Being Homeless In Washtenaw County: A Panel Discussion With The Washtenaw Housing Alliance

Sat, 03/08/2008 - 2:29pm

When: February 13, 2012 at the Downtown Library: Multi-Purpose Room

Disturbing facts on homelessness in Washtenaw County: 2, 756 people will experience homelessness within a year in the county; 26% of these are families; 41 people in the county in any given week become homeless.Join service and housing providers across the community as they discuss the current state of homelessness in Washtenaw County, the innovative partnerships that have been created to address the need, and the next steps needed to end homelessness in our community.The Washtenaw Housing Alliance (WHA) is a unique coalition of 28 non-profit organizations that serve those experiencing homelessness or those at risk of homelessness. The WHA and its member agencies have created a collaboration that harnesses the commitment, energy and resources of a major hospital system, the cities of Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti, Washtenaw County, three major institutions of higher education, the private sector and the community at large to end homelessness in Washtenaw County.

Transcript

[00:00:25.64] JULIE STEINER: Good evening, everybody. Thank you so much for coming. It's so-- makes me feel very warm inside that you're all so interested in learning about what's going on in Washtenaw County about homelessness. I'm going to take just a couple seconds to tell you about to Washtenaw Housing Alliance. But I know that you're here to hear from our service providers that are up here on our panel. So I don't want to take too much of your time away from them.
[00:00:50.05] But the Washtenaw Housing Alliance is a coalition of 29 housing and homelessness organizations in the community. Who knew we could have so many people, so many agencies, working on this really significant problem that we have? And we've been around since 2000. We started, we came together as a smaller group of agencies-- about eight of them-- with three goals to accomplish.
[00:01:16.44] One was to help the families who were staying in a homeless shelter that, at the time, was a rotating shelter. So they were staying, maybe some of you were involved, in congregational homes for a week at a time. So they might stay at the west side United Methodist Church for a week. And then their stuff would get packed up and they'd move over to Temple Beth Emeth for the next week. And like that. And they operated that way for many years.
[00:01:40.96] So our first goal was to stop the families from having to rotate that way. Let's find a place where they could go. And we accomplished that with the help of Saint Joe's Mercy Hospital, who offered up a building known as Alpha House. So it's out on the west side of the county. And that is now one of the three shelters for families in Washtenaw County. And that one is run by Interfaith Hospitality Network, still with a fabulous array-- it is 37 or more?-- congregations that support their work. But instead of the families moving, in the congregations do. So that was our first accomplishment.
[00:02:18.89] The second was to raise the money to build the Delonis Center, or shelter for single adults in downtown Ann Arbor. And we raised about $8.7 million and went through many years community conversations to get the shelter built. And then we accomplish that and the Delonis Center's now operating as a fully programmatic shelter with a health clinic and a community kitchen that feeds 150 people twice a day and a whole variety of other resources and support services.
[00:02:54.41] And then our third goal is to end homelessness and Washtenaw County. And in 2004, we issued our Blueprint to End Homelessness, which is our strategic plan for ending homelessness, hopefully in 10 years. That makes me realize that we have two to go. We're getting there.
[00:03:16.10] We had a little blip in 2008 with economy has set us back quite a bit. And I'm sure all of our agencies will talk about that. But the Housing Alliance works with all of those agencies as well as people in the community who are concerned. And we work on prevention as one of our primary concerns, making sure that the system of care in the community is as responsive and efficient and helpful as it can possibly be. That we do education and advocacy around these issues to make sure that our whole community understands that to end homelessness, it's going to take our whole community working together.
[00:03:56.29] And that we make sure that we have data and information for you about what is actually going on around homelessness in our community. So that's the goal in the work of the Housing Alliance. And I'll be glad to answer questions later. So for a matter of housekeeping, Each of our panelists are going to speak for about five minutes on their topic. And then we'll open it up for questions. So if you end up with a question after one, make a mental note. Or if you're like me, write it down because your mental note won't work.
[00:04:29.38] And then we'll have an opportunity to answer your questions. Does that sound good? All right. So I'm going to start with Carole McCabe, who is the executive director of Avalon Housing. Avalon's been around how long?
[00:04:42.49] CAROLE MCCABE: This is our 20th anniversary year.
[00:04:44.01] JULIE STEINER: 20th anniversary of providing housing for people who are often the hardest to get housing for and to keep housed. And we are so fortunate in Washtenaw County to have Avalon a part of our system of care. So, Carole McCabe.
[00:05:00.29] CAROLE MCCABE: Thanks. Can you hear me OK, everybody? OK. Thanks so much for coming. And I just want to give a particular shout out to the Honey Creekers who are here. It's so nice to see everybody.
[00:05:12.26] [LAUGHTER]
[00:05:14.44] CAROLE MCCABE: So Avalon Housing's been around, as I said, since '92. And just a brief matter of history. We started out actually as part of the shelter, what was prior to Delonis Center. But still the same organization. And a number of us were working in the emergency shelter and we really learned a lot from that experience. And we watched people be able to get housing and move out of the shelter and move into housing. And then we would see them returning to the shelter down the line.
[00:05:43.17] And so we knew for a lot of people that we were seeing in the shelter were not successful in trying to move beyond homelessness. They were sort of continuing to end up there.
[00:05:52.83] So we really tried to come up with sort of a more long term solution and a more creative solution. And that's what really got a lot of us, who were basically social workers, into the business of becoming real estate developers and landlords. Which was a pretty big shift for us because it meant-- we figured we need to be in the business of housing if we really wanted to end homelessness.
[00:06:14.19] So our mission in our organization grew out of that experience and what we learned from working in the shelter. And our mission is to develop and manage permanent housing that's affordable to people with very, very low incomes, the lowest income residents of the community, with a priority on people who are homeless and who have a physical or mental disability. So we started that.
[00:06:38.44] We've been very fortunate. We've been trying to grow slowly but steadily over the last 20 years to meet the need. And right now we have, Avalon owns and manages about 280 apartments that are scattered at 25 different sites throughout Ann Arbor. We have about 150 single adults in our housing and about 130 families, including about 70, 75 kids.
[00:07:05.60] So we grew out of a single adult shelter, but we also expanded and started realizing we needed to do housing for families. The need was very great there too.
[00:07:12.93] So we really do three main things at Avalon. The first is the development. And that's how we make things permanently affordable. Avalon does what we call permanent support of housing, which is a combination of affordable housing and support services. Because a lot of people, for a lot of people, all they need to get out of homelessness is a place they can afford with rents that are affordable. But for also another group of people who have a disability, a mental or physical disability, they also benefit from having supports and support services to help them keep the housing once they're in there.
[00:07:49.69] So the real estate development, part of our work is how we make things truly affordable and permanently affordable for people who live on basically minimum wage jobs or public benefits. Our focus is to structure the rents so that they're affordable to people who are have incomes at or below 30% of the area median. So the county, the HUD calculates for the county how much is the median income. And we're targeting rents so that they can be affordable to people who only make 30% of that, because that's who we are seeing who needs it in the shelters.
[00:08:25.62] So we do. That piece of work is very complex, and put financing together. And we don't borrow any money. We don't use debt because we can't get rents low enough if we do that. So we do everything-- the process a little different than a for-profit developer. But that's the first part because that's how we get apartments that are permanently affordable.
[00:08:47.42] The other thing we do is property management. And we do that in a way that we call enhanced property management. Because really we say that's our-- the nonprofit part of being. It's basically being a good guy landlord. Like being a landlord with a focus on tenants and trying to help tenants maintain their housing and prevent evictions. So we call it enhanced management because we consider it enhancing the landlord-tenant relationship.
[00:09:12.18] And what that means is basically blending social work into being a landlord. We hire social workers to be property managers. And we really are all about basically making creative accommodations and helping people be successful and keep their housing. And so we try and screen people into our housing because we are basically developing and managing housing for people who almost everybody else has screened out in a lot of ways.
[00:09:35.63] So we are set and structured to with our rents and the way we do property management to make it work for people and help minimize evictions and help people maintain housing stability. Really the process of being sort of this enhance property manager is about making creative accommodations to people and helping. Whatever we can do is the landlord to make it work long term.
[00:10:00.37] So one example is most landlords might inspect their properties once a year. And we have some tenants who may have a hoarding disorder or may have a health and safety problem in their unit. So what we would do is inspect their units every single week. And that's just something that we as a landlord can do because that's what it takes to make sure that the place is safe. And so that's an example of kind of accommodation that we make.
[00:10:24.73] Am I-- is somebody timing me?
[00:10:26.17] JULIE STEINER: I am.
[00:10:26.91] CAROLE MCCABE: OK, I'm not done yet. I'm just checking.
[00:10:28.10] [LAUGHTER]
[00:10:28.59] JULIE STEINER: OK. Go ahead. I was just gonna stand up here so you knew.
[00:10:31.04] CAROLE MCCABE: Well, you made me first, so now I'm like, OK. So that's a property management part. The third of what we do is support services. And that's really what allows us to kind of take risks on folks, rent to people who haven't been successful in maintaining housing before, but we feel could be with the supports that we have in place. So that those support services. They're on-site. They're flexible. They're all voluntary.
[00:10:52.91] And so it's all about engagement and building community and helping people maintain-- get connected. Reconnected to each other, to a sense of community, and reducing-- we find that being a part of a community is one of the most important things that we can do to help people reduce a sense of isolation and stigma that comes from being homeless and experiencing a disability as well.
[00:11:14.58] So those are the three main things that we do. And we think that permanent support of housing is really a long term solution to homelessness. We think it's the best long term solution. We've had a great success. People have been homeless for years and years and then have managed to maintain their housing for equally as many years at Avalon.
[00:11:32.49] So we have a huge demand. People don't turnover apartments very well, very frequently. So we are always struggling to meet the demand. Our wait list is open right now. You may have heard. And we had our list open a week, we had 200 applications. So the final thing I'll say is that in addition to support of housing really, we think, being the right thing to do as far as humanity and taking care of each other. It's also the cost-effective thing to do.
