(00:00:24) Good morning, and welcome to midday in Minnesota Public Radio. I'm Gary eichten glad you could join us Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development has released a new study on the issue of homelessness in America study described as the most comprehensive such study ever conducted found that many of the homeless in America have serious underlying problems beyond the simple fact, they don't have a place to live but Housing and Urban Development. Secretary Andrew Cuomo says, the report also has found that a vast majority of homeless people can be helped significantly if they can get some help today on. Midday. We're going to take a closer look at the issue of homelessness here in Minnesota, who are the homeless what problems do they face and what programs seem to help them deal with their problems joining us here in the studios herb fry program director for the alliance of the streets of Minneapolis based Grassroots organization connected with States. St. Stephen's a Catholic Church joining us by phone is suat low Phillips. Legislative chair for the Minnesota Coalition for the homeless and she was on The Advisory Council that oversaw the study done for the Housing and Urban Development Department. We invite you to join our conversation as well great opportunity to learn a little bit more about this issue of homelessness. Give us a call here six five. One two, two seven six thousand. That's our Twin City number six five. One two, two seven six thousand if you're calling from outside the Twin Cities, you can reach us toll-free and that number is 1-800-218-4243 or 1-800 to for to to 828 and folks. Thanks for joining us this morning preciate it you think you see what low' Phillips. Let me start with you. This may seem like an obvious question. But is there any accepted definition of who's actually homeless? Is it just a matter that of a person who doesn't have place to stay? Well, there's a couple definitions that are utilized on the federal level the HUD. Tends to be fairly restrictive in that it's more of a literal homeless where you either are in shelter or living outside. The broader McKinney definition basically says that if you don't have a place to stay that's fit for human habitation. It does also allow for some doubling up and Counting folks that are unable to stay in a doubled up situation for a very long period of time as well as those folks that are actually able to access different types of shelters and are living outside. Hmm. Is there any reasonably accurate estimate as to how many people here in Minnesota are homeless what we do on a quarterly basis through the Department of Children family and learning is do a Statewide survey of the number of people actually in shelters. And the last one was done on August 26 1999, which had five thousand eight hundred and sixty nine people in shelter of those twenty seven twenty four percent were men 26 percent were women 43 and a half. That were children and five percent were unaccompanied youth people without youth without their parents at the same time on that date. We turned away 935 people from shelter according to Wilder latest study that they've done and they've done in depth studies for a number of years of Minnesota's homeless people in conjunction with the Coalition and other groups and providers and Housing Finance Agency and other state agencies. There's about 16 thousand people at any given time that are homeless or are doubled up or living outside. So about 16,000. Would that be a working figure that would be at any given time in the latest report done by the state in our Consolidated plan. It estimates about thirty-five thousand households per year are utilizing different types of assistance that we have available in the state and again in terms of the Breakdown most of these people are children. You said we were children. We look at the combination of children and unaccompanied youth. We're looking at forty eight point five percent of our population in Minnesota our children. Now that seems substantially different than the number that they came up with in this HUD survey how which indicated that what 68 percent of homeless program clients are our male presumably male adults what would account for that huge difference? Well, I think part of it is that I think we're in a little bit of a unique situation here in Minnesota where we have really focused on creating besides shelters transitional facilities. And number of the transitional facility is really focused towards family. So I think that's a part of it and that in many of the other cities around the country. They've really focused more on Singles than they have on families. Okay herb fry. This HUD study indicated that a good many of the homeless people that it surveyed nearly half are working. They have jobs working at least part-time jobs. Is that square with your experience? (00:05:40) Yeah. I think that's become increasingly the case. I mean if you go back 10 15 years ago, I don't think that was true. But certainly today the fact is there's lots of jobs available and people that might not have been working or working full-time or part-time a few years ago or now jumping into the workforce. We have people coming by our place every day looking for people to work people from temporary job services, for instance. That's part time work usually and there were several people there this morning and guys come by and many of them go off and work that wouldn't have happened a few years ago. And so that's I would say at least 50 percent are working. It depends on you know, just who you're talking about. But if you go to st. Stephen shelter, I think you'd find more than that because that's a sober shelter and so some of those liabilities These are not working (00:06:24) against you. Hmm and do are there the homeless people at least the people that you're working with regular eager to get a job and want to let it get squared away. There's this perception that you know that a lot of these people are real shiftless. (00:06:40) I think there's a Continuum. I mean, there's people who are mentally disabled and we're never going to work and that's part of the population for some reason