Many economic incentives exist that could inspire voters to greater efforts toward ending homelessness, if only they realized and understood the potential. Writing for the St. Cloud Times in Minnesota, Stephanie Dickrell analyzed some of advantages that our society could gain by taking a different approach to the plague of homelessness.

The main concern is with children, because growing up in chaos has a number of long-term effects on the body, mind and spirit. The bill comes due later, in terms of social service programs. The safety nets that America has put in place for disabled people and unemployable people and vulnerable people like children have never been more needed. Law enforcement costs don’t have to be so high, but they will continue to grow as long as police are occupied with the never-ending task of chasing street people from one vacant lot to the next.

Hospitals lose a ton of money treating indigent patients. It costs a lot to send firefighting equipment and personnel to take care of relatively minor matters, meanwhile endangering the homes and businesses they are meant to protect. The taxpayers shell out fortunes to keep people in jail who really don’t need to be there. The body politic is hemorrhaging money from every pore, when by merely taking the same amount and allotting it differently, it could avoid enormous expenditures down the road.

Dickrell gives this example:

If Central Minnesota programs can make nine homeless youth self-sufficient by age 20, they save the equivalent of one year’s spending on services for 151 homeless youth.

That sounds like a reasonable tradeoff. The math was done by Steven Foldes, a University of Minnesota economist, with the aim of discovering the “excess lifetime cost,” or the amount that a homeless kid can cost society between birth and death. Dickrell says:

He looked at a wide range of expenses: lost earnings, lost tax payments, public expenditures and victim costs for crime, welfare costs, public costs for health care, education and job training and public support of housing…

The lifetime excess cost to society will be about $93 million.
However, homeless population estimates are considered by experts to be low. Foldes estimates the costs may be about four times greater.

In contrast, look at what happens when a mother wants her boy (who loves school) to have a good education so he won’t grow up to be a burden on society. Remember Tanya McDowell, who was charged in 2011 with grand larceny and conspiracy to commit first-degree larceny, for registering her son at the wrong school? She took a plea bargain, but under the conditions set forth in something called the Alford Doctrine, meaning that the accused does not admit guilt, but does admit that she or he does not have what it would take to win the case.

McDowell was sentenced to five years in prison, which ran concurrently with another five-year sentence for an unrelated crime. Although regretting her participation in the other matter, she told the judge that, for trying to get her son a better education, she had no regrets.

Dr. Yvonne M. Vissing is an expert in the area of homeless children and youth, who works with the National Coalition for the Homeless. She founded the Center for Child Studies at Salem State University and wrote Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind: Homeless Children and Families in Small-Town America.

Dr. Vissing believes that policies and practices that marginalize, embarrass and stigmatize kids need to be changed. No children should be vulnerable to abuse, exploitation or neglect. The mindset dictating that some children are more worthy than others of care and help must be eliminated wherever it is found. Bureaucracies need to be called to account, and educational inequities must be cured. Parents must not be forced into positions where, at best, there might be two equally awful choices; where the question of the “best choice” isn’t even on the table.

House the Homeless urges everyone to watch the video “Kids 4 Kids Sake” and share it with the candidates who are running for president! In fact, please do what you can to bring it to the attention of all candidates for everything, anywhere. Share via social media, contact the candidates directly, and ask your friends to do the same.

Reactions?

Source: “Child homelessness can have long-term consequences,” SCTimes.com, 06/04/16
Source: “Homeless Mother Who Sent Six-Year-Old Son To Better School In The Wrong Town Sent To Prison For Five Years,” CounterCurrentNews.com, 09/04/16
Source: “Yvonne. M. Vissing,” SalemState.edu, undated
Source: “Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind: Homeless Children and Families in Small-Town America,” uky.edu, undated
Photo credit: Brad Flickinger via Visualhunt/CC BY

During the 2012-13 school year, America’s homeless student total was estimated to be 1,258,182. In the same year, the amount of money available for the SNAP (“food stamps”) program was cut, and WIC (for mothers and small children) lost $354 million in funding. According to Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, around 19.3 million families were eligible for government assistance, although only 4.6 million families were receiving any.

