NORWICH – There were nearly four times as many individuals presenting themselves to the Chenango County Department of Social Services as homeless in January compared to a year earlier, and the cost for assisting them currently averages about $2,000 a month.
“That’s the cost to this agency, not to Mental Health, Drug and Alcohol, and Catholic Charities who worked with us,” DSS Commissioner Bette Osborne said.
Six people, including one family, were without shelter in January 2006 versus 21 people in January 2007. Osborne said the reasons range from the working poor becoming further in debt, flooded out apartments that landlords have not repaired, people moving into the area with no job nor place to live and domestic abuse.
“There are a lot of people on the fringes who have gotten so far under financially that at this point they are homeless,” she said.
The increase has caused at least one town supervisor to ask how the county could help. Town of Smyrna Supervisor James E. Bays raised the issue at a meeting of the Health and Human Services Committee last week. He said he was pleased to learn from fellow supervisors recently that there were rooms available at Preston Manor as well as apartments in the City of Norwich, but he asked, “How can we help?”
Rooms at Preston Manor were used at no cost to the county in January, but DSS spent $300 on hotels, $75 for bus tickets and an unknown amount on food vouchers. In addition, a DSS supervisory level staff worker often spends an entire day locating shelter for one individual, Osborne said. Of the 21 presenting themselves as homeless, 18 were eventually placed with friends and family. Twelve were children.
Osborne and a team representing various agencies recently toured a homeless shelter in Oneonta. The facility houses 16, but does not accept individuals from out of the county. Osborne said Delaware County received $750,000 from the state plus private foundation and grant money to build the $1 million shelter.
No coordinated case management team nor plan for a shelter currently exists in Chenango County. Osborne said all of the agencies involved need to decide, from a county perspective, where “to get the biggest bang for our buck.
“Where we can get reimbursement? We all, including DSS, have territorial issues,” she said.
Osborne said progress has been made, however, with Mental Hygiene Services and the Chenango County Jail so that fewer are released from mental hospitals or incarceration with no place to go.
Committee member Ross Iannello, politically unaffiliated-New Berlin, said he suspected a certain number of the homeless were youths not wanting to go home. “I think that a good portion of it,” he said
Osborne said there were few kids in that situation. “Of those, there may be distinct reasons like domestic abuse, violence, reasons why these kids might not want to go home. We have a lot of that in this county,” she said.