Monarch Housing’s Blog!

The Monarch Housing Blog has now posted all of the videos from the May 22, 2008, Grand Opening of the Lily Mae Supportive Housing Apartments. These include speeches by Wildwood Mayor Ernie Toriano, Freeholder Gerald Thornton, Lydia Taylor, Barbara Neary and Dan Bachalis. The video is set to start automatically and play all sixteen (16) videos. To select one video use the bar on the right to scroll to the one you want and click on that video. To view all of the posts on Lily Mae click here.

Please share your comments.

All of the video was down by Asish Patel [Email address: apatel #AT# monarchhousing.org - replace #AT# with @ ].

To view photos from the Grand Opening click here. To view a slide show click here.

To read the previous posts on Lily Mae click here.

We were pleased to hear from our friend Sandy Accomando of Apostles’ House about the grand opening of The Stratford which will provide permanent supportive housing for special needs and homeless families. The project will have a total of nine units, three 3 bedroom units and six 2 bedroom units. According to Sandy, The Stratford has received project based SRAP funds. The primary funding sources were Low Income Housing Tax Credits, City of Newark Home funds, HUD Continuum of Care Funding and Federal Home Loan funding. Episcopal Community Development was the developer, for The Apostles’ House, which will “own” and operate the facility. We encourage our readers to attend this important event that will be held on June 6, 2008 between 11 PM and 2 PM at The Stratford, 500-512 Avon Avenue, Newark, NJ. Mayor Cory Booker will officially cut the ribbon at 1 PM. To RSVP call (973) 430-9986. To view the full invitation click here.

A new study on the cost on incarceration in New Jersey by the Drug Policy Alliance - Wasting Money, Wasting Lives: Calculating the Hidden Costs of Incarceration in New Jersey - indicates that New Jersey “spends $331 million a year to incarcerate drug offenders, and leads the nation in the proportion of nonviolent drug offenders that enter the system compared to the overall prison population.” The study focuses on the direct costs of incarceration as well as the hidden costs. This study builds the case for substantial policy changes that must be undertaken to correct the “billions of dollars in direct and hidden costs as a result of the harsh and ineffective overuse of incarceration.” To read the full report click here.

Roseanne Scotti, director of Drug Policy Alliance New Jersey, stated that New Jersey’s staggering incarceration costs are a direct result of failed policies that mandated harsh mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offences. “Twenty years ago New Jersey and many other states began a radical social experiment with mandatory minimum sentences and mass incarceration for nonviolent drug offenders. Today New Jersey taxpayers are paying the price for this failed experiment. The bottom line is that prison in a very expensive and ineffective way to address nonviolent drug law offenses.”

As we know many of the formerly incarcerated will also become homeless which will add to the cost.

This report is the first-ever analysis of the hidden and comprehensive costs of incarceration in New Jersey. In addition to the cost of prison beds (the usual measure of incarceration costs), the report examines hidden costs such as lost wages during the time people are incarcerated, lost lifetime wages that result from diminished employment opportunities, lost taxable income, and lost child support. At a time when the state is facing severe budget deficits and cutting critical social programs and services, the report finds that the state is losing literally billions of dollars in direct and hidden costs as a result of the harsh and ineffective overuse of incarceration. The report looks at costs state-wide and also provides a snapshot of costs for New Jersey’s largest city, Newark.

To read the full report click here.

We found this story on Camden’s suburb across the Delaware River announcement of an increased effort to end homelessness of interest. As the Philadelphia Inquirer described it “teaming to battle homelessness, the city and the Philadelphia Housing Authority will begin providing 700 housing units and beds for homeless people, Mayor Nutter announced yesterday.” The size and scope of the plan along with its partnership with the Housing Authority make it not only newsworthy but a plan that we should watch closely. To end homelessness takes a united effort and what works in Philadelphia may be applicable to New Jersey.

To read the Philadelphia Inquirer article click here.

The highlights according to the article are:

To deal with the growing numbers, the Nutter-PHA plan calls for 500 PHA housing units to be given over to the homeless - 300 for families and 200 for individuals.

There’s no additional cost to PHA, spokesman Kirk Dorn said. The units will simply be designated for the mayor’s program, he added. Part of the $8.3 million cost will fund support services for people placed in the PHA units.

Although there is a 48,000-person waiting list for PHA housing, PHA does have the right to use the units “to tackle this crisis,” Dorn said.

He added that PHA is compelled to ask, “Where is the need the greatest?” Although people on the list are mostly the working poor and in genuine need, “they probably have some kind of housing already.”

The city’s contribution includes 200 units and beds. They consist of 125 units of “permanent supportive housing” - that is, a combination of housing and services to help people. Units would be added in 2010, 2011 and 2012.

The city will also be funding 50 “safe-haven” beds in various residential-treatment facilities for homeless people with acute addiction and behavioral-health problems. The city also has committed to providing an additional 25 beds, which could be used either for safe-haven beds or supportive housing.

To read the Philadelphia Inquirer article click here.

We wanted to help answer this important question. With new reform legislation pending in Congress - Frank Melville Supportive Housing Investment Act of 2008 - this is a question that needs to be answered. Over the last month we have posted several articles about the Frank Melville Supportive Housing Investment Act of 2008 (HR 5772). This is a program worth saving and the proposed legislation will ensure its continued success.
For a more detailed answer we reprint Ann O’Hara’s answer in Opening Doors.

Some federal officials have asked “Why save Section 811? There are other HUD programs that can create permanent supportive housing.” The reasons to save the Section 811 program are clear and compelling. Most importantly, Section 811 is the only federal program solely dedicated to addressing the housing crisis facing millions of extremely low-income people with significant and long-term disabilities who also need access to services and supports to live successfully in the community. In addition, Section 811 is one of the very few remaining HUD programs that can provide the essential project-based rent subsidy needed to ensure that rents in new permanent supportive housing units are affordable for the most vulnerable people with disabilities with the lowest incomes.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Advocacy, Andrew Sperling, CCD, Christopher Murphy, Frank Melville Supportive Housing Investment Act, Judy Biggert, Liz Savage, permanent supportive housing, Supportive Housing

Helen Benedict, a professor of journalism at Columbia, is the author of the novel “The Opposite of Love” and the forthcoming “The Lonely Soldier: The Private War of Women Serving in Iraq ” wrote an op-ed in the New York Times on Monday May 26, 2008, entitled “For Women Warriors, Deep Wounds, Little Care“. To read the full op-ed click here.

Ms. Benedict writes about the plight of female veterans who are “traumatized not only by combat but also by sexual assault and harassment from their fellow service members. This sort of abuse drastically increases the risk and intensity of post-traumatic stress disorder.”

With women comprising “11 percent of the soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nearly a third of female veterans say they were sexually assaulted or raped while in the military, and 71 percent to 90 percent say they were sexually harassed by the men with whom they served.”

She makes the case that “As the more than 191,500 women who have served in the Middle East since 2001 return home, they will increasingly flood the Veterans Affairs system. To ask those who need help for post-traumatic stress disorder to turn to a typical Veterans Affairs hospital, built in the 1950s and designed to treat men, is untenable.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Did you miss last week’s rapid re-housing chat on KnowledgePlex?

If you did you can still review the audio and video in Windows Media format by clicking here.

Click here to view the PowerPoint for the Hennepin County Rapid Exit Program. For the Housing Opportunities for Women - Chicago’s Plan to End Homelessness program click here.

To read all of our posts on Rapid Re-housing click here.