PROVO -- Sleeping in one's car really only works when that car is a station wagon and there's some pillow option available. Otherwise, it's just uncomfortable.
Yet for the more than 400 homeless people who filter through and around Utah County each year, a car might seem luxurious. At least it keeps the rain, bugs and intruders out and provides a little private space.
Those who are homeless at such a bad time, as jobs are lost, charitable donations fall and house payments come in second to food for children, are looking for help anywhere. And there are more of them than in the past.
Lloyd Pendleton, director of the state's Homeless Task Force, said about 450 people are homeless in the county annually, based on a point in time survey conducted each January. Homelessness actually is down in Utah County and surrounding areas by 24 percent this year, even as it went up statewide. His guess was that more of them were moving north to Salt Lake City or to other areas, perhaps areas with more shelters or what are known as drop-in shelters, a cool place to get out of the heat in the summertime and get some help.
The other numbers he sees coming in are frightening regardless of what the state number is. Pendleton said families make up 46 percent of the homeless population in Utah, compared to 42 percent a couple of years ago. If the economy continues its slide, that number is going to increase, he said.
"I think it's going to be because you just have more families that are living on the edge," he said, adding that government assistance that normally would act as a safety net is getting cut as well. "We expect this will increase in the next year."
Homeless people, who may be living in tents, cars or abandoned buildings, usually are only out of a home for a couple of months; Pendleton said 80 percent of people classified as homeless are temporary, thrown into the streets by bad circumstances and too many late payments. They go to a shelter, find out about other resources and get the help they need.
"And then you don't see them again," he said. "They truly are temporarily homeless."
That group is the one that is increasing in the economic crisis and that is finding its way toward Brent Crane's door.
"We have seen a lot of people coming through our doors that we have never seen before, and they're telling us that they've never been in these circumstances before," said Crane, the executive director of the Food and Care Coalition in Provo.
He and his staff and volunteers provide food, counseling, showers and a friendly face for people who have nowhere else to go. What he most wants to help with, though, is almost impossible at this point.
"There's just not the housing stock," he said of Utah County. Crane said they felt "helpless" in being able to point people toward available housing. "There's not affordable housing, there's not housing that is appropriate for this population."
The coalition works with the Utah County Housing Authority to provide housing, it operates some transitional housing and has vouchers for motel rooms, and the Center for Women and Children provides some units as well. In September the coalition is moving to a nice, new building in south Provo, a building that was designed with 38 transitional housing units on the second floor so they could get people off the streets.
Then the funding fell through for that part of the project, and while the building is built and has the space for the second floor, and those units will be coming, they have to wait for additional funds. That development was disappointing, to say the least, especially for the resources it could have provided for the other 20 percent of homeless people.
That fraction either is chronically homeless, stuck in the cycle because of mental illness, drug addiction or other conditions, or episodic, which means they become homeless and then get housing but are unable to keep it, so they become homeless again.
These are also the homeless people at risk for heat exposure in the summer and hypothermia in the winter. They might not have places to go to get away from inclement weather, and Utah County doesn't have regular shelters like Salt Lake City does.
Fortunately, it's summer, and there are shady places to get out of the heat. Dr. David Anderson, an emergency room physician at Timpanogos Regional Hospital, said this summer is cooler than past years, which could help the homeless population stay safer. Ethan Shumway, a communications manager for Intermountain Healthcare, said the local emergency rooms are much more likely to see people coming in during the wintertime to escape the weather, but not during the summer.
"In the cold, sometimes it's the only resort," he said.
The Food and Care Coalition also provides some vital health resources, including access to Wasatch Mental Health and a volunteer dental clinic, as well as job training and helping people put their skills to use. They try to help their clients find a purpose as well as a place to live, and that can be hard, he said.
"As an employer you're looking for efficiency, you're looking for profit margin, and you don't get that necessarily with the people we're working with," he said, adding his clients want the opportunity to work, not just accept the services paid for by tax dollars. "That's just not our viewpoint."
The good news on the tax dollars front is that a chunk of President Barack Obama's $787 stimulus package was tagged to help homelessness, and about $1 million is coming to Utah. Provo will be getting about $700,000; Crane said his organization will most likely get about a third of that, while the rest will go to Community Action, another local organization that works with people so they don't lose their homes.
The transitional housing units will be finished, Crane said; he's just not sure when. The volunteer dental clinic serves a number of people within the community, Boy Scouts frequently call so they can help the Food and Care Coalition while doing their Eagle Scout projects, and they have to schedule volunteers so they don't have to many at any given meal.
Plus, that new building is going to be really nice. Crane said a number of their clients have walked over to 920 S. 300 East, it's close to a bus route, and they all realize how much better the services can be from there. That's what their goal continues to be, he said.
"The more and better we communicate with all of our publics, the better we are," he said.
• Heidi Toth can be reached at (801) 344-2556 or htoth@heraldextra.com.
Posted in Provo on Sunday, July 26, 2009 12:10 am Updated: 9:48 am. | Tags: Provo, Food And Care Coalition, Brent Crane, Homelessness
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