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Can we solve homelessness? A program at Union Station is a huge step.

2023-11-08 00:00:00.0 华盛顿邮报-华盛顿特区原网页

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As the chief of police for Amtrak, Sam Dotson has a unique perspective on homelessness in the United States. Train stations — with their air-conditioning and heat, their bathrooms, restaurants and food courts, and their passengers with cash in their pockets — tend to attract a disproportionate share of the unhoused. Amtrak has 500 stations along 21,000 miles of track spanning 46 states and the District.

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“So, here’s the unfortunate reality about the world we live in today: homelessness is in every major urban area that we serve, without exception,” said Dotson, who is headquartered at Washington’s Union Station. “In communities around the country, including rural areas, we are seeing a homeless problem that is pervasive and in many cases overwhelming community resources.”

Dotson has been the Amtrak police chief for five years. That, plus 25 more years of law enforcement experience, has taught him that police cannot solve the nation’s systemic social problems, such as homelessness, mental illness and substance abuse. So, despite calls for crackdowns on panhandlers and clean sweeps of tent dwellers around Union Station, he decided to enlist a cadre of social workers skilled in helping people get their lives back on track.

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The crisis intervention group he helps to fund is called the h3 Project and was founded by Ami M. Angell in 2018. Dotson heard about its work as Angell and others were doing street outreach near the terminal and building partnerships with security officers. These days, whenever Amtrak police get a call about a distressed unhoused person, they begin a stabilizing protocol and then notify Angell or a member of the h3 Project team, who usually arrives within five minutes.

“What we do is empower individuals by working with them to develop a personalized path to success,” Angell said. “Then we try to stick with them until they reach their goal.”

It is labor intensive, emotionally draining work, with no guarantees.

Last year, Angell said, the organization found apartments for 58 unhoused people, reunified 51 with their estranged families, handed out 671 items of clothing and hygiene products, helped 44 people apply for Medicaid and SNAP, and helped 119 people order vital documents such as birth certificates, ID cards and driver’s licenses. They also used Narcan to revive 49 opioid overdose victims.

Carroll Strickland was among those who used to sleep in tents outside Union Station and panhandle inside the terminal, sometimes to the annoyance of hurried passengers. He now has a one-room apartment and a job interview set up for this week, thanks to the h3 Project.

“For me, it was a hands-on program,” Strickland said. “They were concerned about me and what I needed. They saw I was serious about trying to get myself together, so they went into the trenches, going into those encampments and drug-infested neighborhoods, and got the job done.”

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Strickland, who is 61, said he had been homeless more than a year and had overdosed three times on fentanyl when Angell and members of the h3 Project began working with him. Today, he has been drug-free for two years and in his apartment for six months.

After speaking at a recent conference on homelessness, he received compliments and encouragement — along with the invitation to come in for the job interview.

“Having your own place to stay is tremendous because my self-esteem is really reaching a new level and helping me go out and spread my wings,” he said.

A woman who was helped by the h3 Project said she is grateful.

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“I had become so stressed out that I just started going to Union Station,” said the woman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect her privacy. “I didn’t know what else to do. I was out in the world by myself and I had never been out here by myself, and you get spooked.” Members of the h3 Project helped her get a birth certificate, ID and a voucher for a place to live. She also got fresh clothes, food, and pots and pans. “They got me reconnected back in the world — that was the main thing,” she said.

Dotson said he was impressed with the results of the partnership with the h3 Project and is trying to duplicate the successes at Penn Station in New York, with hopes of expanding the concept at other major Amtrak stations across the country.

“What we are seeing is a reduction in the population of people who call Union Station home and a reduction in crime,” Dotson said. “It is working because they are taking a holistic approach. It’s not about getting somebody a bed for one night or a meal for a day. They are into rapid housing and ending the cycles of drug addiction, homelessness and crime.”

Successes such as Strickland’s have been occurring against a backdrop of growing impatience, if not intolerance, for the intrusiveness of the unhoused. In the D.C. region, homelessness increased by 18 percent from 2022 to 2023, according to data released in May by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments. The high cost of housing and health care and the end of a pandemic-era moratorium on evictions are partly to blame. Gentrification, while improving the housing stock and bringing more amenities to the city, has also displaced thousands of residents while contributing to an income gap between rich and poor that is one of the widest in the nation.

Moreover, with Union Station in line for a $10 billion upgrade, efforts to lure businesses are in full swing. To make the site more appealing, last summer the National Park Service demolished a 30-tent homeless encampment on Columbus Circle in front of Union Station.

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There are some who would like the h3 Project to vacate the space it occupies at Union Station. Angell recently received a letter saying that efforts are underway to lease the space.

Dotson insists that no matter what happens to the space that Angell now uses, the group will not be pushed out of Union Station.

“I’m not going to let them go away because we have seen such positive results,” he said. “We will find Amtrak-controlled space inside the building. Whether they are on the second floor or the loading dock, they will have a place to call home.”

Some might argue that having an organization at Union Station that helps the homeless will almost certainly attract the homeless. But Dotson disagrees.

“The reason the homeless come is because it’s cool in summer, warm in winter, there are restrooms and access to people who may provide a handout,” he said. “It’s not because the h3 Project put up a shingle. The homeless were already there, and because people tried to ignore them and not provide the kinds of services they needed, they remain on the street.”

He added, “Amtrak is not going to solve the homeless problem in D.C. or the United States. But what we can do is focus on helping those in and around our station.”

And if everybody did the same, in and around their neighborhoods, around their arenas and stadiums, universities and places of business, the problem would certainly be lessened if not solved.

correction

A previous version of this column incorrectly said homelessness in the D.C. region had increased 18 percent from 2021 to 2022. The increase was from 2022 to 2023. The column has been corrected.

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