Greetings!
Three quarters of the unhoused on the street, and in our shelters, are in need of mental health and addiction services. Housing First (HF) forbids us from requiring such treatment as a condition of being housed. HF was adopted because the homeless complained they were being kept out of shelters arbitrarily. Then, we adopted Coordinated Entry (CE), intended to make sure the most vulnerable gained access first.
Now, we're scrapping CE. closing the doors on the most difficult applicants. So now, those who are accepted are easier to serve, and they have no incentive to accept services if they were available. It's a plan for spending less on needed mental health and addiction services, and a betrayal of the desire to reclaim our public areas for those not needing a place to sleep.
The result is that we are exactly where we were when Reagan closed the state mental hospitals, except that we've hand-cuffed ourselves from doing what the agencies did who appeared when the hospitals closed. They had no HF restrictions, and provided required case management in treatment services.
It's worse than "One Flew Over the Cukoo's Nest." We've given up on the problems which led to the funding the residents and public demanded, and have turned our homeless facilities and services into nothing more than distanced beds for recently-homeless waiting to compete for a diminishing number of affordable apartments.
The CoC has to recognize that, while needed for a vibrant city, affordable permanent housing development will never solve the problems of homeless. It's too expensive, takes too long to build, and is serving the wrong population. They must direct that these funds be used to open the doors for permanent supportive housing for chronic and vulnerable homeless, and for the services needed by those clients to become capable of transitioning into permanent housing. Release these programs from HF restrictions on requiring participation in mental health and addiction services, and provide for these services in all supportive permanent housing.
And then, go partner with the Mental Health Advisory Board to coordinate the use of their new tax money to support mental health and addiction funds to bring the Care into your System.
And join my friend, Paul Webster, in the Hope Street Coalition. Watch the video on Take Back Oceanside. He's a brilliant mind, and a good Pied Piper willing to spread the word on where we're going wrong.
Gregory
Thank you for surfacing this burgeoning and common sense focus to service delivery.
ReplyDeleteTotally agree. Here's an article with some similar take-aways: https://www.city-journal.org/olympia-washington-mental-hospitals
ReplyDeleteIt would be a shame if Sonoma used a significant part of its resources to establish new shiny versions of "the projects".
ReplyDeleteIt would also be a thousand missed opportunities if Sonoma doesn't use even a small portion of its land, funding, and human resources to create "stepping stones" such as safe parking, office/computer/charge station access, mentoring, healthy self-empowerment, and community building skills and actuality including physical and social.
Thirdly, there is an ugly stereotype of "the homeless person" as a mentally ill, addicted, unhygenic, clutter-collecting, . . . THING that drifts into public places and collects in supported spaces like a rabid dust bunny.
And yes, those places are where you will find some of us when we have not found a better community.