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Housing the homeless: Should mental illness trump hard work?
If you say something about homelessness where Bill Hobson can hear it, he'll have something interesting to say back. The day after my story on homeless youth and young adults appeared in Crosscut a few weeks ago, this message from Hobson arrived in my mailbox:
Nice piece. It could have used a bit broader context. We too often focus on subsets of the homeless population without doing that – fitting them into the broader homeless context and policy responses to it. Big conversation I'd like to have with you someday.
So I dropped by Hobson's office at DESC (Downtown Emergency Services Center), where he's been executive director since 1988.
Our conversation came at an emotional time. The previous weekend, two off-duty firefighters and a female executive at Amazon were arrested for their drunken assault on two homeless men sleeping at the firefighters' memorial in Pioneer Square's Occidental Park. It reminded me how vulnerable homeless people are, reviving memories of the pain I'd felt when a beloved family member suffering from schizophrenia slept in parks and under bridges for a whole year.
Hobson started our talk by reviewing King County's January homeless counts, which found 3200 adults and 124 unaccompanied youth and young adults sleeping outside. If the estimate I read in E. Fuller Torrey's book Out of the Shadows is correct – that one in five who are homeless suffer from serious mental illnesses – then King County has 665 sick, highly vulnerable adults and 13-25-year-olds sleeping in dangerous places.
"The last thing I want to do is trivialize the plight of anyone homeless, whether kid, vet, or single adult," says Hobson. But available resources can't cover everyone, so our policy across the board should be to prioritize the most vulnerable.
He concedes that it makes sense to customize services for subsets of people, because the needs of homeless youth differ from the needs of homeless families, which differ from the needs of chronically homeless single adults. Still, regardless of subset, the individuals most in danger should be first in line for shelter and housing. "All the shelters are full because transitional housing is full, because there's not enough affordable housing" to accommodate all the people who are ready to move up from transitional to more permanent homes.
Prioritizing the most vulnerable means putting roofs over the heads of children and people living with mental illness first, says Hobson, while leaving many who may seem more deserving, such as homeless veterans, out in the cold. Also last would be homeless individuals who are managing to hold down jobs (about 25 percent are employed, nationwide).
A most-vulnerable-first policy would routinely place non-disabled homeless young adults in the bottom tier of applicants for transitional and permanent housing. King County's Youth Housing Connection (YHC) has adopted this policy and gives priority to the most vulnerable 18-25-year-olds, identified as such by its intake assessment. Today's housing shortage consigns the less vulnerable majority to such long waits that many will outgrow their YHC eligibility before ever getting a home.
Nearly all homeless veterans, too, belong at the end of the line for housing, says Hobson. The Vulnerability Assessment Tool used to determine eligibility for DESC housing shows that "as a group, even with the consequences of PTSD, vets are higher-functioning than the person living with paranoid schizophrenia who is preyed upon by every thug on the streets of downtown Seattle," he says, recalling his classmate in grad school who left because of a disabling mental illness. "David was beaten to death in Kinnear Park in 2001. Every year here, someone is beaten to death."
According to Hobson, it would take $800-$900 million in rent subsidies or capital development dollars to house all of our homeless. But "we go home and sleep warm in our beds, and don't muster the political will to get the money." This despite having calculated the gigantic downstream costs of homelessness (high rates of unemployment, of incarceration, of hospitalization), and having taken on public projects of far greater magnitude – Century Link Field and the tunnel, for instance, he says.
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Posted Wed, May 7, 8:27 a.m.
Fortunately King County has vowed to "end homelessness" by 2015. At least that's what they promised when they took the money.
Posted Wed, May 7, 11:06 a.m.
Thank goodness. It's pretty exciting to think that King County is on the verge of doing what no civilization has done since the first cities arose.
Posted Wed, May 7, 9:54 a.m.
How good to see someone who knows his business point out that "the homeless" should be lumped together as one generic group, and to also place priorities on those with the most critical needs. An ambitious capital construction program to provide housing for those with serious mental illness should be the top priority for those concerned with mental health, public safety, and basic humanity.
