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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 3, 2012)
Street roots Aug. 3, 2012 HOM ECOM ING, fro m page 3 veterans, they say, have serious mental illness, while 70 percent suffer from substance abuse problems. And about half of homeless veterans have criminal records, and homeless veterans are more likely to live outdoors, unsheltered and experience long-term, chronic homelessness, according to the Council. Each veteran (in the program) presents his own unique challenges,” says Anderson. “A lot of them have really poor credit. A lot of them have evictions on their record. A lot have mental health issues that have prevented them from being comfortable getting inside and staying indoors.” According to the Portland VA Medical Center, which is responsible for administering the program in Portland and the surrounding region, as of June, it was providing case management to 447 veterans, 414 of whom had secured housing and were currently renting apartments with their vouchers. obby Weinstock, housing consultant for Northwest Pilot Project, the Portland non-profit that provides housing services seniors, says the fact that the legislation gave responsibility of the VASH program to the VA medical system was a mistake from the beginning. “They basically gave the VA medical centers across the country responsibility for ending homelessness among veterans,” Weinstock says. “And these are hospitals. These are medical centers; they didn’t have any experience ending homelessness and operating programs to end homelessness.” Commissioner Fish says that after studying how the city and Home Forward administered its subsidized housing program, he found the local VASH numbers were falling s h o rt. T h o u g h F is h h a s no direct oversight of the federal program, in 2009 he arranged to bring members of his staff and a representative from Home Forward to the Portland VA medical center to meet with the medical director to discuss where improvements could be made. The process of identifying and referring homeless veterans to the VASH program is where Fish feels there is the largest need for improvement. “One of the challenges is that, while the housing authority administers the program, the success of the program depends on the ability of the Veterans Administration to match a veteran with a services they need and to help them obtain housing,” says Fish. “We ask the VA to take on a significant amount of red tape and bureaucracy to B make referrals to the VASH program. At a face a barrier to leasing up their VASH time when everyone is stretched thin and voucher,” Weinstock says. “Those kinds of working with fewer resources, that may not financial tools are critical to being able to be the most efficient successfully way to deliver this transition people vital resource to vets from homelessness " I d©it? t th in k that w e 'w in need.” to housing.” worked oat the Males In the Fish says the Complicating the system could be problem, staffing relationship between the Vlt improved by relying issues within the VA m edical center and the more on the city’s have further housing authorities yet. existing resources. weakened the “We need to tweak We've made progress, hut effectiveness of the the model to give the VASH program in there's a lo t of room lo r VA networks greater the Portland area. improvement. We coaid be flexibility to contract Fish says that u tiliz in g more of these with non-profits to, in after bringing his effect, do the delegation to the VA, vouchers much more function of linking the program’s q u ic k ly /' people with services leadership was ~~ J IL L R 1O O LE HO M E FORW ARD and housing,” Fish changed at the says. “They have Portland VA Medical more experience and Center. But competency in this according to Dr. area. Rather than create a parallel Anderson and staff at the VA, high levels of bureaucracy at the VA, we ought to tap into turnover throughout the program and a slow the experience of our non-profit partners.” hiring process are keeping the program For some working within the social from being fully staffed. services system, waiting for the VA to act is According to Weinstock, staffing seems to frustrating. have been a problem since the early days of the program. for “We don’t get adequate referrals,” says Riddle. “(We get) very slow, inadequate “Because the VA didn’t have a lot of referrals.” expertise in this area of ending Another problem that has plagued the homelessness, they were very slow to bring program, according to Weinstock and on staff and train the staff and set up the others, is that the legislation does not program that would be necessary to actually include funding for other costs associated implement it,” he said. “So, literally, for with moving, such as application fees, years the program was hardly operating.” moving costs and utility-connect fees. This year, the VA opened the Community “If veteran doesn’t have an income Resource and Referral Center in downtown sufficient to cover those kinds of moving Portland to serve as an accessible drop-in costs and up-front fees, they are going to center where veterans can be matched to Progress... By Denney Earl Searching for something one already possesses is an exercise in futility An obsession that leads to madness grasping at the wind It has been said “life is short” even though some days seem to last forever The light at the end of the tunnel is not always a train bringing swift destruction Sometimes it’s a doorway into another dimension a possibility to see things in a new light, a new experience to be grasped and gleaned. Opportunities disguised as adversities A challenge to embrace, a chance to move forward into a new day Not to be ignored or squandered because “the lesson will be repeated until it is learned” but once mastered another door opens and intuitively, wide eyed I walk through not looking back to see if the way through has been sealed Curiosity? No, but a hunger of a sort The need to know as I am known. Searching, exploring, reaching, trudging forward What lie’s beyond the next door? Knowledge? Faith? Destiny? Fallen Off the Edge A new book by A rt Garcia "Fallen Off the Edge" is a chronicle of one man's experiences after returning from the Vietnam War. Told through the eyes of Street Roots columnist Art Garcia, this book celebrates the major victories born from a series of questionable choices. Art's jocular storytelling takes the reader along with him in and out of the California prison system over the course of 10 years until he found the strength and courage to pull himself up from the fall. The book is available online at www. blurb.com under searchword Art Garcia. Vendors are needed services. Social workers, community partners and various program-specific service workers cycle through the clinic throughout the week. Additionally, Portland is one of a handful of cities using a new pilot program to identify an especially vulnerable population of homeless veterans. The Assertive Community Treatment team specializes in identifying those homeless veterans who have severe mental illness and have withdrawn from the benefits system. According to Anderson, 50 VASH vouchers are reserved for that team. “We’ve been slowly filing up that team,” Anderson says. “It goes slower than what you would think as far as identifying those folks. It’s not that they’re not out there, it’s that they don’t always want to come to us.” n June, Congress approved the funding for 10,000 additional vouchers which, if approved by the Senate and President, would increase the total number of VASH vouchers to around 60,000. Early estimates by the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans suggested that nearly 90,000 vouchers might be needed. And in a move that could help address one area in which the VASH program falls short, the VA announced in July that $100 million in grants were made available to private non-profits and other community agencies providing services to homeless veterans. Fish says he is encouraged by the progress that has been made in the VASH program and he commends both the VA and Portland’s local non-profits. “In 2009 it wasn’t working very well, and in 2012 there is tremendous coordination,” says Fish. “We can always do better, but we’ve taken a giant step forward.” Despite the improvements made to the VASH program, some say there remains room for improvement. “I don’t think that we’ve worked out the kinks in the relationship between the VA medical center and the housing authorities yet,” Riddle says. “We’ve made progress, but there’s a lot of room for improvement. We could be utilizing more of these vouchers much more quickly.” Weinstock agrees, but adds that there is a human side to inefficiency. “Every month that one of these VASH vouchers goes unused, that’s another, in the Portland area, $700 floating away,” he said. “More importantly, that’s another homeless vet that has to be outside or in a shelter or in their car. That’s the big moral problem.” I good, local, food ALBERTA COOPERATIVE GROCERY 1500 NE Alberta St. Portland, OR 97211 503.287.4333 www.albertagrocery.coop open to everyone 9-10 daily J contributors to Street Roots content, as columnist, poets and artists. Look for your favorite vendor’s writings in each edition o f the paper.
