Homeless Voice; Here. Queer. Homeless

Disproportionately representing homeless youth, depressed and anxious, suicidal and unhoused: homeless LGBT youth now face NEW challenges due to COVID-19

V I S I T U S AT H O M E L E S S V O I C E . O R G

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The Homeless Voice | Vol. 22 Issue 2, April 2021 1

Publisher

Vendor and client Michael White | Photo by Miranda Schumes

The Homeless Voice is owned by the COSAC Foundation, a multi-faceted non-profit agency that feeds, shelters, and arranges access to social and medical services to every homeless person that enters its shelters. We aim to enable them to return to a self-reliant lifestyle, but for the small percentage of people incapable, we provide a caring and supportive environment for long-term residency.

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Originally made by a team tasked to raise money from the streets for the shelter, the Homeless Voice was born from the knowledge that freedom of press was a way to raise awareness. We started as a flyer, then a 4-page newsprint, then finally becoming the voice of the homeless with the Homeless Voice newspaper and website in 1999.

In this newspaper we hope to present the problems that the homeless population faces day-to-day, the problems these people personally face, and the ways that laws can help and hinder them.

Visit us at to read past issues, see online-only content, and a full map of where you can find this paper.

Many of our vendors are clients of our shelters, brought to different major cities to vend this paper in return for a donation. Based out of Lake City — where our Veterans Inn shelter and Motel 8 is located — or Davie, they are always brought out in groups of four to help each other stay motivated and keep each other company. They’re given plenty of food and water for the day and don bright shirts to distinguish them as our vendors.

Depending on their specific job in vending this newspaper, all vendors take in about 75% of donations that day, with the remaining 25% put back into the paper.

We distribute in all major cities throughout Florida, including Tallahassee, Lake City, Jacksonville, Tampa, Orlando, Daytona, Ft. Lauderdale, Miami, and now Gainesville.

The Homeless Voice | Vol. 22 Issue 2, April 2021

Sean Cononie

Editor-in-Chief Andrew Fraieli

Executive Editor Mark Targett

Contributers

Channing Kaiser

COSAC Foundation PO Box 292-577 Davie, FL 33329 954-924-3571 Cover photo illustration by Andrew Fraieli

Check out our previous issues and other stories at Homelessvoice.org

Looking for fun and friendly newspaper vendors interested in becoming their own boss.

Contact Ginny: 386-758-8080

Have a journalistic or photography background, and looking for freelancing?

Email us at

andrew@homelessvoice.org The Homeless Voice | Vol. 22 Issue 2, April 2021 3

Out West is vast stretches of public land, used by farmers, tourists, and sometimes the homeless

By Channing Kaiser and Andrew Fraieli

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The Homeless Voice | Vol. 22 Issue 2, April 2021

Photo by Andrew Fraieli

I

n 2017, I lived out of my car for three months. I stayed almost exclusively on public lands, making the occasional exception for Walmart parking lots when necessary.

One evening, I camped off a National Forest road near Mt. Rainier in Washington State. I thought I had the spot to myself and was surprised when a sedan pulled up near me in the settling darkness. A mother and her two children got out to admire the brook, and then crammed back inside to sleep. They had no tent.

It was at that moment I realized how different our circumstances were. Me, a lone female camping in the woods for recreation, and them — whatever their story was — taking refuge in the woods for a reason beyond leisure.

Public lands have always been a source of refuge.

When Europeans came to America seeking freedom from oppression, the idea of open land was a symbol of that refuge, and an idea that has progressed through time. With that, many types of people have sought that refuge and freedom in the United States’ public lands for decades, finding home there — including those who aren’t camping for leisure or escapism, but because of housing insecurity.

But these public lands are not meant to be habited, by lack of design and capability. The long-term stays of people present the clashing challenges to federal agencies of both supporting the unsheltered individuals who have nowhere else to go, and maintaining the integrity of the land — burdening the unhoused with restrictions when they are there from necessity.

Currently, the majority of federal land is managed by the United States Forest Service (USFS) and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) who, together, oversee a total of over 400 million acres — an area more than twice the size of Texas.

Within and because of this vast and difficult terrain, a lack of agency resources, and seasonal fluctuations, there is no available number for how many nonrecreational long-term campers are staying on public lands at any given time. They are simply too hard to count. But the types of people staying are not a mystery, making the discussion broader than just what comes to mind with the term “homeless,” as it does not adequately describe all those individuals living on public lands.

A forest in Montana on BLM land. BLM land can be camped on for up to 14 days | Photo by Channing Kaiser

In general these people are not camping on public lands because they are choosing to be intentionally nomadic, but because they lack the resources to maintain a more conventional ‘homed’ lifestyle,

Non-recreational long-term campers can be divided into three groups: economic refugees, separatists and voluntary nomads — each with their own motivations, habits and effects on the land. These distinctions were created by Dee Southard, an ethnographic researcher who spent 18 months on rural public lands in Oregon, following and interviewing over 300 wilderness residents over six years.

These categories encompass everyone from retirees who live out of their trailers, to those fleeing domestic violence, to nomads who simply want to be away from the world, with economic refugees being those experiencing homelessness in the traditional sense.

