New Issue - The Cost of Homelessness

Highlights from our current issue of Spare Change:

~ Under Siege, U.S. Unions Seek International Support
In the face of globalization, the U.S. labor movement is striving to reinvent – and reinvigorate – itself by establishing closer ties with the world’s network of international unions.
The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), the U.S.’s largest federation of unions, embraced a new level of internationalism last month in hosting a conference sponsored by the Council of Global Unions (GCU), a governing body composed of representatives from numerous international labor federations, including the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), which represents 168 million workers in 153 countries.


~ Boston's Homeless Census - What's In A Number?
On the evening of December 18, 2007 more than 300 volunteers searched Boston’s streets to attempt a headcount of the city’s homeless. This was the Boston’s 19th census. The first was conducted in 1983 by six volunteers working over the course of two weeks. The census today is a point-in-time study, not meant to track how people move in and out of homelessness, or how many people are homeless throughout a given year in Boston.
As we mentioned in the last issue of Spare Change – where we gave perspectives on volunteering for the census both as a reporter following the Mayor’s group and as an “average volunteer” (http://boston.indymedia.org/feature/display/203150/) – volunteers were instructed not to search alleys, dumpsters or tucked away hiding spots; that alone indicates an undercount. However, the street count of adult individuals showed a significant decrease –184 people, down 40% from last year’s total of 306. We can hope that a decent part of that percentage is a real decrease and not an issue of methodology.


~ Housing first: Policy aims to reduce costs, improve quality of life for chronic homeless.
Housing the homeless is cheaper than paying for emergency services such as ambulance rides, emergency room visits and hospital stays, according to a recent Maine study that echoes the findings of other studies around the United States.
The study, released by the Maine State Housing Authority in October, shows that costs were reduced by about 50 percent for 99 formerly homeless, mentally ill people in the Portland, Me. area who now live in permanent supportive housing and receive regular care to manage ongoing physical and mental health problems.
The two-year study was modeled after studies done in larger metropolitan areas such as New York and Denver, tracking services used by a group of individuals before and after entering permanent supportive housing.
Melany Mondello, a coordinator of the Maine study, said that not all studies around the country showed cost savings overall. Instead, “cost neutrality” is often the result, she said, and taxpayers need to be aware that dollars spent are not necessarily reduced, but used more productively.
“It’s important for people to know that a small segment of the homeless population costs a lot,” Mondello said.
“The message we are trying to give is that housing programs help shift the burden away from expensive emergency care to preventive care and supportive services.”
Som

The first Spare Change News Silent Auction!

Click for a bigger flyer!

Don't raise your kids in Florida

Apparently, Floridian parents breed hateful children. Here's hoping his punishment is enough to make him whine like his predecessor in Florida's heinous kids-torturing-innocent-homeless history.

Later!

Hello Readers:

This will be my last post as editor of Spare Change News. I've been here for nearly two years now, with a total of 6 years in Boston. Far from a native of this fine state, I am originally from Seattle, and now I'm moving back there.

My shoes are being filled by Dave Hadden, who, when he gets on his feet, will make sure the SCN blog still kicks and screams. Wish him luck and keep an eye on the paper. He has some great ideas that I'm sure will be expressed within the pages of our upcoming issues.

If you want to hit me up, you can reach me at paul.rice AT gmail.com. I'd love to hear from you.

That's it! Take care,



-Paul

Celluloid Spare Change News

Thanks to JD Marlow and Aimee Rivera, there is a beautifully shot and edited documentary about Spare Change now available for viewing on the world wide wetlands! Watch out for my neckbeard! It's a doozy!

2.15.07 Edition of Spare Change News

We're a bit late with this update, so forgive us. The issue is selling like hotcakes and we've been too busy counting our hill of dimes!

