Latest news with #HealthandHumanServicesCommittee
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Homeless, sick and aging: Pierce County faces worsening crisis in 2025
Homeless-service providers in Pierce County are sounding the alarm on the need for healthcare among those living unhoused. During the Pierce County Council's Health and Human Services Committee meeting June 3, a panel of homeless-outreach workers, healthcare specialists and social workers painted a picture of the high number of elderly and disabled people experiencing homelessness and the lack of resources available to keep them from dying on the streets. Jake Nau is the homeless outreach manager for St. Vincent DePaul. His job is to develop relationships with people living unhoused with the goal of helping them find housing. On June 3, Nau told the committee at least 50% of the unhoused people he meets are either over 55 years of age or are experiencing a physical or mental disability they either were living with before becoming unhoused or have incurred through their experience living on the streets. During the 2024 survey of those living unhoused in Pierce County, volunteers counted 2,661 people living unhoused in a single night. Of those surveyed, 25% reported having a chronic health condition, and 22% reported having a physical disability. 'Homeless seniors and people with disabilities are largely from here,' Nau told the committee. 'This population is not chasing benefits across counties and states. They were housed here, and now they are not.' Nau said the normal process of aging is 'harmfully accelerated' by being unhoused. According to the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH), people who experience homelessness have an average life expectancy of around 50, almost 20 years lower than people who are housed. The Center for Disease Control states that people experiencing homelessness are at a greater risk of infectious and chronic illness, poor mental health and substance abuse. They are also more susceptible to violence, 'a fact confirmed by over 20 years of reports on bias-motivated crimes,' a letter from USICH stated in 2018. 'On the street there are perpetrators of harm and victims. Seniors and people with disabilities are almost always the victims,' Nau said. 'Our parents and grandparents get exploited, robbed, beaten and bullied.' Nau said there are simply not enough shelter and housing options to get those folks off the street, specifically not enough Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant shelters. He said many shelters cannot accept individuals who are physically unable to wash themselves or use the bathroom on their own. He also said there are not enough senior-specific permanent supportive-housing options for folks who need specialized care. Amy Decker is a social work case manager for MultiCare Health System. Decker reported that 404 people were discharged from Tacoma General Hospital and Allemore Hospital into homelessness through the first five months of 2025. Of those known to be unhoused at the time of their discharge, 176 were between the ages of 50-69 and 25 were over the age of 70. One individual discharged from a Tacoma hospital into homelessness was over 90. Recently the county has obligated funding to increase its medical respite capacity. Medical Respite facilities offer a place for unhoused individuals to stay while they heal after a hospital stay. In January 2023, Pierce County awarded the Low-Income Housing Institute (LIHI) over $10 million to support a new shelter project, which would eventually become the acquisition of the Oasis Inn. The former hotel will be converted into 117 units of non-congregate emergency shelter and permanent supportive housing, with at least 51 of the units capable of providing medical-respite services. John Brown of the LIHI told The News Tribune potential clients at the facility would need to be healed enough for discharge, meaning they can still perform activities of daily living and only be in need of basic nursing services such as wound care and medicine management. If the client regresses in treatment during their stay, they would be moved to a long-term care respite facility. 'Once the client heals and progresses through recovery, they could either be referred into one of the long-term rental permanent supportive-housing units in the building or another low-income housing building as openings become available,' Brown wrote in an email to The News Tribune. It is unclear when the facility wound open. Meanwhile the county has made funding available for operation of a temporary medical respite facility in Parkland. The facility will have roughly 16 beds available. Jan Runbeck is a registered nurse who provides healthcare at one of Tacoma's only operating medical-respite facilities in Tacoma. Runbeck previously told The News Tribune that Nativity House has 12 beds reserved for medical-respite referrals. She said patients discharged from the hospital can use a bed for 30 days before they have to be treated like everyone else who comes to the shelter and receives a bed on a first come, first served basis. During the June 3 Health and Human Services Committee meeting, Runbeck said many individuals living unhoused are dying a 'prolonged death,' typically resulting from unmanaged chronic diseases such as diabetes, heat disease, kidney failure and CPD. She said the deaths would be preventable with access to primary care. Runbeck said many individuals she met in Nativity House and in her street-outreach work became homeless in their 50s and 60s. She recalled several cases in which individuals suffered injuries and had jobs without benefits, creating financial pressures leading to homelessness. Runbeck made the case that medical-respite facilities ultimately save tax payer dollars. She said before Nativity House implemented a medical respite program with nurses who could provide healthcare it had more 911 calls than almost anywhere in the city, averaging more than two emergency calls a day. After the program was implemented, it reduced calls there by 30%. 'When you have prolonged death, it is messy, it is ugly, it is nasty,' she told the committee. 'You go to the [emergency room] way too many times, you go to urgent care way too many times. You have all these other complications of untreated chronic disease.'
