What are your questions and concerns

So much has changed in homeless services since I took a long nap to go to USC. Measure H passed. Housing First has become a popular buzzword. The homeless numbers are rising. Mark Horvath has gone international. Tell me what you want to know more about – or want to explore with me.

Learning to be Housed

” How important is it that I pay rent ?”. As jaw droppingly stupid as hearing those words from someone who is expecting a new car tomorrow is – I heard them last night. Often homelessness is caused – not by lack of resources- but by the unwise spending of resources. (Gas to go far […]

$ Being homeless is expensive. Really.

You may have heard that it costs more to have a person live on the streets than it does to house them. It’s a weird concept and for a moment you feel like someone is pulling your leg or doing Reaganomics. I mean, you know how much it costs to be housed. Rent+utilities+gardener+repairmen = a whole […]

Housing First hits Fairfax county

Off the street and back on your feet faster, teaching people to be tenants and housed rather than the coping skills to survive life in a shelter. That is Housing First and it is my favorite type of Homeless Recovery Service. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/31/AR2010033101566.html Read how it is working in Fairfax with a young single mother who […]

New York Homeless Housing program broken

New York Work Advantage program is housing families in homes that are in foreclosure, apartments with mold, mice and no hot water. the Daily News has more information The Advantage program sounds wonderful. It is not tied in to the welfare system and offers life skills, budgeting and legal services. The problem is that while […]

LAHSA is right about Homeless dumping

LAHSA was asked about the problem of homeless hospital patients being driven to Skid Row, and left there because they have no homes to return to, in a LA TIMES article . Permanent shelter beds, transitional shelters and low income housing – we need so many more of these facilities. We need them for the […]

Why are people homeless?

John Best showed me that there are several common factors in a Homeless person’s life. Often a person has more than one of these issues as an ingredient into their homelessness. mental illness – possibly undiagnosed physical illness poor relationship with family criminal history victim of crime alcohol addiction drug addiction member of street culture/street […]