Taking the next step on homelessness
Racial tensions, verbal abuse by staff members, favortism, homophobic slurs. These are all things one would normally expect to find in institutions--for example, a state penitentiary. But in this case, its not the state pen we're talking about, but Project Homestart, IFC's facility in Chapel Hill for women and children who are experiencing homelessness. I've just returned this evening from a Chapel Hill Town Council meeting at which I presented a letter to the council members outlining my concerns about what I have learned and IFC's long history of stonewalling, stalling, and general lack of willingness to address the concerns of its clients. I spoke briefly outlining what was in the letter and why I was there. I told them, quite honestly, that I would have preferred not to be there. I would much rather have dealt with IFC's issues internally than to take any of it to a public forum. It would simply be more constructive to work in partnership with the IFC than to have to waste time, energy, and opportunity on dealing with internal issues in the public sphere. But with the long pattern of failures by IFC to address problems or its culture of denial that problems even exist there, it got to the point where I felt I had no choice. I feel that I need to explain to people my reasons for doing what I did.
I have long preferred to stay out of the service provider end of working with homelessness. It is not an area in which I feel my talents lie. As a general rule, managing programs is better left to those who know how to do that. At the same time, when I got involved in this issue to begin with, the purpose was to be an advocate for people experiencing homelessness, not social service agencies. Over a period of many months, I have talked to countless individuals at both the men's and women's shelters here in town about the environment in these facilities. It is not atypical to hear life in the shelter compared to life within a prison. Although there are many dedicated, hardworking staff members at IFC--many of whom I genuinely like and respect--there are also some who seem to be in that line of work because of a need to abuse and control people. This of course does not lead to an environment where people can truly get their lives together. They need support and encouragement, not put-downs and homophobic slurs. They already get that from the rest of society and I continue to be disappointed at the extent they seem to get more of the same at an agency charged with helping and advocating for them.
Many people seem to look at homelessness as at best a theoretical exercise and at worst, a game. Volunteers often look at working in a shelter as some sort of fun little field trip. Staff members often do not take the thoughts and needs of persons experiencing homelessness into account. Many times, they do not even treat them as if they are people who are capable of thoughts, decisions, actinos, and choices about their lives. Somehow the point gets lost that this is not all fun and games; this is how many people in our society have to spend their lives. Suffering. In crisis. In a state of constant instability. One friend of mine said recently that it seems that IFC treats its clients like little children and that she failed to see how that would help anyone. Treating clients as children has been going on for a long time and probably happens at most such facilities in America. But at this point, it goes beyond that. It has gotten to the point where one resident of Homestart I've become acquainted with (and truthfully, has become a good friend) has mentioned to me that she does not even feel safe living there.
This particular resident is not much younger than I am and has been homeless for the better part of four years. She is homeless because all through her life, she has slipped through nearly every crack there is in the system. And the fact is, that our system of services to help people does not so much have cracks as canyons. She has been diagnosed with ADD and dyslexia and services for those conditions are very hard to access or even find out about. Standard services that are for people with various learning disabilities are usually geared to people who are barely even functional. They always want to give her tests that basically consist of figuring out if she knows her alphabet and can do simple math. This is in spite of the fact that she is a high school graduate who's expressed a desire to go to college, perhaps to study the arts. And I believe that with some accomodations she is college material. But our local vocational rehab program, rather than encouraging her to pursue her dreams, has dismissed her, told her she doesn't even have a disability, and that she must resign herself to a life of working menial jobs.
In spite of all she has to deal with, she is trying hard to get her life together. She has begun the process of applying for SSI, which is a lengthy process that often can take months, but can often open the door to programs and services that she couldn't get otherwise. I have been helping her explore the possibility of getting into college. All of these things of course do not happen overnight. Because of IFC's policy of requiring extensions every two weeks to remain at its facilities and the seemingly arbitrary nature of the reasons for granting or denying these extensions, she is not in a very stable situation. She is unsure of whehther she can make medical appointments needed as part of her SSI application because she doesn't know where she'g going to be in two weeks. IFC has told her this is her last extension and she must move by April 20--ten days away. This is in spite of the fact that IFC is very aware of the huge obstacles people face in transitioning out of homelessness. They know because they have been at the meetings wherre data is presented by our consulting group, J-QUAD and Associates and a research team from UNC's School of Public Health.
