Very well done, Kathleen. Gives a good overview, and there are several options for people to become involved in public meetings.
One thing: How about posting the addresses and times of the county's budget workshops, if the public is indeed invited to participate?

Which three county shelters are going to suffer the budget cuts?

In the artical: The federal dollars will be used for homeless people to rent housing and for prevention of homelessness.

One of the fastest way the Feds can prevent homelessness is to STOP TAKING THE DOLLARS in the first place!~

Thanks, sacvoa. I have the same info on the shelters: Winter shelter, Bannon Street and A Street. I'm interested to learn more about your 350 beds statistic. The county is saying the elimination of those three shelters would cut right around 300 beds. I asked Bruce Wagstaff about the figure for a second time today.

Thanks for your help. Cheers, Kathleen

Kathleen, Fifty beds at Winter shelter (aka, Overflow) were added by the city [with some $$$ help]on about Apr 6 to augment space for Tent City evacuees. Those fifty beds are in mobile units parked in the back of the building that houses the sheltered at Cal Expo.

While those fifty beds are very much needed to shelter people so long as the police continue to roust homeless people living in tents or sleeping on sidewalks, they are not directly supported by the county and they are 'exceptional,' not part of a census of expected/permanent shelter space that is provided.

-- Homeless Tom

This from a Bee article on May 6: "Cal Expo has room for 204 people, some of whom are on lists to get permanent housing after that shelter closes June 30. The A Street and Bannon Street shelters accommodate 122 people year-round and 142 during the winter."

http://www.sacbee.com/ourregion/story/1837056.html

Cal Expo holds 154 in 'the building,' with 50 in the mobile units out back. The missing four beds can be justified, sorta, as "overflow at Overflow." Cal Expo will allow a few men to sleep on couches when the facility is oversubscribed (but don't tell anybody; I don't want to get anyone in trouble for giving a feller an unofficial place to lay his weary head).

Thanks for your help, Tom. I appreciate it. Cheers, Kathleen

Why arent we providing them the skills that will get them off the streets permently? Of coarse there will be exceptions-mentally ill or handicapped. Most of the homeless that I encounter daily are more than capable of turning their lives around. Rather than providing shelter and a meal then sending them back to the streets we should assist them in restoring dignity and pride. I would be more than willing to donate towards suitable clothing so they will look their best when they spend their day looking for work. We could easily provide lists of potential employers. We could even seek out businesses who would be willing to take them on even for day labor to get them started. The shelters are a band-aid. Work will be a HUGE step in healing them. Isnt that the biggest issue? I live in Midtown and I see the homeless and most of them are healthier than most of us can ever hope to be! Lets help them in finding purpose and restore their sense of self worth.

The housing has to come first. A new suit isn't much help if the only place to store it is a backpack that can easily get stolen or a camp that can get raided at a moment's notice. A job is great, unless you get scheduled to work until 5:00 PM and the bus for the shelter leaves at 3:00 PM. Sleep on the street or risk getting fired?

The biggest issue is a place to live--not an institutional dormitory, but a place, even just a room, that a person can call home, lock the door, be safe. With that problem solved, many others--including mental illness, physical disability, and alcohol/drug issues--become far easier to solve. With the overriding problem of housing solved, dignity and pride become easier. This approach also saves money because providing housing and case management is much cheaper than the system of mental hospitals, jails, emergency rooms and other expensive crisis services used by homeless folks in the worst shape. And once they are housed, the ones more capable of turning their lives around are easier to reach and to help.

Shelters are a stop-gap, but it is still bad news to see these shelter beds disappear. Sacramento's homeless population already vastly exceeds the number of shelter beds even before the cuts. Only weeks after a handful of new shelter beds and "housing first" units were provided in response to our city being put under a worldwide media microscope. Now, after finally taking a step forward, we take several steps back.

And no, you can't solve the entire homeless problem this way, because there are some folks that either don't want to live indoors or are too far gone to make their way back. But we can solve much of it, maybe most of it. And that's nothing to sneeze at.

Temporary shelter for the temporary homeless people is a fantastic cause. Family, friends, and church need to be the first line of support, I need to be the last. Very few people work in suits, so I agree that feeding and cleaning up the fully capable unemployed in the morning and sending them to look for work should be a requirment to continued, but limited, temporary housing and food programs. Sort out the bums that abuse help from the folks that need help.
Scheduled to work til 5 a problem because of a bus schedule? Do what it takes to get to the job, save up your money, and move closer to the job. We all have done it, its not that hard. Again, ask friends, family, and church members for some help.

kathleen,

do you know when the issue (of cutting the 3 shelters) will come before the Board of Sups for a vote?

San

sas, William Berg, thsas, In my opinion -- I've been at the Union Gospel Shelter for a year now; eat at Loaves & Fishes a lot;, and pardon this plug, blog Homeless Tom and Sacramento Homeless blog. The homeless-aid in Sacramento, while better than most cities, I'm told, doesn't lift you up.

