Police, Judges and Homeless People

Two stories in the news caught my eye over the past little while: this one where a Montreal police officer was filmed threatening to tie a homeless man to a pole in the freezing cold; and this one where a judge in Prince Edward Island put a homeless man in jail for the night because there was not enough space in the hospital where she felt he would be better served. Sure, they both came from Canada, but they are likely very relevant to what is happening in your community.

On the one hand, we see shortcomings in law enforcement in engaging effectively and humanely with homeless persons. Unfortunately, it paints many in police forces in a similar light, which is unfair and untrue. In my travels I have been fortunate to see the likes of the Grand Junction, Colorado police be very proactive in working with homeless people; hands-on street outreach by the likes of Deputy Steven Donaldson in the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office (Tampa) who achieves amazing things in helping homeless folks access housing and resources to stay housed; police working well with street outreach like the DOAP Team at Alpha House in Calgary. I’d like to think that officers like the one in Montreal are the exception, not the norm. But maybe that is wishful thinking. The horror stories about police officers I have heard in my travels would fill a book.

On the other hand, we see the justice system trying to address what, in the instance in PEI, is a shortcoming in the health care system. It would seem the judge had the wellbeing of the man at heart in reaching her conclusion of having the man put in jail when there was no space in the hospital. But we can’t lose sight of the fact that the man’s freedom was suspended in this instance, as a result of an intervention of the court. Nor can we ignore that if the person would be best served by a health intervention, that is most often going to be preferable to the justice intervention.

The bigger question, perhaps, is what is the role of police and judges in the lives of homeless people? And secondly, whether police and judges have the training they need to work effectively with homeless people? (This parks the question of what training homeless service providers, police and judges need to work well with each other…a blog for another day.)

There are community policing efforts where cops know many – if not most – of the street involved people in their beat. Many a time there is a cordial exchange. There are many instances of police also helping ensure the safety of homeless persons on the street. But it seems to me we can do a better job of integrating police into the solution of encouraging and working with people that are street involved to access housing.

There are diversion courts and even programs where outreach workers hang around courtrooms waiting for homeless persons (most often being held on remand) to be released so that they can provide assistance. Seems to me this is a large investment to remedy a situation where a more cost effective solution may be available if there was better information exchange between the courts and homeless serving agencies, and a change in policy that prevented, say, people being released from courts at 4pm on a Friday afternoon of a long weekend.

The role of police and judges should never be to target homeless people because of their homelessness. Involvement in criminal activity makes anyone fair game for policing efforts. But being without a home, or being economically poor, should never be a criminal offence. Police “crackdowns” on specific neighborhoods to “move people along” doesn’t solve anything. It is highly ineffective and very expensive.

As a society, it would seem we have misplaced investment in government assisted housing with investment in prisons and jails. In some places, the creation of more cells is the only housing development (albeit, in the “big house”) that has happened. Incarcerating people exacerbates homelessness. It doesn’t solve it. And it too is remarkably expensive. Many of the same people want lower taxes also want to be tough on crime. Want to reduce crime? House people.

Given the level of interaction that police and judges have with homeless persons, especially chronically homeless people with higher acuity, they should be trained on what homelessness is and the most effective approaches and interventions to end it. Instead, I see an absence of this in my travels, where police and judges are using their best guesses and judgment rather than data and evidence. This is a solvable problem. With small investment, police and judges can learn considerably more about homelessness and its associated issues, thereby encouraging better and more cost effective solutions.

Trying

“Failure was never nearly as important as the fact that we tried That in the war against frailty and limitation We supplied the determination it takes to make ideas and goals the parents of possibility” (Shane Koyczan – Remember How We Forgot)

Making a difference comes from action. Imperfect attempts trump perfect inaction. Social change has never come about from dreaming. It comes from daring. It comes from trying.

Trying is an attempt at attainment. It sets its sights on achievement. It appreciates that skill and knowledge is gleaned while in motion, not while at rest.

Trying is not blind. It is born from thoughtful reflection, planning and research. It stems from a problem identified and reasoning that improvement can be made to rectify the situation.

Trying does not accept the status quo as adequate. In the fight to conquer injustice; in the rally to challenge gaps in practice; in the pursuit of excellence in knowledge – trying claims the space of risk-taking, without the benefit of experience in many instances.

Trying is not reckless. It charts a pathway from the present to a desired future. It moves from over-reaching, vague platitudes to a knowledge base that is prudently anchored in the best available data and evidence. It merges this with strengths, acknowledges limitations, and sets goals that are, on the one hand, obvious, and on the other hand, stretching into the unknown just far enough so as to bend current reality.

