Once again, we’ve wasted time and money by dealing with the homeless backward. Too much energy has gone into deciding where we do not want them to be, and making sure that they would not be there.
~Anna Quindlen (b. 1952), U.S. journalist, columnist, author. (December 2, 1990).

Emergency shelter is an integral part of any continuum of care system. Of course, in a perfect world, we wouldn’t need a continuum of care system at all because we would have a safety net in place to catch people before they need emergency shelter. But, we are not quite there yet. In a slightly less perfect world, we would have adequate transitional housing, permanent supportive housing and permanent affordable housing to quickly move persons from homelessness to safe, stable housing.

We’re not there yet.

Since we do have a need to emergency shelter, it is wonderful that we have so many caring, compassionate community-based and faith-based organizations that are willing to provide this needed service. We have churches and other faith groups that open the doors to their places of worship for overnight shelter. We have community organizations that build football field-sized dormitory spaces to provide emergency shelter. This is all wonderful, but people end up living there for a long time, sometimes years.

Now, what do we need to move people quickly from emergency shelter to housing? Here is my suggestion... We need more supportive services (case management, especially) IN the shelter. We need more transitional housing. We need more permanent supportive housing. We need more affordable housing. We need more safe havens. We need more prevention funds to keep people in their homes. We need more people who are willing to work with the homeless population. In short, we need more funds. We need to develop the political/societal will to deal with this problem.

How do we do this? We advocate. We help people see the REAL faces of homelessness. We, as a group, can be the force of change that turns this from THEIR problem to OUR common problem.