There’s good news about homelessness
It often feels to me that our current news cycles are filled with nothing but painful, difficult or challenging news. Many days, I struggle to even pick up a paper for fear of what I might read. Honestly, I am hungry for some good news, and if that’s where you find yourself today, I’ve got some.
Three years ago, our community set out on a journey to end homelessness in our region. We knew we could not stop people from becoming homeless, but “ending” homelessness meant that any such incident would be rare, brief and one time. We endeavored to create a system such that a person could be expeditiously moved from the street to a home, including the necessary support services that would keep that person housed for years to come. We also learned that this “housing first” model would save our community hundreds of thousands of dollars over a 10-year period by reducing emergency room visits and pressures on our judicial system. It was the right decision both morally and fiscally.
So, here’s the good news: The system is working. In 2015 and 2016, our community ended veterans’ homelessness in our area, housing more than 1,000 who qualified for services through the heroic efforts of the Veterans Administration and leaders like Dr. Paul Deci. Further, in 2016, through the combined efforts of the Central Florida Commission on Homelessness, the Homeless Services Network and the Continuum of Care, we have housed more than 500 chronically homeless individuals. In the words of the old black spiritual, “ain’t a that good news?” Yes, there are many things that need work in our community, but this is something we can all celebrate.
Obviously, we still have more work to do. The system is far from perfect, and we need to continue to grow collaborative relationships among our jurisdictions, the provider agencies and other stakeholders. Beyond that, we need to help our homeless with more than just a home. We need to help them experience that elusive thing called community. Psychologists have shown that if you have at least five unpaid people in your life who care whether or not you wake up in the morning, you will have the capacity to thrive. We need to build such community around the homeless among us so that they are not simply “off our streets,” but flourishing as human beings.
And there’s the rub: Too often, our government and social agencies want to solve the problem by simply giving a homeless person a greater sense of safety, but is that what it means to be alive? Is that all we want — to be safe — or do we not have an internal longing to have the authority to make meaningful decisions in life while exercising our capacity to take risks in being creative, contributing members of society? Our responsibility to our homeless is to do more than simply get them off our streets so we feel better about community optics, but to actually give them a chance to flourish in their own God-given humanity, those who carry inherent dignity, value and worth.
That’s the reason many of you wonder whether we have made progress on this issue or not. You continue to see the same people on our streets. Well, guess what? Many of them are housed, but what do you suppose they do during the day? They go back to familiar places so they can see the people they know. They go out to find community, and it’s the same desire that exists in all of us.
Toward that end, we are currently working through a broadly ecumenical network of faith communities to help create those important relationships. Every human being needs it, so let’s start to envision a more holistic approach to serve the most needy among us, all as part of the larger story of serving the greater good of the community in which we live.