Children experiencing homelessness fall into three major categories — the infant and preschool group; the grade-school age kids; and older kids in middle school and high school, who have a different set of issues. In this post, we look at what has been going on recently with the grade-school crowd.

Home is a concept

Hundreds of thousands of children live in places that only marginally qualify as homes, and some not even as dwelling places. Kids are in motels and SRO hotels; campgrounds, trailer parks, chain store parking lots, rented storage cubicles, sheds, rooftops, tunnels, garages, trucks, and cars.

Many families “double up” with relatives or friends in situations that are uncomfortable for everyone. People open their hearts, but it is never easy to share one’s own limited space for any length of time, and these stopgap measures are sometimes offered grudgingly. Interpersonal friction is inevitable, especially around financial matters. People may feel exploited or abused.

Those who share most generously tend to not own the buildings they live in. Often, letting people stay violates the lease and puts the helpers at risk for eviction, which adds another layer of anxiety with the possibility that hosts and guests will all end up sleeping rough. Painful as it is to say, that may be a blessing in disguise, because apparently the Dept. of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has required for several years that people literally have to be on the streets to qualify for assistance.

The restrictive HUD definition created what journalist Paul Boden calls a cruel and vicious cycle. Actually, it is more of a Catch-22 or double-bind (a situation in which neither choice is correct) which he sums up neatly:

Once families lose their homes, they scramble for any place to stay. If they sleep in a vehicle or remain on the streets (which is a criteria for being considered homeless), they risk being categorized as “unfit parents” and losing their children to public agencies. Hoping to avoid that, families will stay with other people, often in unstable and unhealthy situations which render them ineligible for homeless assistance.

The ills of society

It seems that parents can be charged with abuse and “child endangerment” if there is no roof over their kids’ heads, and what is that if not the criminalization of homelessness? Leaving that aside, consider the effects on the country as a whole, when so many children spend their formative years in chaotic situations. What happens when a whole population of kids enter kindergarten with their development already hindered by inadequate nutrition and toxic stress?

A study collaborated on by researchers from four universities determined that poverty puts such stress on the brain that IQ scores drop by 13 points. Journalist Abbie Lieberman wrote:

The National Center on Family Homelessness reports that “Homeless children are eight times more likely to be asked to repeat a grade, three times as likely to be placed in special education classes, and twice as likely to score lower on standardized tests.”

Grade-school children who are experiencing homelessness might also have experienced violence, or at least witnessed it, in their neighborhood or living place. They are likely to need dentistry or other medical attention, and may have spent time in foster homes. According to a 2015 study, 25% of homeless kids need mental health services, which really shouldn’t come as a surprise.

If a family takes refuge with older and/or more solvent relatives, there is bound to be a certain amount of “I told you so” talk or some other form of verbal abuse. Kids see their mother and/or father being treated like a loser, and that can’t be helpful.

Also, it is to be hoped that the parent is extra vigilant, to make sure the kids don’t break or ruin something in the home that takes them in. Out of their own anxiety and defensiveness, they might become more strict. Even when everyone in the shared space is totally polite, children are sensitive enough to be emotionally damaged by the awareness that people would be happier not to have them around.

House the Homeless urges everyone to watch the video “Kids 4 Kids Sake” and share it with the candidates who are running for president! In fact, please do what you can to bring it to the attention of all candidates for everything, anywhere. Share via social media, contact the candidates directly, and ask your friends to do the same.

Reactions?

Source: “Enrollment of Homeless Students Hits New Record in US Schools,” EdWeek.org, 09/23/14
Source: “The feds are redefining homelessness to make it disappear,” StreetRoots.org, 08/12/14
Source: “Poverty Impedes Cognitive Function,” ScienceMag.org, 08/30/18
Source: “Reaching the Most Vulnerable Children: A Look at Child Homelessness,” NewAmerica.org, 10/10/14
Source: “Homeless Children’s Stress Is Taking Its Toll; 25% Need Mental Health Services,” MedicalDaily.com, 02/19/15
Photo credit: SFU — University Communications via Visualhunt/CC BY

During his tenure, President Obama said that income inequality is the single most important issue of our time. But the actions of the administration and Congress have created a failed federal minimum wage that still clings to the archaic and pedestrian concept that “one size fits all” in a nation of a thousand-plus economies. Who hasn’t traveled? Who hasn’t found that a meal in Washington, D.C., is at least twice as much as one in Scranton, Pennsylvania, or the rent in Austin, Texas, is almost three times that of Harlington, Texas?

