Out in the Cold
In late 2006, San Francisco’s Coalition on Homelessness became concerned by claims from the Mayor’s Office that a large number of shelter beds were unoccupied during a time when homeless people were reporting high shelter turn-away rates.
A December 19, 2006 Mayoral press release cited a Human Services Agency (HSA) report, “that there [were] upwards of 100 vacancies in our shelter system which remain available for any homeless individual needing shelter assistance.”
Under the direction of Jennifer Friedenbach, the Right to a Roof Workgroup sent forms to the three Central City shelter reservation sites: Tenderloin Health, Hospitality House’s Tenderloin Self-Help Center, and a South of Market location at 150 Otis. At the end of two weeks, the shelters returned the forms.
Friedenbach said shelter staff recorded first names of individuals who were refused a bed, their turn-away date, and the reason for the denial of service.
The data from various dates between January 29, 2007 and February 15, 2007, document what Friedenbach describes as, “very high turn-away rates.”
Numbers collected between 11:00 a.m. and 11:00 p.m.daily in this two-week period revealed that on a significant number of cold winter nights, an average of 49.08 homeless people were turned away from shelters that, by day’s end, were apparently full.
Pam Tebo, Press assistant to Joyce Crum, Acting Director of the Human Services Agency, could not comment on the discrepancy between the Mayor’s claims of 100 nightly average empty beds and the Coalition’s documentation from the shelters themselves indicating a nightly average of nearly 50 homeless persons turned away.
On Thursday, March 22, 2007, Tebo described how the system works: Individual shelter staff enter data on daily vacancies into a centralized computer system called “CHANGES” (Coordinated Homeless Assessment of Needs and Guidance Through Effective Services). According to Tebo, CHANGES functions like a computerized hotel reservation system, assigning shelter beds instead of rooms. Shelter staff can obtain vacancies on-line, then assign them, and send homeless people to the facilities where beds have opened up.
As in a hotel reservation system, the homeless individual goes to the resource center and makes a reservation. Then the person presents her- or himself that evening at the shelter.
According to Tebo, vacancies occur two ways:
- no reservation is made for a particular bed;
- an individual does not claim a reserved bed.
Each day, certain personnel in the Department of Human Services (DHS) receive by e-mail a “consolidated report” of the previous evening’s vacancy numbers.
Ms. Friedenbach expressed concern that the the HSA created the 100 bed per night average from numbers drawn from the computer in the morning before all the day’s beds were assigned rather than at night after reservations were finalized. Tebo was adamant the shelters compile and input empty bed numbers at night.
Tebo confirmed that CHANGES morning master spread sheets indicated at least 100 average openings for all shelters. In fact, she stressed that these printouts showed vacancy numbers for individual shelters most often totaling far over 100.
Various shelter residents have isolated three main ways people can be turned away from shelter beds, purposely or inadvertently:
- Homeless clients have reported shoddy record-keeping and computer data entry into CHANGES by shelter staff.
- Computer error may cause discrepancies between turn-away numbers collected by shelter staff for the Coalition and vacancy numbers downloaded by the Human Services Agency from CHANGES. A precedent was set for this kind of mistake in 2005. When the CHANGES system was taken over by the Federal Government, serious computer glitches occurred depriving clients of beds and resulting in loss of personal property which staff confiscated when beds were mis-assigned.
- Shelter residents have reported cavalier treatment and favoritism by some shelter staff who give assigned beds to other clients.
According to one 47-year-old woman who wishes to remain anonymous, “I was in bed #25 at [a City-funded shelter]. My bed was given away, and unable to get a shelter bed, I spent a week outside while it was storming.”
Friedenbach noted that the Mayor’s claims of more than 100 unused beds a night left the door open for human rights abuses: Police harass people forced to commit such homeless status crimes as camping in parks and sleeping on sidewalks while shelter beds they cannot access remain open and empty.
The Coalition sees additional negative implications and outcomes to a high empty bed count: A possible false claim that the City has fewer people living on its mean streets and a contrived excuse to permanently close out shelter beds desperately needed as safe havens for the several thousand homeless men, women, and children left in the cold every night.
Sister Bernie Galvin of Religious Witness With Homeless People supports the Coalition’s cautious and watchful stance, “I think what we need to be conscious of is that to close shelters is an indication that, ‘Well! We are solving the homeless problem. We don’t even need the shelters anymore.’ But, we have to keep our eye on how this may be being manipulated. I think that’s what the Coalition is saying.”
St. Boniface Church at 133 Golden Gate Avenue in the Tenderloin has undergone a $12 million restoration. The Coalition notes difficulty for homeless people during the winter months in the face of the City’s possible delay in re-opening St. Boniface Shelter, a venerable and vital service provided to unhoused individuals. The suspicion was that the City was taking the position it didn’t need to replace the St. Boniface shelter because there were already so many open beds.
Said Juan Prada, Executive Director of the Coalition on Homelessness, “It is cold out there, and we have funding already awarded and a building sitting empty that could shelter homeless people. It is a disgrace.”
“In order for us to truly create permanent solutions to homelessness, we must have honest discourse on the accessibility of homeless services.”
Carol