Picking apart the safety net

Contents

1. 1 Picking apart the safety net
2. 2 Raising money, awareness for area’s homeless
3. 3 VHFA-er “changes the world” with gift to Morningside Shelter
4. 4 Vigil to commemorate the National Day of the Homeless Person
5. 5 2nd Hike for the Homeless a success
6. 6 New director named for Morningside Shelter

Federal sequester cuts hit home for local anti-poverty agencies

By Olga Peters / As published in the April 17, 2013 issue of The Commons

BRATTLEBORO—Local nonprofits receiving federal funds are reviewing their budgets in response to the federal sequester, saying what started as an across-the-board 5 percent spending cut could thrust greater numbers into poverty.

Steve Geller, executive director of Southern Vermont Community Action (SEVCA), said local organizations such as SEVCA “catch people in the nick of time” before they become homeless.

Cutting services for people in poverty promotes unnecessary suffering and costs taxpayers more money over time, said Geller, who called the sequester cuts “incredibly shortsighted.”

“They’re [Congress] looking at the silo and not the whole sequence of consequences,” he said of the sequester’s potential long-term effects.

According to Geller, SEVCA has received word the federal funding it receives for Head Start — a federal block grant that supports emergency family outreach workers and emergency home repairs — will be cut.

Geller estimates that SEVCA stands to lose $100,000 over the sequester.

“We consider it a lot,” said Geller. “That hurts for us to have to say that.”

Not all of SEVCA’s $7 million budget comes from federal sources. Still, the 5 percent cuts could translate into 100 to 200 households going without critical services.

Geller said the cuts are not huge in one area alone, but overall, “they erode our ability to provide quality services and meet demands.”

According to Geller, the community action agency is analyzing the budget cuts, their effect on services, and how the agency will respond.

With what information he has at this early stage, Geller estimates that, absent additional funds, some 35 to 50 families stand to go without emergency housing assistance this year. This program helps people in danger of eviction remain in place or move to another stable situation.

In Windsor County, which SEVCA also serves, the sequester could lead to the dismantling of one Head Start classroom serving 17 children, said Geller.

As the sequester’s effects ripple, SEVCA faces reductions in outreach office hours, number of people served, number of staffers in the micro-business program, and other payroll.

The agency is trying to determine the best way to absorb the reductions while protecting the most services, Geller said.

In the previous fiscal year, SEVCA served 6,300 households in Windham and Windsor counties, or about 14,000 individuals.

The agency’s services included emergency heating fuel, emergency housing, crisis resolution, continued disaster recovery services following Tropical Storm Irene, home weatherization, and tax preparation.

Worst to come?

Geller said his major concern is that these cuts might be the first volley in what he said he feared could be “a larger battle against the poor.”

The 5 percent sequester cuts follow in the footsteps of previous cuts or level-funding over several years, he said. Those dollars cover fewer services, while the cost of living only increases.

Not all the cuts will happen simultaneously, Geller said. The sequester cuts could span different fiscal years depending on how the federal government awarded the grants — some federal grants are awarded in chunks over two years, for example.

The 5 percent cuts, or the estimated $100,000, at SEVCA only pertain to federal fiscal year 2013, which runs October to September, Geller explained.

Geller said he fears that the cuts will continue ramping up in 2014. Head Start programs could see an 8 percent cut, for example.

“It’s a snowball effect,” he said. “We’re nervous about how each piece could feed off each other and create a bigger impact.”

Meanwhile, Geller said SEVCA saw a 15 percent increase in demand for services over the previous year as more people with jobs, including families with both parents working full- or part-time, had reached out for services.

That speaks to an increase in people’s desperation in the wake of the 2008 recession, he said. People hold out less hope for finding jobs and opportunities.

More people stand on the edge of homelessness, he said. Meanwhile, the sequester will hit funding for homelessness prevention.

Geller said the situation is frustrating, as it costs less to prevent homelessness than to pull a family out of homelessness, where many lose the wind from their sails. “It’s a better use of funds,” he said, adding that in his view the sequester is Congress’ “colossal blunder.”

“Time will judge if this [sequester] is an anomaly or the new normal,” he said.

Geller has served more than eight years as executive director at SEVCA. Before that, he served 18 years at a Community Action agency in Portsmouth, N.H., and in Massachusetts before that.

He described funding in his long experience as cycling up and down, and that he wouldn’t “hit the panic button yet,” but this year’s fiscal stalemate strikes him as distressing and discouraging.

