Tag Archives: homelessness

Moving the men’s drop-in shelter from Grace

Posted on by
Reply

An article by Pat Schneider provides some background on the potential move. It is an exciting prospect for the future of homeless services in Madison, and for Grace Church, too. If the shelter moves, we will engage the community and our congregation in a conversation about our future ministry and mission in a spot where we have been worshiping and serving God for over 150 years. At the same time, we will continue to advocate for “the least of these.”

So, Back to Square 1? Or Capitol Square?

Posted on by
Reply

Reports are that the courts have ruled in favor of the Town of Madison in its dispute with Dane County over locating a Day Resource Center on Martin St. Will the County appeal?

In any case, it’s almost June  and we’ve got five months to come up with a solution for next winter. How long has this been going on?

Let’s see if the city and county can bury the hatchet, work with homeless advocates and service providers and come up with a permanent solution for a Homeless Day Resource Center in the downtown .

 

Lectionary Reflections for Christ the King Sunday

Posted on by
Reply

RNS-HOMELESS-JESUS

This Sunday’s texts are available here.

Canadian sculptor Tim Schmaltz has incited controversy with his bronze statue “Jesus the Homeless.” The image gained notoriety when it was rejected by St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City and St. Michael’s Cathedral in Toronto. The latter image was installed at the Jesuit School of Theology in Toronto and another cast was purchased and installed at St. Alban’s Episcopal Church in Davidson, NC. The statue depicts a homeless man sleeping on a park bench. His facial features are partially obscured by the blanket that covers him but the marks of crucifixion on his hands and feet clearly identify him as Jesus. After the statue appeared in Davidson, the police were called by a woman who thought it was a real homeless person and others complained that it demeaned the neighborhood. One woman was quoted as saying, “Jesus is not a vagrant; Jesus is not a helpless person who needs our help.” (A story on Huffington Post with images of the statue is here).

This Sunday, the last Sunday of the liturgical year, is Christ the King Sunday, a day when we are encouraged to reflect on the reign of Christ. Often, such reflection takes the form of images of Christ ruling in majesty or coming in triumph. Today’s gospel from Matthew 25, points in a very different direction. We read the familiar parable of sheep, goats, and judgment. For all its familiarity, it continues to challenge us at the core of our existence and at the core of our faith. The king divides sheep and the goats on the basis of how they responded to the deepest human needs: to the hungry and the thirsty, the stranger, the sick, the naked and the prisoner. But when told of their respective fates and the basis for the judgment, sheep and goats answered alike, “Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or naked?”

The Kingship of Christ, the Reign of Christ, is not primarily about recognizing Christ in majesty and triumph. It is about being Christ—in the weakest, lowliest, and most vulnerable of humans; in feeding and clothing, ministering to and being with the stranger, the sick, the friendless. In acts like these, the reign of God is announced and made present. The reign of Christ is proclaimed in a homeless Jesus.

The county plays hardball over the day shelter and the homeless community loses

Posted on by
Reply

So this bit of news came out today. Dane County is threatening to sue the Town of Madison over its continued legal efforts to prevent the County from opening a day shelter.

“The Town of Madison continues to stonewall the operation of a day resource center at the exact location where services to the homeless have been provided for ten years,” Parisi said in a statement.

Several observations:

1) It sounds like it’s getting personal
2) The Town of Madison has 120 days to respond, delaying the timeline even more
3) what a great way to gain local support for the facility!
4) I wrote weeks ago that I thought the county should abandon this location and find alternatives, but anyone watching this whole process will think twice about having the county as a neighbor.

How Housing First works in Boston: providing permanent housing for the chronically homeless

Posted on by
Reply

A story on the transformation at Pine Street Inn, Boston’s largest provider of shelter for the homeless. Under the leadership of Executive Director Lyndia Downie, Pine Street now manages more beds in homes than in shelters:

What Downie saw years ago was buried in a trove of data she scoured: 5 percent of the homeless population took up more than half of the beds at Pine Street on any given night.

