It’s good that local efforts to end chronic homelessness aren’t waiting on the often foot-dragging efforts of government leaders.
Inter-Faith Ministries last week announced a new $4 million apartment project in Midtown for low-income residents that will reserve some apartments for the homeless.
The project in the 900 block of North Market involves building a new 32-unit complex and renovating an existing building with eight apartments — and it adds to Inter-Faith’s two existing apartment complexes on North Market.
It is part of Inter-Faith’s strategy — affirmed by national experts and the experience of other cities — that chronic homelessness can best be ended by providing permanent housing with support services such as job counseling and addiction and mental health treatment.
The permanent housing strategy likely will be a prominent part of whatever action plan is produced by the new city-county homeless task force. Meanwhile, Inter-Faith’s strategy is leading the way.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
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34 Comments
Good deal! They should be applauded!
Wichita is a great community. When we see things like this happening. Unlike Lawrence, Kansas (the leftist mecca of the state) is considered the second meanist city in the USA to its homeless population. Not surprising.
Pretty much all of the meanist cities are leftist cities and ran by Democrat Mayors and City Council members.Places like San Francisco, Austin, Chicago, LA, and on and on. Shows you where their compassion is.
http://www.nationalhomeless.org/publications/crimreport/meanest.html
Joe the homeless in Wichita might agree with you. If not for the fact that every few hours the WPD swipes through the small park on East Douglas forcing the homeless to find somewhere else to sleep. Because it just does not look right having all those bums hanging around down town.
Just like there are no simple reasons for every single homeless to be homeless. There is no single answer to the problem.Yes this is a good start, but in order to solve the problem of homelessness. it will take looking at each individual case.
writerdog: That small park on east Douglas does appear to be a logical and semi-comfortable location for the homeless to use as a hangout. I have wondered why the police remove the homeless from that park and chase them to the library. Obviously sweeping the homeless problem under the rug is not going to solve the problem. Who makes the decision to chase the homeless out of that park — I hope its not police officers looking for an easy mark.
In fact that park needs some kind of a secure enclosed kiosk near that corner of Douglas and St. Francis streets to watch for problems in that vicinity. I suspect many suddenly homeless people could tell stories of finding that park to be their instant source of a temporary shelter.
There are lots of social service agencies around there. As far as I’m concerned, it should be open to all who seek shelter there … as long as they do not cause trouble for others.
Congratulations to Rev. Sam Muyskens of Inter-Faith Ministries in his successful efforts to provide some relief for the chronic and temporarily homeless people of Wichita. Rev. Sam, I believe you are one of the regular bloggers here on the WE Blog as well. Good luck.
The problem with many of the homeless is alcoholism, drug addiction, and mental illness. To simply provide a place for them to sleep inside is a nice start, it doesn’t address the underlying problem.
The might be another solution, One which I favor. All over the US there are now closed US Army bases. Ft. Ord in California as an example. There they have housing for thousands, sanitation, kitchen facilities, recreation, and hospitals already built/equiped and now empty. Why not put these facilities to use helping the homeless with a home and treatment instead of leaving them vacant?
LRB: There are also additional groups who need attention. Right now I probably can’t think of them all. I suspect they are interchangeable over time.
The group I’m particularly thinking of is the huge percentage of incarcerated people in all levels of prisons. Its my understanding the cost of a prisoner in Kansas prisons is some $30,000 per year plus medical treatment plus the “mortgage payment” for the space which is never figured in. Some prisoners need to be there but others are there for various reasons that could be dealt with better in a “half-way” house situation at an empty military base.
In my opinion, the whole prisoner thing is driven by reimbursement from the federal government for a percentage of prison expenses rather than providing treatment to return prisoners to society. Obviously some should never see the light of day again.
Off hand, I can’t think of any vacant military bases in Kansas but there might be some. Possibly a base doesn’t need to be fully closed to be a good location for a minimum security location.
Is Fort Ord located about fifty miles northeast of Oakland, California? I didn’t know that particular base is vacant.
The problem with any low-cost housing solution is that the landlords lobby will fight it tooth and claw!
Won’t spending money on the homeless interfere with the building of mega churches? How will these churches get their own television show? They certainly aren’t going to get rich like Joe Wright and Terry Fox if they keep on spending their resources on homeless people.
I steadfastly maintain that there is no feasible way to “end” chronic homelessness. As soon as word gets out that there is free housing in Wichita, hundreds if not thousands more homeless will convene here from all over the country. This will only make the homeless problem in Wichita substantially worse.
