Pathways to Housing, a New York City and Washington, D.C. non-profit housing organization, offers Single Resident Occupancy (SRO) apartments to homeless people before doing or requiring much else.
Many "authorities" on homelessness are quick to question or doubt their methods, until they do some research.
Between 1993 and 1997, hard research demonstrated that 88% of their clients--all of them extreme cases--remained in the housing Pathways provided, as compared to 47% who went through New York City's treatment system.
Another study funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, randomly assigned 225 mentally ill New Yorkers to either Pathways or a traditional program. After one year, Pathways participants were homeless 3% of the time, compared to 28% of the time for those in the city's system.
Radical vision and delivery this Pathways outfit!
Once identified, a homeless person is placed in decent, clean housing in two weeks.
While offering many traditional medical and psychiatric services and other "wrap around" resources like those we have in abundance here in Dallas (at least as compared to housing units), Pathways does not require anyone to use them to qualify for housing.
Housing comes first.
That is because Pathways' leadership understands that much of the mental illness found on urban streets is created by the street itself.
Lesson to be learned: People were not made to live on the streets of the city.
Founder Sam Tsemberis (pronounced: Tim-bare-is) says it best, "You're curing the housing problem first. You cure the person later."
Beyond the improved situation for the clients, consider the amazing savings in costs to the city. The savings achieved in reduced Emergency Room expenses, prison/jail time, shelters and other services far surpassed the cost to provide a decent room to a person for a year.
In New York City the cost of doing business in the traditional manner per person totals almost $41,000 annually. Pathways spends about $22,000 per person per year with much better outcomes.
Sometimes common sense can save us, if we are willing to step back and reconsider what we are really doing. Those of us in the "poverty industry" need to learn this lesson badly.
"Place first" sounds like something we should try here in Dallas.
6 comments:
Jo, you are right on target with your understanding. While there are many very hard and difficult cases involving advanced mental illness among our homeless neighbors, many folks just need to find a place to live where "home" can begin coming back together for them. Attaining that sacred, personal space and place is the best "medicine" possible for these friends. The sad fact is that in Dallas no spaces/places like this have been built to any scale that amounts to anything. We need to change this fact about our community.
Jo, you are right on target with your understanding. While there are many very hard and difficult cases involving advanced mental illness among our homeless neighbors, many folks just need to find a place to live where "home" can begin coming back together for them. Attaining that sacred, personal space and place is the best "medicine" possible for these friends. The sad fact is that in Dallas no spaces/places like this have been built to any scale that amounts to anything. We need to change this fact about our community.
"Suddenly I turned around and she was standin' there
With silver bracelets on her wrists and flowers in her hair.
She walked up to me so gracefully and took my crown of thorns.
'Come in,' she said,
'I'll give you shelter from the storm.'"Whenever I explain what is going on with our homeless friends, I find a great deal of resistance among my friends, family, etc. to the idea that there is a system in place which propagates their homelessness. Strangely, it is as if my "with-home" friends find comfort in the idea that "the homeless have chosen to live that life."
"Chosen."
Such a simple word, yet with so many different meanings. What is choice? What choices do we truly make, and which actions are merely accomplished by the intertia of our life? Who are The Chosen? What role do we have in determining the life that we lead? What has God chosen for us -- and are we walking that path?
Many of my with-home friends feel that their extremely comfortable lives are simply the result of their hard work and a series of positive choices that they have made. They get very uncomfortable with the idea that they could easily be the man on the street, his homeless wife or his hungry children.
The solutions you propose are a definite change of pace; my friends and family would much prefer to ghettoize the homeless (despite the fact that such a system offers no solutions and is, as you accurately depict, more expensive). My concern is that the people I am talking about will perceive it as "just another hand-out to lazy people" (yes, unfortunately, I have had this exact phrase spoken to me by a relative when I mentioned the concept).
I wish the problem were simply finding the best solution to homelessness -- the answer is so easy: HOMES! But our task seems so much more daunting that that: changing the public will from an archaic and inhumane system to one of love and hope, that we may be as Christ to each other.
May He guide us, and
may we find the strength to follow,
jeremy
Wow! I'm thinking about my health (physical and mental and spiritual) and how it is conneted with my home. My home is a tool that supports my health. Thanks God for a home.
Yes, I get it. It makes sense. Home first. Furthermore, it is incarnational ministry to do such a thing. Christ did for humanity without requirement. From a sociological standpoint alone, the benfits to the world because of Jesus are astounding. From a nature perspective, He sends the sunshine and the good and the evil.
We are required to do nothing in order to experience the goodness of God in so many ways. Why not be like God and share in programs of this kind?
Larry, your work is good. Thanks for the example.
The following link provides a concise summary of Pathways to Housing.
http://www.omh.state.ny.us/omhweb/omhq/q0901/Pathways.html
Thanks for the post. Enjoying your blog.
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