Blog

A Race Worth Winning

This blog was written by VSH’s volunteer resources manager, Alison Jones-Nassar.

This past weekend, I was reminded again of how breathtakingly beautiful our nation’s capital is. I was in Washington on Friday and Saturday (along with 40,000 other runners) to participate in an annual half-marathon event, and the city was awash in the colors and smells of spring.

Between the beautiful monuments, historic stone buildings, meticulously-tended outdoor spaces, upscale shops, and affluent residences, no one can deny that Washington is indeed a lovely city. At least on the surface. In stark contrast to its majestic exterior, however, is a dark underside of homelessness. In fact, according to the NAEH’s State of Homelessness in America report released in January 2012, the rate of homelessness for Metro Washington exceeds the national rate (24 homeless individuals per 10,000 in D.C. compared to a national rate of 21 homeless individuals per 10,000) and is almost three times the rate in Richmond (9 homeless individuals per 10,000).  Moreover, while the homeless population decreased nationally, it increased in the District of Columbia.

In past years, it was not at all uncommon to see homeless people sleeping on benches and huddled on sidewalks along various points of the race course, especially in some of the downtown areas and working-class neighborhoods east of the Capitol. It has always caused me some measure of discomfort to run past them as if they were just another feature of the scenery, and frankly, I did not look forward to seeing this again over the weekend.

But this year, strangely, I did not see a single homeless person. Although I hoped for an optimistic explanation (“Breaking News: D.C. Solves Homelessness!”), I suspected a less cheerful reality. No doubt the race organizers considered the negative PR of exposing 40,000 out-of-town visitors to the “unsightliness” of homelessness and “sanitized” the area accordingly with a beefed-up police presence. One problematic consequence of the Occupy Movement has been that more and more urban areas choose to “deal with” their homeless problems by sweeping homeless individuals out of sight and passing laws that criminalize their visibility. It seems that the easy short-term quick-fix options are almost always selected over the harder long-term solutions, even though “easy” comes at a heavy price – both financially and in human costs.

So I had to conclude that the race organizers had consciously and callously prioritized my need to run guilt-free through a sterilized landscape…at the expense of the hundreds of individuals for whom homelessness is an ongoing nightmare. I felt a little discouraged about all this as I headed back down 95. Now more than ever, research is telling us that we know how to end homelessness, especially the most persistent form: chronic homelessness. Consider this excerpt from page 13 of the above-mentioned 2012 State of Homelessness Report:

Another notable decrease was the 3 percent decline in chronic homelessness. This decrease is consistent with a trend that began in 2007….A primary reason for the downward trend in chronic homelessness is the increasing use of permanent supportive housing, an intervention shown to be effective and cost effective in ending chronic homelessness.

But then I stopped to get coffee in Garrisonville and a Washington Post headline caught my eye: “Home At Last, For Good: District Opens New Permanent Housing Complex for Women on the Streets At Least a Year.”  For us at Virginia Supportive Housing, the article chronicles a familiar story – and a hopeful one.

Speaking about D.C.’s growing dynamic of chronic homelessness, Human Services administrator Fred Swan says, “We wanted something more sustainable….The long-stayers just kept coming back, and it was a cycle that needed to be broken.” The article continues: “With that in mind, officials implemented a ‘housing first’ model, focused on offering long-term sustainable housing first and then treating health or social issues – a concept that has been used nationwide.” The article concludes with a quote from one of the featured tenants, Gail Faulkner: “You see these,” she said, dangling the silver apartment keys next to her face. “Nobody can take them away.”

So while no American city – Richmond and Washington D.C. included – has succeeded in solving homelessness (yet), there is good news on the horizon, and that good news, for Gail Faulkner and so many of the people served by VSH, is permanent supportive housing. Study after study concludes that increased availability of and access to permanent supportive housing will be absolutely critical to our efforts to reduce and end homelessness once and for all.

I don’t know how many years I will continue running the D.C. half-marathon, but I like to think that one day in the not-too-distant future, the absence of homeless individuals will not be because we chased them into the shadows….it will be because there aren’t any. By taking slow deliberate steps in the right direction, we can win this race.

