Minority Homelessness in Seattle - Can Progressive public policies save us?

 

King County’s plan to fix homelessness was supposed to put power in the hands of those who’ve been homeless. Did it?

July 31, 2020 at 6:00 am Updated July 31, 2020 at 5:03 pm

Kirk McClain, a member of the Lived Experience Coalition, speaks at a virtual session of the Regional Homeless Authority’s governance committee. Members of the coalition say that although the county included people on the committee who have... (KCRHA)

For the last 20 years in the Seattle-area fight against homelessness, efforts have been cyclical: Governments and providers say they’re going to solve the issue and seek input from experts and people who’ve actually been homeless, but then continue much the same way they have in the past. 2020 is supposed to be the year things change, with the creation of a Regional Homelessness Authority. A union of local governments with more representation and power than previously existed in one body, the authority would streamline, plan and make decisions about who receives all local government funding for homelessness. Beyond its power, one important new aspect of the authority is that it would give an unprecedented amount of say to the people it’s supposed to serve: people who’ve actually been homeless before.

The Seattle Times’ Project Homeless is supported by BECU, Campion Foundation, Raikes Foundation and Seattle Foundation. The Seattle Times maintains editorial control over Project Homeless content.

Three members of the governing committee — which has final say on all policy and hiring in the regional authority, and also has members from King County government, the City of Seattle, and an alliance of surrounding cities — are people who’ve experienced homelessness and also have experience in social services or advocacy. But those three — and the coalition of homeless and formerly homeless people they represent, called the Lived Experience Coalition — say they have been “railroaded” by the county and nonprofit leaders, said Sara Rankin, a co-founder of the Lived Experience Coalition and law professor at Seattle University. 

“It’s a generous con,” Rankin said. “They may be invited to the table, but once that box is ticked off, they’re not given a genuine, meaningful position of authority. … It seems like the Lived Experience Coalition is being systematically stripped.” Who chooses the seats? In the original design of the authority, people with lived experience would be chosen by and answer to the Lived Experience Coalition, a democratic group of homeless and formerly homeless people.

The Lived Experience Coalition was created in 2018 by organizers who’ve been homeless or were homeless at the time — some public employees, some advocates, some people who had advised county policy in the past. It’s made up of 100 general membership seats who meet bimonthly and vote on who among them will fill 25 leadership seats. That would provide a body to hold these unelected positions accountable, according to Marc Dones, executive director of the National Innovation Service and one of the architects of the new system. It could make it less likely those positions are filled by people hand-picked by nonprofits, something the authority wants to avoid, since much of its work involves deciding what money goes to which strategy and which nonprofit. Many members of the coalition are not afraid to criticize the system and even the nonprofit service providers who prop it up; in interviews, members criticized some homeless service providers, and called them part of a “homeless industrial complex.”

“In the housing and homelessness sector, we absolutely have a very strong nonprofit industrial complex,” Dones said. “And how systems work is they create the messengers they need for their own perpetuation.”

Bringing the Lived Experience Coalition onto the governing board wasn’t an idea everyone involved with the creation of the authority agreed with Former Bellevue Mayor John Chelminiak, for instance, advocated last year that the entire governing committee be made up of elected officials.

The coalition is very diverse, and its largest demographics are Black and African American (35%) and Native American (25%), the two groups who become homeless at the highest rates in King County, despite the fact they comprise smaller rates of the housed population. The coalition started the year in a rocky spot: Members who come to meetings are supposed to be paid $20 a meeting from the county for their time, but in January all stipends went unpaid until roughly May, according to Juanita Spotted-Elk, a member of the coalition. Leo Flor, director of the county Department of Community and Human Services, whose office was in charge of providing stipends, said they were delayed because of a change in the county’s “internal process.”

But leading members of the coalition feel this is simply one instance in a pattern of sidelining people with lived experience, not only by county employees, but nonprofit leaders and elected officials closely involved in homelessness work. Coalition members would like to choose who sits in the seats reserved for people with lived experience on the governing committee. But the final version of the Inter-Local Agreement creating the committee and the authority gave that power instead to a board of mostly nonprofit leaders, called the Continuum of Care Board, who would consider, but not be bound by the coalition’s recommendations.

Of the three people the Lived Experience Coalition’s leadership team recommended for the governing seat positions, only one was eventually appointed by the Continuum of Care Board — and the two others nominated weren’t even members of the Coalition (although they have since joined). "At their whim, the (Continuum of Care) Advisory Board could remove the leaders with lived experience off of those seats, could determine how long the tenure is in those seats. And so they have a lot of power and control,” said Lamont Green, a co-founder and interim co-chair of the Lived Experience Coalition.

