A regional planning committee is in the process of creating a plan that is meant to end homelessness by offering permanent housing to people considered chronically homeless.
According to Van Taylor, executive director of the Kokomo Rescue Mission and member of the regional planning committee, the national model to end homelessness is to target chronic homelessness – a person who has been homeless for 12 consecutive months, or a person who has been homeless four times in the past three years and has a disability.
Taylor said the level of disability that qualifies someone to be considered “chronically homeless” is difficult to measure, as the Kokomo Rescue Mission has considered some to qualify, only for that person to be turned away from permanent housing.
The goal to end chronic homelessness comes from the idea that housing would stabilize a homeless person faster than anything else.
“It used to be that we thought we need to help people get stabilized,” said Taylor, saying now the primary goal is to find housing. The creation of this regional plan came from funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
The regional planning committee has created a flow chart for the area which details a person’s course of action if they were to experience a housing crisis.
The ultimate goal is to offer permanent supportive housing. Taylor explained “supportive” as meaning there are services “wrapped around you.” Those services could be medical, such as if a person had an addiction, offering a treatment program as part of the stabilizing effort.
If a person requires emergency services of some kind, they would be sent to a health institute like St. Vincent Kokomo or Community Howard Regional Health. Otherwise, they would be sent to be prescreened at the Kokomo Rescue Mission or Coordinated Assistance Ministries.
Those institutions would determine whether they are chronically homeless, and they would be given a 17-page vulnerability index. This begins a process called “coordinated entry.”
The purpose of coordinated entry is to give housing to people who are the most vulnerable. The vulnerability index, SPDAT, asks questions about the person’s health, economic situation and any potentially dangerous situations they might be in.
This creates a list of who is in line to receive permanent housing, which the person can live in as long as they want, assuming they follow the guidelines of where they are living, according to Taylor.
According to Taylor, being on the list can still be a slow process, as housing at Jackson Street Commons has 27 beds and the Veterans Administration offers 25. Both of those places are only open to veterans. Shelter Plus Care, which is not exclusive to veterans, offers 17 places.
Taylor noted that these are apartments rather than just dorms.
This system is planned to be up and running July 1, but Taylor said he doubts it will be ready by then. The committee is waiting on training on how to administer the SPDAT, and locally, they are waiting for the government to arrange the training.