What to Expect from Project Homeless Connect?

How many will seek services?
One thing we don’t know and will not know until the event is underway is how many people will come seeking assistance to get off the streets. When we started this innovative event in the Richmond region in 2007, 380 people came to get medical screenings, haircuts, and assistance with employment. Last year, we served 575 individuals. We have been planning for 750 single adults this year, but staff guesstimates range from under 400 to almost 900. We have been working to increase the number of volunteers (thank you!) and the number of services available this year to meet what we can only anticipate to be increased need in this economic climate.

The increase from 2007 to 2008 wasn’t due to better advertising, but to increased need and to word-of-mouth. Homeward works with the network of “safety net” services (such as meal programs at area congregations) and outreach workers to let single adults experiencing homelessness know about the event and the services available. This week, outreach workers will make visits to the people they know are living out of doors. Local meals sites will have posters describing the event. Project Homeless Connect is designed to make it easier for someone living on the streets or only marginally connected to a support system to access the community services they need to become more stable. Last year, over 95% of the clients we served rated the event, the food, the services received, and the volunteers as good or excellent and many clients got the services they needed.

The weather forecast calls for a chance of showers and temperatures in the low-to-mid 60’s. It could be that the warmer weather means fewer people are seeking a refuge from the cold or that more people are able to come to the event because of the warm temperatures. We won’t know until Thursday how many people we serve at Project Homeless Connect. In the meantime, our partners are continuing their work with single adults experiencing homelessness to connect them to housing, treatment, and other services to end their episode of homelessness.

Our collective wish would be, of course, that no one needs what we have to offer. For now, this isn’t the case. As we prepare for Thanksgiving and the winter holiday season, I am thankful that our community has such high quality public and non-profit services staffed by professionals and volunteers alike to change our community’s response to homelessness and to restore hope and dignity to our most vulnerable community residents. If you know of someone who needs assistance, please have them call “211” to find out what resources they can use to get back on their feet.

What do we know about the people who try to get connected at Project Homeless Connect?
Last year, we served 575 single adults. Almost half of the people who attended the event were homeless and, of those who were homeless, almost half had been homeless for one year or more. 20% of the people we served were living on the streets or using only the cold weather shelter to get out of the elements. While the majority of clients overall had their last permanent place to live in the City of Richmond, we served people from Chesterfield County, Henrico County, Hanover County, and other parts of the state.

The individuals we served ranged in age from 19 to 81. As you may know, we limit services to those over the age of 18 in order to meet an unmet need in our community for services for homeless single adults, especially those living on the streets. While some of the people seeking services have children living with them, anyone who brings children to this event will be referred to the Department of Social Services for more appropriate services to meet their needs. We do our best to ensure that no one leaves the event hungry, but we are not able to offer other services to anyone under 18.

How does the day go and what makes the volunteer experience unique?
We open the event for clients at 9am and close the doors at 3pm. Most people come for services between 9am and 12:30pm. Volunteers arrive at 8am or 8:30am if they have already received training. The past two years, clients started lining up at 7am and by 12:30pm, there was a line out the door and around the corner as we tried to match a volunteer with each person seeking services. In the morning, volunteers will wait in line to get connected with an individual seeking services. Matching people seeking services one-to-one with community volunteers makes this event unique, sets the tone of hospitality, hope, and optimism, and gives us the courage to talk about ending homelessness in our community. For those of you serving as navigators, you may spend much of the day waiting with the person you are matched with. You may be waiting for employment services or the results of a vision screening. It is in these moments together that you will both have the opportunity to make a connection that could lead to change. I don’t want to set up too high of an expectation, because you may make a connection that takes years to bear fruit. In this line of work, I am constantly reminded of a formerly homeless and addicted colleague who tells of the person who helped him get off the streets. My colleague’s life was not a smooth journey to stability, but that personal interaction made a difference and, over time, allowed my colleague to forge a new path and give back to his community.

