PointInTimeSurveyProcessIssues2010

 

Introduction/Definition/etc PointInTimeSurveyProcessIssues2010 Body Conclusion Discussion Page History Page Statistics Page Views:  since creating on 20100130

 

Introduction/Definition/etc

 

PointInTimeSurveyProcessIssues2010

 

As part of the Continuum of Care HUD requirement

for continued funding, Community Partnership

in DC hosted a training and coordination efforts

for the annual homeless Point In Time Survey,

for DC.  Click on the title link above to see

some impressions from participating/ volunteering

for that effort, which may lead to incorrect

assumptions about the homeless population,

in DC, regionally, and nationally, IMO.

 

20100130 12.31 pm Jerry

 

 

Body

 

As the snow falls, and another winter advisory

is in effect, I'm still having problems with the

process by which we did the PIT survey in DC.

 

The training was just an hour, moved from

UPO to CommunityPartnerships.org office

with very late notice in the afternoon of the

training.

 

Signup was by docs.google.com spreadsheet form,

and email and voice response was late in coming,

at least for me, but CP has nice digs, and learning

another organization's site (like a mini site visit)

is almost always fun for me...

 

Co-located with Our Place DC (OurPlaceDC.org)

not the Our Place Falls Church equivalent

consumer run drop in center, but closer to

OAR (old name Offender Aid and Restoration)

for women only...

 

Anyway, Community Connections is the main

occupier of that building, I found out the hard

way by wandering the mostly locked building,

arriving dreadfully early, probably causing my

contact to miss a dinner break (sorry),

staff walking by wondering about me,

one being polite and asking if I needed

water, but mostly feeling uncorporate,

and rather different,  but the other training times

were 2? pm and 6 pm on Monday, just two

days before the event instead of Thursday

the week before, but this was the earliest of the

volunteer training times, and I signed up early,

and as a duplicate intending on looking up and

changing my training time,  which was not caught

as a unduplicated volunteer

(I reported it by email later during confirmation time)...

 

Catching up with some Street Sense Writers Group

people before the training started, was interesting

and educational...  But I digress...

 

Even though I asked a lot of questions (maybe too many?,

and did not identify myself as a reporter, (not active)

though mentioned my Street Sense and former homeless history

in the spreadsheet signup) questioning at the training,

like "How do you determine someone needs HAV

Safe Haven?" after one of the group of trainers

assumed I didn't even know what Safe Haven was,

or explained it for others in the training, I'm not sure.

 

Training did not say, at all, how to find homeless people,

"We know where they are" I remember being said,

and despite asking (by email) where I would be surveying

to look online for satellite/ topo/ terrain maps not just street maps

looking for pockets of woods, and other landscape

characteristics besides normal businesses and residences,

most people probably just put down areas they knew,

I opted to try to be helpful where needed, so put TBD,

and mentioned a few areas I knew better than others...

 

I also pointed out that they were not getting the

"couch surfers", though it might be difficult to find

people staying in others' residences, one of the

HUD definitions is "can you come and go as

you wish, or does someone have to let you in?"

or very similar...

 

This PIT was only looking for "unsheltered homeless",

(what people classically think of as the lowest form

of homeless, on the street.)

and only in certain areas of the city, where services

were offered, 

 

"Sheltered homeless", those residing in the shelters

are probably counted by staff, Paid staff (a quick estimate

would be shelter capacity, most shelters seem to run about

at capacity), as I had done when I worked in a hypothermia shelter,

many many years ago in a different jurisdiction,

for one season...

 

I guess what still bothers me, as a formerly

homeless person is partially the attitude

towards homeless (and me with some of the

same visual and behavioral characteristics)

by some of the people organizing the PIT Survey

that I volunteered for, and that homeless people

deserve the same respect and dignity as any other

US citizen despite, or even in addition to

the normal hardships that unsheltered people face...

(I use the military, leave no one behind analogy)

 

The organizers were accommodating of arriving

early to the training, and the organizational

meeting before going out on January 27, 2010

from UPO (United Planning Organization

UPO.org at 301 Rhode Island Ave, NW,

blocks away from Howard University campus.)

