Let’s examine Baltimore’s two big plights. First: The city’s housing crisis has resulted in 16,000 vacant homes, and second, on any given night, 3,000 people will experience homelessness.
For the sake of human dignity, isn’t the answer to both problems to simply put them together? Why can’t these empty homes be turned into housing for the homeless?
That’s the mission of Housing Our Neighbors, a group that’s part of the Housing Is A Human Right Roundtable organization that’s made up of anti-homelessness advocates. As the Atlantic reports, the Roundtable is hoping to “create a community land trust — a non-profit that will hold the title to the land in order to make it permanently affordable.” The same approach has worked to protect low-income residents from gentrification in places like Austin, Texas; Albany, Ga.; and Albuquerque, N.M., the publication says.
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“Why do we live in a city with tens of thousands of vacant homes and still have people who are homeless?” Father Ty Hullinger of St. Anthony of Padua, a local Roman Catholic Church, says in the Roundtable video below. “We have parishioners who have lost their homes to foreclosure. These are families that work hard to keep their homes but found themselves, like many American families, unable to get out from under the debt [from] financing their homes.”
Baltimore’s just a smaller example of what’s happening throughout the United States. As Amnesty International wrote in a blog post following the last government census, “approximately 3.5 million people in the U.S. are homeless, many of them veterans…at the same time, there are 18.5 million vacant homes in the country.”
Here at NationSwell, we’ve mentioned several times how the idea of providing “housing first” has taken off in Utah, a state where chronic homelessness has dropped 74 percent over the past eight years and is on track to become eradicated by 2015. Similar initiatives are also working in Atlanta and Nashville. (It’s even saving taxpayers’ money.)
Give a homeless person a safe shelter and an address, then he or she can go to work on finding a job and getting back on track. “Most people are homeless largely for economic reasons,” Nan Roman, the president of the National Alliance to End Homelessness, tells The Atlantic. “If there’s not enough affordable housing, people who have additional barriers are not going to be competitive in the market and they’re going to lose out.”
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Tag: Homelessness
L.A.’s New Homeless Shelter Offers More Than Just Four Walls and a Roof to Those in Need
When most of us think of helping the homeless, images of homeless shelters and food kitchens probably come to mind, not community gardens and running tracks. But Los Angeles thought the latter would be beneficial, so that’s what they developed.
The City of Angels and the Skid Row downtown area, in particular, has a chronic homeless problem. And since other policies and endeavors haven’t worked, the city decided to try something different. So they built the Star Apartment complex.
Not only does the 15,000-square-foot apartment complex offer 102 units, but it also boasts a community garden, library, running track, art room and exercise facility. The purpose of the apartments is to instill a sense of normalcy for the residents — all of whom were previously homeless.
“The community that lives here should have a similar environment to anybody that could afford something more expensive,” Star Apartments designer Michael Maltzan tells the L.A. Times.
Sharing the building is L.A. County’s Department of Health Services Housing for Health Division. Using a variety of services, the Department works to improve the lives and health of the county’s homeless. Over the next 10 years, the Department’s goal is to provide housing for 10,000 people, according to the Huffington Post.
All of this is possible due to the efforts of the Skid Row Housing Trust, which helps find affordable homes for those with disabilities, poor health, mental illness and addiction and the low-income. In order to finance Star Apartments, the Trust received low-income housing tax credit equity from Bank of America and the National Equity Fund.
Any occupant of the Star Apartment complex who earns a salary must allocate 30 percent of it to their rent.
While it may seem that providing housing and amenities for the homeless would be costly to taxpayers and the city, it’s actually saving money. According to the 2014 study by the Central Florida Commission of Homeless, right now it costs about $31,000 a year to provide for one homeless person (due to the high cost of paying for medical and psychiatric hospitalization, jail time and emergency rooms), whereas operating the Star Apartments will only cost about $10,000 per resident for a year.
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This Veteran Literally Searches Through Shrubbery for Homeless Soldiers Needing Assistance
You can’t miss George Taylor — he’ll be the mustached man wearing a black cowboy hat, a shiny belt buckle and snakeskin boots searching through the bushes for homeless veterans to help along forested trails in Florida. When Taylor finds them, he brings them supplies or talks to them about how they can apply for benefits or find housing.
Taylor, who founded National Veterans Homeless Support (NVHS) in 2008, is passionate about this cause because, after serving in Vietnam and returning home with PTSD, he was once a homeless veteran himself. The 65-year-old Taylor eventually learned that he could apply for benefits because of his disability, and now his mission is to inform other vets about the help available to them.
For the past two decades, he’s been dedicated to the cause of helping homeless vets, which has served as an effective therapy for him. “I was a better person with PTSD by helping that other person,” Taylor tells R. Norman Moody of Florida Today. “I learned a long time ago that with PTSD you can eliminate some of the symptoms by staying busy.”
