On Berkeley’s Streets
Offering More Than Spare Change, City Extends Its Help

Nine years ago, Darlene Gardner stumbled through the door of the North County Women's Shelter, a self-described "ball of anger" who diluted her pain with alcohol and clutched little more than a directory of emergency homeless services called the Street Bible.

Now, as a housing specialist for the enterprising Dwight Way shelter, Gardner, 50, sends other women out that same door to the promised land of permanent shelter.

"I like to think we make a difference," she says.

For six years, Gardner has worked at the Berkeley Food and Housing Project, a non-profit agency that augments housing help with personalized support services in areas like money management and professional development. City officials have begun prioritizing this holistic approach over providing basic emergency services that offer temporary shelters and meals, says homeless policy coordinator Jane Micallef.

"We're interested in working with community agencies to retool their approach," she says.

Impressive success rates of city-funded programs like the project's transitional-housing program-where severely mentally ill and chronically homeless women learn cooking, shopping and other skills during a two-year stay-set high hopes for the new approach.

About 90 percent of the program's participants find permanent housing for at least a year.

"Women, when they come here, their whole attitude changes," says Marci Jordan, the project's executive director. "They feel like they're being respected."

Local homeless advocates say the new strategy can only succeed if officials first address a disturbing trend of those who escape homelessness being replaced. The homeless population in Berkeley, now around 840, has not changed significantly in two years, according to an Alameda County report updated in February.

State systems like foster- or health-care providers and prisons dump clients onto the streets without enough support for them to make it on their own, advocates say.

At Downtown Berkeley's Youth Emergency Assistance Hostel, which offers winter nighttime shelter and support services for youth ages 18-24, one-third of the clients come from foster care, says executive director Sharon Hawkins-Leyden.

Part of the challenge of providing intensive services, especially to homeless youth, is the time it takes to build clients up emotionally while tackling issues like substance abuse.

"If you took a youth who was really motivated to move forward with his life, it would probably take about as long as getting a B.A.," Hawkins-Leyden says of securing housing and jobs.

Still, long-term support often results in otherwise impossible turnarounds for the formerly homeless and those at risk of living on the streets.

Melissa Stymans, a single mother of two, arrived at the women's shelter last June after losing her job because of a drug addiction. She later lost her son to foster care.

With the help of the shelter's secure environment, she overcame these setbacks and eventually regained custody.

"It was our whole family back, this time all sober," she says. "It was better than him being born."

Yet the time and expense it takes to provide extended services has led to demand outpacing supply.

Attorney Osha Neumann, who helps provide free legal services at the Suitcase Clinic, once tried to help a client beat alcoholism by driving him to the only available rehabilitation center in Roseville.

Because hospital admission required the man to be heavily under the influence of alcohol, the man guzzled vodka during the drive and began passing out. Hospital staff kept him walking in order to keep him from dying of an overdose.

Despite completing the rehab program, the man soon returned to the Berkeley streets and his addiction.

High costs also inhibit the creation of comprehensive holistic support programs. Jordan says maintaining the 14-room women's housing program costs $359,000 a year.

But Jordan says the costs incurred by the community from someone on the streets are higher.

"That person is not on the streets using emergency service, not using mental-health-crisis services, not going to the emergency room," she says.

Mayor Tom Bates is trying to diffuse costs by encouraging surrounding communities to offer their resources.

The federal government has encouraged cities to strive to end most homelessness within 10 years.

"It's not an unreasonable timeline," he says.

Editor's Note: This is the third in a three-part series on homelessness.

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