Like Writerdog stated, there is no one answer to the myriad of causes of homelessness. There are some people (activist Ted Hayes in LA for example) that are homeless by choice. Others are homeless due to mental illness or addiction. Will putting them in a free shelter address those issues? Absolutely not, it will simple attract more homeless to Wichita.
Is that what we really want, for our city to become the homeless mecca for the country?
Rapt,You’re probably right, since the solution most cities opt for is find ways to chase homeless people on to some other city. Of course that solves nothing except getting them out of their own back yard and leaving it to someone else to solve.No, we probably won’t end homelessness, but that doesn’t mean we leave them to freeze to death in the back seat of an abandoned car! We can do a lot to relieve their suffering instead of just chasing them to the next town again. Isn’t it way past time somebody did?
I prefer that Wichita be known as the city where the “buck stops here.” In other words, we need to develop a system that returns the homeless to the real world.
A file needs to be maintained which contains identification information about each homeless person in Wichita. Homeless people would be subject to rules/regulations in order to receive services from Wichita’s social services organizations.
If they don’t comply, they would be sent to the County work and reorientation farm.
“The poor will always be with you” Jesus Christ.”Love thy neighbor as thyself” Jesus Christ.I rarely post religious quotes, but since we are talking about a group of ministers here, who are trying ot help, it seems appropriate.Long ago, many of our current homeless would have been institutionalized. Please consider this Heritage Foundation report:http://www.heritage.org/Research/HealthCare/BG1341.cfm
“What Went Wrong?The system did not achieve its intended result for several reasons:
Deinstitutionalization failed. Despite the availability of anti-psychotic medications and the noble desire to treat people in their home communities, homeless persons with severe mental illness have become a sadly common feature of the American landscape. According to Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, an expert on schizophrenia, “hundreds of thousands of vulnerable Americans are eking out a pitiful existence on city streets . . . because of the misguided efforts of civil rights advocates to keep the severely ill out of hospitals and out of treatment.” Moreover, state laws, some driven by challenges from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), “prevent treating individuals until they become dangerous.” 7 In other words, current policies make it all too easy for persons with severe mental illness to receive little or no treatment after they have been discharged from a psychiatric hospital. Often, effective treatment is not available; sometimes the person may not realize the need for treatment and will refuse care. Regardless of the reason, however, the result is untreated mental illness. ”
It is also true that our homeless problem in Wichita would be worse if we began “rent control” — which destroys the real estate market and reduces low cost housing:http://new.heritage.org/Research/Religion/bg685.cfm
I applaud those who try to help. Sadly, there are many homeless Veterans who have an “assigned payee” somewhere, receiving their checks every month but doing nothing to see that those funds are allocated to that particular Vet. This is an area that could use some private advocates, since the VA does not come in contact with these folks as often as some of these faith-based charities.This is also true of other government assistance programs. When you are mentally incompetent, how on Earth can you make sure nobody else is using “identity theft” to steal your benefits?
Wink,About 40% of homeless people are mentally ill/disabled. Following a strict regimen is not going to be an option for them. Honest-to-god treatment (as opposed to the mostly record-keeping we now do) has got to be part of the solution.
Paul,My grandmother died in one of those state-run hellholes. As a child, I got a close-up view of how miserable the state could make people. We are NOT going back to that!
There are people we are going to have to take care of. Some people can’t be independent or live on their own. Some people will have to be subsidized and taken care of for the rest of their lives.
There isn’t nothing wrong with that. We are blessed as a strong and wealthy society to be able to afford to take care of people who cannot take care of themselves.
Now! If you’re able to work, sane, and have no disabilities, but blame all your problems on Bush and Republicans for your despair, unemployments or homelessness, then you’re just cheating the system and blaming others for a cop out.
I saw the day in Texas when, to save money, the State turned-out those who could walk out of the Mental Hospitals rather than spend the money {their party, travel money } to add more beds to the Hospital system.
Bewildered Schizophrenics wondered around downtown, bewildered, taking to the air, but begging for something to eat.
The State named them the misnomer “Homeless” as New York had done, instead of what they were; severely mentality ill.
And the State government bureaucrats all gave themselves a raise.
Did someone say “reoreintation farm”?
A very disquieting thought.
Just to the north of where I live, there are a group of apartment complexes. They are about 3/4 ths empty and RAPIDLY detereorating into disrepair.
