Too far from services? We’re cannibalising the city with services. Besides, if you want to recover, you need to remove yourself from what’s making you sick. You need distance to gain perspective.
The county doesn't wish to solve the problem of homele$$ne$$. If JVP had any sense she would have come in and discounted every move that Kafoury had made during her term and fully funded Bybee Lakes as a model that works. Instead she started her term pushing Kafoury's agenda of housing first. How does one get her to even start listening to the community and her other commissioners?
Why wound there be resistance to funding this great place which works? Let me spell it out!
EGO.
Not from Mayor Wheeler, but definitely from people like Jessica Vega Pederson.
It is reprehensible that these basket case politicians are soooo egotistical. But they are. They’d sooner see this great place DIE because THEY didn’t create it, than support it, and fund it, so lives can be transformed.
I think a big reason that activists didn't like it was because it was built to be a prison. Their gut reaction is that this is a place meant to incarcerate the homeless, not house or shelter them. Those particular pictures do make it look that way, for sure. The barbed wire, the high fencing. It probably has guard towers.
One thing activists are always very worried about- and rightly so- is jail being used as a method of dealing with homelessness. I think some of them were worried that this was a stepping stone towards that.
Oh, I'm sure there is opposition on the grounds that it doesn't fall in line with housing first, or that the barriers and requirements make it so that it can't work for everyone. A lot of the chronically unsheltered are, after all, people who have been in shelters multiple times and gotten kicked out or left. I just think the "it's a jail" issue is probably a reason for them getting so mad about it.
As for the services argument, that is a legitimate problem, but one that is relatively easy to remedy. If it's too far away, you simply provide transportation to those services. A good passenger van or a bus, or heck, a few cars will do that. You can even have a shuttle that takes people to and from a transit center so they can be free to travel in the city if they wish. You could also just partner with some of those other services and bring them in-house. That's even more convenient. Why make them go wait in a government office to talk to a social services worker when you can bring a team of them out to the center and have them talk with the clients as needed?
The location of this place is actually good in another way. As you know, Kevin, I work in homeless shelters (please do not mention which one for privacy reasons), and one thing that is a major problem around our shelters is that unsheltered folks and those we have exited will often try to set up camp nearby. This of course makes the neighbors angry, and also creates a danger for staff and clients alike, while potentially being a source of drugs and other problems for the shelter. A lot of people in shelters have friends that are on the street, and those friends are sometimes a real problem. If this place is further away from resources, it's a lot less convenient to camp out nearby.
This is why a lot of cities are imposing camping bans around areas where these sorts of services are offered. My shelter used to have a humongous encampment that was just a massive problem. I heard all kinds of horror stories about the place, and fires were not uncommon, nor were assaults. The county swept that encampment, and now there is security that keeps them away. You can't set up camp around it. There's still issues with people using drugs and stuff around the outside of the shelter, doing other crazy stuff, but it happens a lot less, and there is security present to deal with it.
What we really need is options. There is no one size fits all solution here. Bybee works for a lot of people, but it won't work for everyone. Low barrier is needed for some people who would otherwise have no other option (aside from perhaps a psychiatric hospital or jail, which some of them also may need. Sometimes going to jail can help turn a person's life around. I've heard it from lawyers, cops, and ex cons in some cases.), but has a host of problems, some of which make it a bad option for some people.
Maybe it would help to have some input from other successful shelters? Our city shelter has been using this model with outstanding results for a very long time. Here is the web site: https://annapolislighthouse.org/
Too far from services? We’re cannibalising the city with services. Besides, if you want to recover, you need to remove yourself from what’s making you sick. You need distance to gain perspective.
Great article Kevin!! Well done! Keep fighting the good fight, but please be careful!
The county doesn't wish to solve the problem of homele$$ne$$. If JVP had any sense she would have come in and discounted every move that Kafoury had made during her term and fully funded Bybee Lakes as a model that works. Instead she started her term pushing Kafoury's agenda of housing first. How does one get her to even start listening to the community and her other commissioners?
Why wound there be resistance to funding this great place which works? Let me spell it out!
EGO.
Not from Mayor Wheeler, but definitely from people like Jessica Vega Pederson.
It is reprehensible that these basket case politicians are soooo egotistical. But they are. They’d sooner see this great place DIE because THEY didn’t create it, than support it, and fund it, so lives can be transformed.
Filthy, rotten EGO!!
I think a big reason that activists didn't like it was because it was built to be a prison. Their gut reaction is that this is a place meant to incarcerate the homeless, not house or shelter them. Those particular pictures do make it look that way, for sure. The barbed wire, the high fencing. It probably has guard towers.
One thing activists are always very worried about- and rightly so- is jail being used as a method of dealing with homelessness. I think some of them were worried that this was a stepping stone towards that.
Oh, I'm sure there is opposition on the grounds that it doesn't fall in line with housing first, or that the barriers and requirements make it so that it can't work for everyone. A lot of the chronically unsheltered are, after all, people who have been in shelters multiple times and gotten kicked out or left. I just think the "it's a jail" issue is probably a reason for them getting so mad about it.
As for the services argument, that is a legitimate problem, but one that is relatively easy to remedy. If it's too far away, you simply provide transportation to those services. A good passenger van or a bus, or heck, a few cars will do that. You can even have a shuttle that takes people to and from a transit center so they can be free to travel in the city if they wish. You could also just partner with some of those other services and bring them in-house. That's even more convenient. Why make them go wait in a government office to talk to a social services worker when you can bring a team of them out to the center and have them talk with the clients as needed?
The location of this place is actually good in another way. As you know, Kevin, I work in homeless shelters (please do not mention which one for privacy reasons), and one thing that is a major problem around our shelters is that unsheltered folks and those we have exited will often try to set up camp nearby. This of course makes the neighbors angry, and also creates a danger for staff and clients alike, while potentially being a source of drugs and other problems for the shelter. A lot of people in shelters have friends that are on the street, and those friends are sometimes a real problem. If this place is further away from resources, it's a lot less convenient to camp out nearby.
This is why a lot of cities are imposing camping bans around areas where these sorts of services are offered. My shelter used to have a humongous encampment that was just a massive problem. I heard all kinds of horror stories about the place, and fires were not uncommon, nor were assaults. The county swept that encampment, and now there is security that keeps them away. You can't set up camp around it. There's still issues with people using drugs and stuff around the outside of the shelter, doing other crazy stuff, but it happens a lot less, and there is security present to deal with it.
What we really need is options. There is no one size fits all solution here. Bybee works for a lot of people, but it won't work for everyone. Low barrier is needed for some people who would otherwise have no other option (aside from perhaps a psychiatric hospital or jail, which some of them also may need. Sometimes going to jail can help turn a person's life around. I've heard it from lawyers, cops, and ex cons in some cases.), but has a host of problems, some of which make it a bad option for some people.
Maybe it would help to have some input from other successful shelters? Our city shelter has been using this model with outstanding results for a very long time. Here is the web site: https://annapolislighthouse.org/