Streetwise in the clear - Chicago Tribune
After a turbulent week, Streetwise has been saved from closing by a flood of donations big and small totaling $190,000, far more than the $75,000 they needed to stay open.

Hate Crime Bill Might Make Md. A Pioneer – The Washington Post
Maryland could become the first state to include the homeless in those protected by hate crime legislation. The bill was passed by the House of Delegates and now has to be signed by Gov. Martin O’Malley. The chief proponent of the bill is a strong conservative, Sen. Alex X. Mooney (R-Frederick).

Movies this week about homelessness and public housing
Two movies opened this week dealing with the issues of housing and homelessness and both are based on true stories. The more famous of the two, The Soloist, is the story of LA Times coloumnist Steve Lopez who befriends Nathanial Ayers, a homeless man and a musical prodigy. The second is American Violet, which features the story of Regina Kelly and the drug sweep of her public housing complex in Texas in 2000. She was charged with being a drug dealer and decides to fight the charges and the Texas legal system. You can see a video update with the real Nathanial Ayers from the LA Times here.

A tour of the Sacramento tent city – Hardly Normal
Hardly normal, who also does the Invisible.tv videos, took a tour of the tent city in Sacramento, CA and posted his photos and thoughts into a Whrrl story. You can see the pictures from his second day in the tent city here.

Since Streetwise announced their uncertain financial future earlier this week there has been an outpouring of support and donations. Now it seems like the magazine might be able to raise enough money to stay open for the next year.

According to Chicago Business, Streetwise has received over $10,000 in online donations since Tuesday and additional pledges totally $40,000. To stay open they need another $20,000 in the next 45 days and then another $55,000 during the rest of the year.

The story has continued to get coverage in Chicago newspapers and TV stations as well as national publications like The Huffinton Post and the Associated Press.

The response on Twitter has also continued to be strong. 1st Ward Alderman Manny Flores has been tweeting about the media coverage and providing updates. Flores held a press conference about Streetwise after a City Council Committee on Human Relations meeting Wednesday and said that city funds could be used to help the magazine.

There have also been many calls through Twitter for donations.

Twitter user danticoa said Friday  “Rally cry to my Chicago friends. Let’s save Streetwise. Can you spare $2? $20?  www.StreetWise.org.  Tell 2 friends, and so on, and so on.”

Streetwise has set up a donation page to raise money and a Facebook cause has 106 members and had raised $55 as of Friday night.

I went to check with some Streetwise vendors to see if they had noticed a change in business since the news broke Tuesday.

John Patton was selling Streetwise from a folding chair in front of a vacant lot across from a Starbucks in Evanston Friday. He said business is the “same as usual” and that the couple people who have mentioned the closing of Streetwise haven’t bought magazines. He said some people had heard Streetwise had been getting donations. By about 4 p.m., Patton had sold 15 magazines. On a good day he sells 40 to 50.

Another vendor in Evanston said it has been different the past couple days and that people have seemed concerened about the magazine closing.

Has this news caused you to buy Streetwise when you normally wouldn’t or to donate to Streetwise? Tell me about it in the commetns.

Sorry it has been awhile since I posted these updates, but I’m back on schedule now and you can expect some good stories coming up.

Homeless magazine Streetwise in financial trouble but receiving donations

The big news in the Chicago homeless community this week was that 16-year-old magazine Streetwise, which is sold by the homeless and covers homelessness, was going to have to close in 45 days because of a drop in circulation and funding from foundations. The new info is that the magazine has received a flood of online donations from individuals and some large foundation pledges. The Chicago Tribune reports that they are half way to their goal for funding this week. And 1st Ward Ald. Manny Flores introduced a resolution to City Council saying that funds to end homelessness could be used to support the paper, according to CBS2 Chicago. Check out my previous post on the reaction to the Streetwise news.

Community addresses barriers surrounding Latino homelessness – Chi-Town Daily News

Megan Cottrell attended Tuesday’s community forum on Latino homelessness in Chicago. An interesting idea the came out of the forum, called Todos Contamos, or Everyone Counts, was that Latinos are underrepresented in homelessness surverys because they are much more likely to double-up with family members than turn to social service agencies for help. Check out the article for an interesting read.

New videos from Invisible People – Invisiblepeople.tv

Mark Horvath over at Invisible People took a trip to New York City recently and filmed a couple of new homeless people for his ongoing series of uncut on-the-street interviews with the homeless. His most recent interview was with Willy, who said he drinks because of the depression of being homeless and that if he had a room of his own he probably wouldn’t drink any more. Mark and other bloggers have pointed this out as an example of the benefits of the Housing First school of thought in social services. For more info about Housing First and some evidence to whether it works, check out my post from earlier this week.

Willy from invisible people on Vimeo.

For more stories check out Tony, a vet who panhandles on the highway, and Jennifer, who is six months pregnant and just getting off the streets and into housing.

Conflicting news today about publications for and about the homeless.