Since 1991, Taylor and his family have been helping vets. His kids even donated their allowances to the cause, and one of them, George Taylor Jr., grew up to become an Air Force Master sergeant and the vice president of NVHS.
For a long time, Taylor relied on donations and whatever funding he could scrape together to help veterans, but in 2012, the NVHS received a $1 million federal grant, followed by a $500,000 grant the year after. Unfortunately, the grants didn’t come through this year, but Taylor is trying to make up for the loss of funding through furious fundraising.
The infusion of funding allowed Taylor and NVHS to purchase, renovate and run five transitional housing units where 18 homeless vets can stay for up to two years while they try to become self-sufficient. Across Florida, NVHS also has held 16 stand down gatherings where struggling vets can receive medical and dental care, talk to counselors and learn about resources available to them.
Fifty-nine-year-old Adiel Brooks is one of the many veterans Taylor has helped over the years. Brooks has been staying in one of the transitional housing units for a few weeks, and now feels ready to try to reenter the upholstery business. “He is a good man,” Brooks says. “He is a good soldier. He looks out for me. He got me out of the woods.”
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Buy a T-Shirt, Help a Veteran
Mark Doyle didn’t know a thing about screen-printing t-shirts but that didn’t stop him from starting Rags of Honor, a Chicago-based t-shirt company dedicated to hiring homeless and chronically unemployed veterans.
Doyle now works as the director of Prairie Community Bank in Marengo, Ill., as well as the football coach at St. Pat’s High School in Chicago. But back in 2010, he was hired to help the U.S. Army investigate financial corruption in Afghanistan. While there, he was struck by the dedication of the service members and also by the fact that a lot of money was being spent on foreign aid, while relatively little was dedicated to helping struggling veterans back home.
So Doyle started Rags of Honor, a company that pays its veteran employees a living wage to produce a variety of patriotic and pro-Chicago t-shirts, as well as orders of custom-printed shirts. Rags of Honor trains workers even if they have no related experience and provides them benefits and opportunities for advancement.
The company has been a lifesaver for Navy veteran Tamika Holyfield. “I did two years and a half at the Bartons Air Base in Afghanistan,” she tells Ravi Baichwal of ABC 7 Chicago. “I returned to hardship and turmoil. I didn’t have a place to live, so I was basically living out of my car.”
The same was true for Frank Beamon III, who served as a machine gunner in Afghanistan, but found that his experience there counted for little with employers when he returned home to the Windy City. Both Holyfield and Beamon ended up homeless.
“The day I told them they were hired, they started crying on the spot,” Doyle tells Baichwal. “These are grown men and women. So never underestimate what just a job can mean to somebody who has no hope.”
For those who might think that they don’t have the power to reach out and help veterans, “You don’t have to be the President,” Doyle says. “You don’t have to start Google. Make a difference in the lives immediately around you. Give somebody hope. That’s what we’re doing. That’s what we do, one t-shirt at a time. If I can leave anybody with anything, give somebody hope today.”
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What Happens When You Give a Homeless Person Money?
As the saying goes, “A kind and compassionate act is often its own reward.” But getting a little bit of cash for being nice? Well, that’s just icing on the cake.
That’s exactly what happened to some generous souls in Tempe, Ariz. who decided to donate their hard-earned money to a homeless person. Not only did the panhandler immediately give the money back, but these kind people were surprised with an additional $20.
As it turns out, that “homeless person” was actually YouTube star Dawson Gurley, aka Big Daws, who’s better known for his pranks on innocent bystanders (eating junkfood at the gym, playing drinking games at the library).
“I see a lot of videos on YouTube about giving to the homeless and doing great things,” Gurley says. “So today I wanted to give back to the people giving to the homeless.”
Even though there were some people who demanded that Gurley get off the streets or get a job, there were others such as the man at the one-minute mark, who wanted to give money even though he just got out of homelessness himself.
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At the end of the video, Gurley meets a woman named Charna Foley who has been struggling to find a job for three months. She breaks down in tears after receiving the YouTuber’s last $20. She later tells ABC15, “He gave me freedom that day to be normal and buy what I want.”
The clip, which is now going viral, has touched so many viewers that several have asked how they can also help Foley get back on her feet. Gurley has since set up a PayPal account for people to make donations to her (send funds to [email protected]).
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How A Bike and Some Books Are Helping the Homeless
Back in 2011, Portland, Oregon’s Laura Moulton won a grant to fund a book bicycle that would serve as a mobile lending library to the city’s homeless population. From it, Street Books, a tricycle carting a chest full of books to lend, was born.
Unfortunately, the grant money only lasted for three months, but Moulton knew she couldn’t quit.
“At the end of that first summer I arrived late for one of the last shifts and Keith, a regular patron, was waiting for me with his book,” she tells Rebecca Koffman of The Oregonian. “I realized this wasn’t a service that could be suspended because an art project had come to an end.”
