Dear friends,

This is the first issue of our newsletter, which we will send to you every two months. Our goal is to inform you about the work of The Key Alliance and issues related to homelessness in Nashville.

The Key Alliance was initiated by the Metropolitan Homelessness Commission in 2009 as the umbrella organization that brings together the community to end chronic homelessness and reduce overall homelessness. As such, The Key Alliance, which has received its 501 (c) 3 status in early 2010, is the fundraising arm of the Metropolitan Homelessness Commission.

The most prominent symbol of The Key Alliance is a hand holding up a key that unlocks doors for individuals and families to move into permanent housing and overcome barriers along the way to self-sufficiency.

“Alliance” refers to building strategic and collaborative partnerships with service providers, corporations, foundations, community leaders, faith-based organizations, and government agencies.

No one entity can end homelessness. The forming of The Key Alliance utilizing the Housing First model and building key collaborations will reshape Nashville’s approach to effectively reduce homelessness by the year 2015.

Walk A Mile In My Shoes

Mark your calendars for the second annual Walk A Mile In My Shoes on Saturday, April 17, 2010, at 8 a.m. at Lot R of LP Field near the Shelby Pedestrian Bridge. Visit https://www.thekeyalliance.org/walkamile to sign up as a walker and/or a sponsor!

This one-mile walk is a fundraising and awareness campaign for Nashville’s Housing First program. Housing First takes a homeless individual or family off the street directly into permanent housing where they receive intensive case management.

“Case management is critical to Housing First,” Clifton Harris, director of the Metropolitan Homelessness Commission, said. “Some individuals initially need extensive home visits from the case manager who works with newly housed individuals on a one-on-one, as needed basis. Over time the visits decrease, but the case manager is still around to assist housed individuals and families and helps them evaluate whether they continue to receive the services they need.”

The goal of Housing First is to help people move toward self-sufficiency.

“Most service providers throughout our city are good at what they do, but we know how hard it can be for people trying to survive on the street to reach services on their own,” Harris explained. “Housing First brings support directly into the home.”

Walk A Mile In My Shoes provides an opportunity to learn first-hand about the journey a homeless person travels while it provides funds to help individuals and families find a path to permanent, supportive housing.

The Walk is organized by The Key Alliance, an initiative of the Metropolitan Homelessness Commission that brings together nonprofit, for-profit, faith-based, and government agencies to eradicate chronic homelessness and reduce overall homelessness in Nashville.

Nashville’s Adopt A Meter Program

Later this month when you walk along Nashville’s downtown streets you may come across a blue “parking meter” that’s standing somewhere along a sidewalk without a parking space nearby. As you stop to look at it, you will learn from the markings that “your donation will benefit the outreach program of The Key Alliance, an initiative of the Metropolitan Homelessness Commission.”

Clifton Harris, director of the Metropolitan Homelessness Commission, explains that studies across the nation have shown that the Housing First model is less expensive than continuing to manage homelessness as we have done in this country for the past 20 years.

“Housing First provides permanent housing where a case manager works with an individual and links him or her to services directly in the home,” Harris, who is working to expand Nashville’s Housing First program, said. “Housing First works. The Metropolitan Homelessness Commission’s Housing First program to date celebrates a retention rate of 92%.”

But – Housing First is not very effective without solid outreach work.

“We’re talking about street outreach where individuals go out and build relationships with people wherever they are,” Harris said. “In Nashville we have about 4,000 homeless individuals on any given night, but we only have 5-6 full-time outreach workers. That’s not enough.”

That’s why the Commission decided that money collected through Nashville’s Adopt A Meter program, the blue meters along prominent walking locations, should benefit outreach workers.

On Jan. 26, Mayor Karl Dean announced the Adopt A Meter program to a crowd of business people at the inaugural Bowtie Awards hosted by the Arts & Business Council of Middle Tennessee. The first sponsor to sign up, Southwest Airlines, was present and so far more than a dozen other companies have followed suit in supporting the program.

