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The following notes were taken by Mike Stefanko, Ph.D. of the presentations made at the 70th semi-annual meeting of the Association for Criminal Justice Research (California). These notes, while as complete as possible, reflect the themes and points that most attracted Mike’s attention during the presentations. The most effective use of these notes would be to read them in conjunction with viewing the PowerPoint slides (when the presentation is available). Website links have not been tested for accuracy.
PRESIDENT’S GREETINGS: Amanda Noble welcomed the audience members to Long Beach and noted that the attendance this year reflected the recessionary times, but that Carrie Petrucci had organized a great conference. Carrie added her greetings and introduced the first session. This session was organized differently than in the past. A plenary speaker would be followed by a six person panel who would share their reactions to the plenary presentation and to questions from a panel chair. Carrie then introduced the plenary speaker, Dave Pilon, the Executive Vice President of Mental Health America of Los Angeles.
PLENARY ADDRESS: Dave began his remarks on “A Community-Based View of the Past Twenty Years of Homelessness” by briefly describing Mental Health America of Los Angeles, which, as its name implies, is part of a larger organization. One of the major programs of Mental Health America of Los Angeles is called The Village. The Village consists of 120 “members” – a term preferred over “clients” or “consumers”. It has been designed to promote a systemic transformation in those dealing with the challenges of mental illnesses. In 1989 the focus of treating mental illness was on medical systems and the users were a small group of homeless persons. In 1999, with the passage of AB34, a shift was made to the previously incarcerated homeless.
Dave then contrasted the illness-centered model, where all treatment is based upon handling the illness, with the person-centered model. In the illness-centered model everything is seen from the perspective of the illness and quite often providers are treating symptoms instead of people. In addition, the members of the Village could start to see themselves in terms of their illness – the illness defines them. In contrast, in the person-centered model the illness is a part of the person and the goal of treatment is to make it a less central part of the person than other parts, like careers or skills or relationships. This makes the delivery of services recovery-based. It becomes a process and an important determination is where the member is in the process: Are they still unengaged? Have they become engaged, but are still not self-responsible? Or have they attained a level of self-responsibility?
As one example, The Village has set up employment services for the three different levels. For the unengaged there is a “work for the day” program. The member comes into a job and works for as many hours as they feel comfortable. They are immediately paid for this work. This often encourages the member to return, to work longer, and to feel good about what they have accomplished.
Dave then went on to discuss some of the challenges the program faces. Of course there is a lot of resistance in many neighborhoods to having mentally ill persons living in that neighborhood. There are increasing numbers of physical attacks, as we have demonized the homeless mentally ill. This economy sees ever increasing cuts in services to populations like the homeless mentally ill. This is true even when researchers show that the longer-termed costs of the cuts will greatly exceed the amount saved in the short term. Dave cited one study that pegged the main costs of services to the homeless mentally ill (including justice system costs) as averaging $70,000 per year. In contrast, the housing with support services cost $26,000 per year.
Finally, Dave presented some figures from AB34 evaluations. There is a 72% reduction in homeless days and a 75% reduction in incarceration days. This reduction in jail days, as well as in hospital stays, persisted over a five year period. There was a shift from homeless/shelter/jail living to independent living. The jump in employment days was 200%. Work was a key element of the personal identities of participants (instead of their illnesses). Another key program element was training these persons to manage their fears and anxieties.
PLENARY PANEL (#1): A COMMUNITY-BASED VIEW OF THE PAST TWENTY YEARS OF HOMELESSNESS
The Panel Chair, Joel Roberts, Chief Executive Officer, PATH Partners, introduced the members of the panel, then continued the topic introduce by Dave in the plenary presentation by means of a series of questions posed to the panelists. Different panelists responded to different questions. The panel consisted of: Susan Price, Homeless Services Officer, City of Long Beach Department of Health & Human Services; Sgt. Ted Reno, Long Beach Police Department, Quality of Life Team and Downtown Long Beach Response; Steve Binder, Deputy Public Defender, Homeless Court of San Diego; Herb LeMonge, Personal Service Coordinator, Outreach, MHA Village Homeless Assistance Program; Andre Booker, Mental Evaluation Team, Long Beach Police Department; and Frank Mullinex, DMH Mental Health Evaluation Team, Long Beach Police Department.
