Real Change is joining SHARE/WHEEL and Nickelsville to redirect the priorities of the Committee to End Homelessness in King County (CEHKC), which is responsible for the Ten-Year Plan to End Homelessness.
In the spirit of the Occupy protests, we're calling this movement Occupy CEHKC. We'll be occupying the
April 25 meeting of the governing board of CEHKC. We will meet at 7:30 a.m.
April 25 at Westlake Plaza and march to the meeting together.
The name Occupy CEHKC may be a mouthful, but our objectives are clear: We want the committee to include the perspectives of homeless people and focus on economic justice as it works toward its worthy goal of ending homelessness by 2015.
Homelessness in America is systemic. It is driven by multiple factors: devastating cuts in federal housing programs; the continuing loss of privately-owned affordable housing through rent increases, condo conversions, demolitions and speculative sale; the massive changes in our economy, including the loss of manufacturing and proliferation of lower-paying service jobs; and the continuing erosion of the minimum wage.
High unemployment, home mortgage foreclosures and cuts in essential programs, such as the state's Disability Lifeline, only add to these challenges.
In order for the Ten-Year-Plan to End Homelessness to be successful, the committee responsible for it must use data collection as a tool, not a weapon, prioritize low-cost survival services and create and promote an agenda that addresses the core cause of homelessness: economic injustice.
Data collection is not a weapon
The name of the data collection system, Safe Harbors, is unintentionally ironic. In practice it is not safe, nor is it a useful way to direct funding or set priorities. Compliance with Safe Harbors is required for federal funding, but local service providers have only been able to collect data on about 60 percent of their clients. SHARE maintains that they are not able to meet the demands of Safe Harbors and considers the programs' strictures an intrusion on the privacy rights of the residents of their low-cost system of tent encampments and self-managed shelters.
Instead of working for a solution, the city of Seattle threatens to cut SHARE's funding. Data collection should not be so burdensome as to undermine available successful methods of survival. While the CEHKC is in a difficult position because of federal requirements, why not use a lighter touch? Minimize the demands on providers, recognize the civil liberty issues involved and acknowledge that all this data collection is not particularly helpful for a system that is so woefully underfunded that literally thousands are left on the street every single night.
Housing first?
CEHKC's current emphasis on housing first, the goal of getting the chronically homeless into stable housing with supportive services, is a good idea. It also works, as the 1811 Eastlake project has demonstrated. But housing first should not be emphasized at the expense of any and all other approaches. We need a flexible system that can meet the complex needs of those who are homeless tonight. We should not have to choose between long-term housing and the immediate need for emergency shelter. One of the stated goals of the Ten-Year Plan, after all, is to support interim survival mechanisms, and SHARE shelters excel at this. Why don't we develop a system of tracking turn-aways, determining need and building a response to that need?
The root of the problem
Finally, we must focus on homelessness as an economic justice issue, rather than approach it as a social problem to be managed. We need to address the fundamental issues of income inequality, the lack of living wage jobs, the continuing loss of affordable housing and society's general neglect of the poor. For example, what is the committee's position on the proposed demolition of 207 low-income units at the Northgate Apartments to make way for a higher-density, higher-income project? The city of Seattle's planning department has failed to recommend the "1-for-1" replacement that is required under the zoning code. If this is unchanged by the Seattle City Council, we will lose 207 unsubsidized low-income units that are home to one of the most racially and ethnically diverse neighborhoods in Seattle. You can't talk meaningfully about the Ten-Year Plan's contribution to new housing if you do not account for the thousands of units we lose every year.
Real Change is committed to our mission of being a voice of the poor and taking action for economic justice. Our involvement in Occupy CEHKC is only the beginning of a long-term effort to change the dialogue around homelessness in Seattle by including the voices of those who are most directly affected: People experiencing homelessness.
We hope you'll join us as we "occupy" the CEHKC governing board meeting on Wednesday, April 25.