[00:12:01.67] Because honestly it costs more for the community to warehouse people in institutional settings and shelters and hospitals and jails and all the places where often time people with disabilities end up. That even though it costs a little more to do regular housing to do permanent supportive housing in the long run, that it's a better deal over all.
[00:12:20.86] And in these times where everybody's talking about saving money and what's most important with our budget, I think that's really important to remember. Because it's both the right thing to do and it's a better, effective thing to do. So--
[00:12:32.17] JULIE STEINER: Thank you, Carole.
[00:12:33.55] CAROLE MCCABE: Thanks.
[00:12:34.21] JULIE STEINER: And I might-- a couple of things when I first learned about Avalon, one of the things that I had to learn about and understand was that the folks that live there are tenants. This is not a program. It's not like they're being treated differently. They have a lease. They are a tenant in those apartments.
[00:12:52.34] So that's really important. And then the Blueprint to End Homelessness, we have a goal to develop 500 new units of permanent supportive housing. And between 2004, when we set that goal, and last year we've been able to develop 150, primarily with the help of Avalon. So we feel like that's-- we've got a ways to go but it's a good start.
[00:13:17.73] So next I'd like to introduce Shawn Dowling. She's the Coordinator-- I have to look at this because it's a really long title. She's the Coordinator of Health Care for Homeless Veterans Program at the Ann Arbor VA Health System. And another member of the coalition of groups that work together under the Housing Alliance umbrella. And we're just really pleased to have her here tonight.
[00:13:44.11] SHAWN DOWLING: Hi, everybody. Can everybody hear me OK? So we all hear a lot about homeless veterans. It's very much been in the media and on the national news. So there's a very important initiative set up by President Obama to end homelessness amongst veterans by the year 2014 in the month of June.
[00:14:07.55] I have asked for an extension until August. I'm waiting to hear back. That was the joke.
[00:14:12.22] [LAUGHTER]
[00:14:13.96] SHAWN DOWLING: So we have a lot of great things happening at the VA. In 2007 when I came to work for the Health Care for Homeless Veterans Program with the Ann Arbor VA, there were seven staff. We now are at 21.
[00:14:27.59] Our budget has grown almost fourfold. We are serving almost four times as many veterans. As a matter of fact, in fiscal year 2011, we served 1,095 veterans. We served a lot of folks. We would say that probably 543 of those veterans came from Washtenaw, Monroe, Lenawee, and Hillsdale Counties.
[00:14:54.41] Specifically in Ann Arbor, we're working with 75 homeless veterans as of today. We are working to end homeless based on six strategies. The first strategy is outreach and education. Outreach to homeless people, to communities to help us identify homeless veterans. Outreach to providers in the community.
[00:15:19.95] And then education. Educating any group that will invite us to come and are willing to listen. And especially new partners who are willing to partner with the VA to help us end homelessness. Because we can't do it alone.
[00:15:34.00] The VA's traditionally been a closed system of care. And if we're going to end homelessness, we can no longer be this way. So it's a new dawn at the VA and we're very excited about that.
[00:15:47.29] The second strategy we have is housing prevention. We work with veterans to help them find and access dollars that prevent homelessness or exiting homelessness. In some communities, the VA offers the Supportive Services for Veterans' Families grant, which are local dollars that come into an organization along with case management that helps a family to pay off their bills, pay off their past debt in respect to bills, utility bills, back rent.
[00:16:20.64] And this grant has been very successful. The closest one we have is in Monroe, Michigan. And it's been very successful in helping us with homeless prevention for our families there. We're currently engaging in a relationship with the Ann Arbor Housing Commission to begin to do case management services in their projects, their housing projects with our veterans. Who aren't necessarily homeless, but may be having difficulty and the supportive case management would assist them with maintaining their housing.
[00:16:51.99] We find that approximately three veterans a year exit out of housing projects here in Washtenaw County and into homelessness. So we have a goal in collaboration with the Ann Arbor Housing Commission to prevent that from happening.
[00:17:06.83] We also get phone calls from Avalon Housing too.
[00:17:10.35] [LAUGHTER]
[00:17:11.13] SHAWN DOWLING: [? If ?] [? our ?] folks. The only thing I will say about Avalon Housing that it really is exciting is that they have served the most disenfranchised veterans that are in any community I've ever met. And this community is very fortunate to have Avalon Housing as a member provider.
[00:17:30.33] The third thing that we do is supported housing services through our VA Supported Housing Program. The Ann Arbor Housing Commission, we have 120 section eight housing choice vouchers for veterans. These vouchers are identified for chronically homeless veterans as our top priority, followed by our Operation Enduring Freedom, Operation Iraqi Freedom veterans, veterans with families, followed by women veterans, followed by disabled male veterans. And then, lastly, able-bodied male veterans.
[00:18:04.09] The VA puts a priority on where the vouchers go because we need to be able to have a concentrated effort to end homelessness. So when I say 110 vouchers that come in through the Ann Arbor Housing Commission, these vouchers go-- we send these vouchers all over into eight counties in which we work. So they're all not just here.
[00:18:24.93] We have five project-based vouchers with Avalon through the Ann Arbor Housing Commission. And that program has just started. And I do believe we housed our first veteran last week. That's very exciting.
[00:18:37.09] The fourth strategy is access to veterans benefits. We have homeless veteran supported employment specialists who are hired-- they're formerly homeless veterans-- who help our homeless veterans find jobs. And they've been pretty successful.
[00:18:51.33] I see you standing up. The Veterans Benefits Administration has a homeless outreach analyst who comes to our hospital every three weeks. So far in the last three months, he has secured 17 homeless veterans benefits. That's been awesome.
[00:19:10.24] The fifth thing is treatment services. We have what are called grant and per diem beds. Our partner's our Salvation Army and Michigan Ability Partners. We have 20 beds here in Washtenaw County. We have emergency service beds for veterans who present to the hospital after hours or are in need shelter so they can stay local to the hospital. And we have those beds with the Delonis Shelter.
[00:19:40.58] The last strategy is community partnerships. And we have been very fortunate in this community to be embraced so much so that we now have a Washtenaw County Homeless Veterans Task Force. And that task force is putting on a homeless veterans stand down this Saturday at the VA. And it'll be from-- here's my plug-- eight to four. All right, done.
[00:20:03.30] JULIE STEINER: And you can give more of a plug later because that's a huge, fabulous undertaking. Thank you. So our next panelist is Nicole Adelman. She's the Executive Director of Interfaith Hospitality Network at Alpha House, one of our family shelters in this community for folks with children who are homeless.
[00:20:22.95] NICOLE ADELMAN: Thanks, Julie. All right. Everybody can hear me too? OK. Thanks. Thanks everybody for coming also. And I wanted to say that like Carole, we're also in our 20th year this year. So this is the 20th year that IHN has been around.
[00:20:36.60] So IHN for Interfaith Hospitality Network. And as Julie mentioned earlier, we were started 20 years ago by a few women in the community who identified a need for families with children who needed emergency shelter and didn't have anywhere to go. So they started this model that is a national model of, again as Julie mentioned, starting in sheltering families in the basement of congregations in the community.
[00:21:01.10] So there were many congregations that got together and moved the families from week to week to their different basements and sheltered them and provided food and provided supports for the families that way. And 10 years ago, Saint Joseph Mercy Health System allowed us to move into Alpha House, their facility that we're in to this day.
[00:21:18.76] And so now we have the same involvement with congregations, but they come week to week to our facility so the families can stay in our facility instead. So that's a really important shift that gives the families and the kids some really important stability. So that was really key in our ability to provide the services that we provide today.
[00:21:37.57] So just a little bit more about kids, about children and family homelessness. Because when we talk about homelessness in the community, I've lived in Ann Arbor for 30 years. And I've worked here for 20 years. And when we talk about homelessness, we often talk about individuals. Which is definitely a population in need. But we don't really see the kids and the families as often. And we don't talk about families and kids as often.
[00:21:59.47] And so just so you can get an idea about the numbers that there are homeless children and families in Washtenaw County. So last year-- well, in 2010-- there were 4,700 individuals in the county that were homeless. And almost 2/3 of them were children and their parents or caregivers. So there's a lot of homeless children and families in the county that we don't necessarily see or talk about.
[00:22:20.35] And they go to our schools. And they live in our community. And we don't see them because they're either living in hotels. And that's not hotel like the Campus Inn. That's hotel that might be cramped quarters in a not so nice place from week to week. Living in cars. Living how we call doubled up, which means maybe with another family. For example, we have families that move into our shelter that are living in a small home with 10 to 15 other people. And so it's not an ideal. It's not really a habitable situation.
[00:22:47.79] And so these kids and their families are missing meals. They're missing school. They're moving from place to place. They don't have good access to health care. So these are all things that we're trying to help solve.
[00:22:59.59] And a couple statistics. Homeless children are twice as likely to experience hunger as their non-homeless peers. Homeless children are twice as likely to have a learning disability, repeat a grade, or be suspended from school. And half of school age homeless children experience problems with depression and anxiety. And one in five homeless preschoolers have emotional problems that require professional care.
[00:23:21.27] So we're seeing challenges in kids starting very young, obviously. We have kids in our from newborns all the way up to 17 years old. So a little bit more about the shelters. As Julie mentioned, we're one of three family shelters in the county. There's also the Salvation Army and SOS, which Faye will talk about a little bit. And so there's about 18 family spaces.
[00:23:44.75] So we have six spaces in Alpha House. So we can house up to 25 people at a time. And they can stay for a maximum of 90 days. And we have a program involved in that too. It's not just come into our shelter and stay. Our program is really focused on increasing income, increasing employment, and finding housing. Those are the three main goals.
[00:24:03.92] And then, of course, along with that would go we have to help people with legal issues and health issues and things like that because some people can't find housing or employment without helping with other issues as well.
