Our community yesterday received a huge download from Dr. Joe Savage of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness on the new federal strategy to reduce homelessness – “All In: The Federal Strategic Plan to End Homelessness.” Do we have the community will to finally tackle the issue?
Why does it matter: Dr. Savage identified the two biggest causes of homelessness are lack of affordable housing and poverty — two major issues here.
- According to the latest report from United Way of West Florida, 42% of the households in Escambia and Santa Rosa counties struggle paying for housing, groceries, health care, and other basic needs. The Pockets of Poverty map developed by the UWF Haas Center identifies where those struggling families live in Escambia County.
- Dr. Savage said the federal statistics show that homelessness has been reduced by 33% from 2010 to 2021. Based on the 2022 Point-in-Time count complied by Opening Doors of Northwest Florida, our two-county area reduced its homelessness by 37%, going from 1,160 in 2010 to 727 last year. However, the 2023 PIT identified 1,180 homeless people – a 62% jump over 2022. We’re going in the wrong direction.
- To meet the federal reduction goal of 25% by 2025 from the 2022 PIT, we need to decrease our homeless population to 545 individuals- in other words, cut this year’s count by more than half in two years.
Dig Deeper:
Why did Dr. Savage come here: Mayor D.C. Reeves invited him.
On WCOA, Mayor Reeves explained, “This was spurred from my trip to US Conference of Mayors in Washington, DC and meeting with the director of the interdepartmental agency on homelessness. And Dr. Savage is the Southeaster/Florida representative and represents 19 federal agencies dealing with homelessness. Why get him here?”
Mayor Reeves’ Takeaways from the joint workshop on Tuesday Morning:
- ALIGNMENT: The mayor said, “I think the goal is to build critical mass around an alignment between plans at the county and city. How do we get in alignment? I thought that was a great start today with Dr. Savage talking about the federal strategic plan.”
- MOTIVATION: He said, “It was made very clear today that this federal strategic plan will be a key indicator in our ability to get federal support to try to reduce homelessness here. It’s plenty motivating to make sure that we do have alignment and work together.”
- GREAT FIRST STEP: Mayor Reeves later added, “I’m a believer in getting out in traffic on things. And it doesn’t mean that I believe that we have to do a carbon copy of the entire plan, or it’s not successful if we all look each other in the eye in this community and say here are the one or two things that we could focus on, knowing they are federal priorities and that’ll help us fund it. That’s a great first step.”
What did Dr. Savage say:
He identified three pillars: Equity, Data Collection & Analysis and Collaboration
- Equity requires taking a hard look at whether the systems in place are serving all aspects of our community.
- Data Collection: Are we properly collecting data? The PIT count showed more than Opening Doors needs to be involved here.
- Collaboration: Who is involved in the Continuum of Care? Do we have everybody at the table?
Dr. Savage also mentioned three solutions that need to be part of the local plan:
- Housing Services
- Crisis Intervention
- Prevention
He recommended our leaders look at our homeless strategy – if we have one – and gather as much input as possible to revise it. The federal plan can be the guideline – All In.
View Dr. Savage’s CivicCon talk on pnj.com.
College Lacrosse
The NAIA Men’s Lacrosse Invitational starts today at the Ashton Brosnaham Soccer Complex. Eight teams compete over the next four days for the championship title.
Why this matters: Pensacola Sports and Escambia County have successfully recruited several college championships to our area, including the SEC Women’s Soccer tournament and the Sun Belt Men’s and Women’s Basketball conference tournaments.
Dig Deeper:
The 2023 NAIA Men’s Lacrosse Invitational will open with four quarterfinal games on Wednesday, May 10 in Pensacola, Fla.
Today’s Games
10 a.m. (8) St. Ambrose vs. (1) Keiser
1 p.m. (5) Webber International vs. (4) Reinhardt
4 p.m. (6) Concordia vs. (3) Cumberlands
7 p.m. (7) Siena Heights vs. (2) Indiana Tech
Players to Watch
Devin Macomber of Indiana Tech – is ranked first in the nation in man-up goals (13).
Tom Piotrowski of Indiana Tech – is first in the nation caused turnovers (56).
Christian Vanover of Cumberlands (Ky.) – is third in the nation in shots on goal (117).
Hunter Scott of Webber (Fla.) – is second in the nation faceoffs (241-364).
Sam Saje of Concordia (Mich.) – is second in the nation in ground balls (156) and third in the nation in faceoffs (232-325)
Jeremiah Loo of Webber (Fla.) – is ranked second in the nation in goals (54) and man-up goals (9).
Cameron Cochran of Reinhardt (Ga.) – is ranked second in the nation in points (103) and third in the nation in assists (55).
The NAIA Network – the association’s official video-streaming home – will broadcast all games live at the 2023 NAIA Men’s Lacrosse National Invitational. To purchase CLICK HERE
Melissa your insight is enlightening. You said, “people are afraid to speak out”. I think you are describing Tyranny; a boot crushing the ordinary citizen’s
opportunity for a future. What a sorry claim to fame. Millions and millions of dollars are funneled through Escambia County meant to address community need, with no measurable results.
