SALT LAKE CITY — Kelly Benson has no doubt that Utah can eliminate homelessness. He just has to convince those who see it as an inescapable condition of modern life — where some simply fall through the cracks.
Benson, whose name now graces a new apartment complex for chronically homeless seniors in West Valley City, has been an advocate for the homeless for two decades and says the state has seen a 40 percent decrease in chronic homelessness in recent years.
That's mirrored by a 30 percent decrease in the number of people chronically homeless nationwide, according to a report released Wednesday by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
And while government intervention — particularly permanent housing like the new West Valley complex — seems to be reducing the numbers of long-term homeless, a one-time snapshot of those without a permanent place to live in Utah, has risen for the past three years.
Counted as a "point-in-time" look at the problem, officials have counted the number of people without a place to stay one night in January for each of the past three years. (See accompanying chart.)
If national trends are predictive, the state's rising number of short-term and newly homeless people reflect the impact of the nation's economic crisis on housing stability, according to Mercedes Marquez, assistant secretary for community planning and development at HUD.
She told reporters during a teleconference Wednesday that rising rates of homelessness — particularly among families — can be tied more closely to job loss than to home foreclosure.
Many who lose their homes are "doubling up" with family and friends, moving into homes or other housing that wasn't designed to hold as many people as are now living there, she said.
A recent study on where people in foreclosure are being housed shows "a 500 percent [one-year] increase" in 2009 in the number of people who had moved in with family or friends to avoid being homeless.
Yet, these people are not counted in the rising number of homeless individuals or families, she said. On Tuesday, the Obama administration will publicize "a united, integrated and historic first federal plan to end homelessness," Marquez said. The HEARTH Act, signed into law last year, mandated a "national strategic plan" to end homelessness, and federal working groups have been developing the plan. Nationally, some 640,000 people are homeless each night.
Ending homelessness should be a goal in Utah, Benson said, noting the state is a multifaceted "community of faith" where more people volunteer than in any other state.
Benson has spent the past 20 years as an advocate for the homeless, after an auto-pedestrian accident and head injuries landed the former salesman in the hospital for months. He subsequently was treated at Valley Mental Health and was homeless himself for a short time.
He's spent years living in and managing apartment complexes for low-income residents and has seen up close how people who find themselves homeless for a variety of reasons can get beyond it "if they have a safe place to live and food on the table."
As the national report indicates, "Some people are just a paycheck away from homelessness," he said, noting that giving those who have fallen on hard times "other alternatives and opportunities" rather than sending them onto the streets changes their lives.
Though he doesn't know the details of the pending Obama administration plan proposing to end homelessness in America, Benson said he has no doubt it can be achieved.
"Yeah, I believe it's going to happen. It never even crossed my mind that it's not possible."
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