or other they don't get house and therefore they count as homeless and they are homeless and there are people who are who are very able who are down on their luck for a while or something happened. They moved to Minneapolis. They didn't have enough money to get going again Apartments cost a lot more than I thought and all of a sudden they have to use the shelter in their homeless and within a matter of weeks if they could get some help there there at least working full-time and if they're going to be working full time, they can get government support with a deposit and they're saving their rent. So within a matter of weeks, they're they're on their own and then there's an awful lot of people who are kind of in between Dean who aren't really disabled but they may have some barriers as they call them to they may use you know, they may have they may like alcohol or they may have some mental illness or they're just having a gun at squared away in some fashion and they're working part-time but they're not spending their money wisely. They're not saving it necessarily they've gotten used to being homeless. I mean they work at a place that in Plymouth they get up at 4:30 in the morning. They get out there to work on the bus by seven. They work till 3:30. They get back in town and if they don't have a place to stay often, they blow the money when they get their check every week or every two weeks and the money doesn't go for housing. So we have a situation in which almost the lack of housing because that's something you can get real serious about it takes a lot of your paycheck and author what happens is by not having easily accessible housing people get used to staying in shelters get used to frittering away their money. They made my real nice. Rules when you and I would well, we got to pay the rent first. We can't buy that today. So they kind of deal with immediate once and that can include other things too. And as a consequence, I think the lack of housing right now is a huge barrier for folks the fact that they can't get into housing fast enough and the shelter's just don't do it in lots of cases. They don't want to be sleeping with a bunch of different people in in a room. And so they kind of get irresponsible and I think the social they're working they're doing it right in that sense. And I think Society is kind of letting them down by not having easy access to Safe affordable housing. (00:09:02) Yeah. I think the idea that if somebody is working that they would be able to get housing is just no longer true, especially not in our metro area not in the state of Minnesota. You need to be making 1152 an hour working 40 hours a week 52 weeks a year to be able to afford housing in our community for a two-bedroom and almost 9:00. Fifty an hour to put two four two one bedroom if there's the housing available. Mmm. Do we have any idea and again, I'm sure this is an elusive figure. But is there a you have any idea of how many housing units we are short in other words all the people who would who are looking for a place to stay and would actually use the place and so on any guesstimate as to how many housing units were short in Minnesota. Yeah, the guests ooh, well right now three hundred and forty nine thousand households are paying more than 30% of their income for housing. I mean, that's a part of it. I think right now that we have about 65,000 sixty three thousand households that are worst-case scenarios where they're paying more than fifty percent of their income for housing. So we have a lot of folks that even if they have gotten into housing are paying way too much for the housing to be able to meet the rest of their basic. (00:10:23) Is I work mostly with single adults in Minneapolis that sort of traditional homeless and I would say that we could use 500. I could fill up 500 units within a week if it were the you know decent housing and right now they'll take anything but I like to have 500 good units and we opened up a building a couple years ago as a hundred twenty-four units the waiting list to get in there is four to six months and a lot of people don't even bother they just go over there and hear about this huge length the time now, they're working right and they go to this place it's sober house and it's just great and I got to wait four to six months what's going on here and we just need a bunch of these ways. We used to have them and they may not have been that nice. They could have been made nice and we tore em all down because we shouldn't have that kind of housing or they were kind of nasty places. And the problem is you got to rent any kind of housing right and if you can do that, but we just need the units and we need to spend some money here and we could do it cheaper maybe than what we're doing it now. That's what I like to see. Maybe we need some units out along the along 494 where there's a lot of jobs out there and we got to put them out there so they don't have to go so far to get to work and maybe we have it there for a while and say Hey, you know start saving your money so you can get a car and move into a nicer place down the road, but we just don't have a place for people to get started and as shelter what you're sharing, you know, you're in a room with 30 40 50 hundred and some people is it's not a way to get your life together. I mean, we couldn't stand that, you know, you're right next to the next guy. You don't know what he's been up to. It's terrible and yet that's we won't build that house and it's that's real reasonable. We say well that's terrible. They should lie like that. Let them then what do we do? They stay in a shelter this summer the shelters were so bad that people slept outside. Of course, you can do that. They're still doing it because it's not that cold but you know, they lie that we just need a place is we used to have this that's the crime here there used to be lots of places. If the worst sorts of characters could get housing and now you got to be, you know, sort of pure to get into a lot of these places and landlords. They don't want to house the people I deal with because you know, a lot of these people they have a checkered past, you know, they might have been