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T he mother and her teenage daughter were
faced with a decision: make the car pay
ment or pay the rent.
At least by paying for the car, they figured,
they would still have transportation, and a
place to stay at night It's the kind of decision
that's made nearly every day in Clarke County,
especially in a slow economy. On any given
night, according to county numbers and social
workers, between 350 and 1,000 men, women
and parents with children don't have a reliable
place they can call home.
But Paul Lazzari believes he's found the
solution. Uzz3fi, director of The Stable
Foundation, says the nonprofit's three-pronged
approach addresses not just the issue of
homelessness, but also the underlying causes
that get people or families into that situa
tion. Using a model called "Housing First/the
foundation works with people on the verge of
being evicted to help them keep their homes,
with the idea that once
you lose a permanent
place to live, going to
work or school—or even
eating a meal—becomes
increasingly difficult.
"We're changing
the focus to preven
tion, working with
families with an eviction
notice," said Lazzari.
"With as little as $1,000
or $1,500, a lot of these
families can be self-
sufficient."
The issue of home
lessness is complex.
Erin Barger, execu
tive director of Action
Ministries and chair of
the Northeast Georgia
Homeless and Poverty
Coalition, said she tries
to look at the issue form
the standpoint of a phi
lanthropist who wants
to tackle the problem with as many resources
as possible.
"Providing shelter is very important," she
said, "but I think some people are interested
in addressing the bigger picture, trying to
move them out of homelessness. That needs to
happen in a really comprehensive way." With
Action Ministries' Our Daily Bread program,
which provides two meals a day for anyone
short on food and cash, "I see people who are
homeless and experience poverty every day,
and I see being homeless is a part-time job,"
she said. "So, to expect someone who doesn't
know where they're sleeping at night to go out
and find a job is not a realistic expectation."
From 2011 to 2012, according to Athens-
Clarke County statistics, the number of home
less individuals—including children—without
a reliable place to live has decreased, from
407 to 361. And when you take into account
two shelters—Walk on Water and Bigger
Vision—that together housed nearly 100
people on any given night but have not been
open this year, 2012's lower number is even
more significant, said Evan Mills, community
development specialist with ACCs Human and
Economic Development office. The total num
ber of individuals without a place to stay-in
a shelter or otherwise—remained the same,
while the overall number of people in emer
gency and transitional shelters decreased,
according to the county's annual homeless
count
The Housing First model is in place around
the country, and the ACC government receives
about $690,000 a year in federal grants to
implement the idea, primarily through a
program run by Advantage Behavioral Health
Services. The grants pay basic utilities and
subsidize rent for an apartment, based on the
displaced family's income, A partnering social
service agency, such as Advantage or The
Stable Foundation, provides a case worker to
help the family set up a plan to get back on
track, financially and otherwise.
But what makes The Stable foundation
different is the involvement of community
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Vance Snow cooks sausage on a recent Friday morning at Action Ministries’ Our Deity Bread kitchen.
The kitchen provides breakfast and lunch during the week to anyone in need of a hot meal and relies on
volunteers iike Snow to help cook the food.
in its mission. Hundreds of volunteers make ,
phone calls or drop by to visit the families
in the program, simply checking up on them,
getting to know them and making sure the
families know they are valued members of our
community.
"When people face homelessness condi
tions, they become untethered. If one of
those pieces isn't there, change happens really
quick," said Lazzari, noting that once you're
evicted, it's more likely you'll be late to work
or even lose your job because you've lost that
foundation. "We saw the Housing First model
and said, “We can bring* more to this.'"
Kerri Steele, the program director at the
Athens Area Homeless Shelter, smiled know
ingly when asked about the Housing First
model. At AAHS, the mothers and their chil
dren who are housed there follow a strict set
of rules and a personalized action plan to get
back to independent living. Sometimes it's a
matter of refocusing monetary priorities—no
buying designer jeans, for example—while
other times, a resident needs job training or
child care in order to get her family back on
its feet.
But every situation is as varied as the
possible solutions, Steele said. Which is why
the goal of Housing First while important,
isn't the total solution, she cautions. "I tend
to find that no movements in one direction
work," she said. "Housing First seems to be a
great idea for a good amount of people. So,
I think well push ahead with this and have
some successes—and some failures—and then
well find a model that suits both."
One thing to note about shelters in the
Athens area is that each one caters to a
specific demographic The Healing Place
is a shelter only for men, while AAHS only
shelters women and children. Which is why
lazzari has put so much faith in The Stable
Foundation's plan to keep people in their own
homes, followed up with counseling and com-,
munity support: it's a less expensive solution.
Since 2008, the foundation has helped 25
families and 80 individuals retain roofs over
their heads, at an aver
age cost of $10.50 per
night. Lazzari noted the
$7.9 million, earmarked
to a coalition of local
homeless groups to
build a "one-stop shop"
for homeless services,
that came from the
University of Georgia
in exchange for the
former U.S. Navy Supply
Corps School campus,
which the university is
using for a new health
sciences campus. For a
fraction of that cost,
he said, The Stable
Foundation could find
housing in the com
munity for 100 families
a year and keep money
flowing into the existing
local economy, rather
than using it to build
ancthe r building.
A typical family in The Stable Foundation's
program transitions out of subsidized housing
after six months. "For $700,000, you can pay
rent for 100 families—it's about $7,000 a year
(per family], fully subsidized," he said, noting
the even higher cost of incarceration or hospi
tal stays as a result of living on the streets.
Lazzari said the foundation is putting
together a cost-benefit analysis of the amount
individuals without a consistent home cost
the local government in terms of health care,
emergency services and incarceration. Within
the next few months, he plans to present
the results of the study to the Mayor and
Commission, along with his foundation's pro
posed solution. Ideally, he said, the county
would be on board with dedicating resources
to keeping families—and an estimated 330
children—in permanent homes rather than
looking for room in shelters.
"You stilt have people who need interven
tion, but there's proactive solutions that can
solve this problem today," he said. "We'd like
to fix it and not be here in four years."
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JUNE 27, 2012 • FLAGPOLE.COM 7