In the meantime she has not even had an environment at Homestart that is conducive to getting her life together or even where she feels safe. Out of necessity, she's focused on day to day survival, not what she has to do to prepare herself for an actual future. She's been called a "lesbo" and other such taunts, in spite of the fact that she is not even gay. Of course, it goes without saying that this sort of treatment is totally unacceptable in a civilized society even if she were. And now IFC is telling her they are going to throw her out on the street in ten days for reasons that aren't even clear. Of course, she has nowhere else to go--not even a car to sleep in or transportation to another shelter in another city. Frankly, the thought of someone young, female, and attractive being stuck out on the streets of Chapel Hill scares the living hell out of me.
But of course, life at Homestart is no picnic either. Homestart is presented to this community as some model of what a successful program should be when in fact, it is anything but that. You see, even though I have presented the plight of one girl as an illustration of all that is wrong with Homestart, with IFC, and with services to the homeless in general, it is not a matter of one case. These problems are systematic and have been going on a long time. Its gotten to the point where enough is enough. I do not want to see more lives destroyed by IFC's policies or their refusals to acknowledge problems and ineffectiveness with their services. I do not want this community duped into putting $5 million (over three times IFC's annual budget) into a new and upgraded men's shelter that is just like Homestart when Homestart is not what it is claimed to be. Come to think fo it, isn't that a quintessentially American solution to begin with: we know that shelters have been miserable failures for the past 20-plus years, so lets build a much bigger one.
This obviously about a lot of different issues. A lot of thought and consideration has gone into my decision to finally do something outside IFC's chain of command. And in the course of trying to help sort all of this out, it has become about one other thing as well: a promise to a friend.
April 10, 2006
To: The Honorable Mayor Kevin Foy, Council Member Sally Greene, and other Honorable members of the Chapel Hill Town Council.
Re: Request for town participation in exploring the effectiveness of IFC services to the homeless population and addressing immediate concerns related to the safety of clients residing at Project Homestart
Honorable Council Members:
I have been personally involved in homeless advocacy in Orange County since December of 2004. In that time, I have been involved in the Community Initiative to End Homelessness (CIEH), participated in the CIEH Community Assessment committee dealing that organizes the federally mandated point in time counts of the homeless population, and have had extensive interactions with IFC officials, staff members, volunteers, clients, and community members. Working with my co-editor Bruce Whealton and others, I have set up a website and community portal called The Other Side Of The Hill, which promotes community advocacy on homeless issues and provides a forum for persons experiencing homelessness and others in the community to share their viewpoints and perspectives. As part of my efforts, I have made regular visits to IFC’s offices and its Community House facility and I have gotten to know the personal stories and experiences of a large number of IFC clients and residents of both Community House and Project Homestart over the course of the past 16 months. It is from this perspective that I am writing to you tonight and asking for your assistance.
Tonight the IFC is presenting a petition requesting town appointments to working groups dealing with the task of relocation of IFC’s facilities. I, of course, applaud the extensive commitment the town of Chapel Hill has been willing to make on the issue of homelessness in our community. Mayor Foy has been personally involved in many local efforts to combat homelessness to a far greater extent than the majority of mayors in North Carolina and elsewhere. Council Member Greene has put in a great deal of work as the town’s representative to the Orange County Partnership to End Homelessness, an organization dedicated to ending homelessness in our community within ten years. Town officials have been extremely informed about the issues relating to homelessness and understanding the needs of persons experiencing homelessness. For that, the community should be grateful. In addition, there are several staff members at the IFC who are extremely dedicated to assisting persons experiencing homelessness through very difficult times. Nothing in this letter is meant to disparage the hard work and dedication of people who put so much time, effort, and hard work into addressing homelessness.