Abe Bergman, MD
Posted Wed, May 7, 11:05 a.m.
But we did away with big housing facilities 30 years ago for the mentally ill because we were concerned with mental health, public safety and basic humanity.
Posted Thu, May 8, 11:43 p.m.
In Washington State in the 80s we semi-opened the door to state hospitals in order to allow mentally-ill people to receive services in the community. Unfortunately, the community didn't offer those services. That was also unfortunately the time when under Reagan, the federal government stopped investing in public housing. Those combined factors led to the increasing numbers of homeless mentally-ill people.
Posted Wed, May 7, 9:55 a.m.
edit to above comment: "should NOT be lumped together..."
Posted Wed, May 7, 1:48 p.m.
Good article. I have a question: is part of the effort to provide housing for the homeless directed at finding SHARED housing? can the homeless individual have any hope of being guided to a room in a house or a room in an apartment as his/her shelter? Does a program that aids in making that connection exist? or is that possibility made too utterly unlikely by the prevalent psychological troubles and dependencies of the homeless?
Posted Thu, May 8, 11:40 p.m.
Some formerly homeless people live in apartments with shared kitchens/community rooms. But a room in a private home or apartment is not appropriate for a severely-mentally-ill individual.
Posted Sun, May 11, 8:50 a.m.
Good question, Kieth. Nonprofits National Alliance on Mental Illness Greater Seattle(NAMI-GS) and Plymouth Healing Communities both sponsor residences that have independent rooms and common kitchens (http://www.nami-greaterseattle.org/Hofmann) or facilities with complete apartments (http://www.plyhc.org/Facilities.html - click on the Argonaut and Admiral). This type of housing is for individuals with serious mental illnesses (many of whom were homeless) who are "in recovery," meaning in treatment sustained through regularly scheduled meetings with caseworkers and clinicians from places like Seattle's Community Psychiatric Clinic.
People with mental illnesses who require continual supervision but not hospitalization are often well served by supportive housing - group homes or apartment buildings that have resident staff. Sound Mental Health, like DESC, has established a number of these residences.
Posted Wed, May 7, 3:13 p.m.
Homeless people do not all look like those folks who live on the streets, perhaps sleeping in doorways or pushing their belongings in shopping carts. Homeless people are also well-educated, well-spoken people who may live in transitional housing, landing there because devastating illness and/or major financial disasters have left them penniless. And, folks living in transitional, ie, time-limited housing, are also homeless. And permanent, affordable housing is harder and harder to find because the need is growing. So, sometimes transitional housing is harder to access because the facility's residents can't get permanent housing because there seem to be fewer and fewer affordable, permanent housing apartments/spaces available.
Posted Thu, May 8, 11:49 p.m.
The firefighters wouldn't be under threat of indictment if their superiors had made plain to them that they were public servants (even when off duty), and as such they were required to treat ALL Seattle residents with respect. That respect would include not beating up someone because they were sleeping in the open on a monument to those firefighters' public service -- the saddest irony I've heard of yet.
Posted Fri, May 9, 8:18 p.m.
Um, helloooo. Sarah90 you actually believe that firefighters need a directive from their superiors that as public servants, even when off duty, they are required to treat ALL Seattle residents (and visitors ma'am) with respect? Do you actually believe that public servants get to ever go "off duty" and get to treat anyone with disrespect?
Professional standards never go off duty.
Posted Sun, May 11, 2:47 p.m.
I do believe that we should care for those who are unable to care for themselves, especially if through no fault of their own, which would include children/youths, the old, the disabled, and the mentally ill. Those unable to take care of themselves due to alcohol and drug addictions should be helped if enrolled in rehab/treatment/training programs.
The best way of helping the "working poor" is through wage subsidies (higher minimum wage and earned-income tax credits) and dramatically increasing the supply of affordable-housing through set-asides and tax-credits.
Posted Mon, Jul 28, 7:17 a.m.
Thanks for this article Judy Lightfoot and thanks too for your informed and reasonable comments sarah90 and others.
