Homeless count shows fluctuating numbers
Agencies try to provide more transitional, permanent housing
Agencies try to provide more transitional, permanent housing
Photo by Eric Keith / St. Joseph News-Press / Purchase this photo
Barb Bigelow from Community Missions visits with Patrick while Fred cleans up several months’ growth of beard by dry shaving. According to Fred, who has lived in his tent encampment for a year and a half, ‘There’s homeless and there’s hopeless.’
Robert E. Bishop has had bad luck with women so far.
Breaking up with a live-in girlfriend put him out on the street seven years ago. Hurricane Rita put him out of Beaumont, Texas, in 2005. Today, he’s 56 years old and homeless, living at the Juda House and hoping to get both back to Beaumont and his girlfriend back.
“I realize now that the women in my life have played a significant part in the decisions I’ve made and the route I’ve taken,” said the twice-married Texas native.
Now Mr. Bishop hopes that the counseling he receives and the help he gets from Juda House will give him another route to take back home. A route that leads to a new life.
“The first thing I’ll do is have my own place and then deal with the relationship,” he said.
Mr. Bishop is like many of the people found in a recent homeless count in the city done by the St. Joseph Continuum of Care. People, who through circumstances beyond their control, find themselves on the street. Others get there through drug abuse, mental illness or both.
The reasons vary as much as the people, and so do the numbers, the study found. Numbers are up in certain areas and down in others.
Shelters such as the Salvation Army, Juda House and the YWCA remain constantly full. For example, Jean Brown executive director of the YWCA, said she has seen a significant increase in the homeless population at the women’s shelter. In fact, she said the number has increased almost fourfold from 2000 to 2007.
“We were averaging 11 residents a day in 2000. In 2007 we averaged 45,” she said.
But the number of chronically homeless, those without homes for an extended period of time, has decreased overall as more local agencies work to move this population from shelters or the streets into permanent housing.
“I think we’re doing a much better job with the chronic homeless,” said Randy Sharp of the St. Joseph Continuum of Care. “We’re trying to get the numbers down with the chronic homeless, it the toughest number to reach, people who have been homeless for long periods of time or multiple times in two years and who also have some kind of disability.”
The St. Joseph Continuum of Care began conducting Point In Time homeless counts in June 2003 as part of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) funding requirements.
Point in Time is a counting method where a snapshot on one particular day is used as data. For example, one day in June 2003 there were 97 residents in emergency shelters and three unsheltered persons on the streets. One day in July this year, there were 94 emergency shelter residents, 34 transitional housing residents and 28 street or unsheltered persons. It’s not an exact science, Mr. Sharp said, but it is a formula used across the state and in compliance with HUD standards.
“Point in Time also has the fallacy that, well, maybe you hit a day where for one reason or another you didn’t have a whole lot of people that day. That can happen,” Mr. Sharp said.
Also affecting the numbers is how the data gathered is interpreted. In March 2004, 170 people were in emergency shelters with the Noyes Home for Children, accounting for about 50 beds. Those Noyes Home beds were reclassified as transitional housing data in January 2008. The new formula now shows 110 residents in emergency shelters in January 2008 and 37 in transitional housing for that same period.
The numbers also fluctuate according to the weather. In January this year there were only 12 people who were unsheltered. In July that number rose to 28 living on the streets.
“That’s due in part to two things: The cold weather shelter being open, and in the summer some of them like to be outdoors,” Mr. Sharp said.
The goal is to provide more transitional housing and permanent housing for the residents, Mr. Sharp added. Currently Catholic Charities Journey Home, the St. Joseph Continuum of Care’s only transitional housing program, has 10 family units and 33 beds. The plan is to apply for more HUD funding for additional units. The Safe Haven homeless facility, when completed sometime next year on the Juda House campus, also will provide housing for 18 residents.
Alonzo Weston can be reached
at alonzow@npgco.com.
This story has 13 comments. Click here to join in on the discussion.
Story Tools
Hyperlink Legend
E-mail story
Print friendly version
iPod friendly version
Today's Top Headlines
Smurfit workers go on strike
Cotter takes his wings to state post
Raises, insurance in doubt for county employees
Senator wants to dampen river parties
U.S. Bank robbed on Belt
- More Headlines
- Recently Discussed
I do understand that there are people here that really do need help, but I also believe that there are plenty that don't want to work and enjoy the free food and shelter and hanging out in front of gas stations begging me for .50 cents everytime I walk out. Yesterday I watched one of these guys buy booze, then when I get outside he has the nerve to beg me for money.