imprisoned they didn't pay their rent and they got kicked out and they may have other problems so they pick other folks to mean there's like a 3 for 30 50 applicants for an apartment and you're going to rent to somebody that's just getting his life back together. So we need something for those folks and when we got so much money. We're the richest we've ever been in a society. Why can't we do that? I mean that's just based because these guys are working or there. They've got some problems there there, you know, 20 years 30 years. They would have been in an institution some of them and they're walking the streets. I mean this isn't right, you know, if we were dirt poor as a society, okay, but we're not I mean and it's it can be done reasonably these some you know, we could Twenty million dollars. It'd probably be a put a huge dent in it. We're also pulling in a we got to take the innocent sir. We're pulling in a lot of people from other places the politicians and a lot of people don't like you to say that or they'd like you to say that depending on their persuasion, but people are coming here because their opportunities and their take they need housing to and this is a great place and we got to have good housing for folks that we don't (00:13:50) we're going to see more and more people coming into the metro area in the next 15 years were going to have 300,000 new jobs according to the Met Council and half of those are going to pay less than about 20,000 a year. So all of those folks are not going to be able to afford housing that are going to be taking these new jobs that were creating and as herb said the demolition has, you know, really created a lot of the homelessness in the early 80s for single people and continues to do that. And in the last year two years in Minneapolis, we've destroyed 500 family units and we're seeing this cross. The metro area where we're not having replacement of housing first before housing is demolished or rehabbed and price data range. That's way outside the range of people that are working under making less than $10 an hour. We're talking this our about homelessness the Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development is out with what it describes as the most comprehensive survey ever taken of the homeless in America. And we thought today would be a good day then to focus on the situation here in Minnesota joining us suat low Phillips who's legislative chair for the Minnesota Coalition for the homeless herb fries with us program director for the alliance of the streets. And if you'd like to join our conversation, give us a call here six five one 2276 thousand 6512276 thousand if you're calling for from outside, the Twin Cities number would be one eight hundred two, four two 28286512276 thousand one eight hundred two four two two eight. Wait, do most homeless people receive welfare assistance of any kind. (00:15:29) Well, the singles very few of the singles now receive anything we cut that out in this state several years ago people who are disabled for whatever reason they do get a minimum of $500 a month from the federal government if they go to the trouble to qualify and get that this is a single adults and then some of the families are on assistance because their welfare whatever Memphis as they call it now exists for them. Hmm. So and a lot of the course are it's time-limited. They're going to have to be getting off that at they haven't already and in some cases there's going to be big problems because there they just don't have the skills or the wherewithal or the base the security to make it so that could add to the number of homeless people in the future and the terms of families, but a lot of the problem is they people come to town here. And or they lose their housing for I mean a lot of people use how the guy decides he's going to upgrade and the landlord. He kicks everybody out. Well that person may be working or she's doing it right and all of a sudden she's homeless and what she has to do then the mom with her kids or they got to go to a shelter because there's no way they're going to find housing like that and then often there are helps for those people whether she's on assistance or not. If you're in a shelter, you can get help through Hennepin County to get out of the get out of a shelter and find a place but that may take months till you get it all together and find a landlord. It's going to take a chance on you or (00:16:59) whatever what we see basically around the state is about 22 percent of the folks are on the Infant program, which is the afdc program and then on general assistance about 10 to 12 percent when you can average out the metro and greater, Minnesota area as her booth. In 1995 net that timeframe kind of mid 90s, we eliminated the general assistance program, which is called work Readiness for those folks that were able to work that were not able to find employment and that immediately made them ineligible in Hennepin County for publicly funded shelters. So we began to see a group of folks that were continuing to live outside and that's when we also opened up the secure waiting in Hennepin County. Do we do as a society do we do a good job of sorting out the individual circumstances of each individual homeless person that is to say on one hand. You may have a person who simply fell through the crack they got booted out of their apartment for know they're working and they're doing all the right things and they just need a place to live that they can afford on the other hand at the other end of the spectrum. You might have somebody who really has some serious problems who Needs a lot more than just a place to live. Is that kind of sorting out being done on an individual basis? So that people at least have the opportunity to get the help that they specifically need that's being done differently in each community in Hennepin County through our family homeless prevention assistance program ulam actually screens all the families that are coming into the family shelters. And we do that type of sorting and then try to connect Folks up with a different types of services. That would be the most appropriate right now. We have a city county task force