A 'real' problem
June 4, 2006
By TRACY RZEPKA
Lifestyles Editor
The (Dunkirk, NY) Observer
Mike Yerico and his coalition hear it all
the time. “There are no homeless people in Chautauqua
County.” Or, “That only happens in bigger
metropolitan areas like New York City.”
Not so.
“It’s real,” as Bill Vogt said. It just takes
a different shape — Jan Walker pointed out — than
the man sitting on the sidewalk, cup in hand and sign begging
for money.
If there were no homeless in the county, then the Chautauqua
County Homeless Coalition would not exist. Yerico, Vogt and
Walker are among representatives of a group of agencies
striving for an improved continuum of services — all
facets surrounding the homeless issue — so people can
eventually support themselves.
“The HUD definition is somebody who is out on the
street,” said Walker, managing attorney of Southern Tier
Legal Services.
Aside from her agency, the coalition is composed of
representatives from Chautauqua Opportunities Inc.,
Chautauqua County Rural Ministry, YWCA of Jamestown, the
Dunkirk and Jamestown housing authorities, Erie
2-Chautauqua-Cattaraugus BOCES and Southern Tier
Environmental Living, among others.
“It’s not necessarily the definition we have in
Chautauqua County,” she said. “I think it’s
like rotating couches. People will lose their housing through
eviction or they can’t pay for it. And so they move in
with friends and then the friends get tired of them, so they
move in with some more friends.”
Defining homelessness is often a contested issue among
federal agencies charged with assisting in diminishing
homelessness. The problem lies in the fact that each agency
has crafted its own definition for funding purposes.
Local officials say the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban
Development definition as being too narrow. That definition
is in the process of being revised. But even area
representatives have difficulty in assigning a specific
definition.
“There is no one, real definition of homelessness.
Everybody defines it differently,” said Yerico, COI
director of housing and energy conservation. “It would
be great if one definition covered it all.”
Basically, homelessness is the people who don’t have a
home of their own, whether they’re officially recognized
as residing in a shelter or more on the fringes —
sleeping in cars or crashing at a relatives’ place, or
even camping out in a tent when the weather is warmer.
The counting game
If defining homelessness is a challenge, then putting a true
number to it is impossible. One can count those staying in a
shelter at any given time, but cannot account for the others
who seek refuge elsewhere or refuse to ask for help.
“Some families might not consider themselves homeless,”
said Vogt, manager of the Safe House in Jamestown, a
temporary shelter that typically serves about 120 children
under the age of 18 in a year. “So they choose not to
avail themselves of the services.”
“Most people, when they are homeless, are able to find a
friend to move in with,” said Sue Schwartz, manager of
home ownership and emergency services for COI, based in
Jamestown. “So many people take care of their problems
themselves and are never in here. So they wouldn’t come
for aide or be counted.”
The most recent statistics for Chautauqua County were
collected this winter through what is called a “street
sweep,” a headcount of people living on the streets and
in shelters required twice a year by HUD.
From 4:30 to 8:30 a.m. Feb. 24, officials blanketed 17
communities, looking for signs of homelessness. It could have
been as clear as spotting someone sleeping in a car, or more
detective-like work such as tracking fresh footprints in a
snow-covered lot that lead to an empty truck. In all, they
counted 44 homeless, with about half stemming from shelters.
It is believed that there are more — those not counted
who are living with friends, relatives and neighbors.
Numbers will hopefully be tracked better and, more
importantly, services coordinated more smoothly, through a
new information management network system being developed.
The database — HMIS for short — will link
information provided by any agency that either receives
funding from the HUD or provides services for the “homeless
and near homeless individuals and their families.”
“Will we ever have a good handle? I think the HMIS
system will help us,” Yerico said. “I think we will
get there ... We will see the causes, because we ask ‘Why
are you here? What’s your status? What’s your
income? Where were you six months ago?’ We never asked
those questions before.”
Who they are
Walker wants people to know that anyone can be homeless. It’s
not just about “those” people.
“Any one of us could end up being homeless,” Vogt
added.
The reasons for homelessness are as varied as the individuals
who fall into the description. A disability. Family breakup.
Domestic violence. Unemployment.
It could even hit the person who jumps into a $90,000
mortgage for a nicer house because the bank says he’s
eligible, though he might make $25,000 to $30,000 a year.
“There are people out there that their only problem is
they didn’t take their meds. They trashed the apartment
and then they get kicked out. They have no place to go but
the street,” Yerico said. “At times you see them
and they’re fine ... They will tell you they won’t
remember trashing them.”
Or, there’s the single female in her late 20s or early
30s — a population that Yerico said is almost three to
one to the single male. Quite a number are leaving
relationships with married men in which they did not have to
work. Others are reentering society after serving time in
jail.
Karen Leach, housing coordinator for Chautauqua County Rural
Ministry, sees people being brought to the area with the
promise of jobs that never come to fruition. She has seen
seven such cases in the last two months.
Economic conditions are a big factor in how homelessness
plays out. Yerico points to high gas prices and predicts some
people will start to fall behind in their bill payments, and
subsequently start making choices that aren’t in the
“proper order.” “I’m going to feed my
family and go to work every day, but not pay my gas and my
rent. So then what happens, they’ll get behind, they’ll
get their gas shut off, they’ll get evicted.”
“I think you’re going to see a huge change with
Medicare. I think you’ll see more homelessness with the
senior population. They’re not going to be able to
afford their drugs anymore,” Yerico said. “Seniors
are stuck on fixed incomes.”
Walker believes the underlying reason is insufficient
family-supporting jobs in the area. The working poor are the
ones struggling.
Just as there is not one single definition or one easy way to
determine how many homeless people are in the community,
homelessness cannot be pinned to one reason, for any given
person.
“It’s not a person with a single financial problem.
It isn’t someone who just didn’t pay their bills
and got evicted,” Schwartz said. “It’s
multiple layers of problems,” such as substance abuse
added to post-traumatic stress syndrome and a physical
disability, for example.
“They have three or four things that are against them.
When they have three, four or five — and an event or
trauma on top of it — they just can’t handle it.”