“In general these people are not camping on public lands because they are choosing to be intentionally nomadic, but because they lack the resources to maintain a more conventional ‘homed’ lifestyle,” said Southard in her 1997 study. “They are generally not happy with the fact that they are homeless...almost all the non-recreational homeless campers are living in extreme poverty.”

A major complaint that Southard heard from recreational managers from BLM and USFS about these people was that they “do not really know about how to camp ‘lightly’ in the woods,” pointing to them not knowing how to “properly dispose of their excrement, waste water, or trash.”

This study may be from 1997, but the points still hold true today, with people still finding refuge in these lands, and the BLM and USFS still trying to find them.

“Just about every place has some story of a guy living out in the woods who we can never find,” Chris Boehm, the USFS assistant director of law enforcement, told Vice in 2016. “Our officers know the places to look, but some people are really good at hiding.”

Much of the hiding and frequent movements of those suffering from homelessness and living in the forest are because of USFS and BLM camping regulations, as well as enforcement. It varies depending on the district, but for the majority of off-grid camping sites there is a 14-day limit; however, interpretations of this rule vary.

Continued on next page.

A man who, at this point, had been living as an economic refugee for three months | Photo courtesy of Dee Southard, 1997

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Open desert and plains on Bureau of Land Management land in Utah | Photo by Andrew Fraieli

BLM specifies that, after 14 days, a camper must move outside of a 25-mile radius of the last campsite — USFS is more varied and unclear.

Southard gives another reason though, as many ignore the 14-day limit while others don’t: safety. “High residential mobility is a survival strategy pragmatically employed ... to keep their sleeping locations unpredictable, for reasons such as to deter would-be assailants from attacking them at night,” Southdard explains, as multiple people she spoke to were women with children only recently having fled from domestic violence.

Much of the impact these peoples have on the land is because of its lack of amenities that are generally expected when camping. A firepit, perhaps. A picnic table to prepare meals. A bathroom, of course. But when staying on USFS or BLM land, these accommodations are rare or nonexistent, which leads to environmental damages, particularly the accumulation of trash and waste.

“When people don’t move frequently enough, that leaves little opportunity for the land to heal and regrow.

When visitors come out to the forest we want them to see the trees, the wildlife, the pristine water—not somebody’s trash,” Boehm elaborated.

To better understand the scale of impact, take the biannual cleanup the Rosenburg Police Department conducts along the South Umpqua Riverbed in Oregon. In 2017, a team of six people worked for four full days and removed about 10,500 pounds of debris from along the river. Trash included potted marijuana plants, syringes, road signs, bikes, shopping carts, and myriads of other garbage.

Residents of the South Umpqua Riverbed were given advance notice of the cleanup operation.

Cleanups are not cheap either. The USFS in Colorado Springs estimated that it costs between $700 and $1,000 to clean up each individual non-recreational campsite which, depending on the area and amount of abandoned debris, can be a significant strain to agency budgets.

And it is not just trash accumulation that has park service employees worried. Violence, the starting of forest fires and illegal drug activity have all been documented on federal public lands, the latter exacerbated in recent years due to the opioid epidemic.

Homeless use of public lands is a bigger conversation in some states than others though, as the dispersion of federal land is not even, and neither is homelessness.

The highest percentage of federally owned land is in the Western states and Alaska — with Nevada being the highest at 80.1% federally owned. In contrast, only 0.3% of Connecticut and Iowa’s land is federal land, centering dialogues and disputes about usage and management to mainly out West.

In parallel, California had more than a quarter of the total national homelessness at approximately 162,000 homeless persons in January 2020 — according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

More than one-third of all documented homeless individuals are unsheltered, according to the same report; however, western states such as California, Oregon, Hawaii and Nevada, have the highest percentage of their homeless being unsheltered at over 50%.

So what is to be done? How can federal lands be better managed to help at-risk communities?

The streets are

One idea was to create a permanent camp spot for them. This was tested in 1992 on USFS land about 130 miles south of Portland, Oregon, in Umpqua National Forest where a campsite known as Blodgett was created. It permanently housed up to 25 nonresidential long-term campers with six campsites, two chemical toilets, job counseling, and food and gas access. This was a trial operation though, and the campground closed after a year of servicing around 100 people.

Another more recent idea is from a nonprofit in California. Noah’s Community Village, a nonprofit, is looking to lease BLM land in Redding, California to build long-term housing for local people suffering from homelessness. As of January 2020, the nonprofit was still starting the paperwork to lease the land.

The problems that unsheltered residents in outdoor spaces struggle with are no different than those of their urban counterparts — lack of social supports, hygienic resources, shelter, financial opportunities — and they become homeless for similar reasons of lack of affordable housing and savings.

Their limited options can trap them in a state of desperation, and for those out West, often the public lands are their only option for a safe place to stay.

One person, Becky Blanton, who started out living nomadically by choice, ended up doing so out of necessity, and told Vice, “The streets are dangerous. In the woods you might have bears, but there are enough places to find shelter that you won’t have to worry.”

Gifford Pinchot, the first Chief of the Forest Service, declared that the purpose of the Forest Service is “to provide the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people in the long run.” Public lands are a unique facet of America, they belong to all of its citizens.

But who are they ultimately servicing and how can we shape them to better support all communities?

