In July, Trump issued an executive order that not only makes it easier for cities and states to eliminate homeless encampments, but also directs authorities to involuntarily commit unhoused people struggling with mental health issues or substance abuse. The policies represent a dramatic shift away from an approach the federal government has used for years called Housing First, an evidence-based program that prioritizes housing over treatment. Sam Tsemberis first developed the Housing First approach in the 1990s. Tsemberis was working as a clinical psychologist in New York City, where he brought people who lived on the streets into hospitals for treatment, often against their will. He soon realized that many of those people ended up back on the streets, seemingly no better off.
Housing First proved more successful than treatment-first models. It soon became the way cities, states, and the federal government approached homelessness, including the Department of Veterans Affairs, which used Housing First to cut veterans’ homelessness in half over the last 15 years.
But the Trump administration is now abandoning the approach, and Tsemberis says that decision could lead to disastrous consequences for the hundreds of thousands of people who are homeless in America. “People will get discharged from the hospital. They will get released from the jail. And they’ll be back out on the street and the thing will be going in a circle again,” Tsemberis says. “The only way to end homelessness is to provide housing.”
On this week’s More To The Story, Tsemberis sits down with host Al Letson to examine the potential effects of Trump’s executive order, how he developed the Housing First approach decades ago, and whether the US has the necessary values to truly tackle poverty and homelessness.
Interview:
No comments:
Post a Comment