Last night on NightWatch, I talked to a homeless friend who’s completed two different well-known, faith-based, long-term, residential substance abuse rehabilitation programs. But he’s still on the street, and still using. So, what happened? The big flaw in many residential rehab programs is the lack of after-care. In both of … > read more
NPR’s Housing First: A Special Report is “a yearlong special reporting project by a team of NPR News radio and Web journalists… explor[ing] why it’s so difficult for Americans with special needs to find good housing — and how the lack of housing often stymies their efforts to join, and … > read more
Notes from the state homeless conference, 04/10/07: Notes from session with John Yazwinski, Executive Director, Father Bill’s Place in Quincy, Massachusetts: Rules and regulations in homeless shelters don’t work for many people with significant mental illness or serious substance abuse issues. They’re asked to stand in line to get a … > read more
Check out Jordan Green’s story in the current YES! Weekly about homeless camps being cleared to make way for development at MLK and Lee Sts. in Greensboro. I started writing about it after the City contacted me and asked if I’d help alert the homeless folks that the land was … > read more
“Arthur Sena spent years living in a hole that he had dug near the railroad tracks. He would probably still be there, defying offers of help from social workers and using cardboard to ward off the chill, if Denver had not adopted a radical strategy of putting homeless people into … > read more
London is ahead of us with their “rough sleepers initiative,” which is their plan to move the homeless off the streets and into permanent supportive housing (what we call “housing first” in our Ten Year Plans here in America.) But has it worked? Has anything really changed? “If you look … > read more
In January, I wrote a post entitled “Housing the Homeless: Helping or Enabling? Merciful or Money-saving?” about the “housing first” method of housing the homeless. With “housing first,” mentally ill and/or addicted homeless individuals are given housing without being required to take medication or accept substance abuse treatment. The idea … > read more
The Winston Salem Ledger has a good post about their city’s Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness. Guilford County has just begun our own Ten Year Plan process, and the task force will be announced by city and county leaders in February. Winston Salem’s Ten Year Plan follows the “housing … > read more
This article in the LA Times discusses Santa Monica’s efforts, spearheaded by City Councilman Bobby Shriver, to rethink their strategies for serving the homeless. Santa Monica has moved toward a “housing first” model which is showing success in other areas of the country, like New York. [Example: Pathways to Housing, … > read more