Voices From the Sidewalk: The Problem with Shelters

In my community, we have two homeless shelters. One is a low-barrier shelter and the other a high-barrier shelter. At these shelters, which are usually full, people have a bed, meals, showers and laundry services. What they don’t have is a good ratio of case managers and/or peer support specialists per resident. A shelter is fortunate if they
have even as few as two case managers.

So, my question is: How are homeless individuals that reside in the bigger shelters supposed to exit homelessness? Quite simply, they don’t. They remain “stuck” in their environment as well as stuck in their way of thinking. As a former shelter case manager, I have seen this time and time again. A revolving door that offers no hope for
relief.

A recovery shelter is one in which homeless individuals may show up to the shelter under the influence, but they are not turned away. Instead, we love them enough to let them not stay stuck in addiction. Most shelters are not recovery based, though they may make those claims.

The newest shelter that is still in the development stages, will house a manageable number of homeless, starting with 15-20 individuals. This particular shelter is called Sparrows Landing and will be a faith-led refuge for people seeking to better their lives. While being faith based, the residents will not be required to pray or attend any religious services. Anyone and with any religious beliefs will be able to access shelter services through Sparrows Landing Recovery Shelter.

There is another issue at hand when discussing homelessness and that is the toll the shelters take on our emergency response agencies. According to Albany’s Chief of Police, Marcia Harnden, Albany Helping Hands Homeless Shelter had 42 calls for assistance this year, with most of those being “failure to register as a sex offender.” 2nd Chance Shelter had 83 calls, with the majority of those calls being “trespassing.”

Collectively, that’s over 100 calls specifically related to shelter residents. The problem with this is that it does put a burden on our emergency response teams. Not only do those experiencing homelessness often need police intervention, but they
also need emergency medical attention. Emergency Rooms are often the first place a homeless person will go for medical help, as they typically do not have a primary care physician.

To summarize; We need to focus on developing manageable sized shelters that hold residents accountable and where they can have one on one help navigating their way to independence versus staying stuck in a shelter for months to even years.

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