So Moulton founded a nonprofit to keep Street Books pedaling — purchasing books and funding three librarians who cover three-hour shifts, three days a week at locations accessible to many homeless people.
Street Books doesn’t fuss if a book isn’t returned (though most are). “We decided to operate the library on the assumption that people living outside have more pressing concerns than returning a library book, and that every time a return came in, it would be cause for celebration,” Moulton writes on the nonprofit’s website.
Moulton says that the book bike attracts all kinds of people, and that it’s often the catalyst for someone to start a conversation with a homeless person instead of avoiding eye contact. When people approach to find out about what Street Books is, “one of our patrons will be there,” she says, “ready to set down his or her backpack and talk about books. It’s an opportunity for people to step out of their prescribed roles.”
Diana Rempe, one of the librarians, tells Koffman, “There are so many really obvious assumed differences, assumptions that because you don’t have a roof over your head and some basic needs are not met, doesn’t mean that you aren’t interested in ideas, the life of the mind, the joy of reading. That’s right up there with nourishment of other sorts.”
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One of Street Books’ regular customers is Ben Hodgson, a formerly homeless veteran who now lives in Section 8 housing. While he was on the streets, the literature Street Books provided brought him comfort, and now he works on Fridays as the inventory specialist, helping the librarians sort books. “Street Books didn’t get me the heck off the streets; no-one can do that for you,” Hodgson says. “But it was, what do they call them? Street Books was one of those tender mercies.”
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The Controversial Way That an L.A. Suburb Is Helping the Homeless
Some of us might feel uneasy about handing money to a homeless person, but one Los Angeles suburb is trying out a new, slightly contentious approach.
The city of Pasadena will install 14 bright orange, smiley-faced parking meters that work just like regular parking meters with one exception: One hundred percent of the money collected in them will go to nonprofits that serve the homeless, the Los Angeles Times reports. The meters are a part of the Real Change Movement, that aims to raise awareness about homelessness as well as generate funds.
Officials say this program helps assure donors that their money will go directly to an organization fighting homelessness. “This is a clear alternative where people contributing know that all the money will go to effective services,” Pasadena’s housing director, Bill Huang, tells the newspaper.
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Others, however, have been skeptical, claiming that the meters are just a way to expel panhandlers. Local activist Paul Boden says, “If we would get serious about addressing the actual economic and social issues that we find so offputting, we wouldn’t need meters.”
As local homeless woman Holly Johnson says to the LA Times, “It’s a nice idea, but we don’t get that money,” adding that homeless organizations don’t necessarily fulfill the needs that are specific to her, such as a hotel room or medical attention.
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According to the Times report, the meter campaign cost $350,000, which was paid for by various grants and corporate sponsorships. No city money was used.
Other cities that have meter programs have varied success — Denver raised about $30,000 a year, but Orlando’s meters raised only $2,000 in three years. So far, the two meters in Pasadena have reportedly raised about $270 in three weeks.
Only time will tell if these parking meters can make real change.
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The National Movement to End Veteran Homelessness Continues in These Two Cities
Two midwest cities are stepping up and helping out veterans that don’t have homes.
On Sept. 16, Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel announced a plan to end homelessness among former service members living in the Windy City by 2015. A $5 million program providing housing and other assistance to veterans will be funded through a federal grant, along with $800,000 from the city’s 2015 budget. Chicago will also donate four acres of land for new housing facilities.
In a press conference, Emanuel said, “By the end of 2015, there will not be a homeless veteran in the city of Chicago.”
Emanuel spoke at Hope Manor I, a supportive housing complex for veterans that provides free places to live for up to 50 homeless veterans and affordable housing for 30 more veterans. On the first floor of the building, veterans and their families can take job-training and employment-readiness classes, learn how to use a computer, attend peer support groups and benefit from counseling and case management services. Residents can also gather in a multi-purpose room designed to foster a sense of community among them.
During the press conference, Emanuel announced that a new center Hope Manor for Families — a facility that will accommodate entire families — will open soon.
Since Hope Manor I opened, two other similar facilities have started welcoming needy vets: Hope Manor II and Veterans New Beginnings. According to Fran Spielman of the Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago took a census of its homeless veterans in January — a “point-in-time count” measuring how many people were out on the streets on one night. The researchers found 721 homeless veterans — 465 lived in shelters and 256 had no place to call home.
The same day that Emanuel announced this program, another Midwestern mayor publicly committed his administration to the cause of ending homelessness among veterans by 2015: Mayor Carl Brewer of Wichita, Kansas. KSN TV reports that Brewer announced at a City Council meeting, “Veteran homelessness is not an intractable social problem that can’t be solved”
“By focusing our resources and renewing our communities’ commitment to this issue, we can end veteran homelessness in our city and our country. I’m proud to join mayors across the country as we work toward the important goal of honoring the service of our veterans by making sure all of them have a home to call their own,” said Brewer.
