Top 10 List: Addressing Homelessness

Joel John Roberts, the CEO of PATH Partners in Los Angeles just published his top ten list of how the approach to addressing homelessness has changed in the five years that he's been blogging. It's a good list (not in any priority):

• Permanent Supportive Housing (some also call this “Housing First”) has become the paramount solution to homelessness. But communities today are struggling with how to fund on an annual basis the support services needed for this housing.

• Chronic homelessness has become a priority target population. But in the past couple of years, episodic homelessness (the newly homeless) has dramatically increased, resulting in local communities changing priorities.

• More and more families have become homeless during a time when families were not considered part of the standard definition of chronic homelessness.

• Hundreds and hundreds of cities across the country adopted “Ten Year Plans To End Homelessness.” But after five years of adoption—the halfway point for many cities—no one is confidently predicting that chronic homelessness will end by 2014.

• Tent cities are becoming the new “shelters” of today. Very few local neighborhoods are allowing traditional homeless shelters to be built. So impromptu homeless “tent cities” are being set up instead.

• Due to the declining economy, less and less resources are available to sustain an existing homeless care system and to invest in permanent affordable housing.

• Homeless prevention trumps traditional homeless services. Pro-active prevention activities are being funded rather than reactive homeless services.
  

• Social media is actually becoming as effective as traditional media. Facebook, blogs, and Twitter are certainly all the buzz. Who wants to buy stock in local newspapers? Social media is being used to educate and mobilize the community.
  

• Government, alone, cannot resolve homelessness. It will take both a public and private partnership to end homelessness. That is why local governments are partnering with the business community, faith groups, and private service agencies.

• Finally, I personally feel that community engagement is becoming an important piece to the solution of homelessness. In order to increase resources and overcome NIMBYism (Not In My Backyard), communities are going to have to unite together to overcome homelessness.

I might humbly add that homeless people with a Community Voice Mail number now have access to a constant flow of information (via broadcast voice messaging) sent to them from a local person who is in touch with a wide variety of community resources and events. And social service agencies trying to help end homelessness have a simple, effective tool to reach their "phoneless" clients when they need to tell them about a job or housing opportunity.

Community Voice Mail in the News

KOMO News in Seattle just broadcast a great piece (see below) about the Washington Telephone Assistance Program, which uses federal Universal Service Fund dollars to provide discounted phone service to people receiving various forms of public assistance. Bill, who is featured in the program, is also a really nice guy and a big advocate of Community Voice Mail. Jenn Brandon, the executive director of the Community Voice Mail National Office, is also interviewed.

New CVM Blog: Cleveland

Cleveland Community Voice Mail, which is hosted by 211/First Call For Help, has just launched a blog. This is the 11th blog created by local CVM programs, and a sign that we're trying to reach our clients and their agencies using all appropriate means. Nearly 60% of our clients tell us they have email addresses, and virtually all of our 2,000 agencies using most of the communication technologies you can name. We have a lot of opportunity for reaching more people in multiple ways.

Stories from Clients (NEED Magazine)

NEED Magazine just published a nice piece featuring the "stories" of a few Seattle Community Voice Mail clients, with accompanying photos. If you watched the video we recently published with the voices of CVM clients talking about the best voice message they've ever received, you'll recognize some of the photos, and you can now learn more about their experiences. Of course, they all use Community Voice Mail, and it's been instrumental in improving their situation, but the bigger story is about their sheer determination to overcome the huge obstacles before them. Inspiring stuff.

New CVM Blog: Pittsburgh

Pittsburgh Community Voice Mail, which is hosted by Travelers Aid of Pittsburgh, has just launched a blog to keep CVM clients, agencies and others in the area informed about jobs, events and other local resources. The Pittsburgh program launched earlier this year, and is already serving hundreds of clients. This is the 10th CVM blog!

"Poverty in Chicago" Documentary

There's a good (and of course, achingly sad) documentary now online about the homeless and others living in poverty in Chicago. It's called "Poverty in Chicago", and it was written and directed by Brian Schodorf. You can watch it below, and read more about it on the web site for the film. (Thanks to the NAEH blog for pointing me to this).

Your Best Voice Mail Message Ever

We send a lot of voice messages to our clients, about jobs, events, health information, local resources, etc. We frequently ask them for information about how they use their Community Voice Mail box, or how else we can help. Recently, we asked our clients in Houston a different kind of question:

"What's the best voice mail message you've ever received?"

Within a week, we received more than 100 amazing and moving messages, and you can listen to a selection of them below. Jobs, family, love, connection...there's a lot of life that gets squeezed through the phone lines. We hope you find this as inspiring as we do. Enjoy!



Our profound thanks to the CVM clients in Houston who left us messages, and to the Seattle CVM clients who agreed to be photographed. Thanks also to volunteer photographer Rajiv Kapoor, who along with Daniel from the CVM National Office spent a lot of time with our clients to capture these images.