I wish to rebut some points in Kevin Lindamood's letter regarding the problem of homelessness in Baltimore ("Housing the homeless," May 27).
Mr. Lindamood has been at the forefront of providing services and advocating on housing issues for homeless citizens and should be commended for his dedication. And no one would disagree that we need to "reinvest in housing for the poorest of the poor" as he asserts.
But his letter distorts the current debate concerning the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development's decision to reduce funding to Baltimore City for our programs serving the homeless. His zealotry for a "housing first" approach dismisses the many good people and programs that are working to assist the homeless just as hard and just as effectively as he is.
The homeless are not a monolithic population, and the reasons for their state of homelessness is not monolithic.
While the "housing first" model serves certain individuals well and may over the long run be a wonderful success story for them, the model does a disservice to other homeless individuals.
HUD has stated that it will no longer fund "transitional housing" for homeless individuals. The travesty of this decision, a point that Mr. Lindamood neglects to cite in his letter, is that HUD lumps all types of programs in their definition of transitional housing.
For instance, HUD would define programs like Marion House and the Baltimore Station as transitional housing when, in fact, they are far removed from being a transitional housing program. They are actually treatment programs.
These programs recognize that a majority of the homeless population suffer from brain disorders ranging from addiction to schizophrenia. Mr. Lindamood argues for the dissolution of these programs, which provide residential treatment for homeless individuals who want to make a significant change in their lives.
These programs use evidence-based practices to provide willing individuals an opportunity to succeed. What purpose does reducing the number of residential treatment programs (either psychiatric or addiction treatment) serve?
Mr. Lindamood says that "housing is the solution to homelessness." This is a fallacy. Many of the clients served at Baltimore Station during my tenure as executive director there were homeless because they had unmanaged psychiatric problems or were addicts whose behaviors forced their families to stop providing shelter.
National experts agree that the best possible intervention for these individuals is residential treatment where daily and intensive therapeutic programming and peer support can assist them in changing their behaviors to deal with the brain disorders they suffer.
The worst possible intervention is to place them in isolation with sporadic intervention from service teams. Mr. Lindamood's housing first model, which he argues should be the only model funded, does just that: It places individuals in isolation without daily treatment and no peer support.
While these individuals may be housed, the reality is they are not receiving the "intensive services" he mentions, much less adequate treatment.
A case in point was when the Department of Veteran Affairs fell into lockstep with the housing first model as the only approach to serving homeless veterans as it began moving them out of treatment and into permanent housing. Within the first six weeks we witnessed a suicide and an attempted suicide. The VA quickly changed its approach and stopped requiring veterans to choose between quality, effective residential treatment and permanent housing.
Baltimore City and our nation need a variety of approaches to effectively, competently and compassionately resolve the problem of homelessness. All those concerned about housing the homeless should be advocating for HUD to allow the local jurisdictions to provide the programs that best meet the needs of the homeless rather than promoting a national, one-size-fits-all approach.
Michael Seipp