Theory and reality on ending homelessness
The Virginian-Pilot
© May 13, 2005
http://www.hamptonroads.com
What seemed like a hopelessly idealistic notion last year
when Norfolk Mayor Paul Fraim first proposed it, now seems
just hopelessly difficult.
However small an achievement, that’s a milestone in the
lofty effort to put a roof over the heads of the hundreds of
people who go homeless in Norfolk each night.
On May 2, the mayor officially released the long-awaited road
map for ending homelessness in Norfolk in 10 years.
The thorough workmanship of some two dozen citizens gives
Fraim more hope for success than he had a year ago.
That’s when he first set a deadline for getting the
homeless off the streets. But because the 107-page report
suggests it might be doable in theory doesn’t mean it is
doable in fact. This is a call to action that’s
impossible to keep in the business-as-usual-approach to
Norfolk politics.
No matter how much sense the road map makes, there simply
isn’t much of a political constituency for social action
on the scale envisioned in the report. That’s why up
until now homelessness has been left to the churches and
charities.
They’ve done a heroic job of managing the symptoms by
finding temporary and emergency shelters. But they can’t
address the poverty, family strife, illnesses and addictions
that are its root causes. Nor do they have the City
Council’s power to enact laws that might start
dispersing the poor into affordable housing across the city,
instead of keeping them in pockets of poverty. This is what
the plan to end homelessness wants policy-makers to embrace.
That’s a tall order requiring unusual political
leadership. It won’t be easy to convince citizens who
will never be homeless why this should be a high priority for
local government.
Yet, the road map makes clear it is futile to believe that
homelessness can be reduced unless there is a political
consensus to give more help to the poor and marginalized. And
unless Norfolk does, the problem will only grow in magnitude
and expense. So far only Fraim and Vice Mayor Daun Hester
have shown much willingness to make a forceful case for
action.
Fraim is one of 60 mayors from around the country who now
have made a crusade of ending homelessness. If it so hard and
risky, then why are so many mayors interested? In part
because it is the right thing to do, in part because
that’s where the money is.
By entering a “covenant” with the Bush
administration to end homelessness, Norfolk stands to get
millions of federal dollars. Even as the city welcomes the
money, it must be wary of the White House housing strategy.
It is doling out hundreds of millions of extra tax dollars on
homelessness even as it diminishes federal housing programs.
This is a shortsighted game of robbing Peter to pay Paul.
Yet, Norfolk was getting ready to do the same thing on a
smaller scale until Fraim intervened. The newest city budget
puts up $500,000 toward the renovation of a Park Place
warehouse into small apartments for single men who are
chronically homeless, the most ambitious undertaking so far
in the municipal initiative. But instead of the money coming
from the regular budget, the $500,000 was to be diverted from
spending promised for rehabilitating Norfolk’s poorest
neighborhoods.
This bait-and-switch is both wrong and cynical. Fraim
objected to the unjustness and the error will be rectified.
Money for the apartment house for the homeless will become an
expense carried by all of the city taxpayers, not just from
its poorest ones.
Symbolically, that’s the kind of fundamental change that
must take place if ending homelessness is to be more than
political lip service. That it happened at all is reason for
encouragement.