Homeless line up for shelter space

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An average of 97 people were turned away from Sacramento County-funded homeless shelters every weekday in January. About 90 were rejected for lack of space each day in December, according to the county's first rigorous tally of those turned away.

The county started the count because of a surge in demand reported last fall by shelters. It differentiates among men, women and children. As many as 28 children were turned away - in addition to their parents - on one day.

"It seems to confirm everything we've been hearing right along, that there was a significant unmet need out there," said Joe Farrelly, manager of county homeless programs.

Starting in April, shelter space will drop off. County funding runs out for 147 winter-only beds. The county scrambled to come up with more than $1 million to provide the additional beds from December through March, to accommodate the homeless during the coldest months of the year.

http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/story/12600844p-13455202c.html

bothered with hungry homeless people.

There are approximately half a million veterans who are homeless at any given time.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0208/p02s01-ussc.html

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050228/D88HL2N80.html

:(

homeless, ever. It makes me sick. I don't know what I would do if I were forced into that situation.

There is so much wealth in this country, but apparently that has only fostered greed. I favor a socialistic capitalism, where basic housing, food, health care, & education are a right, not a privilege.

"...basic housing, food, health care, & education are a right, not a privilege."

The American people have been brainwashed into thinking that our government owes us nothing, but I remember a time when some politicians and the media talked about basic housing, food, education & ,to a lesser extent, healthcare should be rights.

America has fallen so far, so fast, that it takes my breath. Until politicans think they have something to gain from helping those who fall thru the cracks, nothing will change.

The very worse part is that the Democratic party has seemed to have forgotten these values. Of course not all Dems, we do have some fine ones, but a significant number enough to remove us from being an opposition party.

My heart breaks for what we have become.

they are just not in any position to put them to work. They have to spend all their time fighting the other party's ongoing attempts to destroy everything good about this country. It's a losing battle.

It breaks my heart, too.

What shall we ever do?

I spent a year as a social worker doing case management for the homeless mentally ill and I can tell you that there are basically 3 different populations among the homeless. The first are the able-bodied who caught a bad break (ie, a roofer who fell, broke his leg without health insurance and lost his job). Their homelessness tended to be finite once the inciting problem passed. Second were those who chose to be homeless. These were the people who would take anything free that was given to them (and give you a hell of a sob story if you listened), but when forced to enter into the social contract by doing things like paying bills, going to voc rehab, or filing taxes would just simply rather not. Basically, life in shelters had one obvious set of hassles for these people, but also a certain freedom from obligation that they chose when push came to shove. They are the reason that we will never be rid of homelessness in this country. The third population are those who want out but lack the social resources to get themselves out. Mental illness runs rampant in this group, as does substance abuse. Given our limited resources, these were the clients that we dedicated our energies towards. In my purely anecdotal experience, they made up about 50% of the homeless population while the other 2 groups made up about 25% each.

And your estimations of the population are mine as well.

I work at a shelter, and am in school with the goal of becoming a case manager. I was told my CMs where I work that a general social work degree would not be as valuable as having a solid background in mental health and addiction studies.

Glad to have you here :hi:

I believe that this country is facing another "depression" and economic reasons are behind many that are newly homeless.

Try running around yourself from homeless shelter to homeless shelter because you HAVE TO.
After coming up against people such as yourself time and time again it gets pretty EXHAUSTING.

Hence their inability to attend vocal rehab.

Also, have you ever heard of Post-Tramatic Stress disorder and/or Lyme Disease? These conditions will burn someone out enough to appear as if they "chose to be homeless"

I really don't think any person consciously "chooses to be homeless" Think about it, do you really think anyone REALLY enjoys begging for food, miniscule help, and living in unwelcoming, unpleasent, and unsanitary conditions?

I believe that many people are homeless for the OTHER reasons you described, but certainly NOT because they "chose" to be.

For doing so much work with the homeless, you seem to be very insensitive on this subject.