“We’re learning as we go along,” said Sara Levin, who sits on that advisory board and is vice president of United Way of King County. “It’s new muscles we’re stretching as we learn how to share power, and when authority is delegated and when it isn’t.”

The coalition members and other regional homeless authority members are currently writing the bylaws for the authority, where they hope their role can be further enshrined and they can be given more control over the seats. But since their appointments, governing board members with lived experience say they’ve been kept out of the loop, informed sometimes just an hour before about staffing meetings, and not provided meeting materials beforehand, several members said in a governing board meeting in June. Flor said his department, which is in charge of these meetings, was in transition and “working kinks out.”

Will the Homeless get a Stimulus Check?

Last week, the US Senate passed HR 748, the Cares Act, that will provide assistance for most Americans to the tune of $2.2 Trillion. As we have all heard, the money will go to aid businesses, workers, health care systems, and hospitals overwhelmed by the Carnivorous pandemic. 

According to the measure, the aid package would provide a direct cash payment of $1,200 to individuals and households earning less than $75k per year gross income. Couples with  a combined gross income under $150k would be eligible for $2,400. I'm not even going to talk about people earning more money than $200k because I don't really care about them, except to mention that the aid numbers increase by $500.00 per child for families regardless of income. 

But What about the Homeless? 
I recently had a conversation with a family member about homeless persons and the stimulus package. He was convinced that any monies that people in those and similar conditions would receive would probably be just "party time" money that would most likely be spent on doing what they've already been doing: spending it on drugs and alcohol. Because he's family, and he is intelligent, I understood that there was absolutely no judgement in his comment, but rather was an objective observation based upon the opinions of  many republicans in congress who don't think the aid package should focus upon individuals as opposed to corporate giants, big business, and "tax paying" citizens. 

South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, who has a net worth of $1.2 million, thought the stimulus package was "too generous" to the unemployed, stating that the package would incentivise the unemployed to lay themselves off rather than go to work. Graham told reporters that the "bill pays you more not to work than if you were working" noting that the stimulus bill would provide the equivalent of $24.00 per hour while the state of SC only pays $7.25 per hour for minimum wage. If Senator Graham feels that way about the working poor in his state, I can only assume his views of what the homeless deserve are much worse. 

If you are homeless, and don't have a known legal address it will be very difficult to get a stimulus check via the method the US Treasury is using to distribute the aid. The money is going to be distributed by the US Treasury Department to persons who:

• Filed a 2018 or 2019 income tax return - payment will be sent to person's last know address.
• Are employed - payment will come through your current employer's direct deposit system
• Have a social security number

Unfortunately, many of the homeless do not have an address where they can receive mail. When I was homeless, I remember having a couple of places where I received mail. One address was my son's mother's address because she was kind enough to to allow me to stay there for several months. Another place I received mail was a place called the Compass Center in downtown Seattle. Any homeless person can go there and sign up to get their mail delivered there. You must have a Washington State id card, however to take advantage of that service. 

The Compass Center is run by the Compass Housing Alliance, which is a low-income housing non-profit. The address to the compass Center is: 77 S. Washington St. Seattle, WA 98104. The phone number is 206.474.1000. 

In Seattle, there are several places where you can get a voucher to get an id card. The one place I know of is called the Solanus Casey Center located at 804 9th Avenue Seattle, WA 98104. 

Seattle's homeless and the Caronavirus

Tent City 3 is a homeless encampment located in the Phinney Ridge district of Seattle Washington. It is a part of a network of homeless encampments throughout King County. Most of the unsanctioned encampments are dirty, unsanitary and do not have provisions such as port- a-poties or dumpsters...an ideal breading ground not only for the Caronavirus, but many other diseases that can be spread by human contact, unsanitary conditions, or even the air.

I work for a local housing organization, and I come into direct contact with homeless people every day. Many of them tell me they know someone who is sick, or is sick themselves, but because they have no primary care physician, no health insurance, and no money, they can't get tested for Caronavirus, or any other health problem they are having. Per capita, Seattle has the third largest homeless population in the US. That fact, in addition to the poor and disjointed homeless services in this region is a clear prescription for bad things to happen regarding the control of the Caronavirus  in the homeless community.

Recently, I read that Seattle Mayor Durkan approved an expansion of Tiny Home villages in the Seattle area. Maybe these new tiny homes won't be built until the virus more under control, maybe they will. But the point here is that the Seattle City Council, state representatives, local police, and all quadrillion and two health agencies we have in King County don't seem to understand that a unique approach will be necessary to avoid a bona-fied outbreak of Covid-19 among the homeless. And the tragedy is that it's already too late.The virus is here. It has killed 31 people and it's being reported that  Washington State has over 370 known cases of the virus.