in Minneapolis in Hennepin County. That's primarily focusing right now on Singles and youth and that seemed type of triage process is will be some of the recommendations they'll be coming out of that particular task force, but it really varies within each Community how that that actually happens. (00:19:14) A lot of communities don't do much at all. And those folks come to the metro area often come to Hennepin County. And there are places in Minnesota item that give you a bus ticket. That's how they handle homelessness. They don't deal with in that county. They let the metro area take care of it's particularly true. I think for singles. (00:19:31) Hmm. I think it's a little bit different than what we see in on this particular report. We're in the report there only indicating nine percent of people being homeless in rural areas in Minnesota because we've done a very good job of trying to make sure that we provide services within the community. So communities do take care of more their own so they don't have to travel travel to Major urban areas like Minneapolis st. Paul and Regional cities 22% of our homeless population actually is in rural areas utilizing services within their own Community Janice your question, please well, I have an idea about this. I don't know if it would work in rural areas, but certainly in the metro area. There's a lot of multi-unit housing. Why are the owners of those properties to rent a certain percentage of their properties to people who need subsidized housing and then to reimburse these owners through tax breaks tax credit something like that. We are doing some of those types of things. There's a need to change a couple years ago in our property taxes that it's called the 4D which reduces the property tax for landlords that provide rental units available to people at or below 60 percent of median income. So there are some of those types of things a number of the programs actually utilize some of the vacant units transitional housing program to rent from local landlords or provide rent subsidies, but in a market where we're at a 1 to 2% vacancy rate and 80% of our Section 8 certificates in the metro area are turned back each day. It's just a very very tight rental market. What we really need to do is produce a lot more affordable rental (00:21:16) housing you could also I can see there's a lot of vacant properties. Neapolis and it the city off of what's the tear them down so it seems and it would be nice if those properties somehow could be rehabbed and then that would be opened up solely for people who've been homeless. That way they're bringing were, you know, sort of have the housing stock there. It needs some improvements and then if there were government monies tied to that they could also require that for so long the people coming into the house, even though it's permanent housing at least when they came in they would be homeless and I'm sure he could fight a lot of units this way but it would cost them money to get them rehabbed and maybe a choir I'm you might have to acquire more work out a long-term lease with the owner (00:21:56) but it costs a lot more to have people homeless and it would to rehab those units right now in the City of Minneapolis. We are spending more on shelter and transitional housing actually just shelter a singles and families. Then we are in the mayor's budget in the city council's budget for the year 2000. So the mayor's budget has 8 .1 million over three million. Of that 8.1 billion in housing over 3 million of that is to do some ripping down of some housing that the housing that hurt was just referring to and we're spending right now in Minneapolis about nine point seven million dollars in Sheltering people and providing services to people. I mean, we're really investing our taxpayer dollars in a very inappropriate way. We really need to invest in housing and still provides a safety net for those folks that are becoming homeless, but really invest our dollars in preventing people from becoming homeless in the first place. Let's go back to the phones here. Next caller is from Plymouth Brian. Yes, go ahead. Yeah. I've got a few comments on the conversation starting maybe with people's income. You were saying that people need to make from what I guess about $23,000 a year to afford housing if we had a different tax system, which was flat that would exempt people that made $30,000 or less from Any taxes would greatly help the improve their incomes and then more more to the housing prices to provide that housing. If there was some sort of incentive to provide that housing whether it be through lower property taxes or less regulations and when landlords have problems with tenants instead of blaming the the owners and the buildings and tearing them down. Maybe the system should work more to remove the troublemakers from those areas. I think those are really excellent points and I think those are some of the directions that will see coming out of a task force that's been working on rental housing that I've been a part of and that will see coming out of Revenue is really looking at ways that we can provide incentives and property tax break for multifamily housing, but I think we've for way too long have been blaming the property for people's behavior and it's ridiculous to the board and Board units because people have not acted appropriately in that housing. We need to address the issues that those people are are being irresponsible and take care of that and keep the housing open. But what do you do then with the people who've been here responsible then they end up homeless, right? And then where do they go? I think we're going to compete in any different types of structured programs to help folks learn to be responsible and to learn how to treat property in a responsible (00:24:49) manner. Well, I think I think what you give them good housing and you run it right and you hold people accountable and I think if they don't want to be accountable then we encourage you to go to another town. It's Ike it would be hard to have housing for people that are totally irresponsible. I mean that would be hard to justify and then I know example a Portland I don't know. I