San Diego -- Mar 1, 2010

Susan Madden Lankford brought together a Seminar on Solving the Homeless Problem involving some of the leading minds on the Homeless issues of San Diego today, which had a good turn-out.

After listening to a couple of hours of descriptions, goals and statistics from the speakers (which has given me several articles of material for eddiecat.org), I asked two of the speakers, Scott Silverman of Second Chance, and Brian Maienschein of Home Again:

If you were dropped into downtown San Diego, with two sets of clothes, a backpack, and $25.00, with the current resources San Diego has to offer, how long would it take for you to get back into a home (stable living situation).

Both of these men answered, "Months, if I had community ties, years if I didn't. Trying to work your way through the systems and find the resources... it would take a while... "

This answer is without adding on the problems of mental or health problems, and no drug dependencies.

Often the view of the homeless is that they are unwilling, or working the system, in order to be taken care of by the community. The reality, today, is that the homeless are often more than willing to work, and get off the streets; they simply have no idea of where to start, or how to move forward.

Most of the topics at this seminar were focused on this issue, I noticed as I listened to the speakers. Some of the focus was on the Point of View of how much the homeless of San Diego cost the city, when we do nothing. This Point of View is both a clarifying view point, as well as a change in the perspective of our community.

Is there a solution to Homelessness? One of the statements I heard, suggested very strongly that there is, and I'll be doing some follow up research in that area, and reporting back here soon.

On the personal level, with the resources I have, my skills and the honest desire, I begin my journey with a meeting at 2pm today at the Neil Good Center, where I'm going to talk with a Case Worker. My main concern, today, is access to health care (since I have developed a rather nasty condition of High Blood Pressure), and also access to Psychiatric care.

So, we'll see if I can't beat-the-system a little.