HIV Alliance helps people move from encampments into housing

Presenter: The latest from the streets of Eugene, with the executive director of HIV Alliance. At the City Club Nov. 18:

Renee Yandel (HIV Alliance): I’m not a person living in an encampment but I think it’s really important to understand that wherever a person is camping, whether that’s on public or private property, they often feel the safest in that place. It may not look from the outside like a safe place but to the person that may very likely be the place where they feel the safest.

[00:00:27] Another thing to understand is that everything they own, every single thing they own, every critical document, every piece of dry clothing, everything they own is likely in that camp. And they most likely don’t have a way to move it. So: not a lot of people with vehicles, some carts, these kinds of things, but everything they have will be in that camp.

[00:00:47] And then, at least for the folks that we engage with on street outreach, many, many people are experiencing mental health, behavioral health, and in that includes addiction and physical health challenges. Pretty significant. In fact, 88.6% of the people we work with on street outreach will say they have a disabling condition.

[00:01:09] The first impact that we see that is so kind of real and present every day when you’re talking to folks is just the physical impact, the physical burden of having to move a camp, you know. So you get notice, you get a couple of days’ notice, and then you have to move, as I say, everything you own.

[00:01:26] You have to do that without losing things, without having things stolen, without having things thrown away, and maybe you yourself are experiencing some physical disabilities that make that very difficult, and that burden is huge for people.

[00:01:41] They can lose in the process, tents and cold weather gear, like I say, critical documents that people need to access services, and it’s a hugely disruptive thing for people.

[00:01:52] The second impact is about connection and this is two-fold., So I think people form relationships with other people in the camps just like we do with our neighbors on the block. You know, my neighbor, he went to Italy a few months ago, he asked me to watch the house. And people form those relationships with each other in these encampments.

[00:02:11] And when they have to leave there, they don’t all get to go together. There’s nowhere to go for most people. So they’re going to disband and go about figuring this out on their own, and they often lose that connection to the other people in the camp who have been a support to them.

[00:02:28] What I hear the most from my staff is the loss of connection to us. And this I think is just a huge impact and ripples beyond what I could even probably describe today.

[00:02:40] But, you know, HIV Alliance, we provide medical care to folks. We provide housing assistance, help getting IDs, food. Lots of different things are happening. And most of the folks we’re working with in these encampments, they need all of those services.

[00:02:55] So when they get moved from the encampment and our team can no longer find them, we don’t know where they’re going and they don’t know where they’re going, they can lose access to the social support team, the social service team that is helping them move out of that encampment, essentially.

[00:03:11] And we’ve had folks, you know, HIV Alliance does, as you can imagine, syphilis treatment and HIV treatment and treatment of Hep C, and we can lose folks who are in the midst of that treatment, you know, you’re in the middle of Hep C treatment, and you’re nearing cure with Hep C, because you can be cured from Hep C, and you get swept, and we can’t find you. And now we can’t complete the treatment, and it’s a whole start-over.

[00:03:33] The same with syphilis, you’re in the middle of getting your shots for syphilis treatment. And so there are public health ramifications of that beyond just for that individual.

[00:03:42] We’ve had folks who are days away from getting a housing slot, and this is one of the ones that is just so hard to even say, but a person who’s been waiting for months living outside for a housing slot, days away from getting it, they get swept, we lose them. That slot cannot be held. That slot goes, they lose the slot. So they’re back to the start of part of the whole process.

[00:04:04] So it’s a very disruptive thing when camps get swept in that way. I want to say, you know, we all recognize at HIV Alliance and I recognize that the camps that people are living in, those are not safe and reasonable places for them to live either. They’re not safe and reasonable for the public around those spaces. I understand that. But this is about the impact on those folks and what happens. And it really is overwhelming to see.

[00:04:31] Presenter: HIV Alliance joined the All In program.

[00:04:36] Renee Yandel (HIV Alliance): HIV Alliance, as I say, we’ve worked in street outreach and in housing for a very long time. We joined the All In project in Lane County and we decided to work on what’s called ‘encampment response.’ This is a model that has worked in other places and it is where a team of outreach folks connects to an encampment and has some time to work with that encampment, flexible funds to support people and really with the goal of helping people move out of that situation and get into housing.

[00:05:05] So we were excited to work on this project. We started out the first camp our team was assigned, and we had a team of four or five street outreach specialists. We have behavioral health and medical folks who can come alongside the team.