“Homelessness is not a government issue. It is not a nonprofit issue. Homelessness is a community issue,” Dean said. “The Adopt A Meter program is a way for citizens to channel funding directly toward the outreach efforts that benefit homeless individuals and families in our city.”

The City of Denver implemented a similar meter program in 2007 and now has 86 meters displayed that generate more than $100,000 annually. The meters have effectively educated the public about the need to support the city’s solutions to end homelessness.

After seeing those results at a leadership trip to Denver last spring, Dean asked the Metropolitan Homelessness Commission to implement a similar program in Nashville.

The sponsorship of $1,000 per meter will pay for maintenance and administration of the program. Public Works was generous in donating 30 unused meters to start the program. The goal is to raise enough funds so that The Key Alliance is able to contract with a service provider who then will pay for an additional outreach worker.

The Key Alliance is an initiative of the Metropolitan Homelessness Commission. It is the Commission’s fundraising arm that brings together nonprofit, faith-based, for-profit and government entities to work toward eliminating chronic homelessness and reducing overall homelessness in Nashville.

Safe Haven: Serving Families with Children

“They may suffer from attachment disorders because they fluctuate so much from one location to the other prior to becoming homeless,” Tina Collier, counselor in residence at Safe Haven Family Shelter, said and explained that children suffering from Attachment Disorder generally have difficulty maintaining friendships or a close relationship with their parents. “They have a lack of trust because they are normally in a volatile situation where they have to move so frequently. They just tend to go inward as opposed to allowing people to get close and then being hurt.”

Joyce Lavery, executive director of Safe Haven, said having a case manager work with families directly in their homes makes a huge difference. Families do not have to schedule an appointment or organize transportation to meet an appointment with a case manager.

“The response for in-home therapy is overwhelming,” Collier said, adding that in addition to the family support, she works with schools to create a support system for the children.

Homeless children more often than not fall behind in school, some as much as a grade. “In years past, the school might not have known that the child was homeless. Now, with the help of the school counselor and principal, I am on a team that can directly assess the needs of the child,” Collier said.

Safe Haven is the only homeless shelter in Nashville that keeps families together. Program Director Jennifer Reason stated that in addition to allowing dads to live with their moms and children, the program has no age limitations. Most shelters nationwide separate boys older than 10 or 12 from their mothers. “It is about keeping families together,” Reason said.

As families enter Safe Haven, an initial assessment is made to determine whether the family is eligible for certain programs, such as TennCare, food stamps, etc. After making sure the children are settled, the program shifts its focus towards employment. “If the mother and dad are not working, then we have them start job searches,” Reason said, adding that the Goodwill program helps with job training. Classes are then offered to assist the families on such topics as financial literacy, obtaining a GED, budgeting, resume writing, and parenting-- anything that will help stabilize the family and move them towards self-sufficiency.

The capacity at Safe Haven is five rooms for the family emergency shelter, five rooms in transitional housing and four families in the Rapid Re-Housing program (families have to have been through Safe Haven programs to be eligible for their Rapid Re-Housing assistance). On average, families stay 90-110 days in the shelter program and can stay up to two years in the transitional housing program. Rapid Re-Housing lasts for six months.

“The shelter is not a solution,” Lavery said. “It fills a critical need along a path to self-sufficiency for some families, but it’s not a solution.”

Lavery said Safe Haven is working on plans for expansion. A core decision is whether to invest in support programs for families or in more housing opportunities as families “graduate” from the programs. Both are needed, but funding will dictate what can be done.

Nashville undoubtedly has a need for permanent, low-income housing for women and children. Lavery said Safe Haven does not have enough transitional housing for its emergency shelter population. In addition, there simply is not enough affordable rental housing available that does not use up 50% of a low-income families budget.