Posted by Mr_America on September 19, 2008 at 9:42 a.m. (Suggest removal)I have had hard times in my past and I think that's why I get so fed up with the bad apples. All it takes is an honset hard working effort to change the situation.
Posted by Jude13 on September 19, 2008 at 12:11 p.m. (Suggest removal)Lord_of_War, I admire you for being able to come out of a bad situation and work your way back. I'll never forget an incident that happened to me while living in Texas. I happened across a homeless man asking for money. I stopped to talk to him and made him an offer: Help me out with some very basic yardwork, mowing and raking grass clippings. In return I would give him a fair wage, a chance to shower, and a hot home-cooked meal. He looked at me like I was crazy. He didn't give it two seconds consideration and went back to begging for handouts. I'm more than willing to give someone who's been though hard times an opportunity to get back on their feet, but I don't want to just blindly give handouts.
Posted by akm on September 19, 2008 at 2:26 p.m. (Suggest removal)There are so many like the man you mention Jude13. We have a family member just out of jail, 54 yrs old, with 6 kids. Instead of looking for a job, he's putting in applications for housing, medicaid, food stamps etc.
Posted by missouri_mule on September 19, 2008 at 2:58 p.m. (Suggest removal)If St. Joseph did not cater so much to these people, there would not be an over abundance of homeless! I have seen homeless people in NW Missouri, and when I ask them where they are heading, they say "St. Joseph, they ALWAYS take care of us." This is not the way it should be! GET A JOB, and quit beggin, I am in the poverty bracket on my wage, and you do not see me homeless, or begging! NO SIR!!
Posted by devinbroncs123 on September 19, 2008 at 3:07 p.m. (Suggest removal)I say, GET A JOB!!! I don't care what your excuse is, get a job. There is an abundance of jobs here and around here. I am sick of your lame drunk excuses. Get a job you losers.
The only homeless I have compassion for are the ones who are out on the streets for maybe 2 weeks. They find a job and they are back to normal. You can tell who they are.. They usually have cleaner clothes on and they definitely don't know what they are doing and they look scared.
GET A JOB!!! PLEASE STOP WASTING MY MONEY YOU BUMS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by scrubnurse on September 19, 2008 at 5:15 p.m. (Suggest removal)I work in Kansas City and every night on my way home pass the beggers at the I-35/Broadway Bridge exchange. I have many times wondered how (if they are homeless as they claim to be) they are always so clean and decently dressed including having nice coats in the winter, also if they are indeed homeless and without anything where do they get the sharpies to make their cardboard signs???? They probably have more money than I do that they beg off the poor suckers that buy into their "poor me homeless vet signs"!!
Posted by Mr_America on September 22, 2008 at 8:06 a.m. (Suggest removal)They are not homeless scrubnurse in fact one of the KC news channels did a story on them and they have a nice home and actually work that spot in shifts.
Posted by akm on September 22, 2008 at 9:04 a.m. (Suggest removal)One of the guys on that news show stated he makes anywhere from $700.-$1000/week. On a bad week he makes about $200.00/week. Tax free.
Posted by devinbroncs123 on September 22, 2008 at 12:57 p.m. (Suggest removal)It looks like the majority of us have some sort of animosity towards the homeless. But yet, when it comes down to something being done, it's always the lowest that win. Not the damned taxpayers of this city. I will never give or support the homeless as long as I live. GET A JOB!!!!
Posted by meow on September 22, 2008 at 2:55 p.m. (Suggest removal)A few years back, I worked in an office building near 22nd and Frederick, and there were countless times that homeless individuals came into my office asking for money - they walked office to office! I actually had one guy who was honest - he asked for $10 for a bottle of whiskey, and explained that he was an alcoholic and if he didn't have some alcohol, he was going to have a seizure. I offered to call an ambulance for him, but I would absolutely not support his habit. We reported this activity to the police but nothing ever happened. He continued coming in, but avoided my office after that point (thankfully).
Why should these people get a job? They don't want to work, and are fine with living in a tent under the I-229 bridge. You can beg for food or go to the food kitchen. You can sleep in a warm shelter if you so desire. If you're sick, you can go to the social welfare board. You can get food stamps, housing, utility assistance...the list goes on. It's so much EASIER to live off of the system than earn an honest wage. So what is the motivation to work?
Comments are the sole responsibility of the person posting them.
Rules: We don't allow comments that degrade others on the basis of gender, race, class, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation or disability. Epithets, abusive language and obscene comments will not be tolerated... nor will defamation. Brief quotes are okay as long as the source is given. Blatent cutting and pasting is not acceptable.Robust, even heated debate we like. Straying off-topic or flaming, we don't. Please read our user agreement.
Requires free stjoenews.net registration.