The truth is that most people who come through Pine Street are there because of a temporary crisis.

They often just need a place to stay for a few days. But Downie began to imagine what would happen if Pine Street focused on that 5 percent — the people who live on the street for months or years.

Few people thought her idea would work. These street people didn’t want help.

Not true. A year after moving into a Pine Street home — where they also receive counseling — 96 percent of the chronically homeless are still there.

It wasn’t a pretty sight–Thoughts on the meeting of the Dane County Board of Supervisors

Posted on by
2

I attended the Dane County Board of Supervisors meeting last night where I spoke in support of the resolution to purchase 1490 Martin St. for a permanent day resource center (The gist of my remarks are here). Coincidentally, a staff member from the Turkish parliament was there to observe the proceedings. He is interested in democracy and local politics. Both of us learned a great deal.

It wasn’t especially edifying. Many people spoke in opposition to the resolution. A large number of those who expressed their opposition were homeless themselves or advocates for the homeless. Many other opponents are neighbors of the facility. Politics does indeed make strange bedfellows. One heard again and again from neighbors about the problems center guests would bring into the neighborhood; the danger they presented. These are arguments brought up every time efforts are made to expand services or locate new programs and facilities in neighborhoods, towns, or cities throughout Dane County and the US. These are arguments some of those same progressives will angrily rebut when their own efforts are being challenged. Last night, however, because NIMBY sentiments played into progressives’ hands, the arguments were allowed to stand.

I’m grateful for those who have worked so hard over the last months and years to make the day center a reality and I am eager to watch how plans for transportation and renovation move forward. I am also excited to see the Day Center open on November 1. It’s the culmination of many people’s dreams and will fill a huge gap in our community’s services for the homeless.

A report of the meeting is available here.

 

Why I support the proposed site for the day resource center

Posted on by
Reply

The Dane County Board of Supervisors will be debating a resolution to purchase a property on Martin Street to be used for a Homeless Day Resource Center. In recent weeks there’s been a good deal of debate about the merits of the location and various problems including adequate transportation and water supply. This is only the latest chapter in an ongoing saga about which I’ve written repeatedly over the last several years.

There are valid concerns about the location. It has been the site of Porchlight’s Hospitality House which has operated in part as a day shelter. Over the years, transportation has been inadequate. The location is just off of a major bus line, but it is not downtown and the vans that have shuttled guests from downtown homeless shelters and other agencies have not always operated at an optimal capacity.

But I think efforts to seek a thirty-day delay in the purchase of the property are misguided. I doubt that any amount of money would be able to shake loose a suitable downtown location from property owners, and even if it were miraculously able to do so, a downtown site would still have to overcome massive resistance from downtown residents, business owners, as well as city staff, alders, and the mayor. So at the end of the thirty day delay, we would be left with one option on the table, the same Martin Street property with thirty fewer days to prepare for a November 1 opening date.

A delay, or worse yet, a County Board vote against the purchase of the property, would make it more likely that we would face another winter with cobbled-together and inadequate provisions for resources for homeless people.

There comes a time when advocates have to re-shape their visions and hopes for the futures to reflect political and community realities. This seems to be one of those times. The tentative plans for the center include necessary services like laundry, showers, and storage as well as opportunities for guests to connect with social service agencies that can help them find housing and the other support they need. Supervisors and homeless advocates should work together in the coming months to ensure that the important questions are answered adequately, issues resolved, and that the Day Center will be ready to serve the homeless community at the earliest possible date.

Recent articles on the controversy are here and here.

 

 

 

The New Day Resource Center: Making the best of a difficult situation?

Posted on by
Reply

The news finally broke yesterday. Dane County has purchased Porchlight’s Hospitality House facility which will be the site of the new Day Resource Center. Here’s the press release.

