Letter: Homeless services must be more accessible

Thursday, Dec. 4, 2003 | 9:06 a.m.

I saw the TV news report about another homeless person starting a fire to keep warm. Straight from the Streets in no way condones these actions by the homeless. In fact, we discourage the homeless from staying in drainage ditches and abandoned buildings, etc. But we know what the realities are -- many homeless people are not ready for life in a shelter.

The reporter kept stressing that shelter beds were available. Both of the recent fires attributed to homeless people, however, were set miles away from any of the shelters. Shelter services are not centrally located and they are not always known to all of the homeless people.

The homeless corridor works for those in the area. It does not always work for those who are not.

Picture that you are homeless. It's night, you're mentally ill, physically sick, addicted, broke, on the run or whatever. You're alone. What do you do to survive? You could very easily make a bad choice, a deadly choice. This is often the behavior of our street people. Sad, but true.

How would a homeless person in this condition travel the many miles to where a shelter is located? How would this person know that he would even be accepted at the shelter if he did find his way?

Corralling people to one area of town is not working. The man in the latest fire was visibly upset, scared and apologetic. Who knows what all of his issues are?

We need to take a good, unbiased, nonpolitical look at making services accessible to all the homeless and those in jeopardy outside the homeless corridor.

LINDA LERA-RANDLE EL

Editor's note: Linda Lera-Randle El is the executive director of Straight from the Streets, a nonprofit organization that assists homeless people.