Joel asked a series of questions to which various panel members responded. The first question was: how do the panel members see the criminal justice system’s interactions with the homeless? Homelessness should not be treated as a crime. However, people have to understand that the police are the ones who are on call 24/7 and, when all other agencies cannot do something, the police are called as a last resort. They have to do something about the situation with which they are presented. Long Beach Police Department has responded by creating a Quality of Life Team. Instead of the cycle of citation to bench warrant to arrest, the Quality of Life team tries to do outreach with homeless individuals so they can come to see the police as a resource. The Team has many referral possibilities to assist with a variety of the problems afflicting the homeless. Panelists saw this approach as much more empathetic than in many locales. Long Beach also conducted a homeless-police dialogue. The homeless got to express a lot of their anger over previous police treatment, while the police expressed frustration over their role as first responders in many situations when social services are what is really needed.
This led to the question: should the response to these situations be with enforcement? Several panelists noted that there are a variety of homeless individuals. For some, they need street services, while others could be directed to services. Quality of Life Teams (not necessarily police) could assist these individuals. However, it also was noted that there are a group of the chronic homeless who have refused all services, who do not respond to any resources. For these individuals, the only response remaining is to take them to jail. However, one reason so many homeless (not just the last group) wind up in jail is the lack of other resources. Long Beach has just two Quality of Life Teams, so many times a response of made by a regular patrol officer, one lacking the training and resource list of the Teams.
Next the discussion shifted to the integration of all the partners/stakeholders in the community. For example, the primary concern of the business community is with security. One interesting situation that was mentioned involved shopping carts. At one of the regular meetings between the business community, residents, police, other agencies and representatives from among the homeless, a discussion about the problems occurring with the taking of shopping carts led to the homeless shifting to baby strollers, which also illustrated the adaptability of the homeless.
Since permanent housing with support services was mentioned as a major element in solving the problem of homelessness, there was some discussion about a Long Beach project called The Village. The Village is located on 26 acres of former military property in Cabrillo. The project will have a capacity of 1400 residents, but there are objections to locating so many in one area.
Steve Binder discussed the San Diego Homeless Court, which has become a model for Homeless Courts across the country. It was started as a response to a request by homeless veterans for the court to meet people where they were. Many, through lack of resources or because of the illnesses and injuries from which they were suffering, were not capable of making trips to the courthouses where their cases were assigned. By going out to where the people were, the court was able to develop an increased faith in the judicial system by the homeless. In San Diego the homeless start at an agency, which refers them to the Homeless Court. This leads to having many persons already in a program before they go to court, so the court can use the participation in a program as fulfilling many sentencing requirements.
A final note that came from the panel was the basic need of many homeless to have a means of proving identity. Without some type of valid ID, the homeless had difficulty accessing shelters, medical care, and then other services.
PANEL #2: HOMELESSNESS AMONG PAROLEES: FINDINGS FROM THE SB 618 SAN DIEGO PRISONER REENTRY PROJECT
The Panel Chair and first presenter was Darlanne Hoctor Mulmat of the Criminal Justice Research Division of the San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG). Darlanne and Cynthia Burke, the Director of the Criminal Justice Research Division of SANDAG, introduced the San Diego Prisoner Re-Entry Experience. This originated from Senate Bill 618. The bill set up programs in four counties, but only San Diego has their program fully operational. The program brings together the District Attorney’s office, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), the Public Defender’s office, the Superior Court, the University of California at San Diego and the police. SANDAG was designated as the evaluators. What is being presented today is some of the preliminary data.
The program is based upon evidence-based practices, beginning with an in-depth assessment done pre-sentencing. This leads to case management while in custody, with a key feature of this management being the development of a life plan. Six months prior to release, the planning shifts to developing the steps that will be taken upon release. The program also features a community roundtable as part of the planning, with all those involved with the individual after release being involved in the discussion.
The evaluation was complex, involving multiple methodologies. Among these methodologies were a number of surveys. The preliminary analysis shows that the program predominantly involved white males about 35 years of age, although all ethnicities and a wide range of ages were part of the program. Ninety percent of the offenses were property or drug crimes. The time served was two years or less, averaging 10 months. This included time at the reception center, leaving a fairly short period to implement programming.
Some of the more interesting results from the application of the needs assessment instrument were that 90% of offenders had substance abuse problems and that there were more vocational needs (86%) than educational ones (36% - indicating that the program contained a fairly well-educated group). Sixty-eight percent had post-release housing needs. Of these, 78% were referred to some type of housing services. One of the successes of the program was that six months after release, 85% were in stable housing situations (this included board-and-care treatment situations). Forty-one percent had moved during the six months, with many of these moving from a treatment facility to a sober-living situation. Only 11% lived alone. Twenty-three percent had lived with a significant other, 80% had lived with a relative during the six months and 39% had spent some time living with a roommate or friend. Seventy-six percent reported that they were satisfied with their living situation.