“But I’m always hopeful,” Geller said.

Innovation during tough times

The 29-bed Morningside Shelter, which receives a “significant amount” of funding from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, also faces a hit in October, at the start of the 2014 federal fiscal year, reports executive director Joshua Davis.

Morningside, founded in 1979, is the only homeless shelter in southeastern Vermont, and specializes in housing placement with ongoing staff support and life skills development for both families and individuals.

Davis has served as the shelter’s executive director for a year and been affiliated with the organization more than three years. How the cuts will affect services there is unknown, Davis says. Morningside staff are in the middle of their budgeting process.

Davis is also watching the shelter’s Emergency Solutions Grant (ESG), a state-administered grant funded with federal money that helps pay for the shelter’s daily operating costs, including heating fuel.

Although the ESG is safe for now, Davis says he anticipates Morningside will feel a greater financial pinch later this year or early next.

Vermont previously kicked in extra money for social programs to cover shortfalls in federal funding, said Davis. The state, however, may tighten its belt too.

For example, he said, the legislature is considering a five-year cap on Reach Up, a Vermont Department for Children and Families program. Vermonters traditionally remain in this program as long as needed, according to Davis.

Under such a funding cap, proposed to take effect April 2014, 40 Windham County families would lose support immediately, Davis predicted. He said Morningside already averages a waiting list of 30 to 50 households.

Records show that this year, as of March 31, the shelter fielded requests for services from 114 households, and of those was able to serve 43 adults and 14 children.

Davis says he has seen a general trend of more young families seeking beds in the shelter. The bulk of the people walking through the door are unemployed or underemployed: People working at fast food restaurants or motels, for example, usually only work 20 hours a week. If they’re full-time, they might pull in $9 an hour.

Davis says that according to data he’s seen, $18 an hour is a more realistic living wage for Vermont.

“It just doesn’t add up,” he said.

Organizations such as Morningside, the Brattleboro Housing Authority, and SEVCA are part of a system that helps people get back on their feet, said Davis.

Over the past three years that Davis has been affiliated with Morningside, however, he has seen the BHA’s waiting list grow longer.

“People aren’t moving,” he said.

Without jobs or other forms of financial support, Davis added, “people will cycle down, not up.”

Services in this area are already stretched thin, he said. To do more with less, Morningside has diversified its fundraising efforts. The shelter partners with other agencies to fill gaps.

Organizations must act efficiently with what resources they have and work together, he said. Getting out of organizational silos is difficult because nonprofits often operated at “a breakneck pace.”

One such innovative collaboration between Morningside and Youth Services, Inc., is the Youth Shelter Collaborative, which is geared toward sheltering homeless youth. Morningside leases a four-bedroom apartment in Brattleboro, while Youth Services provides a live-in residential manager.

The collaborative allows Morningside and Youth Services to create a shelter space for less than it takes the state to house people in hotels as a temporary shelter, Davis said.

Rural homelessness is harder to see compared to homelessness in urban areas, but it exists nonetheless, he said.

“It’s hard to appreciate the number of people teetering on the edge,” Davis said.

Homelessness and poverty are community issues, he said: “What do we want to do about it?”

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Raising money, awareness for area’s homeless

Drop In Center, Morningside Shelter team up on fundraiser

By Randolph T. Holhut/The Commons

BRATTLEBORO—Weather permitting, the Brattleboro Emergency Overflow Shelter at the First Baptist Church will be closing for the season in mid-April.

For the people who use the shelter, that closing date means the start of the second season of homelessness and another six months of sleeping in cars, in tents, or on friends’ couches.

Lucie Fortier, executive director of the Brattleboro Area Drop In Center, says that as Morningside Shelter is at full capacity with a significant waiting list year-round, the Overflow Shelter is the only option, particularly for homeless people struggling with alcohol or drug problems.

“There is a real need for a year-round ‘damp’ shelter,” Fortier said, referring to Morningside’s prohibition of alcohol use, and the Overflow Shelter’s policy of toleration.

But Fortier was quick to point out that more families are coming to the Overflow Shelter, and it is not really a place for children to stay. However, when a family is out of options and cannot get into Morningside, Fortier said she will take them in.

As of Jan. 31, the last time a formal census was taken, Fortier said 128 people had used the Overflow Shelter in the 2012-13 season. By the time she does the next headcount, she said that number will easily be higher than the 133 who used the shelter in the 2011-12 season.