Trying is not a fad. It is not the flavour du jour capturing attention for a fleeting moment and abandoned without full effort or evaluation.

Trying is dedicated transformation, with the full muscle and brainpower to ensure steadfast fixity of purpose in achieving the end goal. Really trying overcomes obstacles and barriers rather than coming up with excuses for inaction, resistance or failure.

Trying is the currency of true commitment. One is only a poser if they make claims to want something but only create plans; if they are ever waiting for the solution to appear from elsewhere. To be committed to making a difference means that one must try to make a difference…not just hope it will happen.

Trying is the covenant between those that have the means to make a difference and those that will most benefit from a change being made. It is our duty – nay our privilege – to have the chance to try.

6 Things I Learned in Australia

From December 16-21, 2013 I spent time with Micah Projects in Brisbane, Australia. It was a fabulous opportunity to share the SPDAT with another community, as well as informally take in homelessness services first hand in another part of the world.

Here are six things I took away from that trip:

1. Mobile Government Benefit Workers Is Possible

I have encountered several communities in North America that have worked hard to get streamlined access to government benefit offices to get income supports. I have seen income support staff attend weekly case conferences and offer helpful commentary.

And now I have seen what I thought was only a dream actually happen.

Centrelink is an agency of the Department of Human Services. They actually have staff with laptops that go out to locations where homeless people are (in this instance a food program where there was also outreach) and have the ability to do applications, amend benefits, make notes and approve income supports. Imagine a person in your community in charge of public benefits sitting on a ledge in a park with laptop perched on her knees with a homeless person sitting beside her, and her having the ability to pull up his file, amend information, and approve a payment to him to be picked up the same afternoon. This all was happening before my eyes before 7am.

Skull blown.

2. Homelessness is Homelessness and the Cure is the Same

No matter where I go in Canada or the United States I am able to see more similarities in homelessness and effective program responses and policies than I see differences. Sure, it requires “translation” sometimes to a local context, but the instruments are boldly the same and the evidence that supports certain interventions over another is transferable.

Having now gone to a different hemisphere on the other side of the planet it is obvious to me that homelessness is homelessness (at least in developed countries) and the cure (that is housing, by the way) is the same.

3. Outdoor Feeding is More Structured

Vans that feed people in public spaces – whether that be faith groups or organized outreach teams or service clubs or whatever – has been a hot button issue in many communities I have been in throughout the United States and Canada. I really appreciate what has occurred in Brisbane, and think this may be transferable to other locations. The local government has sanctioned certain locations on certain days of the weeks as the places where food distribution can occur. This also means that other services (housing workers, income support workers, nurses, etc.) can co-locate at the same time and offer a more comprehensive array of services to homeless people coming to get food.

While I remain convinced that food sustainability is better than charitable feeding, and that having people eat indoors can be more humane than having large groups amass outdoors for these types of feedings, the designation of specific locations and specific times is a terrific idea.

4. Scarcity of Affordable and Supportive Housing Is an Underlying Issue in Other Parts of the Developed World Too

Like many large urban centers, Brisbane is experiencing shortages of housing that is affordable to a broad range of its population, and specifically a shortage of housing that is affordable to persons that are homeless and may benefit from additional supports.

I was very impressed with Brisbane Common Ground, and feel the community would like benefit from more of this housing model – as, I understood, would most other communities across Australia.

In discussions with many brilliant people in Australia I also had one of me feelings confirmed – that the thought of expecting government of any level to see the necessity to invest in a suitable number of social or supportive housing units is from a bygone era. We are in a position where some government investment has to be more balanced with additional voucher and rent supplement programs. If we don’t get into this pragmatic mindset, I fear a lot of additional energy will be invested in advocacy efforts that will fall on deaf ears of government leaders.

5. Juggernaut Organizations can Drive Change

If you have never heard of Micah Projects, Inc., I encourage you to check them out.

There are a few non-governmental organizations in my career that I have found can change the nature of the conversation about homelessness and housing, are determined to innovate and balance that desire for innovation with evidence, and be reflective on how to get better and better and better. It was a pleasure to meet another one in Micah Projects. They have a wide range of programs with an underlying commitment across all of the program areas to be awesome at their work – while at the same time participating in state and national discussions and work groups.

6. We Need Better Opportunities to Link of Practitioners Internationally

I have always thought when of the great joys of my job is that I get to cross-pollinate ideas…I meet someone in Place X that is doing something amazing and when I am in Place Y can connect the two of them because Place X has the cure for what Place Y is experiencing. I hope this opportunity never ceases for me.

