People who sleep inside should not make decisions that delay/deny care or opportunity for people experiencing homelessness.
That’s it. Full stop. If you’ve read just that sentence, gold star for you.
Right now, at this moment, I am working with someone who has been identified for housing. She is smart and sassy and a great mother and remarkably persistent, despite being houseless. She was also lucky to be identified. In any given week, as many as 750 people are vying to be “identified,” so even getting that far is a pretty huge deal. But once someone is identified, an incredible amount of bureaucracy awaits them. Paperwork you can’t even imagine. Proof of identity (birth certificate, social security card, identification card), proof of income, bank statements, medical records, triplicate forms. It can take people months to get all these items together, if they were lucky enough to be born in a state that issues birth certificates fairly easily. I’ve seen a birth certificate alone take three years. But my person is lucky in that way too. Because of her tenacity and the luck of her birth location, she has been able to get all those documents in just under two months. Imagine that. Two months of the promise of future housing dangling in front of her while she sleeps in rainstorms. While she goes to the hospital. While she tries to keep her family together. While her car stops working every other block.
Finally, though, her paperwork was submitted late last week. And she’s extra lucky in another way. She was identified for a project-based housing opportunity, which means it’s site specific and she does not have to find a landlord with a unit under fair market rent (which accounts for approximately 5% of all available listings) and then convince them to take a chance on her and her family (which is successful about 5% of the time.) But here her luck runs out. There is a property manager who will ultimately approve all her paperwork and schedule a move-in date. That property manager may be a wonderful person; may be overwhelmed by her work; may be, may be, may be.
We don’t know because the property manager is unreachable. Can’t get them on the phone, can’t get a response to an email, can’t get any information whatsoever about whether my person needs to complete more bureaucratic work, or whether she can move in soon, and if so, when. Radio silence.
A decision to respond to an email or return a call to provide information could be hope-saving for my person. It would probably take three minutes. This property manager undoubtedly sleeps inside. She clearly has no grasp whatsoever on the impacts of her negligence on my person. Maybe you have no grasp, dear reader, so I’ll tell you: when hope dies, things get really ugly.
People who sleep inside should not make decisions that delay/deny care or opportunity for people experiencing homelessness.
At our local shelter, case management is not provided as a matter of course. Neighbors who avail themselves of shelter beds or showers must complete several additional steps to be eligible for case management in any form, whether it’s ID services or something as simple as a housing survey. I don’t like it, but I understand resource constraints. In a conciliatory gesture, the local shelter has invited outreach workers, paid by another organization entirely, to come and administer the housing survey. This is a better-than-nothing solution, to be sure.
However, these outreach workers were recently told that, under no circumstances, should they administer housing surveys to those who have successfully completed the several additional steps. These folks, the ones who can jump through the fiery, flaming hoops of proving worthiness are arguably the easiest to work with. They’ll be easier to place into housing, especially if they can be considered for “identification” for community options, the automatic result of taking the housing survey. But no one can administer the housing survey to them. Why?
Because people who sleep inside have a philosophical objection to Housing First as a model, which accounts for roughly half (but nowhere near all) the opportunities for which someone might be identified if they complete the housing survey.
Let me be clear: the people who are making these decisions are not better at life than the people who are being impacted by the decisions. They were born into the right circumstances. It’s that simple. Success in life is not about making great choices, it’s about HAVING great choices. So I’ll say it again:
People who sleep inside should not make decisions that delay/deny care or opportunity for people experiencing homelessness.
Recently, my organization suffered the sudden demise of a 20-year partnership that brought crucial services to over 500 people each year. In the span of a week, we witnessed handwringing and equivocating and then suddenly, no more program.
It really doesn’t matter that the institution that made the decision made a $130m profit last year, nor does it matter that there were no clear reasons given for the decimation of the program.
What matters is that the people who made the decision, which saved their organization $50,000 and puts 500 people without other options (“the least of these”) into incredible despair sleep inside.
People who sleep inside should not make decisions that delay/deny care or opportunity for people experiencing homelessness.
This one is a little more ancillary, as it relates to my thesis, but it absolutely bears mentioning.
As a nonprofit administrator, I am responsible for raising the funds to deliver services to people who need them. I have a unique perspective because I am also on the ground, helping people. I know what’s needed in any given situation (or I don’t, and I have to figure it out). Every single time, there are two answers to looming questions: love and agility.
Lead with love and cast aside any notion of cookie-cutter program decisions that leave people behind.
But despite all the hard-won knowledge I’ve accumulated about how to bring love and agility to our beautiful neighbors, our funders saddle us with meetings and reporting requirements and cocktail hours, and oh-my-god the trainings, all of which are underpinned by this absurd injunction: you, nonprofit administrator, just need to operate more like business.
Look at any major corporation. Just pick one.
It’s clear as day to me: we, the helpers, need to operate LESS like a business. Hell, it’s kind of businesses that got us into this imbroglio, where we willingly categorize people into “worthy and unworthy.”
And your paternalistic meetings and requirements for funding? They take me off the pavement where I can actually help someone and into your boardroom so that you can, what? Pat yourselves on the back for all the good you’re doing, telling us about ourselves in our areas of expertise?
People who sleep inside should not make decisions that delay/deny care or opportunity for people experiencing homelessness.
I sleep inside. That is a direct result of the accident of my birth. I am fundamentally no smarter or better than the people I hope to help, often by leveraging my own privilege. Knowing this imbues me with a strong sense of responsibility to make decisions that enhance opportunities or care for vulnerable people.
This means that sometimes I’m texting with someone in crisis at a really inconvenient time. It means I’m pestering other workers in my field to be more accountable. It means I don’t sleep as soundly as would be ideal. But at the end of the day, it also means that I am creating opportunity and care for people who need it most. Who deserve it no less than you, dear reader.
People who sleep inside should not make decisions that delay/deny care or opportunity for people experiencing homelessness.