Christine Brown-Taylor, the SB 618 Community Case Management Program Manager from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), shared some additional details about the program. This was a voluntary program introduced to the offender by their public defender. A sorting process occurred at the reception center, separating out gang members and violent offenders from the rest of the prison population, including those in the re-entry program. The early assessments which had occurred as part of the initial acceptance into the program reduced the amount of time these offenders spent at the reception center from the general average of two to three months down to about 30 days. Upon release the offender entered into community case management. This included the securing of identification documents (which many offenders do not have at release, leading to a number of initial difficulties), pick up at the gates of the prison facility, and having a program case worker available around the clock for the first 72 hours (in practical terms this on-call-any-time continued beyond the initial 72 hours).
In this program, the offender is released with a Life Plan. The offender’s progress is reviewed regularly at community roundtables which integrate parole agents and social workers with the offender. The services continue for up to 18 months, depending upon need. Services include vocational training, psychosocial counseling, culturally-relevant assistance and so on. The services are directed to the areas that have been identified as key criminogenic areas: family support and dynamics, housing, community support, criminal associates and thought patterns, substance abuse, and gender responsiveness. The Life Plan is developed between the offender and a multi-disciplinary team that includes the prison case manager, the community case manager, the CDCR classification person and the parole agent. The offender is deeply involved in determining goals and objectives.
With regards to homelessness, about 16% report that they are homeless. Because of the stigma associated with a lack of stable housing, this self-report figure is considered to be low. The numbers in Los Angeles and San Francisco are closer to 30%. Housing issues are identified through assessment tools such as COMPA and the Alcohol Severity Index. There are several challenges to overcoming the lack of stable housing. Many of the offenders in this situation no longer have family support systems. The conditions of parole prevent them from moving to another county, where housing might be cheaper and more available. Many of these offenders are dealing with mental illnesses, others have become dependent on the system to provide housing for them. Finally, some participants have been mislead about the housing that might be available to them.
To balance these challenges, the re-entry program tries to find residential treatment for those who need or could benefit from it. Parolee service centers have been established to assist the parolee, including help in obtaining government benefits such as SSI, in dealing with identity theft issues, and in repairing their credit history.
Benny Benavidez, the Parole Administrator of the Inland District for the CDCR, described the program from the Parole perspective. Many parolees have “burnt their bridges” with their families. Others are so used to manipulating systems and resisting controls that many housing programs are not available or suitable. The third group suffers from severe enough mental illness and/or substance abuse that they are unable to maintain any stable situation, including housing.
When the state corrections system had indeterminate sentencing, prisoners were held until they were deemed ready for release. This gave offenders an incentive to work on issues relating to re-entry. With determinate sentencing, offenders know they will get out on a specific date, no matter what their readiness level is. There is little incentive and even less opportunity for developing any types of coping skills. There is little family involvement during incarceration.
While parole is a supervisory situation, the caseload is huge and the penalties are light. The maximum sentence for a violation is a year and most violations lead to sentences of just two or three months. Not only are there lacks of resources, but community responses are characterized by the NIMBY effect. Communities would rather have the parolee forced out of their neighborhoods to someplace else. Programming to assist the offender with re-entry is the last to be adopted and the first to be cut in tight fiscal times such as these.
The main effect of SB 618 has been to create a different mindset – goal oriented with a self-sufficiency objective. The life plan provides desperately needed structure. The multi-disciplinary approach leads to a plan of action with clarity and conciseness for all involved. Some of the “epiphanies” reported by parole agents include the benefits of team work, the pre-release planning emulate the effects of indeterminate sentencing (leading to goal-oriented incarceration). Another “epiphany” is that offenders are released with foundations for success in place and a community committed to be involved. A coalition first brought together in 1999 to develop the program is still in place, aiding in the successful implementation of the program’s key elements.
PANEL #3: THE MULTIFACETED NEEDS OF CENTRAL CITY EAST: THE HOMELESS, THE RESIDENTS, THE BUSINESSES
The panel chair, Michael Stefanko, Criminal Justice Consultant (and currently with the Inner City Law Center in Los Angeles), briefly introduced the participants and then turned the mike over to the first presenter, Songhai Miguda-Armstead, an Assistant Supervising City Attorney of Los Angeles overseeing the HALO Program. Songhai described the HALO program (Homeless Alternatives to Living On the street) as trying to break the cycle of “citation-failure to appear-warrant-arrest-jail.” Our jails and courts are over-crowded and these cases just add a meaningless repetition to this crowding. Many of the homeless already are crime victims – they are from vulnerable sub-groups: the mentally ill, drug addicted, children and families. An interesting and frightening issue seen in the inner city is that there are so many victims for gangs that the gangs have no need to fight amongst themselves, they just specialize in a type of victim. In addition, the homeless are often victims of benefit fraud and are victimized by sex offenders.