But while praise should be given where it is due, there are also numerous issues that cannot simply be sugar-coated or ignored any longer. Although I would prefer to not be involved in the specifics of offering services and I would certainly prefer to address issues within IFC as opposed to the public sphere, I am involved in this issue in an attempt to help clients, not agencies. Therefore, considering the systematic problems within IFC’s facilities that I have become aware of over the past year and after numerous fruitless attempts to address these issues directly with IFC management, I feel compelled to speak out. My purpose in speaking out is not to air a laundry list of petty grievances of individual clients. If that were all that I had to speak about, I would not waste either my own time or that of the Council. But it has become clear to me over the course of a year that this issue is not one of petty complaints by a few disgruntled residents. Rather, it is a systematic problem of an agency that often operates in an arbitrary and power-hungry manner that does not serve clients effectively or help them make the transition out of homelessness. In fact, IFC policies and procedures often increase the adversity that people who are already going through very difficult times in their lives have to face.
My concerns do not come from talking to one or two disgruntled clients. Rather, they come from listening to a large number of people over a period of many months who have all had similar problems and complaints, along with my own observations of staff interacting with clients. Thus, it is increasingly difficult to explain these complaints away as isolated incidents. While I want to believe that IFC has the best of intentions, what I have too often encountered is a culture of denial and indifference to the plight of many clients. IFC management does seem to realize there are problems with their facilities and they seem unwilling to listen to anyone who suggests that any problem might exist. Listening to some IFC officials describe the environment in their facilities, I am reminded of the claims of our President that Iraqis would greet American troops with flowers and that all is well in Iraq to this day. Thus, it is not difficult to understand why many clients simply give up or leave without speaking out about their experiences or the IFC policies that create additional obstacles for people trying to get their lives together and be a part of this community. Clients too often seem afraid of losing their housing or needed services and staff members who see what is going on seem afraid of “rocking the boat” or losing their jobs.
Of immediate interest is the current situation at Project Homestart, IFC’s facility for women and children. In a recent email from an IFC official in response to one of my many attempts to bring serious problems at Homestart to the attention of the main office, I was told that everyone was enjoying their experiences at Homestart. No mention was made of wanting to speak to any of the five different people I have spoken to at length who have a far different view of the facility. In one case, a lengthy written explanation of some of the issues at the facility written by a client who has since left the facility was given to IFC and even posted on the Other Side Of The Hill website. IFC did not even bother to respond to that letter in any way, even though it and other entries posted to our website extensively document a culture of bullying, harassment, special treatment, and homophobia that exists at Homestart. I have attached a copy of that letter here and the other entries may be viewed at http://www.wordsalad.net/StreetExposure/. The other residents I have spoken with describe similar circumstances at the facility. I have also heard numerous reports of staff members berating clients and being verbally abusive. This sort of behavior is against IFC’s own stated values, as well as simple common standards of decency and humane treatment. Being subjected to bullying, harassment, and verbal abuse is also not conducive to individuals getting their lives back together. From what I have learned, it also appears to be creating tensions that at least two clients believe create a serious risk of someone being hurt. One client has told me specifically that she does not feel at all safe at Homestart. Another has said, “I just want a safe place to live!”
Aside from the very immediate and serious safety issue, there is no real stability for clients at either Community House or Homestart. In large part, that is because of IFC’s policy of requiring extensions every two weeks to continue to stay at the facilities. The reasons for granting or denying these extensions are not at all clear and are often arbitrary. The extensions lead to another immediate problem at Homestart. Two clients, a mother and daughter, are about to be thrown out into the streets of Chapel Hill in ten days with no transportation and nowhere else to go. This is in spite of the fact that the mother is in poor health and that they have numerous obstacles they are trying to overcome. They have been making tremendous efforts to get their lives back on track in spite of the repeated harassment and even stalking by other clients that they have been subjected to at Homestart that has required both of them to focus most of their energies merely on day to day survival rather than doing what they need to do to rebuild their lives.
