A few months ago Hubert Russell was gainfully employed at a local plastics company. Today, he sits in the February sun outside the Primavera Foundation, a place where homeless people can collect phone messages, their mail and medicine – things they don’t have access to on the street. He now spends his nights at a Salvation Army shelter.
“It’s better than being outside,” he says quietly.
Russell was one of 1,561 homeless people counted in late January during the 2010 Homeless Street Count, a 16 percent increase from last year, according to Sylvia Cuestas and Laurie Mazerbo, co-chairs of the count.
“We’re seeing a lot more newly-homeless folks on the street,” Mazerbo said. “Those are the folks that were on the fringes and…when the economy really plunged, they were the folks that lost their jobs and lost their housing.”
The street count, sponsored by the Tucson Planning Council for the Homeless, occurs once a year.
This year’s event was held at 6:30 p.m. instead of 5 a.m. in order to recruit more volunteers and count more homeless people who hide when they sleep, Mazerbo said.
With so many people living on Tucson’s streets, and the numbers increasing all the time, the ability of local agencies to accommodate their needs is challenged.
Demand for the services of the Community Food Bank has inc-reased 54 percent from last fiscal year, said Jean Fox, their agency relations manager.
The majority of the food bank’s clients are new, Fox said, an observation that mirrors Mazerbo’s. These first-timers include middle-aged single people, seniors and families.
Last fiscal year, the Community Food Bank handed out six million pounds of food, Fox said. If demand continues at its current rate, she said, the food bank will provide almost 30 million pounds this year.
Youth On Their Own, a local organization that helps homeless, unaccompanied youth complete their high school diploma, is experiencing similar issues, said Heidi Reynolds-Stenson, volunteer and development coordinator.
Seven months into the school year, the organization has had 521 homeless youth apply to its programs, up from 456 at the same time one year earlier.
But as the number has increased, funding has dropped.
In past years, the organization received a $50,000 grant from Pima County, Reynolds-Stenson said, to give homeless youth up to $125 per month depending on their school grades and attendance.
This year, the $50,000 didn’t come through.
The Primavera Foundation, which also provides rental assistance, emergency shelters and employment assistance, also faces similar funding cuts and increases in demand.
Three years ago, their men’s shelter would be empty in the summer, said Renee Bibby, marketing coordinator. But not anymore. The men’s and family emergency shelters have had 15 to 30 people on a wait list for the past 18 months.
Despite the increased demand for their services, Primavera faces a possible $200,000 cut in funding from the city, Bibby said.
“It’s like they’re saying, ‘Here’s less money, but serve more people,’” she said.
Meanwhile, people like Russell sit quietly outside Primavera, his answers two or three words. Periodically he glances toward the street as a car goes by.
“There’s good days and bad days,” he says of being homeless.
He’ll stay in Tucson for a little longer, to wait and see if things improve. He has a job interview this afternoon.
If things don’t get better, he’s leaving, headed back to Texas where he’s originally from. Things just might be better there.
