New Campaign Shows Progress for Homeless
From: New York Times
He would probably still be there, defying offers of help from social workers and using cardboard to ward off the chill, if Denver had not adopted a radical strategy of putting homeless people into apartments of their own, no strings attached.
Arthur Sena, who lived for years in a hole near railroad tracks, now lives in a "housing first" apartment in Denver.
Philip F. Mangano has revived a dormant agency in Washington to run the new program.
The "housing first" policy that this city adopted last year is part of an accelerating national movement that has reduced the numbers of the chronically homeless --- the single, troubled men and women who spend years in the streets and shelters --- in more than 20 cities.
"We're conspiring to undo what we'd been told for so many years, that this was an intractable issue," Mr. Mangano told 150 mayors, state and city officials and private leaders here in May.
Already, Mr. Mangano added, documented gains have persuaded the White House and Congress to increase spending.
To start their new plans, cities have combined federal and local public money with foundation and corporate grants.
In a first step, confirmed street dwellers are coaxed into rooms of their own, a more attractive proposition to many than the drug treatment programs or transitional group homes they had been offered in the past.
