Solutions sought to help homeless
By Katie Worth
kworth@guampdn.com
Pacific Daily News
http://www.guampdn.com
Homelessness does not have to exist on Guam.
In fact, there was a long time it didn't, said University of
Guam associate professor Bernadita Camacho-Dungca.
When she was growing up in the 1940s, she said, the island
community had a broad net that caught people before they fell
down the precipice of homelessness.
Her father's house, Camacho-Dungca said, was part of that
net. She said her father had a large house and it was home to
far more people than just her and her siblings.
"Our home was a sanctuary," she said. "If the
neighbors were fighting, we'd go and salvage the children and
they'd stay with us until the parents stopped fighting, and
then we'd return them back. Our home was big enough to house
everybody and their mother, we had big couches and big
floors, and my dad put up partitions in our house real fast
for families to live if they were homeless.
"Actually, we didn't call them homeless then, we just
called them needing a home."
However, the number of those needing a home has long since
outgrown the homegrown net they used to fall into.
But Camacho-Dungca and many others in Guam's homeless
services community don't believe the island's burgeoning
homeless problem to be a necessary reality.
As homeless advocate Elliot Liebow writes in his book
"Tell Them Who I Am," the solution to homelessness
is uncomplicated: simply ensure that everyone who needs
shelter has shelter.
Earlier this year, the Guam Council on Homelessness was
formed with the goal of creating a plan to end Guam's
homelessness problem, according to the council Chairman
Ronald De Guzman, who's also director of the Guam Housing and
Urban Renewal Authority.
De Guzman explained that the Guam Council on Homelessness is
different from the Guam Homeless Coalition, which was created
in 2000. The coalition, he said, is a group of program
managers and other homeless advocates from government
agencies and nonprofits, and their purpose is to figure out
how to best service the homeless with existing funds.
The council was created with the idea of bringing all the
directors and leaders of those agencies and organizations
together to discuss policy changes that could address the
island's homeless problem in a big-picture way. After being
created, the council immediately sat down to create an action
plan.
The outcome was a 30-page document outlining dozens of
strategies to help Guam get from Point A -- thousands of
residents with no sure place to sleep each night and
thousands more peering over the edge of that cliff -- to
Point B -- an island where every man, woman and child is
adequately sheltered.
The solutions proposed range from increasing the number of
emergency housing facilities on Guam to creating a "No
Wrong Door Policy," which would allow people in need of
any kind of social assistance to walk into any social service
agency or organization and begin a process that will link
them with that assistance, instead of forcing them to run
around to dozens of offices and fill out many application
forms.
In its action plan, the council also suggests improving the
island's meager public transportation system and providing
affordable child care to single mothers who want to work.
Other solutions the council proposes suggest tapping specific
funding sources or converting specific buildings into
affordable housing.
Cultural breakdown
Camacho-Dungca said she believes that if the community wishes
to truly address the island's homeless problem, it must also
look at the cultural degradation that has accompanied it.
"It's my personal belief that (homelessness) is a sign
of cultural breakdown because, in our culture, no grandmother
would ever send their grandchild out on the street. That's a
grievous sin in our culture. You can let your daughter go and
run around on the streets, but you never, never let the baby
go," she said.
She recalled the sanctuary that her father's home was when
she was a child, and said the community must decipher the
reasons those homegrown sanctuaries are no longer prevalent.
"When I was growing up, there was sometimes more
neighbors and friends staying in our home than there was of
us," she said. "To me, this is a natural
phenomenon."
TO THE POINT
Solutions are being proposed by the Guam Council on Homelessness to ease the homelessness problem on Guam, and a local university professor said the island's culture used to have a broader safety net for those in need of shelter.
TEN WAYS TO EASE THE HOMELESSNESS PROBLEM ON GUAM
The Guam Council on Homelessness has assembled an action plan to solve Guam's burgeoning homelessness problem. The following are some of the main strategies described in the plan:
1. Make access easy. An important step toward ending homelessness is helping people get access to the services they need. The council suggested implementing a "No Wrong Door Policy," which would allow people in need of social assistance - such as public health or mental health service, emergency shelter, job training classes, transportation and child care - to walk into any agency that provides any one of those services and begin a process that will link them with all the other services they may need. As it now stands, people may have to go to several different offices and fill out many application forms to get basic assistance. With the No Wrong Door Policy, an individual could theoretically go to the Department of Public Health and Social Services and begin a process to get emergency housing from the Salvation Army, for example.
