City backs housing (Housing First Program) for homeless

[flashl]

By ED KEMMICK
Of The Gazette Staff

From its inception two years ago, the Mayor's Committee on Homelessness has been acting on the premise that finding a solution to chronic homelessness is the key to ending homelessness in general.

Brenda Beckett, community development director for the city of Billings, said national studies have shown that 50 percent of the resources directed at the problem are spent on 10 percent of the homeless population - those most likely to use high-cost services like ambulance rides, emergency-room care, hospitalization, incarceration and detoxification.

...

That's why the city of Billings is accepting proposals to develop six to eight housing units that will be made available to homeless individuals or families who are frequent users of those high-cost services.

Billings was chosen by the Montana Council of Homelessness as a demonstration project for a 10-year plan to reduce homelessness. The Mayor's Committee on Homelessness has been involved in a variety of activities since it was founded in 2006, but this new project will be the first to use the Housing First philosophy endorsed by the federal Interagency Council on Homelessness.

Housing First is based on the idea that if chronically homeless individuals or families are placed in housing first, everything else they need - job training, case management, mental-health services and addiction treatment - will be applied more effectively.

[bobbolink]

1. None of that applies to me... or THOUSANDS like me... so I guess we remain homeless?

UNLESS we start causing enough trouble that requires spending money on us?

Housing First is based on the idea that if chronically homeless individuals or families are placed in housing first, everything else they need - job training, case management, mental-health services and addiction treatment - will be applied more effectively.

NONE of those "services" is what I need... I simply need a place to live.

Outta luck.

Again.

:(