Task Force on Homeless Solutions Press Conference 2/1/08
Press Conference February 1, 2008
Comments by Ted Edlich, TAP President

Good Morning. I want to thank the previous speakers. I want to express our respect for their determination, their resilience, and their belief in themselves that has helped them deal with one of the most frightening and humiliating of situations, being homeless.

In this country, since the great depression, homelessness was a stream, in many communities just a trickle. Today it is a river threatening families with children as well as individuals with chronic mental health and substance use problems. It is closer to all of us than we once thought. Working people and families who never imagined themselves on the street suddenly are threatened with the loss of a mortgage or failure to afford their rent. The cruel fact of homelessness is that most of the homeless are children. Many find the Rescue Mission one of their few options to sleeping out in the cold. Homelessness is frightening to those who are homeless and to those of us who are not.

In November of 2007, the Roanoke City Manager called all of the non-profit organizations in the City of Roanoke together to discuss the administration’s concerns about the rising numbers of homeless persons in our community. The City Manager challenged us to come up with creative solutions to the problem.

Representing two organizations, the Rescue Mission and TAP, which have been prominent in addressing the plight of the homeless, both the prevention of homelessness and caring for those who are homeless, Joy and I welcomed the public discussion of this important issue and felt it should be addressed in a timely fashion. So we put together an ad hoc task force, the Task Force on Homeless Solutions, that has involved key players in the Mental Health Association, Blue Ridge Behavioral Healthcare, and Emotional Health Care Stabilization which has met weekly since December 7th, 2007 to create positive action steps to address the varied problems that are involved in the threat of homelessness.

The 27 page report that you have before you, which is posted on the Rescue Mission and TAP websites, represents more than 200 hours of deliberation between those parties and more than 22 other leaders in our community dealing with public safety, the courts, and housing. While there are very specific recommendations throughout the report, we offer them not as infallible edicts but a positive contribution to the public discussion.

There are four major sections to the report. The first section, The River of Homelessness, is a background piece that discusses the history, the causes, and the nature of the issue with which we are dealing as a community. The second section, The Intersection of Downtown Roanoke Development and the Lives of the Chronic Homeless, specifically addresses the problem of the chronic homeless and how we can better help them and minimize their negative impact on the downtown community. The third section, Housing, addresses the need for housing and presents suggestions for better public policy. The Ten Year Plan to End Homeless is a housing first model which is predicated on the availability of affordable housing. This section addresses how that might be done in a community where this is an outstanding need. The fourth section, Mental Health, deals with creating greater access to mental health resources.

You will note in the report there is a call to address this issue on a regional basis. One specific recommendation calls for the expansion of the Roanoke Redevelopment and Housing Authority to change its boundaries to cover the entire Roanoke Valley as is done in other sections of Virginia. An example is the recent regional cooperation by public officials in Norfolk, Portsmouth and Virginia Beach on an innovated SRO (Single Room Occupancy) project. There is also a need for the public officials of our valley to take direct leadership in this effort. A study of 300 ten year plans to end homelessness required by HUD revealed that ours alone was not led by an elected public official or group of elected officials. Local governments have worked on regional issues such as our Western Virginia Water Authority. We believe that this is an issue that deserves regional attention.

In the first section of the report, we underline that prevention of homelessness should be a top priority. The excellent poverty simulation conducted by the United Way a few months ago, revealed to all of us the difficulty that persons who are about to lose their residence have in piecing together resources from various organizations. On February 15th TAP will open a street front office in the Crystal Tower Building to improve access to those who are about to lose their homes. We will bring together all of TAP’s existing resources that deal with that issue, are seeking closer collaboration with other agencies that provide relief-especially RAM and the Salvation Army-, and will offer evening access twice a week to those in need.

Finally, let me say we have no interest in engaging in a blame game in this area of such importance to the most vulnerable in our society. We are appreciative of all the private donors who contribute to the Rescue Mission, Roanoke Area Ministries, the Salvation Army, Trust and TAP. We appreciate of the support of local government for local and federal grants which support the HAT team, TAP programs including the Transitional Living Center, Blue Ridge Behavioral Healthcare and many other initiatives.

The Roanoke Valley has so many assets. Among them is that we are a compassionate community where no one sleeps on street grates and no one dies in the cold.