WARREN Trumbull plan aims to halt homelessness

The goal is to provide a 'one-stop' homeless services system.
By PETER H. MILLIKEN
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
WARREN -- Trumbull County has launched a comprehensive 10-year plan to prevent and eliminate homelessness.
The plan, titled Blueprint to End Homelessness, sets forth a $1 million annual budget for the effort, which would be funded by federal, state and foundation grants, Medicaid and other sources.
The blueprint was compiled over the past year by the Trumbull County Housing Collaborative, which consists of city and county government officials and representatives of homeless shelters and medical and social service agencies.
"The blueprint is really a new day for homeless people in the city and the county,"' said John O'Brien, national coordinator of the Washington-D.C.-based U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness. "That broad-based partnership is really what's required if we're going to truly shift from managing homelessness to ending homelessness," he added.
Unveiling plan
O'Brien spoke as the plan was unveiled before government and social service agency officials and the press at a Tuesday luncheon at DiLucia's Banquet Center.
"You've got unprecedented political will, unprecedented resources" devoted to the problem of homelessness, O'Brien said. The nearly $4.2 billion in federal funds targeted to homelessness in President Bush's proposed budget for next year represents the sixth consecutive year of increase in this category, he said. That's a 6.7 percent increase over last year, he observed.
The $1 million local Blueprint budget would pay for a homeless services coordinator, who would oversee a "one-stop" system for homeless people; a homeless case manager, who would work directly with homeless people to get them housing, health care and employment; and a homeless management information system coordinator to collect data on homelessness and provide some direct assistance to homeless people.
The budget would also pay for the services of an assertive community treatment team, whose members would provide health, mental health, substance abuse and employment services.
Heading it off
Also included in the annual budget would be a $315,000 prevention activity fund that would make emergency rent, mortgage and utility payments to avoid evictions, foreclosures and shut-offs.
There would also be a $150,000 housing placement fund that would help pay for security deposits, first month's rents, utility hookup fees, furnishings and initial food.
"Most people can't handle first month's rent and a security deposit and hooking up the utilities. That's easily $1,000 that people are expected to have and just don't," said Tammy Weaver, director of Trumbull County and consultation services for Coleman Professional Services of Warren -- the consultant that helped the collaborative develop the Blueprint.
The local Blueprint's budget would also include smaller funds to pay for transportation, health care and medication vouchers.
Included with the plan were some counts and surveys of homeless people in the county. The last count, done on Aug. 23, found 225 homeless people, 47 of them unsheltered and the remainder in emergency or transitional shelters.