The Forest Service motto, “Caring for the Land and Serving People,” remains aspirational. In its current formation — the influx of trash and unsheltered residence without help — there is still a lot of work to be done.

dangerous. In the

woods you might have bears, but

there are enough places to find

shelter that you won’t have to worry.

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The Homeless Voice | Vol. 22 Issue 2, April 2021

The same economic refugee as the previous photo two years later, now a voluntarily nomadic camper | Photo courtesy of Dee Southard

Homelessness Increases H for Fourth Consecutive Year Pre-Pandemic

By Andrew Fraieli

A recently released report shows homelessness rising even before the pandemic hit, and federal sources still aren’t sure of the effects the pandemic has had on the crisis

Total Amount of Unhoused People in January 2020

580,466 61% Sheltered

39% Unsheltered

Total Change in Homelessness

2016-2017

2017-2018

+1,068 people or +0.7%

+1,834 people or +0.3%

2018-2019

2019-2020

+14,885 people or +2.7%

+12,751 people or +2.2%

INCREASED

INCREASED

INCREASED

INCREASED

27,487

In Florida Alone...

Which breaks down to...

7,143 people in families with children , 1,331 unaccompanied homeless youth 2,436 veterans , 4,650 chronically homeless individuals , 20,344 individuals

Significant Findings Black Americans were, again, found to be highly disproportionately represented.

AFRICAN AMERICANS...

...were 39.8% of all unhoused people, yet only 13% of the U.S. pop.

VS.

WHITE AMERICANS...

...were 48% of all unhoused people and 76% of the U.S. pop.

Florida, again, broke top three states for homeless population.

161,548 or 28% of all unhoused people lived in California 91,271 or 16% of all unhoused people lived in New York 27,487 or 5% of all unhoused people lived in Florida

omelessness in the United States has risen for the fourth consecutive year, to about 580,000 people experiencing homelessness at the start of 2020, according to a Housing and Urban Development (HUD) report released on March 18.

This report was completed prior to the pandemic though, so does not reflect the current severity of the homelessness crisis and certainly is now an underestimate according to federal sources.

The report, which is conducted by counting individuals on the street and in shelters on a single night in January 2020, says from 2019 to 2020 there was a 2.2% increase in homelessness — as compared to a 2.7% increase from 2018 to 2019, 0.3% increase from 2017 to 2018, and 0.7% increase from 2016 to 2017 — but this doesn’t take into consideration the job loss, lockdowns, and economic downturn from the coronavirus.

“I can’t give you numbers, but we know that it’s increased,” Marcia L. Fudge, the recently confirmed secretary of HUD, said, responding to a question on the pandemic’s effects since March in a White House press briefing Thursday.

In the same briefing, Fudge expressed confidence though, saying, “Over the next 12 to 18 months, we know for a fact that we can get as many as 130,000 people off the streets.” A goal, she says, that can be met with the extra $5 billion in funding from President Biden’s coronavirus relief bill that’s “set aside to do nothing but address homeless issues.”

Even this additional funding is not nearly enough to solve the housing crisis though, Fudge explained. She says they need “at least another $70 to $100 billion to do those things” — about double the department’s annual budget.

The report shows that, prior to the pandemic, the rate of homelessness was already consistently worsening and setting milestones. “The findings of the 2020 AHAR Part 1 Report are very troubling, even before you consider what COVID-19 has done to make the homelessness crisis worse,” Fudge said in a HUD press release Thursday.

One such example is the report finding that, for the first time since the point-in-time count began in 2007, there were more unhoused individuals living on the streets, 209,413, than staying in shelters, 199,478. This is a 7% increase for unsheltered individuals compared to last year, with sheltered individuals staying mostly unchanged.

Black Americans were, once again, highly disproportionately represented in their rate of homelessness, making up 39% of all homeless people yet representing only about 13% of the U.S. population in 2019. In contrast, 48% of all homeless people were white, yet making up 76% of the U.S. population.

The amount of transgender and gender nonconforming people experiencing homelessness remained mostly unchanged though, still making up 0.8% of the total homeless population, or about 4,600 people.

Florida, again, broke the top three states for homeless population at 27,487, or 5%, of all unhoused people, but also had one of the largest decreases from 2019-2020 at -3.0%.

The report represents an increase in severity for the homelessness crisis before the effects of the pandemic even began. With HUD moratoriums on rent expiring June 30th according to Fudge, combined with the unknown numbers of people becoming homeless over 2020 past January, it’s unknown how bad the crisis may get.

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Story and Photo Illustrations

By Andrew Fraieli 8

The Homeless Voice | Vol. 22 Issue 2, April 2021

locked myself in a public bathroom so I had a place to sleep.”

This was the start of becoming homeless for Reginald Collins, 23, who has been homeless “on and off” since 18. Collins, who is Black, is also gender fluid and prefers both feminine and masculine pronouns.

“It all started when I was 17. My dad kicked me out because I had a few male friends over,” he said. “It went from being a great experience to police getting involved, and child services. I ended up in foster care.”

Collins has stayed at five different shelters as he’s been homeless, not all LGBT-friendly, as well as couchsurfed with what he considered friends at the time.

“My father was Southern Baptist, so very anti-LGBT+, very old-school. He grew up in the ‘60s, very different from the generation of today,” he elaborated.