[00:24:14.83] So last year in our shelter we saw 39 families, 71 children, and 45 adults. And then we also have a follow-up program, our home-based support program. So that once families leave our shelter, we also can follow them for about a year in their apartments to help them stay housed. And we saw about 13 families, 29 , kids and 16 adults in our follow-up program.
[00:24:37.84] And so we work really closely with our partners. And I know Faye's going to talk about this more. But our shelter beds are filled by a program called Housing Access. That's true for all the shelter beds in the community. And I don't want to say too much about that because you're going to talk about that more. But I'm happy to be part of this panel because I think that homeless children are often overlooked. And so I think that's a really important issue for us to talk about.
[00:25:00.29] JULIE STEINER: Thank you, Nicole. I'm skipping over Faye for a second. She gets the big finale.
[00:25:04.39] [LAUGHTER]
[00:25:05.62] JULIE STEINER: And I'm going to introduce Katie Doyle, who's the Executive Director of Ozone House. 41 years? I that right?
[00:25:13.30] KATIE DOYLE: 43, I think.
[00:25:14.83] JULIE STEINER: 43 years in our community of helping homeless and at risk youth in our community. I want you to listen to those numbers. We are incredibly fortunate in Washtenaw to have these service providers who have some of the best track records and fabulous practices and lots of experience to help people. So, Katie Doyle.
[00:25:41.60] KATIE DOYLE: Thank you, Julie. Thank you all for being here. It's not often that I get to say I'm sort of the old guard here, but these 20-year-old organizations are half our age. But usually the adolescents that we work with are the folks who are youngest in the community that when we're talking about folks who are homeless in the community. We have sort of a mixed crowd out there in terms of generations. And so some of you have heard about what a fallout shelter is. Some of you. Shake your head just a little bit so I know. Yeah.
[00:26:10.20] So some of you've heard of a fallout shelter. But maybe some of these younger folks haven't. So I'm going to do a quick experiment here. So when some of us were young and in school, we had to practice what's called a fallout drill. And so if something bad were going to happen to the world and we built, in this country, these shelters underneath the ground. So if some bad thing was going to happen in the world, we could go into these shelters and be safe.
[00:26:34.77] And so we would practice these drills. We'd have to dive under our desks when the teacher said it's time for a fallout drill. And what we'd be asked to do is think about, if this happened to us, if we had to leave where we were, if we had to leave our homes and go underground into the shelter, what would we take with us?
[00:26:53.75] And so can I-- I know we've got a lot of Honey Creekers here. Is this right? So can I get one or two of you to say if you had to leave right now and you had to go underground, what you take with you?
[00:27:03.21] AUDIENCE: My family.
[00:27:04.54] KATIE DOYLE: OK, great. Your family. Good answer.
[00:27:07.46] JULIE STEINER: Answer [INAUDIBLE].
[00:27:09.64] AUDIENCE: Blankets.
[00:27:10.52] KATIE DOYLE: And blankets? OK.
[00:27:11.99] AUDIENCE: Food.
[00:27:12.88] KATIE DOYLE: Food.
[00:27:13.73] AUDIENCE: A toothbrush.
[00:27:14.25] KATIE DOYLE: A toothbrush. Thank you. Excellent. So we've done this before. And I've talked to-- so you guys are smarter than I think some of the older folks that we ask this question of. And so we've asked this before what they say is they would take their shampoo and what's called cream rinse back in our day. Conditioner was called cream rinse.
[00:27:34.06] So we tell the story. Then we tell it to young people they say, no. I'd take my iPod. Duh.
[00:27:38.05] AUDIENCE:
[00:27:38.62] KATIE DOYLE: And the reason I talk about this particular story is when you're a teenager and when you think about losing everything, you think about that kind of stuff-- you guys thought about, you've been studying homelessness maybe. But you thought about blankets and toothbrushes and families. But a lot of people think about iPods and hair care products, which is the kind of thing you think about you can't live without.
[00:28:01.09] And so the young people who come to Ozone House who are ages 10 to 21 also think about that. When they lose their home, they think about the kinds of things that you want with you. You want your iPod. You want your cell phone. You want your cream rinse. But they also have to think about these things like food, toothbrushes, because their families generally are not there to help them figure that out.
[00:28:22.75] So if, when I was a young person, I had to go into a fallout shelter I never would have thought of food or blankets or anything like that. Because I just would have known my parents would have been there with blankets and food and all those things that I need. But the young people that we see Ozone House don't have that knowledge and don't have that experience that their parents will be there to take care of them the way they need to be taken care of when they're between the ages of 10 and 21.
[00:28:47.65] So Ozone House was founded in 1969. People were running all across the country to Ann Arbor. This was-- believe it or not-- this was like the cool place to be. If you couldn't get all the way to San Francisco, then you came to Ann Arbor because this was like the place to be, right? It was really cool. And there were a lot of young people in Ann Arbor saying, there's all these kids running to the great Ann Arbor. And we've got to put them up somewhere.
[00:29:11.10] And so Ozone House was founded to do that. But what we learned pretty quickly after a couple years of people running to Ann Arbor, people stopped doing that. We stopped being cool. And now here we are.
[00:29:23.39] And what we found though is that there are a lot of young people locally who were in dangerous situations who needed to run from the danger situations that they were in. Or who were thrown away and needed a place to go. And so our services sort of evolved around that. One we found young people who were homeless or who needed to leave their homes because it was violent or whose parents threw them out of their home because they were gay or lesbian or bisexual, and Ozone House then is here to pick up those young people and provide services to them.
[00:29:55.25] And so the kinds of things that we provide are shelter, which is a short term program. It's a program called Safe Stay. And we have young people from every school in the community. And those are folks who are under 18. Between the ages of 10 and 18 come to our emergency shelter.
[00:30:11.20] Our primary goal is to get them back home. To reunify them with their family. So if they are taken out of their families, it's to get them home as long as it's safe to do that. And so we have therapists who work with families and young people so that they can do that.
[00:30:26.99] Then we have some longer term housing. So when I turned 18-- apparently I'm telling you all about my life now-- but when I turned 18, the things I thought of that you do at age 18 is you go to college or you go into the military or you get a job. But most of the people I knew went to college.
[00:30:45.73] A lot of young people that we see at Ozone House don't have the resources to go to college, both the money or they've moved around a lot because they've been homeless and so they have a stayed in one high school and gotten all the credits that they need. So part of what we do is provide housing to them as they transition to become an adult and live on their own.
[00:31:05.66] And so when they're staying with us, they go to school or they work and finish up getting their credits. Nicole from IHN mentioned that families are what they called doubled up. So a lot of times lots of families are living in one small house. In the adolescent world, we call that couch surfing. So you may have known of somebody who did this. A teenager doesn't have a place to stay and so they move from somebody's house to the next person's house and they sort of, what we call couch surf around so that they have a roof over their heads and a warm place to be.
[00:31:38.71] But it's not always safe and it's never stable to move around from house to house and not know who's going to be there, who's going to feed you, whether it's going to be safe to be there. And so part of what we do is help young people as their couch surfing find a place to be safe and then provide them the kinds of services they need and the help that they need to stay there.
[00:31:57.66] So Julie has stood up, which means I need to stop talking. But the last thing I'll just tell you and then you'll ask me good questions and I can tell you more about us, is that we hear from young people because they call us. We have a 24-hour crisis line that some of you may have heard of. We answer calls from young people who are thinking about suicide or young people who are unsafe at home and need a place to go or young people who don't have a home at all and are looking for a place to go. So we answer the phone 24 hours a day to help them find a place to go and provide services that they need.
[00:32:29.05] So I'll answer more questions as we come along.
[00:32:31.39] JULIE STEINER: It's very hard to talk about this work in such a short amount of time. So now you're probably thoroughly thinking to yourself, how the heck does anybody manage to get the help they need with this much floating around out there? And there's about 24 other organizations that also can help. So Faye Askew-King, who is the Executive Director of SOS Community Services in Ypsilanti. How old is SOS?
[00:33:02.50] FAYE ASKEW-KING: 41 years.
[00:33:03.41] JULIE STEINER: 41 years old in our community. SOS has undergone a huge change in the last year. And in October, they took on the daunting task of becoming for Washtenaw County what is known as our single point of entry. And the name of that is Housing Access.
[00:33:27.39] And this is a place for anybody in our community who's facing a housing problem or situation to call and try to get help with the right kind of services. Before we had Housing Access, people would call all three family shelters and get on a wait list for three family shelters and then have to wait and call back and call back. Then they'd call seven other places to see if they could get money to try to prevent their eviction or to help them move into a new place. And they had to keep calling around all over the place because we have 27 organizations that help people.
[00:34:03.27] So SOS has now taken on the role of really changing our system of care in the community. And Faye's going to tell you about that.
[00:34:12.89] FAYE ASKEW-KING: OK. So like Julie said, we have taken on the task of being the single access point for all housing problems for the county so that people can call us if they are facing an eviction, if they were formerly homeless and they found a place to stay, or if they have somehow tumbled into homelessness. What's unique about this program is that many of the folks here on this panel are part of planning this intervention. It is a community planning project that is still unfolding as we speak.
[00:34:53.49] But we started, as Julie said, October 1st. And so people can call us. And if they have an eviction, for example-- and evictions are really what happens to people when they've had some kind of emergency. Either there was a health emergency in their family and they didn't have the savings to cover their costs or to be able to pay their rent. Or there was a death in the family. Some emergency that really, for low income folks, they just don't really have the financial resources to cover.
[00:35:29.22] And so when they have those kind of hiccups, we are there to try to help them prevent the eviction. Now we have never had enough money in our community. Ever. And we still don't have enough to really respond to the huge need. And as somebody referred to earlier, the economics in our country are really creating what we call a new face of homelessness of folks who are at risk of being homeless.
[00:35:59.44] And so by the time people find us, they have tried to do everything in their power to solve their problem by themselves. Because can you imagine going to a stranger and asking them for help with your rent? Most of us can ask our parents or a friend or a family member, but these are folks who really, even their social networks can't really help them.
