I am a board member of the county general homeless shelter in Iowa City and sadly, a 55-year old homeless man, Sonny Iovino, passed away yesterday apparently of hypothermia while sleeping under a bridge. Sonny was also alcohol dependent--he likely would be stereotyped as a "wino."
As always, the story goes far deeper, but in a town of "liberal values," this type of tragedy fuels the discussion about how the homeless are treated (or if they should be tolerated).
Our local homeless shelter is a "dry" shelter. This means that anyone who is drunk or high can not sleep in it. This is done for many reasons, but primarily because it is a small shelter with 29 beds that are filled almost every night with families, women, and men (some of whom are veterans). A proposed new shelter which will house up to 75 persons is not planned to have resources for persons with chronic drug or alcohol addictions.
This is not to say that services are not availble to homeless persons in the community at the shelter. If a homeless person is willing to follow the house rules, they can pick up their mail, make phonecalls, take a shower, do their wash, and come in during the day to warm up, they are welcome in the house. But after 5 pm, they are asked to leave. Sonny, in fact, did visit the shelter and make use of the services he could.
As many may know, there is an overflow shelter program that is staffed by volunteers at local churches. Similar to the shelter, there is no provision for those with alcohol/drug dependencies. This is reasonable given that those staffing the temporary shelter are not trained chemical dependency professionals.
Some may know that Cedar Rapids, as of last year opened a "wet" shelter as a result of a similar incident when a person with an alcohol dependency passed away there. However, in Iowa City/Johnson County, there is no movement in that direction.
In other communities, homeless persons who live on the streets are increasingly becoming endangered by senseless acts of violence, that, thankfully, has not the case here. If anything, the street-living homeless are resourceful and utilize programs such as Wesley House's Free Lunch and Free Medical, and spend colder weather in the public library or other downtown buildings that offer warmth in colder weather. Still, when the rest of us are calling it a night, a fairly large group of people are seeking shelter under bridges, in tent cities, and in the stairwells of parking garages.
Is it possible that we could do better or, said differently, have an obligation to do better? That is in the hands of the community. Even in liberal communities, we do place our values onto other people. On the one hand we expect persons in need to get a helping hand, but we quickly lose sympathy if they have dependency issues.
I feel it is safe to say that the needs of homeless people are different. A shelter like our current one is not appropriate for persons with alcohol or drug dependencies. There is a need to provide services for persons with alcohol and drug problems. But it needs to be in a context of other services, such as mental health/psychiatric care.
At present, the frontline helper for the chronically homeless person ends up being the police. Typically when a person is drunk or having a psychotic episode, it falls on the ICPD or county sheriff to deal with the "public nuisance" aspects of their behavior. Sonny, according to the Iowa City police blotter was arrested twice, once for 5th degree theft (shoplifting) and a week ago for disorderly conduct.
Even with jail diversion programs, it is likely that a number of nightly visitors to the county jail are homeless. This creates another resource that is overtaxed.
Would housing all the homeless be more cost-effective than jailing these people (or more morbidly, disposing of their bodies should they die outdoors)?
this is a community discussion that needs to be had.
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