All the same, I wish there was a cost-effective, accessible way that organizations across countries could learn from each other’s practices in very tangible ways. I am not talking about a research consortium…that exists and is de-linked from a lot of the day-to-day experience of frontline staff. What I would love to figure out is how we can create international communities of practice across organizations that are committed to ending homelessness.

Now the question is just to figure out how. Anybody know a billionaire who would be willing to bring together practitioners in a common place in the world to have a 3-5 day in-depth sharing experience?

5 Things I Hope for in 2014

Here we are at the start of another calendar year. In 2014 I hope:

1. To Expand Knowledge

I want to continue to expand my knowledge of what works and what does not – and why. I want to spend time reading, reviewing, communicating, synthesizing and sharing the knowledge. I want to test theories and ideas, and take the leap of faith to get out of my comfort zone and explore new information with a clear mind.

2. To Apply Learning

I want to take the knowledge that I gain and apply it in a range of different settings. I want to apply it within my consulting and academic work. I want to ensure that I share it in reports that I write, keynotes that I provide, workshop sessions that I facilitate, and through mediums like our website and Twitter feed. I want to learn how to improve sharing the volume of information that I have in my brain, bookshelves and laptop.

3. To Find More Courage

I want to be increasingly comfortable with expanding my talents, thoughts and resources into a range of areas beyond what I have been spending a lot of time upon. For example, I have been delighted to be working so much on assessments and coordinated access. While I continue to that I want the courage to expand and explore how that can be better applied to other practice areas. I have to have courage to invest time in creating new areas of expertise and new products, even when it is more comfortable to keep doing just what I have been doing.

4. To Be Vulnerable to New Ideas and Different Ways of Seeing Things

I want to learn to be more comfortable in saying “I don’t know. Teach me.” When I don’t have answers or know the resources people are referencing I tend to track down information after a conversation or exchange so I am better prepared the next time. There will always be a place for that, but I think there is also room to swallow my pride in some instances, and appreciate that while I have expertise there is more than I need to be taught. I have to be completely open to life-long learning. That cannot be a catchphrase or buzzword. It has to be a lived commitment.

5. To Provide the Best Foot Forward Each and Every Day

I want to get better at being “on” each and every day. Regardless of how many times I may have presented information, taught a subject or introduced data to people, it is often the first time for recipients in hearing it. I owe it to those I exchange with to give my all each and every day. I do this to some extent now, but I know there is an opportunity to make improvements.

15 Things We Should All Want for 2015

It has become an annual tradition that I kick off each year with a blog for the year ahead. In keeping with that tradition, here’s what we should all want (demand?) for 2015:

1. Giant leaps forward.

Audacious stretch goals move us from the inertia of the status quo to a new (uncomfortable) place of the unfamiliar but awesome. Let’s make 2015 the year of everyone taking one giant leap forward out of her/his comfort zone – whether that is a conscious individual choice or as part of a broader movement (Zero 2016 in the US, 20,000 Homes in Canada, etc.)

2. Less band-aids and more solutions.

Let’s rally together every well-intentioned college class, church group and service club and get them to stop handing out sandwiches, coffee and blankets and devote the same energy to building housing and advocating for policy changes that would increase benefit levels and promote sustainable food security.

3. Imperfect action.

Less talk, more rock. Imperfect action trumps perfect planning. Get out there and do something different. Do it remarkably imperfectly. Learn. Adjust. Grow. Repeat.

4. A few more housing discussions.

I want a few more discussions about ending homelessness to be accompanied by the “and this is how we are going to increase housing options” discussion. There are more than just chronically homeless people that need housing. Trickle down economics are remarkably ineffective when it comes to housing.

5. An end to mythology.

Stories are seared into the consciousness of the masses. We tell stories about homelessness. We recount stories of how homeless persons became housed persons. But we need to start using data and evidence more and individual stories as pillars of success less. We need to tell the truth of what usually happens, not shine a spotlight on the anomaly that simply tells people the story we want to tell rather than the overall truth.

6. Fewer nice but stupid people.

Let’s take the goodwill of people with time and compassion and educate them so that they make positive, enduring impacts on the lives of homeless persons – not just perpetuating a cycle of well-intentioned, but ineffective energy. Charity will not sustain us nor will it end a complex social issue – it can’t.