If the government paid that landlord a pittance of a state paid rent to house the homeless, the landlord would have full occupancy and could maintain the property and a large number of homeless would be housed.
It is time to look at shelter as a basic right.
New Youk now has 88,000 “Homeless” and they mostly live underground, under the streets.
New York has the money to take care of their “Homeless” but why bother when you can spend that money on yourself.
The voters of Wichita want to support a policy that promotes homelessness, otherwise they wouldn’t have voted for types like Tiahrt and Brownback. They destroy unions, reject minimum wage, reject national health care, cut food assistance programs but openly support bad policies like NAFTA and CAFTA which encourage illegal immigration and lower wages, and of course, major tax cuts for the wealthy.
Our government doesn’t have a problem spending half the budget on weapons to bomb camels in Iraq but find getting $18 billion to provide health care to our nation’s 9 million children without insurance as impossible.
Thankfully some Christian organizations are taking it upon themselves to remedy the situation while “compassionate conservatives” are too busy giving themselves pay raises.
The HUD “Section 8″ housing programs as well as a number of other incentives, to get investors to provide low income housing, were primarily Republican sponsored programs, though they had strong bi-partisan support.In the investment business, “Jack Kemp Tax Credits” means low income housing investments, which the government promotes by allowing a modest, 10% to 13% tax credit to the investor until the investment cost is recovered.I don’t have a program available at this time, and the law would not allow me to post the details here anyway. I would have to provide a prospectus.Anyway, if any of you want to put your money where your mouth is, call your stock broker! (These are all limited partnership products, and not liquid.)Liberty, Independence, Boston Capital, Boston Financial, WNC, these are some of the major players in the Jack Kemp Tax Credit business.There are several Wichita properties which were developed under this program.(Before asking for a link, open your phone book to “apartments” and call a few listings. Ask if they accept HUD clients.)
By the way, I realize that many of the “institutions” of the past were “hell holes.”However, were these poor people freezing to death in those places?We can and should permanantly house some of these folks, even if they arent dangerous to anyone but themselves.
Severe and persistant mentally ill people can live sucessfully in the community with the right support, the problem is that too many fall through the cracks because no one is paying attention or they refuse help because it’s their right to do so. The days of court ordered treatment are gone unless the person is a threat to himself or others. Many families have their hands tied when it comes to getting help for their loved ones who suffer from severe mental illness. It’s a catch 22, how do you preserve someone’s right to live as they choose but then force then to get them the help they need even when they insist they don’t need it? The system needs to be revamped, but that would cost money and the state recently cutback services for the physically and mentally disabled again.I have clients who suffer from severe mental illness who would be homeless if it weren’t for those who advocate for them and make sure they get the services they need. They live in the community because they have the proper services to make it happen. We need to do more to make sure people don’t fall through the cracks, then we’d have less homelessness.
Good Post Doug!!!
Mary,In Oregon they have experimented with a program that is called “Psychiatric Advance Directives”. How it works is that when a mentally ill person is competent to consent to or decline treatment (when on their meds) they can make a statement in advance that should they become psychotic and refuse treatment, they in that case authorize the involuntary adminstration of medication if necessary. From what little I have read it makes some sense.
JWink..I don’t know if you were referring to me because of my name, but no.. I get no funding of any kind from anyone. Although I dream about providing for the homeless, I do not have the resources to lease or own any properties downtown. Besides, that prick Mayans has determined that “we can’t provide anything that nice for the homeless downtown”, so there is great resistance from the City to having decent shelters where the homeless actually receive all of their other services.Crowson’s cartoon on Sunday was a more accurate depiction than the headline “Model for Ending Homelessness” This will help very low income folks, but will do very little for “Chronic homelessness” in Wichita. Come this winter and next, most of my homeless friends will still be freezing in the alleys and parks. The ones who qualify will be crammed in mission overflows, and the ones who don’t will be sent back out into the cold.
Ed..What you said happened in Texas is happening right here in River City.. funding is being cut for support of the mentally ill, and those people are being put out in the street to care for themselves. They are mentally ill, hungry and scared. Often too scared to even accept food or a cold bottle of water when we offer it to them. Many times, we just have to lay it at their feet and leave before they will eat or drink.. it is terribly sad…
Doug..Labor policies have very little to do with homelessness. Most of these people ar UNABLE to work for one reason or another. They have a physical or mental handicap, they are emotionally unstable and/or suffer from an addiction.I agree Christian organizations have done wonderful things in supplying food and hygiene items.. it would be difficult to “starve” on the streets of Wichita. But on frigid nights or hot muggy days, these people need someplace to go.. their lives depend on it. Yes.. they need to behave themselves, but I don’t care if they smell like pot, or are staggering drunk, or maybe don’t have two forms of ID.. banishing them to the elements can be a death sentence.