Collins faced racism, mental health struggles, and intolerance to his gender fluidity during his stays at various shelters. And he is not alone.

Disproportionately harassed and sexually assaulted; depressed and anxious; suicidal and unhoused; LGBT youth face challenges everyday that homelessness exaggerates and the pandemic has exacerbated.

“28% of LGBTQ youth who experienced housing instability reported a suicide attempt in the past year,” according to a 2020 report by the Trevor Project, a non-profit organization focused on suicide prevention among the LGBTQ community. This jumped to 34% for specifically transgender and nonbinary homeless youth.

But this was the reality before COVID-19.

Pre-pandemic, 29% of all LGBT youth, generally defined as ages 13 to 24, experienced homelessness — disproportionately representing homeless youth in general, being more than twice as likely to be homeless than their non-LGBT peers.

On an average day, 27% of homeless LGBTQ youth reported exchanging sex for “basic needs,” with 38% reporting they had been forced to have sex. On a normal, non-pandemic night, LGBT youth faced violence due to their gender or sexuality, and harassment — in school, by their family, and on the streets.

These disparaged LGBT youth heavily depend on LGBT community centers and shelters for finding housing, as well as finding jobs, mental health counseling, food, showering, and social support. But the pandemic has challenged shelter’s and community center’s ability to supply these essential services, and youth’s ability to receive them. Already, the pandemic has directly caused more LGBT youth to become homeless.

“I

COVID-19 Sending More LGBT Youth to the Street “When the parks closed, and the hotels closed, we saw a drastic increase in homelessness, oftentimes it’s just them not able to afford rent and getting kicked out of their current situations,” says Heather Wilkie — CEO of the Zebra Coalition in Orlando, one of about 15 or so LGBT-focused community centers in Florida. Wilkie says they see many youth working in tourism and hospitality, and Orlando was already in the midst of a housing crisis when the pandemic started.

Collins was one of those youth, losing his job at a Holiday Inn resort in mid-March. He thought he’d lose

his hours for a few days, but it “went from being a few days to a few weeks to months.” Eventually he said they laid him and others off so the employees could apply for unemployment benefits.

In comparison to losing housing, Victor Diaz-Herman — CEO of Pridelines, an LGBT community center in Miami — has seen some youth running away from home.

“Because it’s unsafe, or they’d rather be on the streets than living their lives not acknowledging who they truly are, or their parents not wanting to acknowledge who they truly are…,” he said.

The main challenge he’s seen is finding housing during the pandemic due to limited beds in general — rather than more LGBT youth becoming homeless. Second to that is finding shelters “that are safe and affirming for our queer youth.”

The pandemic is now adding on to this series of challenges with COVID test requirements and selfquarantining, both of which can be complicated for a homeless youth Diaz-Herman explained.

The Zebra Coalition has 11 beds of their own for youth coming in, and 36 units in a rapid-rehousing program

funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Development (HUD). The rapid-rehousing is a rent-subsidy program, so youth do not have to pay.

Even so, Wilkie says the Zebra Coalition has faced a similar restriction issue with housing.

“With the rapid rehousing program we’re working with landlords, so we’re at their mercy as to what guidelines they have established because of the pandemic,” she said.

The Pandemic is Bringing Mental Health Even Lower COVID-19 restrictions have caused queer youth to have even less access to safe spaces like LGBT community centers and schools which, normally, are heavily used for their community, support groups, and in-person mental health services.

By July of last year, 94% of participating centers offered online programs. That’s up from 21% in early 2020 according to a report by Centerlink — a nonprofit association of LGBTQ centers — but the participation of these online services is varied. Going online isn’t as easy as it sounds for homeless youth, who may not have readily available access to the internet.

“People don’t understand, when you’re homeless you go through a lot to get back on your feet, it’s not easy.

You don’t have a place, you don’t have WiFi. If you don’t have a working phone than that’s even worse because

now, with COVID, everything is online,” says Collins, who’s been staying at the Zebra Coalition since he was 19. During the pandemic he has been able to access services in person there.

“When you’re experiencing homelessness you aren’t prioritizing sitting at a McDonalds or a Starbucks using their free WiFi to participate in a [support] group in front of strangers,” says Diaz-Herman, referencing their online group services.

Pridelines, he says, has seen a drop in participants since switching to online.

“People are now having to access these groups, more often than not, from their homes where they may not be out, or where it may not be safe to be themselves,” he said.

He sees the shift from a safe place as the main issue, “because now it’s no longer in this space that we create, but the space they have available to them.”

Wilkie described seeing a similar issue where LGBT youth “may be in situations where their families might not be supportive, so that’s further isolating. And all of those things, definitely have expanded.” Wilkie also said they’ve hired more workers for their online mental health services to be able to reach out to even more youth.

School closures could also contribute to LGBT youth’s isolation according to an April report on COVID-19’s possible mental health effects by the Trevor Project. The reports states LGBT youth “may lose access to positive connections,” like extracurricular activities, positive social interactions, and Gay Straight Alliances (GSAs).

“GSAs provide LGBTQ youth and allies with safe environments where they can feel empowered, socialize, and receive support, and the presence of GSAs has been found to significantly reduce the risk for depression and increase well-being among LGBTQ youth and young adults,” according to the report.

