With a proposal to ban “unauthorized” camping in Denver, Co., some say the city is on its way to criminalizing being homeless.

A survey from the Metro Denver Homeless Initiative in 2011 put the region’s homeless count above 11,300 people, and an estimated 28 percent of that population sleeps outside.

The measure received preliminary approval from Denver City Council after hours of debate the morning of May 1. The sponsor of the controversial motion, Councilman Albus Brooks, said that there has been growing “concern from downtown residents, downtown businesses, our tourism department as well– we’re starting to see an uptick in people camping out in the public right-of-way,” according to 9News.

The deliberation behind the decision was extensive. Two hours were allowed for public hearing and three hours were dedicated to additional discourse. Nearly 100 people came out to Tuesday’s meeting to give testimony and declare their opinions on the controversial issue, and in the end, the Denver City Council voted 9-4 in support of the ban Tuesday morning. The future of the measure is pending a final vote May 14. If passed, enforcement would begin May 29.

The needs of the homeless in Denver are already under pressure. The shelters do not accommodate even half of the number of people on the streets, according to data.

But the testimonies of business owners noted that the sheer number of people camping out on the street poses dangers to employees of downtown businesses, tourists and residents at night, and the majority of the council agreed that the situation calls for a drastic solution.

The Worldwatch Institute introduced the latest addition to its State of the World series at a recent symposium, highlighting progressive ideas from the book that directly affect the world’s poor, as well as the environment.

Moving Toward Sustainable Prosperity, the 29th edition in the foundation’s flagship series, attempts to tackle the “how to” for achieving sustainable development and widespread social prosperity. The book aims to familiarize readers with the themes that will be discussed at Rio+20, the United Nations conference on sustainable development in Rio de Janeiro this June.

“Rio+20 comes at a time when the stakes in some ways couldn’t be higher,” said Michael Renner, a senior researcher at Worldwatch and co-director of State of the World 2012, at the event. “Mounting ecosystem stress and resource pressures are intersecting with growing economic volatility, with inequality, and with social vulnerability.”

Renner pinpointed reaching ‘sustainable prosperity’ as the institute’s ultimate ambition and defined it as “a process that enables all human beings to live with their basic needs met, with their dignity acknowledged, and with abundant opportunity to pursue lives of satisfaction and happiness, all without denying others…the ability to do the same.”
One problem Renner addressed was that inefficient products have the advantage of boasting cheaper upfront costs, while green goods are overlooked as luxuries. Those currently living in poverty and homelessness do not have the option to act sustainably in a market that does not reward preferential rates for eco-friendly products.
Another step outlined in the new edition is redistributing job hours. According to State of the World 2012 project co-director Erik Assadourian, if one was to add up all employed and unemployed individuals and divide work time equally among them, each would have a 21-hour work week. Worldwatch suggests that people work shorter hours so that more people are employed and more families have basic goods.
Splitting up work more evenly would also free up time for other activities that encourage sustainability. Assadourian cited conserving electricity and money by drying clothes on a clothesline, gardening, raising chickens and other animals, and building a community tool shed as some of the forward-thinking actions communities could do with more time to spare. “[The plan] reduces your overall consumption while maintaining a high quality of life but also increasing your own family’s economic resiliency.”
Street Sense vendor Martin Walker cannot envision Worldwatch’s plan for the future. “I think it’s an immature response to the issue of homelessness,” said Walker. “The world they see sounds like a wonderful world, but we as a species can’t learn to all get along enough to endure that.”
The Rio+20 conference will bring together world leaders and thousands of participants from governments, the private sector, and various  groups to attempt to plan how to eliminate poverty, advance social equity and secure worldwide environmental protection. It will take place in Brazil from June 20 -22, marking the 20th anniversary of the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, and also the 10th anniversary of the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg.

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan announced a new web-based program that will simplify the house-hunting process for families by administering a new set of tools that makes once hard-to-find data readily available at the click of a keyboard at a Maryland conference Monday, May 7.

“Communities really need to know how to plan…but for too long the federal government hasn’t been able to provide communities with the data, with the technology that you need to target housing and community development with real precision,” said Donovan, the keynote speaker at the annual Affordable Housing Conference of Montgomery County. “That’s why I’m proud to announce today a brand new eCon Planning Suite which provides a new set of tools…to help communities meet their economic development needs.”
The suite of programs will provide extensive data and planning tools for those seeking housing such as up-to-date public housing information, maps, funds help, vouchers, census results, and transit locations. The system will also replace the antiquated process of filling out hundreds of sheets of required personal data.
“All of this work rests on a simple truth: at a moment like this when every dollar is precious, the federal government needs to use every tool at its disposal,” said Donovan.

