Reply to Homeless person sleeping in my front door vestibule

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This is exactly the problem. The people that run homeless shelters should help you not cops.

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Yes,yes, YES!!! 
If the non emergency line could instead send a social worker to bring him somewhere safe, he wouldn't relocate to another vestibule, or street resulting in him getting injured or sick.

You weren't wrong OP. I get your choice. But the system needs a better solution. [/quote]

All of these people have been approached by a social worker at some time or have been referred to somewhere safe to sleep, even by the police.  They are sleeping on the street because they don't prefer shelters for a variety of reasons.

The solution would be institutions for in-patient mental health/substance abuse treatment, but it would take a lot more than just a visit from a social worker to get them there.

- MSW [/quote]

[b]sad that an MSW apparently has no knowledge of the Housing First model?[/b][/quote]

Good point.

We used to know a guy who had been homeless for 10 years and alcoholic. One time he showed up at my house with a broken leg. He'd been attacked by someone, ended up in the ER, they put a cast on and gave him an appt with orthopedics for the following week, and sent him on his way. There was snow on the ground, he had a sock on the foot of the broken leg, and all I could think about was gangrene or something. Got him clean socks and took him back to the same ER and made a stink until they arranged for him to be taken by cab to a local "wet" shelter (where you can be intoxicated and still get a bed, actually a mat on the floor but maybe they had a cot given his leg).

The result of this was that he ended up with an apartment in a housing first building for chronically homeless people. They have 24 hour supervision, are allowed limited alcohol but not allowed to drink with other people in their unit. He lived there for a couple of years before another crisis landed him in the hospital, court ordered alcohol treatment, and eventually guardianship and a group home setting. We see his brother from time to time and apparently he has a part time job there, it's out of the area.

The housing first building was the first where I live and very controversial at the time. The original theory was that it would be transitional but there was no time limit for residency. Some people have had to be evicted over the years but several have lived there for a decade. There have been new similar projects. These approaches can significantly reduce ER visits and jail for people who participate in them. They are not required to get treatment.

I probably would have let it go re: the guy sleeping in the vestibule for one night. Those are not likely to be the people to break in or attack you. Glad the police handled it the way they should and agree that there should be responses that do not require armed and unpredictable cops. [/quote]

Re: “armed and unpredictable cops” - I’ve never seen a police officer been anything other than professional and compassionate when engaging homeless individuals in DC and MoCo over the last 20+ years. My day job and volunteer work centers on homeless advocacy, so I have called outreach workers, 911 (for medical assistance, which entails police too), and simply stopped and observed when seeing such contact downtown or in the burbs.

Please don’t paint our local police in a bad light. When it comes to deescalation and compassion, they are excellent.[/quote]

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