Published November 17th, 2006
in published articles.
Arthur Sena, who lived for years in a hole near railroad tracks, in his “housing first” apartment in Denver.
FROM: The New York Times
By ERIK ECKHOLM, June 7, 2006
DENVER — Arthur Sena spent years living in a hole that he had dug near the railroad tracks. He would probably still be there, defying offers of help from social workers and using cardboard to ward off the chill, if Denver had not adopted a radical strategy of putting homeless people into apartments of their own, no strings attached.
Continue reading ‘New Campaign Shows Progress for Homeless’
Published November 17th, 2006
in published articles.
FROM: Governing Magazine
By Christopher Swope, December 2005
Back in 1990, when the homeless problem in San Francisco was still a relatively new concern, then-Mayor Art Agnos made a pledge he couldn’t keep. He said he would “end sleeping on the streets as a commonplace occurrence.” Not only was he going to conquer homelessness, he was going to do it in a year.
Agnos built two huge shelters. But when they filled quickly, he allowed people to pitch tents in the plaza outside City Hall, creating a settlement that became widely known as “Camp Agnos.” When voters booted Agnos out of office in 1992, the political lesson seemed clear enough: When it comes to homelessness, it doesn’t pay to make big promises.
Continue reading ‘A Roof To Start With’
Published January 17th, 2006
in published articles.
A new group aims to make homelessness less political–and more solvable.
FROM: City Limits
BY: C. Feldman, November 21, 2005
New York City’s homeless policy has long been shaped by two opposing forces: an administration determined to reign in the problem, and advocates trained to defend the rights of their indigent clients. Now a new voice has emerged: a coalition of service providers staking out the middle ground. New Yorkers for Ending Homelessness includes local luminaries like Sam Tsemberis, director of Pathways to Housing, and Eric Brettschneider, director of Agenda for Children Tomorrow.
Those involved say they want to move the debate out of the courts and into the public realm, drawing on available data and research. They also plan to examine the best practices of other cities, such as San Francisco, which uses a housing-first model to get single adults off the streets. Lilliam Barrios-Paoli, a former city commissioner who now runs a nonprofit for homeless teens, co-chairs the group’s steering committee along with Rosanne Haggerty, president of Common Ground Community, a housing provider. “We wanted to change the nature of the dialogue that we’re having around homelessness,” said Barrios-Paoli. “We want to say ‘homelessness is solvable and this is how.’”