[00:05:18] The first camp, we got out there, we’re working with them for about a week. The camp gets a notice, and they have to leave. Everyone is removed from the camp. Maybe we had seven days to work with that camp. So that didn’t work.

[00:05:31] We got assigned another camp, same thing. The camp gets a notice that they’re going to be swept within a few days. The camp is swept. We can’t track anyone down.

[00:05:39] Finally, on our third try, we were working with a group of folks in an encampment where the property owner or the entity managing that property was able to give us some time to work with the encampment and the folks there.

[00:05:50] And we had also, at that time, been able to find a nonprofit partner who was managing a motel, and there’s a really interesting piece in Willamette Week about these types of housing opportunities.

[00:06:01] And they had remodeled an old motel, and they were offering those units to people moving from being houseless. So we worked with them, we had several weeks to work with the camp, we were able to place people using the All In funds, which at that time were quite flexible, moving them into these sort of what we used to refer to as SRO, motel rooms. And from there, people could move on.

[00:06:24] You know, we always offer people every option, you know, do you want to go to the shelter? Do you want to go into this motel opportunity that we had?

[00:06:32] So through that process, we were able to house about 35 folks from encampments. We worked with two different encampments and were successful in housing 35 folks in that property.

[00:06:44] For this to work for people, we need to have adequate staffing and teams to be able to work with the encampments. We need to have flexible funds during the time we’re working with folks in encampment because they have a lot of needs. There’s a lot of barriers to housing. You have to have funds that can be flexible to do that.

[00:07:01] And then you need to support the encampment while you’re working with them. You know, if they don’t have sanitation or they don’t have a place to go to the bathroom, that’s going to make that encampment an unsafe situation very quickly.

[00:07:14] And then finally, we need units for people to move into. We have to have a place to go. If we are asking people and making them leave encampments and there is nowhere to go, they will simply go to another encampment, you know.

It really is all of those impacts happen and yet they’re still sleeping outside because there isn’t anywhere to go inside. So I think that’s a really key point, and it has to be options of places to go. I think we have to have flexible options for people.

[00:07:42] Sue Wolling (City Club member): Hi, I’m Sue Wolling, City Club member, and something I struggle with that I’d kind of like your response to is: Many of us are involved in various efforts to provide services to homeless people, whether it’s providing meals or socks or tents or whatever. And it’s never wrong to help somebody who’s in need. But I also wonder, is it somewhat enabling? In other words, are we making it a little safer, a little less scary to stay where you are than to face the frightening prospect of change?

[00:08:13] Renee Yandel (HIV Alliance): Thank you for that question, that’s such a good question. I think I mentioned earlier we operate a syringe exchange, so I’m going to tie these two things together a little bit here if I can.

[00:08:23] People will often ask the same thing: Are you enabling people by giving them clean supplies so they don’t get HIV? And my answer is always the same to that, and that is ‘No,’ that I’ve not seen any evidence that giving people supplies that keep them alive or keep them from getting HIV enables them in a way that would keep them houseless or cause them to use drugs.

[00:08:47] So do the same thing. We give out socks. We give out shoes. We give out tents and tarps. And people—there’s an endless need for this, sometimes it feels. But I also think that there needs to be a base of just, ‘I’m okay.’ And at some level, it’s lifesaving. People can die from exposure to the cold, and people have died here. I mean, that’s why we have warming centers.

[00:09:09] So I think, you know, at some level, you’re keeping people alive so that they can take those next steps, and that’s how I see those supplies as well, and giving people an opportunity to do that.

[00:09:19] I mean, I can’t even imagine. Sometimes I think about even, say you got the tent, you got the socks, you got the food from the folks who are out there doing it, and that’s your reality. And you have to get up in the morning and navigate the Social Security system. Or you have to get up in the morning and navigate the VA to get your health care. Or navigate any of these other numbers of systems. And people do that without—I mean, even on a good night’s sleep, it’s hard for me to do that.

[00:09:46] So I think these kinds of things, they feel like you’re throwing supplies into this big, deep hole. But I do think that they’re critical for people, as long as we offer something else. And that’s what feels, you know, to me important, is that we do that at HIV Alliance. And we offer: Do you want to talk to a peer today? Do you want to get signed up to get on the waitlist to do these things?

[00:10:09] Presenter: City Club hears how HIV Alliance is helping unhoused neighbors transition from the street to SRO housing.