I spoke yesterday with someone living at the Theodora apartments. He along with other disabled people and vets are at risk of losing their housing because some developer wants to buy the property in order to redevelop/gentrify it and thus force the vets and disabled people living there to move.
This is what has been happening during the 10 year plan to end homelessness. During that period a respectable amount of low income housing has been built but, at the same time, existing affordable housing has been destroyed and replaced by more expensive housing.
The set-asides and tax credits currently offered to developers to sustain and even to increase the supply of low income housing are not sufficient to do the job. A change in policy is needed to correct the situation. Until now, I don't know that the political will exists to do that.
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Very filling. Add a cooked veggie burger for protein or chicken. Submitted by KERIG1973 Carbs: 10.5g | Fat: 0.2g | Fiber: 3g | Protein: 2.2g | Calories: 48.2
Very Good 4.2/5
(6 ratings)
One recipe for this creamy sauce called for 6 T. of oil. I cut that down to 1 T., and the result is every bit as good. You could probably cut the cream as well; the sauce is still quite rich. I like to cook baby spinach into the sauce at the very end -- if you want it too, add it when you add the pasta Submitted by KHBERGER03 Carbs: 11.7g | Fat: 9.9g | Fiber: 0.2g | Protein: 1.8g | Calories: 156.1
Cookbook creator says: See comments for ways to make it 85 cal. per serving! Carbs: 14.4g | Fat: 4.4g | Fiber: 0.1g | Protein: 6g | Calories: 120.6
This quick and healthy side dish takes just minutes to prepare! And as a bonus, it's an easy way to get the kids to eat their vegetables. Submitted by MATCM81 Carbs: 7.3g | Fat: 1.6g | Fiber: 2.5g | Protein: 3.2g | Calories: 51.6
Cookbook creator says: DELICIOUS! I made a spinoff since I go vegetarian, but this was just awesome. Thank you for sharing it! Submitted by KHILKEY Carbs: 16.4g | Fat: 4.7g | Fiber: 3.3g | Protein: 10.7g | Calories: 153
Incredible! 5.0/5
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A hearty German Potato Dumpling Soup Carbs: 25.8g | Fat: 10.1g | Fiber: 1.7g | Protein: 14.3g | Calories: 253
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Hearty and warm dumpling soup Submitted by LEOMOM86 Carbs: 50.5g | Fat: 1.2g | Fiber: 3.3g | Protein: 9g | Calories: 250.1
Combined with chewy wheat berries, a tangy vinaigrette and salty Parmesan, this beet salad makes for a light supper or substantial side. Submitted by CHEF_MEG Carbs: 22.8g | Fat: 5g | Fiber: 5.3g | Protein: 6.4g | Calories: 141.4
Chewy, homemade flatbread makes any meal seem special. Use in place of pitas, bread, or crackers! Submitted by CHEF_MEG Carbs: 15.9g | Fat: 0.7g | Fiber: 2.9g | Protein: 5.4g | Calories: 84.5
This delicious and easy gluten-free recipe can be frozen until you're ready to eat it. Submitted by PLATSUZIE Carbs: 5g | Fat: 10.4g | Fiber: 2.4g | Protein: 16.8g | Calories: 179.1
Biting into a perfectly crispy fried shrimp is so satisfying. The 10 grams of fat per serving? Not so satisfying. This dish has all the crunch, with much less fat. Submitted by CHEF_MEG Carbs: 12.8g | Fat: 2.9g | Fiber: 1.4g | Protein: 28g | Calories: 193.7
This is one of my family's very favorite dinners. One of the best things about this recipe is how easy it is to adjust to your own tastes. I entered it in with my true ingredients, which are SPICY! If you don't like it super spicy, adjust your ratio of Sweet Thai chili sauce (found in the grocery store asian food section) and the spicy Sambal Oelek (found in the same section). Try 1/4 cup of sambal oelek and 3/4 cup sweet chili sauce. Also very good with skinless chicken thighs, trimmed. I just ordered PB2 and am looking forward to trying it with this recipe, to cut the fat back even further! Submitted by MISSRED1970 Carbs: 15.8g | Fat: 14.5g | Fiber: 2g | Protein: 20.2g | Calories: 268.1