think this is pretty true. They run a lot of sober housing out there and we've sort of modeled a program in Minneapolis on that what I heard out there is if you want to keep using go on up the line going to Seattle we want you to get your life together. This town is going to back you to the hill. We're going to give you every opportunity, but you got to get serious and (00:25:31) but we just turn our back on those people in. No, I don't think that we turn our back, but I think that we're talking about, you know, some And it Tori types of services and programs that people need to be involved in that will be connected with their housing and you know, certainly we are we are dealing with you know numbers of people in permanent Supportive Housing and in transitional housing programs that have had very difficult Pass Rental histories credit histories and criminal histories. And you know as heard was saying, you know it give those folks a good place to live give them some support services and some assistance a lot of folks turn their lives around and they are very responsible. Let's take a break here for some news headlines were talking this hour about a new report that's out on the homeless in America report from the Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development were focusing today here on midday on the situation in Minnesota suat low Phillips is with us legislative chair for the Minnesota Coalition for the homeless herb fries jaundice program director for the alliance of the streets. And if you'd like to join our conversation learn a little bit more about this issue. Give us a call six. I have one two two seven six thousand 6512276 thousand or one eight hundred two, four two two eight two eight will get to some more callers in a couple minutes. Today's programming is supported by members of mpr's leadership Circle who (00:26:52) contribute $1,000 or more in support of Minnesota Public Radio. (00:26:57) Hi, it's Linda said oh Casper (00:26:59) this week. We meet legendary filmmaker is small Merchants a man renowned for his cast and crew Curry suppers. We check out the Cheese's of savoir. And then Jane Stern (00:27:09) Lynn. We have stumbled on a wonderful new Kentucky Breakfast ham biscuits and fresh apple pie That's The Splendid Table Saturday at 1 and Sunday at 6 a.m. On (00:27:21) Minnesota Public Radio K and R. WF M 91.1 (00:27:24) couple of other program notes at noon today. We'll hear from historian Doris Kearns Goodwin here on midday live coverage President Clinton's press conference coming up at 1:30 this afternoon right now time for some news headlines is Greta Cunningham. Thanks Gary. Good morning officials with the American Association for retired persons. Say Medicare is not enough for older Americans. The AARP says despite the government help. The elderly will spend on average more than 24-hundred dollars in out-of-pocket expenses for health care this year. AARP says that's nineteen percent of Income among the elderly the group wants to see Medicare coverage for prescription drugs firefighters in Worcester, Massachusetts continue sifting through the smoldering debris of a burned out Warehouse looking for for firefighters killed in Friday's fire the body of a second firefighter James Lyons was found in the rubble overnight a fire fighters acts was also found and the fire chief says that area has become an area of interest in the search to homeless people are charged with involuntary manslaughter prosecutors. Say the pair started the fire by knocking over a candle during an argument Russian lawmakers may be nearing a vote on ratifying the start to nuclear arms reduction agreement with the United States leaders in the state Duma will meet Monday to decide whether to put the treaty to a vote the agreement aims to cut us and Russian nuclear arsenals and half to about 3,000 Warheads. Each it clear the US Congress in 1996 Russian president Boris. Yeltsin is government wants the Duma to ratify it in Regional news to Minneapolis police officers are on paid leave as the state. Of criminal apprehension investigates a shooting Minneapolis Police Chief. Robert Olson says the man killed during this morning's incident was carrying a fake gun police were called to a report of a man with a gun on the edge of downtown near the Metrodome Olson says the officers decided to fire at the man after a bicyclist started coming into the area officers discovered afterward that he was carrying a plastic realistic-looking gun the forecast for the state of Minnesota calls for mostly cloudy skies in the Northwest with the possibility of some flurries partly cloudy skies for the rest of the State high temperatures today ranging from 35 in the north to 45 in the south at this hour Duluth report sunshine and 33. Some light snow is falling in International Falls 31° Rochester reports sunny skies and 41 and in the Twin Cities Sunshine a temperature of 41 degrees Gary. That's a look at the latest news. Thanks Greta. It's 24 minutes before noon. This is midday on Minnesota Public Radio, and we're talking this hour with herb fry and suat low Phillips about the issue of homelessness. Here in the state of Minnesota this on the heels of a comprehensive report out from the Department of Housing and Urban Development that looked at homelessness all across America came up with some interesting findings among other things nearly half of the homeless actually have a job working at least part-time the report also found that good many people if they're given some assistance find themselves a permanent place to live and move on to what might be called a normal regular life. 6512276 thousand is the Twin City area number to call six five. One two, two seven six thousand outside the Twin Cities one eight hundred two, four two two eight two eight and Sue Ellen Phillips her Pride before we get back to our callers. We were talking before about the different kinds of people who come under this category of of the homeless. Does it complicate the discussion of this? Issue and does it make it more difficult to address this problem? Because so many different kinds of people are lumped together. You have people who really do just need a place