That’s why the Drop In Center and Morningside Shelter are teaming up on a fundraiser that they’re calling “Camp for a Common Cause.” It seeks to call attention to the extent of homelessness in the Brattleboro area, and to help area people make it through the second season of homelessness.

All are invited to camp out on the Brattleboro Common to raise money to be split evenly between the two organizations. Campers are encouraged to raise $100 or more for the effort, then pitch a tent the night of Friday, May 3, to camp out on the Common. The goal for this event is to raise a collective $20,000.

Peter “Fish” Case, the morning host on WKVT-FM, will lead the charge onto the Common and help raise awareness during a day-long broadcast. The event will come to a close the following morning with a breakfast on the Common that will be open to the community and will act as an additional means to raise funds.

Telling their stories

During a Monday morning news conference at the Overflow Shelter, Fortier, Morningside Shelter executive director Josh Davis, and the Rev. Suzanne Andrews, pastor of First Baptist Church, were joined by four men who have been helped by the Drop In Center and the Overflow Shelter and told their stories.

Ferris Cathey grew up in New York City and did two tours of duty in Vietnam with the Marine Corps. He said he managed to find steady work after the war, and ended up Brattleboro working for Northeast Cooperatives (now United Natural Foods). But alcoholism fueled a downward spiral he could not break out of.

“I lost everything, and I mean everything — my job, my home, my car, my marriage,” he said.

He credits the Drop In Center for helping to straighten him out.

“I got tired of it all and went to the Drop In Center and said I didn’t want to do this anymore,” Cathey said. “I’ve been clean ever since.”

Now, he works as a receptionist at the Drop In Center and does some part-time cleaning work.

“I was there,” said Cathey, pointing to a spot on the floor in the shelter where he used to sleep. “Now I got my own place, but I wouldn’t have anything now without the Drop In Center.”

Kevin Regan also struggles with alcoholism. He said his life started out “fine and dandy until I started drinking.” By his 40s, he also hit bottom and went into detox.

Regan said he was in a homeless shelter in Springfield, Mass., right after Tropical Storm Irene in 2011. “I ran into someone there and they told me to come up to Brattleboro to the Drop In Center. I’ve been here ever since.”

He said he works downtown, shoveling sidewalks in the winter and doing other odd jobs for merchants during other months. “Brattleboro is a wonderful town,” he said. “I love the people here.”

Victoro Johnson said he grew up in Newfane and enlisted in the Marines out of high school. He fought in the first Gulf War in 1991, and said his health rapidly deteriorated after that. He ended up in the Overflow Shelter. Now, he is a volunteer at the shelter and the Drop In Center “to give back what they gave to me.”

The last man who spoke, identifying himself as F.E.H., has been homeless off and on since the 1980s. The first time was by choice, when he decided to live in a cave for three years. “I was never more at peace than I was in that cave,” he said.

He didn’t get into detail about the subsequent times he was homeless, but said that he landed at the Overflow Shelter three years ago. He said he gets by picking up lost change off the sidewalk and “by the grace of God.”

Need keeps growing

Davis pointed out that about three-quarters of the people his shelter serves list Vermont as their last permanent address. While Brattleboro is known as a relatively compassionate town, he said that the whole region has a responsibility to take care of those in need.

“This is a community issue,” Davis said, “and we need to work together to take care of all our community members.”

Fortier said budget cuts on the state and federal level are “definitely having an impact” on the increased numbers of clients at Morningside and the Drop In Center. “The lack of jobs here isn’t helping either,” she added.

The Overflow Shelter has been open at First Baptist during the winter months since 2007, and Rev. Andrews admits that she has seen some members of her congregation leave her church because of the shelter.

“This is one of our most important missions,” she said. “I’m proud and honored that our homeless come here, and humbled to be a part of this.”

“We have people who have jobs, but don’t make enough money to pay rent,” said Fortier of her clients. “There are human stories behind someone who becomes homeless, and many of us are only a couple of paychecks away from homelessness. We need to remember that they are human beings and should be treated with respect. That’s why we want to get their stories out.”

To register to Camp for a Common Cause, visit the online fundraising page at www.firstgiving.com/MorningsideShelter/Camp-for-a-Common-Cause
For more information on this event, contact Libby at Morningside Shelter (802) 257-0066 x101. 

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As posted on the Vermont Housing Finance Agency Housing Matters Blog

VHFA-er “changes the world” with gift to Morningside Shelter