HALO is one more attempt to get these homeless off the streets and into programs that can benefit them. The program begins with a pre-filing diversion of low level crimes. The cited individuals are directed to housing services instead of jail. Post-filing, diversion is still possible. The City Attorneys work with Pubic Defenders to require four hours “community obligation” - participation in a housing or community-supervised treatment - in lieu of jail. The program operates “citation clinics,” not in the courthouses, but at various locations convenient to the homeless. The first clinic they anticipated that 40 persons might show up. Over 200 did. Of those, 144 were able to participate in the community obligation hours, a total of 1,216 hours of connecting with service providers.
The next presenter was Anat Rubin, the Director of Public Policy of the LAMP Community, a provider of multiple services located in the Skid Row area of the Central City East. Anat began by noting that there are about 74,000 homeless persons in Los Angeles and studies have shown that about a third of those are chronically homeless. For these 20,000 or more, the best way to end homelessness is through permanent, supportive housing, that is, housing that is long-term and having the on-site services needed by this population. Anat explained that for 25 years housing was seen as the reward for “good” behavior and hard work, and was out of reach for most people. The LAMP community was founded on the principle that if persons feel safe and supported, they can focus on dealing with issues preventing them from fully functioning in society. LAMP has studies that show their approach has had an 85% success rate.
However, the City of Los Angeles still focuses most of its service dollars on emergency services. LAMP has a nurse and a focus on immediate treatments. This is followed by advocates and support persons who work with the clients on such things as: how to live indoors, what government benefits are available to them, how to buy groceries for nutritious meals, and how to begin to reconnect with their families. This is a very cost effective approach. While there are estimates that the services, including emergency medical care and criminal prosecution and incarceration, cost about $100,000 per homeless person per year, LAMP’s service cost about $16,000 per year.
To understand how under-funded the homeless services in City of Los Angeles are, look at New York City. With a smaller homeless population than Los Angeles, New York City has 24,000 permanent, supportive housing units, all meeting federal requirements. In Los Angeles, of the 4,000 permanent supportive units, only 1,000 meet federal requirements. Instead of permanent, supportive housing, the City of Los Angeles spends its funds on things like the Safer Cities Initiative. While this was supposed to be a multi-pronged approach, only the law enforcement component was fully implemented. An extra 50 police started writing 1,000 citations per month leading to 27,000 arrests in 2006. However the low level of violent crime already existing in the Central City area did not change much. What did change was the degree to which homelessness was criminalized.
The six million dollars spent on this additional law enforcement in the Skid Row area matched the level of funding by the City on all supportive services across the entire city. The lack of shelter beds, much less supportive housing, led to the ticketing of persons for lying on the sidewalk or even just for flicking cigarette ash on the sidewalk.
Estela Lopez and the Central City East Association in general supported the Safer Cities Initiative. Estela noted that within the 50 blocks of Skid Row were businesses employing about 15,000 persons. These persons often fear coming to work when they have to step over broken drug needles, condoms, feces, vomit, and blood. Estela showed some slides illustrating these problems. These sights and the associated smells drive customers away from these businesses. The business owners do not want to criminalize homelessness, according to Estela, they just want the opportunity to operate their businesses and have their employees treated well. The businesses want to see the City do more to spread services around the city and not concentrate them in Skid Row. They want the City to remove the limits to low income housing they have had since the 1970’s and provide more permanent, supportive housing for the homeless.
The current economy has only accelerated the loss of jobs in the area that began with manufacturing jobs relocating out of California. The issues described above become issues of security for businesses, issues that need police intervention. The large number of homeless lead to large numbers of criminals who come to prey on those with addictions and those unable to secure their meager possessions. Estela sees the Safer Cities Initiative as successfully reducing the level of these crimes and driving criminals out of the area. She showed a series of slides showing what the area looks like now, since the Safer Cities Initiative has been implemented.
Deborah Burton concluded the panel presentation by sharing some of her personal story. For the past nine years she has lived downtown and lived just outside of downtown for the ten years before that. After she lost her job, she lost her house. She was able to get into some temporary housing, but found that she lacked the skills to get a job in the changing economy. She did not know how to get these skills to make herself employable. She finally found training, but when she completed it, she still could not get a job.
She was able to find housing that she could afford on General Relief while looking for work, but eventually wound up in a shelter. She was able to slowly move from the shelter to transition housing and then to permanent housing. But she saw many others in similar situations to hers, but less able to seek out the services needed to help them regain their footing. Even with her housing, other issues were major problems. Illustrating the lack of necessary services in the Skid Row area, the nearest grocery store having a decent selection of food for a nutritious diet was two bus rides and an hour away.