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
‘We stay on top of it.' New Pierce County homeless shelter hub showing success
Less than a year since coming on line, Pierce County's homeless shelter intake hub has helped more than 1,400 individuals find shelter. Last summer, it was announced that Family Promise of Pierce County would receive a $1 million grant from the county to create the county's first-ever homeless shelter access hub. With that funding, the organization leased a portion of an unused school building in Parkland to serve as a centralized intake hub for anyone experiencing homelessness in Pierce County to receive help finding shelter. While the shelter intake hub did not reach full operating capacity until November 2024, Family Promise of Pierce County told The News Tribune staff had helped refer 1,452 individuals experiencing homelessness into shelter as of May 20, 2025. Before Family Promise and the shelter intake hub, the only hotline available to families and individuals experiencing homelessness was the county's 211 line — which could only be used between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m., Monday through Friday. Family Promise now operates a 24/7 hotline for any individual or family experiencing or at risk of homelessness. During the Pierce County Council's Health and Human Services Committee meeting on May 20, Family Promise of Pierce County CEO Steve Decker reported the organization's progress. 'People can go to they can call us, they can text us, they can show up in-person with an appointment, and we can do the intake in 15 different languages and connect them to emergency resources,' Decker told committee members about the organization's efforts to reduce barriers. He said the intake process can be as short as answering seven questions. 'Which means it is not a big barrier to get people's information enough to contact them and connect them to services,' he told the committee. Alternatively, Decker said, the organization has a longer intake process for more involved case management that uses over 240 points of data for individuals and families. In his presentation, Decker reported the shelter intake hub places an average of 121 individuals or families into shelter each month. The hub receives thousands of calls and text each month from people in crisis. Decker said a large part of Family Promise's success has been achieved through diligent and consistent communication with clients. Past intake programs funded by the county, such as Coordinated Entry, have been criticized by some left wondering when they will be contacted for follow-up. 'In our contract with the county, the requirement was that we return people's contact within 24 hours from initial contact,' Decker told the Health and Human Services Committee. 'I tell my staff that they only have an hour.' He reported to the committee Family Promise averages about a 10-minute follow-up time from when someone texts, fills out an intake online or calls. 'We stay on top of it,' Decker said. 'We want someone who is in crisis to know that someone is paying attention to them. Even if they are a family and we have to tell them that there is no [shelter] availability.' Decker said his organization has identified a number of barriers to getting families and individuals experiencing homelessness into shelter. The number one barrier is strict shelter requirements. He said strict requirements could be anything from requiring someone to pass a drug test to requiring that someone does not have certain prior criminal offenses while other offenses are allowable. Some shelters, such as non-congregate shelters, will not allow children with or without an adult. Duke Paulson is the executive director of the Tacoma Rescue Mission — one of the largest operators of shelter in Pierce County. The organization also operates the largest family shelter in the county. Paulson previously told The News Tribune shelters that serve youth and families are required to implement stricter screening processes than for low-barrier shelters, in some cases limiting the options for families seeking shelter. Family Promise of Pierce County has been involved in Pierce County's homelessness response for a little over a year. Its model has been to focus on unhoused families with children, utilizing AI and diligent case management to cut through bureaucratic barriers. According to data reported by Family Promise, families they have helped into shelter spent an average of 26 days in emergency shelter. 'That is fast,' Decker told the committee. Of the 145 families the organization has helped into stable housing since the organization began operations near the beginning of 2024, only four have done so with subsidized housing vouchers. Meaning, 141 of those families were able to find and pay for housing on their own. 'That's the model.' Decker told the committee. 'We shouldn't have people depend on [the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development] or the lottery systems to get off the street.'