to stay who have jobs and everything on one end. And on the other hand you have people who are who have a whole range of problems that simple housing is not going to cure. I think it certainly complicates that a great deal. You're right. Now we're looking at thirty percent of the American population is one paycheck away from not being able to make their rental payment or their mortgage payment. So I mean basically the underlying cause of homelessness is poverty, but then anything and everything else to be added to that depending upon what people are bringing in as well as being poor and not being able to afford the housing if there is housing within the (00:31:47) community. It might take on that is you know, I think 20 years ago. Let's say we didn't have homelessness. We weren't talking about that on any kind of radio show. Now there were some Tramp Simpson bundle of an admissions or whatever there were always some people aren't there was always Skid Row's but you didn't have family certainly in this situation. He didn't have that many singles and it was all kind of contained in certain parts of town and we tore down a lot of housing years ago, and we just haven't kept pace with the demand for housing. So in the sense that there's a lot of folks out there that would have had a home or what have been house 20 or 10 years ago, even they're not today. So in that sense, it's an app term. The problem is then that there's a lot of gradations in there from people who are in pretty pretty awful shape the people who just need a chance and off they go and they're fine and then there's a lot in the middle that you got to work with that's going to take a while and some people I you know my experience. Is there almost for a while or their episodically homeless and often eventually they A it works and they're getting a job and there they got a place to stay. So sometimes you got to hang with them for a while. I think the more intense the services that you provide the faster you speed that up of that also costs money though services. So it depends how we want to do (00:33:04) it and you can't I mean you can provide some level of services in the shelters, but people have to have a regular housing situation be able to address the different issues that they have in their life besides just needing to have an income to be able to afford housing Pat your question, please yeah, excuse me. Thank you for taking my call and I think that the past callers have really hit on some wonderful ideas and good valuable information that we can all look for but my thought was getting back to basics in are you know everyday living and I know that I heard about a lighthouse movement that has been started to it crosses all you know nan de to make the meat. How do you say their nomination? Thank you. Yeah. It does and it's something that really touched me and I'm not want to Advocate. Oh, you know righteous Christians or anything like this, but I got this and it helped me to get focused in my neighborhood where I can run off in a hundred different directions thinking I can go and do this with the city or through whatever things of the church but it focuses on walking in your neighborhood and looking for things right next door that you kind of get too busy in our lives and you know in our heard jobs and situations with our kids and we don't notice maybe somebody right next door and so they started the lighthouse movement and I'm taking it up with some of the neighbors some of the churches if they want to get involved and it's grown Grass Roots has really grown Billy Graham is involved in it and it's just a wonderful backing for just people that want to make a difference right where they live and you're maybe sometimes scared to get out your door and say hi but a smile Matt hi to a person that you don't even know can make all the difference in the world and it starts with Basics like that and an elderly man in Bakersfield, California. Into an apartment that was infested with drugs. It was a complex and prostitution and people were moving out but instead of moving out this man decided to dedicate this apartment to a lighthouse and he joined with the other Christians to do this in a few short weeks is complex with cleaned up Neighbors were coming to Christ and this sent a powerful witness to the owners of the building that if they gave the lighthouse group of free apartment, they gave them a free apartment and they did establish a chapel and continue their Ministry praying and caring and sharing with these people and I think just a Grassroots thing like this. It doesn't have to be through city hall or through Mary Jo Copeland to me is my hero, but I mean she never said no. All right just kept on going. Thanks Pat. Well, I think one of the keys is that you know, as people of Faith that's very important that we treat other people the same way we'd want to be treated in that same type of situation, but I think we need to take a step Beyond. You know, what you were just saying the caller they just called in is that we do need to show up at City Council meetings. We To be talking with our state legislators with our governor and with our Congressional folks as well as with the president and saying that we want our tax dollars invested in our people within our community. And that housing is one of the main ways that we stabilize people within our community help people get jobs help people have Goods good education and help to have healthy communities. So often we hear the call and for more programs more government programs one sort or another the more money needs to be spent is this one of those instances where if in fact more money is spent this problem will be solved. Well, we know they were very good at doing homeownership and on the federal level through home or mortgage interest rate awesome property tax. We invest a hundred billion dollars a year in home ownership and in on a state level we invest a lot more in home ownership than we do in rental housing so that we have the highest home ownership rate in the country at about 77% Sit so we know if we invest money in housing it works. So we just have to do that same thing in regards to rental housing for