Six years ago she found a job with the Los Angeles Community Action network (LA CAN). Deborah has been able to focus on housing issues with LA CAN, finding some aspects of the issue to be institutional, some to be structural and some are personal. Sorting through these to help each person can be very challenging. Add to that the statistic that about 70% of homeless women have been violated during their time on the street and the problem of homeless women takes on an added dimension.
Before moving on to the discussion portion of the panel, Mike noted that a report has been done by a group headed by UCLA Law School professor Gary Blasi. Anat noted that this report and several others on the Safer Cities Initiative can be found on the LAMP Community website (lampcommunity.org/articles_reports.php).
PRESENTATION: HIGHLIGHT ON A UNIQUE HOMELESS PROGRAM - URBAN POSSIBILITIES
Panel #3 was followed by a presentation by Eyvette A. Jones, the Founder and Executive Director of Urban Possibilities and Michael Gray, an Urban Possibilities participant and author. Eyvette described how she was led to found the organization known as Urban Possibilities. The story began at the Essence Awards and the recognition of a story of four mothers whose children had been murdered. Instead of being consumed by grief or anger, these mothers turned their pain into activism. This opened Eyvette’s eyes to the crisis of lack of self-esteem. Building an individual’s self-esteem was the first step toward achieving life goals. The mothers had realized that the criminals were victims too; they were stigmatized by their tattoos and gangster clothing.
Eyvette started asking for donations of clothing so those individuals trying to improve their lives in job training programs also could change their image and therefore their self-esteem by changing the clothes they wore. Eventually this evolved into helping these individuals express themselves by teaching them the craft of writing. As a producer, Eyvette had these new authors give public readings of what they had written, which led to a theater workshop and productions. Through this the individuals learned that they had tools to change their present and thus shape their futures. By doing this in a workshop, she discovered that she was building a community of persons who had been isolated. By supporting each other, the participants learned how they might be able to contribute – to the group, the program and society, and that each one was able to define his or her quality of life. Finally, the productions were able to challenge the people in the audiences, challenge their stereotypes of the homeless.
Michael was a participant in this workshop. He not only wrote and performed, but has gathered his writings into a book that has been published and is now available through Amazon.com (the title is Pharmakeia: The True Power of Addiction Lies in the Unseen). Before reading from his work, Michael described bit of his journey. He was a disabled vet who starting buying drugs to help cope. One “buy” went bad and he was badly beaten by gang members. He wound up homeless between 2001 and 2008. He stumbled across the workshop while looking for another class. By giving him back his dignity, the workshop became the first step on his road back into society. The presentation concluded with two readings from his book.
PANEL #4: SPECIAL POPULATIONS OF HOMELESS
The Chair, Michael Prendergast, the Director of the Criminal Justice Research Group, Integrated Substance Abuse Programs at the NPI-Semel Institute for Neuroscience, University of California, Los Angeles, began by introducing the panelists. Next, Detective Diane Webb, the Sex Offender Program Coordinator of the Registration Enforcement and Compliance Teams (REACT) of the Los Angeles Police Department, spoke about Sex Offender Populations and Homelessness. California has the oldest law requiring sex offenders to register. The law dates from the Black Dahlia case of 1947. Like many laws regarding sex offenders, this law came into being in reaction to the public outcry from a highly publicized criminal case. Most other states enacted their laws in the 1990’s. Because of the age of its law, California has many, many more registrants than any other state. All told there are about 118,000 registrants, with about 68,000 out in the community at any time. Only about 30% of registrants are under parole or probation supervision. Those without permanent housing are required to re-register every 30 days, but law enforcement does not have the manpower to follow up on many of those who do not re-register.
In November 2006, Jessica’s Law was passed, greatly increasing the restrictions on registered sex offenders. It doubled the distance within which sex offenders were not permitted to live to be within 2000 feet of a school or park. Its implementation has had the opposite effect of what was intended. Instead of making communities safer by keeping sex offenders from living close to schools and parks, it has led to less knowledge of where sex offenders are living: since there are so few places they can legally live, they have stopped registering where they are living. Remember this law only applies to the 30% under probation or parole supervision, the rest do not need to say where they reside.
The law also ignored several important facts about the majority of sex offenses. First, offenses are more related to relationships than geography. Second, Many formerly good placements are now off limits due to the broader restrictions. This leads to a third fact: sex offenders now are clustered in motels with the state picking up the tab, rather than sober living facilities and other places with support services. Fourth, the law provides for local authorities to add even more restrictions, prompting a lot of “get them out of our community” sentiments, rather than assistance and observation. Long Beach, where our meeting is held, is one of the most restrictive places in the state.
