The Faces of Homelessness
By Sen. Will Espero
Attitudes that people are homeless because they lack personal responsibility hinder resolving the problem. But is this attitude accurate? Who are the homeless?
Former Military
Veterans who have risked their lives overseas in defense of our country and its allies make up 26 percent of those who sleep on the streets at night, though veterans are only 11 percent of our population. The trauma of being in the midst of intense danger day in and day out becomes too much to bear. The mental and emotional pain of war and severe sleep deprivation (another effect of war) take away veterans’ ability to function normally. These medical problems prevent veterans from being able to hold a steady job and function well on a regular basis.
The early presence of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan causes some to worry that intense, prolonged and repeated deployments make newer veterans vulnerable to homelessness. Vietnam veterans, in contrast, did not unravel to the point of homelessness until about 10 years after returning home. Vietnam veterans faced social upheaval, job losses caused by manufacturing plants closing around the country and the memories of the horrors of the war. Lack of social and economic support and inadequate or unavailable mental health treatment all combined to create levels of stress that our military couldn’t cope with anymore.
Mental Illness and Substance Abuse
The hardest to house are the mentally ill and substance addicted: 32 percent of homeless persons struggle with either mental illness or substance abuse, and an additional 31 percent of homeless report both problems – making this the cause for 63 percent of our homeless. Here’s where attitudes affect both how the resolution is designed and how effective it will be. “Personal responsibility” programs that require sobriety reject this largest group. Nationwide, for every 100 individuals or families seeking affordable housing, only 37.84 units are available. Housing may be unavailable when these persons finally get clean enough to meet program requirements.
Mentally ill and substance-addicted people became homeless in large numbers after 1980. The anti-institution sentiment in the 1970s moved these people out of psychiatric facilities into community-based care. Unfortunately, community based care requires a minimal level of normal functioning to go get treatment or even take their medications consistently, something that institutions provided. Without institutions, this group did not get or take medications they needed to function normally, and they drifted onto the streets as homeless persons.
With nowhere to go, these people often commit crimes that land them jail just to have food and shelter. Prisons are the largest provider of housing for this group. Average jail cells cost twice as much per day as a small, subsidized apartment. The well-meaning 1970s “community based care” model / 1980s neoconservative “personal responsibility” attitude resulted in our expensive prison problem. Prisons house more mentally ill people than mental health institutions do.
Former Prisoners
Most prisoners eventually return to the community. It is important that they get the job skills training, education, mental health and/or substance abuse treatment, housing and employment placement assistance to help them stay straight. These re-entry and reintegration programs help ex-offenders from committing repeat offenses by enabling them to live normally rather than getting busted just to have shelter and food. With an annual cost of $52 million a year for our three mainland prisons, preventing recidivism makes both economic and social sense. As Chair of the Senate Public Safety Committee, I introduced a bill, SB932, now Act 8, this past legislative session. SB932 funds $4.5 million of re-integration programs to optimize ex-prisoners’ chances of becoming law abiding citizens. We repeatedly heard ex-prisoners testify that learning job skills enabled them to support their families so they could stay straight.
Ex-offenders become homeless for a variety of reasons. Many return to unhealthy homes, where other family members are using drugs and alcohol, and the neighborhood is the one where former associates live. The neighborhood drug dealer may remind them how easy it is to make fast money. Even if they decline, if employers keep turning them down because of their conviction record and they have a family to feed, ex-prisoners may feel they have no choice but to return to crime just to survive. Certain types of felons are banned from public housing. If their families give them a place to live, the entire family can be evicted.
Halfway houses or residential treatment programs are unrealistic in expecting quick change from people who have been institutionalized for years in what is called “gladiator school.” Even if an ex-con has money saved up to rent in this high cost housing market, landlords and rental management companies can be selective in who they want as a tenant. Rental applications that ask for employment, housing and personal references can reveal an applicant with a conviction record, resulting in the ex-con not being considered as a tenant.
Carrie Ann Shirota, director of Maui Economic Opportunity’s BEST Program, which helps ex-prisoners turn and stay straight, says that housing is necessary for successful re-entry. BEST is working on a Maui version of San Francisco’s successful Delancey Street program. “Housing is the cornerstone of re-entry: the indispensable and fundamental basis upon which prisoners begin to build new lives. Housing programs that target this group do a greater service to the population at large in securing and enhancing public safety.” (Author unknown)
Lorraine Robinson, director of Reawakening for Women, a transitional home for female ex-prisoners, concurs. Transitional homes give former inmates a stable place to live so they can take the steps they need to take to become law-abiding citizens. Without a home, a job and social support, female ex-prisoners are at great risk for becoming homeless women. The need for a secure home becomes even more pressing if children are involved because the children need a stable environment to adjust to all the emotions they feel and re-establish family bonds.
