COMMENTARY: It’s time to end homelessness in Cumberland County

May 29 marked the 100th birthday of President John F. Kennedy, who inspired a nation to reach to the stars with a Moonshot initiative. During his famous address at Rice University on Sept. 12, 1962, President Kennedy said:

“We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.”

And, on July 20, 1969, we did the impossible with astronaut John Glenn’s landing on the moon.

We continue to face many challenges as a nation and a local community. Sometimes, these problems seem insurmountable, but the American spirit has always proved up for the task when we reach for the stars.

The Cumberland County Code Blue Coalition is one of the many examples of the American spirit of compassion, innovation and courageous determination. Through the work of our volunteers, we had 33 nights of Code Blue that provided warm shelter and food for over 70 homeless individuals in our three major cities: Bridgeton, Millville and Vineland. This past season alone, Code Blue provided over 3,000 dinners to our area homeless and needy, and a total of 1,500 overnight warming center stays for homeless individuals. The Code Blue Coalition is 100 percent volunteer-driven and 100 percent donor funded through The M25 Initiative.

Code Blue is a wonderful success, but we must do more to end the suffering of homelessness and poverty in Cumberland County. We are building upon the success of the Cumberland County Code Blue Coalition by attempting our Moonshot initiative to end homelessness by 2020 through the Cumberland County Housing First Collaborative. More specifically, we are working to make a dramatic leap toward this goal by Sept. 30, 2017, and housing 42 of our chronically homeless!

The Housing First Collaborative includes The M25 Initiative, Gateway Community Action Partnership, Resources for Independent Living, PRAC of SNJ, Revive South Jersey, and CompleteCare Health Network. The Collaborative also works in partnership with Inspira Health Network, Monarch Housing Associates, Family Strengthening Network, and the Cumberland County Jail.

Homelessness is causing a strain on the county’s and region’s institutions, which represent the first-line contacts with the chronically homeless. For example, Cumberland County Jail sees on average 8 to 10 inmates every quarter, or 40 annually, who see the jail as an escape from the street and a place to find refuge. An amazing reality!

Inspira health centers, including emergency room and behavioral health units, served 107 individuals in the calendar year 2015 who compiled 662 visits to their facilities. These visits tax the intake capacity of the health care providers, running up the cost of services into the millions of dollars. In fact, one homeless person alone compiled a “bill” of over $1 million by way of the multiple visits to hospital emergency rooms in the course of a single year.

These are costs that the institutions must bear without meaningful reimbursement. That means that tax dollars and healthcare premiums must account for the lion’s share of these types of services. We all pay somewhere along the line, and these costs are spiraling out of control.

The Housing First model that is being employed throughout the state and the nation has demonstrated real results. The underlying philosophy of Housing First is that, instead of requiring people to meet certain conditions before providing them housing, the homeless are first given housing and then helped to make the changes they need to reintegrate into society successfully. Bergen County has seen over 700 individuals find permanent housing; 20 percent of these people were once considered chronically homeless. Bergen County is now the first county in the nation to end chronic homelessness.

In Mercer County, they have seen that the Housing First model has saved taxpayers as much as $10,000 to $12,000 per year per client, while also reducing homelessness by 28 percent. Locations such as Utah and New York have seen even higher rates of success in lowering costs and reducing homelessness. A detailed study from Florida estimates that Housing First approaches can save communities 68 percent of the costs currently spent to combat homelessness.

The Cumberland County Housing First Collaborative is dedicated to bringing these same results to our region. We have received a significant grant from the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs that provides us with 42 housing vouchers that we can use to find homes for the individuals who we can identify and process. These vouchers must be used by Sept. 30. These housing vouchers enable us to target Cumberland County’s chronically homeless individuals and place them in quality housing. This program removes these people as repetitive users of Inspira and other health services, the correctional system and other service organizations, and substantially reduces the financial and programmatic burdens that are habitually placed on these providers by the chronically homeless. This program will SAVE LIVES and SAVE MONEY.

We already have four individuals approved and in transitional housing, and we have over 10 more clients awaiting approval from the state. We are confident that by Sept. 30, we will use all 42 vouchers and dramatically reduce homelessness in Cumberland County.

While the DCA vouchers enable us to place chronically homeless individuals in housing units, we lack the funding for their transitional housing. Once a client is approved, they are placed in a motel during the apartment search process, so that we can begin the case management work to help them rebuild their lives. We need the financial support of the community to enable us to provide the transitional housing and wrap-around supportive services to the homeless to help them get back on track.

You are invited to join our Cumberland County Moonshot Initiative by visiting www.endhomelessness2020.com. Will we dare to reach for the stars again and strive to do what others deem impossible? We will do what is hard, and achieve what is great. And, we will do it together!

Robin B. Weinstein is president and founder of The M25 Initiative, and chair and co-founder of the Cumberland County Code Blue Coalition. For information, visit www.m25initiative.org.