Homeless PIT Count Solution or Useless Data?

Homelessness 

You can’t walk down any street in America without tripping over or seeing the homeless, they are on every corner and doorway and in every park.  I mean come on San Francisco has a Human Poop map, imagine having to have a poop map.  So why are we seeing more and more homeless? Is it that they are more visible or are there more homeless? 

It's not that they are more visible its that, there are more homeless than ever, and in many areas, we have seen a 30+% increase.  Here is what happened in Spokane County WA, where it rose by 36% in one year.   According to the Point In Time (PIT) count, the top three reasons for homelessness they heard from those who were unsheltered were; lack of affordable housing (20%), lack of family or support network (13%), and substance use (12%).  One thing that was new in this survey was eviction was the reason for homelessness, which was 7%.

So what is the real cause, well for that you have to dig deeper if you want answers.  You must look deeper into the top three reasons but they never do.  The lack of affordable housing has become more and more real and probably is the one that doesn’t require much digging. Here is a piece from Krem 2 news.  "In a survey conducted in November by The ZONE at the Northeast Community Center, 852 people in the City of Spokane were asked about their cost of living expenses. Fifty-nine percent said their rent went up in the last six months and 43 percent said they saw an increase of up to $500."  Recently the City of Spokane raised fees for new construction, which brought many projects to a halt.

When you get to “family support” it does require a little digging and you should ask for more details on family support.  Do they have family and if so did they turn their back on them or did he just burn the family out with drug use, abuse, losing jobs, etc? The new one this year was Evection, why were they evicted?  There may be a dozen answers here but all of them are important to know.

Here is something to note, every 5 or 10 years the local officials come out with a plan to end homelessness at the end of that time frame it seems like they just change the date and release the same plan because nothing ever changes. Until you know the cause you can’t solve the problem.  It’s like when a plane crashes, if you don’t know the cause you are likely to have more planes crashing.

Let me be a little cynical, imagine if a city like Seattle lost $100M to $1 Billion plus a year from grants that come into the community coffers it would be a huge loss in revenue.  A $100M is a lot for a city to lose.  Ok let us take that $100M to $1B out of the budget, they would have a budget crisis.  That money now has to come from another source to balance the budget.  Well, I guess I am not so cynical, King county announced a KCRHA proposes $11.5 billion plan to end homelessness in King County.  Well there ya go, homelessness is over, thank goddess, last year didn't work, but I am sure it will work this time.  So they put housing first again, and when does treatment happen?  As I have said before, every year cities say we will end homelessness.  

https://www.king5.com/article/news/local/homeless/billions-proposed-end-homelessness-king-county/281-414c50c6-2f8b-4af2-80aa-efcf952f2718

Let me give you a case in point Rob McCann, who is the CEO of Catholic Charities uses grant money to build homeless housing, he makes over $300K a year and has a staff that makes over $200K a year and bragged that he has two full-time grant writers that tap into the wealth payments to fund his nonprofit (lifestyle).  Show me anyone getting better by Catholic Charities housing other than the staff.  In 2021 they received $22,368,092 in grants, and $5,321,528 from Program Services. 

But here is the problem, with all these non-profits what do they do to treat the homeless and addicts?  Trust me if they are not an addict when they become homeless chances are they will be very soon.  Yet, cities and nonprofits take the same approach of housing first.  In my mind that is backward, if you don’t treat the whole person first how long will that housing last?  I mean come on, look at the Point In Time (PIT), it gives you obvious indicators by the numbers if you pay attention.

Here is what I have always said that needs to happen, get them warm and dry into a drug and alcohol-free shelter along with treatment.  Give them hope by providing training, and not just job training but socializing, being on the street they have lost those skills.  Then Meaning, a job, with responsibilities where they have to pay bills, follow the rules, etc.  Now comes Purpose, this is where they get their own place and because of the work they put in they now have pride, this takes 18-24 months.  Show me a government-paid homeless program that does this.