Seriously, this is a real nice issue, with articles looking at a whole spectrum of topics, including ATHF bombs, City Council homelessness wrangling, GLBT homeless teenagers, as well as sexy oil paintings in Cambridge! Now that's diversity in action. Thanks to Sarah Esposito for writing the teasers:

Art Bomb$?
An art critic takes a look at the infamous ATHF campaign that turned into a bomb scare. Kate Ledogar blames the Neo-liberal, globalized economy for this debacle and argues that Turner Broadcasting was truly victorious in marketing their movie and getting free publicity on national news. Our lives are already surrounded by advertising and marketing, how much further can we let it go?

Cambridge Artists Oil Up
Two local artists Tom Tipton and Deborah M. Priestly, co-owners of the Out of the Blue Art Gallery, open their talents to the community in this new show. Tipton and Priestly tell their personal stories in their paintings while tying in the local community, from the Charles to Cambridge.

Homelessness On The Rise Among Gay Youth
A new study released by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force shows that at least forty percent of homeless youth identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual or Transgender (LGBT). What are the factors playing into LGBT youth becoming homeless? What are proactive steps we can take towards solving this epidemic?


And we're out! Enjoy.

2.1.07 Edition of Spare Change News

Find these and other delights in the upcoming issue of Spare Change News (out Thursday, February 1st, at a vendor near you):

Incommunicado

Residents in certain mental health facilities are granted the right to telephones and uncensored mail, yet they are not allowed the right to basic web access and email accounts. Advocates work to make this a fundamental right in Mental Health Wards.

Reflections on Black History Month

Local Black voices express their dreams and inspirations relating to Black History Month. Hear about the challenges these writers faced as minorities growing up in White America.

Housing Feud Ignites

Cambridge Housing Authority (CHA) presents controversial new plan for the city’s public housing. Local residents feel they are not being represented fairly and are not well informed by the CHA about meetings or changes. Changes include restrictions on how Cambridge residents are defined.


Till next time,


-SCN

(Update written by Sarah Esposito, SCN's talented editorial intern!)

Homeless Heat Mapping in Los Angeles

We got a link from a friend about a "Homeless Heat Map" he helped create to track homeless populations in downtown LA. Here is an image of the map, and his notes on it:



From George Mokray:

Back on December 5th Cartifact launched the Downtown Homeless Map and
I got to write about the process here. The project takes LAPD Central
Division's bi-weekly homeless counts and turns the data into a map,
visually telling the story of changes in Downtown's street population.

Today we've put online a new version of the maps, using a radically
different methodology for showing the data. Instead of the dots of
the old maps, this version takes the data and turns it into a "heat
map" that shows the density of the population in different areas.
More about the new style after the jump...

Interesting to note, though, is the way in which temperature affects
the number of people on the street. It's cold outside, and has been
for several days now. The count for January 15th (Monday) was down
271 people from January 2nd. It got cold and the people who could
find somewhere to go did so.

I think the main thing this new style brings is a more instant
understanding of what's going on. The dots made an interesting
picture, and one that did work to tell the story, but in the end they
generated a lot of questions. Real world data collection inevitably
means compromises in your methodology, and in this case it led to
confusing results like dots showing up on top of other dots.

Aside from just looking cool, the heat map was a tecnically
interesting thing to create. The process involved taking irregular
point data and generating an approximated surface from it. That
surface data was then brought back into the GIS and the statistical
models were tweaked this way and that until they generated something
that felt true to the situation on the streets.

Update (9pm): A little on the technical side...

To generate the approximated surface I'm using surfit, an open-source
gridding application. Initially I was struggling because the data I
get only has positive points -- there are no zero points to bring the
elevation back to the plane in areas where no homeless were counted.
I eventually figured out how to normalize the computation against a
flat area I set up that covers Downtown.

Once I have the surface grid from surfit I use VTBuilder from the
Virtual Terrain Project to georeference that data and clean out
really low data (elevations less than 0.5 or so). VTBuilder outputs
an Arc ASCII GRD file and I pull that back into ArcGIS.

The color ramp is applied against a set of baseline statistics that
don't change count to count.

---

View the map for yourself here.