Many of us have a limited understanding of homelessness, especially if we’ve never experienced it personally or known someone who has. Our perception is often shaped by what we see in the media or witness in urban areas or at busy street corners.

However, homelessness encompasses much more than meets the eye. It goes beyond the image of shopping carts filled with recyclables, discarded blankets, and makeshift shelters. It’s more than just a cold, crowded room with rows of cots.

Homelessness comes in many forms and affects individuals from all walks of life. A housing crisis can happen to anyone at any time, but in certain circumstances it is much more difficult for an individual to overcome and handle. Individuals living with developmental disabilities are a vulnerable population that are very susceptible to a housing crisis and becoming homeless without the right supports and interventions tailored to their needs when a crisis arises. Raising awareness of the challenges and having the right resource available is critical to ensuring everyone is cared for and supported in our community. The following is an example highlighting the housing challenges faced by individuals living with a developmental disability and the great work of agencies dedicated to serving them.

RISE Associate Executive Director, Lindsey Connors, shares about how the Saratoga County Alliance to End Homelessness is working to end homelessness in our community during a Look This Week Interview.

In recognition of Mental Health Awareness Month, the Saratoga County Alliance to End Homelessness sat down with the street outreach team members at RISE – our county’s sole mental health and recovery housing provider. Victoria Furfaro and Jenna Espey provide outreach services to individuals experiencing street-homelessness in Saratoga Springs and coordinate the City’s Community Outreach Court - assisting persons with a mental health diagnosis or substance use disorder who are also experiencing street-homelessness, from continuing the cycle of street, to jail, and back into the courts.

Over 40% of the homeless adult population nationwide is a person with a disability. Of that percentage, a majority live at or below the poverty line. On any given day in Saratoga County you may encounter a homeless individual or family. Sometimes the homelessness is obvious, other times it is not. The same can be said for individuals with disabilities. A disability may be easily observed, other times it is hidden. Regardless, one is no less important than the other.

When it comes to human services, particularly services for persons experiencing homelessness, the stories of people’s lives and challenges they face provides a deeper and more insightful view of the contributing factors to the situation. Those stories also guide communities, service providers, local officials, and other stakeholders to see the gaps, barriers, and obstacles that can be addressed to smooth the way to permanent housing, and ultimately prevent and end homelessness at its root causes.

However, data can play an equally vital and important role in understanding the nature, characteristics, demographics, and contributing factors to homelessness within a certain community, regionally, state-wide, and at a national level.

It’s that time of year again when the focus shifts to the Code Blue Emergency Shelter for individuals experiencing street homelessness. Code Blue is a New York State mandate that says when the “Real Feel” temperature drops to 32 degrees, emergency, low barrier shelter for homeless individuals must be provided. In December of 2013, Nancy Pitts passed away in the freezing night which sparked a call to action to begin Code Blue operations in Saratoga Springs.

Frankly, the whole philosophy of Code Blue has often left me baffled. Why is it that we must hit a certain temperature before we take care of those who are most in need? Do we need the thermometer to tell us when we show compassion, kindness, and empathy? I have seen homeless individuals from ages 1 to well into their 80’s. I have seen veterans, persons with masters and Ph.D. degrees, daughters, sons, mothers, fathers, and even grandparents.

As we roll out of summer into September, it’s back-to-school time for children and students. It’s a time of year that is equally exciting and stressful for students, parents, teachers, administrators and support staff, particularly with COVID-19 still on the rise around the country.

Over the past several months, the Saratoga County Alliance to End Homelessness has been highlighting different aspects and forms of homelessness that affect our community - but one of the rarely told stories of homelessness is that of homeless students. Back-to-school time is different for everyone, but it is particularly challenging for students who are experiencing homelessness. Most often, discussions around homelessness focus on adults, but what is often overlooked is discussing how homelessness of a family unit impacts children, their education, and social development.

The health and economic impacts of COVID-19 have put millions out of work, without child or elder care, and without a workable plan to move out of poverty. More Americans than ever before are near total crisis. In Saratoga County, our friends and neighbors on this precarious edge now have a program and support services to turn to. The New York State Emergency Rental Assistance Program (ERAP), administered by Shelters of Saratoga, aims to distribute $6.8 million in rescue funding through 2022.

The program is off to a slow start and under the gun to deliver. Part of a nation-wide ERAP program, just $3 billion of $47 billion slated by Congress to pay for back rent accrued during the pandemic, has been distributed. States are working hard to qualify individuals and families and flow these funds quickly before the newly enacted 60-day eviction moratorium expires at the beginning of October.

In honor of Memorial Day, the Saratoga County Alliance to End Homelessness would like to spotlight the tireless efforts of local service provider, Veterans & Community Housing Coalition (VCHC), to support our Veteran community members in need.

Since 1983, VCHC has served homeless or at-risk Veterans in Saratoga County. In 2013, VCHC was awarded the Supportive Services for Veteran Families grant which allowed VCHC to expand to six other local counties. Now, VCHC serves Saratoga, Schenectady, Schoharie, Fulton, Montgomery, Warren, and Washington counties. In 2016, VCHC recognized a lack of affordable decent housing for Veterans in Saratoga County. In response VCHC, along with funding from HUD, formed the Saratoga Veterans Apartment Program (SVAP). This program now provides 17 apartments scattered throughout Saratoga County for low income, disabled veterans and their families.

On October 22, 2020, City Court Judge, Francine Vero, presided over the first session of the Homeless Court in Saratoga Springs. Since then, about 90% of individuals agreeing to participate in the Homeless Court have been connected to care management and community services and the court has seen a significant drop in repeat offenses.

