BFHP's numbers, submitted to the City of Albany:
July (last two weeks, only)
Number Assessed - 32
Number Served - 45
Number of Services - 89
Number Housed -0
August (report from Sept. 3 Council meeting)
Number Assessed - 33
Number Served - 54
Number of Services - 115
Number Housed - 0
September
Number Assessed - 34
Number Served - ?
Number of Services - 124
Number Housed - 0
September
Number Assessed - 40
Number Served - 56
Number of Services - ?
Number Housed - 0
From the September City Council Newsletter:
"Outreach & Engagement has resulted in BFHP making contact with 87 people total. 34 people have been assessed since July. BFHP has provided 124 service contacts with the homeless on the Bulb including assessments and intake, filing out rent assistance applications, distributing fee waivers for ID cards, bus passes, and showing apartments. To date, BFHP has provided 16 apartment viewings."
From the City website (date on page is 10/8)
"• Housing-centered outreach: 56 people were willing to engage in outreach conversations with BFHP. Of those 56 individuals, 40 have been willing to complete a housing assessment. • 22 people have shown interest in housing and were willing to share personal information necessary to complete a Homeless Management Information Systems (HMIS) intake."
When BFHP first submitted a proposal to the City of Albany, they stated that they had a Federal ESG Grant, that would be good through June 30th of 2014. In mid-July, as soon as BFHP started Project HOPE, it was made known that the grant expired in November of 2013.
When they first showed up at the Bulb, Jo and Carmen told everybody that everyone out here (regardless of whether they had an income, or not) were guaranteed up to 18 months free housing. Within less than a month that 18 months went down to six months, and then 3 to 6 months but only if you already had an income, and now stands at possibly 3 months... but still only if the person has an income. Inconsistency of that sort is certainly no way to gain the trust of anybody.
The first people who tried to get assistance from BFHP, are a couple, who had been trying for years to move indoors, to no avail.
The woman had just recently lost her youngest son, who lived in Hunters Point, and was shot and killed, on his 23rd birthday. The victim of a random drive-by shooting.
BFHP drove the woman and her boyfriend to view apartments, in neighborhoods that were easily as bad as the one her son had just been killed in. Needless to say, her and her boyfriend were not interested. BFHP accused them of being too picky.
They both receive SSI, though. So, they were both confident that it wouldn't be long before they found somewhere to rent.
Then, miraculously, after years of estrangement, she regained contact with her eldest (and only surviving) son (34), who also lived across the Bay, and even came to visit her and spend the night a couple of times, here on the Bulb... He told her he'd be back one day, and told her not to worry... And disappeared!
There was a major search. She met friends of her son's whom she hadn't even had a chance to hear him speak about, (having only regained contact with him shortly before). She said that everyone, with whom she spoke, who knew her son, loved him, and vowed to find him.
She continued to try to work with BFHP to try to find housing. But, after awhile, the depression was just too much.
She stopped trying as hard to find housing, and focused on finding her son.
Then, they found him...
Floating in the Bay.
This same woman, after all that effort and all that trauma, was accused by BFHP of "not working with us".
Another resident, who asked about housing, was told by BFHP that, before they could help him with housing, he needed to have a source of income.
He said that he felt he needed SSI.
BFHP told him to "Go down to the Social Security office, apply for disability, and get denied. Then come talk to us, and we'll refer you to someone."
Although, they were quite eager to offer him a ticket out of town, to stay with a relative.
Too bad he doesn't have any that he can stay with.
And, no, before anybody starts in on him: He does NOT use ANY illegal drugs.
However, like the families of *many*, in this current economy, he doesn't have any relatives who have space in their dwelling for another body, either.
Then there was the girl who was newly homeless, and trying to get back indoors and off the streets as quickly as possible.
She was also on probation, with court ordered, weekly drug-testing and monthly court dates. She was able to successfully coordinate with BFHP, for them to assist her with rides to take her drug-tests, twice. Not two consecutive tests (as she was testing weekly), but twice, nonetheless.
Then, she called them for another ride (as they had previously encouraged her to do) and was unable to reach them, despite the fact that she left messages on both their numbers.
She even called the next day... still, nothing.
A couple weeks later (after I prodded her to give them another chance), she had managed to find a room she could rent, from a friend in Berkeley, for $400 per month.
This girl was employable, and had a desire for work, so she would have (theoretically) been able to take over the responsibility of paying her own rent, in the requisite amount of time.
But, because of a technicality (the friend, who had the available room, pays her neighbors for electricity, so her tenants can no longer run her PG&E bill through the roof when she's not home) BFHP refused to help her achieve housing there.
She has since left the Bulb, lost what little she had left, (of everything she owned, since before she became homeless), and has lost all hope (coincidentally) as well.
And, (like so many other Bulb residents have said, in response to my asking how things are going for them, working with BFHP) she too said: "F*** BFHP! They never even return my calls!"
As a result of her having missed one of her biweekly court dates, she now also has a warrant out for her arrest, is on the run, and back on drugs, scared and still homeless.
HOPE, right?...
Then, there is "the one housing success":
The man who BFHP did successfully connect with housing, already had two jobs. (Needless to say, he is quite functional).
BFHP told him to go apply for a job at the Albany Bowl.
The Albany Bowl needed a fry-cook.
This man has been a chef for twenty-some-odd years... A fry-cook?!?!?
He found his third job without assistance from BFHP.
When he was most of the way through the process of moving into his apartment, Carmen said to him "Oh yeah, and by the way..." and sprung on him the fact that, to get the apartment, he was going to need to sign a 1 year lease. But, he was "committed to housing placement". So, he signed. He came to the Solidarity Sleep-in on the Bulb, and went to work the next day (he works anywhere from 6 to 7 days a week).
When he got home from work that afternoon, the manager was standing outside (which, from what he says, the manager does more often than not). The manager accosted him "Where were you? I tried calling you!". He then proceeded to inform my friend that, while he was away, he had gone into my friend's apartment (and taken one of the other tenants with him), and done "a welfare check"!
That, I'm guessing, explains the "Oh, by the way...". I wouldn't be too surprised if Carmen either knew, or suspected that there would be, problems with the manager of that building. And, (seeing how desperately my friend was trying to get "reintegrated into society") wanted to make sure that he would stay there... probably "for his own good".
Last I heard from him, there had been only one drive-by shooting in the short time that he has lived there (he moved there the last week of September).
Number of drive-by shootings, on the Albany Bulb, in the seven years that my partner and I have lived here - 0
That's all I have time to type, right now. But, over the past almost three months, directing people to this agency, I am less than satisfied, and FAR from impressed. More to come...
