An 11.5 percent decline in the metro area’s homeless population reflects a national trend and raises hopes that an ambitious Denver program to end homelessness within 10 years will succeed.
A survey done Jan. 23 by the Metropolitan Denver Homeless Initiative and Mile High United Way showed the metro area homeless population at 9,091, versus 10,268 last year. Overall numbers were down, but the city of Denver’s share was 50.1 percent of the total, up from 46 percent a year ago.
The city’s tally perhaps would have been higher without Mayor John Hickenlooper’s 10-year plan to end homelessness, a cooperative effort among government, private and faith-based agencies to get people off the streets, find them places to live, jobs and treatment for substance abuse or mental health problems.
Since last July, the plan, called Denver’s Road Home, has added 398 housing units for the homeless, who must pay 30 percent of their income for rent and stick to a plan to stay off the streets. Also, 140 shelter and 100 cold-weather beds have been added; 156 families got help to keep them from becoming homeless; services, from employment assistance to mental health treatment, were boosted.
Philip Mangano, executive director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, says similar initiatives in more than 200 American cities have yielded startling results: New York reports a 13 percent decrease in homelessness; Portland, Ore., 20 percent; Miami, 30 percent; San Francisco, 28 percent and Philadelphia, 50 percent.
Traditional soup-kitchen approaches won’t end the cycle of chronic homelessness, Mangano asserted in a meeting with The Post’s editorial board last week. But results-oriented 10-year plans do, and are far cheaper than a constant cycle of detox and emergency room treatment. Key to success are partnerships at all levels of government and in the community.
“No one level of government can get the job done,” Mangano said. Federal funding to fight homelessness will be a record $4.15 billion in fiscal 2007, he said.
We doubt homelessness can be eliminated 100 percent – everything from economic downturns to catastrophic illness can put families on the street – but innovative approaches like the 10-year plans of Denver and other cities are showing early promise.