2. Open more emergency homeless shelters. Currently, Guam's only emergency homeless shelter is Guma San Jose, run by Catholic Social Service, which has a 60-day maximum stay. The shelter nearly always operates at maximum capacity and has a lengthy waiting list. The Council on Homelessness suggested looking for funding to expand Guma San Jose. Other options are to convert buildings repossessed by the Department of Revenue and Taxation for nonpayment of taxes into emergency shelters, or refurbishing old Department of Administration staff housing and converting it into homeless shelters.
3. Expand affordable housing. Guam has a dire need for more transitional homes and permanent homes for those who cannot afford to pay market-value rent. One solution would be to advocate for the expansion of the current Public Housing Program and federally funded Section 8 housing voucher programs. Currently, the federal Housing and Urban Development agency provides Guam with 2,515 Section 8 housing vouchers, but there are thousands of Guam residents waiting to get on the waiting list for that program. The Section 8 program and other federal funding sources could also be tapped to help provide housing to people with disabilities. Transitional homes also play a role in helping homeless families get back on their feet by providing a rent-subsidized home until a family is self-sufficient enough to afford its own apartment. The council also suggested transferring Public Housing units in Umatac, Merizo and Inarajan to a nonprofit organization for uses such as recovery programs for women and children. Finally, the council suggested the community open a Safe Haven Program, which reaches out to those with mental illness or chronic substance abuse problems and others who have traditionally not used the conventional support systems.
4. Improve the public health system. More and more, health care is becoming an insurmountable expense for those with limited or no health insurance. In the last Homeless Count, conducted in October 2003 by the Guam Homeless Coalition, 43 percent of the more than 1,000 individuals surveyed said they need access to health care or medication, but were not receiving it. One goal of the Department of Public Health and Social Services, a member of the council, is to offer primary health care to all homeless residents, so people who suffer health problems will not be deterred from care or medication by prohibitively high medical expenses. Public Health's Northern Regional Health Care Facility will begin expansion early next year, and may be able to accommodate more individuals in the coming years.
5. Improve access to mental health services. In the last homeless count, more than 40 percent of the homeless individuals interviewed said they need mental health care, but were not receiving it. The directors of the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse, the Salvation Army, Sanctuary Inc., the Department of Corrections and others on the council plan to develop a comprehensive mental health plan that will seek input from the community and assess the needs and service gaps for people with various disabilities and mental health problems. Currently, there is a noted gap in services for adults with mental retardation. Also at special risk are children with severe emotional problems. "As they and their families age, they may become homeless," the council's report states.
6. Beef up the island's public transportation system. Among the things that often prevent people from becoming self-sufficient is the lack of transportation. You can't have a job if you can't get there every day, explained Barbara Lucero, director of family services at the Salvation Army. Guam's public transportation system is, at best, meager and relatively expensive. An increase in appropriations by the Guam Legislature could go a long way to expanding the public transportation program. An analysis of the need would provide direction in how the transportation system could be changed to better fit the needs of those who could use it, and become more flexible and accessible. Other programs, such as training programs that teach people how to fix their broken cars, could also help.
7. Provide child-care assistance. Single mothers with children make up the biggest demographic of homeless households on Guam, according to the last homeless count. One step that could make major improvements to that statistic would be to help single mothers get affordable child care. Women with children are often discouraged from working because their entire check would have to go toward child care, and they would not be able to support their families, Lucero has said. The council suggested exploring the option of opening a publicly funded 24-hour child-care center.
8. Expand job training and education programs. Many people who become homeless may not think they have marketable skills for a job, particularly women whose primary occupation has been parenting, Lucero said. Creating opportunities for homeless individuals to continue or complete their education or pursue their career interests will allow them to enter the skilled work force. Current programs need better outreach and others need expansion.
9. Increase job opportunities. First, current labor laws need to be enforced in order to provide a better environment of competition for residents. According to the council's report, some entry-level jobs that could go to Guam's homeless, particularly in the construction industry, currently go to off-island hires. The council also suggested developing partnerships with private employers to link unemployed individuals who are eager to work with job opportunities. Other partnerships could be made to develop supportive employment with homeless people with psychiatric disabilities and substance abuse dependency problems.
10. Preventing homelessness. Each of these changes, in addition to helping the homeless population get back on its feet, will also help impoverished families and other individuals - on the brink of homelessness - stave off that fate. One way to further prevent homelessness would be to create transition programs for individuals discharged from the Department of Corrections, Guam Memorial Hospital, foster care programs, the Department of Mental Health or the Department of Youth Affairs. When discharged, some may have to choose between returning to an unhealthy household or hitting the streets. The council suggested applying for prisoner re-entry program funds for ex-offenders, and revising discharge policies of publicly funded institutions to require government agencies to consider housing before discharge.