The failure of Congress to reasonably and timely raise the minimum wage even at its one-size- fits-all rate has caused major, heavily populated cities to independently raise their own minimum wage out of desperation. But these $15.00 per hour increases still fall way short of living wages in these major cities, and would put small business out of business in our smaller cities. And, soon enough, time and inflation will again erode the wage.

The answer is simple. We need to index the federal minimum wage to the local cost of housing. In this fashion, if a person puts in their 40 hours of work, they will be able to afford a basic rental property… No matter what that rent escalates to, or where it’s located. This makes sense for business as it stabilizes their minimum-wage workforce. This makes sense for the local construction industry (nationwide) that will get to construct housing for the 3.5 million people experiencing homelessness. And it makes sense for the homeless minimum-wage worker who can finally attain housing.

For these reasons, the theme of the this year’s Bridge the Economic Gap Day (when we get on our nation’s bridges and fly our banners for Living Wages) is: INDEX IT! Index the wage to the local cost of housing so that as a worker, I’m drawn back in off the dole to a life of satisfaction and accomplishment… So that I can again earn a fair wage for a fair day’s pay. INDEX IT! Index it so that as a worker I can experience the true meaning of the word “opportunity.” Then, as an American with a dream, I can combine the two.

For much more information, see Katie McKaskey’s writeup from last year’s Bridge Day. Everything there is to know about the Universal Living Wage can be found in the pages of House the Homeless.

Richard’s book, Looking Up at the Bottom Line, explores the idea of economic homelessness and how we can drastically reduce the level of taxpayer dependence on such supports as food stamps, TANF, general assistance, earned income tax credits, etc. At the same time, the book points the way to stimulate the local housing industry all across America while shoring up new business startups and ending economic homelessness for over 1,000,000 minimum-wage workers.

An interesting resource is this collection of charts, like the one titled, “The last two decades were great… if you were a CEO or owner. Not if you were anyone else.” To spend some minutes musing over them is to experience a disturbing array of revelations and emotions.

Remember how Seattle made big news by raising its minimum wage? The Seattle Minimum Wage Study Team issued a report in July, and Jared Bernstein reviewed it for The Washington Post. It examines the impact of the first stage of Seattle’s wage hike, which went into effect in April of 2015.

This raise was from $9.50 to $11. The second stage will occur in 2017, when businesses with 500 or more employees are scheduled to raise the minimum to $15. Small businesses don’t have to catch up with that until 2021.

There are a lot of details to take into consideration, but the outcomes are said to “fit comfortably into a view well understood by minimum-wage advocates and increasingly accepted by economists: most increases have their intended effect of lifting the pay of low-wage workers with little in the way of job losses.”

Bernstein explains his discomfort with the way in which Seattle’s advance has been covered by the press, and many other matters too. The 120 comments appended to the piece add more layers of nuance.

Reactions?

Source: “15 Mind-Blowing Facts About Wealth And Inequality In America,” BusinessInsider.com, undated
Source: “So far, the Seattle minimum-wage increase is doing what it’s supposed to do,” WashingtonPost.com, 08/10/16
Image by House the Homeless

Alert readers of House the Homeless blog have noticed that toilets have been a theme. We haven’t even gotten into showers or laundry, because there is so much to say about the most basic of sanitary facilities.

Latrines, and the means to wash hands after using them, are the building blocks of civilization. Toilets are a basic necessity and people experiencing homelessness need them.

Aside from the human suffering and indignity, and the menace to public health posed by a lack of toilets, there is another serious issue. In a societal/cultural/political absurdity that is indistinguishable from actual insanity, people are acquiring criminal records for public elimination when there is literally no other choice. Let’s take a close look at how one American city is working on the problem.

The backstory

Last year, Miami, Florida, experienced a long period of civic unrest over toilets. Attempting to shame the Dade Homeless Trust into using some of its $55 million of public money for a public restroom project, Downtown Development Authority board member Jose Goyanes made a video titled “Homeless Urine & Feces in Miami May 2015.” The DDA also prepared an infographic — a map of the downtown area with little feces icons in appropriate places.