This harassment seems to be at least in part based on untrue rumors that have been spread that the daughter is gay. She is the second client I have spoken to in recent weeks who has been subjected to taunts of “lesbo” and other such behavior that should be considered entirely unacceptable in a facility built on the values of respect and decency. The daughter has ambitions to go to college one day and it is clear that given the chance, she has a lot of ability. I have been personally involved in recent weeks in trying to help her overcome the obstacles to achieving that goal. That is difficult with the lack of stability and IFC’s seeming eagerness to toss her out onto the street where she is ill-equipped to survive. Both of these clients have also found it difficult to complete even basic steps like the lengthy application process for SSI due to constant uncertainty about whether they will have any place to stay.
The case I have described is only one illustration of the numerous problems clients face in trying to make the transition from homelessness back into the community. I have cited this example specifically because there is still time to take specific action to relieve this situation before IFC has said that these individuals will be thrown out on April 20. I will not reiterate the serious obstacles people face in overcoming homelessness, because the Council is for the most part familiar with them. This is particularly true of Council Member Green and Mayor Foy who were present at the March 22, 2006 Partnership to End Homelessness meeting where data was presented from JQUAD and Associates as well as a community assessment team from UNC’s School of Public Health. This community has the information they need to realize that several weeks will often not be enough time for clients to get their lives together. Finding jobs, saving money, applying for disability or other services, and other things that people need to do to help themselves are often slow processes. The processes become even slower when clients also have to deal with unwelcoming and unsafe environments in IFC’s facilities or verbal abuse from IFC staff. IFC staff should be trained and willing to help and encourage people rather than deal continued blows to their self-esteem and drive to succeed.
In getting to know so many of the people in our community who are experiencing homelessness, it has become quite clear to me that many of these people have a lot to contribute to our community if given the chance. These are people who need support and encouragement from the agencies who serve them. There is talk in our community of raising $5 million-over 3 times IFC’s annual budget-to build another shelter. We are told that this upgraded men’s facility will like Homestart, a model of a facility that exists to help people get back on their feet. But Homestart is no more a model facility than Community House is. Its residents are subjected to the same obstacles and the same culture of denial and indifference as the men at Community House are. These services need to be investigated and improvements made where necessary. Since IFC does not seem willing to address these issues on their own and since no progress seems to have been made on issues that have been repeatedly brought to IFC’s attention over the past year, it has to fall to the rest of the community. To that end, I ask that the Town Council establish some way that we can continue to get information to the town as we work on compiling and documenting what is going on at IFC facilities. I also ask that the town and the community encourage IFC to be willing to address needed improvements and work with the community in the light of day as opposed to hiding behind denial, stalling, and vague allusions to confidentiality.
I thank the Council members for their time and attention.
Regards,
Its late, I'm tired, and I have this naggiing suspicion that all kinds of hell is going to break loose tomorrow. So I'm going to get some sleep. Hope everyone is well out there.
I have long preferred to stay out of the service provider end of working with homelessness. It is not an area in which I feel my talents lie. As a general rule, managing programs is better left to those who know how to do that. At the same time, when I got involved in this issue to begin with, the purpose was to be an advocate for people experiencing homelessness, not social service agencies. Over a period of many months, I have talked to countless individuals at both the men's and women's shelters here in town about the environment in these facilities. It is not atypical to hear life in the shelter compared to life within a prison. Although there are many dedicated, hardworking staff members at IFC--many of whom I genuinely like and respect--there are also some who seem to be in that line of work because of a need to abuse and control people. This of course does not lead to an environment where people can truly get their lives together. They need support and encouragement, not put-downs and homophobic slurs. They already get that from the rest of society and I continue to be disappointed at the extent they seem to get more of the same at an agency charged with helping and advocating for them.
Many people seem to look at homelessness as at best a theoretical exercise and at worst, a game. Volunteers often look at working in a shelter as some sort of fun little field trip. Staff members often do not take the thoughts and needs of persons experiencing homelessness into account. Many times, they do not even treat them as if they are people who are capable of thoughts, decisions, actinos, and choices about their lives. Somehow the point gets lost that this is not all fun and games; this is how many people in our society have to spend their lives. Suffering. In crisis. In a state of constant instability. One friend of mine said recently that it seems that IFC treats its clients like little children and that she failed to see how that would help anyone. Treating clients as children has been going on for a long time and probably happens at most such facilities in America. But at this point, it goes beyond that. It has gotten to the point where one resident of Homestart I've become acquainted with (and truthfully, has become a good friend) has mentioned to me that she does not even feel safe living there.