These are the same queer youth whom half have been verbally harassed in school and are twice as likely to be physically assaulted there than their peers. For those without a home though, school could be the only source of “positive connections” outside of community centers.

The Humans Rights Campaign took note of the higher rates of homelessness among LGBT youth in a recent report.

“Many LGBTQ youth may heavily rely on food and resources provided by public schools and child welfare agencies. Due to widespread school closures as a result of COVID-19, LGBTQ youth are at risk of accessing basic needs provided by schools,” the report states. “They may also be required to spend more time in unsupportive environments — including home environments where they face family rejection.”

In August, The Trevor Project published their first report that polled both LGBT and straight cisgender youth on their mental health specifically during the pandemic. It found higher rates of stress, symptoms of depression, and that general lack of access to mental health care had increased in the LGBT youth, with the possibility of homelessness contributing to the worsening of these rates.

“Forty-one percent of LGBTQ youth stated that COVID-19 impacted their ability to express their LGBTQ identity, including more than half of transgender and nonbinary youth (56%),” the report states. This is also seen in a Trevor Project report from earlier in the

The Homeless Voice | Vol. 22 Issue 2, April 2021 9

year stating that half of all transgender and nonbinary youth were kicked out of their homes, and 56% ran away due to their LGBTQ identity.”

“LGBTQ youth who experienced housing instability were twice as likely to report seriously considering suicide and three times as likely to report attempting suicide compared to LGBTQ youth who had not,” according to a 2019 version of the same yearly report.

The Trevor project also told the Homeless Voice that, “Since the onset of COVID-19, the volume of youth reaching out to The Trevor Project’s crisis services for support has increased significantly — at times double our pre-COVID volume.”

Collins has felt this stress from the pandemic, saying that his mental health was affected “when the pandemic first started because I lost my job. I got laid off because of this thing. I wasn’t making money for almost five months basically.”

He calls himself a social butterfly, so the lack of “going out, being with friends, doing what young people do: clubbing, going to restaurants, theme parks” has affected him a lot. He also hasn’t been able to see his partner.

The mental health of LGBT youth has already been the subject of many reports before. They show higher rates of depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts and attempts compared to non-LGBT youth, as well as higher rates of homelessness. Mental health issues are even more prevalent among those who are both LGBT and unhoused.

More Restrictions Means Less Help and Longer Waits Sobourney Burnes — director of the Youth Program at SunServe, a non-profit LGBT community center in Fort Lauderdale — has found similarly to Diaz-Herman that the “difficulty of getting [LGBT youth] housing has increased.” She’s also had difficulties with restrictions implemented at shelters, calling them too restrictive even with safety concerns taken into consideration.

“It’s not fair to someone with a job,” Barnes explains.

An example she gives is a client she’s been working with for a couple months who hasn’t been able to stay in a shelter due to working later than the shelter’s curfew.

All three of these LGBT community centers have had to limit in-person interactions and heighten safety restrictions due to the pandemic, but Burnes says it’s curbed their ability to help.

“We used to be able to go out,” she says. “I could put a kid in my car and drive them to a job, but now with the restrictions I can’t at all.” To Burnes, this forced “less of the hands-on-ness that we’re known for.”

Essential services from LGBT community centers like food, laundry, and mental health counseling haven’t ceased though, in Florida or otherwise. According to one report, during the pandemic some of those needs have increased.

“Many centers have expanded their basic needs programming, such as food pantries and providing direct cash assistance to community members,” states the report from Centerlink.

Diaz-Herman elaborates that these in-person restrictions have harmed homeless youth, they can no longer “spend time inside, while using the services, or even having a rest from the day to day challenges they face, including access to peers and support services from the shelter,” he said.

10 The Homeless Voice | Vol. 22 Issue 2, April 2021

But Pridelines continues to offer these essential services. “[We] still offer our wrap around services, our support groups are virtual,” Diaz-Herman said. “We still have our showers available by appointment, laundry service available by appointment, snacks and meal support — all of that still exists…”

Meanwhile, the Zebra Coalition has even been able to have some walk-in hours stay available during the week. Though Wilkie says, “there haven’t been a lot of youth dropping by, so even though we follow CDC guidelines, they’re still hesitant to come in person.”

Helping LGBT Teens Will Help All Teens Mental health is still a problem for cisgender youth though. The Trevor Project has shown that 23% of cisgender youth who “experienced housing instability” attempted suicide as well. The issue for LGBT youth is how disproportionately represented they are. 29% of all homeless youth identify as LGBT, and 28% of those youth have attempted suicide.

“Really we’re talking LGBT youth because they are so much of the homeless youth,” says Dylan Waguespack, the Public Policy and External Affairs director at True Colors United, a non-profit that pushes for policy changes to support homeless LGBT youth.

Waguespack points out that anything that works for LGBT youth will work for others; it’s a matter of inclusion in consideration.

“They have to think ‘will I be safe here sleeping, I can’t come out, I can’t say this is who I am, someone is going to hurt me’,” says Burnes — non-LGBT youth do not. In one shelter, she says “there was a lot of LGBT incompetency,” and the common situation of a trans youth being put on a side of the shelter that doesn’t match their gender.