The unimpressed administrator wouldn’t even look at the presentation, and scolded Mr. Goyanes for assuming “that the Homeless Trust is responsible for anything and everything involving homeless individuals.” Ron Book, who has run the Trust since Hector was a pup, told reporters:

We are not going to be putting toilets or showers in downtown Miami… We’ve looked at this several times over the last 10 to 12 years and we are just not doing it.

These folks think I’m supposed to divert scarce resources and be on poop patrol and clean up after homeless folks. My priority is homes and getting people off the streets, not providing poop stations.

In Book’s world, a $55 million budget is “scarce resources.” Also amazing is that such a high-ranking official believes that people only do one thing in a restroom.

Book’s theory, which is no doubt eagerly adopted by officials in other cities, goes like this:

If I’m making it easier for them to be on the streets, then I’m making it more difficult for my outreach staff to coax chronic homeless people off of the streets.

Mainly, this view seems counterproductive. When the first thing a person has to do on arrival at a job interview is ask for directions to the restroom, what kind of a start is that? Maybe if people had some basic amenities to work with they wouldn’t need to depend on the Trust for additional help.

Meanwhile, because the lack of bathrooms might change some hardcore street people’s minds about turning themselves over for rehab or whatever, everybody else could just wear diapers. It came down to a big County Commission board meeting with merchants, local residents, representatives from the City, the Homeless Trust, and the DDA. Whether the meeting was attended by any people experiencing homelessness was not noted.

Mayor to the rescue

Apparently, the Commission could have compelled the Homeless Trust to pay, but that turned out not to be necessary, as Mayor Tomas Regalado dipped into a multi-million dollar discretionary fund and pulled out $500,000. The order was made for four portable toilets, described as “airplane bathrooms on wheels.” A truck brings them around to designated spots at 2 PM and takes them away at 9 PM. They are open for less than one-third of the day, which is better than nothing.

In mid-December, the mayor and the DDA were happy to report that after only two months, the pilot program had more than halved the number of human-feces complaints. By the six-month mark, the effort had reduced the piles of downtown feces by 57%. As a bonus, the program turns out to cost less than the budget anticipated, so funds will carry it through to October.

The success of the Pit Stops is attributed to having attendants on duty. Among other chores, the worker knocks on the door after five minutes of occupancy. One of these monitors told a reporter that the toilets are used not only by street people, but by police, bus drivers, and government workers.

A lot of elderly people live in Miami, and a lot of tourists visit the city. Surely they appreciate restrooms too. The DDA’s Ken Russell said:

What started off as an initiative for the homeless actually has sort of blossomed into a service for the full city, as well as a jobs program for the homeless.

So, a few jobs have been created, although the seven-hour daily shift inspires the question of whether anyone gets full-time benefits.

Last month, it was reported that Miami will invest in three permanent public toilets. Construction for the first one starts in October, with an opening date in December. The funding? The county, the city, and the DDA.

Reactions?

Source: “Video Of Feces Downtown Sparks New Fight Over Public Toilets For Homeless,” MiamiNewTimes, 05/13/15
Source: “Miami gets a taxpayer-funded homeless poop map,” WQAD.com, 05/16/15
Source: “Miami Installs Free Public Bathrooms For Homeless People,” HuffingtonPost.com, 12/29/15
Source: “Miami mayor offers to pay for roving downtown toilet program,” MiamiHerald.com, 06/18/15
Source: “Miami mayor: $500K porta potty program a success,” MiamiHerald.com, 12/11/15
Source: “Pilot Program Provides ‘Pit Stop’ For Miami’s Homeless,” CBSlocal.com, 07/18/16
Source: “Public Bathroom Project for the Homeless Will Become Permanent,” WLRN.org, 07/21/16
Photo credit: Phillip Pessar via Visualhunt/CC BY

A news article about events in Denver summarized the situation in many American cities:

Currently, urinating outside is an inevitability for people who are homeless, yet it exposes them to police citation and ticketing. What is more, when an individual fails to pay a citation, or appear in court for it, they become subject to arrest. Thus, simply fulfilling a basic human need ultimately results in arrest. This greatly stalls that individual’s ability to extricate her or himself from homelessness.

