Life Lessons and Beyond

by: John Gill

The last six weeks has made me frustrated, sad and enthusiastic all at the same time. To come up with a novel solution to the Homelessness issue in the Tri-Cities was quite demanding.

I learned that in Theory an idea may sound fiscally sound and feasible, but when you actually put the pen to the paper there is a lot of planning involved and obstacles to overcome. Having met with various professional in the field such as outreach workers, investors, and city councilors each provided valuable feedback and insight, but along with a new set of questions and concerns. This usually led us back to the drawing board to come up with better solutions or alternatives to satisfy all parties concerns.

I found that whenever a new problem arises, having an open discussion within your team tends to lead to greater ideas; this is where true collaboration occurs.  One key thing I learned is that a problem needs to be looked at from all angles, it may sound simple but when you talk to each stakeholder and dig deeper, you tend to get more questions and ideas from their point of view.

Another thing that I found very interesting was that to propose this model to landlords.
We would need to meet them in person and provide them with specifics and clear up any preconceptions. Although this is a huge obstacle I see it overcome with persistence.
A model like this cannot be explained through the phone or via emails.

I found out that although many landlords would like to help, it just seems like a risk to them to house a homeless individual. It is understandable they have many concerns and we as a group will have to address them because after all they are opening their home to a stranger, even if it is for rent.

Overall, I learned that sometimes a simple solution has many complicated steps involved and requires you to think outside of the box. At times it gets discouraging thinking our ideas will not be implemented or feasible at all, but if you reach out and talk to different individuals, I found that there was always a different way to look at a problem and come up with a solution collectively. Indeed the last six weeks has taught me a lot about the social problems in my neighborhood and a deeper appreciation of individuals working to make a better society.

Lastly, I would like to thank all the individuals that helped us along this project and all the feedback that we received on our blog!

Craigslist Housing Search Response

By: John Gill

One approach our group took to find housing for the homeless was through Craigslist.

Craigslist being the online version of a newspaper lists available homes to rent and homes for sale. What we hoped to achieve by contacting these individuals was that we could get a sense of the availability of homes in the Tri-Cities areas and listen to some of the landlords main concerns first hand.

Four people were emailed and their responses are as follow:

2 said No.

1 Said that she was looking for students only.

1 is no response.

Eight people were contacted by phone and their responses are as follow:

5 said definite No’s and that they were looking for couples or full time students as renters.

1 had no comment

2 Individual’s requested additional information, such as if a premium was offered and if a recognized charity would be on the rental agreement as well? They were quite receptive to the idea of the Church helping out and supplementing the rental rate.

However, they also listed some additional concerns:

If the homeless individuals were unemployed again, what would happen? What are the services that will help them and how will they help and monitor them? is it going to be like a half way house? Will social workers come and go often? Will they attract other homeless individuals to stay at the suite? What will happen if they start to use drugs and alcohol again? Who would they call if there was a problem with the tenant?  What if damages were caused to the suite, who would be liable? What about landlord’s safety, if they have a issue with the tenant, what should they do? What steps would they (landlord) have to take to evict the homeless? Are they stuck with them for a long period of time? Are there any special tenancy contract that needs to be filled out?  Mainly they were concerned with the legal aspects of housing a homeless and if by allowing this pilot study are they committing themselves for an indefinite time frame.

The idea of having to evict the homeless seemed problematic to the landlords as they have the perception that the current laws and tenancy boards are usually heavily favoring the tenants, not the landlords. So they are extremely careful on the types of people they rent their suites out to. Another aspect that was difficult to overcome what the initial stigma of being homeless, what and why they were homeless was often brought up in the conversations. It was difficult to explain and trying to change people’s mind on their own prejudices and preconceived notions on why people were living on the streets.

From this small sample size it seems that landlords have some common conditions that need to be met before they would consider renting to a homeless individual.

1)      Preferably employed, if not on government assistance.

2)      Criminal and Background check needs to be provided

3)      Tenants must not be addicted to Drugs or Alcohol

4)      List of requirements and who is going to oversea such tasks.

5)      Church/Charity/Government agency co-signing for the tenants and being on the rental agreement.

6)      Church/charity/ government agency that will pay for damages incurred in the suite.

7)      Assurance on how to evict tenants if need be.

8)      Lawyer’s drawing up binding contracts that protect the interest of Landlords.

9)      Services such as home renovation and tax exemptions’ needs to be approved before hand.

10) They have to interview the tenant and have the final say of

approval.

