Westmoreland summit participants share tales of homelessness, ideas for addressing problem

Aug. 7—Anthony Taylor was homeless several years ago, which meant sleeping on an older brother's couch.

In addition to stable housing, he lacked medical benefits and a car.

Now, the Latrobe man has a driver's license and works as a facility attendant at the Union Mission, a Derry Township shelter for men where he previously received help and a place to stay.

He also is a member of Advocates 4 Change, a youth action board with the goal of reducing housing instability for young people and expanding services for them across 20 Western Pennsylvania counties.

Drawing on his experience with homelessness, Taylor said, "I interact with clients and hear what they've got to say. If they have problems getting a phone, or medical or food stamps, I try to coordinate with them and help them out.

"I can talk to other people with lived (homeless) experience. They know what I'm talking about."

Taylor and fellow Youth Action Board member Idelia Robinson-Confer, a former Greensburg resident, were among panelists at an inaugural summit on homelessness organized by the Westmoreland Housing Alliance Team (WHAT) last week at Westmoreland County Community College.

One of the overriding messages of the gathering was the need to include people who have been homeless when discussing ways to address that problem.

"There's no better expert than the people who are experiencing those problems and navigating those challenges who can help inform our systems and can help us understand where needs are not being met," said Dan Carney, executive director of Union Mission. Carney also is a leading governance committee member for WHAT, a team of human services organizations and stakeholders with the shared goal of alleviating homelessness.

"Far too often, people who are experiencing homelessness or housing instability are invisible," said summit panelist Cindy LaCom, chief diversity officer of Transforming Culture Consultants and a retired instructor at Slippery Rock University. "We need to support one another ... in seeing and hearing and knowing them, and making them part of our communities in more visible and intentional ways."

Annual counts indicated shelters in Westmoreland County were providing a roof and beds for 74 homeless people in January, an increase from 56 people a year earlier.

But advocates say there are some in the county without a permanent home, including young people, who might go unreported in such counts.

"We actually have a significant homeless problem here in Westmoreland County," said Rob Hamilton of Lower Burrell, the county's director of human services. "Rural homelessness looks different than inner-city homelessness, but it's still homelessness.

"If you're sleeping in someone's garage, on their couch, on their floor, in a shed, an abandoned building, under a bridge, in a tent in the woods, or in an old RV that doesn't work, that's still homelessness."

Hamilton is among those who have firsthand experience with homelessness. When he was a child, he and his mother lived in a shelter after moving to the United Kingdom and then in a series of rental properties back in the United States.

"When the rent would come due, we'd move," he said.

After a stint in the military marked by an accident involving an exploding machine gun, a pain pill prescription triggered a relapse into drug use, and Hamilton again found himself without a place to call home.

Now, more than a decade into recovery and with experience counseling others, Hamilton said: "I decided to take my wife and my kids to the bridge I slept under in Derry, Pa. I let them know this is where I lived."

He said his goal is to help others attain housing stability and gain additional needed help through the efforts of a rebranded county Department of Community Relations and Prevention and the planned integration of WHAT team partners into a new county Homeless Advisory Board.

He said the new board will be better able to leverage funding to support the types of assistance provided by WHAT-affiliated organizations.

"WHAT has built the platform," Hamilton said. "We're going to be able to sustain that through adequate funding, staffing and support."

During the summit, attendees were challenged to suggest actions that might be taken within 100 days to make a difference in the county's homeless problem.

Some of those ideas included: providing information through social media and fair events on how people can access housing resources; identifying 10 new landlords who are willing to rent housing at federal fair market rates; and training landlords on working with tenants who have disabilities, don't speak English or are survivors of domestic violence.

Robinson-Confer, who is a graduate student at the University of Pittsburgh, said the Youth Action Board recently made strides regionally in addressing homelessness. It has been involved in the distribution of a $3.7 million federal grant awarded to develop a plan for alleviating homelessness among youths 25 or younger and to fund associated projects.

"We were part of the voting process, and we reviewed requests for proposals," she said.

Westmoreland Community Action, a Greensburg-based nonprofit that is a WHAT partner, received a two-year grant, of $1.2 million per year, to initiate a youth-focused housing program, said Dan Giovannelli, vice president of community investments for the nonprofit.

That program includes 24 housing units that will be available to youths through an emergency subsidy, with the goal of transitioning to permanent housing, Giovannelli said.

"The staff will actively go into communities and work with schools to identify youths we can serve," he said. "It meets immediate needs but also opens the door to longer-term services, if necessary.

"In New Kensington, we were working with a football program and identified a youth who had some needs. We were able to provide food and emergency supplies."

Mandy Zalich, CEO of Westmoreland Community Action, said an array of options is needed to provide housing for those in the county who lack it.

"It's not always going to be home ownership, it's not always going to be a single-apartment rental and it's not always going to be a shelter," she said. "Every family and every individual is going to be different. We need more options across the spectrum for everybody."

Jeff Himler is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Jeff by email at jhimler@triblive.com or via Twitter .