Local organizations serving women and children indicate that they get far more shelter and program requests from this population than they have the capacity for. A national study released in 2009 found that one in every 50 American children experiences homelessness. Every year more than 1.5 million children are homeless at one point in time. (www.HomelessChildrenAmerica.org) And according to the U.S. Census, 26.6% of children under the age of 18 in Davidson County live below the poverty level. That is one in every four children. (American Community Survey, 2006-08)

In Tennessee, more than 16,500 children are estimated to be homeless per year. Divided into age groups:
Nearly 7,000 are under the age of 6;
Nearly 8,000 are enrolled in grades K-8; and
About 1,700 are enrolled in grades 9-12.
These totals do not include about 2,000 homeless youth not enrolled in school.

In Nashville, according to the Tennessee Department of Education, the number of homeless children enrolled in Metro Public schools has been increasing steadily since 2005:
1,236 in 05/06;
1,558 in 06/07;
1,657 in 07/08;
About 1,600 in 08/09.
The total student enrollment in Nashville/Davidson County public schools is about 75,000.

Metro Social Services observes a significant gap for housing for women with children that is considered affordable housing. The current waiting list for public housing or Section 8 Housing fluctuates from 500-3,000 families. The majority of families living in poverty are headed by females. Lack of affordable child care is a problem. Women with male children above 10-12 years of age have limited access to emergency shelter.

News Briefs:

• The Metropolitan Homelessness Commission’s SSI/SSDI program is continuing to record high success rates for its applicants. SOAR stands for SSI/SSDI Outreach, Access and Recovery and is locally administered by Park Center (www.parkcenternashville.org).
  Park Center reports the following outcomes from May 2006 – June 2009:
  • 160 of 171 applications were approved on initial application. This means that 93.5% of applications were approved. The average time to approval was 70 days.
  In comparison:
  • The national average of all applicant approvals is 37%; for homeless applicants it is 10-15%. Decisions usually take anywhere from 120 days to two years.
    
    
• The SSI/SSDI program generates more than $1.3 million in cash per year. The calculations break down as follows:
  The average monthly benefit per person is $684. With 160 beneficiaries, the SOAR program generates $109,440 per month or $1,313,280 per year.
  In addition, 112 beneficiaries receive Medicaid only, 46 receive Medicaid and Medicare and two receive Medicare only. This amounts to cost savings for the local hospital and health care systems.
  
  
• A spell of extremely cold weather caused Mayor Karl Dean to take precautions and charge the Office of Emergency Management (OEM) with the task to ensure that no homeless persons die on the streets from exposure. The Metropolitan Homelessness Commission worked very closely with OEM to open additional emergency shelters at different congregations including Mt. Bethel, McKendree, St. Stephens, Otter Creek, Woodland Presbyterian and Community Housing (in addition to the Rescue Mission, the Guest House, the Day Center, and Room In The Inn. An immense outreach effort began, which brought an average of 1,352 people into shelters from January 6 through January 12, 2010.
  
  
• A second cold spell from January 29-31, 2010, resulted in an average of 1,248 individuals sheltered with McKendree, Woodland Presbyterian, and Otter Creek opening their doors in addition to the Rescue Mission, Room In The Inn, and the Guest House.
  
  
• Mayor Karl Dean presented Nashville’s Poverty Reduction Initiative Plan on February 22, 2010. The plan calls for a 50% reduction in the city’s poverty rate in 10 years. The current poverty rate is 16% of Nashville’s total population according to the U.S. Census Bureau (2006). The poverty rate for Nashville children under 18 years of age is 26% and the poverty rate for grown-ups 65 and older is 11%. For an online copy of the Poverty Reduction Initiative Plan, click here.

• The Key Alliance kicked off an annual awareness campaign in March using the powerful images drawn by 52 fourth graders of Warner Elementary Enhanced Option School who participated in the 2010 Homelessness Poster Contest. During the year-long campaign posters alongside messages from participating fourth graders will be displayed at different locations throughout Davidson County. All the posters are shown at the East Community Center, at 601 Russell St., throughout April.

• Click here for more information and to sign up to participate or support Walk A Mile In My Shoes.