City to keep open "overnight cafes" for homeless

The city of Philadelphia temporarily averted a surge in the number of homeless people sleeping on the streets by agreeing yesterday to keep open three "overnight cafes" - special all-night, drop-in centers that offer food and help.

The cafes, started in 2006 as cold-weather havens for the street homeless, were scheduled to close for the season yesterday morning.

But so many people are still using the cafes - more than 150 on most nights - that the city has agreed to keep funding the centers and working with service providers to place homeless people in housing or treatment.

"We're going to hold them to that commitment," said the Rev. Bill Golderer of the Broad Street Ministry, which operates one of the overnight cafes in its church basement at 315 S. Broad St.

Operators supported the decision, but said the cafes were not designed for long-term shelter. They do not offer beds, just soup, coffee and chairs for passing the night.

Deputy Mayor Donald Schwarz announced the extension of the overnight cafes at a noontime rally on homeless issues that was held outside the National Constitution Center.

"The city and its government hears you," Schwarz told an audience of homeless advocates, as well as formerly and current homeless people.

Schwarz said Mayor Nutter was completing a plan for reducing homelessness that he would release in mid-May.

In March, Nutter said his homeless plan would be ready by now, but Schwarz said there were financing details that still had to be worked out.

According to homeless-service providers who have been engaged in talks with the city, the mayor plans to add 200 housing units with services per year for the homeless.

Sister Mary Scullion, a longtime advocate for the homeless and cofounder of the nonprofit Project H.O.M.E., said that would be an important start, but, "We can fill 200 units a year in the blink of an eye."

She said the Nutter administration "clearly understands that there has to be a broader response if we're going to have an impact on the number of people living on the streets."

Every night, the city houses about 3,500 homeless people and families in shelters. Those drawn to the overnight cafes typically live on the streets and consider shelters too dangerous or undesirable.

Dainette Mintz, director of the city Office of Supportive Housing, said the cafes help to get people in from the streets but are not a long-term solution.

"We've just been managing the problem," Mintz said. "We haven't been resolving the problem."

The city spends $97 million a year in federal, state and local funds for homeless services.

At yesterday's rally, protesters decried the lack of attention that the problems of homelessness, poverty and affordable housing were getting in the current presidential campaign.

About a dozen protesters at the rally wore black blindfolds and carried signs with messages like "See the crisis," and "Don't look away."

All three presidential candidates - Democratic Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama and Republican Sen. John McCain - have been invited by homeless advocates to see firsthand the extent of the problem of homelessness in Philadelphia. Scullion said none have responded.

"We want to feel a sense of urgency from our elected officials, that they know the plight of people living in our doorways or on our vents," Scullion said at the rally.

Golderer of the Broad Street Ministry said he was concerned that the number of people living on Center City streets would increase in the summer.

Last summer, the street census, which is tallied for the city by Project H.O.M.E.'s Outreach Coordination Center, was 621 people - the most in a decade.

"With the economy and joblessness, we have reason to be very concerned about what will happen this summer," Golderer said.