[00:36:21.07] So what's new and unique about Housing Access is that we can help with the entire amount. Before people have to go to three and four different agencies to try cobble all the money together to prevent the eviction. So now there's one number they can call and they can get the full amount.
[00:36:41.42] And we all know that preventing homelessness is much less expensive than to have people tumble into homelessness. And this program is for both individual households, as well as family households. We can also help folks who have been homeless or who have gotten a Section 8 voucher with move-in costs. Again, most low income folks don't have a rent, one month sometimes two months rent, to pay for moving costs. So again, we can help with the full amount.
[00:37:11.66] Now if people are homeless, like this one over her whose name I can't think of.
[00:37:18.99] [LAUGHTER]
[00:37:19.37] FAYE ASKEW-KING: Nicole. This is what happens when you get old, young people. You have a retrieval issue. But anyway, all of shelters, we have kind of gotten together and we've talked about kind of what the eligibility requirements are. Because each shelter is operated differently. Like a SOS' shelters are in a scattered site model and our landlord has conditions that they've given us. And Salvation Army has conditions. And Alpha House has conditions based on kind of the type of shelter they have and the location their shelter.
[00:37:54.81] And so if people call and they are homeless, and whether they're families or individuals, we can immediately link them to the shelter in the community that has an opening. We have this wonderful database that has all of our information on it. And when it's working properly, we can access and see kind of where folks are. And when we make a referral, then that referral agency can see the information about that household so they don't have to re-ask all of those questions again.
[00:38:26.63] So it's a really neat system. And even though we will never be able to meet all the need, what we're hoping for this year is to really be able to have the data to tell us how many individual households were homeless? How many family households were really homeless? How many people were we are able to get into shelter and provide that support? How many people do we have the resources available to give them the money they needed to prevent them from becoming homeless by preventing them from becoming evicted or who were able to find a lease and their name and we could help them with move-in costs?
[00:39:05.04] And then hopefully we'll be able to tell you and the rest of the community and our funders, this is where the biggest need is. This is where we really need to put our resources. And these, hopefully, will also be able to get a sense of what are the household characteristics that need this kind of housing. This is my personal dream, that somebody can walk through the door, we can do an assessment, and based on these variables, oh. The shelter is the best place for this person. Or let's help them move in housing as quickly as we can. Or maybe they need to go to Ozone. Or maybe Avalon, maybe permanent supported housing is where they need to be. Or maybe transitional housing is where they need to be.
[00:39:47.58] Because before this process, wherever there was an opening, that's where we put people. So we're really trying to do a better job of targeting and using our resources. And I am done because Julie is standing up.
[00:40:00.77] [LAUGHTER]
[00:40:01.16] JULIE STEINER: This is kind of fun. Nobody ever stops talking for me otherwise. No. Thank you, Faye. So I want to just talk about a couple of people who aren't here tonight. The Shelter Association of Washtenaw County operates the Delonis Center over on Huron. That's our one shelter in Washtenaw County for single adults who experience homelessness. And I mentioned earlier they have a health clinic in there and a complete program and they serve community meals twice a day. And they're an important part of the operation.
[00:40:35.82] Another important part of our operation in Washtenaw County is through our community mental health system here, which is part of the county government. We have a team of people who work out on the streets with folks who are living on the streets. The Project Outreach Team, whose goal it is to engage with people who are living on the streets and try to help them come in from the street and find a place to live and be supported and be successful there.
[00:41:04.07] And they have a team that are out every day, day and night, all the time doing that. And they provide mental health treatment and substance abuse treatment and food and supplies to people as a way to try to encourage them to come in. Because, as you've heard from everybody here, there's one thing that everybody in our community who experiences homelessness has in common. One thing. What do you think it is?
[00:41:35.19] They don't have a home. And we know that that's what it takes to end homelessness. And that is a very important part of the work that all of these agencies are doing, is doing everything they can to make sure that we get folks into homes. So the Project Outreach Team is another important part of our sort of system of care.
[00:41:57.60] And then we have a variety of other agencies that provide transitional living supports, employment supports, health care supports, support with the public schools, for example. We have a organization that's based at the IDS whose job it is to make sure that children who are in our schools and are homeless are able to enroll in school, are able to get to school, are able to get the supplies that they need. Do you know that it is illegal for a school to turn a child away from school if they show up, say, in high school, without a parent or guardian and they say, I want to go to school? The school cannot turn them away and say, you need your parent here to enroll you.
[00:42:44.11] By federal law they have to enroll them. And by federal law we have to make sure that they can get to the school in the area where they became homeless. So even though they may be living at Alpha House out on Jackson Road but they became homeless and Ypsilanti, if they were already enroll at Ypsi High, we got to get them to Ypsi High to do as much as we can to stop that craziness of moving from school to school.
[00:43:12.20] So we have this huge variety of organizations that, I tried to get all of them up here and the library said, what? Really? You can't have 25 people up there on the panel. So the next one, we'll bring some more people up. So how about some questions now? Anybody have any questions? OK. There's a mic in the back. Or Beth is going to bring the mic forward, I guess is what she's going to try to do.
[00:43:40.89] FEMALE SPEAKER: Mike, it's your turn.
[00:43:43.01] [INTERPOSING VOICES]
[00:43:46.85] AUDIENCE: Yes, a question on Delonis. Is that a city-owned building and how is that funded?
[00:43:53.87] JULIE STEINER: So the site that the building is on is owned by the county. It's county property. And the building was built by this capital campaign that we ran to raise a $8.7 million. So all that money that comes to run all of these agencies is truly an amazing mishmash of private individual donations, city money, county money, federal money, and state money. And what am I--
[00:44:24.27] FAYE ASKEW-KING: United Way.
[00:44:24.70] JULIE STEINER: And United Way and the Ann Arbor Area Community Foundation. And All? Kinds of other places. Wherever we can get, we get it. You're going to ask people to walk back there to the mic. Can we bring the mic forward? Why don't we bring the mic forward and then people don't feel like they're walking backwards. Thanks, Beth.
[00:44:49.88] So you can walk right up to the mic and ask your question. Go on. It's OK. Come on.
[00:44:55.19] FEMALE SPEAKER: We have to do it.
[00:44:56.78] JULIE STEINER: Go, go.
[00:44:57.71] [LAUGHTER]
[00:45:01.54] REGINALD: My name is Reginald McMillan. I'm here representing Destiny and Purpose Community Outreach. We migrated from Detroit to the Washtenaw Ypsilanti area. Personally me, I have served on the Downriver Homeless Coalition. It looks like y'all a little bit behind where we are.
[00:45:28.55] But what the question that-- I came in a little late. Is this a coalition of agencies asking for more coalitions to join y'all? Are y'all gonna go for state funding as a total group. Are y'all gonna get federal funding as a total group?
[00:45:54.55] JULIE STEINER: So we've been around as a coalition of organizations since 2000. And there's 29 organizations that are part of it. And we welcome people all the time to join. And there's a fee to join and there's an agreement to join. And you gotta be on board with our values and the way we want to do things. But we're very embracing. So come on down.
[00:46:19.49] And I have a card here and you can come talk to me about it. And we work together very collaboratively around funding. Each of these agency directors have to do what they can to raise the money to run their organizations. But we also raise money together to do things like the single point of entry, the housing access with something, as Faye said, everybody worked on together to make happen. Yes?
[00:46:45.86] ODEELA: Hi. My name is [? Odeela ?] [? Hip-er?] and I just said would like to know how come with so many organization to help the homeless people, or I call them internal refugee or economic refugee. But how come then we have a camp outside of Ann Arbor on Wagner Road where something like from 30 to 50 people are homeless and living in tents in middle of the winter with no bathroom there and very little food at times.
[00:47:23.04] So why is it that we have not solved the problem if there is-- and one of the men who lived there was a disabled man who couldn't hear. He's completely deaf. And I was trying to find him housing and I called one of the [? thing ?] from Safe House for housing. And people kept bouncing me from one person to another person to another person from an agency. And there was no solution to find him any housing.
[00:47:55.68] So I'm not sure that the housing is coordinated as well as can be. That we're really trying to find homes. And I've been told there is no apartment anywhere. And that why is it that we have Camp Take Notice? Thank you.
[00:48:14.14] JULIE STEINER: Thanks. Anybody want to take a stab at that?
[00:48:17.26] SHAWN DOWLING: I can start.
[00:48:18.22] JULIE STEINER: Thanks, Shawn.
[00:48:19.25] SHAWN DOWLING: So homelessness is very fluid and dynamic. There are people who live in camps because they might have a legal conviction that bars them from accessing any type of public housing or subsidized housing as well as enrollment or engagement with a shelter. There's some folks-- in fact, we brought a veteran out of Camp Take Notice and he lived on his balcony in his apartment for three months because he couldn't tolerate being in four walls.
[00:48:55.69] We also have a veteran who's lived for the last nine months, even though he's had an apartment, in the woods in Williamston, Michigan, because some folks just have a really difficult time with all the simulation and all the interaction they have when you live in a community when you've lived on your own for so long.
[00:49:15.12] We're very fortunate-- I always say this, and sometimes I get in trouble, sometimes I don't. But we're fortunate in this community to have Camp Take Notice because it is a structured encampment that it provides safe housing for folks in an environment where there may not be very little other opportunities for them to be housed in other places.
[00:49:38.53] So some of it is, maybe a person's legal history as well as their ability to tolerate being housed or living in a community. So.
[00:49:51.62] JULIE STEINER: Thanks, Shawn. Anybody else?
[00:49:53.53] FAYE ASKEW-KING: Yeah, I think-- unless Carole wants to answer this. But I think we don't have enough resources to meet the need. And if anybody in here has tried to rent an apartment and Washtenaw County affordability is really the issue. And for most of us, we deal with private landlords. And so in order to get folks housed, private landlords have to accept them. And private landlords want people that have a steady income, good track record, halfway decent credit. And we advocate and support them as much as we can.