The landlords understand that there is a fine line of respecting the privacy of tenants and being overly controlling. But it seemed they were especially concerned about homeless individual peer’s visiting and bunk in their suites. Also, if they start to sell drugs out of their basement suites was a enormous concern.

It seems there is a huge ignorance gap between landlords and the awareness of the profile of a homeless person. The common connotation is that they are drug and alcohol users and that is why they are on the streets still exists. It feels like landlords view renting to homeless a huge risk rather than an incentive. So if we could outline or provide some sort of additional landlord benefits, it would help a long way to convincing them to consider renting to a homeless individual.

A Outreach Worker’s Perspective

By: John Gill

Our meeting with Sue an outreach worker with 20 plus years experience has provided us with a number of key insights. Sue mentioned that the Tri-Cities is Very limited when it comes to services and resources as compared to the downtown eastside. She was happy with our novel solution and provided valuable feedback on our proposed ideas.

One key insight sue provided is that there is a recent trend towards more families and employed individuals are ending up in shelters because the wages they receive is not keeping up with cost of living. These hard-working individuals rely on the streets as they cannot afford the rental payments on their own. Her first hand account provided us with assurance that there is a segment of the homeless that are employed and are suffering due to the current economic conditions. It was extremely saddening to hear that families with young children involved had to scour shelter to shelter just to find a place to sleep.

The key aspect she suggests is to get the community involved in our model. For example, businesses could employ homeless individuals to clean up around the parking lot or other tasks. The benefit of this is that it involves re-integrating these individuals in the community and providing them with the necessary support.

Another approach is the community and business individuals could help out with services, such as painting, landscaping and general renovation for landlord’s homes. This would provide an incentive to landlords to rent to the homeless, as we will take care of all the contracting and spruce up their homes free of charge.  This obviously would require community members and business professionals to donate services to help out with this cause.

Other community members could help out by offering support services such as life skills like cooking, cleaning , banking, library and recreation membership assistance or they could provide companionships and mentorship to the homeless as often they like anyone else would like someone to listen to them. The wonderful aspect of this is that once these individuals succeed they could in return become peer mentors to other homeless individuals. Thereby creating a positive cycle that helps others.

The meeting with Sue was definitely productive as it raised various questions and made our group realize and explore different options as well. Having a chance to meet with her and get a professional’s view/analysis was a positive experience for our group. It allowed us to further define and develop our mode and solution.

Success with other Models

By: John Gill

There have been many studies and projects that have linked the Cost/Benefit analysis of housing the homeless. It costs significantly less to house the homeless than to leave them out on the streets. This is based on the amount of time and cost of police, ambulance and other social services that are required by leaving them on the streets. The key thing to keep in mind is that these costs are repeated on an individual basis, thereby compounding the costs! Whereas if we house them in one central unit and have all the necessary services installed there, there will be a drastic cost reduction.

The most thriving model is the Portland housing First model (http://www.portlandonline.com/BHCD/index.cfm?c=30140) and there are many other throughout the United States that have adopted similar models. However the underlying success of all these projects is housing. The solution requires housing these individuals so that they can be taken off the streets and supported, rather than just leaving them on the streets. The success of these programs as seen in the data is indeed encouraging. Furthermore, the encouraging statistics between different states is evident that this model works and could be implemented.

COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

By contrasting the costs of housing tenants:

In supportive housing ($42/night) with the costs of housing these individuals

V. S.

In shelters ($54/night),

In Hospitals ($1,185/night),

In State prisons ($164/night),

In Psychiatric institutions ($467/night)

Data from the Street-to-Home model from New York:

http://www.commonground.org/?page_id=21

Cost Reduction

Portland found that prior to entering the Community Engagement Program,

35 chronically homeless individuals: each utilized over $42,000 in public resources per year.

After entering permanent supportive housing, those individuals each used less than $26,000, and that included the cost of housing.

While making progress toward ending chronic homelessness, Portland Oregon is saving the public over $16,000 per chronically homeless person.

http://www.endhomelessness.org/section/tools/tenyearplan/cost

New York City Drops Thirty Percent in 2009

Other Models such as the  Street-to-Home (S2H) is a systematic method of identifying the chronic street homeless – people who have lived on the streets for at least nine months – and establishing a registry of these individuals in every neighborhood. Street-to-Home outreach workers assess their clients’ individual needs and prioritize for housing those who are the most vulnerable by calculating the impacts of disease and other risk factors.

