1. Justifying a New Shelter for the Homeless
Linda Loubert, PhD
Morgan State University

2. Outline
Assumptions and Stats
Location for shelter
GIS Approaches

3. Assumption There is a need to provide shelter
Homelessness is confounded with other social ills

4. Statistics on Homeless
Over 800,000 people may be homeless on any given day --200, 000 may be children. (Burt, 2001)
During a typical year, 900,000 to 1.4 million children with their families, are homeless
10% of all the poor many be homeless even if for a short while.
75% of homeless access services in central cities (The Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress 2007)

5. Percentage of Sheltered Homeless Population
Annual Homeless Assessment Report Sample Geographical Location where People Receive Homeless Residential Services Compared to U.S. and Poverty Populations
Type of Area
Percentage of Sheltered Homeless Population
Percentage Of U.S. Poverty Population
Percentage of U.S. Population
Central City
75.3%
42.9%
30.4%
New York City
8.6%
4.9%
2.9%
Other central cities
66.7%
38.0%
27.5%
Suburban and Rural Areas
24.7%
57.1%
69.6%
When more than 50% of income has to go for housing, it tends to push low income people into homelessness even faster. Landlords will put people (families ) out along with any furniture on the streets. Dwindling employment opportunities contribute to ability to have a job.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau 2000 Summary Files 1 and 3.

6. Homelessness: A Public Health Concern
Homelessness re-emerged in the 70s and 80s
Middle class ran to suburbs
Social unrest due to Vietnam war
Personal difficulties
Mental illness, job loss, low education attainment
Incarceration
Adverse childhood experiences
Physical/sexual abuse
Alcohol or drug abuse
Health care policies of the U.S. help contribute.
In Baltimore, as in other cities, homelessness is a serious social and public health problem. There is an estimate of about 3,000 homeless on any given night. The growth of homelessness over the past 4 decades, has had a direct impact on the well-being of urban areas throughout the US. The removal of institutional support for people with severe mental illness along with drastic reduction in long term hospitalization for mentally ill helps push these individuals out into the streets.

7. Focus Groups’ Report on Proposed Shelter
Businesses- want homeless to disappear. Think they hurt business
Providers-see a need for shelter and more services
Community – believes City is saturating one area with the homeless
Developers- ready to build
Homeless- thinks City should let them rehab places and not put them in “guarded” quarters
5 different groups were surveyed for them sentiment on a new shelter.

8. Proposed Shelter Location
So we can start to know something about this area by looking at 1.5 mile radius.

9. Street View of Proposed Shelter
Another way to see the proposed shelter in terms of street location and businesses. It is in a densely populated neighborhood, but it is in a sparsely populated area of the neighborhood.

10. Downtown Area Businesses
2694 out of (13%) businesses are found in the downtown area. The closeness of businesses is not so great around this area.

11. 911 Calls
Here we have 911 calls by location. Higher the income, the darker the color.
One of the concerns from the business community is that there will be more crime.

12. Select Crimes 2004 2008 Around Propose Shelter
Orange and Red areas have higher 1 std dev above the mean in calls.
The concern that crime is increasing is not validated. These are block groups
We have taken the counts of the 911 calls and joined them to block groups and then classified them by standard deviation.
2008

13. Observations to consider
GIS gives many ways to understand a location by using many layers of information.
We are able to prove that crime is not increasing in the immediate area.
If the homeless are provided a shelter location for services and such, there will be less need to be in other parts of town.