[00:50:29.16] But affordability is really the issue. And Avalon Housing, which is the only program we have in town where they are the landlords and have different kind of flexibility than private landlords, we just don't really have enough housing resources that are affordable for folks.
[00:50:47.26] JULIE STEINER: Do you want to pick up on that?
[00:50:50.19] CAROLE MCCABE: Well, I was just gonna add that I think the part you mentioned of calling and getting called around to different people, I think we all acknowledge that that's been-- we're not talking about the Blueprint. But for a long time people talked about-- or maybe it was in the-- I don't know when. Right around the time that started the alliance where they came the notion of why don't we, instead of working to manage homelessness and spend hundreds and thousands of dollars on managing it, why don't we work to end it?
[00:51:19.72] And what would really make a difference to end it. And that is something that the alliance has been trying to embrace. And in recognition that we do have a lot of small agencies and we have-- it was getting sort of bureaucratic. And I think there's an awareness of that. And the single point of entry that Faye described is exactly a step to try and reduce that kind of frustration for people. And it is just starting out, but that's-- and things always just take so much longer than we all would like to implement them.
[00:51:45.85] But the alliance was really created in a lot of ways to improve coordination, to focus on ending homelessness, to identify the gaps, to really advocate for housing, permanent supportive housing being a predominant goal of that Blueprint.
[00:51:59.76] So I can appreciate your question, I guess. And just say that we do have a sense of that. And then back to the resource question. Because we could build hundreds, hundreds of units of supportive housing if we could get funding for it. And it's just-- we have the will, we have the knowledge. We are still struggling to translate that into realities.
[00:52:21.13] NICOLE ADELMAN: I would too, as you mentioned before Julie, that the economy is so terrible right now that we're seeing more and more people coming into shelter with no income. So if people can't get jobs-- not only if some people, that housing may be unaffordable. But if there is no income, there's not much that we can do for them in 90 days of shelter.
[00:52:40.14] And the way for the state rules are set up, that once you time out a shelter you can't come back to shelter for another year. So people spend 90 days in shelter, the state will no longer pay for them to go back to another shelter until another year has passed.
[00:52:54.39] JULIE STEINER: Well, and I think your point, Odeela, about being a economic refugee is really an important one. We have to look at what's going on in terms of federal and state policy and the decisions that are being made about what resources are being spent for what. Do we spend them on the Afghan War or do we spend them to house people? These kinds of discussions and decisions are being made on a daily basis by people in Lansing and in Washington.
[00:53:23.27] And there's only so much that a local government or nonprofit can do about that. In fact, Faye often are echoed throughout Washtenaw County talking about what it feels to us currently like a war on the poor that's coming from Lansing with the kinds of policies that are being handed down, starting with cutting people off of cash assistance after four years. Then moving on to saying that if you have a car, then you can't get food stamps anymore. So like you shouldn't get food stamps if you have a car that gets you to work because we don't have enough buses in Washtenaw County to get you to work.
[00:54:05.82] And now the next thing is going to be whether or not you should be tested for drugs before you're going to be allowed to get the food stamps or get your cash assistance. So these kinds of government policies are very much a part of what makes it difficult, as Carole said, to end homelessness. That's what we want to do, is we want to end homelessness. And that's why we feel it's so important that it takes all of you and this is so thrilling to us that you're all here because a collective voice speaking out against those policies is one way that we can start to make those changes. Yes, ma'am?
[00:54:42.21] AUDIENCE: I have a question about the SOS. I think that's a great thing that they're getting people to the right organizations because there are so many. But what measures are being put in place to ensure that people go to you first instead of getting [INAUDIBLE]?
[00:54:59.71] FAYE ASKEW-KING: Great question. Because we are a coalition of all of the agencies in the county that provide services for homeless and at risk households, this is something that really has been a community planning process. And so all of the housing folks know about us. 211 knows about us.
[00:55:25.05] JULIE STEINER: Not everybody might know what 211 is. Would you like to say?
[00:55:28.63] FAYE ASKEW-KING: Sure. 211 is like 911 except for Health and Human Services. So if you need any kind of resource around Health and Human Services, our United Way is in partnership with the Southeastern Michigan's United Way to create a 211 help line. And so if you ever need a resource for anything, you can call 211 and they have listed in their taxonomy all of the agencies and resources in southeastern Michigan that can help you and assist you with that issue.
[00:56:04.09] So we've put it in food bags. Department of Human Services knows about us. Everybody knows about it. And so I can give you the phone number that you can share with your friends. And it's 961-1999.
[00:56:17.73] But I think that we have tried to really do a good job of getting the word out. There was an article in the Ann Arbor News. So most people who provide services knows about the number. Now the real issue us that for people who are new to this business, who are really new to trying to find help. Sometimes it takes them two or three different shots at trying to find somebody who can get them to us.
[00:56:52.35] And this is primarily the folks that we kind of talk about as the new homeless. People who have never really had to ask for help from the community. And so for those folks, they have done everything they can to try to figure out how to solve their problems. So by the time they get to us, they are weary and exhausted. And so we spend a lot of time really talking and supporting them.
[00:57:17.69] But so generally, most people do know about us.
[00:57:21.16] JULIE STEINER: And it's growing all the time. And so we just started in October. And you've been getting about, on average, 500 calls a month.
[00:57:28.64] FAYE ASKEW-KING: Oh, yes.
[00:57:29.51] JULIE STEINER: So we're getting a lot of calls.
[00:57:31.98] FAYE ASKEW-KING: And we've also tried to inform landlords so that they can give this resource to their tenants as well.
[00:57:37.72] JULIE STEINER: Yes, sir?
[00:57:38.66] STEFAN MONTGOMERY: Hello. My name is Stefan Montgomery. I came here from Detroit to get an education. I didn't have a place to say. I stayed at Delonis. [INAUDIBLE]. I had to go to Michigan Works. I told them I didn't want a job program. It wouldn't pay enough money. I needed to go to college.
[00:58:00.99] They told me about a community scholarship I Washtenaw Community College, and I applied for it and I got it. And while I was at Washtenaw, my goal was to go into computer science. But I have math issues. And other things changed.
[00:58:17.12] Instructors talked to me-- they asked me had I ever thought about teaching before? And I'd never really thought about teaching. But as time went on, I changed my major to elementary education. I do have an associates degree in elementary education. And you young people, you may see me somewhere in the Ann Arbor school system.
[00:58:34.38] [LAUGHTER]
[00:58:34.84] STEFAN MONTGOMERY: Because I'm a senior at Eastern. But I'm just giving you a little background. My greatest challenge besides math has been finding a place to stay. And being a student on a limited income. And I was even blessed enough to get a job at Washtenaw as an English Tutor. So that kind of smoothed out the financial rough spots a bit.
[00:58:55.46] But when I graduated and went to Eastern, I couldn't have that job because it was student only. You had to be a student there. But the greatest thing that I found out, because I suddenly became homeless again, and I'm at Staples Family Center right now. I went through your SOS system.
[00:59:13.76] But from talking with the counselors at Delonis and at Staples, there's one thing that's missing. And I bless all of y'all for the tireless work that you do because I know what you go through. I have a little idea.
[00:59:27.09] But I asked them, why isn't there a job alliance? Here in my hand, I have a list of the top 25 employees in Ann Arbor. You have alliance with real estate people. And I'm thinking you got people in homeless shelters that do qualify. They're drug-free. They don't have any mental issues. They are reasonably intelligent and can follow instructions like I have because I've managed to go through school at my age with 3.35 and I'm Phi Beta Kappa.
[00:59:59.53] And I can't find a job.
[01:00:00.94] [LAUGHTER]
[01:00:01.77] STEFAN MONTGOMERY: Now the job that I did have , it was a manufacturing job because at Staples you have to have employment. Ride Connect had a program for low income people.
[01:00:14.43] CAROLE MCCABE: No. I know what's he's gonna say.
[01:00:15.76] STEFAN MONTGOMERY: Funding's gone. So Manpower, I had to call them back up and say I can't make it out to the job out in Chelsea. So that's kind of an issue.
[01:00:25.95] But it's just surprising me, all of the talent and all of the money that's here, why don't you have an alliance to give somebody in a shelter a direct paying job? And believe me, if it's in the according to Hero University, rent is approximately $793 a month here in Ann Arbor. A person would need to make $15 buck an hour.
[01:00:51.51] NICOLE ADELMAN: At least.
[01:00:52.03] STEFAN MONTGOMERY: To pay that. So you kind of see where I'm going.
[01:00:54.82] CAROLE MCCABE: Absolutely.
[01:00:55.69] STEFAN MONTGOMERY: But that's all I got to say. God bless you and I hope you can institute a program like that.
[01:01:00.44] JULIE STEINER: Well, I really appreciate it. And congratulations for all that you've been able to accomplish.
[01:01:05.37] STEFAN MONTGOMERY: This report here, I don't know if you've seen it. It's hot off the press.
[01:01:08.15] JULIE STEINER: Yes. You betcha.
[01:01:09.75] [LAUGHTER]
[01:01:10.02] STEFAN MONTGOMERY: Oh, you've seen it? The State of Homelessness in America is just published last year by the Census Department.
[01:01:16.01] JULIE STEINER: So jobs, as everybody up here has mentioned, are a huge issue. Partly because of the economy. Housing in Washtenaw County is the most expensive in the state of Michigan. So what you're talking about is a definite reality.
[01:01:32.78] One of the things that we're doing with the housing alliance right now is we're in the process of creating our strategic plan for the next three to five years. And jobs is at the top of the list. And we have some new opportunities in our community because of some county changes in the way they're doing business around workforce development where we've got some real good partners at the table now who are going to work with us to try to expand that. So we'd love to have your involvement.
[01:02:01.81] STEFAN MONTGOMERY: [INAUDIBLE]
[01:02:02.72] JULIE STEINER: You come get my card.