Homelessness is incredibly time-devouring. You have no idea until you've been there. Today, I needed to be in court in the a.m., but getting a shirt ironed is very very difficult. At Loaves & Fishes there's one iron and a towel to iron on. I have an iron and board in my locker, but electricity is at a premium: SOME guys have a lot of disability money coming in, and use it for substance-abuse purposes. These guys should be getting housing vouchers instead of cash that they are using to give themselves an early death.

The image of homeless people is WAY WAY off, and damn Loaves & Fishes for taking us down this wholly false idea that homeless families are in tents in our city, living in 21st Century Hoovervilles! The homeless are mostly nice men, scurrying to get their lives aright, taking ANY job, including those where they are cheated and paid less than minimum wage.

I don't know that we need housing first, but - heck yes - we need a place to PUT a suit. We need a better way to look OK for a job interview. I went to court today in blue jeans where I am representing myself in a trial. [nothing big; a broken-window thing, but a jury trial] I look ridiculous. Homeless people suffer mightily, my friends. But not like you think.

Also, THE MENTALLY ILL ON THE STREET REPRESENT AN ENORMOUS FAILURE OF OUR SOCIETY. Schizophrenics' most likely cause of death is suicide. If medicated, they just seem placid, and we think that that's ok, but inside they feel like worthless nothings. And we leave them on the street in total excusiating dispair.

see http://sacramentohomeless.blogspot.com/2009/05/first-person-dimension-of-homeless.html

The substance-abusers are easy to dislike. I know a few and they can't help wasting their lives. What does society do? THESE are the guys that learn from lawyers how to get disability payments of one or two thousand dollars a month which they use to dull their pain and shorten their lives. Believe it: Many are in mighty pain. Some are sociopaths. Their addictions take over their lives and ruin everything, and the taxpaying is funding it. AND, through the homeless substance abusers, help to fund drug lords in Columbia and Mexico and Afganistan. It's insane.

Women & children & youth are also on the street; many running from abusive situations. They get top priority on things, mostly, as certainly they should, but society is doing many wrong things, many overly expensive myopic things that don't restore them to a real, livable life.

It is so-called homeless-aid-employed 'advocates' that seek the moon and the stars for the homeless and then huge sums get misdirected toward administration and "enablement" programs like the wretched Loaves & Fishes. It wouldn't take a lot to BOTH be efficient with money and direct it toward alleviating pain.

The "homeless-help industry" is devoid of compassion and wisdom. The homeless people that I've met in the last year are in enormous majority the sweetest people in the world.

I feel like Jody Foster in the movie Contact when she was swept through the galaxy in that huge machine and it was sooooo amazing, and she said, repeatedly, tearfully, [something like], "I had no idea it was so marvelous." THAT is how I feel about the homeless people in Homeless World Sacramento, now. I had no idea.

"Scheduled to work til 5 a problem because of a bus schedule? Do what it takes to get to the job, save up your money, and move closer to the job. We all have done it, its not that hard. Again, ask friends, family, and church members for some help."

to "thsas"--I'm not talking about a bus schedule due to public transit. People who stay at the overflow shelter at Cal Expo MUST be at the pick-up point near Salvation Army at 3:00 PM. A bus takes them from Salvation Army to Cal Expo, and returns them in the morning. There are no later buses, and they cannot walk in to the site later. If you're not there, you sleep outdoors, and may lose your bed entirely. You can't "move closer to the job" if you are homeless and in a shelter, because you don't live anywhere--if you have enough to move into a place you aren't homeless anymore. Which is great, and ultimately the objective to try for, but a bit tough to manage if your sleeping place puts such a tight leash on your schedule.

For "suit" one can easily substitute "McDonald's uniform" or "working clothes that don't stink." If you don't have a place to wash your clothes (or yourself) it's tough to get or keep a job.

When I was 20, I left my home state and moved to Southern California. I had accepted a much higher paying job that required travel and a move to their corperate offices in Santa Barbara. It was fantastic for a few months until I was informed that they were having financial problems and my job ended just that fast. I scrambled to find ANY job. Not an easy task at the time I lived there. I was out of money and was too proud to call home to ask my family for money or a plane ticket home. I didnt have enough money to pay my rent, so I told my landlord I had to leave and took the last of my savings to by a pup tent. I lived in that tent for months. I showered at camp grounds and occasionally did what I could in gas station rest rooms. I washed my clothes in sinks and hung them over the top of my tent to dry ( it kept them from wrinkling and looked somewhat starched and ironed). I worked as a waitress in Solvang and saved up enough money to get into an apartment. I continued looking for a better job and continued to fight my way back into what I feel is a respectful and dignified life. I contribute to society, I live in a home that I own. I have NEVER accepted help or took the easy way out. I do not begrudge those that need a helping hand. However, if Mr. Armstrong has been homeless for a year, he can not possibly claim that he has made every effort to correct his situation.
If the shelters close so early that its not employment friendly, then I believe that the shelters need to adjust their system so that the folks who are attempting to better themselves and are doing their best to eventually leave the shelter are rewarded. This is something that obviously needs to be corrected. I have absolutely no issues whatsoever in regards to assisting those who need a leg up to re-enter society. I take exception to ongoing assistance to professional victims who have made a life style choice.

