City programs to combat homelessness in Phoenix made some progress in the last months of 2015, according to a government report. However, officials remain concerned that homelessness is on the rise.
The report, which was released Tuesday by the Phoenix Human Services Department, showed progress in several programs aimed at providing services to curtail homelessness. The programs were coordinated by a group composed of the Phoenix Human Services Department, the Valley of the Sun United Way, Maricopa County, the Arizona Department of Housing and the Arizona Department of Economic Security.
Director of the Human Services Department Moe Gallegos said that the collaborative’s goal is not to end homelessness but to reach a “functional zero.”
“We’re trying to get to a place where we have a system that is quick to respond so that people will not languish in homelessness,” Gallegos said.
Despite the report details, Gallegos worried that homelessness is on the rise. He expects the official numbers collected at the end of January to reflect a rise in the homeless population.
One program detailed in the report was the Misdemeanor Repeat Offense Program, whose goal was to end the cycle of homeless citizens spending nights in jail and then being released back onto the streets. Through this program, 1,931 offenders were identified by the police department and, of those, 451 were entered into a tracking system that allowed patrol officers to assist them when they encountered them on the street.
Michelle Morales, a homeless Phoenix resident who works at the Sheraton Hotel, said she heard about the program through friends.
“I think it’s pretty cool that the cops take the homeless to get them help instead of taking them to jail,” Morales said.
The Encampment Engagement Project was another program the city started to help those who are homeless by eradicating the numerous homeless encampments that had cropped up in downtown and central Phoenix and help those living at the encampments enter into services run by the Phoenix Police, Neighborhood Services, Public Works and Human Services departments.
According to the report, more than 272 individuals and 70 encampments had been engaged in services provided by the collaborative between October and December.
David Smith, the communications director for Central Arizona Shelter Services, said that despite the city’s efforts, there is still work to be done to solve the problem of homelessness.
Smith said although in the past the city has been proficient at helping, the homeless population itself is not going down.
“The numbers seem to be very static; they’re not dropping,” Smith said.
Communication between the collaborative departments was the key to helping curtail homelessness, Gallegos said. One such project is to establish an entry system that would help the departments have better data about individual homeless people and their histories.
Despite progress made in the last quarter by the collaborative departments, Gallegos said homelessness is a complicated problem with still more work to be done.
“Homelessness is really complex,” Gallegos said. “No matter how simple it seems, it just isn’t. There is a whole system and a whole lot of reasons why it is so hard to help people.”
Contact the reporter at Daniel.Perle@asu.edu.
