News and Events
A House Isn't Just a Home
Monday, May 11, 2009
By JANET PEARSON Associate Editor
Published: 5/10/2009 2:29 AM
Last Modified: 5/10/2009 3:38 AM
The controversy over the North Yale Avenue apartment complex, understandable though it was, unfortunately overshadowed the bigger picture.
The project at 10 N. Yale Ave. is much more than just an apartment complex that will house formerly homeless individuals, among other residents. It represents a small piece of a giant, complex puzzle coming together.
The idea isn't just to put a roof over their heads. The idea is to help them get better. The idea is to immediately link them up with the help they need, so the likelihood of becoming homeless again is minimized. The idea is that once their problems are under control, these individuals will be much more likely to become stable, even productive, even permanent members of their communities.
Sound like some dreamy do-gooders' ideas? Maybe, but the success seen already at Mental Health Association in Tulsa apartment complexes suggests these ideas can work. A remarkable 88 percent of MHAT residents are still stable a year after moving in.
Advocates for the homeless and mentally ill aim to further advance their goal of eradicating homelessness with development of "A Way Home for Tulsa," a comprehensive, integrated, multidisciplinary approach to addressing all the problems that contribute to homelessness.
The concept of bringing all involved stakeholders together to develop a coordinated plan of action makes so much sense it's surprising it isn't applied to all sorts of human endeavors. Through such a collaboration, efficiencies can be maximized, duplication avoided, processes streamlined, wait times minimized. But carrying out such a concept is not as easy as it might sound.
Thankfully, Tulsa is home to dozens of agencies and services whose leaders welcome such a challenge. If their eagerness to succeed is any indication, Tulsa someday may no longer have chronically homeless wandering the streets.
"This is a key moment in time," said Gregg Shinn, MHAT housing specialist. "A lot of things are coming together now that can make this happen now."
The Tulsa Community Foundation recently convened all the stakeholders to begin the case-management planning and development process.
Already, about 70 organizations have signed on, as well as numerous members of the faith community. State, local and federal agencies, private philanthropists, and even the local universities are expected to play roles.
Given the level of controversy that homeless issues generate, one might think there are many thousands of homeless people in Tulsa. Surveys show that throughout the year, about 4,000 people will become homeless in the Tulsa area, many for only a short time. On any given night, shelters will house about 600 people who have no home.
It is the chronically homeless — those who for various reasons haven't had a stable home for years — who present the most difficult challenges. There may be 250 or more chronically homeless people in Tulsa.
While their numbers are surprisingly small, their effects on a community can be significant. Health care and public safety costs associated with homelessness can be shockingly high. A homeless person with serious health problems may end up in a hospital emergency room a hundred times in a year.
Their challenges run the entire gamut of human need: substance abuse, mental illness, legal problems, transportation, money, health issues, family problems. This effort aims to tackle them all as soon as possible, through integrated case management.
"If all needed services are linked together in coordinated fashion, even these most difficult cases can be managed," said Shinn. "Some of them never get out of this cycle with current efforts."
Surely nobody wants to be homeless, so why does it happen? Shinn explained that traumatic life experiences, such as a death or abuse, can often bring on the long-term difficulties that result in homelessness. Mental illness is a major factor.
Veterans make up as much as 20 percent of this population. "It is a growing problem," said Shinn.
"We have a lot of educating to do about this population," said Susan Neal, the mayor's point-person on the subject. "Tomorrow it could be any one of us. We're talking about us."
A key component of the integrated case-management approach will be involvement of the faith community. Bob Althoff, executive director of Abba's Family, a faith-based outreach organization, is leading the effort to bring churches on board.
With housing and other needs about to be tackled, "we can now begin to move along the hierarchy of needs" and address spiritual matters with these individuals.
A recent survey showed 79 percent of the homeless are interested in pursuing matters of faith. Happily, Tulsa's faith community would like to help.
"People in the faith community don't know how to reach out," said Althoff, who added that the new coalition can serve as their "tech support" in that regard. "Everybody's very, very willing. We've been thrilled with the response of the faith community."
A connection with a house of worship can help these vulnerable people cope with the demands of everyday life, thus improving their chances of remaining stable.
The key to all of this working is getting these individuals into housing. The "Building Tulsa, Building Lives" campaign to produce more than 500 housing units for this population is well along, but still is about $9 million short of its $30 million goal.
"If we're going to raise $30 million to end chronic homelessness, it's incumbent on us as service providers to step back and look at how services are integrated, to look at how we're spending our money now," said Mike Brose, MHAT director. "This is so much bigger than just housing."
"This is a solvable, doable, realistic," said Shinn.
So let's do it. We'll all be better off for it.
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Janet Pearson 581-8328
janet.pearson@tulsaworld.com
Reprinted with special permission from the Tulsa World.
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