The Homeless Court was designed in collaboration with the Mayor’s Office, Judge Vero, and RISE Housing and Support Services (formerly Transitional Services Association). However, it was Judge Vero who first identified the problem and thought through the solution, “Individuals experiencing homelessness were accumulating multiple dockets and often failing to appear in court. This population is particularly challenged in getting to court due to a lack of structure and resources. I decided the court needed to implement a new approach to address these issues and connect individuals experiencing homelessness to the services they need. I met with stakeholders, we discussed the issues, and the homeless court was created.”

We are all guilty of compassion fatigue and frustration at times. Witnessing a persistent community problem —or need— depending on your vantage point, with little insight into the solution can exhaust even the most empathetic. This exhaustion can lead to disengagement or taking on the issue ourselves without the structural knowledge to properly drive real change. Here in Saratoga, many see a growing “problem” with street homelessness and ask what exactly is being done to help these neighbors in need while also driving sustainable outcomes.

Thankfully, in Saratoga County, we have an inter-agency street outreach team funded by COVID-19 CARES Act funding set to drive real change. The Saratoga County Alliance to End Homelessness brings together five agencies tasked with achieving aggressive street outreach goals and outcomes.

For many Saratoga County residents, turning to a trusted faith-based organization (“FBO” = church, synagogue, mosque, temple etc.) is a natural inclination when they find themselves struggling to make rent, pay for car repairs, put food on the table, or keep their lights on. After all, it is these organizations, and their parishioners who provide invaluable guidance and support during times of hardship. Unfortunately, the capacity of any one FBO to provide monetary assistance is limited, and their knowledge of applicable government funded resources may be insufficient to support long-lasting change.

A formal partnership of non-profits and faith-based organizations in Saratoga County leverages traditional modes of support by FBOs by facilitating a “crowd-sourced funding” type approach to meeting community-member’s immediate needs AND connects them with established services and financial assistance needed to reach and maintain self-sufficiency. Operating under the acronym FEASST (Family Emergency Assistance of Southern Saratoga County), the partnership was founded by CAPTAIN Community Human Services and several Clifton Park area FBOs. With the help of seed funding from our local Habitat for Humanity, the FEASST program now encompasses the northern area of Saratoga County, including the City of Saratoga Springs.

Can you imagine rebuilding your life from the bottom, with no job, money in your pocket, secure place to live or support system? Digging out of that hole can be seemingly impossible. Add on health complications, staying sober, few affordable housing options, and a pandemic. For David “Dewey” and Nancy, not only was it possible but self-determination got them where they are today – thriving and giving back to the community that helped support them.

In the on-going conversation around homelessness, a recurring theme emerges with local leaders, community advocates, committed groups and individuals, and those agencies tasked with developing meaningful solutions.

That theme is: It takes a collaborative and coordinated approach to prevent and end homelessness.

It is not the singular effort of one person or agency, and responsibility doesn’t lie with one sector or organization, it is the collective effort with purpose that creates and sustains movement forward and progress.

The rise of homelessness in Saratoga is both troubling and frustrating but not surprising, given the rise of Saratoga’s fortunes over the last two decades. A thriving economy lends itself to increases in housing costs, which in turn, leads to an increase in the number of local hard working families who can no longer afford housing. This pattern is not unique to Saratoga; it has repeated itself in similar communities across the country. What is unique to Saratoga however is that it benefits from a significant amount of resources; a deep level of community engagement; and a sincere desire by local agencies to shift their interventions away from being crisis-oriented towards a system that is focused on prevention and permanent housing.

Saratoga Today invited the community to collectively respond to the homelessness challenge in our midst. One agency alone cannot solve homelessness, it takes a coordinated effort across multiple agencies and sectors. In the fall of 2019, a coalition was formed. Over thirty agencies, from non-profits to the public and private sectors, agreed to work together to address homelessness in Saratoga. We are grateful to Saratoga Today for providing this forum for the coalition to communicate and collaborate with our community. We begin by dispelling some of the myths about homelessness.

“Shelters of Saratoga (SOS) and the Presbyterian New England Congregational Church have formed the Saratoga Collaborative to End Homeless. The group will be facilitated by Healy, a Spa City native now based in New York City, who has worked on successful national efforts to end homelessness. These include the ongoing Built for Zero effort, a program where 85 communities are striving to achieve "functional zero" in their homeless population, and the 100,000 Homes Campaign, which housed more than 100,000 of the nation's most vulnerable homeless from 2010-2014.

In addition to SOS and PNECC, the local collaborative will take input from other organizations that serve the homeless including Captain Youth and Family Services and the United Way as well as Saratoga Spring police, individual donors and volunteers.”

Real estate prices in Saratoga Springs, New York have soared over the last several years. The cost of a one-bedroom apartment alone has jumped 78 percent since 2014.

As the city becomes a more expensive place to live, the debate over how to address homelessness has continued. Now, a new campaign is being launched to bring the community together toward solutions.

Starting with a focus on street homelessness visible across Saratoga Springs, a newly-formed coalition of advocates and government agencies launched Thursday aims to create a new approach to combating the problem in the city.

The new effort – called the Saratoga Collaborative to End Homelessness – will be guided by Erin Healy, a Saratoga Springs native and Brooklyn-based consultant who works on homelessness efforts around the country.

A homelessness expert and Saratoga Springs High School alumna on Thursday outlined an approach for Saratoga Springs to reduce and eventually eliminate homelessness in the city.

“It’s not mysterious how to do it, it just takes focus, commitment, a long-term laser-like focus,” said Erin Healy, a lawyer and Brooklyn-based consultant who works with communities combating homelessness.