This particular resident is not much younger than I am and has been homeless for the better part of four years. She is homeless because all through her life, she has slipped through nearly every crack there is in the system. And the fact is, that our system of services to help people does not so much have cracks as canyons. She has been diagnosed with ADD and dyslexia and services for those conditions are very hard to access or even find out about. Standard services that are for people with various learning disabilities are usually geared to people who are barely even functional. They always want to give her tests that basically consist of figuring out if she knows her alphabet and can do simple math. This is in spite of the fact that she is a high school graduate who's expressed a desire to go to college, perhaps to study the arts. And I believe that with some accomodations she is college material. But our local vocational rehab program, rather than encouraging her to pursue her dreams, has dismissed her, told her she doesn't even have a disability, and that she must resign herself to a life of working menial jobs.
In spite of all she has to deal with, she is trying hard to get her life together. She has begun the process of applying for SSI, which is a lengthy process that often can take months, but can often open the door to programs and services that she couldn't get otherwise. I have been helping her explore the possibility of getting into college. All of these things of course do not happen overnight. Because of IFC's policy of requiring extensions every two weeks to remain at its facilities and the seemingly arbitrary nature of the reasons for granting or denying these extensions, she is not in a very stable situation. She is unsure of whehther she can make medical appointments needed as part of her SSI application because she doesn't know where she'g going to be in two weeks. IFC has told her this is her last extension and she must move by April 20--ten days away. This is in spite of the fact that IFC is very aware of the huge obstacles people face in transitioning out of homelessness. They know because they have been at the meetings wherre data is presented by our consulting group, J-QUAD and Associates and a research team from UNC's School of Public Health.
In the meantime she has not even had an environment at Homestart that is conducive to getting her life together or even where she feels safe. Out of necessity, she's focused on day to day survival, not what she has to do to prepare herself for an actual future. She's been called a "lesbo" and other such taunts, in spite of the fact that she is not even gay. Of course, it goes without saying that this sort of treatment is totally unacceptable in a civilized society even if she were. And now IFC is telling her they are going to throw her out on the street in ten days for reasons that aren't even clear. Of course, she has nowhere else to go--not even a car to sleep in or transportation to another shelter in another city. Frankly, the thought of someone young, female, and attractive being stuck out on the streets of Chapel Hill scares the living hell out of me.
But of course, life at Homestart is no picnic either. Homestart is presented to this community as some model of what a successful program should be when in fact, it is anything but that. You see, even though I have presented the plight of one girl as an illustration of all that is wrong with Homestart, with IFC, and with services to the homeless in general, it is not a matter of one case. These problems are systematic and have been going on a long time. Its gotten to the point where enough is enough. I do not want to see more lives destroyed by IFC's policies or their refusals to acknowledge problems and ineffectiveness with their services. I do not want this community duped into putting $5 million (over three times IFC's annual budget) into a new and upgraded men's shelter that is just like Homestart when Homestart is not what it is claimed to be. Come to think fo it, isn't that a quintessentially American solution to begin with: we know that shelters have been miserable failures for the past 20-plus years, so lets build a much bigger one.
This obviously about a lot of different issues. A lot of thought and consideration has gone into my decision to finally do something outside IFC's chain of command. And in the course of trying to help sort all of this out, it has become about one other thing as well: a promise to a friend.
April 10, 2006
To: The Honorable Mayor Kevin Foy, Council Member Sally Greene, and other Honorable members of the Chapel Hill Town Council.
Re: Request for town participation in exploring the effectiveness of IFC services to the homeless population and addressing immediate concerns related to the safety of clients residing at Project Homestart
Honorable Council Members:
I have been personally involved in homeless advocacy in Orange County since December of 2004. In that time, I have been involved in the Community Initiative to End Homelessness (CIEH), participated in the CIEH Community Assessment committee dealing that organizes the federally mandated point in time counts of the homeless population, and have had extensive interactions with IFC officials, staff members, volunteers, clients, and community members. Working with my co-editor Bruce Whealton and others, I have set up a website and community portal called The Other Side Of The Hill, which promotes community advocacy on homeless issues and provides a forum for persons experiencing homelessness and others in the community to share their viewpoints and perspectives. As part of my efforts, I have made regular visits to IFC’s offices and its Community House facility and I have gotten to know the personal stories and experiences of a large number of IFC clients and residents of both Community House and Project Homestart over the course of the past 16 months. It is from this perspective that I am writing to you tonight and asking for your assistance.
