When most people think of the homeless they conjure up an image of a nameless man dressed in tattered clothes, sleeping on a bench or pile of old newspapers. The number of homeless people living on the street is at most 10 percent of the entire homeless population. This is due, in part, to a variety of homeless shelters helping people stay off the street and getting into safer, healthier environments.
One such shelter here in Philadelphia is the Ridge Avenue Homeless Shelter in north Philadelphia. On any given night the shelter provides 300 beds to homeless men in the area in addition to necessary social and medical services. It is the largest shelter in Philadelphia’s homeless system. Now, the city has announced it will not renew its lease.
If replacement facilities are not specified, the men receiving services from the Ridge Shelter will be turned to the streets beginning Jan. 1, 2012.
Why have our local leaders elected to close the shelter? The decision is a reflection of a major paradigm shift in homeless policy. The new Homeless Emergency Assistance and Rapid Transition to Housing Act makes some important changes to its predecessor, the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act of 1987.
The HEARTH Act aims to decrease the size of shelters and shorten the length of shelter stays. These changes, it is believed, will act as catalysts to quickly get the homeless population back on their feet and contributing to society.
HEARTH also moves away from the traditional transition model of homeless shelters to a housing first model. In the traditional transition model, homeless people are required to earn stable housing by first overcoming all of their life issues. This can be an incredibly difficult task considering many homeless people are simultaneously dealing with family problems, substance abuse and mental health issues. These issues are hard for anyone to overcome, even if they do have stable housing.
Under the housing first model, homeless people will be given stable housing first, thereby, giving them a better opportunity to overcome whatever issues they may be facing. The theory is that homeless people will be better able to tackle life issues if they are first given a stable environment, rather than forcing them to resolve their problems while meandering through different homeless shelters and sleeping on the streets.
According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the housing first model is less expensive and more beneficial to the homeless population. While this model may very well prove to be more beneficial and cost effective in the long run, it does not address the short-term implications for the homeless men at the Ridge Shelter.
When this change goes into effect the number of beds available to homeless men will be drastically reduced because there are not enough housing first programs in place to meet the need.
Additionally, the shelter is scheduled to close in the middle of winter, precisely during the time emergency shelters are in the most need. During “code blue” days when nighttime temperatures could potentially prove fatal, the city is required to pick up all homeless people on the streets and house them in emergency shelters. This is already a difficult task when Philadelphia’s homeless system is intact. How will it be done when the largest facility is closed down? Who will pick up the slack? Pushing other shelters beyond their capacity could cause many sticky health, safety, and legal issues.
We need to make sure that these vulnerable citizens of our city are not casually brushed off into the streets while policy makers in suites and air-conditioned offices re-write the laws. Before this change happens there are questions that need to be answered. Are the voices of the homeless being heard? How will presently sheltered homeless men be accounted for in the transfer? Will they have a place to stay? The answers to these questions need to be made clear before I am convinced the policy changes are a good idea.
Justin Barton is a Social Policy & Practice graduate student from Philadelphia. His email address is jbart@sp2.upenn.edu.
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