Yahoo
25-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Committee backs proposal to decouple Maine's definition of child neglect with poverty
(Stock photo by Os Tartarouchos via Getty Images) Maine lawmakers are suggesteing the state move forward with a proposal to update the state's definition of child abuse and neglect that legal experts have argued is easy to conflate with poverty. The Legislature's Health and Human Services Committee held a work session for two bills looking to amend the statutory definitions to better identify the children at risk of harm and prevent families from interacting with the child welfare system due to their financial situation. 'It does a simple thing, but the consequences are enormous,' said committee co-chair Sen. Henry Ingwersen (D-York) of LD 1406, which was backed unanimously by the committee members present Friday. They did not endorse a similar bill, LD 891, because the language was duplicative but described as 'heavy' compared to the other bill. Both bills sought out to clarify that a scenario rises to neglect if a child's needs are willfully withheld. The idea is supported by former foster parents, child welfare advocates and legal organizations; however, some preferred LD 891 because they felt the proposed changes went further to address the issue. Maine's definition of neglect is 'easy to conflate with poverty' Rep. Michele Meyer (D-Eliot), who sponsored LD 1406, said her bill was born out of advisory groups that included state agencies, child welfare advocates and other entities dedicated to keeping Maine children safe that looked into the state's mandated reporting laws and how they affect families. The language in her proposal is modeled after the language Kentucky used to update its definition. Even if the claims are unsubstantiated, Meyer said it is still traumatic for families to be reported to child protective services. Additionally, having to weed through reports of parents who can't financially provide certain needs can mean less time for caseworkers to address situations where children face serious harm. At the public hearing for these bills, Bobbi Johnson, the director of the Office of Child and Family Services, testified in support of LD 1406, saying it is part of a broader effort to support families in need rather than getting them tangled up in the system. However, she said the child welfare agency is opposed to LD 891 because it inserts certain language that isn't currently defined in statute and would limit the agency's ability to intervene in certain accidental situations, even if they are connected to a larger concern about the child's care. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
17-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Maine lawmakers reject bill that would bring back strict limits on needle exchanges
A sharps disposal box sits beside Needlepoint Sancutary's set up at Camp Hope, an unhoused encampment in Bangor. The syringe service program hands out provisions and clean syringes along with kits containing fentanyl testing strips and the overdose reversal drug Naloxone. (Photo by Eesha Pendharkar/Maine Morning Star) The Maine Legislature rejected a bill this week that would bring back limits on syringe services, following the recommendation of state public health experts and medical professionals. LD 219, introduced by Rep. Anne-Marie Mastraccio (D-Sanford), would have limited the number of clean syringes that certified needle exchange programs can hand out, reverting to a one-for-one ratio that Maine required until 2022, when it adopted rules that allow participants to bring in just one used syringe to receive 100 clean ones. The bill sparked lengthy debate in both chambers, particularly in the light of an HIV outbreak in Penobscot County that has primarily impacted the unhoused community that uses injectable drugs. Several lawmakers highlighted the issue of syringe litter on roads, parks and on private property, which they blamed on the higher number of syringes people can access. But ultimately, the majority of legislators supported the Health and Human Services Committee's recommendation to reject the bill, citing best practices supported by the Maine Department of Health and Human Services and other public health and harm reduction organizations. The Senate voted 22-21 against the bill Thursday following a 76-69 House vote earlier this week. Republican Sen. Marianne Moore, who represents Washington County and sits on the Health Committee, expressed concern about the outbreak spreading to other counties, including her district. Needle exchanges face municipal pushback despite state, public health backing 'Limiting access to sterile syringes now will only make it harder to prevent, protect and control spread of disease in a county already underresourced and overburned,' she said. 'We all want cleaner streets, safer communities and less syringe litter,' she said, but if we are serious about addressing syringe waste, she encouraged her peers to increase funding for disposal kiosks and biohazard containers. 'Let's stay the course of evidence-based policy,' Moore added. Other Republican senators disagreed. Sen. Matt Harrington of York County and Sen. Scott Cyrway of Kennebec County raised concerns about drug overdoses and 'decriminalizing drug culture.' 'This idea that these centers are somehow reducing harm to me, is ridiculous,' Harrington said, referring to certified Syringe Service Programs. 'This continuous nature of enabling this behavior… is just proven to be exacerbating this issue.' Earlier this week, several Republican representatives also criticized the bill, saying they supported the limits the bill aimed to reimpose. 