The man about to lead West Virginia’s second largest city is gearing up to tackle one of its biggest challenges. Homelessness is a growing challenge in Huntington and throughout West Virginia.
Huntington mayor-elect Patrick Farrell spoke with Randy Yohe on the problems and solutions surrounding the complex issue. Farrell listed tackling homelessness as a key component of his campaign platform.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Yohe: In your campaign platform, you say homelessness is a crisis in Huntington, and you’re committed to finding a balance of compassion for those experiencing homelessness and neighborhood safety and vitality. So what are the highlights of finding that balance?
Farrell: Obviously, two things. You have to be able to take care of the people that are suffering. Nobody wants to be homeless and at the same time, nobody else wants to see folks suffering on the streets. I think that there is a way to do both, that the people that live and work in the city can enjoy the city without being disrupted by the small element that can sometimes cause problems for business owners or tourists or just shoppers that come downtown.
Yohe: So, what are some of the elements to make that work?
Farrell: With any of these approaches, what we know is that homelessness is a housing problem. We have to find ways to get these people housed. If you’re going to make homelessness rare and brief, which is my aim, you have to have a data driven approach as well. We need to have a ‘by name’ list of folks. To know what’s going on and what has caused them to go into homelessness, because the problems that face this population is not a one size problem, right? Everyone experiences it in a different way, and you have to find ways to help them overcome that. So they receive either the mental health treatment they need, the addiction recovery services they need, or just the financial services they need in order to get back into stable housing.
Yohe: Let’s break that down. You strike a chord in shouldering the burden of homelessness between understanding data and allocating resources. Elaborate a little on that.
Farrell: We don’t have a complete picture of who we’re dealing with. As far as the homeless population, we do a ‘point in time’ count once a year across the country. It’s a mandated count. And that’s a snapshot on one cold night. It doesn’t really speak to the problem throughout the year, how it grows, how it shrinks, and then actually, what each of them are individually, going through. So I think collecting that data is important right now. We have a continuum of care made up of governments, nonprofits, and the healthcare community. They each have a small picture of the puzzle. Effective continuum of care, or C of C’s as they are called, work together. They share that information in a way that allows them to problem solve together and really focus on the people that are affected by this. If you don’t share that information across those organizations, you really don’t have the full picture on what those people need in order to get them help and off the streets. When I say data, it could be anything from who they are, where they’re from, what they’re suffering from, what their needs are, what their medical history is. All those are components that add to the full picture of what’s going on with the individual.
Yohe: You talk about engaging these Huntington organizations and federal and state organizations to collaborate to make homelessness rare and brief. So how do you do more as a mayor than just have them meet and talk?
Farrell: There’s a lot of things you can do. The mayor is the chief convener, so that’s an important position to be in to tell folks that this is our problem and we’re going to solve it together. I think that’s an important message for any mayor to see the problems and own them in his or her community, beyond just getting people together. I think that when you look at the sources of funding, a lot of the people that want to fund want to know that people are working together. If the city of Huntington is working in collaboration with a coalition of people that are all focused on the same common goal, they’re much more likely to fund that effort than two or three different organizations coming to them, asking them for a piece of the problem.
Yohe: In speaking of housing insecurity, talk about this “housing first” model that you propose.
Farrell: The simple part of it is, the way to fix homelessness is to provide housing. And again, there’s a continuum there. The best thing we can do is help people stay in their houses across the country because there is a rising rent to make it harder for people with inflation to stay in their homes. We need to find a way to make sure that we can grow the economy and people can have jobs and they can stay in their home. They also need more affordable housing. The stock of affordable housing does not meet the need at this point. You have to encourage private developers and other agencies that provide affordable housing to find that stock so that they actually have a bed to go to. For those rooms that have been in disrepair and are occupied now, what can you do to fix them and get them ready so people can occupy them? It’s a complex problem that requires a lot of people, but housing first means that we don’t look at the preconditions of somebody’s status, about whether they’re addicted or mentally ill, we get them in a home and shelter so we can then work on the other pieces of the puzzle.
Yohe: As to accountability, what are your strategies for protecting public safety while curbing homelessness?
Farrell: if you’re a business owner or someone that wants to enjoy downtown you certainly have the right not to suffer from property damage, from theft. We have a lot of people that are using drugs on the streets, and all of those things take away from the sense of public safety in our community. No one wants to find needles in your park. I think that’s the strategy we can use to make sure that the people that live and work in our cities, in our neighborhoods, don’t have to have those adverse effects of a problem that we know is affecting everybody.
Yohe: What would be a couple of those strategies?
Farrell: Just dealing with the problem more directly. I mean, it starts with as easy as keeping the drug dealers out of town, right? If we increase our law enforcement efforts and we we target the folks that we know are doing bad things in our community and run them out, then it leaves more space for us to care for the people that are here that are truly seeking help, rather than the people that are preying on the most vulnerable people,
That was Huntington Mayor-elect Patrick Farrell speaking with Randy Yohe about how he plans to tackle the homelessness problem in his city when he takes office next month.
This story is part of a continuing series on the issue of homelessness in West Virginia. To see previous stories, click here.
