Most of us who live here think of Silicon Valley is being roughly San Jose up to Palo Alto on the west side of the Bay, and then maybe up to Fremont or so in the East Bay. There isn’t any official definition, but it’s mostly Santa Clara County.
Note the the route for Bus 22.
Shelters are commonly run by religious charities of one sort or another.
Their treatment of their “clients” is said to be demeaning and humiliating.
There are only a fraction of the number of beds needed, so only a fraction of the number of homeless people will get into one on any given night to begin with. And they kick you out at the crack of dawn, typically.
Survival Guide to Homelessness blog by “Mobile Homemaker”:
– Shelters are for Someone Else, Part 1
– Shelters are for Someone Else, Part 2
(Sidebar on those pages has table of contents for all the other posts too.)
I was homeless in the US, on and off, from the ages of 19-22. I moved in with my boyfriend this March and have been employed for a few months now. While I was homeless I’ve been all over the map- on dope and not on dope, with and without a car, traveling and staying in one place, working and panhandling. There is a certain subculture that I was a part of, called crusties, train kids, dirty kids, etc. They travel across the country via freight trains and hitchhiking, sometimes looking for seasonal work, sometimes just for someplace warm. A lot of kids claim to have chosen this life, but in most cases, we were kicked out by our parents at some point in our teens. Various factors make it hard for us to settle down and get jobs- mental health issues, substance abuse, lack of education and work experience, criminal records, chronic wanderlust.
There is a huge stigma amongst these particular kids about accepting help. It is generally felt that if you stay in one place too long while not working, you’re a homebum- a derogatory term for a classic homeless person who uses up all the available resources, panhandles very aggressively and ruins everything for everybody. The thinking is that you are failing at life and giving up your freedom by not working or hustling enough. Staying in short term shelters is frowned upon, unless it is really cold and there’s no other option. Also, shelters are seen as dangerous places where you have to deal with “wingnuts”(mentally ill people) and thieves stealing your stuff. The only shelter that I’ve stayed at and actually enjoyed is this one in Chicago: Corporate Involvement They had good food, were not too strict, and the other homeless kids there were generally trustworthy. They did not open til 8 pm, unlike some shelters which require you to be there at 4:30 and sit through some church service. They were at least at capacity every night and sometimes had to turn a dozen people away. They also do not segregate by sex there, which brings up another point why young homeless people don’t like to stay in shelters: many kids on the street are homosexual or transgender, and feel very uncomfortable in traditional shelters.
Long term housing is simply not available in most cases for young, nondisabled homeless people without children. Even if you qualify for a section 8 housing voucher, there are long waiting lists in a lot of places. A friend of mine and her two year old son are dealing with that process right now. Her mother has given her a few months to get out of the house, and unless her friends are willing to be very generous, there’s really not a lot of places she can go.
A couple people at my job now are homeless, even while working full time. They spend their money on booze and drugs and food and sleep in abandoned houses, while attempting to save up for a normal apartment. In Chicago, when it was too cold to sleep outside or in some abandoned building and the shelter was full, we used to ride the train all night. I woke up once with a guy with one hand in my pocket and his other on my breast. It was scary.
There are a lot who are not profoundly mentally ill, but just “off” enough that they are not integrated socially and are unemployable and have never received help.
Another thing is that homeless shelters are often pushing a religion, it can get tiring dealing with pressure to find jesus or get out and attending “optional” sermons for hours. Also they often have a ZERO TOLERANCE policy for both alcohol and drug use outside the facility even, so you can get kicked out for smelling like weed or beer, they will search people too. It is not surprising that people would rather be on the street than in a prison basically.
I would only add to this the fact that I see homeless people asleep in the Metro entrances all the time. I am interested in whether they are allowed to stay there all night when the Metro stops running. In the winter the homeless shelters are always full.
If I were homeless in NYC, I would simply get on the A train and ride it all night. I wouldn’t sleep well and I guess I would have to get off at the end stations and get back on again. A complete RT on the A train between upper Manhattan and Far Rockaway takes over 2 hours.