Construction Begins on Heron’s Landing

Construction on Heron’s Landing began on March 1, 2012.  Heron’s Landing will be Virginia Supportive Housing’s first supportive studio apartments in Chesapeake, Virginia.  When complete, Heron’s Landing will serve 60 homeless adults from Chesapeake, Portsmouth, Virginia Beach, Norfolk, and Suffolk. 

A construction trailer has been moved to the site and construction crews are working diligently to build a pathway to the construction site and remove soil.  Heron’s Landing is on schedule to complete construction by December 29, 2012.

VSH Volunteers Make A Difference!

This week’s blog was written by VSH volunteer Amanda Roose of Foursquare Family Life Center.

“It has been almost one year since I have been volunteering with VSH, and my life has been messed up in the best of ways because of it. One of the most rewarding things I have gotten to be a part of has been our weekly game nights with the tenants at South Richmond. It’s such a simple thing, bringing games and snacks and sharing stories, but it has opened up friendships that I cannot fathom living without. These aren’t just random people I share a coke with anymore, they are real people with real stories and real hearts, and they matter to me. In my normal routine I would have never passed by my new friends, but stepping out  of my routine and building relationships with them has probably changed my life more than theirs. Last August I was a part of Richmond Registry Week on a survey team. Seeing Richmond’s invisible people firsthand hurt me on many levels, but what gave me hope was that I was doing something to solve this problem. The homeless are more than statistics to me now. They have faces, names, and voices that are aching to be heard.

“Teams from my church have painted the inside and outside of a family’s new home. We have done construction and gardening. We have had pizza and bingo nights. We have shared life and shared hope. We have had Thanksgiving dinner with them and spent Christmas day with them. We have donated house supplies for new tenants moving in. We have been a part of solving homelessness alongside Virginia Supportive Housing. It may not have always been convenient, but it has always been rewarding and worth it. Life is too short to live for myself, so I have resolved to be second, and put others first. I am so grateful for the team at Virginia Supportive Housing who have dedicated their lives to seeing others get a fresh new start, and that they let us be a part of the restoration.”

If you would like to find out more about how to give the gift of your time to VSH, visit our web page or take a look at volunteers in action. Then send an e-mail to [email protected] to attend the next orientation on March 13!

Hopeful, Optimistic….But Also Impatient

Three nights ago, the temperature plunged down into the teens and the wind chill factor was even colder than that. Most of us passed the night in the warmth of our heated homes. But according to Homeward’s most recent Point in Time Count, almost 1000 people in our very own community did not have a home in which to sleep that night and more than 100 were forced to sleep outside in public parks, on fire escapes, and in encampments by the river.

Statewide, more than 9,000 Virginians experienced homelessness that night according to estimates by Virginia’s Department of Housing and Community Development.  Can you imagine sleeping outdoors in that kind of cold? The truly sad part is that we know how to fix homelessness and a solution is within our reach. It’s called permanent supportive housing.

“Permanent supportive housing works,” states John Dearie, board member with the Virginia Coalition to End Homelessness, in his recent RTD op/ed piece. “Eighty-five to 100 percent of the tenants in…Virginia’s PSH programs have not returned to homelessness. The National Alliance to End Homelessness recently identified the emergence of PSH programs as the single most important factor in reducing chronic homelessness in America in recent years.”

Even more important, according to Dearie, is the fact that the permanent supportive housing model delivers dramatic savings to the community. “A 2010 analysis of Virginia Supportive Housing’s A Place to Start initiative showed that the program had dramatically reduced this hopeless and costly cycle [of chronic homelessness], saving the local community $320,000.”

This is really good news because it means that political consensus is possible. At a time when politicians can’t even agree on the color of the sky, Democrats and Republicans are joining forces to support legislation that paves the way for policy amendments, funding, and eventually, new PSH developments.

Dearie goes on to say, “Much more work remains to be done. According to VCEH, another 7,000 PSH units are needed to end homelessness in Virginia. That’s a daunting number, but it can be achieved. And Virginia has already made impressive progress.”

At Virginia Supportive Housing, we are hopeful and optimistic…but we are also impatient.

Hopeful because we know that permanent supportive housing is what solves homelessness and we work toward that solution each and every day.

Optimistic because advocacy for this evidence-based model is slowly but surely growing, both across the state and across the nation.

