Five Year Plan is now online
Trenton Times editorial endorses their plan
Last Friday we reported on the successful Next 5 Years Reception and Report event held by the Mercer Alliance to End Homelessness. The Alliance released A New Direction for Ending Homelessness in Mercer County their updated plan to end homelessness at the event. We spoke about how this dramatic new direction was what was needed to end homelessness. This is a plan that we can not only learn new strategies but a renewed commitment to ending homelessness in our communities.
The plan is now online and can be accessed by clicking on the image of the cover or by clicking here.
We strongly encourage you to read the plan today and share it with your colleagues, associates and friends.
In addition, we are pleased to share the full editorial from today’s issue of the Trenton Times on A New Direction for Ending Homelessness in Mercer County.
Halfway home
Trenton Times, Monday, October 12, 2009
At the halfway point of an ambitious 10-year plan, the Mercer Alliance to End Homelessness last week celebrated what it has achieved by thanking the public and private partners who have helped enable its continuing work.
It’s been the spark and determination of the alliance, however, that have resulted in the demonstrable difference that convinces us it will achieve its goal in the next five years.
A major accomplishment has been the Housing First initiative, which, just as it says, establishes a homeless person with permanent shelter, then attends to the array of services often needed by the chronically homeless. A caseworker coordinates services — medical, dental and mental health care; getting a driver’s license, GED or identification; arranging vocational training — that would be impossible for a homeless person to obtain.
Herb Levine, Executive Director of the Mercer Alliance to End Homelessness explains A New Direction for Ending Homelessness in Mercer County
The difference here is that a lot of other programs aimed at housing the homeless require them to stay sober, take medication or find jobs in return for an apartment. That’s a tall order for someone without an address. By bringing these people into housing, getting them stabilized, helping them to recognize their problems, guiding them toward the resources that are available instead of ordering them into treatment, there’s a much better chance they will overcome their difficulties and stay off the street. The initiative, which has provided housing to 30 individuals and 10 families, is on track to serve 10 more by the end of the year, according to the New Jersey Advocacy Network to End Homelessness.
Even as the alliance has made significant progress, it’s well aware that the number of homeless could swell from the 1,200 who each day roam Mercer. Nearly 22,000 households in the county spend more than 50 percent of their income on housing costs, placing them at risk, especially as unemployment rises. With its work cut out for the next five years, the alliance will concentrate its efforts on preventing homelessness, shortening the duration of homelessness when it cannot be avoided and providing permanent housing to individuals and families as quickly as possible. Specifically, it hopes to provide housing for 560 individuals and families and lessen reliance on emergency and transitional housing.
While focusing on the big picture, the alliance never loses sight of the individual who, through no fault of his own, has lost a job, his home, hope. It’s helped organize events and opportunities for haircuts, massages, chiropractic adjustments, even acupuncture for those navigating “the triangle,” the well-worn route connecting nights at the Rescue Mission, afternoons at the Salvation Army Day Center and meals at Trenton Area Soup Kitchen.
In so doing, it’s helping to restore dignity as well as housing.
