February 27, 2006|By LYNN ANDERSON | LYNN ANDERSON,SUN REPORTER
A fledgling program that moves homeless people with addiction and mental problems from the streets into subsidized housing is gaining momentum in Baltimore, where 25 people have been placed in 19 apartments since August, and city officials are moving to expand the program.
Mayor Martin O'Malley and city Health Commissioner Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein support plans to add about 80 more apartment units and about 10 staff positions to the "housing first" initiative. Sharfstein said he is working with Baltimore Homeless Services Inc., a nonprofit arm of city government, and drug addiction and mental health officials to find additional money.
"I am pushing for an expansion, but I would caution that it is a bit of a work in progress," Sharfstein said of the program.
Baltimore is using a combination of federal, state and local grant money to pay for the pilot program. City officials are still working on a budget for the expanded program and could not provide a figure for its cost.
There are an estimated 3,000 to 4,000 homeless people in Baltimore on any given night, according to the Health Department.
Proponents of the program say homeless people need to feel secure and have reliable housing before they can open up to intensive counseling and addiction treatment.
Baltimore's housing-first program mirrors efforts in Denver, New York and San Francisco. Many cities have found success through housing-first models, which find homes for people before they receive help with substance abuse or mental health problems.
Laura M. Gillis, president and CEO of Baltimore Homeless Services Inc., said the program's first participants included two families with children and two brothers who used to spend nights in a park not far from City Hall.
The program got off to a rocky start in July when city housing officials came up short during the search for apartments. Gillis said the program picked up with the discovery of a sympathetic landlord who had a number of units in the city.
The two brothers were the first to be housed in mid-August. Of the original 20 homeless adults selected to participate in the pilot, only one person has dropped out and only two have had to be re-housed.
Gillis and her staff have been working at a frantic pace to find furniture, cooking utensils and beds for a growing number of newly initiated apartment dwellers. The social workers have also been scurrying to make sure the new tenants get the Social Security, disability and other social service benefits they are entitled to.
The aid helps to defray the participants' housing costs and also pays for medical services, including psychiatric care.
Most of those who have been housed as part of the pilot were living in a park owned by St. Vincent de Paul Roman Catholic Church off Fayette Street in downtown Baltimore.
Many of the people who called the park home had been without a home for years, said Lauren Siegel, an employee of Health Care for the Homeless who coordinates the housing-first program through a contract with the city.
Siegel said she started visiting the park in June and slowly made friends with the people who lived there. It wasn't easy: Many of the residents were distrustful. But Siegel, who spent hours sitting cross-legged on the ground and perched on upside-down spackle buckets before she was "invited" to sit on the benches park residents called home, eventually made headway. Once the two brothers were housed, others in the park signed on.
"Then they all wanted to talk to me," Siegel said. "They started taking me seriously."
Siegel and another social worker visit participants at least once a week. They help them keep doctor's appointments, get to addiction counseling and fill out paperwork for bus passes, driver's licenses and other documents they need to get jobs and see their families.
Siegel said it has been especially fulfilling to see families reunite. She helped one man from the church park find housing big enough so he and his girlfriend and their two daughters could live together. Another man from the park said he wanted an extra room so his younger brother could live with him.
Two participants in the program became victims of violence. On Nov. 18, Michael E. Wright and Thomasine Evans, were shot and burned in an arson fire that claimed both their lives. City police have not determined a motive for the attack, but there is no apparent link to the housing program. Wright and Evans had also lived in the church park, and most of the participants knew them well.
"They were living in a very drug-infested area," said Gillis of the couple. "It would have been better to move them. Looking back, there were signs and signals."