“I went to a Christian shelter and that was one of the worst experiences I ever had,” says Collins. “It’s definitely one of those full-time Christian places.

Me being Black, the power of them being a bunch of caucasian people, there was some little racism going on. At the time, I was just going to school, trying to live my day-to-day life.”

Collins is also familiar with the shelter Barnes was referring to. “[T]hat was another Christian faith shelter, but they did understand they had a LGBT population. So they were more tolerant — I should say, ‘tolerant,’” he said. “Shelters like that need to educate themselves

on modern day society, you know, asking pronouns, knowing how to identify gender, becoming more open to LGBTQ youth. Have to be more patient…”

“To be fair, congregate shelters haven’t always been the greatest option,” Waguespack notes. LGBT youth end up there “knowing they are less safe in congregate housing: mentally, physically, or otherwise.”

Most of True Colors United’s “focus is on trying to help spur congressional action,” Waguespack says. Right now “there isn’t much to be done except crisis management,” and making sure young people are included in emergency situations and spending decisions.

Diaz-Herman points to the need for more training for staff at shelters and to have the conversations about how to make LGBT youth feel safe, even with other non-LGBT clients.

“So when you come into that space, if you’re a straight ally, you are coming in knowing that this space is safe, it’s affirming, but knowing it’s first and foremost going to ensure that our LGBTQ community members are the ones that feel that,” he said.

A report from True Colors United highlights the possible lack of training showing that 22.7% of shelters said “they did not have dedicated LGBTQ staff and did not need one.” 30.3% reported they didn’t have a dedicated staff member but it would be helpful, with the main reason of going without being funding.

Funding is always a problem, but going further, how the dollars are spent is an issue as well. Waguespack hopes more money is used for better conceptual solutions, like housing support, rather than furthering shelter capacity.

“It’s always been true that housing is the solution,” he said. “There’s no reason to be spending tax dollars to keep warehousing young people.” And, he continues, along with that idea, “none of these things will be less important months from now.”

Wilkie agrees.

“Young people aren’t going to suddenly have housing in three months. It’s a long-term issue, they’re spot on,” she said. “I was very fortunate we got that long-term money [the HUD grant] because a young person could stay in that housing program for up to two years — that’s the type of assistance that we need.”

When the parks closed, and the hotels closed, we saw a drastic increase in homelessness, oftentimes it’s just them not able to afford rent and getting kicked out of their current situations, LGBT youth already disproportionately suffer from mental health issues, higher rates of homelessness, and lack of access to help, with the pandemic taking more of these skeletal support systems and scarce resources away from them.

Diaz-Herman hopes, though, that more funding will come from this dire situation to help LGBTQ youth in the long-term.

“Not to provide more beds in existing shelters,” he said. “But to develop specific housing opportunities

Are You Homeless Or Need Help Now?

and programs that are targeted, that is focused on a [Continuum of Care]. Not just to house you, or find you a temporary apartment that you can eventually transition to, but to give you opportunity to pick up a skill.”

Shelter is one step in a more long-term solution the way Diaz-Herman describes it. These LGBT youth need housing, but they also need life skills to truly succeed.

“Financial literacy, professional development, support with mental health — well, health and mental health quite frankly — that would be focused on providing these young people with the resources to become selfsufficient,” he explains. “So, when they either age-out or term-out of these programs, they have the ability to thrive.”

Collins is a perfect example of what more long-term services can do. He’s stayed with the Zebra Coalition, a place he calls “very pro-LGBT,” three times since he was 19, but sees this as the last time.

“I don’t plan on coming back, because I’ll have my life together,” he said.

He’ll be starting a job soon as an assistant administrator at Aspire Health Partners, a Florida behavioral healthcare non-profit, helping HIV affected men and women find housing.

“I’ll be doing pretty much what my life has been about,” he said. “And I’ll put it back into the community.”

Without the Zebra Coalition — where he’s stayed since the pandemic started in January 2020 — Collins paints a grim picture of what his life may have been like.

“I’d probably be dead somewhere,” he said. “I would have either died from starving, or dehydration, or I would have gotten so depressed at the situation because I had no help, nowhere to go…”

But when it’s all over, “I expect life to be better. I expect to travel. I think people will feel a lot better after this mess.”

Even with restrictions and more difficulty finding housing due to the pandemic, there are still community centers and resources that can help you.

The Trevor Project has a 24-hour,

housing in the past. They accept youth aged 11 seven-days-a-week hotline at 1-866-488- to 21 and can be call 24 hours a day at 954-5615559 or 800-683-8338 7386 if you are thinking about suicide or need immediate support. They also have an online chat service, or you can text START to 678-678 to text In Orlando, you can call the Zebra with a Trevor counselor.

Coalition — an LGBT community center and shelter with open drop-in services Monday If you are in Miami and need shelter, you can call to Friday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. — at 407-228Pridelines, an LGBT community center with 1446. They provide assistance to those who are mental health services, showers, food and more, 18-24 years old. at 305-571-9601 and they can help you find somewhere.

The Covenant House also has an Orlando location that accepts those who are 18 Covenant House is a shelter located to 24 as well. You can call them at 407-482-0657 in Fort Lauderdale that Pridelines and other or 800-441-4478 any time of day or week for LGBT community centers have used to help with shelter.

