Right after I mostly
retired a few years ago, I volunteered to work one day per week in a
large homeless feeding kitchen. My experiences there led me to start
attending the monthly meeting of the Tacoma-Pierce County Coalition
to End Homelessness – a group of approximately 50 providers of
services to homeless people. A couple of years ago, I was asked to
participate in the HUD-mandated Homeless Continuum of Care (CofC).
There is probably a CofC
in your county. It develops comprehensive plans to end homelessness
and makes recommendations to the county and to HUD about funding
housing development and support services. It is an interesting place
to do community psychology. I have participated in policy
development, consolidation of three different county plans to end
homelessness (each required by a different funder) into one
integrated and more holistic plan, review of grant requests, and
governance of the CofC. Currently I am serving as chairperson.
Like your state (unless
you live in North Dakota or Alaska) the State of Washington is
experiencing a major fiscal crisis. Our state has no income tax and
the voters have repeatedly rejected efforts to authorize one. We
rely upon sales taxes and “business and occupation” taxes to
finance state government. Both of these are markedly sensitive to
fluctuations in the economy. Our social safety net is in shreds as
state government revenues keep falling.
I have been especially
concerned about how people who are homeless or at imminent risk of
homelessness can survive as their sources of income are eliminated.
I have been advocating for some time that our county needs to do
contingency planning for a dramatic increase in homeless individuals,
couples, and families with children. As part of that process, I
began to gather statistical data about the probable extent of the
emergency in Pierce County. I wrote an editorial, subsequently
published by our local newspaper summarizing what I learned. You
will find it here.
Later I learned from the Washington Department of Labor that from
January through October of 2011, 70,643 Pierce County residents have
exhausted their unemployment compensation. We have no idea how many
spouses and children are impacted or how they are faring, but we can
predict that a significant number are at high risk of homelessness.
Pierce County now is
starting a contingency planning process to try and mediate our
pending homelessness emergency. Involved will be Pierce County and
City of Tacoma staff members, Associated Ministries, hopefully an
architect/planner, informal advice from the Pierce County Department
of Emergency Management, and me.
What are the lessons for
Community Psychology? Willingness to get involved will be welcomed
by your community. A holistic overview is valuable, although the
scope of the need may feel truly overwhelming. Collaboration with
other professions in search of solutions is fundamental. Many human
service providers share our values. Gathering and aggregating data
is very helpful. Informing the general public about both scope and
consequences is fundamental, and local news media are willing to help
accomplish that.
Al Ratcliffe, Ph. D
Tacoma, WA
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