For all of the pretty names and concepts Seattle and King County uses for how we house people and provide social safety net services like: "wraparound services, housing first model, VI SPDAT indexing and prioritizing models, .... that are supposed to connect providers in order to treat the homeless and vulnerable populations, Seattle social services are as bad and disconnected as anywhere in the country as evidenced by our growing homeless numbers. If Seattle can't control its homeless population without the Caronavirus, it doesn't have a prayer of controlling the homeless population with a virus it can't control either. 

Black murder is normal | Michael Smith | TEDxJacksonville

Thanks to Mallori Thompson for making this video. I was asked to speak about my personal experience with homelessness and how that motivated me to become an advocate for the poor and homeless.

This Morning's Air

This Morning's Air

 

I awake to the soft thrum of my phone alarm on the ground near my head.  The morning air brings a familiar judgment that a few hours of rough sleep cannot erase.  I am homeless, and I am surrounded by trees and brush that hide me from the outside world but cannot hide me from myself. The damp, dewy earth has become a familiar friend. We have spent a lot of time together. It sees who I am and who I could become.  It knows me better than most, and listens to weakened pleas of mercy with casual ire like a priest in a cold gloomy confessional. 

 

The trees and brush and shadows are my shelter from the cruelty of the normal.  The new air of a chilly morning mocks my first breath.

 

I confess my sins but do not ask forgiveness because there is no forgiveness for the damned. I am alone by choice. I seek no friendships, but remain friendly. I ask for no hand-outs, but will not refuse a helping hand. I survive alone, but I am not lonely. I trust no one, yet I remain trustworthy. 

 

This morning's air slaps my world into focus and greets me with unfamiliar sights and sounds that are harsh and rude. The spot upon which I lay is covered with fresh dew and new leaves that fell during the night like a child's crayon outline on paper canvas.

 

This morning' air – this new air – brings new sorrow, and new hope and bids me decide which mask I will wear on my face today.  I open the book of my day with a groan and with slow, measured movements I begin the script of this new chapter.  It has been 1,735 days since I had a place to call home. As the cool morning air hits my face I shiver and silently curse my bland existence.

 

The warm morning breeze carries the sounds of fast moving commuters like caged beasts released into the wild to find their prey. The walkers will stare at me, but won't see me. They see an image – an intrusion.  To them, I am dead.

 

I am not dead.  I am not alive. I only exist – the mere outline of a man with no center or mass.

 

I sit up, brush a creeping crawler off my leg and check my watch as if I have somewhere important to go and casually realize I don't.  I am all alone and my soul cowers in shrouded shame, too weak to cast its own shadow…like a ghost afraid of its own presence.

 

This mornings' air reminds me that I must create something, do something, say something that will shake to life another stillborn morning that pulls me one step closer to becoming one of the downtown walking dead. 

 

Yet I am amazed every morning- by the beautiful and infinite hope of what could be. And I am amazed by the tragedy of my life in the distant wake of such infinite hope.  Hope that is alive, yet opaque as it dances just beyond my grasp even if I had the strength to reach out for it. 

 

This mornings' air, this new air. This new day belongs to me and gives me life, new life… I am touched by the Divine even as I am living in Hell. My life is an empty canvas brushed by the harsh and beautiful colors of life and death.

 

I tie my shoes, put on my mask, and walk back into my life.

From My Homelessness Journal - 2014

When I finally Found a Job and Shelter

On September 8^th 2014 I was hired by the Downtown Emergency Service Center. DESC, as it is called by everyone downtown, is a non-profit organization that provides housing and case management services to mentally ill persons who are chronically homeless.   I suppose it should have been a watershed event in my life, but it wasn't. I was still homeless and I wasn't sure how I would handle getting off work every night and not having any place to go and rest my head.  On my third day of work, I left the office at 5:00 pm and spent most of the night on Capitol Hill until a security guard at Seattle Central Community College made me leave. Earlier that day I had lunch with a YWCA homeless Intervention program specialist, Jennifer.  Prior to this meeting we had good rapport and had a conversation about how bad the affordable housing programs were in Seattle.  Our great rapport seemed to end rather abruptly when she found out I had problems the last time I received help from the YWCA to get an apartment through a program called the Landlord Liaison Program. 

 

At the end of our lunch she offered to give me some bus tickets and I accepted.  We agreed to meet at Cal Anderson Park on Capitol Hill to get me the tickets.  When she arrived late I could tell something was wrong. She was short and seemed to have a whole different attitude and I realized someone had told her some crap about what happened with my ex-girlfriend and my initial experience with the Landlord Liasion Project.  I took the tickets, which I needed so the whole thing wasn't a total loss but I knew she would no longer be of any help to me.  That assumption turned out to be true.  The next e-mail I received from her said her boss told her that I could not get into the LLP again and she gave me some reason that I knew was bullshit.  Any respect I had for her was gone and I didn't care.  All of my emails since have been somewhat cold.  All I need from her at this point is a voucher for a pair of glasses and I might not even be able to get those.  Whatever.  I continued my personal boycott of the homeless shelters downtown.  Instead, I went to my regular spot on Capitol Hill and enjoyed what seemed like an endless summer and played some hoops. I really don't understand the "Carrot and Stick" method of servicing the homeless in Seattle. You make one mistake in some program and that's it, you er done. Folks don't seem to realize that homeless guys like me are going to make mistakes before we get it right. That is some of what got us out here on the street in the first place.