 

So, as someone who ate 3+ cupcakes,

though someone decried, "those are for homeless!",

while someone else

said "let him eat them" or very similar,

in the WillWriteForFoodWritersGroup tradition and name

I created for a StreetSense page I initiated,

(In the shelter where I worked,

we ate the same stuff that homeless did,

usually high fat, comfort foods, and

I'd skipped the offered pizza on the training,

and even water bottles offered,

(resulting in less plastic in the world,

given DC now charges for grocery and store bags,

a wasteland of plastic bags, where DC (and other local jurisdictions)

doesn't have a bottle & can refund source of a little income

for cleaning up (I might make more than vending StreetSense,

giving my poor sales skills...)

so felt a little entitled and angry after what felt like being

sent on a fool's errand, looking for people without

a good GIS map, only the boundaries outlined on a

Google map, didn't even include most street names,

of most of the area around Catholic University, NE

up to the border at Eastern Avenue, split in two

with another car that drove around, and probably

didn't find anyone either...

 

So I did not know the area as well as I would like,

nor even really competently, to perform the survey.

We mostly wandered around in a volunteer's car

(I would have offered gas money, If I Had It, personally),

and I'd jump out at places where I thought

homeless might be at, walking in the park,

and asking people (that was mentioned in the training,

talking to police, fire, rescue, etc and asking,

some said we have no homeless here, most police said

you will not find them, one offered someone

a probable) which lead to one person we talked to,

and for confidentiality, I will not discuss

that encounter, but how people ask,

en mass probably was a negative

experience for the person surveyed,

as I think I had said I'd ask the questions,

assuming I'm more familiar with things

homeless than others who have not experienced it,

the stigma (you're one of them?), fears (police, safety?), 

hunger (maybe a good indicator of poverty & homelessness?),

pride (dignity is really taken from you as homeless,

and formerly homeless, especially in shelters and the institutions

that "serve"), indignity (being asked in public,

instead of privately), etc...

 

So, after we were called back in early by the team leader,

4 people in a car (3 in the other vehicle),

two students from out of state,

all probably frustrated at not finding people,

not to mention with personalities and directions,

and I was not very directive, besides suggesting

we / I look in places I thought might be fruitful,

(having an African American partner with a bike

would have meant we could have split up

and covered more, less worries, but likely

more cold, risks of getting mugged/

hit by a car/ drunk driver/ tired driver, etc,

arrested, threatened, accosted, or just plain

accident on potholes or glass/ rats in alleys,

streets, etc) at 12-3 am even in mostly residiental

areas of NE DC...)

 

I was not wanting to get in conflicts with the other volunteers,

who did not split up for fear of safety, I guess,

we had signed a waiver saying we were not being paid,

would not receive workers comp, or any benefit,

and were doing it for humanitarian and other noble

reasons, essentially taking all the risks,

but a safety sheet was available with reminders

of some things to avoid,  see a typed up version of the

waiver form eventually put up here.

 

 

Other volunteer information collected was name, age

(minors will need to find another service opportunity),

area, email, cell phone

(prepaids would be Personally Very Costly, IMO,

after hours plans free), etc.

 

And for volunteer drivers license plate and state,

and given the police, fire and DMH presence,

could possibly used to intimidate people doing the survey,

if a person were formerly homeless, or receiving services from

the DC jurisdictions, or had had previous problems

with them (I'd written negatively about Franklin

Shelter closing (a 300 bed men's shelter while volunteering

at the StreetSense paper, as well as "DMH: It's Not Our Policy"

highly critical of the executive of that organization

privatizing the MH system, effectively severing the

therapeutic relationship with very many clients,

and Franklin Shelter leaving many to just probably die,

even if some got pilot Housing First slots,

many would not be served, essentially

gentrifying the McPherson Square area,

and forcing people to 801 MLK St. Elizabeths' SE

shelter over across the river, and in more

drug and violence ridden neighborhoods, where

recovery from substance abuse and basic

safety might be a problem, not to mention

transportation to even things like StreetSense

office to buy papers, [ & Writer's Group]

for a little spare change,

vs around the corner, a couple blocks away...

 

I asked some people the next day if they had been

surveyed and wonder if we really got a realistic

count of the homeless population in DC,

and how the survey is accurately documented to show

the weaknesses in the process that DC started,

where and how to improve it,

which is not a census, as workers are not

paid, nor trained well, IMO.