7. Greater investment in professionalizing services.

I want a few more communities to grow a set and divert money away from direct service and put it into professionalizing its frontline staff. You can talk a good game about ending homelessness all you want. If you don’t teach people how to do it, it is wasted air. And wasted effort.

8. More organizations in communities working together instead of tearing each other apart.

Give me alliances for collective action that commit to work together to achieve a new reality. And for those who refuse to come along – paraphrasing the immortal words from Frozen – let them go. No point keeping around a “partner” just to spar with them.

9. An understanding of the difference between acuity and being chronically homeless.

Most definitions of chronic homelessness miss the point of acuity. Let us look at the depth and complexity of needs as it relates to housing stability. Let us stop looking solely at length of time homeless and presence of disabling condition, which could be an indication of nothing more than an ineffective service delivery system or woefully out of date programs and approaches that incentivize homelessness.

10. Stop clinging to the past.

Unless someone has invented a time machine that the rest of us don’t know about, we would be well served to leave the past in the past. We can learn from the past. We cannot yearn for the past.

11. An end to investment in stuff that doesn’t work.

When demand exceeds supply of supports and housing can I look any homeless person in the eye and say, “I cannot serve you because our community is giving money to another program that doesn’t work.” Probably not. If your community does not collectively put a stop to investing in stuff that doesn’t work you are essentially condoning the deaths of homeless people.

12. Leadership skill development.

We need to build leaders. I wish I could convene 75-100 of the most emerging leaders on homelessness and housing together for three days and rock their universe with knowledge, strategies, techniques and supports unlike what they will experience at any other time in their life. Then send them back to their communities to pollinate the bloom of other blossoming leaders.

13. Better knowledge on how people do after they are housed.

Take the guesswork out of it. Start reporting on outcomes (what happens after people are housed) and less on outputs (how many people are housed). If you don’t have a quality of life self-report tool we can give you one. If your assessment tool doesn’t have this capability, start using the SPDAT.

14. A grown-up conversation about taxes.

Maybe this will be the year people realize you cannot get better services while paying less taxes. I want to pay more taxes if it means more housing and less homelessness. The wealth exists around us to fund the solution to most social problems if we tax for it. Instead, we will have less than we need and rely on individual donors and corporate philanthropy.

15. Less unnecessary competition.

The best service providers should be rewarded with funds. The best communities should be rewarded with funds. And I appreciate the only way to determine what is “best” is through competition. But it seems that almost everything has become a competition from who can end veteran’s homelessness first (I have met many veteran’s still homeless in Phoenix by the way) to which communities can do the best application for more supports. Maybe it is time for more cooperation and less competition if we want to bring all performers to a new standard.

10 Things I Learned this Year: Part Two

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Last week, the blog looked at the first five things I learned this year. If you want to, you can get caught up by reading that blog first. Or you can just launch into items 6 through 10 of the 10 things I learned this year.

6.     Some communities get so much technical assistance that it smothers and cripples them.

As the good folks at despair.com (they create de-motivational posters) suggest, there can be great money to be made in prolonging a problem. In my opinion, technical assistance is a resource that should not be squandered, but there are some communities deemed to be such high need that they get overwhelmed with technical assistance and no strategic support to hold it together in a way that makes any sense. The problem in those instances isn’t an absence of support. It is an absence of thoughtful, sequenced, strategic, targeted supports. And we also have to be careful that some TA is not creeping into other program areas that are outside the mandate. It is not the responsibility of the TA to resolve this; it is the responsibility of those that pay for the TA to get their act together.

7.     Some of the most innovative and effective things are happening in places that are not in the national/international spotlight.

