By John Maceri
Bill Bauer’s recent article (Homeless: Services without goals and accountability, Aug. 24) contains many inaccuracies. As one of the largest providers of social services in Santa Monica, and not just homeless services, Ocean Park Community Center has more firsthand knowledge and experience dealing with “the homeless problem” than all the comfortably housed writers and aspiring politicians who use your paper as a platform to disseminate misinformation about the service delivery system.
Contrary to Mr. Bauer’s assertions that “there is no attempt at reducing the number of homeless in the community” and “service providers such as OPCC receive funding based on the number of people and services they provide...there is no incentive to reduce the client base, but there is real financial incentive to provide additional services,” every contract we have to provide services requires us to show measurable outcomes that either reduce the number of people living on the streets or facilitate change in behavior that will assist people in connecting with services.
We don’t get paid based on the number of people we serve. In fact, in the last two years our public funding has decreased by 7 percent while our client base has increased by 12 percent. The idea that funders throw money at us based on the number of people we can keep on the streets, without any accountability about how the money is spent and what impact it has, is a complete fabrication. All funders require monthly, quarterly or annual program and fiscal reports detailing how the funds are being used backed up with documentation. In today’s economic climate, with all levels of government facing significant deficits, service providers are pressured to provide ever-increasing services with fewer dollars.
The accusation that OPCC, or any service provider, has a vested interest in keeping people homeless and creating more homelessness to maintain our jobs is not only insulting, it’s contrary to the facts. Homeless services developed in response to meeting a need that has become a social phenomenon across this country since the mid-1980s. Homelessness is growing in Santa Monica, and in every other community, for a variety of reasons. Lack of affordable housing and decent paying jobs, the proliferation of cheap and highly addic-tive street drugs and untreated mental illness and substance abuse.
Homelessness, and the service delivery system, will disappear when we address the root causes of the problem and there is no longer a need for those services. Working with people who have lost hope and often feel less than human is demoralizing for the staff who show up every day and do their best to assist people in finding their way off the streets. Staff celebrates when they are able to help a person obtain shelter, not when they turn the person away because there are no beds available. To suggest that we get a kick out of seeing hundreds of people a day remain on the streets because we are enriched by their misery is not true.
Our agency devotes significant time, energy and resources serving homeless people. Nothing would please me more than to shut down our access center because there was no longer a need for our services. The 250 people a day coming to us would all be housed and we could use our resources to break the cycle of domestic violence, build stronger families, treat people with mental illness or address any of the dozens of other social problems facing this community.
I agree with one of Mr. Bauer’s points. The current system is overwhelmed and incapable of providing adequate help for all those in need. Not because the providers are incompetent or greedy, but because the capacity of the system is limited and will always keep people out. Until we get serious about increasing the number of beds to provide alternatives to living on the streets, we will continue to listen to the same tired complaints. Our continuum is far from perfect. Yes, we all have staff who could do a better job, and we have clients who are unable or unwilling to make the changes in their lives necessary to help themselves. Activities not linked to the continuum of care make it harder to coordinate between agencies and do a disservice to the people who need help. Other local municipalities haven’t done their fair share in providing resources to solve these problems. We all can do more to eliminate homelessness, and not just manage it. Blaming those who are doing the hard work to end this national disgrace does nothing to move us forward and make Santa Monica a safe and clean community for everyone. (John Maceri is executive director of the Ocean Park Community Center.)
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on August 29, 2002. Read the original PDF.