What Can Be Done?

Towns and cities have answers to combatting homelessness

While Connecticut remains as a model for other states when it comes to combatting homelessness, there is still much more work to be done. CCM recently partnered with Sustainable CT and the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness (CCEH) to launch municipal campaigns around the state in endeavors that will help identify the many issues that lead to homelessness, as well as innovative ideas and good partnerships that will help end the cycle that we see.

One of the most important things that we can do in this state is get an accurate assessment of how many individuals have experienced homelessness. Each January, CCEH undertakes a Point-In-Time count, and this year CCM asked our towns and cities to get involved to make this process as smooth as possible through the coronavirus pandemic.

CCEH asked many municipal employees if they have noticed any areas where those experiencing homelessness might have been spending the night. For a point-intime count, they typically choose a very cold night as many towns will have opened warming shelters, allowing for an easier count.

But the partnership goes much deeper than that, and the opportunities for municipalities to help are endless. Towns can look to organizations like the Family & Children’s Agency (FCA), which has begun work with younger individuals who are experiencing homelessness.

“There is very little that is more important to people than having a safe and affordable place to live,”

According to figures from CCEH, nearly 8,000 youths from 13 to 24 experienced some form of housing instability last year, ranging in severity, but including homelessness. IN a press release, FCA said that by strengthening relationships in the community with the schools and other organizations, they believe they can create a “youth-centric system of care to promote self-sufficiency and ensure that episodes of youth homelessness are rare, brief, and non-recurring.”

Recently, Y2Y in New Haven broke ground on a 20-bed temporary shelter and service center for those experiencing homelessness in this age group. According to a write-up of the groundbreaking ceremony in the New Haven Independent, the facility will not just be a temporary shelter but a place where youths can transition out of homelessness and back into stable housing. Many more organizations are doing work like this, and many more towns and cities are supporting these organizations. When CCM brought on Columbus House CEO Margaret Middleton, she said that we actually know how to solve homelessness, it’s just a matter of putting the resources and knowhow together in a workable way.

“There is very little that is more important to people than having a safe and affordable place to live,” Middleton says, “it is just the bedrock and without it people can’t be healthy […] it’s much harder to be engaged successfully in recovery or engage successfully mental health care all of those things are improved when people have safe and affordable housing.”