Medicine Hat has the best assessor on the planet in Jeff Standell. Ever heard of him or Medicine Hat? You should. I learn something from him every time we talk. Ever heard of Karen Santilli, Michelle Wilcox, Ann Nolan, John MacDonald, Cicely Dove, Jennifer Schnack-Bolwell? They are my Change-Champions of the year, proving that a senior management team can hold together to make significant changes to service delivery because they know there are better ways of doing things. Hats off to Crossroads Rhode Island in Providence. Got a conference coming up where you want to talk about effective change process in a multi-service organization so that you can end homelessness? Talk to these folks. Oceana’s Home Partnership in Michigan was a relatively early adopter of the SPDAT. Their data speaks volumes when you move from talking about which person is eligible for a program to who is most in need of a program. And they prove that rural areas can kick butt at service delivery and have larger urban centers look to them. Reach out to Kittie Tuinstra and have a chat with her. What about The Link in Minneapolis? They put in place service prioritization and improved service planning for youth before coordinated access and common assessment for youth programs started getting on the radar. And they have improved their case management outcomes as a result. I tip my hat to Erin Wixsten and you should get in touch with her if you want to learn more. Then there’s Partners Ending Homelessness in Guilford County, North Carolina that has proven private foundation can be used effectively to create system change. Beyond bricks and mortar, they are showing that it is possible to get a significant private funder behind change in service delivery. Darryl Kosciak is the ED of PEH and worthy chatting to when it comes to understanding why and how he helped make this happen. We never hear enough from places like West Virginia that strategically go about tackling tough issues on a statewide basis to help get CoCs from across a state going in the same direction. Zach Brown inspires me because he has proven to me that action is better than perfection when it comes to real leadership. Want to get fired up about an open HMIS or common assessment across communities or full implementation of SOAR or comparable initiatives? Talk to Zach. Got an integrated housing and homelessness plan? I wish more communities did so. You can talk all you want about ending homelessness, but the real proof of strategic, forward planning is integrating your affordable housing needs with the discussion on homelessness. Here’s to the County of Simcoe, City of Kingston & County of Frontenac, Chatham-Kent, Huron County, Stratford & St. Marys and the other fine communities we have worked with this year to help make that happen. And there are others. Point is, not all the communities you hear of most frequently on the national scene represent the whole story of cool things happening that I wish others could learn about.

8.     More people read the blog than I thought.

This little blog gets more attention than I thought it would when I started it. By almost a four to one margin over the next most popular blog, the most viewed blog of the year was Geez, Don’t Let a Few Little Facts Get in the Way of Your Perceptions of People on Welfare. Next in line was 2013: The Year to Stop Doing Certain Things in Order to Strengthen the Resolve to Ending Homelessness. I find it a bit surprising that a relatively recently published blog, Justice, Not Charity, took in the third place spot. More so this year, I have learned that the blog results in a fair amount of two-way communication. I love it when I get questions or comments about things in the blog. I like it when people leave a reply at the bottom of a blog, so long as it isn’t abusive or an attack on anyone. High five to each person that has asked me a question that resulted in a blog this year or provided a blog idea. In my travels I have learned that people use my blog in training, public education, discussion topics and even college courses. I have heard elected officials quote it to each other at a County Council. I have had questions at plenary sessions asked related to blog content. It is all kinds of awesome. I am honoured and flattered, and I will keep it going. Every time someone comments on the FaceBook page about it or Shares it or re-tweets it, I smile. Thanks for the conversation.

9.     We can agree to disagree on some things, but on other things you are just dead wrong. And I need you to know that.

I learned this year that being polite for the sake of being polite doesn’t seem to serve homeless people very well. I always kind of knew this intuitively, but this year more than others I have seen initiatives stalled or completely ended because of an overwhelming desire to placate organizations that serve homeless people rather than trying to, you know, put recipients of services first. I am all about civility. I am a fan of debate and discourse. But when there is a dispute of facts I have learned that I can no longer just agree to disagree with the person in opposition. If I truly believe in justice (which I do) I am compelled to speak and name it.

10.The privilege of doing this for a living is not lost on me.

I will never get rich doing this work – and likely neither will you. I do what I do because I love doing it. I feel like I make a difference at least half the time. This certainly doesn’t mean everyone likes my delivery style or even me for that matter. Some of my favourite examples from this year:

• In Arizona in late summer, a guy told me I should take a course on public speaking so that I could become good at it. He suggested Toastmasters. Apparently with enough practice I could also learn to write jokes that were actually funny.

• In North Dakota a woman told me that her pastor told her that I would probably want to apologize to her and everyone else at the conference for saying provocative things. I apologized to her that her pastor misled or lied to her.

• In Michigan I was told that just because something is a fact doesn’t mean it is correct (which still baffles me a bit), and that I should stop using facts when I speak because it overwhelms people.

• I got a phone call from someone that had met me at a focus group in Ontario to tell me my face is hard to look at. “It has an odd shape,” she said, “and no real symmetry to speak of…at least not in a way that would capture one’s attention.” She went on tell me, “shaving that grotesque patch of whiskers off your chin may be a good start.”

These anecdotes aside, I feed off the energy in communities that I visit where people are dedicated to being awesome. That is very uplifting. And when I see things that work I have the great fortune of connecting people from across the globe when they have similar issues or a solution that will work for their local situation. Thanks for reading the blog. Thanks for hanging out with me or hosting me in your community. Thanks for making a difference. The blog will be back in early 2014. Be awesome! [serialposts]