County provides possible progress decreasing homeless living in hotels
County provides possible progress decreasing homeless living in hotels
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Adequately helping the county's homeless population is a task that we're sure feels immense for those who are working on it every day.
It was encouraging, then, to hear Carmelo Hernandez, the county's director of community mental hygiene services, say he would like to see at least one homeless or temporary shelter established by the end of the year. It's a concrete step after hearing, for years, that the county needs to establish transitional housing programs to help the homeless. Such programs always seem a long way off in a human crisis that needs faster solutions.
“I would like to see at least one homeless or temporary shelter established, whether that involves signing a contract or breaking ground. This would be a significant step in the right direction," Hernandez told The Post-Journal recently.
Such a shelter, which Hernandez said ideally would focus on single men, would decrease the number of homeless receiving temporary shelter in hotels and motels by about 60%. That’s a significant number, and the type of action that we have been calling for. Ideally, that shelter would include programs or partnerships with existing agencies that help keep these men from becoming homeless again.
Housing the homeless in hotels needs to be decreased. It's not good for those who find themselves homeless, nor is it a good situation for those who live or own businesses near the hotels that are housing the homeless. Just last week, Janet Bowman, Ellicott town supervisor, said there are still issues with having the Social Services Department follow through with removing people from the hotel that need to be removed. Dan Ingrao, Ellicott police chief, said calls to the hotel had declined a bit as summer turned into fall – but calls to the hotel are still taking time away from policing the rest of the town and village of Falconer.
Such issues, we would think, would be largely resolved if the county had a contract with a provider both to operate a shelter that removes more than half of the homeless from hotels, while the shelter operator should be able to provide more regular oversight than the county is able to provide in the hotels.
A men’s shelter would do a lot to alleviate some of the issues the town of Ellicott has been dealing with over the past couple of years. The best avenue to pay for the shelter Hernandez is discussing is really the question. County Executive PJ Wendel is proposing to use $11 million from the county's surplus to keep the county's property tax levy from increasing in 2027. That should give an indication to county taxpayers – and advocates for more help for the homeless – just how far out of balance expenses are in this year's county budget proposal. And, the county is locking itself into higher personnel costs with actions like yearly mandated cost of living adjustments to the salary ranges for county managers and new union contracts.
Dealing with the homeless is like piecing together a puzzle. Shelters are merely one piece of a bigger picture – but we're encouraged that one small piece of the puzzle may be falling into place before the end of the year.
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