Phyllis Kimber WilcoxÂ
Many longtime residents of. . .you can fill in the name of the place where you live. . .will tell you they don’t remember seeing so many people without permanent homes or housing. If you’re old enough, you can remember when the sight of someone laying on the sidewalk made you concerned they may have fallen ill. It wasn’t a common sight, but not anymore.
Nowadays, there are many ways to be homeless in America that may not be obvious at first glance. Although there are still plenty of examples of the unhoused visible in parking lots, on sidewalks and on benches, there are ways of being homeless that are place and time specific and easier to glimpse if you know what to look for. Like the neatly dressed woman whose backpack is full of her belongings, or the recreational vehicles (RVs) and cars noticed on the street that keep leaving and returning. And, depending on where you are seeing it, homelessness can look like the student, employee, coworker or family whose nights have been spent sleeping in cars, or RVâs, libraries or bus stops or for some, a shelter that provides case management, a shower, a meal, or some clothing.
In some cities in Southern California homelessness has become a way of life and death.
The Unhoused and Weather
It does rain in Southern California. It also freezes and hails and in some places snows. The unhoused are always the most vulnerable to inclement weather. But weather is more than just atmospheric, it is environmental. The homeless are exposed to whatever is in their vicinity and whatever comes their way. To be homeless is to also live in danger of violence and abuse. The conditions homeless Angelenos face to the west of us prompted the L A Alliance for Human Rights, a non profit organization, to sue both the city and county of Los Angeles over services for the homeless.
LA Alliance for Human Rights was able to settle its historic lawsuits with both LA City and County, forging a new commitment to provide housing for all its citizens.
Annual Count of the Homeless
In January each year, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) conducts an annual count of the homeless in America or what’s called the Point In Time Count. After the data has been compiled at the end of the year, HUD issues the Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR). The AHAR is based on the information compiled from the January survey of the homeless conducted on a single night and is meant to be a picture of homelessness on the one night of the survey. An important finding of the 2022 report was that sheltered homelessness among the elderly is on the rise, nearly doubling.
According to the latest report, released in December 2023, homelessness has increased overall among all household types. Household types are the way the government identifies individuals and family groups that live in the same household, for example people in families or individuals.
Percent of People Experiencing Homelessness by Household Type and CoC Category 2023
However, while the latest AHAR continues to show increases in homelessness across all types, the increases have been less than anticipated perhaps due to the vigorous, local, state and federal assistance to families during the COVID-19 pandemic, including moratoriums on evictions.
Riverside County
To discuss last yearâs AHAR report, homelessness and the needs and services provided to the unhoused, BVN spoke to Leonard Jarman, Chief Solutions Officer with the Path of Life Ministries, a non-profit organization serving Riverside’s vulnerable homeless communities.
BVN:
What do you think about the fact that overall homelessness in America has increased among all household types, but the overall increase is less than expected according to the latest AHAR report?
States with the Highest and Lowest Percentages of People in Facilities with Children Experiencing Homelessness who are Unsheltered by State, 2023
LJ:
Well, I think it’s also regionally specific. For example, in Riverside County in certain cities it went up and in others it went down, it all depends on how you look at it. You can look at it geographically, for example all of Southern California. Of course, because that’s including Los Angeles, San Bernardino, San Diego and Riverside counties, you’re going to see an uptick because [homelessness] in certain areas have increased. A couple of areas we work in for example, Jurupa Valley, it went down. Riverside increased a little in the city of Riverside but in other areas it also decreased. So kind of a case by case basis per city. But it’s not always indicative of how well that city is doing because it’s a snapshot just on that day. It’s usually the second or third week in January when that’s done, so it [the actual number] could be higher or it could be lower than the actual count.
BVN:
Because the count happens in the winter time do you think that might affect the numbers because some people go into shelters when it gets cold that normally don’t when the weather is warmer?