I’ve written about the need for such a facility before and I’ve also written about the difficulty the County and others have had in finding an appropriate site. In some ways, Hospitality House seems like the path of least resistance. It’s in the Town of Madison rather than in the city so there won’t be much pushback from city administration or alders. It will be located at a site where some of the same services have been offered for years, so there shouldn’t be a lot of pushback from neighbors.

Pat Schneider’s article includes interviews with homeless advocates who are opposed to this location and claim to have been shut out of the process. Here’s where it is: a half-hour bus ride from downtown. While I share their concerns about how this process has played out, I am also acutely aware of how difficult the search for an adequate facility has been. I think it’s safe to say that the downtown area has been carefully searched for possible sites to no avail. One of the problems is that in this real estate market, few property owners are going to want to sell underused land or buildings to the county when they might be able to sell it at a high profit for another upscale apartment complex. I also appreciate that few County politicians or bureaucrats want to start another dust-up with city officials who would likely have opposed any proposed location.

One of the persistent difficulties faced by Hospitality House in the past has been transportation from downtown. Porchlight has operated a van that has transported guests from the Salvation Army and the Drop-In Men’s shelter downtown to Hospitality House but that hasn’t always been an effective means of getting people back and forth. The County will need to assess the transportation needs of the new Day Resource Center and have an effective plan in place when the Center opens in order for this renovated facility to be a success.

What homeless advocates and community members need to do now is work with the county and those who will operate the Day Resource Center to ensure its success. Let’s make sure we get the best facility possible with the necessary resources, fitted out with showers, storage, and laundry, and access to the support services that can help homeless people find adequate housing and stabilize their situations.

 

 

 

 

The System is Still Broken

Posted on by
Reply

I was given a stark reminder yesterday that Madison’s safety net for homeless people has gaping holes. It’s not just that the Men’s Shelter returned to “Summer Hours” with the arrival of Daylight Savings Time (I wonder if they ever considered changing that policy when the period of DST was extended into early March) and that the 60-day limit runs out for most men.

As I was leaving the church yesterday around 5:30, I encountered a couple of guys huddling for warmth in our entry way. Another staff person had seen them in the courtyard and invited them inside for a few minutes. One of the two men was carrying an oxygen tank. He had spent the day at Hospitality House and been brought back to the shelter by Porchlight’s van at 4:30. However, since the shelter didn’t open until 7:30, he would have to wait in 20 degree weather for three hours. He told me that doctors had instructed him to stay out of the cold weather and minimize physical exertion (like walking three blocks to the Public Library where he could be safe from the elements). So here he was.

I don’t know for certain he had been in the hospital last week. If so, I wonder if anyone considered how a homeless person could comply with instructions to minimize physical exertion and avoid being in cold weather. And I wonder about policies and procedures that leave a frail and nearly incapacitated man on his own on the streets for several hours or more. And I continue to despair about a nation and community that treats its weakest and most vulnerable members so callously.

 

Still looking for a site for a day resource center in Madison

Posted on by
Reply

Well, the effort to open a year-round day resource center for the homeless in Madison continues. Sometimes it seems there’s more flailing than clear direction. Pat Schneider reports on the latest site under consideration, Porchlight’s Hospitality House. It’s rather closer to downtown than the site they’d been looking at on the east side. Neither site is ideal. Apparently there is nothing available downtown, probably due to a combination of our hot real estate market and the unwillingness of property owners and neighbors to host such a facility.

Hospitality House presents certain challenges. Although it is on a bus line, transportation is still an issue. Porchlight has operated a van service from downtown with varied levels of success over the years and it’s likely that many who would make use of it if it were downtown will simply not bother if it’s too much trouble (or expensive to get there).

It will need significant renovations before it can provide showers and laundry facilities, two things high on any list of day center necessities.  It’s also not clear whether the space will be adequate to offer space to other agencies’ representatives to assist guests with housing, job counseling, and other services.

The chief advantage of the County’s plan, and the key to its success, is that the County expects the center will be run by Sarah Gillmore and the Shine Initiative. Sarah successfully designed and led last winter’s successful day center.