The title of a piece from TheDailyBeast.com stated the case even more succinctly: “Homeless People Have to Pee, Too. Find a Place for Them & Stop Complaining About It, You Monsters.”
It quotes Shawn Shafner of The Poop Project, who agrees that prosecuting people for public urination criminalizes homelessness.

He says:

People who get dogs and don’t take them out to pee — we call them abusers. Those dogs get taken away. But for people with Crohn’s (Disease) or colitis or IBS, or those who develop incontinence with old age, or even pregnant women who need that space— we don’t afford them those same privileges a lot of the time.

And then there’s food poisoning, always a risk among people who depend on discarded food. Research confirms that a large number of people experiencing homelessness also suffer from a multitude of medical problems including traumatic brain injury.

People are walking around out there who are not even sure what year it is or what planet they are on. It is unlikely that such deeply disconnected people will go far to line up at a single restroom that is only open during certain hours of the day.

Not using a toilet is wrong, but using one is, too. Last March, in Santa Monica, CA, a burglary was reported at an apartment building with an untenanted unit. Inside, police found a man who just wanted to use the bathroom of an empty apartment whose door, he said, he had found unlocked. He had even brought his own toilet paper roll. Arrested for trespassing, he was taken to jail and his bail amount was set at $5,500.

A little farther south, in Orange County, an elementary school located next to a park has apparently been troubled by years of intrusions by people who need the facilities. The reporters don’t mention anything about any proposals to set up a port-a-potty or washing facilities. However, the District Superintendent has promised that a fence will be built and police patrols will be increased. Farther north, in Berkeley, where public elimination is of course outlawed, activists discussed the idea of mass break-ins at municipal administration buildings — not to steal, vandalize, or take hostages, but simply to use the porcelain facilities.

In Tucson, where people could sleep on sidewalks but not on grass, fast food outlet manager Nathan Hauser characterized a downtown encampment as “counterproductive,” particularly because a nearby park, used as a restroom, was a blight and a burden on the taxpayers. He said:

We pay to maintain that grass. We pay to maintain that park so people can enjoy it and right now nobody can enjoy it.

He was talking about townspeople and visitors, of course, but chances are, the people who are forced into this kind of behavior don’t actually enjoy it either.

The perceived need for debate stalls a lot of projects, as local officials seem unable to get past the stage of mulling over the pros and cons of public conveniences. They say things like, “We don’t have a definitive yes or no response on this issue at this time. There are a lot of variables that need to be considered.” Bathrooms, they say, need to be maintained, monitored, and managed. (So do golf courses, but cities that have them don’t seem to suffer from paralysis of the will over that topic.)

Last year in Fort Wayne, Indiana, there was discussion over whether to keep a downtown park’s restroom open all the time, rather than just during civic events. The Parks Director reminded the public of the expense that would be incurred by cleaning and maintenance, and liability insurance, and constant police attention. Compassionate City Council candidate Rev. Terry Anderson called a press conference, and brilliantly chose for its location a railroad overpass that traditionally served as an open-air latrine.

Reactions?

Source: “Downtown Denver Public Toilet Inventory,” DHOL, 8/17/14
Source: “Homeless People Have to Pee, Too. Find a Place for Them & Stop Complaining About It, You Monsters,” TheDailyBeast.com, 07/19/15
Source: “Homeless man arrested for trespassing needed to use restroom (crime watch),” SMDP.com, 03/21/15
Source: “Parents Worried About Kids Safety as Homeless Use OC Elementary School Bathrooms,” NBCLosAngeles.com, 05/13/15
Source: “Berkeley City Council Approves Crackdown on Homeless, Prohibits Urination in Public,” NBCBayArea.com, 11/18/15
Source: “Downtown business says homeless camp brings problems despite city crackdown,” KVOA.com, 03/10/14
Source: “Lack of public toilets gives city’s homeless no place to ‘go’,” News-Sentinel.com, 10/17/15
Photo credit: Dave Conner via Visualhunt/CC BY

In 2014, a California town of Manteca announced its intention to outlaw virtually everything that a person experiencing homelessness could possibly need or do. An ordinance was put in place to forbid the removal of shopping carts from stores, and, granted, that is theft.