Monday’s conference drew hundreds of attendees to the Marriott Hotel and Conference Center in North Bethesda, and included eight panels addressing affordable housing including transit, employment, development, and homelessness, particularly for military veterans.

More than 115,000 residents in the Washington, D.C., metro region are waiting on federal housing vouchers, about 15,000 of which can be found in Montgomery County. This figure encompasses a high number of homeless veterans; about 700 are currently seeking housing assistance in the area, according to County Executive Isiah Leggett.
Donovan emphasized that HUD’s advances in technology will strengthen the department’s impact while empowering both current and hopeful homeowners locally and nationally. “This moment is not only our moment of crisis but also our moment of opportunity to lead our community into the 21st century using 21st century tools,” he said.

Your eyes are a blessing.

They’re the windows to your soul.
What you see through them can make you weak or make you strong.
A strong asset on this journey of the unknown,
With everything being spiritual, but to God already shown.

Love is the solution to virtually every problem. Many of our human disturbances show evidence of a lack of love. When love is brought to bear upon a problem we soon discover the solution. If we find ourselves fearful or hostile toward another person or situation we turn to the supreme love of God that knows no defeat. If we feel sick or tired, frustrated or concerned, try to let love fill your mind, body, and soul. With Love there can be no place for disease to linger. The swift flowing current of God healing love purifies our body, mind, and affairs. Trouble cannot prevail against the power of divine love. When solving a problem seems too difficult, challenging, and just impossible, try God’s love; you’ll be happy you did. 1 Corinthians 16:14 says let all that you do be done in love.

Thank you and God bless you all.

By Chris Shaw, “The Cowboy Poet”
Vendor

Eyes right, eyes aloft
Not a single moment to be lost.
Agitators laid down their agit props,
Bumming bums pulled out all stops.
Corporate execs wiped their gold-rim’d specs.
What’s THAT, you say?
An eagle, a Pterosaur.
A giant baby whale piggybacking once more.
Is it possible, in our own crazed age,
Some feat of science melded with spirit
May still amaze?
What Soup’man, no Donner, nor Blitzen
is Splittin’ the sky.
We need not ask why.
No act of war, merely a friendly
Pass, Canceling an iceberg tragedy
across a century of tinkling
Glass. For five minutes on April seventeenth,
We were again one land, bound by heaven above,
And Love beneath!

By Mary Otto
Editor

On one single day last January, outreach workers and volunteers with clipboards and questionnaires found 6,954 homeless people, including 1,880 children, living in district shelters and streets.

Homelessness is up by 6 percent this year in the city, according to the newly-released preliminary results of an annual homeless count conducted by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG).

The figures showed a very slight decrease in homelessness for the metropolitan region as a whole. A total of 11,830 homeless people were included in this year’s survey of Washington and its suburbs in Maryland and Virginia – down 0.4 percent since 2011.

Yet while the count found fewer homeless single men and women (6,204, down 443 from last year), it included more homeless families regionwide.

The annual count has charted a steady increase in homelessness among families throughout the region since the recession year of 2008.

Over the past four years “we’ve seen an increase of about 23 percent among people in families,” said Michael Ferrell, chairman of COG’s Homeless Services Planning and Coordinating Committee. “It’s also a national trend.”

A total of 5,611 homeless men, women and children living in families throughout the region were included in this year’s count, up 405 individuals since last year. In addition, 15 unaccompanied youth were also counted.

The district claimed the majority of homeless people living in families. The city reported 3,187 homeless people living in 1,014 family units in 2012, up from 2,688 men, women and children in 858 families last year. As in many places across the country, the rise in homeless families has overwhelmed the district’s homeless shelter system in recent years (see accompanying story).
Homeless children, numbering 3,388, accounted for 29 percent of the region’s homeless population.

As in past years, many of their parents were working, according to the preliminary findings for 2012. Regionally, 35 percent of homeless adults in families are employed. Among homeless singles, 19 percent have jobs. The number of working homeless adults has declined since last year – an indication that the effects of the economic downturn continue to be felt, Ferrell said.

Yet overall, the fact that in some wealthy suburbs up to 60 percent of homeless parents are working, shows the income of such low-wage workers “is not large enough to afford housing,” Ferrell added. “They fall into the category of the working poor.”

COG has overseen the homeless count for the past 12 years, and data for this year’s report was collected on Jan. 25. As in previous years, teams of enumerators canvassed city shelters, rural campsites, abandoned buildings, parks, street corners and soup kitchens, systematically interviewing the homeless to garner the biographical information that would be compiled into the annual “snapshot” of the region’s homeless population. The annual report helps the district and suburban jurisdictions plan ways to address the emergency and longer-term needs of the homeless.

“This is a critically important tool,” said J.  Walter Tejada, an Arlington County board member who serves on COG’s Human Services and Public Safety Policy Committee.