What law enforcement personnel in sex crime units have seen is the more than doubling of offenders registering as “transient.” There are many more multiple registrations and many offenders have gone “off the grid.” Not knowing where offenders are makes communities less safe. Finally, Diane discussed GPS devices, worn by a small percentage of all registered offenders. Once again, this has consequences different than what the public thought. GPS is hugely expensive and requires a lot of labor to follow the data. With resources stretched thin, many law enforcement agencies cannot fully maintain the tracking. In addition, GPS devices only tell you if an offender has been near the scene of a crime that has occurred, it will not prevent crimes, and studies of the nature of sex offenses indicate that it will have little deterrent effect.
The second presentation was made by, Jim McGuire, a Veterans Administration Program Manager, and Jessica Blue-Howells, the Deputy Program Manager of the Healthcare for Reentry Veterans Program at the Veterans Administration West Los Angeles Healthcare Center. The presentation was entitled: Veteran Populations and Homelessness. Jim focused first on health care for re-entry veterans. This prison outreach has been going on for three years. The general VA health care system reaches six million of the twenty-five million current veterans. The Veterans Administration works with state and county agencies and local advisory groups. Over the past fifteen years the VA medical care has been ranked very high in quality. Most of the veterans seeking medical care through the VA are receiving some form of compensation from the VA. About 7% of all vets used mental health services, with around 40% using VA services. Much higher usage is seen in recent returnees.
Jim then shifted to discussing homelessness. There is a fairly low percentage of homelessness immediately after release, but the highest risk factor for homelessness has been found to be incarceration, so re-entry programs become particularly important. Among veterans, those more at risk for homelessness are older, with mental illnesses and/or substance abuse, and having prior instances of homelessness. One of the more depressing statistics Jim mentioned was that of those considered at risk for homelessness in this survey, only 8% received help. A positive outcome is that the re-entry program succeeded in getting some veterans released to a VA facility. The goal of the program is to see that ALL veterans get the appropriate treatment for their needs.
The third special population considered was jailed persons with mental health problems. Francesca Anello, the Mental Health Clinical Program Head for Jail Mental Health Services and Laura Soto, the Director of the Social Work Intern Program of Jail Mental Health Services spoke about the key issues regarding this population. It has been said that since the closing of most institutions for the mentally ill, the Twin Towers jail in downtown Los Angeles is now the largest mental institution in the country. About 2,200 inmates are being treated for diagnosed mental illnesses. Many more are assumed to be suffering, but have not yet been assessed. The men’s reception center processes over 300 persons each day. Many of these are on early release and there is no plan that covers assessing them for mental conditions prior to release. Those in the Central Jail are in an even harsher environment. Not only are they not getting the help they need, but the overcrowding and antiquated conditions make an environment where even if help were provided, it would not be effective.
We have already had some discussion about the difficulties regarding housing for those being released. This is especially true for those dealing with mental health issues. New York has developed an effective model, beginning with increased services while still incarcerated. Persons are not just locked up for days as they are in the overcrowded Los Angeles system, they get to meet in groups to discuss issues and plan for release, and they get their medications delivered to them.
There are many challenges to improving assistance to the mentally ill offender. Some that Francesca and Laura mentioned included: no time to make plans in the “early release” model; those disabled by their illnesses don’t know the resources available to them; there is no evaluation of competency to stand trial for those charged with misdemeanor offenses (so they often end up with a sentence of a year in jail); and many are released at night, when services are closed, giving them no place to go the first night.
On the positive side, the women’s services are improving and the Sheriff’s Department is expanding its services.
PRESENTATION: A POLICY CHANGE PERSPECTIVE ON HOMELESSNESS
Friday began with another presentation. Zack Olmstead, the Homeless Policy Director of Housing California spoke on policy changes regarding homelessness. Zack is probably the only registered lobbyist lobbying on behalf of the homeless. He represents a coalition of about 500 individuals and organizational advocates trying to end homelessness. The issue is fairly simple from his perspective: increased affordable housing leads to a decrease in homelessness. One key lobbying focus that arose in 2006 was addressing the issues of those facing homelessness after discharge from prison. As has been mentioned, a key predictor of homelessness is prior homelessness, and 46% of defendants with mental disorders were homeless when they committed their crime.
Zack noted that a study showed that of the 20,000 or so persons released on parole one year, about 3,500 of those went directly into a homeless situation. Many of these have mental disorders. Prisoners with disorders cost three times as much to house in prison as regular prisoners. Housing with supportive services is a very cost effective alternative. One piece of legislation that successfully set up such housing was AB2034. Housing California is trying to get some money for an additional pilot program through AB900. One thing to note about lobbying is the keys of timing and strategy. The strategy was effective: this legislation provided six million dollars, which the governor increased to ten million. It attempts to assist 300 parolees with a program that will not just assist them initially, but will sustain them. However, the legislation did not specify how this was to be done, so the next step is to get statuary direction on how the money is to be used. There was an attempt to add this language as an amendment to another bill, however this bill was vetoed by the governor, leaving no directions by statute.