On the other hand, good, housed citizens don’t all have cars, and in some places it’s accepted for a regular customer to walk a cart home and bring it back next time. Quite possibly, elderly and low-income housed people in Manteca have suffered from the necessity for this rule.

But when ordinances are voted on, one of the selling points is that they are fair, and apply to everyone. For instance, it is just as illegal for a housed resident or a homeless person to lie down on a table in a park. They are equal under the law.

They are not equal in circumstance. A local resident who visits the downtown area and doesn’t feel well, or suddenly needs a nap, can probably duck into a business establishment or a friend’s house, or be taken home quickly. A homeless person who feels ill or suffers from sleep deprivation is out of luck.

The Manteca homeless are vigorously discouraged from hanging around the library, where they are said to intimidate the patrons. Police Chief Nick Obligacion gave quotes to the press:

My officers understand that this (the homeless in Library Park) is a big issue with me.

There are two types of homeless. There are the ones down on their luck and there are the ones that chose that lifestyle.

My goal is to make it as inconvenient for them as possible.

If we arrest them and drive them to French Camp (the county jail) enough, sooner or later they will get tired of walking all the way back to Manteca…

Of course this pavement-therapy tactic is not unique to the town, or even the state. It’s the sort of life-hack tip that law enforcement officers all over the country enjoy sharing via their professional websites. Police can do a lot of things to penalize homelessness.

In Manteca, sleeping outside or “camping” was made illegal on both public and private property, which leaves no slack. It seems strange that homeowners would acquiesce to such a rule, which would include kids in tents, in their own backyards.

Of course, an non-discriminatory ordinance that applies equally to peasant or king banned public urination and defecation. City workers started locking whatever public restrooms existed (which, again, is probably inconvenient for the housed locals, but higher principles are at stake here). On the plus side, Chief Obligacion assured journalist Dennis Wyatt that officers are careful not to violate the rights of the homeless, because…

We don’t want to create expensive litigation for the city.

That is, for the locals, perhaps enough of a benefit to compensate for the loss of courtesy grocery cart loans and even public restrooms. However, such reticence was too late to help a parole violator who was shot 13 times (fatally) by a Manteca officer back in 2011. In April of 2014 a settlement was arrived at, in which the city agreed to pay the deceased man’s family $2.2 million. The new, stricter anti-homeless ordinances were proposed the following month.

Also in May, a police officer rousted a sleeping homeless veteran named Robert Olvera, inflicting serious injuries, and the whole story sounds pretty sketchy. Olvera is also suing the city, with a trial set for next April. That’s right, this matter will not come to court until 2017, and a lot of things can happen to a homeless plaintiff between now and then.

In November of 2015, four homeless men sued the city for civil rights violations. All the plaintiffs have received citations for camping, and claim that the ordinances target homeless people. Robert Schuknecht says he has lived in Manteca for more than 30 years, including residence in an SUV which the police towed away in 1995 because he was trying to feed other homeless people.

The law firm of Morrison & Foerster, and California Rural Legal Assistance, say that the area offers few shelter options, and most applicants don’t meet the eligibility standards.

In May of this year, the local news published an uncredited article titled “Conceding Manteca to the homeless?” which characterizes the people experiencing homelessness as brazen and bold, with an “in-your-face-I-can-do-whatever-I-please” attitude. By expressing gratitude that pedophiles, gang members and drug dealers have not yet sued the city for civil rights violations, the writer indirectly yet unmistakably equates homeless people with those groups.

Reactions?

Source: “Strategy: Inconvenience homeless,” MantecaBulletin.com, 07/22/14
Source: “This City Criminalized Homelessness, So The Homeless Are Fighting Back,” ThinkProgress.org, 11/20/16
Source: “$2.2 million settlement ends lawsuit over Manteca police shooting,” SacBee.com, 04/07/14
Source: “Manteca police: Below the belt attack led to officer’s clash with transient,” Recordnet.com, 05/31/14
Source: “Homeless suing Manteca over civil rights,” Recordnet.com, 12/05/15
Source: “Conceding Manteca to the homeless?,” MantecaBulletin.com, 05/16/16
Image by PH

Many cities are on the “sweep” bandwagon, and newspapers across the country are full of “sweep” news. Somehow the idea has become popular that the best thing to do with people experiencing homelessness is keep moving them around.

