A Place to Start places homeless in housing

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From Homeless To Home, With A Little Help



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"SOLOIST" EXPLORES SCHIZOPHRENIA IN HOMELESS

A new movie, "The Soloist," peeks into the world of this segment of the homeless population. The movie is based on a friendship between Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez and Nathaniel Ayers, a homeless musician. Lopez met Ayers on Skid Row in Los Angeles, where Ayers wound up, having left the prestigious Juilliard School years earlier because of his struggle with schizophrenia.

For much of the past four years, the most reliable roof over Edie Winbourne's head was provided by her small Suzuki hatchback.

Without a permanent place to stay, she would drive around, trying to find an inconspicuous place to park so as not to attract the attention of police officers who might tell her to move along. On hot nights, she would roll down the windows and hope no one would rob her, or worse. On cold nights, she would wrap up in a blanket and try to keep warm.

For protection, she kept a knife nearby and slept, she said, "like a cat" - with one eye open. For peace of mind, she draped a wooden cross over the rearview mirror, and she placed a crucifix in the back window.

"Anybody that was behind me would know what I was all about," she said, "and anybody coming toward me would know where I was going."

But for too long, Winbourne, 64, was never quite sure where she was going. Diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, bipolar type, she rambled around the Richmond area and, for a time, other states across the South. She would take sponge baths in the restrooms of public parks and count on the goodness of churches and other good Samaritans for help.

Now, though, she no longer has to, as she put it, "sneak around." With the help of Virginia Supportive Housing's fledgling A Place To Start program, Winbourne finally has a place of her own, an apartment near Richmond's Forest Hill Park. Besides a bed, a kitchen and a door she can lock, Winbourne's new place also came with a new friend: a neighborhood squirrel that boldly ventures onto her porch to accept peanuts and pistachios. She calls him "Mr. Happy."

"It's nice having a roof over your head, a place to lay your head, a place to eat, a place to cook," Winbourne said. "I really appreciate everything that everybody has done to work with me to see to it that I now have a place to live."

. . .

The bad economy is driving up the numbers of homeless; in the past year, the Richmond area has experienced 7.2 percent increase in the number of homeless and a 26 percent increase in the demand for emergency shelter, according to Homeward, a coordinating organization for homeless services in the greater Richmond region.

But people such as Winbourne have always been a bad fit for traditional programs aimed at getting the homeless off the streets. Their mental-health issues make it difficult to cope with a system that places them in situations - such as crowded shelters with strict rules - in which they are destined to fail. Substance-abuse issues and criminal records often complicate their circumstances. No one quite knew what to do with them, so they often were ignored.

A Place To Start, which housed its first participant in early 2008 and serves the Richmond metropolitan area, takes the approach of placing the homeless in housing first and then providing them an intensive array of mental-health services and support.

"The philosophy of this program is that if you are stably housed then everything else we do is more likely to be successful," said Kelly King Horne, executive director of Homeward.

Proponents say it's easier to help people when you don't have to search for them under bridges or behind strip malls. They also say programs such as A Place To Start are more costly in the beginning but make more efficient use of public funds in the long run.

A Place To Start is modeled after a program developed by Pathways to Housing, a not-for-profit organization in New York that works with individuals who have been turned away from other programs. Pathways has more than 500 in permanent housing in New York City and claims an 85 percent retention rate. The program has been duplicated in more than a dozen cities nationwide.

In the Richmond area, only one of the first 33 participants in A Place To Start has quit the program in its first year. Another 18 participants should be in housing by July. The long-term goal is to move 100 to 120 homeless into permanent housing, said Katie VanArnam, director of housing access programs for Virginia Supportive Housing.

"Typical programs say, 'You must do A, B and C and then we'll do housing,'" VanArnam said. "That's the way the system has always operated. For someone who has a severe persistent mental illness, they might not understand for a variety of reasons. By giving them housing and then saying, 'Let's talk about A, B and C and what that really means to you' just really is the difference."

A critical part of the program is the support team that provides hands-on care. Team members chauffeur program participants to doctors' appointments and often stay with them, providing comfort and even holding their hands in the waiting room if the anxiety becomes too overwhelming. The intense one-on-one attention extends to such mundane matters as showing them how to ride a city bus or teaching them how to cook spaghetti and what to do with the leftovers.

"We get them some initial supplies to make then comfortable," said Sdhari Barakat, a team leader and Winbourne's caseworker. "Then we'd start with normal living activities, going to the grocery store or Laundromat."

Some program participants have reconnected with their families. None has been hospitalized or incarcerated due to substance abuse. Nobody has died.

One participant with chronic diabetes that went untreated during his homelessness freely acknowledges he wouldn't be here if not for A Place To Start.

"He says if he had been on the street one more year," said Alice Tousignant, executive director of Virginia Supportive Housing, "he would have died."

. . .

Sitting in the living room of her new home, her prized cross and crucifix on the mantel, Winbourne can't recall exactly how long she lived in her car.

"I don't know," she said, drawing on an ever-present cigarette. "I've had a memory lapse. It's awful."

Besides memory problems, she also experiences paranoia, agitation, depression and anxiety. She takes prescription medication for her condition.

She grew up in Chesterfield County - "God's country," she calls it - and said she's worked as a secretary and as a pet-sitter, but not in recent years. She loves animals and wants to adopt a kitten; her place is decorated with framed generic photographs of cats and could happily watch "Animal Planet" network all day.

She's not married, and has no children. Her mother died in 2004.

Winbourne tears up when she begins speaking of her spirituality. She can quote Scripture, and she's certain "there is a God and angels." How else, she asks, is she still here?

She was kept safe all of those nights when she slept alone in her car. Whenever hunger began to overtake her, a kindly stranger always seemed to tap on her window and hand her a $10 bill.

"The spririt of God sends them," she said. "That's my belief."

In more earthly matters, Winbourne is glad to have a kitchen again. Her meals so far, she said, consists mostly of "good old Southern cooking" like barbecue and cole slaw.

"Just give me my food and cigarettes, and I'll be all right," she said. "And the wheels on my car."

That's something of a problem at the moment. Before moving into her apartment, she spent a few days in jail earlier this year because of traffic violations. Her license has been suspended, and her beloved Suzuki sits idle outside her apartment.

Winbourne furnished her new place with gifts from friends, including a television and a bed. Much of the rest came from Embrace Richmond, a faith-based organization that helps connect local churches with those transitioning out of homelessness. A major piece of Embrace's mission is its furniture bank, where it collects and distributes used furniture and other household goods to those with few belongings moving into housing. Winbourne picked up a flower-print sofa, a sturdy entertainment center, an end table and an office chair on wheels.

She also signed up to take computer classes offered by Embrace.

Full-time employment is not an immediate goal for most participants in A Place To Start, although at least one is enrolled in college classes. For most, remaining safely housed and having their health monitored and treated are the primary objectives.

Some, like Winbourne, would like to serve as community volunteers. She wants to work in an animal shelter. She enjoys gazing across at the park, watching neighbors walk their dogs and dreaming of a kitten of her own. For now, though, she's focused on Mr. Happy, the squirrel that bounds up on her porch and bravely waits for a treat.

"He's not afraid," Winbourne said after tossing a peanut out the door. "He knows I love feeding him."

Contact Bill Lohmann at (804) 649-6639 or wlohmann@timesdispatch.com and Kevin Morley at (804) 649-6382 or kmorley@timesdispatch.com.