What’s different about this year’s event?
We have made several improvements to this year’s Project Homeless Connect in order to meet the increased need in our community and to incorporate the feedback we received from last year’s participants. One of the biggest changes is the increased volunteer recruitment. This year, we hope to be able to maximize the number of people in need of services who receive one-on-one attention and assistance in prioritizing and navigating the services available.

Another big change is that we will have a large area with donated clothing. Although clients rated the 2008 event and the services they received quite highly, we did get many requests for clothing. We are fortunate to have several volunteers who have taken on the challenge of meeting this need.

Finally, we have increased the number of services available. One thing we are happiest about is the number of barbers and hair stylists who are volunteering for the event. Not only does a haircut make someone feel better, but a haircut can help in a job interview. Haircuts are always a popular component of our service fairs for people experiencing homelessness and we are grateful to the volunteers who will provide this service on Thursday. We have also worked with our corporate, public, and non-profit partners to expand and enhance the employment section of the event to better meet the needs of single adults experiencing homelessness.

Besides this one-day event, what is our community doing to help single adults get out of homelessness?
Project Homeless Connect is one of our key strategies to address the needs of people living on the streets or those who are marginally connected to a support system. As part of the Ten Year Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness in the Richmond Region, Homeward is working with our public and non-profit partners to increase access to permanent housing, treatment for mental health disorders, and substance abuse recovery programs. We are also working with the criminal justice community to improve re-entry planning and services for people who have been incarcerated. To learn more about the Ten Year Plan and our community strategies, please visit www.homewardva.org.

What about homeless families?
Project Homeless Connect is not designed to meet the needs of homeless families. The Ten Year Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness in the Richmond Region lays out a number of strategies to connect families experiencing and at risk of homelessness to the housing and supportive services they need to increase their housing stability. One promising strategy is to partner with the child welfare providers to make sure that youth aging out of foster care and families at risk receive the support they need. Another new program in our community is called rapid re-housing. Rapid re-housing is a way to reduce the length of time people live in homeless shelters by connecting them to housing and community-based services. For more information on this topic, please see our website at www.homewardva.org.

What difference does one day make?
There are two conflicting schools of thought about the difference one person or a one-day event can make. Some of you may be familiar with the starfish story. A little boy is on a beach covered with hundreds of stranded starfish. He starts throwing starfish one by one back into the sea. An older gentleman asks him what he is doing and why he is bothering to help one starfish at a time when so many are stranded. The little boy responds that his actions certainly make a difference to the starfish he helps. More people walk by and are motivated by his action and rescue more starfish.

Another iconic story of community need is about villagers rescuing babies floating in a river. A group of people are downstream working to rescue the babies when someone gets the idea to go upstream to find out why babies are getting into the river and to address the problem at its root.

The reality is that we need to do both. While we need to meet the immediate needs of single adults experiencing homelessness through events like Project Homeless Connect, we also need to influence policy-makers about the problems that lead to homelessness in the first place. Homeward does this through our work with the Ten Year Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness in the Richmond Region.

What else can I do to help?
We hear from many people who want to make a difference and wonder how they can have an impact. There are several ways you can continue your involvement in preventing and ending homelessness. For a list of volunteer opportunities or organizational needs, please call “211”, visit our website at www.homewardva.org or, check out the list of needed items at www.connectirchmond.org. Embrace Richmond is an organization which works with faith communities interested in homelessness. You can learn more at www.embracerichmond.org. Several of our non-profit partners work with volunteers throughout the year to meet the needs of their clients. Again, you can find a listing of some of those agencies and their needs on our website. And, of course, all non-profits, Homeward included, depend on financial support to maintain their programs. Contact the agency you are interested in to learn how you can help.

For those of you who may be interested in continuing your connection with an individual served at Project Homeless Connect, we recommend that you partner in this effort with one of the agencies working to address needs comprehensively.