Tonight the IFC is presenting a petition requesting town appointments to working groups dealing with the task of relocation of IFC’s facilities. I, of course, applaud the extensive commitment the town of Chapel Hill has been willing to make on the issue of homelessness in our community. Mayor Foy has been personally involved in many local efforts to combat homelessness to a far greater extent than the majority of mayors in North Carolina and elsewhere. Council Member Greene has put in a great deal of work as the town’s representative to the Orange County Partnership to End Homelessness, an organization dedicated to ending homelessness in our community within ten years. Town officials have been extremely informed about the issues relating to homelessness and understanding the needs of persons experiencing homelessness. For that, the community should be grateful. In addition, there are several staff members at the IFC who are extremely dedicated to assisting persons experiencing homelessness through very difficult times. Nothing in this letter is meant to disparage the hard work and dedication of people who put so much time, effort, and hard work into addressing homelessness.
But while praise should be given where it is due, there are also numerous issues that cannot simply be sugar-coated or ignored any longer. Although I would prefer to not be involved in the specifics of offering services and I would certainly prefer to address issues within IFC as opposed to the public sphere, I am involved in this issue in an attempt to help clients, not agencies. Therefore, considering the systematic problems within IFC’s facilities that I have become aware of over the past year and after numerous fruitless attempts to address these issues directly with IFC management, I feel compelled to speak out. My purpose in speaking out is not to air a laundry list of petty grievances of individual clients. If that were all that I had to speak about, I would not waste either my own time or that of the Council. But it has become clear to me over the course of a year that this issue is not one of petty complaints by a few disgruntled residents. Rather, it is a systematic problem of an agency that often operates in an arbitrary and power-hungry manner that does not serve clients effectively or help them make the transition out of homelessness. In fact, IFC policies and procedures often increase the adversity that people who are already going through very difficult times in their lives have to face.
My concerns do not come from talking to one or two disgruntled clients. Rather, they come from listening to a large number of people over a period of many months who have all had similar problems and complaints, along with my own observations of staff interacting with clients. Thus, it is increasingly difficult to explain these complaints away as isolated incidents. While I want to believe that IFC has the best of intentions, what I have too often encountered is a culture of denial and indifference to the plight of many clients. IFC management does seem to realize there are problems with their facilities and they seem unwilling to listen to anyone who suggests that any problem might exist. Listening to some IFC officials describe the environment in their facilities, I am reminded of the claims of our President that Iraqis would greet American troops with flowers and that all is well in Iraq to this day. Thus, it is not difficult to understand why many clients simply give up or leave without speaking out about their experiences or the IFC policies that create additional obstacles for people trying to get their lives together and be a part of this community. Clients too often seem afraid of losing their housing or needed services and staff members who see what is going on seem afraid of “rocking the boat” or losing their jobs.
Of immediate interest is the current situation at Project Homestart, IFC’s facility for women and children. In a recent email from an IFC official in response to one of my many attempts to bring serious problems at Homestart to the attention of the main office, I was told that everyone was enjoying their experiences at Homestart. No mention was made of wanting to speak to any of the five different people I have spoken to at length who have a far different view of the facility. In one case, a lengthy written explanation of some of the issues at the facility written by a client who has since left the facility was given to IFC and even posted on the Other Side Of The Hill website. IFC did not even bother to respond to that letter in any way, even though it and other entries posted to our website extensively document a culture of bullying, harassment, special treatment, and homophobia that exists at Homestart. I have attached a copy of that letter here and the other entries may be viewed at http://www.wordsalad.net/StreetExposure/. The other residents I have spoken with describe similar circumstances at the facility. I have also heard numerous reports of staff members berating clients and being verbally abusive. This sort of behavior is against IFC’s own stated values, as well as simple common standards of decency and humane treatment. Being subjected to bullying, harassment, and verbal abuse is also not conducive to individuals getting their lives back together. From what I have learned, it also appears to be creating tensions that at least two clients believe create a serious risk of someone being hurt. One client has told me specifically that she does not feel at all safe at Homestart. Another has said, “I just want a safe place to live!”