Citing the frequency of fights, fires, and drug overdoses in a 31-acre encampment, Brockton, Massachusetts, swept the area last month. The former residents, who were given a week’s notice before the place was bulldozed, are now scattered throughout the city.

Reporter Benjamin Paulin talked with Leigh Fuller of Church in the Woods, which provides clothing and tents, and feeds about 50 people every Saturday. Fuller told the reporter that the Tent City settlers “brought it on themselves” with unacceptable behavior, and expressed his disappointment that so few of those who could use rehabilitation are willing to accept the available programs. Some people moved to available shelter, while others returned to a roaming existence, sleeping in alleys.

West Coast

What happens when the city with the nation’s fourth highest homeless population gets ready for its biggest-ever month of tourism? Looking ahead to the Major League Baseball All-Star Game and the many events surrounding it, San Diego, California, started months ago to shuffle the homeless out of sight. Back in April, the city attracted unfavorable publicity by piling $57,000 worth of jagged rocks along the walkways of a pedestrian underpass, to prevent people from sleeping there.

In late June, hundreds of campers near Petco Park were given 72 hours notice before city crews cleared the area to wash sidewalks and throw out trash. A woman who was camping two blocks from the ballpark told a reporter that she and others had been threatened with arrest, while a city spokesperson said that most of the people who had been moved for the cleaning would end up back in the same place.

Early in July, a group of protesters made their displeasure known. A local pastor reported that he had been threatened by the police and a civic group, and told to stop serving weekly meals. Word on the street is that at least two other organizations were asked to stop feeding the homeless during July.

Reporter John Magdaleno says:

During a February 12 meeting with the San Diego Police Department and Clean & Safe, police officers allegedly threatened to “bring the hammer down” on [Pastor James] Merino if his non-profit hosted one of their meals during the week of the All-Star Game.

While the local police department declined to comment about procedures or the number of “encroachment” tickets it has distributed, homeless activist Michael McConnell gave the reporter his point of view:

“It’s a process of criminalizing homelessness,” says McConnell, speaking about the city’s protocol when it comes to its clean-up sweeps. If you have outstanding tickets, you’re liable for arrest, and one of the bargaining chips police might use in that case is a stay-away order for the area you were ticketed in, according to McConnell, who regularly interviews the homeless. “[It’s] the ultimate displacement because if you come back to that area, then you just continually get arrested,” he says.

Earlier this summer in Portland, Oregon, the city carried out a cleanup in an area where an estimated 300 people camped. Apparently the people just moved eastward a bit along the Springwater Corridor to join up with an existing camp in a wildlife refuge, making it one of the largest homeless settlements in the country. But no one is proud of the statistic, and now, that patch is scheduled to be depopulated of some 500 residents between now and August 1.

Like many other politicians, Portland’s mayor speaks of “public safety and environmental issues” as if the people experiencing homelessness are somehow not part of the public, and as if the environment is more crucial to housed residents than to the people who actually live out in it.

Meanwhile, in the city, a 200-bed shelter is expected to open next week — but a 267-bed shelter will close on the same day, making a net deficit of 67 beds. The really sad part is that Portland is an open-hearted and forward-thinking city that tries a lot harder than most. If it is capable of dislodging 500 people in a single action, imagine what goes on in worse places.

Recalling the old saying, “Everybody’s gotta be someplace,” reporter Rachel Monahan obtained from homeless advocate Israel Bayer a very eloquent quotation:

The situation on the Springwater is the direct result of not having any physical locations for people experiencing homelessness to be.

Reactions?

Source: “Brockton homeless advocate worried for those kicked out of ‘Tent City’,” EnterpriseNews.com, 06/27/16
Source: “No Action Taken Against Downtown Homeless Ahead of MLB All-Star Game: City,” NBCSanDiego.com, 06/27/16
Source: “San Diego’s Controversial Push to Hide Its Homeless Before the All-Star Game,” Citylab.com, 07/11/16
Source: “Mayor Charlie Hales is Evicting Hundreds of Homeless Campers from the Springwater Corridor,” Wweek.com, 07/15/16
Image by Michael McConnell

For a lot of Americans, their mental picture of a person experiencing homelessness is a scruffy man standing on a corner with a cardboard sign. Few stop to consider that close to half of the homeless population is made up of people who probably won’t be seen in such a public place. They are families with children, who now comprise 41%, or about two-fifths of the homeless total, and who are considered to be the fastest-growing homeless demographic.

