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August 29, 2003/Elul 1 5763, Vol. 55, No. 53
Coordinated help for the homeless
Human Services Campus provides a single location to meet needs
BARRY COHEN
Editor
The ceremonial groundbreaking of the Human Services Campus takes place on Aug. 22.
Photo by Barry Cohen
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A very day in downtown Phoenix - blocks from the Capitol building - a day in the life of a typical homeless man requires him to line up for a meal at St. Vincent de Paul. For health care, he walks a few blocks away to a clinic funded by the Maricopa County Department of Health. For job assistance, he walks additional blocks to St. Joseph the Worker. To sleep with a roof over his head, he hopes a bed is available at Central Arizona Shelter Services.
For many homeless people, seeking assistance from a handful of addresses is too difficult, says Annette Stein, director of the Maricopa County Healthcare for the Homeless program. "Whether they are mentally ill, whatever their issues are, it is too much of a barrier for them to get down the street," she explains.
To provide a single location where the homeless can receive assistance and services, a collaborative effort by nonprofit, governmental and private sectors will create a Human Services Campus.
Approximately 150 people attended the HSC's Aug. 22 groundbreaking at its future home near 12th Avenue and Madison Street; the scheduled opening date is winter 2005. On the HSC campus will be CASS, St. Joseph the Worker, Northwest Organizations for Voluntary Alternatives (NOVA), Safe Haven, Maricopa County Health Care for the Homeless, and dining facilities of St. Vincent de Paul.
Marty Shultz is one of a handful of members of the Valley's Jewish community who view the HSC as an expression of Jewish values and have been a driving force behind the collaborative effort to create the campus.
"People have said, 'Why is a corporate executive spending this much time and this much energy ... working with the homeless?' ... I do think a lot of it has to do with my roots, my Jewish roots," says Shultz, co-chairman of the HSC capital campaign, vice president of Pinnacle West Capital/APS and vice chairman of the Phoenix Community Alliance, a private-public partnership to revitalize downtown Phoenix. "This has become a religious experience for me, in terms of the right thing to do."
One of the greatest hurdles in making the HSC a reality has been the fact that the homeless do not represent a large voting constituency, says Moe Stein, Phoenix architect and PCA vice chairman, not related to Annette Stein.
He points to Shultz as the person who united public and private interests and made the HSC a reality.
"Marty spoke up and said, 'We're going to own this problem (of homelessness). We can't wait for someone else to own it,' " says Moe Stein.
Jerry Hirsch, founder and board member of the Lodestar Foundation, $3 million contributor to construct the HSC, says he supported the HSC as an expression of the Jewish tradition of tzedakah (righteousness).
"It is important to take care of the Jewish people," says Annette Stein, "but I also think, as a human being and as a Jew ... I expand that (concern) to everybody."
Efforts to create the HSC were a result of plans to revitalize the capitol mall area, extending from Seventh to 19th avenues, Van Buren Street to the north and Madison Street to the south, says Shultz.
"What kept coming up all the time was until you deal with the homeless population on the street ... you're not going to realize the potential of the capitol mall," he explains.
One thousand homeless require services in downtown Phoenix; approximately 12,000 homeless live in the Valley, says Charlene Moran Flaherty, homeless planner at Maricopa Association of Governments.
While the number of homeless is remaining constant, more are becoming chronically homeless - those who "have four or more incidents of homelessness in a three-year period or one year of continuous homelessness," she explains.
Making the HSC a reality has required cooperation and compromise between non-profits, private contributors and city and county governments.
The land for the HSC was acquired in part from the city and county, says Shultz, in addition to private owners. Also, the Industrial Development Authority of Maricopa County contributed $2 million to the capital campaign, and other county offices assisted in the campus' planning and design, he adds.
But one of the greatest challenges "was breaking the barrier of separatism among and between the (service) providers who before were pretty independent," says Shultz.
According to Hirsch, the service providers that joined the HSC had to overcome "turfism, bureaucracy, issues of competitiveness."
Hirsch served as a CASS board member for a number of years. His experience taught him that many service providers duplicated their efforts. "I saw a need to have various homeless organizations to try to work together," he says.
Moe Stein says that by combining their services at one campus, the service providers will be able to spend more efficiently their limited resources and offer "more bang for the buck."
The homeless will be able to enter the HSC and be treated with dignity and respect, says Annette Stein. Under one roof, they will have access to a place to sleep, medical attention and employment training.
CASS will provide sleeping arrangements for 200 people, and thousands of others will be able to receive other services and hot meals.
The campus will cost $23 million; to date, $18 million has been raised, says Shultz.
Members of the Jewish community who helped make the HSC a reality see the campus as a model for Phoenix's neighbor cities to copy to address their own problems of homelessness.
"This prototype, where you bring the agencies together, both physically and programmatically, I'm confident will be replicated elsewhere in our Valley - no question about it - as the Valley grows," says Shultz.
Contact the writer at barry_cohen@jewishaz.com.
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