folks and making sure that we don't demolish housing without first replacing it and that it would cost us a half billion dollars a year in the state of Minnesota to have everybody housed and only paying 30% of their income for housing. We have one and a half billion plus in Surplus right now. It'd be nice for us to start helping the families and individuals that are experiencing homelessness have an affordable place to live. So for 500 million dollars we could take care of this problem in Minnesota per year per year. which is 10 times almost our Housing Finance Agency budget right now gave your question, please I believe it was herb that just got done saying The City of Minneapolis for the state of Minnesota be behind to the homeless at every point and give them every opportunity and I think that's what's wrong is when you tell them that they're going to have these many many chances. They're not going to do anything. Well, I think yourself (00:37:53) if I can what I meant is if somebody's is trying to make it then I think that's when you provide them with opportunities. I mean if somebody has no interest and I think you back off but if somebody needs they want to get an apartment and they're working then so they get an apartment one or two months earlier. You might give them pay their Deposit they want to get some training because they could move up in their job and then why not help him out. I mean we help people out all over the society. We hope the elderly we hope people kids in school and sometimes you know, we provide pulp free public education. There's nothing wrong with helping people as long as we know it's going to work and somebody's making $3 more an hour. They're paying a lot more in taxes. They got a place to stay somebody's getting taxes off that property. And they're part of the American way of life. That's what we want for folks. So to give them opportunities to get into that. I don't see that as a bad thing (00:38:46) is the the is the system flexible enough to determine who would benefit from that kind of help and then kind of follow people along so that if they continually mess up that assistance is taken away from him. (00:38:59) We got it for instance that we were involved in a project called Alliance Apartments over on 16th Street in Minneapolis, and we went out to Portland and friend of mine. And I and and we we got the the sober housing this outfit out there said that's all we will build and so we came back and said well, let's build sober housing. So we built a hundred twenty-four units and that's one of the big problems with this population are not they don't get support for sobriety and often they slip and so this place says you got to be sober and if you slip slip once if you tell us about it, otherwise you're gone. And another thing you got to do here is work. You got to be productive. Of and so everybody there is work and that face is subsidized the hilt with HUD Section 8 subsidies. And at least a third of the people maybe more now don't even use their subsidy because they're make it too much money and that's great and that was done through government money. God loved the government and they made it possible for people to have have a life you walk into this place. These people used to be in jail, you know, they were drug addicts. They were terrible maybe and now they got place you walk into it's like an oasis is like walking into the suburbs of the middle middle of Minneapolis. Now, that's what you can do through governments who help from the private sector because you got a vision of how it ought to be and people will climb onto that they'll get involved and they see that their life they me for years. They've been messing up and finally they got the right kind of opportunities and they were provided by the government and also some people deeply committed people who had a good idea. It had been tested in Portland. We weren't invent anything new we weren't taking any chances, but we were taking a chance on People and that's what matters but the point is it's it all works sure people slip up there too, but they can come back. You know, they got to go. You got to get treatment. You got to get your can't stay here like this go get treatment go do what you got to do. We'll give you a chance again if we got a (00:40:56) slide for you and we have some of the model programs in the country right here in the state of Minnesota, you know, certainly herbes program has been one of those models and you know, we have very high success rate in assisting people to get back into permanent housing stabilize their lives and move on. There's a very small part of our population that is a is chronically homeless, then as herb said we have folks that move in and out of homelessness during their lifetime, but the vast majority of people are in and out of homelessness in a very short period of time. Gary you're a question, please. Thanks for taking my call. Can you hear me? Okay. Yes coming. I think the biggest problem with this whole kit and caboodle is the way they build a new sites you pick I'm a truck driver and I'm in all these different areas where Housing Development is going up who in the world that makes under 30,000 a year can afford to go into three hundred four hundred thousand dollar homes. They're putting homes in for these doctors lawyers CEOs, you can see the amount of units they build they could take what they're spending on that they could take and build smaller units. There's an area and over off at 35 WN County Roadie. There's five or six units right in one block. They're nice-looking small houses. They got garages attached to them start building units like that. Were you can move a single person in or a woman say with today has one or two kids when she gets on her feet. They can swim into a bigger unit if they had to I don't know why they don't build stuff like that. It's everything on a large. Gail they build homes where two people are living and if they've got 16 bedrooms. All right. Thanks Gary. It's a big part of the problem. Well, so while all Phillips let me ask you this timing of when thing you hear from City officials. At least is that what they what the city really needs is a