Submitted by CREATIVELIZA Carbs: 17.6g | Fat: 5.9g | Fiber: 1.4g | Protein: 14.2g | Calories: 183.1
Who said finger food is unhealthy? Submitted by CHEF_MEG Carbs: 3.2g | Fat: 0.7g | Fiber: 0.4g | Protein: 3.5g | Calories: 36.1
Really quick and very easy Submitted by LEDANSER Carbs: 4.5g | Fat: 2g | Fiber: 2g | Protein: 1.4g | Calories: 37.8
A fresh take on a Mexican favorite. From Party Like a Culinista: Fresh Recipes, Bold Flavors, and Good Friends Submitted by GUEST_CHEF Carbs: 20.2g | Fat: 14.3g | Fiber: 3.6g | Protein: 17.7g | Calories: 267.1
These adorable single-serving ham cups turn any breakfast into a special occasion. Feel free to jazz these up with your preferred seasonings. Submitted by NANALINDA5355 Carbs: 0.9g | Fat: 6.9g | Fiber: 0g | Protein: 14.1g | Calories: 125.6
If you want a stock packed with flavor, this is the one to make. Change it up: Add ginger for Asian-style stock and garlic for Italian flair. Submitted by CHEF_MEG Carbs: 8.6g | Fat: 0.4g | Fiber: 4.3g | Protein: 3.2g | Calories: 37.4
Yummy meatless sandwich Submitted by ESCHIWAL Carbs: 27.7g | Fat: 14.5g | Fiber: 11.6g | Protein: 8.4g | Calories: 245.5
Very Good 4.5/5
(10 ratings)
high fiber, low fat, tastes GRRRReat! Submitted by MAIAEL Carbs: 23.5g | Fat: 2.8g | Fiber: 4.2g | Protein: 4.7g | Calories: 138.3

subset: commoncrawl


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You (Yes, You!) Can Totally Pull Off PunkHere's How
It's time to rock outliterally! Let these stylish celebs show you how to make the punk trend work with your vibe.
By Liz Doupnik
Glam Up Your Grunge
The best part about this trend is it's easy to get a fashion-y look without sacrificing comfort! Even a sweatshirt can look totally punk. Just copy Taylor Momsen's grunge-y glam look and stick to pair a black (faux) leather pencil skirt with a matching sweatshirt and combat boots.
More: 10 Super Cute Sweatshirts To Live In Right Now
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Behold! Every PS2 Game Ever Made in One Collection and Unopened
I could never be like PlayStation collector Ahans76 is. I buy plenty of video games and still have a number of PS2 games floating around from back in the day. Generally, I would have the games open to check out before we left the parking lot of wherever I bought it. Not our pal Ahans76 though, this dude bough the games and took them home, slipped them into a bookcase and just left them.
Every one of the games you see here is an official first-party game with the official PlayStation hologram to prove it. The collector says he bought a bunch of the games when stores were going out of business to keep costs down. Right now, he believes his collection has one of every single game made for the system.
That is 1850 games, not counting variants of the games. The collector says the hardest game in the collection to find was a sealed copy of Moto GP. The most expensive was Wizardry: Tale Of The Forsaken Land, which he ended up buying for $300 on eBay. The collection isn't for sale, but I wonder how much it would be worth though in one giant lot.
[via Playstationcollecting]
MORE:Retro | Strange + Wonderful | Video Games | collection | playstation | ps2 | sony
Comments (4):
What a waste.
Look at my collection of unread books, it's next to my collection of unplayed games, not-driven cars, unwatched movies, not-played-with toys, uneaten food, and chairs nobody has sat in.
that dude must be rich he has billions of ps2 games say what i have twice that many in my room and it cost $20.000 when we won a half lotrey


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Daryl Kerrigan Sample Sale
No other designer captures the spirit of downtown NYC better than Daryl Kerrigan. Starting July 30th and ending August 2nd selections from both of her lines (Daryl K and Kerrigan) will be deeply discounted for her Summer Sample Sale. Select items from the past and present will be available for purchase. Wine will be served during the first day of the event at the respectable hour of 3:00 PM.
