Sheltered Lives

street-wise: PCEH Executive Director Phyllis Ryan says it's counterintuitive to allow the homeless to become dependent on the system. Photo By: Michael T. Regan

A nonprofit group and the city face off on the issue of homelessness.

by Mike Newall

On a cold November morning, about two dozen heavy-eyed stragglers thaw out in the small waiting room of the homeless outreach center at 802 N. Broad St. The previous night brought an autumn frost, interrupting what had been a relatively mild fall. That sudden, unforgiving change in weather came just one day after the city's homeless czar, Robert Hess, told City Council he had begun work on a 10-year plan to completely eliminate homelessness in Philadelphia.

"We believe we could be the first city in America to end the need for anyone to sleep on our streets," said Hess, who guaranteed that the city's Task Force on Homeless will have a plan completed next spring.

That plan, which will need the mayor's approval, is necessary if the city is to compete for a $2 million federal funding bonus for homelessness programs. But this ambitious announcement has done little to warm the souls of the men and women at 802, as the center is known on the streets. Most sit with their heads buried in their hands. Others stare blankly. One scraggily bearded man rocks back and forth in his folding chair, eyes closed, reciting a prayer.

Every weekday, the doors at 802 open at 9 a.m. The center offers hot showers, clean clothes and the use of a telephone. There is a doctor on hand, as well as a counselor. There are no beds and no food. But it is somewhere for people to go.

"Folks come here each morning and hang around for a few hours," says center coordinator Roosevelt Darby, watching from a second-floor balcony as more people shuffle in. "Then, around lunchtime, they'll head somewhere that offers a meal and kill a few hours there. It's all about getting through the day and not much else."

Even in this bitter cold, many homeless choose to stay out of the city's emergency shelters, which are often overcrowded and guided by strict and "belittling" behavioral rules and curfews, Darby says.

"They are treated like children in the shelters," says Darby. "So a lot of them just rather take their chances on the street. At least on the streets, they can maintain their dignity."

Darby, 47, is a tall, thick-shouldered man who wears a mustache and a warm, sad smile. He knows firsthand the rhythms of life on the street. In the late 1980s, a drug addiction landed him on the streets of North Philadelphia.

"I wasn't one for sleeping outside with one eye open, though," he says. "I took a bed at a nearby shelter, got treatment and volunteered here, sorting through the piles of donated clothes."

The volunteer work eventually led to a full-time job at 802. Today, Darby is deputy director of the Philadelphia Committee to End Homelessness (PCEH), the independent nonprofit organization that operates the center.

Along with Phyllis Ryan, executive director of PCEH, Darby—who co-chaired Mayor Street's Transition Team on homelessness in 1999—has become one of the most vocal critics of Philadelphia's handling of homelessness, deriding it as an overly bureaucratic approach seeking to manage homelessness rather than end it. Critics like Darby and Ryan argue that the city's Office of Emergency Shelter and Services is insistent on making homeless individuals "housing ready"—through months or even years of drug or mental-illness treatment—which only makes them more dependent on the system.

"When someone's hungry you don't make them "food ready,'" says Darby. "You give them food."

"They're making housing something people have to earn by good behavior," adds Ryan. "We feel that no matter what problems people are facing, they will almost always solve them best after they have been placed in a home, not while lingering in a city shelter."

Criticizing the local homelessness system is a lonely position. In recent years, Philadelphia has become the only city in America to reduce the number of people living on its streets. In recent years, the homeless population in Philadelphia has been drastically cut to about 6,000—with all but an estimated 300 being housed in temporary shelters. Delegations from cities with large homeless populations, such as London, San Francisco and Dallas, have visited to study Philadelphia's outreach services, emergency-shelter systems, transitional-housing programs and homeless information-management system—a database that lists information of individuals who enter the city's homeless programs.

"Robert Hess is arguably the best local leader combating homelessness in the United States," says Dennis Culhane, a University of Pennsylvania professor of social welfare policy. The challenge of solving homelessness on the local level is akin to "turning a ship around with a rowboat. Rob Hess is paddling as fast as he can," Culhane says.

PCEH is not impressed.

"They're interested in starting program after program. We're interested in ending homelessness," says Ryan. "We're asking the tough questions. What is good policy? Are we spending scarce resources the right way? Asking those questions has not made us very popular."

"Housing first is one tool," says Hess. "But we have learned that you cannot apply a one-size-fits-all method to homelessness. Some people need more support systems up front."

Hess says the city has, in fact, been directing more finances to permanent housing and points to the highly lauded New Keys program, which has placed 40 long-term street-dwellers with histories of drug abuse and mental illness, directly into housing.

The $2 million in federal funds would only provide more housing-first options, he says.

"Ultimately, our aim is to have people in permanent housing," says Hess. "It just can't happen all at once."

Not surprisingly, PCEH is not doing cartwheels over the city's 10-year-plan.

"It's a hollow act by the city to get more federal funding to keep doing more of the same old thing," maintains Ryan. "They talk the talk but only to get federal money."

PCEH is also doing more than just criticizing. In 2001, they drew up their own blueprint to end homelessness in Philadelphia. The group also introduced SafeHome Philadelphia, a community-based "housing-first" effort similar to successful approaches in New York City. Through partnerships with neighborhood organizations, PCEH is building an infrastructure to assist homeless people or people on the verge of losing their homes into the affordable housing the group claims is underutilized by the city. "Partner-advocates" will then assist each family through counseling and employment training.

PCEH hopes to have a pilot program running in North Philadelphia by July 4 and place 200 families into new homes within the first year for only $4,600 a family. They face big hurdles. A study conducted by Culhane last year found that the city needs 33,000 more units of affordable housing just to house the poorest of the poor, a finding that contradicts PCEH's claim of the availability of affordable housing.

Then there's the matter of funding. PCEH receives no public funding and is still in the initial phases of raising the nearly $1 million needed to get the program started. For his part, Hess called PCEH, asked them to submit their plan to the task force and invited them to help draw up the 10-year-plan.

PCEH submitted their plan but declined the offer to participate, preferring to concentrate on their own efforts.