Joanne, it does the homeless community’s heart so much good that somebody took the time to look into it and responded. You’re spot on with your concerns.
It’s not as if the board of Opening Doors is the whole problem, but how that particular Board has functioned is–in my opinion, and to the to best of my understanding–representative of why we can never seem to get anywhere, regardless of how much money is thrown at the problem.
It has been widely recognized throughout the homeless community, and for a long time, that one of the number one problems (if not *the* number one problem) in dealing with the homeless issue here is Opening Doors operating as our HUD “Continuum of Care.” I use the quotes there, because they have NOT been operating as a proper COC. This has not been a secret among the community, and it’s not even debatable by the very definition of a how a HUD COC should operate.
The problem is–as with so many other things–people are afraid to speak out, because John Johnson controls the purse strings. And for whatever reason, his board has chosen to continually placate him on his conflict of interest approach. They have made some really unbelievable moves, against their own by-laws, repeatedly.
It was such a relief to have a federal official finally call them out on it. This had already happened when the Homeless Task Force called in a speaker from a South Florida St. Vincent De Paul for their retreat last year; he literally said that, if you’ve got a HUD COC operating in a conflict of interest, that has to change: Opening Doors should *not* be allowed to receive grant money and directly administer care and at the same time be the COC for other area caregivers at the same time. And yeah, salaried staff is also a big issue. And yet that situation continued to roll on.
And why not? It is my understanding that State DCF has been more than aware of the situation, but we’ve seen time and again that our state regulatory agencies don’t have the will to do their regulatory jobs. So I commend Mayor Reeves on getting a federal official down here, and huge thanks to that official for reading the riot act and speaking the stone-cold truth about a horribly damaging scenario. (Pensacola *always* has to get some outside heavy hitter to police things, because nobody wants to step on anyone else’s local toes, lest their own rocks get overturned.)
So apparently the gig is up, now. The question then becomes, if not Opening Doors, then who? Or, if Opening Doors is going to be forced into compliance, who is going to sit the executive board?
You can bet your bottom dollar that the Homeless Task Force has been orchestrating for a takeover on this for a while. My beef with that is that the leadership of the Task Force favors non transparent methods (hence the *real* meeting was invite-only at Sanders Beach, and almost every advocate I know is so over their tactics they couldn’t even muster the enthusiasm to crash it, myself included). They also refuse to work with the people who try to tell them what they don’t know–which is a LOT–like Michael Kimberl.
It has been an open secret that the Task Force was going to drop dime on Opening Doors for a while. Turns out now was the moment, and unfortunately part of the collateral damage was staging a non-meeting between the County and City, when an actual workshop was needed desperately. I really commend Mayor Reeves for getting Dr. Savage here. The CivicCon surround? Not so much. The developers making money off affordable housing have enough dog and pony shows to avail themselves of without co-opting the homeless problem to make their next millions.
To be balanced, while I was applauding much of what Savage had to say, and am glad he was willing to take the cup on exposing our HUD COC, I could have done without his too-rosy BS about a few things. Case in point: anybody who cries up Philadelphia as a beacon on this issue (or any other) loses serious cred. While I share his love for that city, having lived on Front Street in the City core he was crying up as a huge homeless win, I am more than well aware of the geography games he was playing. Guess all the people lying on the sidewalks in Kensington with bleeding ulcers from horse tranq didn’t hit their Center City homeless numbers. Guess he wasn’t expecting anybody familiar with Philadelphia to call that out.
The time for these political games is well over. Sadly, they won’t be an end any time soon. And without people in the community who understand the games that are being played, the players will just keep on keepin on. They know advocates are sucking wind, and they’re banking on the voters not to care. Don’t even get me started on the smoke and mirrors Mental Health Task Force…
Melissa, after reading the PNJ article, I checked out the COC Board of Directors. I was stunned by who the members are, and the elaborate management team structure in place. Are these Board members paid? The team of managers, I doubt, are volunteers. Is this representative of the danger the public private partnership offers to the greater community?
Whether it is the Opioid Crisis, Poverty or Affordable Housing is this the type of quagmire that keeps so many of our citizens in bondage?
Gee, I wonder who is ready to swoop in on that COC and alllllllll that money now that we had to bring a federal official in to state the obvious, that Opening Doors–and that includes its Board–has been and continues to be an unmitigated disaster?
If the Homeless Task Force leadership believes they have their ducks in a row on their long telegraphed takeover of the COC–as the orchestration on the fake joint meeting, Dr. Savage’s visit, CivicCon session, and the PNJ article would seem to suggest–does the Task Force leadership plan on becoming more transparent in their dealings?
Will they work with all the area homeless advocates, or will they continue to box people like Michael Kimberl out? (Kudos to him for attending that double secret probation meeting and attempting to offer the input they need.)
Or will we just trade off a conflict of interest problem for a friends and family issue?