Chicago Breaking News reports that Streetwise, a 16-year-old publication that often write about the homeless in Chicago, may close because of financial problems. According to the article, the magazine has been cutting staff and costs, but circulation has dropped from 9,000 copies a week to 7,000 and foundation support has dropped 60 percent. Streetwise is sold by about 225 vendors who buy the magazine for 75 cents and sell it for $2.

The magazine is a non-profit that seeks to “empower men and women who currently are, or at risk of becoming homeless,” according to their Web site.

The Chicago Tribune reports that without new funding the magazine could close in 45 days.

At the same time, on Sunday the New York Times reported that similar newspapers throughout the country are thriving. Circulation is up at papers  in Portland, Seattle, Denver and Washington D.C. The papers, which almost all have street in the name, said the number of vendors is also up. Many high school and college educated people who have recently lost their steady job are turning to selling papers to begin making money immediately.

Unlike Streetwise, many of these papers reported consistent donations, increases in circulation and no drop in foundation support. Though Washington’s Street Sense reported a drop in donations that might mean raising the price that vendors pay for the paper from 25 cents to 35 cents.

Chicago’s 1st Ward Alderman Manny Flores has been talking a lot about Streetwise’s situation. Flores has been promoting the cause to help Streetwise through his Twitter account and a Facebook cause. Flores has also asked the City Council Committee on Human Relations to have a hearing on the “vital role Streetwise publication played in diminishing incidence of homelessness in Chicago.”

The story has received a lot of coverage in the Chicago media and was widely retweeted Tuesday.

Some of the tweets about the story brought out strong emotions.

@AngelinaMCole: StreetWise CANNOT fold! It actually does something productive for the homeless in Chicago!!!!
@Jazzturtle: @cloudlover oh NO.. streetwise is going under? That’s terrible! It really is a wonderful cause!!
@electroaffinity: I wrote for Streetwise in College 16 years ago and now it appears to be going under.
@erinserkaian:  if streetwise folds, i’m gonna miss the singing woman that sits outside of Wendy’s at Clark/Madison

Do you buy Streetwise or the equivalent in your city? Do you think they are an important part of your city?

Two recent studies suggest that housing services for the homeless have the possibility to save tax payers money on social services. A local study by the Heartland Alliance Mid-America Institute on Poverty focused on supportive housing for the homeless and especially the mentally ill while a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association focuses on the benefit of housing homeless people who are alcoholics.

Both studies found that providing housing to these groups reduced the amount they used other social services and reduced the amount of public money they used. The Illinois study found that over two years $854,477 was saved in services to the 117 people put in supportive housing. The average saving was a little below $5,000 per person, or about $2,500 per person, per year.

From the Chicago Tribune article,

In the study, there were 10 people who had lived in nursing homes before they entered supportive housing. Their costs averaged $23,658 per person over two years. After supportive housing, only three people spent any time in nursing homes and stayed for shorter periods, at an average cost per person of $2,171.

The Tribune article describes supportive housing as a combination of affordable housing and case management. Residents had access to “help with money management, medication monitoring, finding jobs, transportation and a variety of other services.”

The study also said that the savings to taxpayers were probably underestimated.

The cost savings from supportive housing is likely to be much higher than reported here. A number of costs were infeasible to include or beyond the scope of this analysis, including the homeless system and related costs, substance use treatment costs, social costs, and many others. Also, cost savings likely  continued in the years following this study time frame.

The Seattle study found that in the year before the study, the 95 participants cost the city approximately $8.2 million in social services. One year into the program, the same group cost the city only $4 million. The Seattle study looked at a wider range of services used by the participants than the Illinois survey including substance abuse programs and shelters.

In the Seattle study, alcoholic homeless people were placed together in a apartment building and were still allowed to drink, but during the study their drinking decreased.

“Certainly, it is much easier (to change) when you are not cold, hungry and scared, and have a few meaningful events in your life,” said Mary Larimer, as quoted in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Lairmer is a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Washington and was the lead author of the study.

The Seattle study was funded by the county at an initial cost of $2 million plus an additional $240,000 per year in operation costs, but the cost of the study still fell under the tax savings in government programs.

You can download the whole Illinois study at the Heartland Alliance website and the Seattle study can be found at the Journal of the American Medical Association website.

These studies both lend support to the argument of Housing First, which says that efforts should be to first place people into housing as opposed to a combination of shelters and transitional programs that end in an apartment.

NPR did a series of reports on the Housing First initiative including on a shelter for homeless alcoholics similar to the one featured in the Seattle study. The story estimated that housing each resident was $10,000 cheaper than the cost to the community would be if they were on the streets.

A 2007 study by the U.S Department of Housing and Urban Development found the Housing First approach to be “a viable response to address the housing needs of chronically homeless individuals with mental illness and often co-occurring substance-related disorders.” Though the study did have some criticisms of the policies of some Housing First providers. You can download the full study from HUD here.

What do you think of these studies? Do you think supportive housing and housing for alcoholics should be increased to decrease the burden on taxpayer-funded social services? Share your thoughts in the comments.

via Chicago Tribune and Seattle Post-Intelligencer