Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Palm Beach County seeks to help the homeless
Over the next four months, Palm Beach County plans to offer housing, food and medical care to every veteran living on its streets.
It’s an ambitious effort: Workers will set out to find and house about one homeless veteran a day, 110 over the course of 111 days.
A similar outreach last year to homeless youth reduced that population by 33 percent, and organizers for veterans say they believe they will see even better results.
“Our teams know who’s on the streets,” said Wendy Tippett, Palm Beach County’s director of human services. “We know who’s at the parks, who’s at the [Veterans Administration], who’s at the Lewis Center [homeless shelter]. In a very purposeful way, we throw together all the larger systems and find a way to serve a veteran every day in that time period.”
Early in 2018, a county tally found 110 homeless veterans, a 73 percent increase from the previous year. Despite that bad news, the survey reported some progress: The county’s overall homeless rate fell 18 percent, partly due to the focus on eliminating youth homelessness. There were 1,308 homeless during a January count last year, down from 1,607 the previous year.
Several government agencies and nonprofit organizations are collaborating in the effort that will begin in January, including Palm Beach County government, the Veteran Affairs Medical Center; The Lord’s Place; Gulfstream Goodwill; and the Salvation Army.
The Palm Beach County Commission has made housing the homeless a priority. The county is planning a new $8 million shelter and Sheriff’s Office satellite building near John Prince Park in Lake Worth, although the location has not yet been set.
The shelter would be the county’s second. The Senator Philip D. Lewis Center opened in 2012 in West Palm Beach at a cost of $9.6 million and has 20
beds for women and 40 for men. Several agencies have offices at the center to help the residents find housing, medical care and jobs.
The county reported 618 people stayed at the Lewis Center last year for an average stay of 42 days. There’s a 100-person waiting list.
The workers who will fan out beginning Jan. 3 will offer veterans housing, bus passes, and access to food, showers and medical treatment. They will provide similar assistance to all the homeless they meet, although veterans are the focus,
Tippett said.
The West Palm Beach VA Medical Center already offers several services that will be presented to the homeless vets during the upcoming outreach. They can shower, wash their clothes, eat and see a social worker at the Veterans Resource Center, a walk-in clinic. There are no prerequisites, such as drug treatment, said Karen Collins, a VA social worker.
“We do whatever we can to get them housed, with services such as mental health or medical,” she said. “We want to give them a stable environment.”
The clinic had 1,773 appointments in 2018 and distributed
410 housing vouchers, which offer subsidized rents, in Palm Beach County.
Collins said some homeless veterans, especially those that served in Vietnam, don’t trust the government and are reluctant to accept offers of care. She said many veterans she sees are in their 60s and have lost touch with their families. About 5 percent are women, she said.
“We spend time developing rapport, earning their trust,” she said.
The county is planning another homeless count Jan. 24 to 25.