk of being suspended because no matter how much they tried to arrive on time, the difficult commute was just too much.

In October, the nice round number of 20,000 kids in shelters was reported, and journalists were compelled to make comparisons with the Great Depression. There are towns with total populations smaller than the number of children sleeping in New York City shelters, struggling with overcrowding and broken families and poor nutrition and interrupted schooling and inadequate medical care.

As AlterNet‘s Tana Ganeva had already pointed out the previous year, as many as 65% of the families that apply for shelter space in the city do not get in, so the bureaucracy’s numbers don’t include “homeless kids who are not sleeping in shelters because their families have been turned away.” In that same time frame, New York Magazine‘s Noreen Malone noted that the city’s public schools enrolled nearly 43,000 students without fixed abode. And that was before Hurricane Sandy and massive flooding.

Nationwide, at the present time, about 1 million public school students go “home” to shelters, cars, vans, abandoned buildings, cheap motels, church basements, garages, or odd corners in the homes of relatives or friends. The destabilizing effect of homelessness affects the young in numerous ways, impeding their normal mental and psychological growth and physical well-being.

The National Center on Family Homelessness estimates that homeless kids are four times as likely to have delayed development and twice as likely to experience learning disabilities, and these disabilities are often unrecognized and untreated. More than a third of these kids wind up repeating at least one grade.

A lot of things that housed children take for granted homeless children don’t even know about. They don’t have computers or quiet places to do homework. They probably don’t get enough sleep. Kids whose circumstances force frequent transfers to new schools are only half as likely to even graduate from high school. Kids who don’t graduate are twice as likely to become poverty statistics and join the ranks of second-generation homeless, and the long-range effect of that is a life expectancy of nine years less than average.

In grade school, middle school, and high school (if they make it that far) homeless kids are anxious and depressed, and prone to behavioral problems. They can’t concentrate in class. Inadequate sleep, hunger, and fear of the future, says Carol Smith of Enumclaw, WA, Patch.com, leads to “increased levels of stress hormones such as cortisol, which can wreak havoc on young brains.”

Tana Ganeva says:

Homeless kids get sick more often and with stranger and more serious ailments than poor kids who have homes, suffering respiratory infections and digestive infections at significantly higher rates.

These children tend to withdraw from social interaction and have what are called “attachment disorders.” They might even be shunned or bullied by classmates who look down on them. Any friendships that they manage to create are likely to be broken by frequent relocations.

But while there is plenty of research showing how homelessness affects children, there isn’t much on what schools could be doing to better the situation. For the Christian Science Monitor, Michelle D. Anderson interviewed Joseph Murphy of Vanderbilt University, author of Homelessness Comes to School, whom she quotes on the subject of the Mckinney-Vento Law:

Before the law was passed, only about 25 percent of homeless students were in school. Today, that number is 85 percent… The law requires that schools waive typical requirements, such as proof of residency… It also waives requirements mandating that parents provide medical, immunization, and academic records, and requires schools to offer transportation options.

Sounds good, right? So good, in fact, that caring attorneys were moved to create Project LEARN (Lawyers Education Access Resource Network) to provide legal advocacy to homeless families when school districts are ignorant of, or simply ignore, the law. According to their website:

Across the country, children are being kicked out of school when they become homeless. It’s not something you hear talked about much. Maybe that’s because homelessness in general is ignored in our public discourse. This may even be the first time you’re hearing about it.

But not the last. The whole situation is a ticking time bomb whose eventual results are set to tear the entire fabric of our society to shreds.

Reactions?

Source: “Homeless Children In NYC Shelters Rises To 19000, Near Great Depression Highs,” The Huffington Post, 09/10/12
Source: “How One GOP Plutocrat Helped Make 20000 Kids Homeless,” AlterNet, 11/29/12
Source: “There’s Been a Surge in Homeless New York City Students,” New York Magazine, 9/8/11
Source: “Homeless Children Face Emotional, Developmental Hurdles,” Patch.com, 06/08/11
Source: “Schools facing rise in homeless students,” The Christian Science Monitor, 04012/11
Source: “Homeless children shouldn’t be kicked out of school,” HomelessnessLaw.org, 03/01/12
Image by elizaIO.

Let’s recap. In New York City, there was a program that helped employed, formerly homeless parents to pay rent, and the city terminated the program. Then, they tried to make a rule requiring single homeless people to document the fact that shelters are their only option. With breathtaking arrogance and cruelty, the administration forged ahead with the forbidding of surplus food donations to shelters, by churches, synagogues, and other institutions.

In June of last year, municipal shelters were serving 43,000 people every night. The city opened more shelters, which cost more than continuing the Advantage program would have done. Each housing unit, holding two or three people, costs the city around $3,300 per month. Since Mayor Bloomberg took office, his policies have succeeded in increasing the number of people experiencing homelessness by 36%, according to the Coalition for the Homeless.

