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Denver Reps Tour Florida Shelter
By. Stephen Keating
Miami - This city has cut its homeless population from 8,000 to 2,000 since the early 1990s by creating a public-private partnership that built two facilities offering an array of support services beyond food and shelter, including child care, job training and dental treatment.
"It's a one-stop shopping center for the homeless," said Alvah H. Chapman Jr., the founding chairman of the Community Partnership for Homeless Inc. and a retired newspaper executive.
About 30 Denver metro leaders toured one of those centers on Friday to get ideas for Denver's Road Home, a 10-year initiative to end homelessness. Besides being a moral imperative and a priority for city government, addressing homelessness is key to sustaining tourism and convention business, said Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, one of 150 people on a three-day leadership exchange trip to Miami sponsored by the Denver Metro Chamber Foundation.
"The single biggest concern we get in our surveys is that panhandling on our streets makes people feel unsafe," said Hickenlooper, who took Friday's tour.
Key to funding Miami's overall homeless outreach is a 1 percent food-and-beverage tax, enacted in 1993 on the city's higher-revenue establishments. The tax now raises $11 million annually. Officials said the private sector has contributed $48 million to the effort over the years, with faith-based and civic groups preparing and providing meals.
The partnership claims that 60 percent of the more than 56,000 persons served in the facilities have gone on to a better life.
The Homeless Assistance Center on North Miami Avenue has 400 beds, with an average stay per resident of 47 days.
Caseworkers find and screen the homeless on the street, then create an action plan while the residents stay at one of the facilities. The center houses individuals and families.
"We're one of the few cities in the country that can talk about a reduction in homelessness," said Alfredo K. Brown, director of operations for the partnership and a retired Army officer.
He gave a tour of classrooms, bunks, a bustling kitchen and a $350,000 mobile dental unit where up to 16 homeless people a day receive basic dental care.
Denver metro leaders said they were impressed by what they saw - but they wondered whether Miami's unified approach could or would work in Denver.
"What's the responsibility to develop the public money?" asked Richard Scharf, president of the Denver Metro Convention and Visitors Bureau and a member of the Denver Commission on Homelessness.
Choosing locations for facilities as comprehensive as those in Miami also could be difficult, said Donna Lynne, president of the Colorado region for Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, which has contributed $200,000 to Denver's effort to stem homelessness.
``You've got the whole NIMBY issue,'' Lynne said, referring to community fears of ``Not in my backyard.''