When I think about homeless services, specifically what is not working, the biggest thing that comes to mind is the problem of connecting homeless people to services. It’s a lot about fitting into the right boxes when qualifying for services. Even when you fit into the right box, and certain services become available to you, other barriers prevent a homeless person from accessing the services they need.
When I became homeless in 2017, I learned firsthand how much homeless services in New York City were a total and complete disaster.
Almost a year before I sat down with an official NYC social worker, just days after entering a homeless shelter, I had tried tirelessly to connect to homeless prevention services. I had emailed, called, and even texted probably hundreds of different contacts.
At the time, I had a slumlord who was putting a sledgehammer through my living room wall because I refused to pay almost triple my rent after already signing a lease renewal. He was standing outside the apartment building, at all hours of the day and night, waiting for me to come outside.
He turned my heat off in the middle of a winter storm. He also refused to do any repairs. Eventually, I landed in housing court, and the tensions only got even higher and scarier as the months progressed.
He was mean, his lawyers were mean, and all I wanted was a way out, a place to go. I wanted to be relocated because I was scared. That day never came. Instead, the sheriff came, and that was the scariest day of my life – the first night I had nowhere to go or sleep.
Things may have turned out a lot differently if homeless services were more effective.
But I want to be clear – I’m not saying that caseworkers are ineffective. I’m not saying that homeless service workers aren’t doing everything they possibly can to help homeless people because that’s not the case.
It takes a certain kind of person to do that kind of work. It’s hard work. It’s sometimes depressing, and it’s very heavy on your mental and emotional health.
Of course, there will always be people, in and outside of the homeless sector and welfare services, who hold many prejudices against homeless people. Still, even that isn’t entirely to be blamed on the prejudice.
In a nutshell, the issue is much bigger, much worse even.
While at my first in-person appointment with my caseworker, I was asked to fill out a very long questionnaire. The purpose of this questionnaire was to connect me to services. The issue was I didn’t fit into any of the right boxes. He may as well have said, “Come back when you’re pregnant or an addict.”
In truth, sometimes I do wonder how differently my life would be (and how much I’d save on psychiatric medication and therapy sessions) if things had gone differently then. But, you know what? I don’t think a housing voucher falling into my lap would have made that big of a difference.
According to a City Limits article, just 19.4 percent of the 7,788 federal Emergency Housing Vouchers (EHV) issued to New York City have been used to secure an apartment.
The last thing a landlord wants is rent to someone who has been to housing court. They don’t want to rent to a homeless person. Not only do landlords think of homeless people, or formerly homeless people, as irresponsible and “trouble,” but with lots of baggage, too.
In short, I don’t think this route to housing would have been that much more effective than the route I took, which was hiring a broker and crossing my fingers.
But it wasn’t just a matter of luck. We had to play the broken system and play it well and better.
Firstly, landlords could not learn I was homeless. Poor? Nope. I’m an upstanding member of society who loves my Mom, boss, and excessive consumerism. Make up an address. They would not receive my last couple of addresses, which were homeless shelters. I had to fool them into believing another story. And that’s what I did.
In San Diego, there’s a story of a marine turned homeless outreach worker desperately looking for a client. I found this story fascinating, yet upsetting, by how real and relatable it is.
Firstly, this is an excellent example of how dedicated outreach workers are. Being out on the streets and doing the fieldwork is a challenging task. The big issue here is how difficult it can be to track down your homeless client, friend, or family member.
Due to homeless encampment sweeps and the nature of street homelessness, it’s really easy to lose touch with someone living on the streets.
It’s hard to connect homeless people to homeless services because so quickly and easily they can disappear.
Something else I’d like you to pay attention to from this story is how much easier it can be to connect to services if you, like I mentioned above, can fit into the right boxes.
Access to homeless services for a homeless vet is much different than it is for me or anyone else. I think part of that reason is, again, because of our society’s attitude toward homeless people.
As Americans, we typically respect and want to support vets – no questions asked. This is not the same for other homeless people with different backgrounds, different struggles, different traumas.
Our attitudes toward homeless people and poor people are very much at the center of our ability to provide services. Classism prevents us from pulling through and following through. We need to change our minds and our hearts and demand that no one deserves to, no one needs to, sleep outside.
