100,000 homes to be created

Issue Date:

Wed, 08/25/2010

Homeless image BY LINDA WORTHINGTON
UMCONNECTION STAFF

With focused and strategic efforts, United Methodists have the power and potential to end homelessness in this region and across the nation, said Bishop Schol in response to the launch of the 100,000 Homes Campaign in Washington, D.C.

“We challenge you to join our efforts to house 100,000 vulnerable homeless individuals and families across the nation by July, 2013,” said Roseanne Haggerty, founder and president of Common Ground, as she announced the “100,000 Homes Campaign” July 12.

Bishop Schol was an early supporter of the national campaign. But he has an even wider vision, seeing the 100,000 Homes Campaign as part of the denomination’s strategy to combat poverty.

“Through the power of God, prayer and the connectionalism of The United Methodist Church, we can find permanent housing for our brothers and sisters living on the streets of our cities, towns and rural communities,” he said. “There are many partners who have forged the way and the pieces are all in place with this campaign. Let’s take action to allow this campaign to rise up in our strategies and ministry focus to end homelessness.”

This is a crucial moment in the history of homelessness in America . Roughly 110,000 people are “chronically homeless,” living on the streets or in shelters for a year or more. The lethality of street homelessness is on par with some forms of cancer, cutting an average of 25 years off the lifespan. Meanwhile, the health costs alone of leaving people on the streets far exceed the cost of supportive housing. Despite this daunting reality, some communities have made tremendous progress in housing their most vulnerable people.

--100,000 Homes

Though over 2 million people experience homelessness in the United States in the course of a year, a much smaller number of households – an estimated 130,000 individuals and 10,000 families – remain trapped in homelessness for extended periods.

These households are the most likely to have severe challenges that interfere with their ability to find and maintain a stable home. Housing with support services to help manage health, mental health, education and employment issues is far more cost effective than the costly emergency services these households now rely on.

The campaign is aimed at 100,000 of these highly vulnerable individuals and families.

Some 34 communities in the campaign, including Washington, D.C., have already provided permanent housing throughout the country for 5,104 of the most vulnerable individuals and families, “showing what is possible when we work together toward a specific, urgent goal,” Haggerty said.

At the launch event, Mayor Adrian Fenty announced that the 1,000^th vulnerable household had moved into housing in the District, “an incredible example for other communities,” Haggerty said.

Occupying one of those homes and present on stage was Maurice Williams, who lives in an apartment nearby, no longer moving from shelter to shelter or sleeping on the streets.

Foundry UMC, working through the Washington Interfaith Network (WIN), has been dealing with the issues of homelessness for years and has helped to provide permanent housing for the most vulnerable population.

“Chronic homelessness is on our doorstep every day,” said Jana Mayer, Foundry’s mission minister. “It’s been a concern for downtown churches for a long time.”

Mayer stresses the need to keep the political will alive for ending homelessness, and the importance of being an advocate for those who do not have permanent homes.

Early in their efforts, the Foundry team conducted an on-street registry of homeless people within the bounds of the church, developing the data base Common Ground recommends at the beginning of each local campaign.

Foundry and other WIN churches are looking for properties as they become available to convert or transform into permanent housing for homeless people, in much the way Common Ground has done in New York City and Connecticut.

Emory UMC, also one of the WIN churches, is in the pre-development stage of a large new building on its property that will become the Beacon Center in Northwest Washington. When completed, it will provide permanent housing for homeless veterans, seniors and families (all targets in the 100,000 Homes Campaign) as well as transitional housing and support facilities, said Nkosi Ayize, the executive director of Emory’s Beacon of Light, which currently provides housing for two families in transition from homelessness back to the community.

Beacon of Light also assists homeless men with training to provide skills that will help them move off the homeless roster, including in construction and on the “clean team,” which cleans up and beautifies neighborhood properties.

Nan Roman, president and CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness that sponsored the three-day conference, emphasized the importance of partnerships, such as with WIN at the local level and with Common Ground at the national level, in furthering the plan to end chronic homelessness. “We now also have a strong federal partner across the board,” she said. “We have determined partners in the agencies and the White House who have committed to move forward through the Federal Strategic Plan, (which was announced two weeks ago) and the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness.”

While praising the federal plan, “The feds won’t do it all,” Roman said. “All the partners must work.”

The “work” and premises on which it is based include:

To house the most vulnerable people, as the 100,000 Homes Campaign states. The campaign assists communities in creating a registry in each community that identifies the most vulnerable people. The registry provides the data on which the effort to move people out of homelessness is based.
The weakest link is the mainstream systems that force people into homelessness or keep them there. “Health care reform is a big step forward. Make sure every homeless person gets on health insurance as soon as possible,” Roman said.
Nobody should be homeless more than 20 days and recidivism should be no more than 5 percent. “The onus is on us (the mainstream) not on the homeless.”

In late spring, Bishop Schol took the Baltimore-Washington Conference Cabinet to New York City to visit the housing programs that began through Common Ground. They observed best practices that could help end chronic homelessness in Washington, D.C., and Baltimore and talked with leaders of the program.

“We’ve already started in D.C.,” the bishop said. “With Foundry’s ongoing plans and the units already started, we’re on our way.”

Baltimore is also an enrolled community and the Campaign could be one more strategy in the conference “Hope for the City” plan. “Susannah Wesley House has also expressed interest with a vacant home they own in Baltimore,” Bishop Schol said.

“This Campaign will require us to reach beyond our traditional partners in homeless services and join forces with others who understand how homelessness devastates individual lives and communities,” Haggerty concluded. “This is about all of us, and what we can do together (and) in three years, when the Campaign comes to a close, we will have created a new reality,”

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