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A document about the homeless. This talks about homelessness in modern day.
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COVER STORY
Posted: Wednesday, July 15, 2015 12:00 pm
[Click here to view all of the photos of photographer Dennis Ho’s photo essay >>> (http://folioweekly.com/More Faces of The Homeless,13051)
The Face of Homelessness is Changing • Social services leaders and homeless advocates on the front lines say the battle to eradicate homelessness in Northeast Florida will require vision, collaboration, and leadership
Homelessness has a new face.
Of the more than 100,000 students who attended Duval County Public Schools last year, 2,100 did not have a home to return to after the school day ended. As of this writing, there are 57 families on the wait list for a spot at the Sulzbacher Center — the largest and most comprehensive homeless services provider in Northeast Florida — in Downtown Jacksonville.
The changing face of this issue brings about new challenges for the community of social service agencies dedicated to serving the homeless. Many First Coast agencies are comprehensive and organized. The best ones today operate farms, street teams, culinary programs, healthcare facilities, computer labs, and job readiness courses. They also fortify strategic partnerships with a wide range of political and business leaders. It is a modern, holistic approach.
This issue of Folio Weekly features a series of photos taken in and around Downtown Jacksonville by our photo editor Dennis Ho. They represent a months long project to portray homelessness the way it looks today; specifically, what it looks like in the urban core.
In addition, Folio Weekly sought out a few of Downtown Jacksonville’s social services leaders, hoping they would use the opportunity to speak directly to our community of readers, giving all a fresh perspective on the important issue.
Tillis DeVaughn • Program Director for the Jacksonville Day Resource Center, a hub of resources for those in need of a place of respite during the day for many downtown.
Folio Weekly: If people in the community want to alleviate the situation, what are some ways they could make a difference? Tillis DeVaughn: “In all thy getting, get an Understanding.” I’d strongly recommend that the community gain a better understanding of the people who are homeless. They’d be surprised how those stories may closely resemble their own, minus mistakes, medical diagnosis.
Is there an easy answer, a magic wand, to eradicating homelessness? The easy answer lies within the hope of the rebirth of visionary leadership. Question: How do you eat an elephant? Historic answer: “One bite at a time!”
Is there a way of understanding the economic impact of this issue? The current method of crisis intervention is extremely expensive and is not designed to resolve a housing crisis. For a small percentage of homeless persons, cycling through crisis stabilization units, jail, detox, hospitals including ER to ICU beds, and social service programs can easily cost the community $100,000 to $1,000,000 a year.
How does Jacksonville’s homeless situation compare to that of other major cities? Our population has more families with children than other cities outside of Florida. We are also starting to see both younger and older persons. This may be part of a national trend but we’re not sure.
Cindy Funkhouser • President and CEO of Sulzbacher Center, the largest and most comprehensive homeless services provider in Northeast Florida, offering street outreach, daily meals, safe shelter, case management support, job placement assistance, medical, dental, and mental health care as well as scattered site housing.
Folio Weekly: Is there an easy answer, a magic wand, to eradicating homelessness? Cindy Funkhouser: Yes, jobs and affordable housing. No. 1: Businesses must be willing to give a homeless person a chance and we need to add a vocational track back in all public schools. Not everyone has to go to college to make a good living and we as a society need to stop looking down on [vocational] trades.
Can you speak to how politics and homelessness are tied together? The systemic issues mentioned above get very little attention by politicians in general. Poor people have no power and no voice. It is up to advocates to be their voice but, similarly, non profits have little power and do not make campaign contributions or endorse candidates. This is why we need the members of the business and philanthropic community to partner on these issues. Many do, especially by being active on our boards.
After analyzing the impact that chronically homeless people have on the economy ($30 $50k per year per person), the state of Utah decided to give housing to some homeless people. What are your thoughts on this approach to addressing the homelessness issue? I completely support this approach and actually have a similar pilot program in progress where I partner with JSO, the PD, SA, jail, judges, Housing Authority and probation office. We are using the Housing First model to house 25 of the chronically homeless, frequent misdemeanor arrestees. The project is called the CHOP program.
How does Jacksonville’s homeless situation compare to that of other major cities? I would say we have more homeless families. On the plus side, we have a very collaborative nonprofit community, especially homeless providers. We work as a team and the results have been evidenced by
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the drop in veteran and chronic numbers … What we are missing is a champion at City Hall and in the business community. As mentioned earlier, without these two sectors FULLY engaged, we will never see results like those in Utah.
[Click here to view all of the photos of photographer Dennis Ho’s photo essay >>> (http://folioweekly.com/More Faces of The Homeless,13051)
homelessness (/search_mode/keyword/browse.html?search_filter=homelessness), photo essay (/search_mode/keyword/browse.html?search_filter= photo essay), Sulzbacher Center (/search_mode/keyword/browse.html?search_filter= Sulzbacher Center), Emergency Services & Homeless Coalition (/search_mode/keyword/browse.html?search_filter= Emergency Services & Homeless Coalition), Jacksonville Day Resource Center (/search_mode/keyword/browse.html?search_filter= Jacksonville Day Resource Center), jacksonville (/search_mode/keyword/browse.html?search_filter= jacksonville), florida (/search_mode/keyword/browse.html? search_filter= florida)
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