According to KSN TV, since 2010 when the federal government launched Opening Doors (a comprehensive plan to end homelessness) homelessness among veterans in America has decreased by 24 percent.
If the plans of these mayors succeed, Chicago and Wichita could join Phoenix, Los Angeles and other cities who are striving to make homelessness among veterans a thing of the past.
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Portland is About to Get Tons of Tiny Homes That Can Shelter the Homeless
On any ordinary night in Portland, Ore., an estimated 4,000 people sleep on the city’s streets or in shelters, according to the Portland Housing Bureau.
This year, as the Rose City passes its deadline for the 10 Year Plan to End Homelessness, a growing number of locals are growing frustrated with a lack of solutions.
Which is why local entrepreneur Tim Cornell decided to repurpose a project designed for Haiti and retrofit a blueprint for urban areas such as Portland. Cornell’s company, Techdwell, builds tiny, economical homes that can be assembled in just a day’s time with limited construction experience.
The houses, which include just a small kitchen, a bathroom and a couch that turns into a bed, costs about $12,000 to build and can also accommodate families, according to Fast Company.
Thanks to Cornell’s persistence, this type of residence may soon be available to Portland’s large homeless population in less than a year. After months of zoning processes and meetings with citiy officials and community boards, Techdwell’s plan is expected to pass a final zoning approval. Should the plan get the green light, the city will break ground on the first tiny home community in February 2015.
“I said, look, we can do a community — 25 homes, 40 homes — in an infill lot, making it look acceptable,” Cornell tells Fast Company. “Not a camp, not tents, but aesthetically pleasing. Just do something — here’s a plan that’s feasible.”
The company is already selling homes to individuals looking for a simpler way of life, with eco-friendly features including solar panels, rainwater collection and composting toilets. Cornell is also in talks with Washington state officials to start erecting homes for disaster victims in the wake of the devastation left from recent wildfires and floods.
Of course Techdwell’s model is not the first of it’s kind. Similar projects for homeless have cropped up in Wisconsin and Texas, as well as New York state.
As Portland’s decade-old program to help the homeless expires, maybe Techdwell’s vision is the key to a future plan that’s affordable and sustainable — increasing its chance of success.
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Which 3 Cities are Fighting Poverty Through a Tech Cohort?
As more cities embrace the civic innovation movement to tackle local problems, Philadelphia, Nashville and Louisville are harnessing new technology to reach out to residents in most need of help.
In collaboration with nonprofit Living Cities and the nonprofit arm of global bank Citi, the Citi Foundation, the three cities will form the first cohort under City Accelerator, a program with the goal of helping nine cities innovate solutions to tackle everyday challenges facing low-income residents.
Louisville, Nashville and Philadelphia have been selected to spend the next 18 months implementing tech-driven solutions with guidance from coaches and other municipal innovators to create solutions faster and promote more proactive governance. But unlike other philanthropic programs aimed at municipal innovation, there’s no monetary incentive.
Instead, each city receives $3 million worth of technical assistance and consulting to implement their respective innovative projects.
Louisville plans to use its established innovation toolkit as part of the pilot program, focusing on services for people suffering from mental illness and substance abuse while Nashville officials plan to collaborate with other city agencies and local nonprofits to combat homelessness through affordable housing and more economic opportunity, according to Governing.
“Both the public and private sectors in Nashville are filled with dedicated individuals who work hard every day to help more citizens share in our city’s economic success,” says Nashville Mayor Karl Dean. “Our Office of Innovation is working to bring all of those entities to the same table, because we know separate efforts can be much more impactful when our strategies are unified and everyone is willing to consider new approaches.”
Meanwhile, Philadelphia’s innovation team will partner with city departments to assist low-income residents in accessing benefits and tax relief.
As a cohort, all three cities will also rely on each other to share ideas and resources as they implement solutions to their local problems.
“Cities are getting better at making incremental improvements to the way they deliver services,” says Nigel Jacob, co-founder of the Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics for the City of Boston, who is leading the first cohort. “This is important, but it is not enough to solve our greatest challenges. Cities need to be able to find breakthrough ways of solving problems on an ongoing basis.”
The goal is to get more urban communities on board with innovating faster, creating more universal solutions that can be consistently applied elsewhere. The three cities were selected from 35 other cities and six finalists, and two more City Accelerator cohorts are expected to launch in spring and fall of 2015, according to a press release. Living Cities also plans to regularly update an innovation guide.
“There’s a cacophony of activity around ‘cities need to be doing different things,’” says Ted Smith, chief of civic innovation in Louisville. “We’re now at a point where we’re trying to get some focus on the way that cities rationalize, organize and prioritize this kind of effort in a sustainable way.”
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