When my son and DIL lived in Manhattan for two years, she joined a nearby church. I assume it was Presbyterian (she is) and it was on fifth Ave, maybe around 52nd or 53rd St. The church had a large covered porch that was sheltered from wind, rain, and snow (but not cold) and numbers of homeless people slept there. The city ordered the church to clear them away. The church resisted and the city went to court to get a court order against them. The church fought it and won! Why the city wanted this remains mysterious to me. They were there 2004 and 2006, so Bloomberg was already mayor.
This gets thrown out a lot, but it’s really not true. Yeah - there are plenty of religiously affiliated shelters in this country that mandate religious compliance. But NONE of them are getting federal funding, which is where a giant chunk of normal homeless services’ operating expenses come from.
Additionally, “shelters” is a completely outdated mode of dealing with the homeless issue. Governments from the federal level to the local level are funneling their money towards services that focus on transitional and/or permanent housing solutions, not just three hots and a cot. If you’re involved with a group that wants to focus on the homeless, please find an organization that’s more than just an emergency shelter.
In Ontario, the OHC (Ontario Housing Corp.) used to be the second biggest landlord in the free world, back when there was such a distinction - second only to New York City.
Public housing worked just like I imagine council flats worked in Britain - the needy signed up for a spot, and people were pulled off the list according to order and the urgency of their need. Essentially, single mothers, large families and old people were most likely to get anything. The rest figured out their own problems. Toward the end, before a new neocon government devolved the housing to minicipalities, thepace of new public housing construction was slow; but then there would likely always be a waiting list for cheap, good maintained housing with rent capped at 33% of income…
If you did not qualify, or came out as less needy (single males, childless couples) or while you were waiting for years on the list, it was up to you to find your own place. I remember frequenting a landlord-tenant discussion site, and the general consensus was that he board that arbitrates cases is severely biased toward the tenant - so the landord business, especially with lower-income and frequently mobile tenants, is a minefield to stay away from. Nobody wants to build or rent low income ousing, and that which exists often skimps on repairs to make profits.
As for “homeless” as in no fixed address, no decent income - there again, the demand is much higher than the supply for shelters. Also, as mentioned above, there are some real crazies in there, so the less crazy are reluctant to use them.
I am certainly not an expert on this subject but I have dealt with homeless people. The state government does have programs to put people up in housing. Not shelters. The local Motel 6 is used to house famous on welfare. I know some of these families are then given more permenant housing. The homeless I have dealt with that are on the street have all been hardcore substance abusers or mentally ill. We are suburban so don’t deal with the numbers that gravitate to urban areas.
When a city builds a road to relieve traffic congestion, within a few years it fills to overflow with tis own traffic jams.
The same lesson applies with public housing - no matter how much public housing you build or arrange for, the lineup of people expecting to fill it will be even longer. Basically, even the worst-maintained government slum will be better than the private sector equivalent; and cheap housing squeezes out the equivalent private sector supply, if rent control has not alrady done so.
I guess the question is - how does a family come to be lodged by the government at Motel 6? Is there a list or some criteria, do some social workers have more pull?
Hotel vouchers aren’t an ideal solution, that’s for certain. But they do have a place, given the proper oversight and context. Going to the expense of building a transitional housing facility probably isn’t the most efficient use of funds, so if you have a successful permanent housing (PH) model in place, but need a buffer for families as they wait for a spot in your PH program to open up, why not Motel 6? As long as they’re not there for 3 months and are receiving essential services to get them on their way to self-sufficiency, it’s a pefectly valid solution.
Only 3 months? My, you are optimistic about how the system works. IIRC the waiting list for Ontario Housing way back when was pushing 2 years for some categories. Once the people are allowed into the motel rooms, why would they leave if there is no alternative better?
Well, it may be either optimism or the 7 years I spent working in the homeless field, all dealing with federal regulations on how funds can be spent.
Because they wouldn’t have been admitted in the first place if there wasn’t an alternative opening up in the near future.