Impatient because, for the people who are sleeping outside in frigid weather, that solution can’t happen soon enough.

To read John Dearie’s complete op/ed piece, click here.

To read what the National Alliance to End Homelessness has to say about permanent supportive housing, click here.

To find out more about the work of Virginia Supportive Housing, click here.
 
To support VSH, click here.

Work Harder, Look Deeper

This blog was written by VSH’s volunteer resources manager, Alison Jones-Nassar.

If you saw this individual standing on a street corner, you might be tempted to avert your eyes and hurry past him, maybe even cross the street to avoid him.

We all tend to do that when we encounter people who appear dishevelled or dirty or just somehow….different. Unpredictable situations make most of us uncomfortable, and we don’t like to feel awkward or stupid, much less threatened.

But as this powerful Tribute to Robert Wood demonstrates, we sometimes ignore the people in our community who seem to exist “on the margins of society” at our own expense and end up missing out on a rare opportunity to be enriched.  

The gentleman pictured here was well-known to the citizens of Kent, Ohio. For many years, he accessed the town’s social services and regularly participated in the hot meals program. In this loving tribute, published on the occasion of Mr. Wood’s death from unspecified causes, Kent Social Services Manager Christie Anderson notes that “perhaps eccentric people are incarnations of God, for they challenge us to look deeper for their divinity….some people, more than others, require us to work harder at extending grace to them because they evoke fear in us.”

Anderson goes on to say, “This is the lesson that I have taken from knowing Robert Wood. He taught me, and others in the Kent community, that we mustn’t be quick to judge another human being. When we take the deliberate steps to set aside our fears of people perceived as different, a world of discovery opens for us. Mutual understanding begins when we lower our defenses and encounter our common humanity.”

Reading this, I was reminded of an encounter I had last week. One of our A Place To Start clients (I’ll call him Kenneth) had expressed an interest in serving as an office volunteer, and last week he gave several hours of his time to help with our move to the new headquarters.

Kenneth is a full-grown man about my age and taller than me. His gaze can sometimes appear unfocused and every time I see him, he seems sweaty and slightly agitated. I remember thinking that his facial expressions seem somehow child-like. Consequently, I felt rather awkward and unsure of how to interact with him. I had to be sure he would perform the tasks he was there to do (dismantle old manuals, carry trash out to the dumpster, shred documents), but at the same time I didn’t want to make assumptions or come across as condescending. 

“Kenneth, you doing okay? Kenneth, how’s it going?” My questions pertained to the work at hand, so I was surprised when, after a trip to the dumpster at the back of our building, he gave me the broadest grin and declared, “Boy, it is such a beautiful day outside, isn’t it?” In fact, I had been too preoccupied with all my to-do lists to notice the weather. With complete sincerity, he went on: “Ahh, it’s just gorgeous, and the breeze feels so nice! It’s a perfect day for a nice long walk!”

A few minutes later, we carried a load of boxes out to the trash together and Kenneth suddenly rushed toward the dumpster. “Oh no, look at that beautiful plant that someone threw out! That’s a little piece of paradise right there!” At that moment, I looked at Kenneth and saw what he truly had to offer for the very first time.

Tom Allen, in his February 5 Faith and Values column, urges us to move beyond competition and the judgment that we all engage in as we compare ourselves and our accomplishments (or failures) to everyone around us. “There’s something very liberating about accepting, and trying to live, the fact that we’re all brothers and sisters, children of God. It frees me to want, and to work for, what’s best for others in my life. It frees me to celebrate their successes, and to love them without jealousy. Most of all, it frees me from the constant strain of having to be ahead of them. I can just be with them, and we can travel together. What a huge relief.”

We tend to dismiss the Kenneths and the Robert Woods of the world because they don’t conform to our standards of what is “normal” and “acceptable” and “successful” and “beautiful.” Kenneth in particular, with his experience of chronic homelessness and his mental illness, can barely manage a few simple responsibilities without close supervision. What could he possibly teach any of us?

Later that day, as I left the office – and every day since – I have made a point of looking up at the sky and the trees and noticing the feeling of the sun and wind on my skin. “You’re right, Kenneth, it’s actually a really nice day.”

If we are only willing to look a little deeper and work a little harder, we will be rewarded with priceless gifts. It is definitely worth the effort.