Community planning processes take a lot of work. I recently participated in one such process and worked on the resulting report,
A Landscape Assessment and Strategic Plan for Increasing Economic Opportunities for People Experiencing Homelessness in Whatcom County. The goal of the plan is pretty straightforward: expand the opportunities of people who have experienced homelessness to develop skills, increase income, and improve self-sufficiency.
What did it take to pull the plan together? For one, a committed Steering Committee -- with leadership from Greg Winter of Whatcom Homeless Service Center and Barbara Leveque of Whatcom Community College -- that met once a month for almost a year. Getting homeless and employment services providers that had never met before in the same room was key,
As I stood outside in the frigid Olympia morning, I glanced up at the gray sky. No rain yet, but later we might not be so lucky. I took a deep breath and exhaled, forcing myself to relax. I gathered what intellectual courage I could muster and fell in-step with more than 450 others who, like me, had gathered in our state capital and donned red garb to show our support for Housing & Homelessness Advocacy Day -- to be a voice for continued government funding for the homeless.
Truthfully, I had my doubts as to the true effectiveness of something like advocacy. I know that in theory our legislative representatives care what "we the people" have to say on each and every issue, but let's be honest -- do they really care? Don't they already have their minds made up on any given issue? Can my one
By the time
Inglourious Basterds and
Harry Potter had slipped into our discussion, the One Night Count felt more like a fraternizing affair than a civic one. So far, our flashlit trek through Woodland Park had shed more light on the film tastes of my fellow employees than on any hidden homeless population in the woods-and although I was happy to gab Golden Globes, the topic of conversation was clear evidence that we could afford to be distracted. If the homeless were out, they didn't seem very about. And because of it, our search had adopted an air of hollow formality, despite my previous hopes to make this one night count for something.
The search was racking up a number of other forfeited illusions, too, although one or two of them were admittedly pretty silly to begin with:
You mean we
Talk to your friends, family, or even people who provide services to people experiencing homelessness, and when the topic of employment comes up, many will say to you "those people can't work. They don't have the skills, they don't have the education, they don't have the desire." Sound familiar?
Well, I believe that those assertions are flat out untrue. Programs in our state, like the Seattle Conservation Corps, Washington Women's Employment and Education, and Pioneer Human Services, have demonstrated the importance of job training and placement services for populations with barriers to work for more than a decade. More and more agencies are joining their ranks. In the past couple of years, great progress has been made in Washington State to develop new pathways to economic opportunities
American scholar William Arthur Ward said: "The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails." Despite financially challenging times, committed realists from across the state are diligently adjusting the sails to try and keep pace with the growing need for service-enriched housing. Since January of this year, eight development teams from diverse regions of Washington have been attending two-day sessions of the Supportive Housing Institute (SHI) to learn how to create permanent supportive housing in their communities.
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Cheri Fleck and Ann Simpson of
Clallam County |
The teams participating in the 2009 Institute are a study in geographical and social contrast, representing Pierce, Clallam, Clark, Cowlitz, Yakima, and Chelan-Douglas
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