That article is full of shit. Look, there are basically 3 types of homeless:
Those who are mentally disabled or seriously drug addicted so that they can NOT live in a home environment. If you give them a room, they will ruin it fast, or burn down the whole building. Some of these do go to shelters when the weather is bad, but the shelters have rules: no smoking, no drinking, no drugs, no open fires, must use the restroom for bodily functions (no crapping in the corners or peeing your pants), cant be super-filthy, no stealing, no fighting, no screaming all nite long at the top of your voice etc. “Housing First” aint gonna work for most of these dudes.
Homeless by choice- they prefer the lifestyle. Again, they do come in during really bad weather, but usually they have a camp somewhere. Are we going to force them into shelters at gunpoint? Some of them do have minor issues that would prevent a shelter, such as a pet.
(It’s true that some of the ‘rules” can seem somewhat arbitrary. “No Pets”? I wouldn’t give up my pet. But not all pets are well behaved or disease free or housetrained. So, I understand the rule, even tho I also understand why some don’t like it. )
Dudes who were one paycheck away from being out on the streets- then they didn’t get that paycheck. These dudes need and deserve our help to get back into society. This is where programs like Housing First can excel. But most of them are not “on the street’. They are living in their car, couch-surfing, etc.
Why don’t we consider the evidence, rather than vague generalizations? Housing First is often targeted directly at the chronic homeless: the hardcore alcoholics, crazies and addicts that you think can’t handle living indoors. And there have been plenty of studies showing that Housing First reduces costs to the system, and has better outcomes for the people involved. Less jail time, overdoses, ER visits, more use of mental health treatment, etc.
Rather than ganking Wiki’s cites, I’ll let you go through them yourself. Or for a slightly more objective wall o’ cites, see this pubmed search for “housing first”.
It ain’t a perfect system, but Housing First is much better than all of the alternatives.
I wish there were were commonly accepted categories of homeless, so I could figure out how to describe my brother, homeless since last April. He’s closest to your last category, I guess. But no couches left, as he was worn out his welcome everywhere. Not living in a car. I would give him the beater I don’t drive anymore, except I think he would let it get towed or stolen. He has been living in one shelter for a while, but they have limits on how long you can stay, so he will be going to another one, soon. He is looking forward to having 10 roommates instead of 130.
Sure, it might work for some. But how about those who would start fires or shit in the corners or urinate in public? Or those who would scream all night long?
Back in the bad old days they used to commit those kinds of dudes.
Wouldn’t you as a 16 year old woman have been given accommodation? I may indeed be misinformed. I have volunteered with the homeless but not in a position where I actually knew the rules as such - it’s just what I picked up. Also my general experience of homeless people who I have met in the street suggests that there are not many who stay there long who don’t have severe issues and basically choose it. Indeed I’m not sure I’ve ever met an actually homeless big issue seller.
Silly anecdote: I don’t mention this for any particular reason other than it seems appropriate, a few years ago I hanged around fenchurch street station with a husband and wife team of Big Issue sellers I knew. As an experiment I started trying to hand out a £20 note to random passers by while trying to “act homeless”. It took almost an hour to get any takers and they were supposed to be city gents and the like, their entire jobs about finding money!
I guess I fell into numbers 1,2, and 3 all within the span of 3 years. 1, because I was a serious drug addict for a while. 2, because I decided I would rather travel and be homeless then try to settle down and find a job in a city where it was almost impossible because I kept getting sucked back into addiction. 3, because I was working on and off all the time. Hell, I spent four months being a full time homeless heroin addict and also holding down a part time restaurant job.
You can’t generalize about homeless people, most of them fall somewhere in between.
Most 16-year-olds would be put into foster care or a group home if they approached a service provider for housing. Many of them lie about their age because they have had bad experiences with the foster care system. Also, they have to choose between freedom and relative security. With all the horribleness of being a homeless kid, you still get to go where you want, get high or drunk when you want, no rules, no school, no expectations. That’s a whole lot different from being in a strict foster home or modern day orphanage.
I can’t find an ounce of pity for people who break laws they could easily just NOT BREAK, and then can’t save money towards paying rent.