While the population that I described doesn't enjoy the hassles that go along with living on the street, they have even more of a problem with the responsibilities that go along with being integrated into society. This is what I mean by choosing homelessness. Understand, if you offered them a free apartment with no obligations and no expectations other than a place to pick up their check they would gladly take it. But as soon as you link it to even the most basic accountability (not playing the radio in their new apartment loud at 2:00 am, actually paying the rent on the 1st of the month out of the SSI checks we registered them for, not smoking during voc rehab classes, not telling the landlord to f*** himself when he asks them not to beat on the soda machine in the lobby), they would walk away from the apartment and the responsibilities that went with it while grumbling about how the man was trying to keep them down. Yes, I am saying categorically that these people will choose "begging for food, miniscule help, and living in uunwelcoming, unsanitary conditions" OVER THE OTHER OPTION. These people are not mentally ill, unless you consider having a bad attitude towards authority and responsibility a psychosis. That is why we chose to work with those with a diagnosed mental illness. By and large, these guys wanted out and were motivated to do so if someone would take them by the hand and navigate them through the system.

I think what you call insensitive is actually an ugly reality that I learned through (much) hard experience. If you want to see it for yourself, be my guest (although the real experience will take a little more than passing out turkey dinners on Thanksgiving Day to make yourself feel good). It takes some arrogance to pass judgement on someone who's bringing news from the trenches because the reality they describe doesn't fit into your romanticized cartoon of how things probably are.

By the way, it's "vocational" rehab, not "vocal" rehab. You'd think an expert on homelessness would know that.

so why are you splitting hairs over my words or typos?

And yes, I have been in the trenches myself for five years, much longer than you have and it was no romanticized cartoon like you sarcastically suggest.

Maybe the people you describe do have some kind of a mental illness, how would you know? It sounds like they may. Either that or something such as Lyme Disease.

It takes money and/or health insurance to pay for a diagnosis and doctor's report, which these people do not have.

And even then sometimes they're misdiagnosed, especially if someone like the State pays for it, with the lack of funding they will just cut corners - move 'em in, and move 'em out.

Sound familiar?

You just sound a bit disgruntled over the whole experience of working with the homeless, which is somewhat understandable, but I still honestly don't believe that anyone with a sound mind would consciously choose to be homeless.

I was a Vocational Rehabilitation counselor for almost 30 years, and I also worked in a public mental hospital. As doc05 said, many who end up homeless have disabilities. I encountered a few who appeared (on the surface) to be lazy, but usually a thorough medical/psych/vocational/substance evaluation turned up a whole passel of underlying problems. The more we probed, the more it all made sense. Most of these folks live miserable hand-to-mouth existences, and most are doing the very best they can given the complexity of their individual circumstances.

The line separating the homeless from the rest of us is a very thin one, and luck plays a large role in the outcome (who our parents are, how we fared in the early stages of development, how our health holds out, how quickly we learn, etc.). The Republicans have declared war on those who came up short in the lottery of life, yet there's no doubt in my mind that their figurehead, GW Bush, would be earning $30,000 a year scamming the elderly were it not for the family he was born into. Or being the suck-up that he is, he might have been some low level manager despised by his employees. But even that would have been a stretch for this turkey. He has had an incredibly easy life, yet he and his peers have the audacity to step on the necks of our weakest citizens.

Welcome to DU, Iowa!:hi:

I admire your 30 years of hard work in the field!

I'm sure you've helped countless individuals back on their feet.

Homelesness.... there shouldn't be such a thing in a country as rich as ours.

he very well may have been one of the homeless. Or, he would be in jail after scamming someone. I cannot imagine him being able to make an honest living. I agree low level manager would be a stretch - scamming fits him much better.

The line separating the homeless from the rest of us IS a very thin one, and I suspect it will be getting thinner every day for the forseeable future.

I was touched by your post and just wanted to say:

Welcome to DU! :hi:

Some would argue that your Group 2 has mental health problems (or social adjustment mental heath problems) as well. One might also debate the relative proportions. But I have known people like that, and they are hard to help, and extremely frustrating. Right wingers conflate their numbers as an excuse to not help anyone, though.

and preventative measures. For a few years now, HUD has basically funded only housing of a permanent nature for homeless people, while emergency shelters close up for lack of funds. Bush's HUD is also giving money to end homelessness with its right hand and taking it back with its left as they contemplate eradicating CDBG, Section 8, and other highly successful housing programs that *prevent* peoiple from becoming homeless.

