Advocates want homeless treated same as evacuees

author : Pat Tassoni topic : homelessness | Hurricane Katrina | poverty

by Pat Tassoni

Poverty is a form of violence. It is a result of inequality rather than a proof of inequality... The existence of poverty in the United States should not be accepted as a necessary evil or an insoluble problem, but should be considered a crisis requiring emergency measures. It is a matter of will and priorities, not a matter of resources.

- Martin Luther King, Jr.

In a community which lacks the capacity to take care of its own chronically homeless, local low-income advocates are worried that Katrina disaster relief is going to tear a wide hole in the marginal safety net that exists for Olympia's vulnerable population. The evacuees are going to impact the old homeless infrastructure because there isn't any excess capacity. Olympia just barely addresses the current homeless needs.

What is being done to accommodate the influx of people relocated from New Orleans is in sharp contrast to the inadequate services and facilities available to local homeless people. For the evacuees, plans are in the works to find jobs and regular housing, albeit temporary, but such services for local homeless people are not nearly as organized or funded.

The response of the city and the community to hurricane survivors should be used as a model for helping all homeless residents. This catastrophe raises the level of consciousness about what is needed to take care of the homeless. Bringing in all these new homeless shows us what needs to be done for our own homeless who live in a daily state of constant crisis.

As with victims of the hurricane, people who are homeless have been displaced by crisis - individual crisis - which can be just as devastating as something experienced en mass, such a hurricane. The creation of new resources to take care of the evacuees -- massive emergency, temporary and transitional housing - is an option that should be explored for the area's regular homeless population, not just those whose displacement results from a "natural" disaster.

In the Olympia City Town Hall meeting in January 2005, "Homelessness" was identified as a priority concern by citizen participants more than most other issues. Yet it didn't even make the City Council's list of priorities -- which included tourism and a parking garage.

Low-income advocates have been lobbying the city to fund a centrally located day-use shelter that would function as a resource to the homeless and provide day care for homeless children. They have also been pushing for more affordable housing to transition the homeless into housing. Funding for these programs could come from existing city budgets. It could start as a one-time source and then permanent funding would have to be found. This could be the beginning of a regular series of new programs for the region's 10-year plan to curb chronic homelessness and hunger -- something that was a great concern among advocates before Hurricane Katrina was even a tropical storm.

The local jurisdictions should also relax enforcement of ordinances that target the homeless such as sleeping in public. Hurricane evacuees being brought in who have untreated mental illness are not going to be any more easily housed here than they were there. Their illness will lead to behaviors that should be sympathized with and treated rather than criminalized.