Between 2005 and 2007, this program helped reduce homelessness by 87% in the Times Square area, from 55 street homeless down to 7.

Although our model is targeted towards the individuals that are currently employed and recently lost their homes. The success of housing the chronic homeless and severe addicts are encouraging. If it makes it profitable to house these individuals in dire needs. Then the government needs to step up and look at this. Currently, only two Canadian cities have adopted this housing first model, Toronto and Calgary. Having a central place for those in needs, is a huge step of mitigating the homelessness issue. Surely it is about time for Vancouver to step up and address these concerns rather than turning a blind eye.

F.A.Q. 3

By: John Gill

Will renters attract drug users and alcoholics into my neighborhood?

No, since renters would be regularly assessed by support workers and one of the conditions for them to be qualified for housing is that they follow the guidelines set out in the beginning. However, having said that we want to reintegrate these individuals back to society and not place confinements on them. These individuals are already very skeptical of help and we want to assure them we are here to help without any conditions.

Although some rules are necessary, we want to make the renters feel they have the same rights and freedom as anyone else in society. A key aspect is not to place any unnecessary conditions on these renters that otherwise would not be placed for other renters.

We are concerned about our safety and neighbors safety?

As for the safety concerns, these individuals are hard-working and have been deemed homeless due to some unfortunate circumstance in life. As every homeless person has a story and if we take the time to listen we would be shocked to hear how a series of events that could happen to anyone of us, has lead to their current situation. These individuals are law-abiding citizens and contribute to society as all of us do.

Will they last at their jobs, how do you know?

A key thing to remember is that homeless individuals go through the same trials and tribulations as we do. Homeless people DO NOT get Preferential Treatments, but in fact are marginalized because no one will speak on their behalf. This model by no means is a quick fix or a one hat fits all approach. For example, even if there are jobs available and the homeless are placed there. It often takes a few jobs to find the right fit, as it would with anyone looking for a job. Often this is the period where the homeless get frustrated and give up. Support services are vital, as the homeless get dejected and rescind back to their old ways. Support service could be a peer, mentor or a neighbour that gives hope to individuals, by reassuring them to keep trying, it does not take much.  The benefit of our model is that it will be working with employment agencies to help these individuals to help them find a suitable job.

Employers and Employees have a common goal, to find a suitable match.  We cannot assume that finding any job available would be ideal for the homeless. We have to make certain these workers are respected and treated fairly at the workplace as well. This is again where our support services will get progress reports from the employee and the employer to track progress.

F.A.Q. 2

By: John Gill

Who will be staying at my home?

We are focusing on those individuals that, if given a home for 6-12 months are highly likely to get out of homelessness. We are looking for individuals who sincerely want to get out of homelessness. In addition, we have a set of guidelines to qualify potential candidates that will be placed in the rental unit. This will provide assurance to investors and landlords that we are not just picking people off the streets and placing them there. We are helping those that are working and just need a place to stay at night. All stakeholders could rest assure this group of people need help but in the sense of support and encouragement.

Will they damage my suite?

Well having a home as anyone could imagine is a sense of pride for individuals. A sense of security.  A sense of ownership and a sense of belonging. Giving a key to a homeless person is important as to any individual that is getting a home. When you have someone giving you a helping hand, without any conditions or confinements, you tend to appreciate it more. When landlords and investors give the homeless person the trust and freedom, you could be rest assured that they will treat your property with the same respect you have given them. In addition, regular contact with support services will ensure you property is free of damage and treated with care.

Why do they need a home?

An important aspect of a home is that it assists the homeless with acquiring a job. Having a residence provides them with credibility and necessary references required for any job search. Think about the application process, in order for you to get an interview, you need to write an address, on your resume’ or employment form. Having a home removes this huge hurdle from their interview process and application process and gets the homeless back into the workforce. An additional benefit is that a home provides the individual with the necessary self-esteem and self-confidence that is needed. This is all due to your help as you have removed a huge obstacle for them that deterred them previously from trying to search for a job.

F.A.Q.

By: John Gill

Some common concerns and questions from investors, donors and landlords are:

What would happen to renters if they do not find a job within 6-12 months?

What if renters cannot find a job?

It is understandable that these questions are asked, as whenever money is involved, people want to be assured that funds are used wisely. Investors and Donors would like to be certain that funds donated have a specific cause and purpose. That is one key aspect of our model to ensure that this is not just an endless cycle of giving. We are here to lend a helping hand to those in needs and the immediate goal is to get them to be self sustaining as soon as possible. This is where the support services are vital to help progress this model. Furthermore, to ensure this happens we will use metrics to assess the progress of our renters and provide performance measures to track the improvement of all stakeholders.

