I have been hearing about efforts to help the homeless, here in Wichita, Kansas.
I started thinking about the topic, and some ideas came to me.
I am not an expert of any kind, but as I was thinking about this topic, I realized that I do have some experience that might give me some insight into possible solutions.
Nuts and bolts.
Let me get all this off my chest.
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The little dog is named Itzl.
First of all, for each individual, we need to answer the question:
Why is this individual homeless?
There may be an answer that is true for most of them, but we need to carefully answer that question for each individual, one at a time.
Seems to me.
Okay, I am going to suppose that for many of them, the answer is that they have a rather severe disability.
Most of them can be seen walking around, so we can suppose the disability is a mental illness.
Between the death of my first wife, Pam, in 2008, and my marriage to my second wife, Tonia, in 2011, I had a girlfriend, named Beverly.
Beverly said she had been homeless for a while.
I do not recall how long she had been homeless.
I do not recall the details of how she got established in a nice apartment, next door to mine.
She did say she had a mental illness, and had to take medicine every day, to keep her mental illness under control.
I do not recall asking her where she got her money to pay her rent and utilities and groceries.
I do not recall asking her how her medicine and doctor visits were paid for.
She did tell me that for a while, her father was her representative payee.
That tells me that until her mental health condition was stable, she was not reliable to use her money to pay her rent and utilities.
Then she became stable and handled her money herself.
I recall that she was using the Section 8 program to help with her rent.
So, with all that information, that leads me to think that many homeless individuals, if they are similar to Beverly, could have the success that Beverly had.
Now, for the source of her money:
My first wife, Pam, was born disabled, and never had a job, never paid any taxes.
Pam and I got married in 1977.
Pam got money every month called Supplemental Security Income, SSI.
I do not recall if she started to get SSI before we got married in 1977, or a short time after.
SSI may have been new at that time.
Anyway, that makes me think that maybe Beverly was getting SSI.
And this makes me think that most homeless individuals might qualify for SSI.
But if the homeless folks are too mentally ill to carefully apply for SSI, that may be the main reason they are not getting it.
And if they are too mentally ill to carefully pay rent and utilities, that is another obstacle.
Also, for medical needs, Pam always had Medicaid, that paid for all her health care, no co-pay at all.
So, maybe Beverly was on Medicaid, for her doctor visits and medicine.
So:
My half-baked, non-expert ideas for the homeless:
Each homeless individual could be assigned the following:
- Advocate
- Case Worker
- Payee
The Advocate is a term I have heard, an idea I heard of, a worker who would act like a close friend or family member, in dealing with the other people, and interviews, and filling out forms, and getting things done.
The Case Worker would be the person or persons who track down the programs, and maybe those who work at the Social Security office, and other agency offices, if needed.
There may be two or three case workers involved.
Case Worker may not be the ideal term.
I do not claim to clearly understand all this, and who might be involved, but the title of Case Worker, assigned to a homeless individual, sounds right to me.
If the homeless individual needs a Payee, then they need to be provided with a payee they can trust, obviously.
Okay, I have not done extensive research online to write this up.
Just the stories of Pam and Beverly.
I almost forgot, maybe some of them can get stabilized on their medicine, and get a little training, and actually get a job, such as a simple job at a factory.
One of my neighbors is a slow learner (I asked him, do you prefer to be called developmentally disabled, or slow learner. He said, slow learner.) and he has a job at a nearby factory.
So, there are jobs out there, for those who can do simple chores.
Seems to me, the Advocates and Case Workers should be able to sort out who can hold down a job, and who cannot.
And, of course, in case any homeless individual has put in some years or some decades, working and paying taxes, then became disabled, they can apply for Social Security Disability Income, SSDI.
Tonia had that.
Usually, a person applies for that, the Social Security office denies the claim, you get a lawyer who specializes in that, the lawyer helps you fill out forms, and a year or two later, you get accepted.
And at that time, you get back pay, because they pay you starting from the time you first applied.
Usually, it is more than ten thousand dollars.
(Tonia and I spent all of it, much of it on having Chinese food delivered.)
But when I see the homeless, they look fairly young, so I get the impression they never had a job.
(Tonia did, for about 30 years.)
Well, thanks for giving me a platform for collecting my thoughts and getting them off my chest.
I have been thinking about all this, because I want to communicate all this to someone here in Wichita, Kansas.
There is a nice organization here that I have heard is starting to work on solutions for the homeless.
Now, since I have this posted here, I can tell them to come here and read it.
They can ask me questions to clarify, if they want to.
Anyway, take care of your SSI, or your SSDI, or your plain Social Security money, and your Medicare and your Medicaid.
Hugs!
