Homeless program faces hiring hurdles

By Timothy Pratt (contact)

Monday, Dec. 23, 2002 | 11:17 a.m.

A pilot outreach program to help homeless people with mental illnesses is more than a month behind schedule, in part due to an unexpected obstacle: It's hard to find professionals who want to work the streets where the homeless live.

"I've found that it's very hard for our staff to take on the task of outreach," said James Osti, vice president of Westcare, the Las Vegas nonprofit awarded the $500,000 grant for the project.

"We tend to have a desk-bound system ... (and) it's difficult to hire people who are comfortable with people at lower levels of society, for lack of a better word."

The problem is creating a delay in long-awaited help for people in need and will shorten the life of the project, as the state funds supporting it must be spent by June.

It also means Westcare will be able to collect less information about the little-studied group for the state mental health division to use in lobbying for more funding from the 2003 Legislature.

The setbacks are serving as a lesson, those who work with the homeless say: Those who need help the most are the hardest to reach, and the agencies given the task of helping them are often ill-prepared because of a lack of experience on the streets.

In fact, only recently has public money been earmarked to reach out to the mentally ill homeless. Westcare's is the first such program in Nevada, and state officials are counting on the information it gathers to educate themselves and lawmakers.

"Outreach is definitely needed because obviously the homeless (who are) mentally ill ... (or) with substance abuse problems are not going to go into an office," said Maurice Silva, a social worker for Nevada Adult Mental Health Services who spends at least one day a week in the streets of the Las Vegas area.

Estimates of the Las Vegas Valley's homeless population range from 8,000 to 10,000. About 30 percent of that population has mental health problems, and many of those also have addictions to drugs or alcohol, said Carlos Brandenburg, administrator for the Nevada Division of Mental Health and Developmental Services, the agency funding the project. Osti earlier this month told a legislative subcommittee on mental health how tough it's been to get the pilot program off the ground.

The funding for the project was approved Oct. 8. Osti hired four people, two of whom have been working since mid-November. The other two should finish their training by January. But another person hired resigned after two weeks in the streets, while another backed off from the job before being hired because she didn't want to work in the streets.

Osti hopes to hire two more in the next month.

"Very few people have experience in outreach," Brandenburg said.

"It's extremely stressful work (that) burns you out, and not everyone can do this (or) ... wants to work with homeless people."

Linda Lera-Randle El, director of a nonprofit whose name, Straight from the Streets, comes from its full-time presence in the lots, alleys and washes of the valley, says that what she calls "Street 101" includes learning that it takes a long time to achieve what might normally be considered minimal results.

"You have to build trust, become a friend, cross certain boundary lines without crossing all boundary lines," she said.

Silva agreed it takes awhile. "Sometimes you don't succeed with someone until the 15th try," he said.

Success can be measured in small to large gestures: anything from offering a bottle of water in the summer heat to convincing someone to seek treatment, he added.

Or, Brandenburg said, "It may be, they said hello to me today."

The state's top mental health official also said that the issue of building outreach to the homeless is an issue nationwide and was discussed at a recent meeting of the National Association of Mental Health Program Directors.

"The importance of outreach came up, since this population will not seek your services and has had negative experiences in our system," he said.

Osti hopes that one factor may work in the project's favor to obtain some positive results to show the Legislature next year -- the sheer number of homeless people with mental health problems.

"The size of the population that we're dealing with is in our favor ... because there is always someone in need," he said.