mix and you know, the middle class has shrunk in the city. They need to get people to move back to the city people with money and they can't be in the business of Simply putting up inexpensive housing because they need they need somebody to pay the taxes and they need to recreate that that mix that once existed in the city. Isn't that a legitimate point of view? Well, I think that we need to develop a tax base but I think our entire tax system really needs to shift that we've really relied great deal on property tax as a means of funding a lot of different types of services that we have within the community and that's a part of then the reason that cities are saying But again, it causes a great deal of taxpayers to allow people to be homeless and then as children are homeless for a long period of time they have significant delays in school. We're going to have to spend more money on special ed. These children are at higher risk of being involved in foster care in Corrections in different types of chemical and mental health types of treatment saving the cost. Just continue to rise as we allow people to experience homelessness, but I think mixed-income we certainly are very in favor of mixed income. We're not interested in seeing projects developed. But we need to do is make sure in the mixed income development is that there is a significant number of affordable rental unit for people that are at or below 30% of the Metro median income Which is less than $20,000 a year and a lot of time left, but let's get at least one more caller on here. Amy quick comment. Yes. Hi. Mine's going to related to the last caller in the last comment and that is I know it. Woman that's been trying to introduce housing units into a number of communities in the Twin Cities over the past 10 years and what the eventual problem ended up being was that the there was a backlash from the community. No one wanted that lots of people thought it was a good idea but no one wanted that quote unquote kind of in their neighborhood. And so I'm wondering if your guests have seen that or where that stands that seems like one big obstacle to overcome as far as homelessness for me where we see that a great deal. We I'm president of mica which is the Metro interface calls. What affordable housing or organizing in congregations around the metro area to have folks in those congregations go to City Council meetings and say yes, we do want the housing in our community, but I think one of the things that we have to remember why we have a state that is primarily focused that own homes is that very very few of us went from the place that we grew up in right into homeownership the vast majority of us probably over 90% of us went in To either a dorm or into a rental unit of some type and so for us now to say in our communities, we don't want any of that in our communities is really, you know, very inappropriate because we use that type of Housing and that we're now in a situation here in the metro area and in the state is that kids that are growing up in folks whose homes will not have any place to move out too. So it's in our own best interest to make sure there's affordable rental housing in each of our own communities (00:45:56) my take on that is this Society is changed and I really doesn't like poor people very much or low-income people very much and it paints all these lurid scenarios about how awfully I mean the TV is full of it. Look at all those shows. I mean, it's terrible what happens and what's coming down to people people are afraid to drive around in Minneapolis that I live in the suburbs. There's no reason to be afraid but that's what you hear. That's what the new who's emphasizes that sells papers I guess or gets viewers and you know, Minneapolis used to be mostly renters and it's still can be mostly right. It's but renters pay how usually higher property taxes because that has a higher property tax rate than homeowner places and you know, the they got to be run right? Everybody's got to behave but poor people can behave just like everybody else and they need breaks just like all the middle of the upper class kit and maybe the society has to do more there because they don't have somebody they got this Got Deep Pockets next to them. But you know, it used to work in this town and then we painted this story that it won't work in the politicians bought it in the business Community, but the Press fit it and it's wrong. I mean I deal with these folks all the time. I spent every day with them. They're great people they got problems, but they shape up you got to have faith people got faith in your kids. I got faith in these folks and it can be done. But you know, you can't say not on my block not in my town not in Maple Grove not in Bloomington. Well, bull. It's got to be spread around the Metro are we all need to take response? We went all the jobs are in Eden Prairie and Plymouth and Places like that. Why don't you have housing there? Make it easy for folks. Give them a break you gotta break and why don't we get back to that attitude that we used to have in this country. We don't we know how to do this right now and we're starved for funds and it can be done. (00:47:47) Well, we're out of time. But thanks so much for joining us today. Appreciate it. Our guests this hour talking about homelessness here in the state of Minnesota herb fry program director for the alliance of the streets and Sue what low Phillips legislative chair for the Minnesota Coalition for the homeless Housing and Urban Development Department out with a major new study on homeless homelessness in America. This is midday coming to you on Minnesota Public Radio. (00:48:18) The rate of suicide among young people tripled in the past half-century and among 10 to 14 year olds. The rate has doubled since 1980 this year the Surgeon General called suicide a serious Public Health threat and called for much more education and prevention. I'm Brooke Gladstone join us to discuss suicide. Who what and why and how to prevent it on the next Talk of the Nation from NPR news/talk (00:48:45) of the nation begins at one o'clock this afternoon at 1:30 live coverage of President Clinton's press conference.