The program, Integrated Services for Mentally Ill Parolees, has gone forward, with RFPs coming out in 2009. Contracts have been signed with eight agencies that will provide services for about 280 parolees, close to the goal of 300. Unfortunately, Housing California feels that CDCR does not understand the intent of the legislation and it is putting too much focus on immediate services and temporary housing and not enough on permanent housing situations that include supportive services.
Zack noted that some of the lessons learned in trying to get this legislation passed and implemented include: 1) attention is the scarcest resource; 2) it is important to be adaptable; 3) there will always be competing issues; and 4) the role of politics is a key element. Zack feels that the current CDCR Secretary understands the importance of this issue and the opportunity presented by the legislation, so Zack remains hopeful that the pilot program will ultimately be successful.
PANEL #5: CALIFORNIA HOMELESS YOUTH PROJECT: VIDEO PRESENTATION AND DISCUSSION OF YOUTH HOMELESSNESS, CRIMINALIZATION, AND SEXUAL EXPLOITATION
In this panel, Lisa Foster, a Senior Policy Analyst with the California Research Bureau, and Amanda Noble, the lead analyst on the California Homeless Youth Project for the California Research Bureau discussed this Project and presented a video highlighting the participation of homeless youth. First Amanda explained that the California Research Bureau works for both the legislature and the governor and provides non-partisan, objective analyses in various issues.
The Los Angeles Youth Project was a five year study funded by the Wellness Foundation. It was designed to educate policymakers about the special needs of homeless youth. A key element was to incorporate the youth voice. For the Project, homeless youth were defined as unaccompanied youth between the ages of 12 and 24 having no permanent address. This meant they could be living on the streets, or they could be living in a car or “couch surfing” (moving among friends and relatives). The Project used homeless and formerly homeless youth to do the interviewing. They interviewed about 200 youth living outside of the “normal” transient facilities (shelters and drop-in centers) in 28 different cities.
Next, Lisa played the film, then commented on it. Nearly all these youth had been pushed out or driven out of their family environments or foster care situations. There was some failure of family relationships or the fact that the foster care system did not adequately prepare youth for when they turned 18 and were on their own. In particular, gay, lesbian and transgender youth were particularly vulnerable. The film noted situations, then made recommendations. A list of the recommendations follows:
Recommendation #1: Extend services like foster care to broader age levels and populations (like gays and lesbians and those over 18).
Recommendation #2: Undo the criminalization of homelessness, particularly among youth. Many homeless youth have had one or more traumatic experiences, either driving them out of their home or while homeless. In addition, they wind up with tickets or, in doing illegal activities to survive, they are treated like criminals instead of victims.
Recommendation #3: Train the police in ways to communicate with homeless youth (again, see as victims forced into illegal activities more than as criminals)
Recommendation #4: Make it safe for youth to turn to police for help.
Recommendation #5: Implement the McKinney-Vento Act, where schools attempt to assist homeless youth with lockers and showers so they better fit in with the general school population. Ninety percent of youth surveys had career goals and saw education as a way out of their situation, but did not feel comfortable attending.
Recommendation #6: Service providers and other authorities need to become more aware of the barriers and stigmas keeping youth from asking for help. Not all services are available to all teens where and when they need them (for example, a teen working a late shift may be locked out of the youth shelters because they close too early).
Recommendation #7: Following on the above example, shelter rules need to be designed around youth needs, not agency needs.
Recommendation #8: Ensure that the delivery of services does not mirror the traumas many youth have faced. It is common for youth to have to repeat their traumas to multiple therapists, often because of staff turnover.
Recommendation #9: Recognize that stable, long-term relationships are a key to success and attempt to foster those.
Recommendation #10: Help youth to find permanent housing with on-going support services.
Amanda then discussed research into the sexual exploitation of youth. This includes prostitution, pornography, and stripping. It is estimated from surveys that about 60% of homeless female youths and 25% of males have been sexually abused before they left their family environment. Of course many homeless youth at one point engage in what is termed “survival sex” – sexual activity in trade for food, shelter, or drugs. These youth suffer from both physical health problems: hepatitis, HIV/AIDS, as well as mental problems such as PTSD.
