Sue Lani Madsen: ‘Connecting to resources’ isn’t the answer to homelessness

Just connect them to resources. It’s a goal common to stakeholders debating homelessness, whether they approach Camp Hope and the many smaller encampments a social justice warrior or a defender of community health and safety, or both.

Connect them to resources. If only it were that simple.

Revive Spokane is one of those connectors. Terrance Nelson, peer counselor and housing navigator with Revive, has been working with our tenuously housed nephew for more than six months to find permanent, safe housing. It’s been eye-opening to walk alongside the process, helping where possible and watching the frustration build as one option after another falls through. It’s hard to hold onto hope. And it’s hard to picture “connecting to resources” as a solution. It’s barely a start on the journey.

According to Revive Spokane, these are the top five barriers to housing people living houseless and homeless in Spokane:

1. Less than a 1% vacancy in Spokane. There is just not enough housing. And the housing that seems to be available has long waitlists, sometimes as long as two years.

2. Overcoming a person’s past history. Whether it’s criminal history, past evictions, debt or a poor credit score.

3. Time. The time it takes a person to rebuild their credit and any other rental criteria that are mandatory to be eligible for a place to live of their own.

4. Money. Most properties require monthly income of 2.5 to 3 times the rent, a challenge when people are living off minimum wage work, Social Security or other assistance programs.

5. Many people don’t have the help to navigate the housing process – filling out an application, scheduling a viewing, reading a lease, etc.

Nelson notes there are also people with behavioral health issues who struggle with building community and are in danger of slipping into isolation during the long wait. “It is a lot for someone to stay with the lengthy process to be housed,” Nelson said. “There are many barriers to being housed in Spokane, but at Revive Spokane we help people see those barriers and cross over them to get to their finish line. A safe place to call home.”

The most hopeful stories I know come from Spokane’s Adult and Teen Challenge Men’s Center in Spokane, Nelson being one of them. He completed the yearlong residential program and is now 12 years clean and sober, husband and father, encouraging others on that long walk.

Sonny Verastegui is outreach coordinator for the program, also a graduate and now four years clean and sober. He had a choice of more prison time or commitment to Adult and Teen Challenge, and he credits the judge and God’s grace with transforming his life. He recently spotted an inmate acquaintance on a street corner in Spokane and pulled over to chat. Verastegui said the man was impressed with the car he was driving and how healthy he looked, a sign of success. But it was a frustrating conversation, not because the man was homeless but because he had connected with resources that were merely keeping him housed out of sight and out of mind. “He called it getting paid to do drugs, living at Donna Haven with free rent and clean needles,” said Verastegui. “We can be handed all the resources and still need purpose and hope to live well, and you understand our hope is in Jesus Christ.” Yes, I do.

Homelessness is too complex to be turned into a political weapon. There is no one barrier nor one solution for moving people from houselessness to home. There is a place for compassion. There is also a place for accountability, for tough love. Some are better at providing one than the other, but we all hold a piece of the truth.

Contact Sue Lani Madsen at rulingpen@gmail.com.