Local Government and Homelessness - Leanne’s Churchill Fellowship journey

The Martin Luther King Jr Memorial Library is in downtown Washington. Its newly renovated building is open and airy, with long lines of sight and glass windows all around. Jean Badalamenti has been the Manager of Health and Human Services at the library for more than eight years. The city government created her position – searching for social work or public health specialist – following a consistent rise in homelessness and a growing number of people with multiple and complex needs accessing the system. Jean had worked in human services and homelessness response and was given the job of figuring out what to do – looking at the whole system and working out how to help people experiencing homelessness in the library. At that time Jean started at MLK, vans would arrive at the library every morning, dropping off people when local homelessness shelters closed, and transporting them back in the evenings. That practice changed over the years, but the importance of libraries to people ex

The junction of Pennsylvania and North Ave, where a branch of Baltimore's Enoch Pratt Public Library sits, is a busy place. The area is a transit hub. There's a drug treatment centre nearby and lots of street activity all around. It was also the epicentre of 2015 riots following the death of Freddie Gray in police custody. Passing a good amount of security to enter the library, and walking up some stairs to the first floor, a few people sit at computers or around at desks, chatting. There is a bright table by the windows. It has been carefully set up - covid test kits, masks and boxes of Narcan on display. "It's all about the display," Donna Bruce comments as she does a little set design at the location. At the table next to her, two social workers wait and receive a steady stream of people.   "Have you been Narcan trained? "We'll do that before you leave. Its real quick. "I used it on someone here recently. It took four cans and then

"Systems are designed to get the results you get and If you don't like the system you need to go back and change it. It is our responsibility as drivers of the system to set up something better".   Erin Healy, Community Solutions So, everything I have heard along the way on this journey points to collaboration as a key to addressing homelessness, but I constantly wonder whether it is easier said than done. The reality being that many organisations (including Councils) have their own drivers, different skill sets and competing funding sources.   The Community Solutions model for ending homelessness is based on collaboration and sharing, so it was great to have a chat with   Erin Healy and KO Campbell about just that when I was in New York. Above (L-R): Thank you to the lovely Erin Healy and KO Campbell for an excellent afternoon and discussion   Built for Zero rides on a few straight forward principles: Create an accountable team. No single actor is full

Lambeth is a young, diverse and transitory borough  of around 300,000 residents, including Vauxhall, Waterloo, Clapham and Brixton. It includes some of richest parts of country  and number of the poorest. It was great to meet up with Lambeth’s head of commissioning, Paul Davis, on 19 October and hear about their extremely targeted approach in addressing rough sleeping. While the good news is that numbers of people sleeping on the streets are not as high as other places (currently around 10 to 20 - it used to be much higher), I thought Lambeth’s experience and approach is a very good example of why it is important to maintain commitment in addressing rough sleeping and keep a consistent approach in tackling long term issues, rather than just waiting for a crisis. To do this, Lambeth maintains a street outreach team (a team of six to seven, working seven days) and has brought in a number of key specialist roles that work with the outreach team to meet the specific needs of the peop

  Some time ago, I came across this amazing first-person piece in the Guardian, written by Robert White about his experience leading homelessness at Westminster Council. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/31/solve-homelessness-westminster-system I worked so far away in Melbourne but was struck by the similarities in our experience, the shared challenges - and frustrations.   I was really fortunate to be introduced to Rob, who now works for a pretty amazing rights-based organisation -  Mayday Trust - and is soon to move to Australia. His commentary on the experiences in being a local government homelessness worker had me nodding so much I felt dizzy.   He also had some really interesting ideas about ways forward, very much involving people who have, or are still, experiencing homelessness.   Here are some key points that I scribbled down when we chatted in London on 11 October.     RELATIONSHIPS, RESPONSE AND INNOVATION  The role of the local govt