Emergency shelters don't meet the long-term needs of people who experience homelessness...but they are still necessary as long as we have these other gaping holes in the social safety net.

complete with pictures, very sad day here.

literally millions of Americans have been subsidizing extravagent lifestyles by tapping into the ever-expanding "equity" in their homes . . . when the value of their homes starts dropping, banks will start demanding their money back because the properties no longer cover the loan amounts . . . many, many families will lose their homes, and the lines at homeless shelters will extend for many, many blocks . . . if not miles . . .

The bankruptcy bill was just in time to help corps at public expense.

Most are due to health care expense and there's no relief in sight there.

How long will this city's budget even be able to support the count?

... life on the streets, perhaps.

in last two years, now at 2.2 trillion dollars. Children living in poverty rose 6.6%. This is Global serfdom. Rise everybody. It's time

get ready:

Now that faith-based groups have no legal requirement to serve all, that's another few strands of the safety net that have been sliced.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3313971

You end up with a hacking cough from staying even one night there.

Look, you can live outdoors year round in this part of the world, so why choose to live in a formaldehyde/asbestos tenement surrounded by gangs and drug dealers? Or a gymnasium full of ex-cons and TB cases? Sacramento's got a lot of beautiful open spaces where you can find cover and pitch tent.

There have been homeless people as long as there's been real estate. Going in shelters is a shitty solution, and eventually this country is going to swallow its pride and turn into Latin America, where most urban housing is originally squatter-built.

in the world, where the "poor" aren't really poor.

they die at three times the normal rate.

over a year's time, three million are involved in homelessness.

GOP started mass homelessness by cuts of 2/3rs in vouchers, under RR the monster.

Before, so few no one even counted them. After, "we were pulling frozen bodies off the streets of Detroit".. democracynow website, page on RR's death.

Schivao is just gop posturing. Their cuts to housing vouchers is their real attitude on human life. Coming year, two million additional homeless, according to bush budget, said SF paper posted at DU thread. Chronicle, i think it was.

Heat, cold, rat bites, hunger. In broad daylight, downtown, every US city. Where is the outrage? Even Hitler felt he had to hide his executions --- off in camps. Not our GOP. Downtown, death by exposure to the elements. You have seen it i am sure. Old, weak and sick. Kids, too.

only comment from a shelter worker,...

"some refuse to come in on these freezing nights"

That left the impression that the homeless still out are all there by choice, an irrational unexplained choice.

the soundbite really hurt efforts to get help for the homeless. Made them sound senseless and beyond help.

This thread's orig post makes a lot more sense. Our local tv news should have explained that any who stay outside are the psychotics , who would be in state asylums, if GOP hadnt cut funds to asylums.

local news should have also added the turnaway stats.

As soon as they walk into the door, have them enlist!

Those who don't have homes can fight Bush's wars for him. That way Bush can fight his wars upon poverty victims with our poverty because of war victims.

the RW. and nobel economist.

He sees the end of all, that is ALL, programs such as food stamps, homeless vouchers, college aid, libraries, ss, medicare, etc.

That is IMO the real goal of the GOP.

Get over the shock now, so you can cope with what they will cut tomorrow. And tell others what the GOP is planning. There will be no end of cuts till Friedman's goal is reached.

Friedman, the "shame of chicago" university. And shame of the Nobel Comittee. But then, they prized Kissinger too.

because in my other browser window, I'm doing a little refresher course for work, which includes a section on regulations for scientists wishing to use recombinant DNA (such as a gene for antibiotic resistance) in human pathogens.

Yea, why bother having the gub'ment restrict putting antibiotic resistance genes in deadly human pathogens? The constitution didn't *specifically* give congress the right to regulate that!

<smacks head>

<smacks head again>

Awww shucks - edited to <smack head one more time>

yeah right...in the ARMY, MARINES & AIR FORCE...

but they can't follow his basic principles.

about feeding americans down on thier luck?

Remember, poor people get into Heaven FIRST! Now fill them seats!