Gimme Shelter

Allen Reesor's friends-and-family program has other homeless-services professionals crying foul

A A A Comments By Wyatt Olson Thursday, Mar 7 2002

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The North HAC would seem to offer more flexibility as an emergency shelter. Thirty-two beds are slated for the "tiered access" program, a 30-day, low-demand shelter for men. While intoxicated men will not be allowed in, Reesor says, this separate unit won't impose a zero drug/alcohol policy, as will be enforced in the rest of the North HAC. "It allows them 30 days to work labor pool," Reesor explains. "It will give us 32 beds for people who would say, "BOC's too tough for me.' The idea is they'll see what's happening: Two men come in the same day, one goes into tiered access, the other into treatment. At the end of 30 days, the person in the regular program is clean, sober, looking better, ready to get a job, working on an education. The guy in tiered is looking at the other guy and saying, "That could be me.' The idea is to give them incentive but also give them a soft entry."

That tiered approach is consistent with the Broward Outreach Center's self-contained program of moving along a continuum, says the longtime homeless advocate who asked not to be named. The problem he foresees, however, is that the men in the tiered program will remain in place longer than 30 days while awaiting a bed in the main shelter. He fears that will ultimately bog down the number of open emergency beds, keeping turnover as low as it has been at BOC.

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In fact, in initial meetings Reesor has held to familiarize service providers with the North HAC (including one with the Broward County Sheriff's Office, which polices Pompano Beach), the emphasis at the new facility is shifting to transitional care, the advocate claims. And with the county ready to shell out more than $2.1 million for emergency beds in the North HAC for fiscal 2002-03, the advocate points out, the county's homeless shouldn't have to wait.