I worked all morning in the office and then in the afternoon went to a meeting about a grant - a rather large grant which requires the cooperation of several different agencies and the adherence to several rigid guidelines. We talked about information systems (tracking the homeless), collaboration of services, combining money into one big pot, and so on and so on and so on. It made my head swim.
See, as I understand it, Obama released a bunch of money to help the homeless - either preventing them from becoming homeless or speeding up the process to getting them into a house. Their idea is to put all the money into one pot (over a million dollars) and help the families one or two months worth of rent, help with utilities, having one social worker to deal with all of it.
MY idea for our share of the money is to extend our transitional homeless program - helping them with rent as long as they continue in the "treatment" program, going to classes, paying off fines, dealing with all the things that prevent them from following budgets that others are able to adher to, for a few more months AFTER they get out of our transitional housing. so they have 3-6 months in a transitional house (Booth Center) and 3-6 months living in the real world - all the while, working with us and the available agencies, groups, and teachers who can help them learn to make better choices.
To me, the first way is like going to Urgent Care - a bandaid until you can see a real doctor. It's much cost effective to look at the whole person and see what is causing the problem - instead of treating the symptoms.
Decisions, decisions. It's like playing God. I would hate to get paid to do this.
Oh, wait, I do.
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