[01:02:04.47] CAROLE MCCABE: I think that's an excellent point you made. Sorry. I actually totally agree with you that this county has not been where we need to at all in that department. And we are all talk about that a lot. And I think some of it, there's multiple reasons. And some of the federal jobs, dollars, the workforce dollars have very problematic, tricky, and everywhere you hear people are struggling with those. And we're hopeful that there's some new federal help on down the line for that too.
[01:02:31.75] But I really, I echo your sentiments. And I think you hit a nail right on the head there.
[01:02:37.52] JULIE STEINER: Yes, ma'am?
[01:02:38.55] AUDIENCE: OK. So I'm a student and Honey Creek Community School. And one of the things we like do at Honey Creek is volunteer. And as we have a six, seventh, eighth graders in our middle school that are all mixed. And in my class we have a group of four people that are working to try to volunteer and help out for the homeless. But because we are a range of 14 to 12-year-olds, it's really hard for us to find a good way to help out.
[01:03:15.58] And so I bet I'm not the only one here from Honey Creek that wants to know, what can we do at our age?
[01:03:22.97] JULIE STEINER: Great question.
[01:03:23.58] AUDIENCE: To help.
[01:03:25.76] JULIE STEINER: Thank you. That's a great question. You all go.
[01:03:30.54] KATIE DOYLE: We're going to fight over it.
[01:03:31.86] [INTERPOSING VOICE]
[01:03:33.04] [LAUGHTER]
[01:03:33.39] JULIE STEINER: You better take notes because they're going to be falling all over you in a second.
[01:03:35.11] NICOLE ADELMAN: I'll start, but quickly because I know there's a lot of us who have something to say. But I think there's a lot of volunteer opportunities in this community. I would say that at Alpha House what we do is primarily volunteer-based. So we have volunteers every single day who cook our dinner and bring it in and serve it. They stay overnight along with the shelter staff. And also they play every night with the kids for activity time.
[01:03:57.83] So there's a lot of opportunities for somebody 12 to 14. You would have to be with an adult. But there's lots of opportunity to come with an adult and play with the kids, come with an adult and cook dinner. There's lots of things that people could do.
[01:04:09.69] We have work groups on the weekend where we need help raking leaves and painting rooms and doing lots of projects. So we have a volunteer coordinator who you are welcome to call. Our number is 822-0220. And her name is Kathy. Next.
[01:04:24.69] FAYE ASKEW-KING: OK. So at SOS we not only have shelter and housing access but we also have an emergency food program. And you guys can always do a food drive. You can also do a personal needs drive because a lot of folks who receive food stamps, many people don't know that food stamps to not cover the cost of toilet paper, toothpaste, deodorant, and personal care items.
[01:04:48.10] And so there is a huge need for personal care items. And we only have those to donate to families who come to our doors when community folks donate those to us. And if you really want to do a group project, we can design a group project for you. So there are a lot of things that you can really do. And you can call our volunteer coordinator at 485-8730. AM
[01:05:15.56] And you can also go on our website, soscs.org, and there's a list of all the different volunteer roles and activities that you guys can do.
[01:05:26.64] KATIE DOYLE: My answers will be similar, so I'll let the next questioner go.
[01:05:31.17] JULIE STEINER: Anybody else?
[01:05:33.79] CAROLE MCCABE: We also have a lot of outside projects. And we have a program called Edible Avalon, where we have organic produce growing vegetable gardens at about 13 of our different properties. And that's sort of more spring, summerish. But there, while you're still time, overlapping in school. So that's one place where we really look for help too, is helping maintain gardens and taking care of vegetable gardens.
[01:05:55.12] But otherwise, painting and grounds and landscaping and those kinds of things are always fun.
[01:06:00.68] JULIE STEINER: And I'm going to make a plug for educating your peers. And that if you ever wanted to create something where you could work within your whole school, not just your own classes, and get more information out to people, I'm sure that any of these organizations, but also my organization, would be happy to help you figure out, is there a quiz that you can do that could get everybody really involved so that you get some of the myths and facts out in front of people.
[01:06:25.93] Because one of the things we know is that people don't know very much about homelessness. They think they do. But they don't know the reality as people have been talking about. So that's another way of really making a big difference. And I think that often people think about, well, I want to work with homeless children. Or I want to serve dinner. I want to do this or that. But there's a whole array of ways that make a huge difference in the community. Yes, sir?
[01:06:52.10] JASON MORGAN: Hi. My name is Jason Morgan. I actually work Congressman John Dingell's office.
[01:06:56.70] JULIE STEINER: Well, welcome.
[01:06:57.79] JASON MORGAN: And so thank you so much for all that you do. I think I've sent some folks over to Faye at SOS there. And I was actually at the office about a month ago just to see how things worked and exactly what the process is when we send people there.
[01:07:13.31] And then Shawn, I believe we've actually spoken on the phone trying to deal with some of our homeless veterans, which is a huge problem. Especially as we have more veterans coming back from the war. We're going to be inundated with more people who need homes and jobs and the whole gamut of things.
[01:07:29.99] So I have kind of a twofold question. One, you've mentioned some of the issues with the federal government as far as giving money. What can we do to help navigate that process and make it a little bit easier? And second, with the state cutting back on a lot of funding, we don't really have a lot of influence there. We try. We complain. But we don't have a vote there. We have a vote in the US Congress.
[01:07:57.06] So that's a kind of a second issue. And then the third is, how do we work together with all these workforce development agencies-- Michigan Works, all of you and what you do. How do we bring everybody together to the table? And how do we actually create solutions rather than just doing the same thing over and over and never actually stopping the problem, just dealing with what comes from it?
[01:08:18.11] JULIE STEINER: Great question.
[01:08:19.06] KATIE DOYLE: I'll take the federal government funding question. So one of the experiences we've had at Ozone House over the past couple years is we get a fair amount of federal funding for the programs that we run and have been since 1975. And part of what happens is at the government level they score our grant. So we write a grant and they give us a score, kind of like A, B, C, D, or F. And we used to score really well on those grants.
[01:08:44.84] But the other piece of it is when you're on the federal level and you look at Washtenaw County, Washtenaw County looks like it's doing better than other communities across the nation. We're now competing nationally for funding. And so part of what we have a hard time helping our folks in Washington see is the need that we have here locally.
[01:09:08.10] It's not lost on me that all of you have figured out that there's a big need to help the people who are homeless. And we've heard some specific stories from some of you about homelessness. But one of the things that-- and we've called on your office to do in the past-- is sort of advocate for us on the federal level and explain to the federal program officers what the need is locally.
[01:09:28.93] So I think that's a real area where you could help us. I will just put a plug in for you that you always, when we ask, have written a letter of support for us when we submit a grant. So that's very helpful. Because John Dingell's name, if you haven't heard of it, you've been hiding under a rock.
[01:09:45.90] But John Dingell's been supporting this community for a very long time is well-known both locally and at the national level. So that really helps us. In terms of the conversation about workforce development, that's a huge conversation. And I think the state is making-- with the MEDC-- is making some strides to do some creative kinds of new ideas. And I think Ypsilanti's gonna to see a new work force development idea happening.
[01:10:12.43] But there's another area there where you could educate sort of the policymakers. One of the things, I don't know if you saw Faye over here. Faye always talks with her hands. And so this gentleman was talking about going to Michigan Works and trying to get some job help. And Faye was making this a little motion over here that it's really hard because there are all these sort of boxes that you have to fit in and lots of restrictions.
[01:10:35.96] And I know we work with a coalition of providers nationally who work with homeless youth nationally, and we have trouble. They all have trouble with sort of some of the federal regulations regarding what makes you eligible. And one of the problems we've found with Michigan Works is that you have to show that you're really going to make huge strides very quickly. You're going to start at zero income and then in six months down the road, you're going to be making $50,000 a year before they are willing to take you into the program.
[01:11:04.62] I'm exaggerating for effect and I just realized we're going on TV, so [? not ?] entirely true. But there are some issues like that that we face on a regular basis.
[01:11:15.41] And then the other thing that you could help us all do is allow us to get picture identification for our clients for free. It is very expensive. For all-- part of what we do, when we first meet families and young people, is we spend several weeks helping them get identification. Because you can't get anything else in this world if you don't have a picture ID. And there's a lot of places that, in order to go get your picture ID, you need a picture ID to get into the building.
[01:11:44.14] And so we spend a lot of time-- our case workers who work with us could have a Ph.D. In tracking down identification. So that's another piece that we would love to see some help on, is helping people get identification. Because that's a big barrier for a lot of people.
[01:12:00.95] JULIE STEINER: See what happens when you ask?
[01:12:02.39] [LAUGHTER]
[01:12:03.25] KATIE DOYLE: Let me give you my card. I got some more.
[01:12:05.13] JULIE STEINER: Anybody else?
[01:12:05.65] CAROLE MCCABE: We can write the rest of ours up and--
[01:12:07.87] KATIE DOYLE: Yeah.
[01:12:08.61] FAYE ASKEW-KING: But I also think that Dingell's office has been more than helpful, like Katie says. I think to all of us. If you ever need some help, Mr. Dingell is more than happy to be helpful. And I really thank you for coming on the tour and visiting and seeing us. I think that's helpful because then you know what to tell people when you send them to us because they know what to expect.
[01:12:30.42] But here's my moment.
[01:12:33.70] KATIE DOYLE: Uh oh.
[01:12:34.49] FAYE ASKEW-KING: I believe that-- and I truly believe this. I believe that policymakers really believe that they are doing good and trying to be helpful. But I don't think that they understand all of the unintended negative consequences that result in the policies that they end up developing and creating, which makes it very difficult for the people who they created this policy for to actually access that resource.
[01:13:04.60] So my suggestion is that you ask those people in Washington to come and get any of us. We would be happy to inform them and help them with their policymaking. Because we actually do the work. They don't really have to call us. But there are people who do this work that I think can really inform the policymakers so that we don't have so many hoops or people to go through to get the resources that they need.
[01:13:27.74] JULIE STEINER: Thank you.
[01:13:28.70] FAYE ASKEW-KING: So thanks for asking.