"If the shelters close so early that its not employment friendly, then I believe that the shelters need to adjust their system so that the folks who are attempting to better themselves and are doing their best to eventually leave the shelter are rewarded. This is something that obviously needs to be corrected. I have absolutely no issues whatsoever in regards to assisting those who need a leg up to re-enter society. I take exception to ongoing assistance to professional victims who have made a life style choice. "

YES! You seem to be understanding something, here. But doing this isn't a "leg up"; it's a preventative of the need to DO SOMETHING IMPOSSIBLE LIKE MAKING THE HOMELESS BE AT TWO PLACES AT ONCE. Pleeeeease understand that WE HOMELESS know Cal Expo [aka, Overflow & Winter shelter] to be NOTORIUS! Netto's Concentration Camp that had long employment-defeating hours that people complained about, and then when the City found a million of your dollars to be inefficient with FURTHER EXTENDED THE TORTURE by extending the hours at Cal Expo.

The wants and needs of (1) the homeless and (2) the so-called homeless-advocacy industry are, mostly, diametrically at odds. The homeless want a shelter that helps them work and live and breathe; the homeless-advocacy industry wants to run 'enabling' homeless daycare that can evolve into a mini-empire.

What you don't understand is -- for example -- at Loaves & Fishes employees don't cross train. So, if you want to pay for your monthly locker, you have to do so at 1pm and hope that employee Natasha is available to take your money. If you need a hammer and nail to put a new hole in you belt because you're losing wait, that's Green-Hat Ed's department, so you have to come back when Ed *might* be available. You have to go through THREE DIFFERENT LINES in order to eat lunch. For those that have to or choose to sleep on the street, you have to wait for the inconvenient time for the pastry line to begin serving, even as the foodstuffs sit there and the L&F staff sit there, doing nothing, for the right time to begin. Last month, Loaves and Fishes closed without warning for three straight days, TWICE. You walk for an hour to get there and SURPRISE it's closed. Loaves & Fishes perhaps NEVER opens at 7am as they're supposed to; IF they open, they are late getting around to it. IF LOAVES & FISHES was a business IT WOULD BE BANKRUPT. Its Board of Directors are soviet socialists [not literally, but I can't see the distinction]. who love the Homeless "as a concept" and not as people. LOAVES & FISHES is, basically, a sleepy Communist state behind the iron curtain. THAT is what's going on, as best I can convey it.



Your self-congratulatory story is spiffy, sas [btw, good screenname for you]. Other people aren't you and aren't in your circumstance AND AREN'T 20 YEARS OLD WHEN THEY'RE HOMELESS. I, too, scrambled around AT THE AGE OF 20 when one can always get a fast-food job and move in with your high-school pals. And I must have been better than you, because by your standards, in my similar circumstance, I didn't resort to illegal camping, as you had. I didn't break any laws. Indeed, in this comment section, you've admitted to a crime.

"Mr. Armstrong has been homeless for a year, he can not possibly claim that he has made every effort to correct his situation."

As for THIS pishtosh, sasSY ONE, we are in a tanking economy, I've had a ridiculous felony charge hanging over me for over a year [I refer to it as Bleak House, which Dickens readers will understand], and I've been massively, flagrantly robbed.

"Correct his situation" is a term from someone petty, self-engrandizing and toxically ignorant. The homeless ARE doing the jobs that nobody wants. Many have legal problems, or records, or mental illness or cognitive problems -- and they scramble like the dickens.

You are stuck believing an ancient stereotype, sas.

I would hope your friends, your family, and your church would show you the support you need to shift your life.

Something happened a year ago with my two family members: The good one died; the bad one robbed me. I'm Buddhist. We're not as good at helping out each other in meatspace as the Christians, but I have some terrific online Buddhist friends.

sas put up a comment [that i can read on the rss], that she subsequently chose to take down, which I'm responding to, sorta.

I don't feel victimized; I'm just really meaning to make the point that, naturally, a lot of people "at the bottom" have gotten bad breaks. [Just as you would expect that, conversely, luck plays a part in determing who gets to be rich. I'm not complaining, here; just pointing out something that I think is certainly true.] Genetically, we on the street, may not have the full deck. And, sure, there are people out here who, more likely than the general public, don't exert themselves enough to make their lives better AND to stop failing to "pull their own weight" in society. We all should try to work, try to be productive and live within our means.

sas wrote that Loaves & Fishes has a right to set their own hours. And suggested I had no right to complain about that. Please understand, everybody, that when homeless-aid organizations are "enabling" and homeless-people's-time-devouring daycare camps it is to everybody's detrement, IMHO. It is an obstacle to getting homeless people back up into the mainstream. For everybody to be productive is to everybody's benefit. We just need to find the way there. I am sure there is a way.