I’m not sure what the answer is, but it has been proven that providing housing first is far more successful than any other program, but that takes time and money and vision. In the meantime.. we MUST have compassion, and we MUST help them survive.
http://www.gladwell.com/2006/2006_02_13_a_murray.html
If Gladwell is correct in the above link, homelessness in the vast majority of cases is a temporary problem that the majority of people overcome in a matter of days, without help from others.
However, there is a subset of chronically homeless people who will not benefit from the “emergency approach” now in place. They need something different — see Gladwell’s desciption of what that might be.
Chronically mentally ill people can be treated in the community. Such an approach is the most humane and likely cheaper than state hospitalization. That being said, Paul F. Rosell is correct that for some people state hospitals are necessary. The combined forces of fiscal conservatives and liberal activism is what made deinstitutionalization happen. It was a good idea, but it has never been adequately funded. And when deinstitutionalization is not adequately funded, we see the results we now have. Is this what we want?
Don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater, it can work if we have the funding and resources. I’ve seen that caring for the mentally ill in the community can be very sucessful, and it’s less costly than maintaining someone in an institution. I have a man I help take care of who was institutionalized from the time he was 14 until 7 yrs ago (he’s now 52). He cries at times because he’s so happy that he’s not locked up anymore. He’s happier now than he has ever been in his life and he can live with some dignity and freedom. It can work, we just need to fill the holes so people don’t slip through so easily. I think Inter-Faith is on the right track. Provide a place for them, and then assist them in getting the help they need. In order to end homelessness, we have to address the problems that cause it in the first place.
This thing is getting talked up like God’s gift to the homeless. It’s a smoke screen by the City to cover up their lack of action. This Villa is for LOW INCOME.. I repeat LOW INCOME, not NO INCOME.
The guys on the street have been inquiring about getting into these units and they are being told “only if it doesn’t fill up with low income families”.
My prediction is that this will do very little to help the homeless here in Wichita. Don’t be fooled into thinking that the problem is being solved! There will be people freezing to death on the streets of Wichita this winter!
Sam, they’ll only freeze if they choose not to go to a shelter. Many don’t want to go because shelters have curfews and the people who go there can’t drink and do drugs.Do something about mental illness and the drug epidemic, then we’ll see an end to homelessness. Getting people in a situation where they can make contact with the people who can help them is the first step.Just housing people for free is going to do nothing, they have to be willing to get the help that’s being offered. Some people won’t do that. In the end, we can’t really save people from themselves, some will self destruct no matter what we offer them.
Mary,
Standard… “they are just bums” answer.
Have a heart!
Yes.. they have problems… doesn’t mean they deserve to die…
Mary,
I’m sorry, but you touched a nerve. If you look at what Pathways to Housing is doing, you will see the facts do not back up your claims:
http://www.pathwaystohousing.org/index.html
The overflow shelters are packed out on cold nights, these shelters get their funding whether the homeless come or not. They do not “encourage” them to come. It appears that Wichita needs a place for the ill or addicted who cannot get to a shelter, or will not be accepted by a shelter. These people are falling through the cracks and they are the ones in danger!
I never called them “bums” and no one deserves to die because they are mentally ill or addicted to drugs and alcohol. Please don’t put words in my mouth.What I mean is that there ARE places for homeless people to go, but many choose not to for whatever reason. You can’t force people to get help if they don’t want it. Maybe that sounds heartless, but that’s the reality of the situation. You can’t save those who refuse to be saved, all you can do is offer them the opportunity to change their life if that’s what they want.
I’ve been out there with the mentally ill and drug addicted for 20 yrs, so it’s not like I don’t have an idea what their world is like. I still go there almost everyday. I’ve seen people I really care about die because they refused the help and services that were offered to them. Drug and alcohol addiction and mental illness is very powerful, and some people “fall through the cracks” no matter how much others care about them. I care about the homeless, the drug addicted, and the mentally ill most of all, but I learned a long time ago that I can’t save the world, so I just do the best I can and accept the reality of the situation.