Aside from visibility, there are other differences of course. Individuals, especially those termed chronically homeless, are more likely to suffer from mental illness or have substance abuse issues. But among displaced families, unemployment is the major cause, with low-paying jobs running a close second. Somewhere between one-third and one-half of homeless adults actually are employed.

To form a comprehensive picture of the situation, just go to the search box on this page and enter the term “living wage.” Plenty of people work, even full-time, and still can’t afford a place to live. When children are in the picture, things get complicated, because obviously someone needs to take care of them.

While it seems incredible that this should even need to be spelled out, Martha T.S. Laham notes:

People who are living in poverty are at greatest risk of becoming homeless. Demographic groups that are more apt to face poverty are also more vulnerable to homelessness.

Since 2010, Laham reports, family homelessness has been reduced by 15% thanks to “Opening Doors,” the Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness. (The chronic and veteran improvement rates are higher.) This is discouraging, because the program’s stated goal was to eradicate child and family homelessness within 10 years. Since it’s been 6 years already, a 15% reduction is not the number we might have expected, and certainly hoped, to see at this point in time. Why is child and family homelessness such a seemingly intractable problem?

It is easy to say, as decent people do, that safe, affordable housing is a basic human right. But we don’t seem to be making it happen. Homeless families face multiple barriers, one of which is transportation. We always seem to hear so much about the trend-setting places like California and New York, both of which have their own distinct cultures, but this illustration comes from a more modest place — Asheville, North Carolina.

When journalist Mark Barrett reported on local conditions, he talked with a mother who lived with her four children at the Western Carolina Rescue Ministries shelter. To coordinate with the city bus system, they all had to wake up at 4 AM on school days. Barrett also spoke with shelter’s executive director, Pastor Michael Woods, who confirmed that:

[…] a shortage of child care and the amount of time involved in using city buses to get to school or work make it much more difficult for homeless parents to find work… A mother “has to be there to put her daughter on the bus to go to school and she has to be there to pick her up, so she can’t get a job.”

 

Even when government money is available for rent vouchers, many landlords just don’t want formerly homeless families for tenants, and won’t rent to them. Another hitch is that landlords can be as picky as they please, refusing anyone who has ever paid a single utility bill late, or who has had a run-in with the law for even the most minor, victimless violations. Homeless families can rarely boast of spotless credit histories, especially if they took on debt in a desperate but failed attempt to stay housed.

Richard R. Troxell, co-founder of House the Homeless, reports that contrary to the mantra “Family First,” many shelters, starting with the Salvation Army in Austin, will demand that the homeless father and mother be separated in order to get services. “Mother remains with the children, Dad is sent to another facility clutching his wedding license and holding back tears,” says Troxell. “It is when they are down and out that the family truly needs the comfort and support of one another.”

Along with all the obvious practical aspects of living in a shelter, a single mother worries about less tangible issues. Because of the public nature of their lives in shared spaces, a mom can’t shield her kids from unwelcome influences. With no private space to retreat to, it’s hard to have intimate family moments, or sentence a child to a needed “timeout.”

Kids also can’t be protected from the foul language or wacky ideas of adults in the environment, or from the bullying of other children, or even their cold germs. If one kid gets sick, the whole shaky structure of coping mechanisms can fall apart.

What kind of a country are we building, when so many children grow up with instability, insecurity, and downright chaos? When they are grownups, 10 and 20 years from now, how will America look? As a nation, we really need to ask ourselves more often, “Are the kids all right?”

Reactions?

Source: “Fastest-Growing Segment Of The Homeless Population May Surprise You,” HuffingtonPost.com, 06/07/2016
Source: “Homeless families face multiple barriers, speakers say,” citizen-times.com, 06/30/14
Photo credit: Bryon Lippincott via Visual Hunt/CC BY-ND