Moving Life Forward with CASS Central Arizona Shelter Services

The homeless population in downtown Phoenix is on the rise according to David Bridge, chief program officer for Central Arizona Shelter Services, Inc. (CASS), an organization in Phoenix that provides shelter and services to the city’s homeless.

               Estimates said that there are around 1000 homeless people in the downtown Phoenix area. However, these estimates are misleading because they only take into account the homeless using services like shelters and dining halls.

               “With what we’re doing with the outreach shelter and what we’re doing with the things on campus I would definitely say there’s an increase in population.”

               Bridge explains that a fast growing Phoenix population has brought many homeless people into the city.

               “The valley’s population has grown,” Bridge said. “It’s kind of a constant. If you have x number of people in the city, you’re going to have x percentage of homeless. Not everyone that’s coming to the valley is self-sufficient.

“We’ve heard a lot of stories about people who come here, not because they’re homeless when they come here, but they come here because they’ve heard the stories about the economy booming, lots of jobs, and a sunny environment. They come down here with a week or two of savings and realize that a lot of those jobs are fairly low income. Recently we’ve had a downturn in construction and some of those jobs that did pay pretty decently.”

George Overturm, a man who has been homeless in Phoenix for just a week, would agree.

Overturm traveled to Phoenix after losing his job as a machinist in Minnesota recently.

               “I came down and didn’t have a lot of money and was out of work,” Overturm said. “I figured I’d come down here. There used to be a lot of work down here but they don’t have that anymore.”

               CASS has recently had to create overflow shelters for its clients in light of the growing homeless population trying to use their services. Even with the coordinated efforts among shelters across the area, there are still homeless who are forced to spend nights on the street.

               “Between all our efforts, we assume that we are serving somewhere between 800 to 1000 people a night.” Bridge said.

               Bridge pointed out that homelessness is a merely a temporary situation rather than a permanent lifestyle.

               “Homelessness is a transitional state,” Bridge said. “We know for a fact that 80 percent of our clients never come back to our shelter. So for those people its definitely just a phase.”

               Bridge noted that although most of the homeless situations are temporary, there are some people that are homeless in the long-term.

               “There is a small group of homeless that are a chronic homeless population,” Bridge said. “These are the ones that are using emergency rooms as their primary healthcare provider, these are the groups that are getting arrested on a multiple basis.”

               Bridge cited a study done in Philadelphia which found that one mentally ill homeless person without social services coasts the community $40,000 a year. He said that the cost of helping the homeless outweighs the penalties if we don’t.

               Fortunately, Phoenix has a number of social services programs and funds many homeless shelters to address the problem.

               Additionally, law enforcement plays a big role in solving the homeless issue.

               “The City of Phoenix Police I cannot speak highly enough about,” Bridge said. “The police attitudes in Phoenix used to be a lot like the police attitudes in other cities. The solution to homelessness was policing. You arrest them, tear down their camp, tell them to leave, or arrest them. About ten years ago the police restructured and changed into a more community-policing model. They took the police out of their cars in this neighborhood and made it into a walking beat. What the police realized that if you don’t deal with those underlying issues you cant solve this. They can’t solve these issues as policeman so they changed the focus and stared working with the partners in this area.”

               Bridge believes that how we treat those disenfranchised people like the homeless is a direct reflection on the community as a whole. He quoted vice president Hubert Humphrey on what he believed to be the measure of a good society.

               “The moral test of government is how it treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the aged; and those in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped."