St. Patrick to provide homes for homeless
By Michele Munz
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
10/14/2008
St. Louis — The largest provider of homeless services in Missouri is opening a $5 million housing complex to help get the most desperate people off the streets for good, altering the way it treats people who cycle in and out of shelters for years.
The St. Patrick Center today is announcing the opening of Rosati Apartments, which will provide studio apartments for 26 men and women, along with services such as substance abuse treatment and counseling.
It will also help pay rent at area apartments for 30 other people.In doing so, St. Patrick brings its clout — the agency serves 9,000 people annually — to a growing movement to provide long-term housing and treatment for the "chronically homeless.""What this does is changes the mind-set of managing homelessness, to ending it," said Dan Buck, CEO of St. Patrick Center, which runs 22 programs for people who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless.
To qualify for a spot at Rosati, located on North Grand Boulevard, residents must have been homeless for long periods of time and suffer from a condition such as addiction or mental illness.Political leaders and advocates for the homeless have focused more attention in recent years on the "chronically homeless."While most single adults are homeless for limited periods of time, about 10 percent bounce around for years among shelters, hospitals and prisons. They use up nearly half of the public resources devoted to the homeless, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness.Recent studies have shown that a successful model is "permanent supportive housing" — combining affordable rental housing with support services.
The model provides clients immediate access to an apartment without requiring psychiatric treatment or sobriety.Homeless service providers have traditionally held out housing as a carrot — clients must first get treatment, psychiatric care and make efforts to get a job.But that approach can be too much for addicts or the mentally ill, who are worried more about where they are going to sleep, how they are going to eat and how to stay safe."When you take all that off their plate, making decisions that will better their lives are doable, more manageable," Buck said. "We're going to make the outcome the first step of treatment."
Hospitals, shelters and social service agencies will refer potential residents to Rosati and the 30 other apartments, where they'll be able to stay indefinitely.Money to build the apartment complex and fund the treatment services came from 10 different sources, including public and private agencies, Buck said. St. Patrick also qualified for low-income housing tax credits, he said.Jimmy Fields, 51, will be one of the first residents at Rosati when he moves in later this month. He grew up in foster care and started using drugs when he was 15.Ten years ago, he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. He stayed eight months in temporary housing provided by St. Patrick Center, but quickly slipped back into drug use when he returned to his old friends and neighborhoods.He sees his new home as a way to get better and reconnect with his 27-year-old daughter."I'm very grateful to get to move in here," said Fields, who will allow the staff to dispense his medication.
"It's a new beginning."While permanent housing costs money, studies have shown that the price is nearly the same to that of providing emergency shelter, hospital stays and emergency medical care.That's one reason federal policy has shifted toward helping provide long-term housing for the homeless. Congress has boosted funding for the U.S. Housing and Urban Development's homeless programs in recent years, putting a premium on permanent housing projects.Cities across the nation have followed suit. St. Louis and St. Louis County are among 300 communities that have created 10-year plans to end chronic homelessness.The plan here includes creating 500 permanent supportive housing units in the city and 200 in the county.When the plan was released three years ago, the city only had 11 such units. Now, with the addition of Rosati Apartments, the city will have 261, said Bill Siedhoff, the city's director of human services.That number includes a 25-unit building, awarded federal money this year, to be built by Peter and Paul Community Services.
Over the last six years, the city has secured over $50 million in federal homeless money by featuring permanent housing projects, Siedhoff said.Siedhoff is now excited to have St. Patrick enter the arena."Sheltering has not been one of the things they've given priority to," he said. "They clearly have become more directed toward the housing-first approach."
mmunz@post-dispatch.com 314-340-8263
