MICHAEL S. WIRTZ / Inquirer
At home at last, Runell McKnight plays with her children. They are beneficiaries of a new emphasis on finding homes first, then providing services.
Homeless in Philadelphia: Second of three parts
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The new mandate: First, find them a home
Philadelphia has about 1,200 people who are long-term shelter residents or street dwellers, according to Dennis Culhane, an expert on homelessness at the University of Pennsylvania, who has influenced the shift in public policy in Washington toward a Housing First approach.
Of those, 500 use public services at a rate of $20,000 each a year, Culhane estimated.
"You can spend $20,000 and have someone still on the streets - or have them in a house," Culhane said.
The first thing that hit Runell McKnight when she entered the city-funded Eliza Shirley House for homeless families on Arch Street was the smell.
"Hot pee," McKnight said.
McKnight had a 1-year-old son and a newborn daughter who had a digestive problem that required her to have a colostomy bag.
"We were in a cubicle with no door, no privacy," with a mentally ill woman, McKnight said. "I slept with both eyes open."
McKnight ended up in the shelter in 2006 after splitting up with the man she was living with. For a week, she moved from one city shelter to another. Unable to tolerate such a life, she moved in with a distant relative, then another. Neither situation was a long-term solution.
Although she was working as a nurse's aide, she was hard-pressed to come up with the $1,500 that she needed to cover rent and a two-month security deposit. She also lacked a solid credit record.
McKnight heard about SafeHome Philadelphia from a caseworker at the city's Department of Human Services. That Housing First program helps families to find and fund new apartments.
A SafeHome counselor, Ruth Holland, spent two weeks looking for an apartment that McKnight could afford.
She found three apartments for her to chose from, each with a monthly rent of about $500. Holland helped persuade a landlord to take a chance on McKnight despite her sketchy credit history.
McKnight had to cover the first month's rent, with SafeHome paying the two-month security deposit. SafeHome budgets about $4,000 per client to cover a grant and follow-up with a caseworker for up to a year.
Holland also steered McKnight to a credit-counseling agency, helped her apply for state aid to cover her heating bill, and checked on her every week for seven months, which was all she needed.
McKnight moved her family into the West Philadelphia apartment in December 2006. Still a nurse's aide, she puts in 48 hours a week, with overtime, on the overnight shift at a nursing home. Her mother cares for her children while she works.
On a recent morning, McKnight was just home from work and trying to stay awake. Her son was visiting his father; her now-2-year-old daughter was chattering nonstop and anxious to play.
"There are moments when I feel like I'm going to break," she said.
But this is what it takes, she explained, to keep her family out of shelters.
"I wasn't going to take my kids through that again," McKnight said.
