- Seattle may try San Francisco’s ‘radical hospitality’ for homeless, By Daniel Beekman, June 11, 2016, Seattle Times: “Denise and Michael were relaxing on a sunny Friday afternoon. She sat on their bed in pajamas, folding laundry, while he roughhoused with their friend’s pit bull. Soul standards were blaring from a boombox. There was something homey about the scene, even though the couple were homeless. Denise and Michael were inside San Francisco’s Navigation Center, an experimental shelter where guests come and go as they please and where pets, partners and possessions are welcome…”
- Houston’s solution to the homeless crisis: Housing — and lots of it, By Daniel Beekman, June 13, 2016, Seattle Times: “Anthony Humphrey slept on the pavement outside a downtown Houston drop-in center. Except when a Gulf Coast rainstorm slammed the city — then he took cover under a storefront awning or below Interstate 45. He had no driver’s license, no Social Security card, almost no hope. That was in 2014. This month, Humphrey will celebrate a year in his apartment…”
Tag: Housing First
Housing First – Washington, DC
Women in D.C. housing-first units concentrate on their futures, By Julie Zauzmer, November 15, 2015, Washington Post: “For the first time in her tumultuous 22 years, Kortney Parkey has an apartment of her own. Like anyone with a new home, Parkey is happy to give a visitor the grand tour. She shows off the ample closet space, the newly renovated kitchen and bathroom, the pretty patterned bedspread and the place mats on the table that match the blue doors. But there’s so much more to this apartment that Parkey can’t point to. That here, at last, she is out from under the thumb of a crooked boss, a dishonest landlord, an abusive man. That she can shut her own door, an impossible luxury in the homeless shelters that have been her home more often than not for the past two years. That this place gives her a foothold to keep her job and improve her health…”
Veteran Homelessness and Unemployment
An end to jobless vets? New VA job program raises hopes, By Gretel Kauffman, June 28, 2015, Christian Science Monitor: “The US Department of Veteran Affairs has launched a new program which offers individualized assistance to the roughly 50,000 unemployed veterans living on the street. Through the Homeless Veterans Community Employment Services program, more than 150 community employment coordinators (CECs) will help veterans at VA locations across the country by identifying those who are job-ready and establishing relationships with community employers who may be able to find them jobs. The coordinators will also connect veterans with resources to help them succeed in their jobs once they find employment…”