So how does a local government become an expert in managing homelessness, a problem that has been ignored for too long?
Invest in salesmanship that something is being done when it actually isn’t? Make way more mistakes by adopting tired ideas being trafficked about as ‘the only’ solution?
Ban sleeping on public benches? Bulldoze tent encampments? Trash personal belongings, including personal ID that is essential to qualify anyone for government assistance? Close public toilets to force the bursting to go and burst elsewhere?
The simplest and most attractive (A.K.A inexpensive) solutions are not necessarily either the cheapest or the best.
Rip Van Winkling1 the problem for too long, many communities have woken up to faced a smorgasbard of management and operational ideas that offer little or no effective return on investment, either cash or effort.
So how have the pioneers of this problem managed, the ones that spotted the issue 20 years ago? And yes, they do exist. Here’s a thought for newbies: why not follow in the footsteps of those who started untangling the knotty problem decades ago?
Take the city of Gainesville, Florida, which is effectively providing homelessness solutions. Gainseville residents kicked off their homelessness planning some twenty years ago.
This is why the city of Pensacola, Florida is exploring some of Gainesville’s hard-earned expertise, with the help from Jon DeCarmine, the Executive Director at Grace Marketplace.
20-odd years ago, DeCarmine was part of Gainesville’s effort to develop a homelessness program. It took ten years to put a support plan together that appeared to best satisfy the needs of the community and its citizens. From that point forward the developers felt that it would only be a matter of months until they commenced operations.
Instead it took nine more years! Gainesville’s planning and execution of a community homelessness plan and the knowledge contained within it has a lot to offer other communities.
The following article is from a local newspaper in Pensecola, Florida — a city that is looking to capitalize on Gainesville’s trial, error and hard-won knowledge. Read more about Gainesville’s success, as well as its guiding principle — “One Stop Shopping” — in the pensacola news: CivicCon live: How to get past the myths of homelessness and get to solutions
Footnotes
- Read more about this story which was written down by Washington Irving in Wikipedia: Rip Van Winkle