Surveys have shown that about 75% of street youth use marijuana, which has, as one effect, reducing the ability to stop unwanted advances. Gay, lesbian, and transgender youth suffer from more exploitation, are more traumatized, and have fewer services available to them. We need more research into the long-term effects of these experiences among adults who have a past history of street life. Interestingly, research on prostitution has shown that when a prostitution ring of foreign-born girls is discovered, the girls are treated like victims and offered all kinds of services, but when young native-born girls are discovered, they are charged with prostitution offenses. There is a pilot project in Alameda County designed to address the needs of sexually exploited youth, concentrating on those arrested for misdemeanor prostitution offenses. The program features assessment, diversion, and rehabilitation in a multidisciplinary service setting. It is still a very long path to get the charges dismissed.
PANEL #6: HOMELESS YOUTH: RECENT EVIDENCE REGARDING CAUSES AND CURES
The panel chair, Peter Greenwood, the Executive Director of the Association for the Advancement of Evidence-Based Practice introduced the panelists and turn over the microphone to the first presenter, Joan S. Tucker, a Senior Behavioral Scientist at RAND Corporation. Joan’s topic was A Profile of Homeless Youth in Los Angeles County. Joan began by noting that since her background was more in the area of health than criminal justice, her approach to developing the profile reflected that background. The definition she used for Homeless Youth mirrored those mentioned earlier: persons between the ages of 13 and 24 with no stable housing. Two key aspects of the study were to understand the context of risk, and to focus away from the individuals and more on their social networks. There were four aspects of networks that were regarded: family, peers, community, and relational (sexual). Part of the study was to determine the overlaps and interactions between these four aspects.
The study consisted of structured interviews with 419 homeless youths. The study was conducted in four different areas to attempt to capture four different populations. There were a total of 41 sites, which included shelters, drop-in centers and street locations. Each interview lasted about one hour. There was a section on the individual, asking about demographic areas, health behaviors, and attitudes and beliefs. The other section focused on the above-mentioned networks: who were in each network, what was each person’s role in the network, and what connections did each person have both to others in the network and with those in other networks.
A little over a third (36%) of the youth surveyed were gay, lesbian, or transgender. The mean age that they had left their home environment was 15 (with a standard deviation of 3.3 years). Among the reasons why they had left, 25% of this group reported that it was over disagreements, while 10% reported abuse. About half had returned home at least once. One of the more interesting findings was that fully 20% reported that they had lived in four or more states since they had left home, so there is a large group traveling around the West, not staying in one primary location. The median length they had been on the street was four months.
The amount of substance abuse was quite high. About two-thirds reported marijuana use and the same percentage reported use of alcohol. Use of methamphetamines, cocaine and heroin was all much higher than in general samples. The survey group was also more likely to be sexually active and reported more partners than general teen populations. About 54% of the females and 75% of the males reported that they had been incarcerated at some point in time. Those reporting incarceration were more likely to have been in foster care and more likely to have left home before the age of 18, but were less likely to be Hispanic. Some of the risk factors identified for incarceration included sleeping outdoors, not attending school, having more sex partners, and having unprotected sex. One of the biggest factors in assisting these youths seemed to be enabling them to attend school regularly.
Pete Ranali, the President & CEO of Vision Quest spoke on The Lighthouse Scattered Site Independent Living Model. This program is modeled after a popular independent-living program in Cincinnati, one that had never been formally evaluated. Its outcomes appeared decent, but it was so popular that an attempt to impose random selection for some evaluation period was not possible. So Pete attempted to replicate the program in Philadelphia in a way that would permit a proper evaluation. A key first step was having the Lighthouse program “manualize” their program – get the procedures and processes in written form so they could be properly implemented in Philadelphia. A second step was to get local buy-in on using random selection for the program.
The first training occurred in November of 2007. Lighthouse staff supervised the training of the trainers. The program has three phases. The first phase is getting youth into a short-term shelter. The second phase is transitional living. Two youth are placed in an apartment and there are several such apartment set ups within an apartment complex. There is a resident manager on site to supervise and assist the youth.
The third phase is called “scatter site.” Each youth gets his or her own apartment. The program pays the first and last month’s rent and provides the youth with a “starter kit” for living on her or his own. The idea is that the youth will eventually take over the complete maintenance of the apartment, paying rent, cooking, cleaning, and so on. In the Lighthouse program, about 40% of youths achieve this state. There are social workers who make regular visits. There is one social worker for every ten youths and they visit about twice each week. Of course, there also are issues that arise and emergencies that need to be addressed, and the program anticipates that these will arise. There is an emergency fund and staff persons are trained to provide support and assistance. Youths get an allowance to permit them to attend cases and participate in sessions with a life coach. The costs are much less than that of a group home. Pete concluded by stating that there are still a percentage of the youth that wind up going back home.
