Helping the homeless

Imagine that you are once again eight years old.

Imagine that all your friends and… Imagine that you are once again eight years old.

Imagine that all your friends and classmates are going to Brownie meetings or sports practice.

Now, imagine that you are going to a homeless shelter.

This is what Jennifer Williams, the director for Health Care for the Homeless, asked her audience of 30 to do on Tuesday afternoon.

Williams was one presenter for the “Hope for the Homeless and Hungry” talk session, organized by Student Volunteer Outreach. Rich Venezia from the Allegheny County Department of Human Services and two representatives from the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank also spoke at the event.

Health Care for the Homeless has clinics open in various locations throughout Pittsburgh to help the homeless with medical, dental and mental illness, and substance-abuse issues. There are also specialty pediatric and obstetrician-gynecologist clinics open.

Locations for these services include women’s shelters in the city, Family Links and various Salvation Army locations.

Many families are homeless or starving because they simply cannot make ends meet, Williams said.

“The living wage in our country is horrendous,” she added.

For someone working at minimum wage — $5.15 an hour — to afford the average two-bedroom apartment in Pittsburgh, he would have to work 152 hours a week, she said. At this rate, some families have to take two or three jobs just to barely support themselves.

The welfare reform under former President Bill Clinton’s administration is also partly responsible for the amount of homeless people in the nation, Williams said.

Previously, people were allowed to stay on welfare for an indefinite period of time. But in 1996, that program was replaced with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, which put a cap on the amount of time spent on welfare, limiting it to five years.

But after people are “pushed” off of welfare, they still don’t have the skills necessary to gain employment that pays above minimum wage, Williams said.

Other factors contributing to the problem include economic downturns and decreasing employment, domestic abuse, a lack of affordable housing, the closing of Section 8 Housing Voucher waiting lists, mental illnesses and substance abuse.

“It’s rare for me to see a patient that doesn’t have some kind of mental illness or substance abuse,” Williams said, clarifying that substance abuse problems could include people on prescription drugs. Mental illness does not mean necessarily “crazy” or schizophrenic, either, she said. It could be psychological problems caused by abuse or violence.

Health Care for the Homeless also administers a lot of HIV testing because many homeless women have resorted to prostitution for money, Williams said.

The Allegheny County Department of Human Services works with Health Care for the Homeless as well as other organizations so that the homeless population can get “hooked up to the resources available to them,” Venezia said.

The Department of Human Services refers homeless clients to shelters or transitional housing, as well as health care and food resources.

During the winter months, the department tries to get what Venezia calls the “chronic homeless” into shelters.

Once temperatures drop below 20 degrees, or there are severe weather storms or blizzards, the Allegheny County Severe Weather Emergency Shelter opens.

But often, the “chronic homeless,” those that are on the streets for a long period of time without going to shelters, will not go to shelters.

Some people do not like to go because they do not like to follow the rules, they suffer from a mental illness or they had a previous bad experience in a shelter, Venezia said.

Mercy Hospital’s Operation Safety Net tries to persuade the homeless living under bridges or in cars to go to these emergency shelters during the winter.

Thanks to these emergency shelters and outreach programs, there has not been a case of a homeless person freezing to death during the winter months in 10 years, Venezia said.

Once the chronic homeless population is in these shelters, the Department of Human Services tries to get them as many services as they can, educating them about food, health care and transitional housing resources.

The Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank provides a great deal of this food. Most of the food comes from donations from food drives, local food manufacturers, retailers, farmers or wholesalers. The food is then redistributed to local food pantries, soup kitchens or shelters.

Both Health Care for the Homeless and the food bank are looking for volunteers to help counteract the issues of hunger and homelessness in Pittsburgh.