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THE COST TO

CRIMINALIZE

Taxes are being used to fight rather than solve homelessness across the country; it’s making life more difficult for those who are unhoused, and isn’t cheap on the taxpayer either.

Story and Photo Illustrations

By Andrew Fraieli 12 The Homeless Voice | Vol. 22 Issue 2, April 2021

$15 an hour for a full time job.

The cost of supportive housing, giving these people a place to live and the help they need, whether medical or with finding a job, would have been far less though at an average of $10,051 per person per year, “a community cost reduction of 68%,” the report continued.

Utah is a famous example of this supportive housing working, having brought their chronically homeless population from 2,000 people in 2005, to less than 200 in 2016.

THE CYCLE OF JAIL AND HOMELESSNESS The cohort of unhoused in those Central Florida counties were arrested repeatedly, not just once though. They cycled in and out of jail for the same offenses, no better off. According to a 2013 study — Jail Incarceration, Homelessness, and Mental Health: A National Study — this is a cycle of incarceration, and it can perpetuate itself.

PUNISHING PEOPLE FOR SITTING ON A MILK CRATE IS JUST ANOTHER WAY MIAMI IS CRIMINALIZING HOMELESSNESS

i

t costs taxpayers $31,065 a year to criminalize a single person suffering from homelessness — through enforcement of unconstitutional antipanhandling laws, hostile architecture, police raids of homeless encampments, and just general harassment. The cost of providing them supportive housing — $10,051 per year.

Multiple reports over the course of the decade have said the cost of criminalizing homelessness surpasses what the cost of housing and helping these people would be. Florida, though, continues to be guilty of putting vast amounts of tax dollars towards this criminalization.

THE TAX COST OF ARRESTING A report by Rethink Homelessness in 2014 looked at Central Florida counties Seminole, Orange and Osceola. They analyzed the costs of “arrest, incarceration, medical and psychiatric emergency room use and inpatient hospitalizations” for a cohort of about 30 chronically homeless individuals in each county — a total of 107 throughout.

They found in Osceola county alone, over ten years, 37 chronically homeless people were arrested 1,250 times, or about four times per person per year.

The booking cost of each arrest was $104, costing taxpayers $130,000; the arrests led to 61,896 days of incarceration at a daily cost of $80, costing the community $4,951,680; this totaled to $6,417,905 over ten years, or $641,791 per year for those 37 people.

Cycling these people of all three counties through this system was costing the counties $31,065 per person per year — almost the exact cost of paying each person

A loop of jail time and homelessness, the report says, “Incarceration has been noted to increase the risk of homelessness” as it can weaken community ties, limit employment opportunities, and make it more difficult to get public housing.

“This bidirectional association between homelessness and incarceration may result in a certain amount of cycling between public psychiatric hospitals, jails and prisons, and homeless shelters or the street,” the report elaborates, supporting the same findings as Rethink Homelessness.

Part of the source of this cycle of incarceration are the laws and different forms of enforcement by the police and city that criminalize homelessness.

They can be subtle, used when a direct arrest may not be possible, and put more costs to the taxpayers and away from more long-term solutions.

Leah Rockwell, the Parks and Recreation director, told the Palm Beach Post in defense of their tactic. “We are not forcing individuals to stay on the patio of the pavilion to listen to the music,” she elaborated.

Cost-wise, Santa Cruz, California spent $1,000 per speaker box for a similar solution where they emitted a high-pitch sound under a local bridge to deter loiterers.

There are still many city ordinances that are more direct — criminalizing urinating in public or sleeping in public parks for example. But the Tent City USA report continues that more outreach and alternatives for the unhoused is the better solution, and that neither direct nor passive criminalization is necessary.

“Many communities state they need criminalization ordinances to provide law enforcement with a ‘tool’ to push people to accept services, but providing outreach backed with resources for real alternatives is the far better, proven approach,” the report said.

An example given is when Miami changed their police officer’s approach to handling homeless and mental health issues. It made such an impact, the White House took notice in a press release on “Disrupting the Cycle of Incarceration” in 2016.

“Miami-Dade, Florida found that 97 people with serious mental illness accounted for $13.7 million in services over 4 years, spending more than 39,000 days in either jail, emergency rooms, state hospitals, or psychiatric facilities in their county. In response, the county provided key mental health de-escalation training to their police officers and 911 dispatchers.”

It continues that over five years, the Miami-Dade police responded to 50,000 calls for people in mentalhealth crises, but made only 109 arrests, “diverting more than 10,000 people to services or safely stabilizing situations without arrest.” This led to a drop from 7,000 to just over 4,700 in the jail population, allowing the county to close a jail and save an additional $12 million a year.

THE STATE’S HOSTILE SOLUTIONS A 2017 report, Tent City USA by the National Law Center on Homlessness and Poverty, elaborates — initially referring to incarceration costs — that “cities also spend thousands of dollars on fences, bars, rocks, spikes, and other ‘hostile’ or ‘aggressive’ architecture, deliberately making certain areas of their community inaccessible to homeless persons without shelter.”

A passive form of enforcement, hostile architecture is metal bars dividing benches, bolts on stone steps, spikes or stones cemented on ledges or on the ground — ploys targeting the homeless, aiming to take away the few choices they have for sleeping and forcing the taxpayers to unwittingly pay for it.

