The Long-Term Goals: Unhoused Population Zero
It is imperative to admit that our current methods are failing, despite everyone sharing the common goal of helping those in need. I've observed firsthand how this issue has been manipulated as a wedge issue nationwide, where moral judgments and fears cloud logical reasoning, leading to unproductive accusations and conflicts. We need to approach this challenge with fresh eyes, devoid of prejudice and anger, to find effective solutions.
The core of our problem is the rapid increase in homelessness, and our dream is to reverse this trend until it ceases to exist and we've established a system that can rapidly assist individuals as soon as they lose their stability. By simplifying the issue to the dynamics of inflow and outflow—people entering and leaving homelessness—we can see that achieving our goal depends on increasing the outflow capacity. This approach strips the issue down to manageable components without the city imposing stringent conditions on basic human needs like shelter during extreme conditions. I advocate for a focus on services rather than temporary comfort, aiming for a system that quickly connects individuals to long-term housing and necessary support services. This not only respects individual choices but also enhances the efficiency and effectiveness of our interventions.
Furthermore, the debate between "housing first" and "treatment first" to be a false and destructive dichotomy. I envision a system where individuals are swiftly connected to the most appropriate services through a well-coordinated network of providers, all without the city imposing unnecessary conditions. This system is designed to deliver efficient and compassionate care while respecting individual choices, including the decision to participate in treatment programs. Unfortunately, this debate is often skewed by misinformation and a lack of engagement with how these programs truly operate, which undermines their effective implementation and shifts focus away from the ultimate goal—helping people achieve stability and independence. This is what we need to discuss and expand upon, not whether one method is superior to the other, because when properly implemented, they are not in competition but in concert.
The Houston Model:
Houston saw that replicating services was not only wasteful, it was counterproductive and cruel. The traditional approach wherein a city creates a quasi permanent-temporary homeless shelter and contracts the lowest-bidding service provider to provide services intended to bridge the individual's path to permanent housing. In that approach, what is the city's actual contribution? It doesn't establish services that didn't already exist, it only provides beds and increases the capacity to support a larger homeless population. It does not make a significant contribution to increase the capacity of the outflow capacity -- it neither adds new services nor streamlines existing services. And, without increasing the outflow to match or exceed the inflow, the population simply grows, and soon they need more beds. So what Houston did was act as the head of a network that tied all the services together. It created a database with all the organizations in the greater metropolitan area, their requirements and target demographics, and put it together in a streamlined app that an outreach team would use when making contact with homeless individuals to see if they want to get off the streets. They'd simply enter the individual's information in the app and it would return a list of available options for permanent housing and it is then the choice of the individual whether they would like to accept it.
This system does not put an emphasis on either "treatment first" or "housing first". It's, in fact, irrelevant. The individual is free to choose whether they are willing to pursue sobriety or not, and they are free to choose whether the location is convenient or otherwise works for them. If the individual has no issues with going to a rehabilitation facility on a path to permanent housing, and we don't offer that because we are blindly following a what should be a service-level decision, then it is WE who are keeping them homeless. If the individual has no issues with moving into permanent housing in OKC, but we don't offer that because some people interpret the provision of choice as 'shipping the homeless elsewhere', then it is WE who are keeping them homeless.
Norman needs to stop throwing beds at the problem, and it needs to work smarter. We don't actually need to be the one providing beds because those services exist already. We don't actually need to create a service provision department because organizations that provide the entire spectrum of services exist already. But these organizations are disorganized and work in competition, not in concert with each other. That's what Houston ended -- when a person qualifies for a program and the outreach team taps the "Book Now" button, that organization is required to accept the indvidual (who qualified during the data entry). Through this approach, Houston had an unhoused population of 8,500 sleeping on its streets just a few years ago. Today, there are less than 1,500.
What of our "Emergency Shelter"?
I was on Council in September, 2020 when we voted to open the emergency overnight/warming shelter. The intent was to give people a place to sleep during the freezing winter months. Since then, it has become a quasi-permanent shelter where 48 of the 52 beds are taken by repeat guests each month. People have now become long-term residents of this emergency overnight shelter, which is far beyond the original scope. In addition, the very existence of this "emergency warming shelter" gives us the illusion of a safe place for people to come in from the cold when the weather does get severe. Yet we have a homeless population of 300 in Norman, meaning 250+ are out of luck. We need to get back to the basic intent and we need to truly facilitate it. I have already worked with the city manager to ensure that we will have recreation centers open when the weather becomes dangerously cold that will accomodate the ENTIRE homeless population if they choose to come in for warmth. It will not be comfortable - there may or may not be beds or cots available, but there will be chairs, floorspace, and it will be warm. This achieves the objective of keeping people alive when the "emergency warming shelter" can only accomodate, on average, four people who don't already have a bed reserved.
What, then, should become of our "overnight shelter"? I believe we need to begin its decommissioning immediately. If we are going to host a homeless shelter, then it needs to be a 24-hour center that supplements the networking approach of the Houston Model. Houston's version is called the "Navigation Center", and when an individual accepts a permanent housing option they are provided a place where they, including their pets and loved ones, can sleep and wait for up to a few day for the permanent housing option to become available and transportation is choreographed.