[01:13:30.36] JULIE STEINER: Yes, ma'am?
[01:13:32.15] AUDIENCE: I'm also a student at Honey Creek. And I have two questions. Are there laws that prohibit the homeless population from doing certain activities, like in Washtenaw area? And-- yeah. We do homeless shelters focus on people in a certain situation? Like the Delonis Center helps people who are single.
[01:14:00.90] JULIE STEINER: As opposed-- so you have the single shelters and the family shelters. OK. Good questions. Anybody want the first one about laws? There's all kinds of weird laws out there. Can you think of one off the top of your head?
[01:14:15.02] This ID thing is a really good one, that Katie was talking about. That it's not illegal to be homeless, but to start getting out of homelessness to find housing, to find a job, whatever, you've got to have a picture ID. To have a picture ID we've got to get your birth certificate, which means we've got to get it from wherever you were born. And we got to send it here and we got to spend a lot of money.
[01:14:36.08] There's been a lot of progress made. Folks who are homeless can register to vote. Using the shelter as their place of residence, they can get their mail there. I talked about the support that kids can get for going to school while they're homeless. I can't think of anything off the top of my head. But I'm sure there is.
[01:14:57.35] So let's go to the second part. Who wants to take that?
[01:15:02.90] CAROLE MCCABE: What was it again?
[01:15:03.84] KATIE DOYLE: Faye mentioned we had retrieval issues, and that might be helpful. What was the second part?
[01:15:08.42] [LAUGHTER]
[01:15:09.04] JULIE STEINER: Why do we have single adult shelters and family shelters?
[01:15:12.49] NICOLE ADELMAN: No good reason.
[01:15:13.38] CAROLE MCCABE: For one, funding.
[01:15:15.45] NICOLE ADELMAN: Funding. And also there are some things, for example, the needs that children have. There are specific things like getting kids to school, finding them daycare. There are different issues sometimes for families than there are for single individuals. But other than capacity and funding, I think that's probably the main reason. It's easier to just focus on a specific population.
[01:15:33.69] KATIE DOYLE: And in our case with adolescents, in order for us to be licensed to house youth who are under age, there can't be adults living in our shelter. So in our case, that's a particular law in order for us to be licensed.
[01:15:48.23] NICOLE ADELMAN: If guess there are other issues too when you have congregate living. So it might be different with scattered site apartments. But, for example, at Alpha House, we have six rooms. To have individual adults along with families might be challenging for different reasons. There might be mental health issues. There might be substance abuse issues.
[01:16:06.07] For example, somebody with a criminal sexual history could not come to Alpha House. So there are different issues related to that when you have people living together.
[01:16:13.18] FAYE ASKEW-KING: And I think historically single homelessness has really been more around folks with disabilities, whereas family homelessness is really more a result of domestic violence and poverty and those kinds of things. So the issues sometimes, although they seem to be merging here lately. So I think historically that's kind of also why.
[01:16:39.18] JULIE STEINER: That help?
[01:16:40.09] CAROLE MCCABE: I think things are separated more than they need to be though. I think there's a lot of real reasons. But some of it's just the structure of these crazy different pots of money that get approved and all this bureaucracy. I think we constantly have to fight to be more logical in a kind of illogical world of funding. And so that's real.
[01:17:01.23] And the other thing I wanted to say is that I don't think there's any book laws about being homeless, but I think there's definitely laws that are directed against poor people in all communities. And we had a lot of debate, for example, about a panhandling ordinance here in Ann Arbor. And I'm not going to enter that debate at this moment. But I think that that's the kind of thing.
[01:17:20.32] Or you also talk about, there's a movement, it came up in terms of the job stuff, about banning the box. People who have a felony conviction on their records, putting that on their job application. And there's a big movement amongst folks reentering from prison and all over the country to change that because people's don't even be considered for jobs.
[01:17:41.80] So there's, I think, bias throughout our system that people have to deal with. And sometimes it's subtle. But sometimes, more or less so.
[01:17:51.80] FAYE ASKEW-KING: So like for example, people that have felonies cannot live in subsidized housing. So if a dad gets out of prison, the family lives in subsidized housing, the dad can't join the family.
[01:18:04.33] CAROLE MCCABE: But they can live at Avalon.
[01:18:05.82] FAYE ASKEW-KING: But they can live at Avalon, Carole.
[01:18:08.32] JULIE STEINER: Yes, sir?
[01:18:09.80] ALAN: Hello. I'm Alan Haber. The last comments-- crazy, illogic, biased. That is the situation that allows your agencies not to be able to deal with a lot of people who actually do have needs. I'm part of the Occupy Movement Experience, looking at this big question about the wars and where the money goes and priorities and inequalities and so on.
[01:18:45.13] So from the perspective of Liberty Plaza, I met a lot of people who are basically homeless or on the street or non-conforming or the undeserving poor or whatever it is that don't fit in. And in that sense of community, it really seemed there were people who could actually do better taking care of themselves then the service of the city is actually providing. And out of that came the notion, well, let's imagine warming centers and a place where people during the day can come and be with each other and do art or envision entrepreneurship or make use of their capacities.
[01:19:27.46] But this sense of allowing a community that is really disenfranchised and stigmatized in many ways that you kind of referenced, to have a place to be-- not being the mission of the library to be a day center-- finds a lot of resistance. Either there is no problem. I've heard that. The mayor said that. That the agencies you are taking care of things as best we can. And there is really waiting, no waiting list for anybody who needs except for those who can't get in because they're--
[01:20:05.23] So anyhow, what I'm putting forward is a plea that the agencies be more helpful in helping us find and make usable in an expedient way, for instance, the city building on North Main Street that could be a warming place. Ideally there'd be 24/7 for the people who don't fit into the structure that volunteers could take care of. But even short of that, because that we hear is impossible, just a place during the day where people could be comfortable and warm and fix up ourselves, because that's a human thing to do. And it is, after all, warm, probably the first human right. To be able to stay at the fire in the cave and not to be put out.
[01:20:51.06] And they're people whose human rights are actually-- like they don't even exist. And there should be something-- I appreciate everything the agencies do. But there should be something for the people in the community to have a warm place in this winter, much as we've held out the cold this year now.
[01:21:08.91] JULIE STEINER: Thanks.
[01:21:09.54] ALAN: I'd like to comment on that. I know there are other people here who've been part of this effort. And for the most part were just [? shined ?] on which just isn't right.
[01:21:19.27] JULIE STEINER: Anybody have a response?
[01:21:25.43] CAROLE MCCABE: Why don't you take this one, Julie?
[01:21:27.14] [LAUGHTER]
[01:21:28.62] JULIE STEINER: Well, I think that-- you said it earlier Carole, that the question becomes for the community. It's all about resources. And we have limited resources and we have huge demands. And so it's a community discussion about where do you spend money and how do you help people best?
[01:21:46.58] And as Faye said--
[01:21:47.70] ALAN: [? We don't need ?] resources. We'll do it ourselves.
[01:21:49.78] JULIE STEINER: Well, then do it. That would be awesome. I don't think anybody's stopping you from doing it. I know it's hard to find a place.
[01:21:58.91] ALAN: No open doors.
[01:22:00.38] JULIE STEINER: The building's the problem. Well, I know you're doing it. And you guys are doing great organizing because I love it every time there's a City Council meeting or a County Commission meeting and you guys are there. And that is important. You're keeping it in front of people. It's really important.
[01:22:17.79] CAROLE MCCABE: I do think that this is a much longer discussion item, but there is-- I think there is a role for the agents, nonprofit agencies. And I think the community activism, it can be can be a stronger relationship. I always like to say-- I didn't give my long story about when we started Avalon. As it was, I talked too much.
[01:22:37.94] But part of why we were created was because the Homeless Action Committee existed and was in people's face and singing at City Council and keeping homelessness on the agenda. And the city did agree to start us off with our house at West William, our first place. And so I think it's important to make those connections. And I hope that those of us in the nonprofit world can maintain a commitment and a spirit advocacy and activism, even though it's challenging when our funders and things like that. And the powers that be.
[01:23:14.11] But I do think that there's probably more of a dialogue we could have. But I do think-- I think there's a good role and we could continue to explore how to mutually support each other more so.
[01:23:25.44] JULIE STEINER: Yes, sir?
[01:23:26.87] AUDIENCE: Hi. So I am also a student at Honey Creek Community School.
[01:23:30.01] JULIE STEINER: You guys are all over the place. Good for you.
[01:23:33.85] AUDIENCE: And I have a more broad question. Well, two questions. First, how is Ann Arbor or the Washtenaw community compared to the nation in levels of homelessness? Let's put it that way. And compared to the rest of the country-- what are we doing to help? And levels of outreach, almost? I don't know how to put it, but--
[01:24:06.09] JULIE STEINER: Oh, you did it well.
[01:24:08.26] KATIE DOYLE: That's a great question. Because of my retrieval issue, I'm going to start with the second question because I remember that one a little bit better. But in terms--
[01:24:16.42] JULIE STEINER: We have to get some young people working on this program.
[01:24:18.53] CAROLE MCCABE: Speak for yourself. My memory's fine.
[01:24:20.69] [LAUGHTER]
[01:24:21.55] NICOLE ADELMAN: You're the young one.
[01:24:22.27] CAROLE MCCABE: Yeah, she is the young one.
[01:24:23.43] KATIE DOYLE: Well, still there's a retrieval issue. In terms of outreach, it's a really great question. And I think some of our programs have won some awards on a national level for the outreach that we do. So Julie talked about the Project Outreach Team. And that is sort of a mobile unit that goes out and provides really much needed mental health services and engagement and support to people all across the community, wherever they are living.
[01:24:49.01] And the Port Team can find them. They're really good at figuring out where people are living. And so they do that. And then at Ozone House we hire young people-- partially because they don't have as much retrieval issues as the rest of us. But we hire young people to go out into the community in places where we think young people are homeless or are living on the streets or are congregating and need services.
