City leaders seek out permanent solution to homelessness

CINCINNATI - City leaders are exploring new solutions to help deal with homelessness in the City of Cincinnati.

With heated debates about the homeless at Washington Park in Over-the-Rhine and on city streets, it's something city and community leaders want to deal with for the long term.

Vice-Mayor Roxanne Qualls says there's a program in Columbus that seems to be working.

The organization, National Church Residences, has successfully moved hundreds of people off the streets and into permanent housing.

Cincinnati/Hamilton County Continuum of Care for the Homeless organized the tour with Qualls.

Over 50 city and community leaders signed up.

Qualls says what she saw was amazing during their tour of permanent housing units for homeless residents in Columbus.

"People because of mental health issues or substance abuse issues actually need wrap around services, so that they basically are in a home situation. They have wrap around services. They can stabilize. They can become members of their immediate community, but also at some point, productive members of the larger community," Qualls said.

The Executive Director of Continuum of Care for the Homeless, Kevin Finn, says from what he has observed, the program works so well in Columbus because the homeless are not given temporary shelter and then turned back out onto the streets.

"The advantage to having site based permanent supportive housing, such as we saw in Columbus, is that there is someone else monitoring those sorts of things and helping the residents work through everything from keeping their mental health appointments to separating themselves from an element that had a bad impact on them in the past," Finn said.

Finn says the homeless are offered support for the very things that keep them homeless such as an addiction.

Finn says Cincinnati has over 900 apartments for homeless residents, but they are scattered all over the city.

He says National Church Residences homeless program actually builds apartment buildings where residents must check-in with staff in addition to getting on-site counseling service if they relapse.

Cincinnati Union Bethel's Anna Louise Inn works with homeless women who want to get off the streets.

The agency just announced that it will be renovating its dorm style rooms into small apartments similar to what they have at Commons at Grant.

"The renovations call for 85 refurbished residence rooms. Each room will have, in addition to being an upgraded facility, will have its own bathroom and its own kitchen," Melton explained.

Qualls says city leaders will continue to research the program in Columbus and look at possible ways to bring a similar homeless housing program to Cincinnati.