 

Last year's numbers, said to be low,

might not reflect the true homeless situation

in DC, IMO.  Only segments of the DC area were surveyed,

maybe ~60 volunteers to cover 70-100 square miles

in at most 3-4 hours???)

and many were left to the organizations within those

jurisdictions like SouthEast across the river,

and with CommunityPartnerships

annual report of $117 million in income,

you would think knowing the situation,

taking an inventory would be a little more thorough,

if people really cared (and not "compassion fatigue"),

as if their paid jobs depended on it,

or regulations like the upcoming

2010Census.gov were in effect.

 

I. for one, am saddened, that we homeless,

like minorities and disabled don't really count,

unless, of course, President Obama invited the hundreds

to thousands (still really unknown) to that evening's

State of the Union Speech event after meeting a few

while serving food at SOME on the recent

MLK holiday (a service day, in rememberence)

or the people on the American History museum

exhibit lunch counter, in protest,  watching

the speech from a far on a bar TV?

 

Maybe we have a summer picnic on the lawn

outside the White House?  Like resurrection

city, i've seen more about since MLK holiday

and reminds me of the AIDS quilt, showing

how many have been lost...

 

My suggestion would be that StreetSense

and others who are currently homeless,

or know of people who are/ were that evening,

report if they were actually counted,

and publish a rebuttal, testify at hearings, and

that the process needs a serious look,

as CCNV's founder/ advocate,

Mitch Snyder, now deceased, once protested,

the numbers are probably rather bogus

and self serving, politcaly and

organizationally...

 

Some additional "confounds" include that people do not

necessarily want to be entered in a HMIS database

system, even if aggregate reports are generated,

for funding DC and other homeless programs

are depending upon real and accurate

counts of the REAL NEED, not just what

is available and offered like "We only have one

Safe Haven in DC..."

 

And Housing First was not named nor listed,

as an option on the tally form,

(though may be considered under the category

Permanent Supported Housing),

as well as requiring people to be almost

diagnosed by volunteers, many college students,

and other non credentialed individuals,

with even less experience being homeless

and paid human services, plus training, than I,

as Chronically Homeless (> 1 year out, OR 4 instances in 3 years),

Substance Abuse (vs Dependence? like DSM?),

Mental Illness (I doubt homelessness is good for anyone's MH),

HIV status (how many actually know even in the general population?),

Veteran status, languages, and many other demographics,

and very personal questions, I'd not tell a stranger, certainly

not without HIPAA, IDs or other safeguards in place,

not to mention income and last residence area,

which depending upon how the question

is asked, by whom is asking (like a white guy

who someone might assume is a cop

[I get that a lot], vs. a competing baggy looking

guy coming down an alley presumably

looking to take their stuff or their spot?)

and interpreted by the surveyor

could likely give very different results...

 

Most phone surveys would standardize

the questions with a script, though making

that reasonable between some people who may have

never graduated high school, to people with [or pursuing] advanced

degrees (training used the word "rouse", I asked if equal to wake?)

and "how do you tell if someone is breathing [alive] under all that [blankets/

cardboard boxes] stuff?" at 10p - 2 am,

I know I'd not want to wake/ [i.e. answer the door..]

from a warehouse/cubbyhole, etc I'd try being safe and warm in,

even if I liked the UPO guys coming by

in a van (if they had given me a ride,

blanket, food, showed basic kindness like the ride along

we did after being calle back, etc)

not the nightmare Hypothermia StreetSense (fiction?) article

find link, where it's a Dr. Kavorkian like

equivalent experience...

 

For the students, I'd recomend a night out,

as simlulated homelessness experience,

and check Street Sense history of articles for

a report of a very cold [record?] night or two

when some students went out

with a homeless mentor to experience

what it's really like finding warmth,

food, kindness, and basic dignities

like being talked with in a respectful

human manner...

 

Not that DC isn't making strides in the right

direction with starting the PIT, more

Housing First and other initiatives,

but I'm hoping people we missed

aren't dying right now in this or the next

winter storm, much less summer heats

and other risks...

 

 

Conclusion

 

Summary of experience or similar

 

Discussion

 

A place for feedback on the page presented

 

Page History

20100130 Jerry

• Jerry created this page to write up an experience like a student might do a paper for service learning or extra credit hours, but probably a lot more "lived experience" as a survivor, perhaps with survivors guilt pangs?...

 

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