Without permanent supportive housing efforts aimed at getting chronically homeless individuals off the streets, out of the shelter system and into stable housing, the numbers would have been worse, Ferrell said.

Regionally, the number of formerly homeless people residing in permanent supportive housing has nearly doubled since 2008. In 2012, 8,657 people were living in such programs, up from 4,395 four years ago.

Permanent supportive housing “is the main reason that the number of people counted as homeless did not increase,” said Ferrell.
Such programs, which offer assistance with the mental, physical and educational disabilities that contributed to their homelessness, actually cost less than paying for the shelter beds  and crisis and correctional services that the individuals would typically otherwise use, studies have found.

Yet faced with development and economic pressures, jurisdictions are finding it challenging to sustain and expand long-term programs that help chronically homeless people rebuild their lives, said George Leventhal, a Montgomery County council member who chairs COG’s Human Services and Public Safety Committee.

“You can get them off the streets, but getting them to be self-sufficient goes on for years,” he said. “The challenge now is that we are almost maxed out.”

A full report on this year’s homeless enumeration, with more detailed information about homeless subpopulations and individual jurisdictions, is expected in May.

By Anna Salinas
Editorial Intern 

Occupy DC protesters may be familiar with a District law that criminalizes sleeping in public spaces. It is, after all, one of the main reasons the once tent-laden McPherson Square was raided in February when police stormed the park, seizing sleeping bags and pillows.

But for DC’s homeless population, the no-sleeping law is a nightly reminder of the challenge of living on the street—a challenge often made more difficult by municipal governments attempting to “beautify” or tighten the security in certain areas.

The ban is just one of several more “acts of living” laws, which frequently also prohibit panhandling and in some cities even include bans on eating and sitting in public spaces. Unsurprisingly, the laws almost exclusively target the homeless.

But on April 9, two federal agencies released a report detailing alternatives to criminalizing homelessness. The report, co-authored by the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness and the Department of Justice, proposes creating systems of assistance that integrate housing and services, with particular emphasis on the provision of behavioral health resources. It also encourages city governments to work with local businesses, schools, and nonprofit organizations in developing and sustaining programs for the homeless.

This is the first report on criminalization to be released by the federal government.

The 53-page text is divided into three “solutions,” the first of which encourages communities to develop comprehensive “systems of care.” Exploring a series of case studies, the authors briefly mention the District’s own DC Central Kitchen, named as a model of “communitywide coordination” in food sharing.

Urging collaboration between service providers and law enforcement, the report also praises DC’s Downtown Homeless Management Team, which is funded by downtown property owners and manned by Pathways DC.

The final solution, and perhaps the most progressive, offers alternative justice system strategies meant to reduce the link between homelessness and problems associated with incarceration. The report specifically notes the ways in which mental illness and substance abuse can leave one-time offenders vulnerable to homelessness and re-incarceration. In response to this issue, the report recommends the provision of so-called “problem-solving courts” which offer treatment and supervision instead of jail-time.

“Individuals with links to the mental health system had considerably higher proportions of shelter stays and re-incarcerations,” reads the report.

Still, the government has yet to take any specific action in support of the recommendations, though the President’s plan for the 2013 fiscal budget does protect funding for existing programs serving the homeless.

Dear Street Sense,

For 11 weeks, I came in three times a week. I volunteered, I researched, I wrote and I attended events. Unfortunately, my time has now come to an end.

As cliché as it might seem, interning here has not only taught me how to become a better writer, but has also showed me how to be a better person. By getting assigned to different tasks, I was able to see the various parts that keep Street Sense moving.

Allen taught me how to be patient and enjoy what I was doing. Mary helped me critique my writing, allowing me to improve and refine my skills. Eric showed me how to design a front cover, something I would have never imagined myself being able to do, let alone loving.

However, one of my favorite times of the week was volunteering. There was always a lesson to learn while selling papers to the vendors. With cheerful dispositions and bright smiles, the vendors would walk through the door and buy papers. Often though, some would sit down and talk for a while. They would let me peek into their lives, if only for a brief moment. We would discuss the weather, paper sales or even family issues. Each person that walked through the door had a story to tell and most were willing to share a piece of that story with me.

I wanted to say one final goodbye before going home for the summer and before starting school in the fall to finish my senior year. My experiences here at Street Sense have been life-giving, and I feel truly blessed to know such a place as this.

I just wanted to say, “Thank you.”

Love,
Abbey Woodfin

People fussing and fighting.
Now it has gotten worse.
They went from fussing and fighting to
people stabbing and shooting and
blowing up buildings.

Why? Why?

Why are we so angry, do you
see what you’re doing you’re killing families,
your own families.

One person with a child said we have no money, food and jobs.
This is wrong but you’re killing your babies.
But we’re still killing each other.
When does this stop?
It is up to you to break this cycle.