Friday, September 01, 2006

County homelessness plan advances

We had a good meeting Wednesday night of the steering group for the Orange County Partnership to End Homelessness. Over the summer, subcommittees met to work on specifics to be proposed for the plan. The capable Stan Holt of Triangle United Way, who has also been involed in Raleigh and Durham County's plans, did an excellent job of synthesizing and presenting the recommendations.

Those of us who are not professional service providers are learning as this process goes along how complicated it's going to be to coordinate the existing services and integrate new ones. There are gaps everywhere (only getting worse given state "reforms" in mental health plus federal cutbacks in social services). For example: a teenager who runs away from home and is under 18 will be turned away from a homeless shelter. It's the law.

The steering committee was generally receptive to the current state of the plan but for good reasons wants more details about how to make it work.

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