News: Good Shepherd Alliance Youth Team Bake Sell Nets $500 to Help Homeless in Loudoun

From left to right: Tionge Johnson (Dominion), Erika D'Argenio, Michelle Thiry, Jillian Colon (Broad Run), Maryjacqueline Fox (Freedom) and Katherine Fox (Freedom Graduate).
(Dec. 28, 2010) - The Good Shepherd Alliance Youth (GSA) team held their first high school fundraiser for 2010-11 on Dec. 20 at the Broad Run vs. Potomac Falls varsity boys and girls basketball games. The GSA Youth team

Homeless Vigil

For the twentieth consecutive year, Operation Safety Net, which provides free health care and social services to homeless people will hold a candlelight vigil as the sunsets in downtown Pittsburgh to commemorate homeless people who died on the streets this year.

In 2010, three people died on the streets, a lower number than years past, but still three too many, said Linda Sheets, Program Director of Operation Safety Net.

"It is a considerable decrease than we've seen in years before," said Sheets, "We don't know why, we think the severe weather shelter that we've been conducting almost every night this month, which is a historic high as well as the housing options that we have been able to give a lot of individuals."

In 2009, there were 11 people that died on the streets. In previous years, the number fluctuated between six and nine.

Discussion on Ending Homelessness is Held

A Legislative Roundtable to End Homelessness in Allegheny County was held on Monday. Legislators such as state Sen. John Pippy and City Councilman Bill Peduto spoke as well as Marc Cherna, Director of Allegheny County Department of Human Services.

Five years ago, the Department of Human Services launched a ten year plan to end homelessness in Allegheny County. Cherna said he is pleased with the way things have gone. Five years ago, 290 people were counted as unsheltered homeless in the county, now there are 119. There has been a significant increase in investment in different types of assisted living. Cherna said the most effective way of providing services is to keep them going as opposed to providing new ones. He said they are targeting children aging out of foster care and in people coming out of the jails because they are more likely to not have supports in place that would lead to them becoming homeless.

About 37 people were in attendance.

The consensus was that homelessness should be ended and there is a need for different agencies to work together.

Best Practices to Serve Homeless

Providing care to homeless people is the topic of the sixth annual International Street Medicine Symposium in Los Angeles from October 20-22. Best practices will be shared by health care and social service professionals from dozens of cities in five countries on four continents.

Pittsburgh hosted the first symposium in 2005 as the idea of Jim Withers, founder and medical director of Mercy Health System's Operation Safety Net, which began serving Pittsburgh's homeless in 1992 with street teams going into alleys and under bridges--wherever the homeless were.

Program Director Linda Sheets says Operation Safety Net has served more than 9700 individuals in 68,000 visits. In the past three years, 400 people have been housed. The organization now provides case management and collaborates with other groups to operate a severe weather shelter open to all when the temperature goes below 25 degrees.

Sheets says homeless people willing to go to a shelter may not have required I.D. Shelters fill up and may have limits to the number of nights an individual may stay. Underlying problems with drugs and alcohol or mental illness often need to be addressed before homelessness can be resolved.

Registration for the symposium will be open until it starts. More than 115 doctors, nurses, behavioral health, and social services professionals have registered to date.

New Apartments to House Pgh. Homeless

The federal government has given Pittsburgh Mercy Health System more than $1.6 million to build housing for the homeless on the South Side.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development grant will allow the Health System’s Operation Safety Net to build 16 efficiency apartments on South Ninth Street, near the Monongahela riverside.

Operation Safety Net Program Director Linda Sheets says construction will begin within a month, and the building should be ready for occupancy in late winter or early spring.

Sheets says the Trail Lane Apartments are meant to house a specific type of person.

“These are individuals that are very hard to place into private settings, into other types of bridge housing or group homes. These individuals have an undiagnosed or under-diagnosed mental illness and not necessarily an addiction problem,” says Sheets.

The grant will also help cover the cost of case managers and their offices, as well as housekeeping and maintenance. Sheets says the money will provide for two years of service, after which Operation Safety Net will have to reapply for the competitive grant.

Sheets says the 16 Pittsburgh-area residents won’t be required to attend treatment sessions, but she hopes that they will in time.

The neighborhood consists of three Pittsburgh Mercy Health System buildings, including offices, a pharmacy, and a crisis center.