Working toward a solution for the homeless

The Bergen Record and the Hearld News
Friday, August 11, 2006

Some 200 participants showed up offering their time and expertise to address a growing problem.

THE HOMELESS EXPRESS is moving full speed ahead toward a December deadline for completing a 10-year plan to end chronic homelessness.

On board this informal coalition are advocates from many levels of the community -- business, banking, health care, faith-based, state and county government -- you name it. Coordinated by Passaic County Human Services, they're all contributing to a major planning effort to deal with a growing fact of suburban life: homelessness.

What's impressive about the planning is simply that it's a conscious effort to fit together many different pieces of the homeless puzzle to serve the needs of this growing population better.

According to the Interagency Council on Homelessness, participants from Jersey City, Newark, Irvington, Camden and East Orange were among the 216 cities and counties around the nation engaged in 10-year planning.

This week about 40 people met at Eva's Village, a non-profit agency in Paterson that is a model for the kind of comprehensive treatment the homeless need. Originally only a soup kitchen, Eva's Village over the past 25 years has expanded to serve homeless families, recovering alcoholics and addicts, and chronic homeless single men and women.

One of the biggest surprises of the first major community-wide meeting last month was that nearly 200 participants showed up offering time and expertise, said Sister Gloria Perez. From elected officials to ordinary Joes off the street, the meeting was full of people with ideas.

The homeless have multiple problems, but they can't all take advantage of existing services. Eligibility issues are being sorted through by several task force groups in Passaic County with an understanding that one-size-fits-all solutions for housing needs and alcoholism will leave many wandering the street overwhelmed by their problems.

Homeless does not mean moneyless. Many of those living in shelters and on the streets have jobs. Others count on disability checks for regular income. Homeless veterans living in shelters, some of them alcoholics or drug-dependent, number about 200,000, according to the Veterans Administration.

Insufficient follow-ups

Homeless advocates wail in frustration over the premature release of the homeless from hospitals. The homeless frequently walk around with infected wounds and unchanged bandages. And in cases where after-care is an essential part of treatment, insufficient follow-up and patient monitoring can put them back to square one, rapidly reversing their recovery from the wide variety of ailments aggravated by living in the streets.

"You have to remember that a good number of homeless are mentally ill and people with addictions," said Perez. "How often are people just let out of the hospital with their meds -- so once they run out, that's the end of them? Or they're let out with no place to go."

More effective discharge planning is one goal of a medical services task force composed of several medical professionals participating in Passaic's long-range project.

Too bad they're planning for only one county, Passaic, and not the whole of North Jersey or the region. The group is working on a blueprint for local social improvement that could serve to instruct Bergen and other counties, which are taking a less aggressive approach to handling the multiple problems affecting the clusters of homeless men and women.

Bergen and Passaic each counted about 1,000 homeless in a snapshot census undertaken this year. But Bergen's plan doesn't even come close to its neighbors'.

The centerpiece of Bergen's plan for taking care of the homeless is a 100-bed shelter in Hackensack in which a few social service caseworkers will handle client problems. Ground-breaking is expected in October.

Bergen's 10-year planning effort will be undertaken by a team of two -- Bergen County Human Services and United Way. After a meeting yesterday with United Way, Bergen County spokesman Brian Hague said the agency will be the county's planning partner in the process.

Passaic, on the other hand, has about a dozen businesses, agencies, non-profit groups, church groups and governmental representatives shaping its long-range plan.

Learning from Passaic example

Bergen County service providers can learn from their neighbor. Sending representatives to the task force meetings, if only to observe, would furnish new ideas for coordinating effective homeless services. Simply building a shelter is relatively easy compared to the work needed to coordinate other services that homeless transients need.

There still is some question about whether Bergen County's planned shelter will add a significant number of beds available for homeless singles.

Passaic County is going beyond beds. It's also factoring in after-care for the hospitalized and sick, as well as space to treat alcohol- and drug-dependent and HIV homeless people.

Lawrence Aaron is a Record columnist. Contact him at mailto:aaron@northjersey.com Send comments about this column to letterstotheeditor@northjersey.com