Reflections from the front lines serving people experiencing homelessness, battling the heat of “Spring,” and fighting for systems change.
We seem to have skipped right over a legitimate Winter and Spring here in Phoenix. I am not a meteorologist, climatologist, or otherwise an expert in weather or climate. However, in going back through posts I wrote over the last couple of years, this sense of “the heat is here” keeps moving up earlier and earlier in the calendar year. Raising awareness of the effects on heat is a crucial and ongoing part of our work here at Keys to Change.
Living outdoors is life threatening when the temperatures are high during the day and don’t cool down overnight. Heat stroke seems imminent… I really don’t know how people survive. The invisibility of heat can cause us to be unaware, to think it unbelievable. And the truth is that heat is deadly. We are moving into full-on heat relief mode and launching the annual Thirst Aid effort mid-April. Follow along at keystochangeaz.org to offer support. It’s not too early to organize a collection drive of bottled water!
The preparation is absolutely necessary as we continue to shelter 900+ individuals nightly on Key Campus in three spaces (CASS’ Single Adult Shelter, Respiro, and St. Vincent de Paul’s Overflow). And the Keys to Change outreach team engages with the unsheltered daily. Number-wise the team counted 291 individuals in the immediate area of the Key Campus on March 31 and an additional 368 unsheltered people in the expanded downtown area. The total unsheltered engaging with our team is 659.
The total we are serving daily through outreach and shelter on Key Campus is 1,559.
Every day the Keys to Change team provides a variety of services to these individuals. And at Key Campus a dozen partner organizations offer additional services. This daily work is meeting each individual person where they are and offering steps to housing. Our collective objective is to assist each human being in ending their homelessness.
In addition to the by-person work, Keys to Change is working, or fighting, for systems change. While the individuals have complicated situations and each with their personalized set of circumstances, the systems change work is a whole different level of difficulty.
I realized this week that when I say, “systems change,” people may not know what I’m talking about. I am able to stand on a proverbial soap box and share my thoughts on the bell curve of prevention to housing, and the systems that discharge people into homelessness. I can rattle off the divisions of government that have programs and funding to support these systems. And I will literally take as much time as a person will give me to talk about it all. I have also written about most of this and some of you may have even read it!
In thinking about this month’s reflection post, it dawned on me that I may be speaking in a geeky babble and not fully explaining what “systems change” means. How we do this work differently from how we provide services directly to people? What are the systems? How can they be changed? Why do they need to change? Is change possible?
At the highest level of seeking to “end homelessness” we examine the reasons why people lose their housing and become homeless. Tracking the reasons back to root cause leads us to understanding where people had a life change, planned or unplanned, and where barriers caused them to experience housing instability, and then for many the loss of housing.
What are the systems? Here are some examples:
The foster care system: youth aging out of foster care are not necessarily prepared for independent living, they may not have access to post-secondary education, and they be expected to find a job and afford housing on their own. Foster care is a system that many of us say “discharges people to homelessness,” because youth are not graduating high school with a housing plan in hand.
The public safety, law enforcement, jail and prison, corrections system: lumping these together as a category of activities and places that enforce laws and through punitive measures. By and large people who enter jail and prison without housing, exit those places back into homelessness. Depending on the length of time someone serves, they may lose any connection to their previous lives and be exited into homelessness. This ‘system’ of punitive justice does not provide every person leaving with a housing plan in hand.
The hospital and healthcare system – both physical and mental health: people who enter a hospital without housing tend to exit their care back into homelessness. People who enter physical rehabilitation facilities who are living on a fixed income may lose their housing while they are in care. People in behavioral healthcare facilities may lose their housing while in a treatment program. In Arizona, hospital and healthcare systems are not required to discharge patients to a home with a fixed, permanent address. Patients do not have to leave with a housing plan in hand.
The military and their discharge to veteran status: the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) are two distinct entities. The DOD does not ensure that every person completing their military service has a home to go to…. they do not leave with a housing plan in hand. And then those who served are ‘veterans’ and enter another system for care with the VA, a system which may have housing resources yet cannot promise housing to all veterans.
None of these systems produces all or a majority of the homeless population. Obviously not all people who were in the foster care system or the military end up homeless. And a majority of people overall don’t become homeless. When we look back on a person’s life, for those who experience homelessness, we often find an experience with one system, or more. Some people cycle through the systems, never exiting with a housing plan.
Who is there to ‘care’ when the systems are overwhelmed, are out of capacity, or are out of funding? Is it the role of government to ensure the systems are funded and are able to connect everyone to housing?
If it is not the role, or not fully the role of government, then who pays for and provides services and housing to people who are released from systems? Is there a role for the private sector/ for-profit companies?
What resources are needed to provide the “care” or “services” when it falls to nonprofits – the organizations with a tax-exempt status that are raising funds constantly because it takes paid employees to deliver the “care” and “services” and connect people to housing?
How we do this work differently from how we provide services directly to people?
Keys to Change is a 501c3, nonprofit, organization. We seek financial support from government (public sector), the private sector and individuals. We use these resources to assist individuals, putting a housing plan in their hands.
AND, Keys to Change pursues ‘systems change.’
How can they be changed? Why do they need to change? Is change possible?
We believe it is possible to change systems. We look to do this through changes to administrative policy, legislation, funding policy, and resource allocation. This is accomplished by lobbying, advocating, informing, increasing public awareness, testifying at government hearings, educating, coordinating with partner organizations. It’s a goal of the Arizona Shelter Network.
It is necessary to change systems to increase the number of people who exit a system with a housing plan in hand and to increase the opportunities to help more people stay in housing they already have, while fighting for additional housing opportunities. We can increase preventions of homelessness, increase the capacity and effectiveness of service interventions, and increase outflow to housing.
This is a bit over simplified, and I realize I could write pages and pages to expand on these thoughts and approaches. Message me with suggestions on where to share more, what areas do you have questions about?
The bottom line for today: Keys to Change is ending homelessness one person at a time and through identifying areas to change systems to end homelessness for entire populations at a time.
Individuals and systems.
Both. At the same time.
Difficult, challenging, and so very worth it.