Are you STILL not an ideeli member? Join now so you can shop a new sample sale everyday!


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BlogContact Us
Yesterday I wrote a tutorial that demonstrates how to use the different storage technologies of the Microsoft Windows Azure Platform (see article Windows Azure Storage in my blog). Some people do not like to read long tutorials, they prefer watching a how-to-video. Therefore I created a series of videos that show how to use SQL Azure, Windows Azure Table Storage, Queues and Blob Storage.
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The Windows Azure platform offers different mechanisms to store data permanently. In this article I would like to introduce the storage types of Windows Azure and demonstrate their use by showing an example application.
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KiaSA Top Tips: Guild Wars 2
guild wars 2, ktt, melmoth, mmo, zoso April 28th, 2012A list of (hopefully) useful tips and tricks we've found while rummaging around in the Guild Wars 2 beta. We've only been playing for a short while so far, and not played before, so it'll be an equally short list of basic tips to start off with, but we'll add to it as and when we stumble upon tidbits that may be QI to others. Do feel free to add your own tips in the comments and we'll pop them in the main list with an appropriate attribution.
- Whether you like it or not – remember it's still a Beta (you can sing this to the tune of Remember You're A Womble if it'll help you at moments of high stress.)
. - Those of you with ATI/AMD graphics cards may find that upon entering the game world you're faced with a UI and an otherwise black screen. Press Esc, go into the graphics options and disable Depth of Field, which fixed this in my instance. Apparently the game is optimised for NVidia cards only at the moment, so expect slightly more frinky graphical glitches during the beta if you're part of The Way It's Also Possible To Be Played set.
. - The music on the login page is indeed on the loud side – although if any game music were going to have to be loud, I'd take the Guild Wars soundtrack any day. There is a cog icon in the top left corner of the login screen which will open the options page and allow you to reduce the audio levels.
. - When you're on the character selection screen look to the top left and you'll see a Contacts icon next to the Options icon. You can check which of your friends is online before you login, and then choose which of your characters to play based on who's on what and where.
. - Helmets and shoulder-pads can be turned off in the Hero sheet (Press H) by right-clicking the appropriate piece of armour. Useful if those Mesmer masks freak you out as much as they do me.
. - Speaking of outfits: the small icons at the top centre of the Hero sheet above your character model allow you to select your town outfit which, for my norn warrior at least, was a rather fetching pirate get-up that matched her bandana rather nicely.
. - Autoloot can be enabled through the options menu (Press Esc) General Options -> Interactions. It does, however, still show you the icons of what you looted in the bottom right of the screen, and you can mouse-over each one for a description of the item. After a short period of time these icons fade out. Don't panic! Autoloot does not steal the armour from other PCs: they all look that naked with their armour on.
. - Speak to any scouts you see (they have a spyglass icon above their head), they will often give you information about the area, and point out new events and locations on your map. They are not recruiting for X-Factor or Next Top Model, though.
. - You may need to bind Dodge to a key – it was unbound for me, although I may have used the default key for something else. Either way, make sure it's bound, and use it whenever you can, it will help to keep you alive as much as '6' (the heal key) will.
. - If you're taking a screenshot, perhaps for sending to ArenaNet, then consider binding a key to Screenshots: High-Res in the options (Press Esc) Control Options.
. - You can merge your inventory into one large bag by unchecking the Bags checkbox at the top on the inventory screen (Press I). You can keep your inventory nice and neat by pressing the Compact icon next to the Bags checkbox. This will move all items up to the top of the inventory, filling in any empty spaces you may have from selling or equipping items – it's a nice way to keep all the new loot going in at the bottom of your inventory so it's easy to find.
. - Don't just chain-run quests, take time to smell the roses. Unless you're doing the Smell the Roses quest, obviously.