Aside from the very immediate and serious safety issue, there is no real stability for clients at either Community House or Homestart. In large part, that is because of IFC’s policy of requiring extensions every two weeks to continue to stay at the facilities. The reasons for granting or denying these extensions are not at all clear and are often arbitrary. The extensions lead to another immediate problem at Homestart. Two clients, a mother and daughter, are about to be thrown out into the streets of Chapel Hill in ten days with no transportation and nowhere else to go. This is in spite of the fact that the mother is in poor health and that they have numerous obstacles they are trying to overcome. They have been making tremendous efforts to get their lives back on track in spite of the repeated harassment and even stalking by other clients that they have been subjected to at Homestart that has required both of them to focus most of their energies merely on day to day survival rather than doing what they need to do to rebuild their lives.
This harassment seems to be at least in part based on untrue rumors that have been spread that the daughter is gay. She is the second client I have spoken to in recent weeks who has been subjected to taunts of “lesbo” and other such behavior that should be considered entirely unacceptable in a facility built on the values of respect and decency. The daughter has ambitions to go to college one day and it is clear that given the chance, she has a lot of ability. I have been personally involved in recent weeks in trying to help her overcome the obstacles to achieving that goal. That is difficult with the lack of stability and IFC’s seeming eagerness to toss her out onto the street where she is ill-equipped to survive. Both of these clients have also found it difficult to complete even basic steps like the lengthy application process for SSI due to constant uncertainty about whether they will have any place to stay.
The case I have described is only one illustration of the numerous problems clients face in trying to make the transition from homelessness back into the community. I have cited this example specifically because there is still time to take specific action to relieve this situation before IFC has said that these individuals will be thrown out on April 20. I will not reiterate the serious obstacles people face in overcoming homelessness, because the Council is for the most part familiar with them. This is particularly true of Council Member Green and Mayor Foy who were present at the March 22, 2006 Partnership to End Homelessness meeting where data was presented from JQUAD and Associates as well as a community assessment team from UNC’s School of Public Health. This community has the information they need to realize that several weeks will often not be enough time for clients to get their lives together. Finding jobs, saving money, applying for disability or other services, and other things that people need to do to help themselves are often slow processes. The processes become even slower when clients also have to deal with unwelcoming and unsafe environments in IFC’s facilities or verbal abuse from IFC staff. IFC staff should be trained and willing to help and encourage people rather than deal continued blows to their self-esteem and drive to succeed.
In getting to know so many of the people in our community who are experiencing homelessness, it has become quite clear to me that many of these people have a lot to contribute to our community if given the chance. These are people who need support and encouragement from the agencies who serve them. There is talk in our community of raising $5 million-over 3 times IFC’s annual budget-to build another shelter. We are told that this upgraded men’s facility will like Homestart, a model of a facility that exists to help people get back on their feet. But Homestart is no more a model facility than Community House is. Its residents are subjected to the same obstacles and the same culture of denial and indifference as the men at Community House are. These services need to be investigated and improvements made where necessary. Since IFC does not seem willing to address these issues on their own and since no progress seems to have been made on issues that have been repeatedly brought to IFC’s attention over the past year, it has to fall to the rest of the community. To that end, I ask that the Town Council establish some way that we can continue to get information to the town as we work on compiling and documenting what is going on at IFC facilities. I also ask that the town and the community encourage IFC to be willing to address needed improvements and work with the community in the light of day as opposed to hiding behind denial, stalling, and vague allusions to confidentiality.
I thank the Council members for their time and attention.
Regards,
Its late, I'm tired, and I have this naggiing suspicion that all kinds of hell is going to break loose tomorrow. So I'm going to get some sleep. Hope everyone is well out there.