The arrival of warm weather unfortunately erodes the sense of urgency people feel during the winter to find a solution for homelessness. It’s important to remember that the people you see with their backpacks on the street now are the same ones who touched your heart last winter. Same people. Same problem.
The Concord Coalition to End Homelessness needs broad community support if we are to succeed in ending homelessness in our community. It can be done. We begin with identifying those who are chronically homeless – those who have been without a permanent home the longest. The answer to homelessness is a home, and we have rental vouchers to place people into apartments in the community. With a caseworker providing encouragement and assistance, most of these people can attain stability and remain housed while becoming healthier and more engaged in our community.
One of the best ways we discover and are able to reach out to those experiencing homelessness is through the Concord Homeless Resource Center. About 40 people per day come to the center. Some come only once, some come every day. There, they can confer with a caseworker to assist them in attaining what they need to improve their situation. For most of them, homelessness is a temporary situation, and many use the resources attainable through the resource center – which include a shower, computer, haircuts, a post office box and other services – to get back on their feet and into housing with little assistance.
In winter we also need shelter to protect the lives of those with nowhere else to go. Shelter does not end homelessness, but it can be an emergency stopgap measure until other solutions are identified and applied.
Having these three resources allows us to connect with and serve the people most in need.
At the end of 2016, a gentleman who has been homeless for 22 years and was living by the river in a tent came to the resource center and was identified as a good candidate for our new Housing First Concord program. CCEH provided a housing choice voucher, along with other supportive services. He was able to get an apartment in CATCH housing.
Crystal Dutton, CATCH’s occupancy specialist for the CATCH portfolio said, “During the lease signing, he cried with every page of his lease that he signed. … He said that he couldn’t imagine that having a home was possible, and that he didn’t ever have to go back to the river.”
CCEH is working on all these fronts in the fight to end homelessness – Housing First, the resource center and an emergency winter shelter. All of these are within the city of Concord’s Plan to End Homelessness. With broad community support we have gotten through the zoning board and planning board processes in preparation for building a permanent winter shelter. We believe that with continued support from this community we can bring chronic homelessness down to zero.
Please join us at our annual meeting on June 14 from 4:30 to 6 p.m. at the resource center (238 N. Main St.) to celebrate what we’ve accomplished to date, and for an announcement about our transformational plans for the future.
(Ellen Fries is the board chair of the Concord Coalition to End Homelessness.)