Article: Housing vouchers could help homeless teens grow, thrive (TNT)
Tacoma News Tribune article about the challenges of serving homeless youth in Pierce County. Thanks for addressing this, Kit.
Housing vouchers could help homeless teens grow, thrive
KATHLEEN MERRYMAN; STAFF WRITER
If you look at one set of federal numbers, there are five homeless teens in Tacoma. If you look at another, there are 250.But if you listen to the people trying to help them, there are hundreds more throughout Pierce County, and most have little hope of getting into decent, stable homes, or growing into decent, stable adults.
Federal counts, which determine where federal money goes, don’t fit the problem. They don’t even fit each other.
Susan Paredes is Tacoma schools’ liaison with the federal program for homeless kids in school. She can name 250 high school students who don’t have homes. They all go to Tacoma schools, and they all meet federal standards for defining a homeless student. Many are couch surfing – sleeping at the homes of friends or relatives until their welcome wears out.
By contrast, federal Department of Housing and Urban Development rules say that if they were crashing with friends on Jan. 27, the night of the annual homeless count, they had a roof and aren’t homeless. Last year, that tally found five kids.
This kind of undercounting sinks efforts to get money to help these young people.
Now experts in social work and housing are teaming up to fix the long-term hole in services for vulnerable youth. They’re brainstorming ways to get these kids into safe homes with counseling, health care, education and training in life skills.
These aren’t easy kids. Some have run away from home. More have been kicked out, fled for their own safety or were abandoned.
“One mother left one of her daughters, left the state, then came back and left the other daughter,” said Cheryl Jones, executive director of Tacoma’s Allen Renaissance.
“I’ve heard many stories of 12-year-olds who are picked up, then leave when they hear they have to be reported to their parents,” said Diane Powers, planner for Pierce County’s mental health and homeless programs. “They say, ‘I’m going back to the camp.’ Many of them are involved in prostitution.”
And many of them, Jones said, will end up at the state’s sexual offender unit for youths with a felony on their juvenile record.
“What our kids are going through is horrific,” she said.
She uses “our kids” in the broad sense, to cover young people who can’t live with their own families and depend on the rest of us to help them toward a decent future.
Even the most basic emergency shelters are expensive, said Troy Christensen of Pierce County Human Services.
“It requires highly trained staff and notification of families,” he said.
But the investment helps cut the risk that young people will harm themselves, have sex or do something else that might leave the provider liable. Expensive programs are powerful deterrents to agencies that are barely getting by and don’t have enough funds targeted at homeless teens.
Work around that, suggested Michael Mirra, executive director of Tacoma Housing Authority. Take money from general funds and use it to get teens settled and aimed at independence.
Tacoma Housing Authority owns houses, and it distributes vouchers that can be used to pay for housing.
“We have homes with up to six bedrooms. We could make a larger single-family home available as a congregate facility that we would not run,” he said.
The young residents could use housing vouchers to pay their rent, and an agency with a good track record could provide the monitoring, counseling and life-skills training in a group-home setting.
Paredes said some homeless students stay in school, but they are minors, entirely on their own and unable to find housing.
The housing authority can help, Mirra said. “If we could support them with housing vouchers, we would count that as very good use of housing dollars.”
This kind of new thinking about solving old problems with existing funds is welcome. It’s opening the possibility of going beyond shelter to help damaged young people grow into productive community members.
These are kids who would love the chance to someday become taxpayers.
Kathleen Merryman: 253-597-8677 kathleen.merryman@thenewstribune.com blog.thenewstribune.com/street
News Tribune article highlights 25 years at Helping Hand House
Wanted to point you a great article in the Tacoma News Tribune highlighting the lessons learned in 25 years of working to end homelessness in Pierce County. Attached below, check it out at the TNT here.
For 25 years, these helping hands have worked to end homelessness, a family at a time
KATHLEEN MERRYMAN; THE NEWS TRIBUNE
Last updated: June 3rd, 2009 12:15 AM (PDT)In a perfect world, 4,618 families would show up for this month’s 25th anniversary of Helping Hand House.A total of 12,554 moms, dads and kids would be there to tell how the Puyallup nonprofit helped them rebuild their lives after homelessness.
When Margie Addington founded Helping Hand House to serve families in East Pierce County, in 1984, she worked on her own with the backing of service clubs and grants.
The original idea was basic: Get families into housing. Expect them to find a job.
When Addington retired in 1997, Helping Hand House operated 11 homes on an annual budget of $165,000.
The annual budget is $1.9 million now. They operate 60 units, and every family has a case manager.
“They were one of the first organizations to shift their mission from ‘serving’ to ending and preventing homelessness,” said Troy Christensen, chairman of The Road Home leadership team. “They were the first organization to provide Housing First to the families in Pierce County.”
Kathy Doubikin knows about it first-hand. After a move and a divorce, she and her three sons ended up without a home, friends or family. In early 2008, Helping Hands had an opening.
“Having a place to go was a blessing,” the Puyallup resident said. “Having someone to listen to, care for and encourage me to take the steps necessary to start saving and rebuilding was a blessing.”
She began taking classes on budgeting, home and car repairs, job searches, cooking, canning. She got her sons enrolled in school. She opened a savings account. She found three part-time jobs, one of which developed into a full-time managerial position.
“I’m at the point of graduating out this Christmas,” she said.
“They back you up,” Doubikin said. “They listen to you.”
Empathy for the homeless goes right to the top of the Helping Hands hierarchy – all the way to Nola Renz, the executive director who replaced Addington 12 years ago.
Renz grew up in a family that bounced in and out of housing from state to state in the Northern Plains.
“The earliest recollection I have of it was when I was about 4,” she said. “We were sleeping in our car. I didn’t know we were homeless. We were camping.”
There were no shelters then, no food banks. The family had burned through the kindness of relatives. Renz attended nearly two dozen schools, none of which had help for homeless students.
“The schools wouldn’t let you take books home,” she said. “You couldn’t check out library books.”
Renz once took 50 cents from the family’s money jar to buy school supplies. Her father met her at the door with a switch.
“That’s why it is so important to me that our children are fully equipped for school,” she said. “That is huge.”
“We see ourselves ending homelessness, not just for grown-ups, but for the next generation,” said Marion Hogan, Helping Hand House’s deputy development director.
Renz graduated from high school, married, had three children and fled a dangerous relationship. She struggled, found a decent job, then another, and put herself through college.
Today Renz tells her clients that if she could work and go to school at the same time, they can, too.
And they do.
“If our parents are in school, they have to work 20 hours a week, too.” Hogan said.
They know they are the lucky ones.
Last month, more than 300 families called for help that would keep them from losing their homes.
“We could serve 18,” Renz said.
Another 400 people called needing homes.
“That’s up from 50 a month” last year, she said. “We can serve four, or five, tops. Pretty depressing, huh?”
You bet it is, especially since Helping Hand House has shown us how to do better.
Kathleen Merryman: 253-597-8677
kathleen.merryman@thenewstribune.com
What: 25th anniversary celebration for Helping Hand House
When: June 11, 3 to 7 p.m.
Where: Pioneer Park pavilion, downtown Puyallup
Originally published: June 3rd, 2009 12:15 AM (PDT)
