Jay Evensen
  • Front Page
  • Opinions
  • Second Thoughts
  • Portfolio
  • Awards
  • About

Tump's pick could shake up homeless efforts

12/17/2019

0 Comments

 
As with many of President Donald Trump’s appointments, Dr. Robert Marbut has vocal, passionate critics.
He answers them with just as much passion. 
Marbut was recently confirmed as the administration’s new homeless czar. That’s a catchy title evoking images of a former Russian leader wandering the streets after the Bolshevik revolution, so I’ll be more specific. He is the new head of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, an organization that coordinates with 19 federal departments and agencies to address homelessness nationwide.
Got it? If you Google him, you’ll also quickly see that advocates for the homeless, especially in California, opposed his appointment and accuse him of being cruel and patronizing.
Marbut answers that by noting that Los Angeles alone saw 1,047 homeless people die on the streets in 2018, according to the L.A. County Department of Health. That’s up from 536 in 2013. 
“The people attacking me are promoting a system where the numbers are off the charts,” he told me by phone the other day. “That’s working? We’ve got a humanitarian crisis going on.”
That humanitarian crisis has been prevalent in Salt Lake City, as well. Two years ago, the area around the old shelter on Rio Grande Street was the scene of constant crime, including drug deals, violence and murder. Back then, nearby business owners spoke to me about daily distresses that were threatening to drive them out of business.
State leaders stepped in, formed a task force that included cities, service providers and other stakeholders, stepped up patrols and, eventually, replaced the old shelter with three new ones scattered across the valley. These are gender-specific “resource centers” — two of them containing 200 beds and one with 300, built at a cost of $63 million.
In January of 2017, Marbut sat in my office and told me Utah’s scattered shelter plan was “more messed up than any other community I’ve seen except for one.” He wouldn’t tell me which one that was.
At the time, Marbut was an author and consultant on issues related to homelessness; a former city councilman in San Antonio and the founding president of that city’s shelter, known as the Haven for Hope. He said Utah should instead be building a single central homeless shelter away from the urban core. Men, women and families could be separated, but the three sections could be expanded or contracted as needed to accommodate demand. Also, a central facility would be cheaper because of economies of scale. Instead of providing food services at three different places, for example, it would provide meals at only one location.
Today, he has a different, more pragmatic opinion on Utah’s plan.
“A central site would have been more cost effective,” he said. “But if you go decentralized, you can still make it work. On the whole, it (the new Wasatch Front solution) is much, much better than what you had before.”
It’s hard to argue with that. The good news, he said, is that everyone here seems to be “pulling in the same direction.” 
Marbut isn’t just speaking as a casual observer. For a while, he said, he was visiting the Salt Lake area once every three or four weeks. He has toured the new resource centers and met with advocates and politicians.
He wishes the other, privately owned homeless programs would leave the old Rio Grande neighborhood and align themselves with the new resource centers. Other than that, he’s bullish on what’s happening here.
It will be interesting to see whether the rest of the nation ever becomes bullish on him.
Marbut said it is unfair to characterize him as heartless or opposed to feeding the homeless. People, he said, enjoy taking his words out of context.
“I want to have come-as-you-are features in any homeless system. People should get care and feeding no matter their circumstances.”
Overall, however, he wants “to promote a movement to self-reliance.” That can mean demonstrating an ability to survive in society before being given a home. Too many “housing first” solutions don’t come with the resources needed to help the homeless survive, with the result being that they end up losing their homes again, he said.
And Marbut would love for agencies to report on how many of their homeless clients end up transitioning into market-based housing. “That’s a figure that never gets measured,” he said, invoking the adage that what gets measured, gets managed. 
He also is critical of local governments for passing restrictive zoning laws that exacerbate supply and demand curves and make housing too expensive.
“I’m very hopeful because I spent 15 years in the trenches, giving me a realistic view of what’s going on,” he said.
His approach sounds like something that would get a lot of Utahns to nod their heads in support, especially the part about teaching self-reliance. Whether it plays well nationally, especially at a time of deep political divisions, is another matter.
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    RSS Feed

    Search this site


    Like what you read here?

      Please subscribe below, and we'll let you know when there is a new opinion.

    Enter your email address:

    Delivered by FeedBurner

    Picture

    The author

    Jay Evensen is the Senior Editorial Columnist of the Deseret News. He has nearly 40 years experience as a reporter, editor and editorial writer in Oklahoma, New York City, Las Vegas and Salt Lake City. He also has been an adjunct journalism professor at Brigham Young and Weber State universities.

    Archives

    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012

    Categories

    All
    Campaign 2012
    Congress
    Crime
    Culture
    Iran
    Oil And Gas
    Poverty
    Steroids
    Taxes
    Utah
    Washington
    World Events
    World Events

    Links

    Deseret News
    Newslink
    Marianne Evensen's blog

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.