2 Responses to "KiaSA Top Tips: Guild Wars 2"
darkeye Says:
April 28th, 2012 at 1:56 pmFor the last tip, I was following a quest chain at the village of misbehaving children in the norn area, without listening to the dialogue, you'd not know why dozens of bears just show up, and it is too easy to miss out on follow-up events if you just rush off again, because some events need to be triggered (i.e. talking to an NPC with a gold icon over their heads, after hearing dialogue explaining what needs to be done). Finding exploration really enjoyable too, found the Order of Whispers hideout in the sewers of Lion's Arch, and an inn in a ship high above the city.
Hunter Says:
April 28th, 2012 at 10:30 pmThere are so many little things. I had fun just running around divinity's reach just looking at bookcarts and reading. Bookcarts. Almost every one had some sly reference to the original game or lore.


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Dr. Marian Bartlett to Present at TedxAmericasFinestCity Event on October 11
Co-Founder Dr. Marian Bartlett will grace the TedxAmericasFinestCity stage next Saturday, October 11 to deliver a talk on the groundbreaking facial expression analysis software she invented with the Emotient team. The event theme is Transformation Through Us, and is positioned as a tool for helping the community drive change. Use promo code AFC_Network for discount passes. @TEDxAFC
San Diegans Sharing Their Big Ideas At Tedx Event
Imagine a world where machines can recognize facial expressions including pain, or a computer game that can teach autistic children how to recognize emotion. That's the world where Marian Bartlett, co-founder and lead scientist at the San Diego biotech Emotient, lives.
Bartlett said her research has shown that the machines do a better job of picking up on human emotion than humans can.
Using machine learning to learn patterns of facial movements that are consistent with real expressions is just one of the big ideas that will be shared at the TEDx America's Finest City conference at SDSU on Oct. 11.
Speakers will share their ideas on transformation on topics ranging from civic engagement to education to inner empowerment.


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Although Ylvis may pretend, nobody knows what the fox says better than Tinni, a Norwegian dog who has become best friends with one. The unlikely pair met while Tinni was on a walk in the forests of Norway with his owner Torgeir Berge, who happens to be a photographer. Berge named the fox Sniffer and has been capturing precious moments of the duo's camaraderie. The pair shows how closely related dogs and foxes are as they walk side by side, play together, romp around, take naps, and cheese it up for the camera. Their friendship has inspired Berge to work towards banning the fox-fur trade in Norway and to do this he has teamed up with writer Berit Helberg to turn his photographs into a storybook for children. Proceeds from the published book will go toward funding the fight against fur-trade. [Read more…]
Floor Plans of Famous TV Shows
Television shows can be seriously addicting, drawing us in each week as new episodes about our favorite characters are put on the air. Some TV characters get so familiar in fact, they almost seem like family – we know just how they act in certain situations, thinking things like "oh, that's such a Homer Simpson thing to do." But how well do we really know the lives of the characters we love to watch? If you walked into their house would you be able to find your way around? Spanish artist and interior designer Iñaki Aliste Lizarralde has been creating highly detailed house plans for many of our favorite shows, giving us an overhead view of the places which house many of our favorite scenes. [Read more…]
Visual Bits #178> Friends & Money
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text: La Jolla Cove Suites proudly hosted the project launch of Defensor Security's GI-JOBS. It is a living documentary intended to promote the hiring of U.S. Veterans within the security industry. Defensor Security courts returning, aged and handicapped veterans for employment, due to their work ethic, reliability and discipline. Its GI-JOBS Project encourages other companies to do so, as well. Thank you, Defensor Security, for choosing us to kick off this important work. We can't wait to see your program air.


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Hello my name is "PETER"forDX'ing My QTH is AMAY JO2OPN 100km south est of capital BRUXELLES. Born in 1933and amateur radio since 2006. My QSL card 100% via bureau or direct good DX's best 73 ON3BPJ - PETER. 100024 Last modified: 2014-01-18 17:32:28, 286 bytes
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