To address this concern, we are helping those individuals that are currently employed and have just lost their homes to some unfortunate circumstances. We are all aware of the stresses of our daily jobs, but think about what would happen if you also have the additional burden of finding a place to sleep at night. How would you feel? Or how would you cope? Often these individuals have to go from shelter to shelter to look for a place to sleep and if they cannot, they find any spot available like in the bushes or streets.

These individuals are often the most vulnerable group, as they are employed but have to struggle to search for a place to sleep at night. We need to help them as soon as we can, before they lose hope and go further and further into poverty. As per an outreach worker’s experience, the homeless could only have hope for so-long before they give up and that is when they resort to drug usage to escape the struggles of life. If we can help these individuals within the first 6 months, before they lose all hope, chances of success are high.

Why are the support services not able to help these low risk individuals first?

This is a great point. The resources of each agency’s are limited and often they have to help a variety of individuals such as the chronic homeless or heavy addicts.

The common notion stands true here where there is simply not enough time or resources to help all. Although they are aware of helping those with the least risk, often that is not the case. As a result, these individuals are deemed not problematic enough to be helped first and are overlooked. Help only gets to them when it becomes a serious issue, only after they have lost their jobs and addicted.

Think of a Hospital visit, Doctors help those that are in dire needs first such as heart attack victims or stabbed victims, before they get to those with minor scrapes or bruises.  However, here we are attempting to help those victims with minor injuries first, before it gets serious. One main advantage of our model is that it helps those individuals that are able to get back on their own feet and require minimum support.

Progress Reports

By: John Gill

Metrics and Performance Outcomes

To ensure there are quantifiable metrics in place to assess the progress of renters and the outcome of this model. Progress report will be drafted on a bi-weekly basis for the first three months and then on a monthly basis. This is to ensure the individual is aware the necessary support is there for them and that by collecting this data, it will help us learn and expand this model in the future.

The following are some metrics used to assess the outcome of this model.

General Survey

Length of time homeless:

Length of Employment:

Length of stay at residence:

Renter’s concerns and issues before hand:

Renter’s reflection after:

Landlord’s initial concerns and issues:

Landlord’s reflection after:

Suggestions/ Things to do differently in the future:

Lessons Learned:

Changes to Future Model:

Comments:

Our bi-weekly reports and Monthly reports will be as follow:

Progress reports

Advantages.

Disadvantages.

Current Concerns/Problems.

Plan in place to address concern and problems.

Issues to address in next Two Week plan.

Monthly goal’s reviewed/assessed.

Comments.

Although all this documentation may seem redundant and tedious, it is fairly easy to fill out. The purpose of having a well documented workbook is that it allows for future projects to be assessed and review for lessons learned. Even though it may seem a long and lengthy process now, hindsight is always valuable when implementing new ventures in the future. Reviewing the contents of this workbook will allow us to reflect back and make changes accordingly to future models.

We are aware of the limits of these metrics and by no means are these metrics finite. It provides us with rough guidelines and will be altered as we progress.

Selection Criteria for Renters

By: John Gill

Selecting individuals that will be supported by our model will require us to work with a case worker that is familiar with the individual and their circumstances. Often this is fairly easy, as there are only a few individuals that are currently employed and have lost their homes recently. The benefit of working with a case worker is that they have first hand knowledge who would be the right candidate for our model. Active outreach workers that work in neighborhoods are the first to know when new residents become homeless or through new members at the soup kitchens.

Some of the guidelines we will use to ensure your investment and property is safe is as follow:

1)      Individual be free of any drug or alcohol addictions.

2)      Individuals have no criminal history.

3)      Individuals are currently employed.

If not currently employed job lost within the last 6 months.

4)      Individuals lost their home within the last 6 months.

5)      Individuals provide a reference from a case worker.

6)      Individuals are actively involved with the job search and home search process.

7)      Individuals are matched with some sort of service such as a peer, mentor, or neighbor, to provide the necessary support.

These are the guidelines used to give a sense of security to all parties involved with this model. This assures all stakeholders that funding and resources are put into good and specific use. Although we are aware of the limits of this model, such as each case would be assessed on a case by case basis and no two cases are alike.

If there are any questions or queries please do not hesitate to contact us.