Homelessness board says it's switching gears, enacting new plan

The Lucas County Homelessness Board will be switching gears in how it will work to decrease homelessness in the county.

To better coordinate with providers and understand what needs to be done to address homelessness, the board will enact its Home For Everyone Continuum of Care strategic plan, which will include having actual conversations with residents who are experiencing homelessness and improving data access between organizations that are combating the issue across the county, it announced at a news conference on Wednesday.

“We’ve done a lot of work to reform and create [a] culture within the community that’s willing to say, ‘We can do better with each other instead of feeling competitive,’” said Julie Embree, interim executive director for the Lucas County Homelessness Board. “The next piece is: We’ve got to get our data in order.”

A substantial piece of the plan, she said, is hearing from people who are suffering and have suffered from homelessness to provide insight on whether or not they believe the plans being proposed will actually work. One such resident is James Barker, a Continuum of Care board member who has struggled with homelessness off and on for a few years.

“When you first go to a shelter, it’s very difficult,” Mr. Barker said. “You don’t know what to ask anybody. You don’t know what to do. It takes somebody to guide you and direct you to find the resources that you need to be able to earn housing, substance abuse care, and mental health [care].”

Goals of the plan include increasing connectivity and utilization of units outside of the Continuum of Care to increase affordable and accessible housing options, developing and implementing a Toledo Lucas County Continuum of Care Plan to increase oversight of the homeless response system, and transitioning from a “closed” to an “open” Homeless Management Information System to increase “data access, quality, and understanding.”

Several community leaders, including the Lucas County commissioners; Bill Brennan, president of the board of directors for the homelessness board; and Sena Mourad-Friedman, chairman of the Home for Everyone board, assembled outside of the board’s office at 1220 Madison Ave. to discuss the change in the organization’s tactics to reduce homelessness.

The commissioners and Mrs. Embree said there have been efforts across the country to make homelessness illegal. The officials gathered Thursday were resolute that Lucas County won’t be following that trend anytime soon.

“Homelessness is not a riddle,” Commissioner Lisa Sobecki said to the audience. “Its causes are not unclear. It is a structural injustice formed and perpetuated by our set systems. Homelessness is not a mystery we need to solve. It’s a social justice [issue] that we need to end.”

“Our goal is always the same: To give dignity and housing and respect to people that don’t have it,” Commissioner Pete Gerken said.

Mrs. Embree said the strategic plan is different from other initiatives and programs the board has done in the past because there’s more of a “focus and centering [on] the voice of the folks that have experienced homelessness” and stopping at “understanding what you went through.”

“[It’s] not just understanding what you went through but [it’s also] letting you tell me what you see the solution is and what solution is going to work,” she said. “We’re not listening. We think [and] we say we are but we’re not listening so we’re intentionally pulling people to the table. They are literally a part of the decision making. ... We need to be more flexible, more nimble, and let them tell us.”