[01:25:12.56] You all don't have to agree with this or not, but it's usually better when a young person tells another young person about a service then when I go out and say hey, come to our cool organization. And so we hire people to go out. And they're called PR Outreach Workers. And so they go out and do that.
[01:25:26.74] And each of us, in our own way, tries to figure out how to reach out to people. One of the things Shawn talked about are the priorities of the Veterans Administration. That's sort of one of the first priorities, is reaching out to tell people what services are available and not expecting-- I think-- well, in the '60s I'll say for Ozone House, people ran it to us.
[01:25:48.63] But we've all learned is that we can't just sort of in our agency and expect that people are going to be able to get to us. And so we need to reach out to them. So that is a great question. And sort of the first thing that we all need to do is to reach out and figure out how to let people know about the services that we provide. And not just one time. We need to do this every day and every week to do that.
[01:26:08.55] And so I think we've got some pretty good things going here that sort of are what we call best practices nationally for the work that we do in terms of outreach. And then you asked another question.
[01:26:18.76] JULIE STEINER: The question about the data. About how does Washtenaw County compare nationally. See? I remembered that. So, we're about on average. So we had about 4,700 people who experienced homelessness last year. And so compared to other communities that have, if you do it by population and the number of people live there and everything, we seem to be about on average.
[01:26:45.46] In terms of the difference, different communities have started to focus on different pieces of homelessness, for example. So now in one community in Massachusetts, they're putting in almost all of their efforts on ending chronic homelessness. Chronically homeless folks are the folks who've really been homeless a very long time. Years and years. And many times. And they now say they have ended chronic homelessness. They have found housing for all of the folks who are chronically homeless and they keep people from falling into it again.
[01:27:23.14] So these are the kinds of things. But to be able to end it all at once as we've been talking about is very fluid and difficult. Really difficult.
[01:27:34.77] KATIE DOYLE: Great questions.
[01:27:35.72] JULIE STEINER: Yeah. Yes, sir?
[01:27:37.03] AUDIENCE: Hi.
[01:27:37.76] JULIE STEINER: Habitat for Humanity, University of Michigan.
[01:27:40.37] AUDIENCE: Yeah. So I'm a university student at the University of Michigan. And I'm proud to say we have one of the top major universities in the world here in Ann Arbor. And I feel like it's strongly essential to utilize and maximize the university resources. And a smashing number of Michigan students, over 40,000 students, who come in every year. It doesn't diminish, obviously.
[01:28:07.44] And I feel like we don't do enough to utilize university resources and university students. Obviously we can all witness by the composition of this crowd over here, not that many university students, as you can see.
[01:28:21.03] JULIE STEINER: Future university students.
[01:28:22.41] AUDIENCE: Sure, yeah. I hope so. For the sake of-- so which projects or which future projects has any of you worked on which incorporated university students? I know a good chunk of students volunteer here and there, but I feel like we can do a lot more than this. Which goes back to the person's resource issue. It's right there. The university is right there and I feel like we don't do enough. We don't see any events. We don't have a panel like this at the university.
[01:28:55.44] I feel like raising awareness and education about the homelessness amongst the students and [? borrow ?] marketing, talking amongst the students. I feel like it's very important. So if you guys want to talk about that, that's my first question.
[01:29:10.09] Also, lastly, it's one thing to hear about homelessness and statistics from you guys, like professionals. But I don't see enough events that come from the actual homeless individuals. And I feel like it is very informative for us, just regular people, to hear from actual homeless people. And I'm hoping maybe you guys can organize one of those panels consisted of the homeless individuals. I'd love to see that around the campus.
[01:29:44.73] It would also give us a different perspective on the topic and what they've gone through. And hardships they've gone through.
[01:29:51.48] SHAWN DOWLING: So you're assuming that none of us were homeless?
[01:29:53.18] AUDIENCE: Well, I'm saying-- if you guys were, that's great.
[01:29:56.47] [LAUGHTER]
[01:29:56.66] JULIE STEINER: It's probably not great.
[01:29:57.80] [LAUGHTER]
[01:29:58.23] AUDIENCE: Obviously you guys have succeeded with your lives and you guys are in a high position at your agencies. So I think it's a good thing to do that.
[01:30:07.24] JULIE STEINER: Thank you. Anybody? University of Michigan?
[01:30:10.47] KATIE DOYLE: I'd be happy to take some of that. I don't think you're going to find much disagreement. We would be happy for more of the university's resources. But at Ozone House, our crisis line is answered by volunteers. And I would say probably 80% of our volunteers come from the University of Michigan and are U of M students, as do a number of our staff.
[01:30:29.66] There's a great program called Project Outreach, is that right? Project Community. That's a class. And are you in that?
[01:30:36.61] AUDIENCE: You know Adam? Adam was [INAUDIBLE] the one who collected all the bathroom amenities.
[01:30:41.52] KATIE DOYLE: Oh, great. OK. So excellent. So thank you. So you guys do great volunteer work with us at Ozone House. And the viral marketing piece though , we could use a little help with. We hear about something called Twitter, but we don't know much about how to use it.
[01:30:55.71] [LAUGHTER]
[01:30:55.86] KATIE DOYLE: So we could use some help in that regard. And I'll let you all talk about consumers or anything else you want to.
[01:31:02.10] FAYE ASKEW-KING: I think all of us in different ways use a lot of students. We use students from the Project Community to help with after school programs for the homeless youths. Our crisis program uses volunteers. We all use students of the University of Michigan School of Social Work as interns, as well as--
[01:31:21.69] SHAWN DOWLING: Eastern.
[01:31:23.01] FAYE ASKEW-KING: Eastern. And we have OT students who work in our therapeutic daycare program. But we really, truly would like to have more and more of relationship with the university, especially for research projects for us. Because we're busy doing the work. And we don't really have the time, energy, or resources to really do that. Because I think all of us do really, really good work. And I think if we could partner with the university to do so some best practices kind of research or process evaluations would be really cool.
[01:32:01.45] JULIE STEINER: I got another one for you. I'm just going to interrupt because I see we're running out of time and that's why Beth's standing in line there. Imagine what would happen if the students at the university activated themselves in support of homelessness around this community. For example, I can't do the math because I have that retrieval issue. I share that with you.
[01:32:23.55] [LAUGHTER]
[01:32:24.23] JULIE STEINER: But what would happen if a dollar of every ticket to every University of Michigan athletic event went to ending homelessness?
[01:32:34.69] CAROLE MCCABE: Or $.25 even would be good.
[01:32:37.26] JULIE STEINER: How much money would that raise in our community to be able to make a huge dent? And I'm not being facetious. One of the things that's a challenge in Michigan is that we can't do local taxes. So like in some communities, they can institute a tax on espresso drinks and have that go towards homelessness prevention if they wanted. We can't do that here.
[01:33:02.55] But if the University of Michigan students got together advocating with their administration, both at Michigan and Eastern, for that kind of stuff the same way that the student activists got together and ended sweatshop labor in products that the University of Michigan bought, I would venture to say we would have one heck of a movement happening. And I would do everything I could to help with that. Personally.
[01:33:28.43] AUDIENCE: So would I.
[01:33:29.30] JULIE STEINER: Thank you. All right. Yes, ma'am?
[01:33:33.05] RICHARD SULLIVAN: Hi, my name--
[01:33:34.39] JULIE STEINER: You can bend it down.
[01:33:35.65] [LAUGHTER]
[01:33:35.99] JULIE STEINER: There you go.
[01:33:36.87] RICHARD SULLIVAN: Hi. My name is Richard Sullivan and I came up here because I wanted to talk in the microphone so I had to make up a question. So here it is. Do you have ever get really wealthy or at least a little wealthy or has quite a bit of money come into the shelter to get help? Like if they're homeless, if they're wealthy.
[01:34:06.94] SHAWN DOWLING: Like wealthy people, or--
[01:34:09.61] JULIE STEINER: You mean somebody's who's wealthy who's become homeless? OK.
[01:34:13.76] [INAUDIBLE]
[01:34:15.98] JULIE STEINER: No, no. I think she's saying people who've been wealthy at one time and have now become homeless. Is that what you're saying?
[01:34:23.76] FAYE ASKEW-KING: OK, I have-- just because I happen to be at the crisis center that day. But we had a guy who came asking for help with eviction prevention and he used to make-- I don't know if this is wealthy. But he used to work for one of the big auto industries. And he owned his own home. He had two cars. His family went on vacations once a week.
[01:34:48.14] KATIE DOYLE: Once a week?
[01:34:49.39] FAYE ASKEW-KING: Once a year.
[01:34:50.44] [LAUGHTER]
[01:34:51.08] KATIE DOYLE: I want that job.
[01:34:53.26] [LAUGHTER]
[01:34:56.04] FAYE ASKEW-KING: And he had lost his home, his job, his car. No more vacations. And he was struggling to try to find a job that paid him enough money just to rent a three bedroom apartment for his family. And because he had had all these losses, his wife also left him. And he was the single dad.
[01:35:23.27] And he was there to get help with eviction prevention. And so we were able to help him. But that's an example of how long it takes for someone to get to that point. He lost his house. So it takes a while for these things happen. So I think it took him about three years, I think his journey was about three years. So we do see people who were earning a living wage and due to job loss, jobs relocating out of our community. It happens.
[01:35:56.71] JULIE STEINER: Yes, Beth?
[01:35:57.73] BETH: Well, I'm afraid I'm going to have to put an end to this party. It's great to have you all here and to have the audience here. And I know there's people who still have questions. But we're going to end the program now so we can all get out of here by nine o'clock. And then if you want to direct your questions. But I appreciate you all coming.
[01:36:15.99] FAYE ASKEW-KING: Thank you for organizing it.
[01:36:17.71] [APPLAUSE]

Media

February 13, 2012 at the Downtown Library: Multi-Purpose Room

Length: 1:49:00

Copyright: Creative Commons (Attribution, Non-Commercial, Share-alike)

Rights Held by: Ann Arbor District Library

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