LJ:
Well they do both.We actually do it in Riverside County on the same day that they do the HUD shelter count, we do a shelter count. We operate three shelters in the city of Riverside on that dayâits usually that weekend. So say the point in time count maybe on a Thursday for example, they âll do the shelter count on that same weekend like that Friday. So youâre capturing both the people on the street and in shelters. So you’re getting a pretty good estimate again of how many people are actually homeless. If you’re saying because it’s winter time, no, we have pretty seasonable winters here too. So it gets cold and maybe a little rainy but for the most part [in] Southern California you can pretty much manage about ninety percent of the time outside. It does get super cold in some areas but for the most part people can kind of weather the storm. It’s not like back East where if you’re on the streets you’re going to die. We have about eight or nine of those days a year, but back east the whole winter really is that way. If youâre outside youâre not going to make it. I think by having both the sheltered count and the unsheltered count you get a reasonable idea about who’s being impacted on the streets at least.
BVN:
And what are you seeing as far as families who are homeless?
LJ:
Families? Well, it’s been pretty consistent. We’ve operated a family shelter in Riverside since 2005. What weâve seen is pretty much a steady increase and we level off. It’s about the same as last year. For example, in our family shelter we served 285 people, that’s over one hundred households in our family shelter alone and 161 of those are children. That tells you what we’re dealing with. That’s kids zero to seventeen [years old] who are there with their parents. Thatâs pretty consistent over the past five years or so. We’re serving right around that number, 285 [to] 300 people a year in our family shelter.
BVN:
And what do you do for families for the holidays?
LJ:
Well, everyday is a holiday at Path of Life you know…(chuckles, laughs) People get excited, the community, and donors. Hey it’s Christmas or itâs Thanksgiving. [But], everyday we do the same things year round. We do have special opportunities for them like for example during Christmas time along with our donors we provide a Christmas shopping extravaganza for our family shelter and our housed clients. We also operate about 92 units of permanent supportive housing all over Riverside county so we provide food boxes, presents, all those things to help them have a great holiday. Same thing for Thanksgiving we provide over 120 food boxes to our housed clients all over Riverside.
BVN:
And this is for families only or is this for veterans or persons with mental illness because there are different categories?
LJ:
Right, about 30 percent of everybody we serve has a diagnosable mental health condition. We do support them not only in our shelters but in permanent supportive housing. To qualify you need a co-occuring disability. You have to be chronically homeless and have a documented disability. That means it’s either mental health or substance abuse or some other type of physical disability, or learning disability that is documented by a clinical physician or a doctor or licensed medical practitioner.
BVN:
What kinds of assistance do you provide them?
LJ:
When they move into permanent supportive housing we have case managers who meet with them at least once or twice a month to help them maintain their housing. If they need transportation we assist with that. We don’t provide medication management or anything like that. They really are living on their own with supportive services. We provide supportive services so they’ll live in a community just like anybody else but our case managers meet with them once or twice a month or as needed if they have a higher need and help them maintain that housing. Weâve operated our permanent supportive housing since 2015. We have a 92 percent retention rate for those who are in permanent housing.
BVN:
Do you find it more difficult to get people (volunteers) to come out and help you during the holidays?
LJ:
I think Riverside County has its fair share of giving people who want to help and they always look for ways to help. We do get an increase in inquiries about what they can do. A lot of people want to come into the shelter and feed people. But we’re just like any restaurant so our food service is managed by our food service managers. If a group wants to come in and serve it’s not like a soup kitchen, just think of your favorite restaurant. We have to serve at that level; it’s a little different than some of the soup kitchens or even rescue missions. We operate year round and have high quality food service. We do have what we call our Guest Chef Program and that’s year round. So people can serve breakfast, lunch or dinner at any of our sites if they want to have a hands-on experience with helping the homeless. Also [there is] volunteering in other areas. We have volunteers who come in and offer a wide range of services to our guests in conjunction with what we offer internally. It all depends. Everyday is special for us, we get excited about holidays because we do get an uptick in support, donations things like thatâ particularly toward the year’s end. Right now I was just meeting with a donor. He’s donating a vehicle to us.
BVN:
What would you suggest people do if they want to help?
LJ:
The greatest need for us is unrestricted funds. I mean we do between five to seven million dollars a year in grant funds. But in order to facilitate grant funds, it’s on a reimbursement basis, we have to float anywhere between $400k to sometimes as much as $600k while we’re waiting for reimbursement. So our greatest need are those unrestricted funds from our donors [so] that we can help manage a larger grant capacity. Thatâs important for us as a company as we grow. We need more liquidity to even manage larger grants than we have in the past.
To support Path of Life Ministries, follow this link to learn more.