It is the beginning of May. As of today we still have 13 folks on our By-name list and 17 on the not By Name list. This number hasn’t changed much over the last 5 months. Of the 13 people on the BNL, 9 of them are in a supportive housing program. These nine folks have been matched to a PSH program for an average of 114 days and not housed. The longest folks have been matched to PSH is for 114 days. The shortest match is 35 days.
This week we have also been confronted with a woman, who is both chronically homeless and pregnant who has been rejected for service by every PSH program and no realistic plan has been developed for her.
If we are going to end chronic homelessness, we have to do better by these folks. What changes are necessary in order to speed up the time it takes for people matched in PSH to get housed? What changes do we need to make to ensure that no one who is matched to PSH is rejected by every provider without a realistic housing solution?
These are questions we all must help find the answers or rather then making progress towards ending chronic homelessness, we will again see these numbers rise.
Andrea S. Kurtz