'All Mainers and their pets are at risk of a dirty needle stick,' said Rep. Ann Fredericks of Sanford. Sanford became one of the few municipalities to bring back limits in an emergency municipal ordinance last year, which bill sponsor Mastraccio said during her testimony helped reduce syringe litter. But according to the Maine CDC's syringe service report from 2023, released last May, most users bring in roughly the same amount of syringes they receive. Syringe services handed out 1.16 syringes for each one they collected last year, which means that despite some concern about the state's 100 to 1 ratio, meaning the additional needles from these programs are not driving street litter. Syringe service programs also provide sharps disposal containers and help reduce discarded waste in communities, according to Dr. Kinna Thakarar, a physician at Maine Medical Center and an associate professor at the Tufts University School of Medicine. Rep. Ambureen Rana (D-Bangor) said a rigid one-toone model doesn't match the reality of substance use and doesn't work. 'We have seen it in rural cities and towns alike. Public health policy must be grounded in science and best practices and lived realities of our communities,' she said. 'This bill is out of step with all three.' SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
08-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Proposed reforms of abuse law that punishes impoverished families receives strong support at hearing
(Photo by) Maine's current definition of neglect, which includes 'deprivation of essential needs,' is easily conflated with poverty. Two proposals before the Legislature seek to update state law to better identify the children at risk of harm and prevent families from interacting with the child welfare system due to their financial situation. 'The ambiguous definition of neglect also subjects parents and caregivers to an investigation that mandates surveillance and oversight merely for being poor,' said Sen. Craig Hickman (D-Kennebec) when introducing his proposal to update the state's definition of abuse and neglect. Maine's definition of neglect is 'easy to conflate with poverty' Hickman's bill (LD 891) and legislation from Rep. Michele Meyer (D-Eliot), LD 1406, both seek to decouple poverty with the state's definition of abuse and neglect by clarifying that a child's needs are willfully withheld. The idea is supported by former foster parents, child welfare advocates and legal organizations; however, some preferred LD 891 because they felt the proposed changes went further to address the issue. Attorneys who work with families involved with the child welfare system also generally favored Hickman's bill, sharing stories with the Health and Human Services Committee on Tuesday about cases they worked on that could have been avoided if the proposed changes had been in place. The current law allows for families to be flagged for children missing medical appointments because parents don't have reliable transportation or children having dirty or ill-fitting clothing, said Molly Owens, parents counsel division chief for the Maine Commission for Public Defense Services. 'These are cases where there's no physical or sexual abuse, and children aren't mistreated or willfully neglected,' Owens said. 'Rather, the family is struggling to really and reliably provide basic necessities.' Our current law places little value on a loving, low-income parent. – Molly Owens, Maine Commission for Public Defense Services She added that 'our current law places little value on a loving, low-income parent.' Equating poverty to parental neglect is not unique to Maine. In July 2024, the Biden administration released guidance that states should update their definitions of abuse and neglect to differentiate between a financial inability to provide adequate housing or other material needs. Meyer said her bill was born out of advisory groups that included state agencies, child welfare advocates and other entities dedicated to keeping Maine children safe who looked into the state's mandated reporting laws and how they affect families. The language in her proposal is modeled after the language Kentucky used to update its definition. Even if the claims are unsubstantiated, Meyer said it is still traumatic for families to be reported to child protective services. Additionally, having to weed through reports of parents who can't financially provide certain needs can mean less time for caseworkers to address situations where children face serious harm. 'If we continue to punish poverty, we will continue to have an overburdened system,' Owens said, speaking in favor of LD 891 and neither for nor against LD 1406. Bobbi Johnson, the director of the Office of Child and Family Services, testified in support of Meyer's bill, saying it is part of a broader effort to support families in need rather than getting them tangled up in the system. However, she said the child welfare agency is opposed to LD 891 because it inserts certain language that isn't currently defined in statute and would limit the agency's ability to intervene in certain accidental situations, even if they are connected to a larger concern about the child's care. Melissa Hackett, coordinator of the Maine Child Welfare Action Network, which also favored LD 1406 due to the input of the broad stakeholder group, encouraged committee members to consider the passion heard for both pieces of legislation. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