 

I think I've lost about 5 lbs. since I started playing hoop every day.  When I am outside in the sun I cannot help but to feel like this nightmare will soon be over. I know that sooner or later I will find housing if I don't give up, get arrested or do anything really stupid. I come to work on time everyday, I do my best, but I am not doing as well as I thought I would. I have trouble with doing administrative tasks that need to be done in chronological order.  Today I admitted to my co-worker, Twinel that I was homeless.  The funny thing about it was that I actually had to feign being embarrassed and uncomfortable about it.  I've been out here in the streets so long now that I'm just not embarrassed about it anymore. It is what it is. Twinel seemed more uncomfortable about it than I was saying to her.  After I was kicked out of the Seattle Central Community College park I went downtown.  It was late. I walked downtown to find another place to sleep.  The weather had been getting slightly colder at night so I was a bit more anxious to find a place to go instead of walking around for hours trying to find the perfect place – as if there is one. 

 

As I am walking around downtown I notice other homeless people milling around or asking for money. They are like ghosts - lifeless and hopeless. Some of them are loud and try to get attention from the "regulars"(regular people) who calmly ignore them or walk around them like they are a dead carcass on the ground. Most of them smell like a carcass, yet they don't seem to care. I cannot understand that level of hopelessness. It's as if they have simply told themselves that this is where it ends for them. There is this guy I've seen on the street and in the shelters that hold up a sign that has some biblical scripture on it. In my opinion, there is absolutely nothing positive about a homeless person holding a sign lauding himself as an example of what Christianity is supposed to do for you. I consider myself a Christian too, but I do not understand how that is in any way a testimony to the world of why a person should become a Christian. A couple of days ago I almost got into a fight with a white woman who became upset when I made a comment about I thought I would not be in the shelter lines next summer. She said I didn't have a fucking clue where I would be in a year. I told her maybe she didn't know where she would be, but I knew that I would have housing and might be giving her my spare change somewhere in the "Blade" by the way she looked. Then I called her a lazy, uneducated bitch. She yelled something about me not saying that if her boyfriend was here and I told her I was willing to patiently wait until he got back and he and I could talk about it. He never came back and I didn't have to beat anyone up that day.

 

10-17-14

I've been living in a “transitional” clean and sober house for about two weeks now.  After a brief stay at a homeless shelter with beds called Peter's Place, the director (who initially got me into the place) offered me a bed here and I promptly took him up on the offer. The room is one of five in the basement of a house located in unincorporated King County somewhere between Burien and Tukwila.  When I moved in I must admit it was a good feeling, but also somewhat anti-climactic because I'm just too old to get excited about living with five other guys and sharing a living space with other people. The room came pre-furnished with a bed a dresser, a book-case, a decent closet, and a night-stand. It does feel good to actually place my clothes in a dresser and hang up my dress shirts again.  I haven't done that in five years.  I've learned the bus routs to work and I've quickly jumped back into the hustle and bustle of working life and commuting via Metro.  The director of this transitional house is a man named Alfred White. I still sleep on the floor sometimes and that seems very strange to me that it sometimes feels more comfortable than sleeping in a bed. 

 

Alfred is an interesting man. He runs three transitional houses, and is trying to create a new mental health program that he thinks will be more effective than the Housing First model utilized by DESC.  He was once a strung-out crack-head and street thug who turned his life around.  His story is actually very interesting.  He's very motivated and appears to know what he wants to accomplish.  Alfred has asked me to be the house manager for this house and I accepted.  Ironically, I'm still drinking. Stopped smoking weed though.  While I was homeless and working, I was smoking a lot of weed.  I supposed “a lot” is a relative term, but it was a lot as far as I'm concerned.  I don't need to do it now, so I don't.  Working and getting a paycheck is so new to me.  I got my first check for $825.00 and yes, I went hog-wild buying stuff. Spent the entire check in two weeks. My second check I bought a car – 1986 Pontiac Fiero SE.  It's a beater. I paid $850.00 for the car and am hoping to get at least that when I trade it in on something else in a few weeks.  It has taken me five years to get almost back to where I was before all this shit happened to me.  I don't have a job making 36K a year, but it feels like it because I don't have Micah  (my ex-wife) to pay for anymore.