Domestic Violence and Catastrophic Circumstances
To keep a roof over their heads many women may feel they are forced to stay in or return to hurtful relationships. The most common ways women lose their homes: divorce or separation, 37.5 percent; fleeing sexual violence from a partner or husband, 10 percent; leaving their parents’ home, 21.5 percent. Women also become homeless through eviction for either overdue rent or conflict with the landlord. Support for potentially homeless women is scant. Nationwide only 15 emergency advice agencies exist, and women’s’ boarding houses and overnight accommodations are rare.
The children. Homeless children’s unmet basic needs for safe shelter, food, wate, cleanliness and clothing make it difficult to grow up secure and stable, as well as make it difficult for them to focus on academics and learn normal socialization skills.
WHAT IS BEING DONE
The “personal responsibility” attitude doesn’t solve the problem of homelessness. Programs based on a “personal responsibility” bias typically require homeless persons to be clean and sober, take medication and the like. People who can function at this level generally aren’t homeless. “Housing first” programs are successful because safe shelter is the most basic human need. Once people have a secure place to live, they can see themselves as normal people who want a normal life and take the steps to do the things that normal people do: get job training, get a job, manage their finances and others.
Building affordable housing in Hawai`i is a problem because of the scarcity of land and the high costs of purchasing the land, building the infrastructure and constructing the homes.
Former military
The National Alliance to End Homelessness (NAEH) estimates than there were nearly half a million homeless veterans in 2006. The Veterans Administration (VA) began helping homeless veterans in 1987, 12 years after the end of the Vietnam war. By itself or with partners, the VA has made available health care and more than 15,000 residential rehabilitative, transitional and permanent beds for homeless veterans nationwide. NAEH recommends that 5,000 housing units be created per year for the next five years linked to veterans’ support systems, housing vouchers and a program to help bridge the gap between income and rent.
Mental Illness and Substance Abuse
The Pathways to Housing project in New York City offers apartments to the mentally ill. Based on a “housing first” model, its founder, Dr. Sam Tsemberis, believes a safe, comfortable home is necessary before someone can work toward recovery or employment. He launched the program in 1992 with 50 apartments using a $500,000 grant from the New York State Office of Mental Health. Dr. Tsemberis’s model helps people turn their lives around, because once they have a place to live, they realize they deserve a decent home and start becoming self motivated to lead a normal life and move out of the transitional home. Pathways is a success: 85 percent stay off the street after leaving the project. The 85 percent success rate is amazing considering that all its residents are diagnosed as mentally ill and 90 percent are addicted to either alcohol or drugs.
Former Prisoners
San Francisco’s Delancey Street project is the most successful program for getting former prisoners to lead straight lives. Inmates are housed for about two years and receive job training with actual work experience running businesses that in turn support the project. The program has been replicated in other U.S. cities and even in New Zealand. Maui’s BEST Program is in the process of getting a Delancey Street project off the ground.
At the federal level, $1 million was given to four demonstration programs in the Incarcerated Veterans Transition Program, operated jointly by the Department of Labor and the Department of Veterans Affairs. The program trains incarcerated veterans who are within 18 months of release and are at risk of homelessness to re-enter the workforce.
Catastrophic and Other Circumstances
Most of the effort locally is to build transitional homes that give homeless persons temporary shelter, usually up to two years, to help them get their lives back to normal. Most will be built on the Leeward coast, where an estimated 1200 individuals live on the beach. Two government individuals who are most involved in these projects are Sandy Miyoshi of the Hawaii Public Housing Office and Kaulana Park, the Governor’s liaison for Leeward Coast homelessness.
Catholic Charities transitional housing program will include day care and preschools and offer a food pantry; life skills classes, job training and placement; budget counseling (how to make and live within one’s financial resources); housing counseling (teaching how to find housing and stay housed); case management (making sure that the people are connected to the services they need); and community assistance (providing material needs such as clothing).
Kalaeloa’s Onelauena transitional housing shelters about 275 persons, including 123 children. It is managed by Waianae Community Outreach which reports to Hawai`i Public Housing. A second Kalaeloa project is planned after the Navy gives the land to the state of Hawai`i.
Paiolu Kaiaulu in Waianae is a 24 hour a day / 7 days a week emergency shelter comprised of enclosed cubicles. Shelter residents can stay for a maximum of two years as they try to get established in housing of their own. Opened in January 2007, it is managed by U.S. Veterans, which reports to Hawai`i Public Housing.
The Villages at Maili is another collaborative effort. The state Department of Hawaiian Home Lands provided a low-cost lease on Hawaiian home lands. Catholic Charities will manage the project and will report to the state Hawai`i Public Housing office.
The Kahikolu transitional housing project will open early next year in Waianae. Unlike the other projects, it will not be overseen by the state. The Coalition of Christian Churches, a consortium of churches on the Leeward coast, led by Pastor Boo Soares, is in charge of this project.
Senator J. Kalani English requested $5.6 million to build affordable housing for homeless Native Hawaiians on land donated by Hana Ranch. The Legislature granted about a quarter of that amount, which Senator English hopes will be used for the infrastructure for the housing.