Palm Beach County System Flaws
1. Lack of Homeless Shelters Rehabilitation Assistance Programs for Women & Children – 10yr. Homeless Program Adopted by Palm Beach County – No return phone calls lack of shelter, funding etc. W.P.B. Mayor blames county for homeless crisis! County we have no $$!
2.No family orientated transitional monitoring faith based 12 Step Treatment/Substance Abuse/alcohol programs – Separate from court order drug program, half way houses, pre-trial intervention.
3.United States Census For Palm Beach County – Omits Statistical Information for White Owned Firms – Includes Black, Asia, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander, Native-America, Latino, and Women
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/12/12099.html & Omits PBC male percentage, No account of PBC Foreign Citizens Visa statuses
4. No Immediate Temporary Disability and/or Medical Insurance for unknown medical emergencies extending over a 6mth period of time.
5. Lack of Shore Security – Via Waterways – preventing drug smuggling and human trafficking, or non-monitoring of foreign visitors docking for long periods of time.
6. Lack of auditing and monitoring local Governments, organizations, political leaders, who are accountable, and responsible for other human lives – Current Governor Health Con-Artist himself!
7. Lack of affordable Housing for Veterans, Elderly, Single-Parent Mothers, & the Medically Ill
8. Lack of International Educational Programs – Assisting International children and families with English, History, Laws, Schooling, etc.,
9. Debt to Income Ratio Inequality – Poverty – Hidden Homelessness Crisis in Florida
10. Outdated Programs listed as services – Stating available for assistance when in fact their not.
11. UN Condemns U.S. Police Brutality, Calls For ‘Stand Your Ground’ Review – Florida has a bad case of racial profiling
12. HUD RELEASES JULY 2014 HOUSING SCORECARD – “The market indicators for the housing market recovery were mixed in July as foreclosure filings continue to improve, but home sales, particularly for new homes, showed unexpected weakness,” said HUD Assistant Secretary for Policy Development and Research Katherine O’Regan. http://portal.hud.gov/hudportal/HUD?src=/press/press_releases_media_advisories/2014/HUDNo_14-097
13. Rehabilitate or punish? – Psychologists are not only providing treatment to prisoners; they’re also contributing to debate over the nature of prison itself. http://www.apa.org/monitor/julaug03/rehab.aspx
Palm Beach Post Article: Posted: 6:51 a.m. Monday, July 2, 2012
By Sonja Isger and Jennifer Sorentrue
Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
After more than a decade of planning, Palm Beach County will open its center for the homeless today.
It is the first time that the county’s homeless have had a single place to go for shelter, medical care, job training and other social services.
Although a handful of local charities and churches have always helped the homeless with emergency shelter, meals and job training, the county has lacked a central place for the homeless to go to easily navigate those services.
Homeless advocates say the center’s opening is the culmination of a perfect set of circumstances — a county commissioner advocating the project; a partnership between the county and nonprofits working with the homeless; and $8.5 million in federal grant money. What happened to the funding, who monitors and disburses has federal funding disbursement went toward homelessness assistance? If so why has homelessness increased in the Palm Beach County area.
“Everything came together,” said Marilyn Munoz, Executive Director of the county’s Homeless Coalition.
County commissioners first talked about providing an emergency shelter for the homeless in 2001, when former Commissioner Addie Greene formed a task force to help craft the plan.
But the next year, Greene said that the shelter should no longer be the task force’s top priority, acknowledging that political pressure from other commissioners had persuaded her to change her mind. Many worried about finding a location for the facility and complained that they would simply be “warehousing” the homeless.
Greene’s decision came after the county’s director of human services issued a report in 2002 saying that building a shelter for the homeless would be “cost prohibitive.” Instead, the director said he wanted more money for social workers to provide counseling for homeless people. He also said he would pay for more room nights and motels and halfway houses for the homeless while the social workers worked to find permanent help.
“In the beginning, (county managers) sort of encouraged you not to build permanent shelters,” said Commissioner Karen Marcus, who was first elected to the board in 1984. “It was, ‘if you start building them, you are actually going to get more homeless.”
By 2005 the county had partnered with CARP, Inc., which stands for Comprehensive Alcoholism Rehabilitation Programs, to help fund a 16-bed Homeless Residential Assessment Center at CARP’s campus in West Palm Beach.
But advocates kept pushing for a county-owned facility.
Meanwhile, an impromptu homeless shelter at Westgate Tabernacle in suburban West Palm Beach was drawing attention to the county’s growing homeless problem. The tabernacle drew the ire of county officials for opening its own shelter to house as many as 150 people a night. County officials argued that the shelter violated both fire code and zoning laws.
The tabernacle sued the county in 2007 and 2009, seeking relief from the fines. It argued that county officials had denied the homeless problem existed.
At the same time, then-Commissioner Jeff Koons was urging the commission and county administrators to address the county’s homeless problem. Working with nonprofits, he ultimately helped establish a homeless advisory board, responsible for crafting a 10-year plan to end homelessness in the county.
Koons resigned from the commission in 2010 amid an extortion scandal and was sentenced to five years’ probation but has since returned to advocating for the homeless. In an interview Thursday, he recalled urging advocates for the homeless to talk to commissioners about the county’s problem.
“I’d tell people whenever you bump into a commissioner, tell them how proud you are that they are working on homelessness,” Koons said.
The resource center became a critical piece of the 10-year plan, which was approved by the commission in 2008.
“Without Jeff Koons pushing it, I don’t know that it would have gotten this far,” Marcus said of the center. “It just became a real priority for him. He reached out to all the providers.”
Homeless in Palm Beach County
• A 2011 count found there were 3,228 homeless people in Palm Beach County.
• In county schools this year, there were 1,590 students between the ages of 5 and 17 who were considered homeless or in danger of becoming homeless.
• Fifty-six percent of the students in the county’s school system qualify for free or reduced-cost lunches.
• The leading causes of homelessness in the county are unemployment and lack of affordable housing, officials say.
• The county’s homeless outreach team placed 1,423 adults in emergency shelter last year.
Homeless Resource Center
Cost: $9.2 million
Location: 1000 45th St., West Palm Beach
Capacity: 60 beds, opening in three phases; 20 beds will open July 2; 20 beds will open Oct. 1; and 20 beds will open by Jan. 2. (non – existing)
Operation: Palm Beach County has contracted with three local nonprofits to run the facility and provide the social services. The county’s homeless outreach team will also be based at the center.
Lead operator: Gulfstream Goodwill Industries, responsible for overseeing the on-site interim housing and providing individual housing placement. (2013 No Services Available for homeless)
Adopt-A-Family: Will help families find services and housing. (2013 No services available)
The Lord’s Place: Will help refer people to the center and will provide employment and life skills services. (2013 No services available)
Lewis Center – (No services Available)
Homeless coalition – No return phone call – Governors R. Scott office – We can’t help you we have no $$ (How can you trust a man who’s had previous healthcare fraud, to do right by his citizens?)
Medical services: Staff from the county’s health department will provide on-site medical service.
Report: Heroin epidemic in South Florida -The problem has become an epidemic, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, in the aftermath of the crackdown on pill mills that dispensed high-potency painkillers. By Dan Christensen – BrowardBulldog.org –
http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/01/29/3900913/report-heroin-epidemic-in-south.html
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