Sonoma County homeless advocates have long agreed that the approach is the best way to help the homeless, but county officials did not fully adopt the model until late last year. Around 90 percent of people stay housed.” “It’s the most important health intervention for vulnerable populations, and it works. “What we’ve found, and what the research has shown, is that the one thing making a difference is to emphasize permanent housing solutions,” said Ed Cabrera, a California public affairs manager for HUD. Since 2001, the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development has granted money for market-rate housing subsidies to local governments as part of Housing First, a model developed after 40 years of research and efforts to address the rise of homelessness nationwide. policy that previously focused on treating health complications and social problems while housing the homeless in shelters and transitional accommodations. The approach represents a radical shift from U.S. Experts in the field now consider it the best way to eradicate homelessness. With the shift came millions of dollars a year for cities and counties throughout the nation, designated for programs that get people safe, secure housing before tackling root causes of homelessness such as substance abuse or mental health problems. I had been looking for some kind of housing for years.”īlackmore was in the right place at the right time, when the lead federal agency overseeing nationwide homelessness initiatives shifted its primary focus to a model known as Housing First. “I was sleeping at the shelter, and someone asked me if I wanted to live someplace,” said Blackmore, now 55. In 2010, after she had been homeless for nearly a decade, a modest, one-bedroom apartment opened up in southwest Santa Rosa, one of the coveted housing slots created to help homeless people get off the streets. She recalls the nights she spent on a bench in Doyle Park in Santa Rosa. She spent the next decade living in her car, in homeless shelters and, at times, had nowhere else to sleep but outside.
#One night stand game skidrow series
But when a series of health conditions worsened, she could no longer work.Īt 40, Blackmore found herself homeless.
Her last job as a deli worker didn’t pay much, but she earned enough to provide a modest living for herself and her son, now a career Navy man. Laura Blackmore worked minimum-wage jobs for most of her life.
0 kommentar(er)