One Florida example was in West Palm Beach in 2019.

A city events venue played loops of the children’s songs “Raining Tacos” and “Baby Shark” all night long to drive away the people who would sleep there at night, The Palm Beach Post reported. “[Customers] shouldn’t have to trip over bodies when they or community events staffers come to set up at 5 a.m., or when caterers or a bride leave at midnight,”

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Cost effective and impactful for unnecessary arrests of mentally ill people, but still allowing more passive and subtle criminalization, the Miami police continued to harass the unhoused with different tactics — like arresting people for sitting on a dairy crate and dropping the charges within a day.

According to research by the Miami New Times in 2018, “In the past three years, Miami-area police have sent at least 49 people to jail for ‘unlawful use of a dairy case.’” They say that, in the same time frame, 58 people were arrested for possession of a shopping cart. These are minor charges commonly used to “hassle” homeless people, they said.

Medicaid program (MassHealth) to analyze the cost benefits of Housing First. They found that those helped

by Housing First “were found to have significantly lower health care resource utilization” than those who weren’t, and also “used relatively more mental health care services and relatively less emergency care.”

THESE EXAMPLES OF HARASSMENT, CRIMINALIZATION AND COSTS RACKED UP BY THE STATE ARE NOT FROM A LACK OF POSSIBLE OR COST-VIABLE SOLUTIONS.

THE CITY SHOWED UP, WITH NO NOTICE TO THE HOMELESS RESIDENTS OF THE COMMUNITY, MANY OF WHOM WERE VETERANS, AND BULLDOZED THE CAMPS. “Punishing people for sitting on a milk crate is just another way Miami is criminalizing homelessness,” Jackie Azis, staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, told Miami New Times.

They continue that, according to activists, “the arrests cost taxpayers, clog jails, and do little to ease homelessness in Miami,” as well as being charges that are usually dropped by the morning.

Criminalization by costly, superfluous arrests, easily dropped charges, subtlety and targeted laws are all attacks on the homeless, a criminalization of basic human needs, and a costly endeavor to the town, city or state. But another common tactic of police enforcement — that unwittingly racks up taxpayer costs as well — leads to the destruction of irreplaceable documents and private property of thousands of unhoused people: homeless encampment sweeps.

“On June 22, 2011, the City of Titusville [Florida] raided and systematically destroyed homeless encampments located on private property in wooded areas around the city,” according to the Tent City USA report. This was in preparation for the some million people expected to come to Titusville for the launch of NASA’s final space shuttle.

“The City showed up, with no notice to the homeless residents of the community, many of whom were veterans, and bulldozed the camps. The City then disposed of all property it seized at the local dump, some of which was irreplaceable,” the report said.

This police raid destroyed one unhoused veteran’s American flag, urn containing his father’s ashes, and his Veterans Affairs paperwork.

The report repeats that “encampments exist because of a lack of suitable housing. Clearing encampments without notice or provision for appropriate housing solutions simply exacerbates the problems.”

This specific example of Titusville in 2011 led to two federal lawsuits being filed on behalf of seven of those who were living in the encampment, ending with a settlement and the city providing “monetary damages” to them. Tax dollars went towards paying for police to destroy these people’s property, fighting them in federal court, and then paying them a settlement in the end.

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These examples of harassment, criminalization and costs racked up by the state are not from a lack of possible or cost-viable solutions.

As the Central Florida report elaborated, it is a much cheaper solution to give permanent supportive housing to homeless individuals than pay the legal costs of constant arrests and convictions, and Housing First is one such stated solution.

HOMES RATHER THAN ARRESTS According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness (NAEH), Housing First is a “homeless assistance approach that prioritizes providing permanent housing to people experiencing homelessness, thus ending their homelessness…,” with one approach within Housing First being this concept of permanent supportive housing.

The concept is supported by many organizations, including the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness — the only government agency solely tasked to end homelessness — and defended as a costeffective solution as recently as December 2020 in a study by the Blue Cross Foundation.

The study used data from the Massachusetts’

A major source of homelessness is rooted in the basic problem of housing that’s unaffordable in the first place, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness. They state that “leading housing advocates report that 11 million households spend more than one-half of their income on rent,” and a recent Harvard report says “38.1 million households spend more than one-third of their income on housing.”

According to The National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC), a non-profit that aims to end the affordable housing crisis through policy and data research, anything upwards of “the generally accepted standard of spending no more than 30% of gross income on rent and utilities,” is considered unaffordable housing though.

“Too many families in both categories are an unexpected bill away from sliding into homelessness,” the Alliance said.

There are many reasons as well for someone to become unable to afford bills and become homeless.

One small study of 32 unhoused people across South Florida found medical debt to be the leading cause of their homelessness. Mental health affects about 20% of all American as of 2019, and The National Coalition for Homelessness says the general effects of various mental illnesses “disrupt people’s ability to carry out essential aspects of daily life,” as well as make social bonds.

“This often results in pushing away caregivers, family, and friends who may be the force keeping that person from becoming homeless,” they elaborate.

Homelessness is costly, to both taxpayers and those who are homeless or about to be. High housing costs work against them, low minimum wages work against them, and the lack of long-term affordable solutions hurts everyone.

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