Before Hurricane Sandy in October, at least 46,000 shelter beds were occupied nightly, and of course that doesn’t even begin to count the people with nowhere to sleep at all. The approaching storm made it necessary to close up the subways, so that reliable refuge of the chronically homeless was gone.

Then suddenly, there was a whole additional population of newly homeless people whose usual residences were washed away by the flood, or were under water. Some of them, old and helpless, came from nursing homes. Despite the desperate need everywhere, the city retained its right to be picky about accepting food donations.

A November story by Nina Bernstein for The New York Times tells how when the storm hit:

… [C]ity officials ramped up emergency spaces to shelter thousands more people, mostly in public schools and colleges. Amid complaints of chaotic, unsanitary conditions, it then scattered hundreds of those people to $300 hotel rooms, from Midtown Manhattan to remote parts of Brooklyn and Queens. This week, officials closed all evacuation centers but two on Staten Island. Now they plan to rely solely on hotels, even as they brace for a new wave of people displaced from storm-damaged housing where they are facing winter without heat or hot water.

It was crisis after crisis. In January, The Huffington Post writer Maura Mcdermott told how nearly 1,000 Long Island families were on the verge of being ejected from FEMA’s emergency program that was keeping them in hotels. Their stay had already been extended twice. Mcdermott interviewed individuals and emphasized in her story how hard it was for displaced people to get to work, keep their medical appointments, and do other necessary activities.

When the 3-month storm anniversary date rolled around, there were still at least 3,500 New York and New Jersey families living in hotels. The uncredited author of a piece in Crain’s New York Business also sought out real people to interview, including Ayanna Diego, and wrote:

For storm victims with no other housing options, the anxiety is palpable. Most spend their days on the phone with a never-ending stream of federal agencies, contractors and insurance agents, struggling to sort out the housing mess Sandy left behind… Ms. Diego qualified for the maximum $31,900 lump sum allowed under FEMA’s household assistance program, and the money is supposed to be used for home repairs and short-term rentals. Instead, she is using those dollars to pay for gas and tolls to drive her niece to school in their old neighborhood, pay the mortgage on their wrecked home and buy meals for the family of four.

Earlier this month, the New York Post‘s Michael Gartland complained of homeless people hanging around in Grand Central Terminal, smelling bad and spoiling the appetites of restaurant patrons. But the transit cops only make them leave between 2:00 and 5:00 in the morning, when the station is closed to everyone. This, the writer apparently believes, is an occasion for outrage.

Remember “the public face for bona fide bad guys,” Alan Lapes? Thanks to the storm and the numerous cozy connections between bureaucrats and bad guys, New York City is doing even more business with this Lapes creature and his ilk. According to journalists Joseph Berger and Nate Schweber, Lapes is the:

[…] major private operator of homeless shelters. He is by most measures the city’s largest and owns or leases about 20 of the 231 shelters citywide. Most of the other shelters and residences are run by the city or by nonprofit agencies, but his operation is profit-making, prompting criticism from advocates for the homeless and elected officials.

Mr. Lapes, who lives in a multi-million-dollar house, does not deign to reply to messages left by reporters who request to interview him about how it feels to profit from the misery of others. When the city pays more than $3,000 per month each for rooms, the landlord get about half and the rest is supposed to pay for security and for social services for the sheltered people, many of whom are mentally ill, addicted, unable to work, and/or coping with numerous other problems.

At the Lapes establishments, security guards are present, but don’t seem able to do much about the violence, and nobody does anything about rodents, bugs, busted elevators, lack of hot water and heat, or fire-code violations. Amenities like counseling and job referrals are pretty much non-existent. The reporters quote Patrick Markee of the Coalition for the Homeless, who:

[…] blamed the Bloomberg administration for the continuing use of private landlords to house the homeless, citing a policy not to give the homeless priority for public housing projects and Section 8 vouchers because of long waiting lists. ‘The crisis that’s causing the city to open so many new shelters is mostly of the mayor’s own making,’ he said. ‘Instead of moving families out of shelters and into permanent housing, as previous mayors did, the city is now paying millions to landlords with a checkered past of harassing low-income tenants and failing to address hazardous conditions.’

Poor New Yorkers. And incidentally, from the other side of the country, here is a piece well worth reading, from Lita Kurth, called “Gimme Shelter: (un)affordable housing.”

Reactions?

Source: “How Sandy hits the homeless,” Salon.com, 10/29/12
Source: “Storm Bared a Lack of Options for the Homeless in New York,” The New York Times, 11/20/12
Source: “Sandy Victims In Long Island Face Hotel ‘Checkout’ As FEMA Program Nears End,” The Huffington Post, 01/11/13
Source: “Sandy’s homeless lead lives of anxiety in hotels,” Crain’s New York Business, 01/25/13
Source: “Filth and Fury: Homeless return to debase Grand Central Terminal,” New York Post, 02/02/13
Source: “For Some Landlords, Real Money in the Homeless,” The New York Times, 02/08/13
Image by Andrew Xu.