Two Sides of the Street

After lunch, a few men sink into soft sofas and watch The Last Samurai on a big-screen TV. One man instinctively slumps to the ground and pulls his down coat over his head to sleep.

"You know why they cover their heads?" asks Margo Hunt of Port Richmond as she takes a break from serving food. "So people passing don't know if it's a man or woman."

Anonymity is a bit of protection if you sleep on the street, explains Hunt, who was homeless for a year two decades ago. "It's a tough place to be," she says, her eyes welling up.

The Rev. Gerardo DeJesus, a psychologist by training, moved here two years ago by way of California.

While stopping at each table, he listens intently to a 33-year-old from South Jersey who lost his job, his apartment, and all ties to his family.

He tries to encourage a 46-year-old crack addict who tried to leave the streets for a shelter, but didn't last.

The church's outreach is "a small attempt at saying something must be done," DeJesus says. "But there is only so much we can do. The problem is greater than our ability to address it."

Housing for those at risk

As they push for solutions, advocates for the homeless have a sense of deja vu mixed with dread.

A decade ago, when Center City's street population was larger than today - exceeding 800 - the city launched a $6 million intervention plan.

It added extra teams of outreach workers and funded about 300 new units of special, long-term housing for those with mental illness and addictions. Within three years, the street population dropped below 200.

During Mayor John Street's first term, which began in 2000, the numbers remained low.

The numbers began rising sharply in 2005, hitting a high of 621 last summer. In the last year, the Street administration faced increasing tension over mass public feedings and the rising number of people sleeping in public spaces, but the city's approach to handling the homeless - of trying to reach out to people rather than criminalize homeless behavior - remained unchanged.

Homeless experts say the numbers will keep increasing unless the city gets to the root of the problem - a severe shortage of supportive housing for the mentally ill. Almost two-thirds of those living on the street have mental illness. But their numbers are not static. As people leave the streets, new ones arrive.

Homeless experts say what's needed is housing for those who are at highest risk of becoming homeless in the first place, particularly people with severe mental illness.

Dennis Culhane, a University of Pennsylvania expert on homelessness, said the city needed to add 2,000 units of permanent housing with services to help those with severe mental illness to live independently.

That's nearly double the number of available units. The additional housing could take many forms, such as scattered apartments that are subsidized or special residences for many people.

Culhane argues that taxpayers will pay for the chronically homeless one way or another, and that it is more cost effective and humane to provide long-term housing than emergency shelters and acute medical services.

Each person on the streets already costs Philadelphia about $10,000 a year in the form of time spent in shelters, emergency rooms, hospitals, detox centers, psychiatric units and jails.