Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

County confident of concerted effort to end chronic homelessness

Huntridge Circle Park

Steve Marcus

Cushions, possible left by a homeless person, are shown at Huntridge Circle Park, 1251 S. Maryland Pkwy., Monday, Oct. 10, 2016.

Ending chronic homelessness by the end of the year is achievable, say Clark County officials. It’s all in the data.

The chronically homeless make up less than 5 percent of the total homeless population here. However, they are the most at risk — research puts their mortality rate at four to nine times that of the general public. They are often the costliest because of emergency-room visits, incarceration and interaction with law enforcement.

That’s why the federal government has made chronic homelessness a priority. It is seen as an important step toward ending all homelessness.

“We think it’s achievable by the end of this year,” says Michael Pawlak, the director of social services for Clark County. “That’s our HUD directive and our family focus.”

The Department of Housing and Urban Development in 2010 challenged communities to end chronic homelessness by 2017. Chronic homelessness is defined by HUD as a person with a disability who (1) lives in a safe haven, an emergency center or a place not meant for human habitation, and (2) has been homeless for one year or on at least four separate occasions in the last three years when the combined length of homelessness has been 12 months.

An important caveat: The “end” of chronic homeless in HUD context does not literally mean there would be no chronically homeless on the streets, alleys or tunnels. Instead, it means achieving what HUD refers to as “functional zero” — when the number of homeless is no greater than the monthly housing placement rate.

Southern Nevada has reached functional zero status for homeless veterans. It was one of only 35 communities in three states to achieve this by the 2015 deadline set by HUD.

According to the 2016 homeless census and survey, Southern Nevada has approximately 285 chronically homeless individuals on any given night. That is 4.6 percent of the overall homeless population of 6,208 individuals on any given night.

The majority of these chronically homeless — 88.8 percent — are unsheltered. The remainder are sheltered in emergency shelters or at Safe Haven.

Seventy-two percent of them reported having two or more disabling conditions.

To address the overlapping needs of the chronically homeless — and, really, all homeless people — local agencies and service providers have been focusing on building a coordinated intake and assessment system.

Pawlak describes it as a “no wrong door” approach.

It uniformly gathers data on people’s history and needs. For a homeless person, it means more easily being connected to the most appropriate opportunity or program. For the service providers and agencies, it means being able to prioritize people in order and ensure that those who need the help most receive it first.

“Once we know who the folks are and have verified that they meet the HUD definition, then we can track who is able and ready to avail themselves of a housing opportunity and who is not,” says Michele Fuller-Hallauer, the continuum of care coordinator for the county. “If they’re not, we can make sure we keep an eye and engage them on a weekly basis until they are. Sometimes it takes many, many opportunities to be ready.”

In a similar vein, a new program called Frequent User Systems Engagement, or FUSE, is being used to identify people who interact with both the criminal justice system and homeless systems on a regular basis. According to Pawlak, coordinators received the first data matches last week and expect there to be some overlap between FUSE-identified people and the chronically homeless.

Adds Fuller-Hallauerm, “We can engage those folks while they’re incarcerated or upon discharge.”

Additionally, data collection is also expanding beyond what’s gathered by homeless services to include information from ancillary entities like food banks or prevention services.

To end homelessness, you have to look at the big picture, says Pawlak.

“We are trying to put into place a system that will be able to handle all those day-to-day individuals,” he says. “For too long we’ve just focused on running from here to there to there to deal with individuals one on one.”

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