For Star subscribers: Tucson Mayor Regina Romero has made Housing First the city's approach to its exploding homelessness problem. Her challengers in this year's election say it's the wrong approach.
Tim Steller You might have heard Tucson officials tout their efforts against homelessness using a simple phrase,"Housing First."
People are also reading… Still, the approach has its detractors, among them the two challengers who have filed to run against Romero, a Democrat, in this year's election. Ed Ackerley and Zach Yentzer, both independents, say they oppose the emphasis on Housing First as Tucson grapples with an addiction and homelessness crisis.
At the Jan. 24 council meeting, Romero said,"Housing First makes sure that each person has a roof over their heads, a warm meal, a place to take a shower and wash their clothes, and at the same time, we work to help residents get all they need to move out of homelessness more permanently." As to the homeless people who have for years gathered and slept there,"Nobody left that park without having a resource for shelter," said Brandi Champion, Tucson's Housing First program director."That doesn’t mean that they took it."
The city typically brings people into transitional housing at places like the newly purchased Wildcat Inn, where they receive services, even as basic as training in how to be a good tenant, she said. Then they move to permanent housing. "What we’re doing, because we don’t have enough shelter at scale, is just moving people around," Yentzer said.
Ackerley and Yentzer both cite the Gospel Rescue Mission as using an approach closer to what they want, often labeled"treatment first." The mission's Center of Opportunity, on South Palo Verde Road, is not a"low barrier" shelter, unlike the city facilities and some others using the Housing First approach.
"What they’re doing is confusing Housing First with housing only," Litwicki said of the approach's critics.
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