Photo By Graham Lienhart

Rachel Lawson (right) discusses supportive housing during a meeting at Buddy's Place in Over-the-Rhine. Georgine Getty (standing) says the concept would prevent tragedies such as a homeless man's recent death.

If complete sobriety were a requirement for every apartment lease or home mortgage, just imagine how many of us would be on the streets. So why require those who are already homeless to be entirely sober before they can get housing?

"Housing first" is the model cities across the country are adopting in their effort to fight homelessness. The idea is to get the chronically homeless into permanent housing as soon as possible while providing a support network to manage mental illnesses and help clients work through alcohol and drug abuse.

For five months Pat Clifford, general coordinator of the Drop Inn Center, worked to create Cincinnati's first permanent supportive housing program. He also wanted to include art therapy.

Clifford started working on the idea about the same time that the Cincinnati Center City Development Corporation (3CDC) approached him about the land on the southeast corner of 12th and Elm streets, site of the Drop Inn Center's transitional housing.

As the plans near completion, however, 3CDC has pulled its support for a funding grant -- all but killing the project.

Delay or stalling?
As part of its plans to redevelop the nearby Washington Park area, 3CDC wanted the land for an arts complex that would include the School for Creative and Performing Arts.

Initially, Clifford says, he wondered if the transitional housing, which just opened in 2000, could be integrated instead of moved.

"Instead of this building, this Germanic castle-like structure, can we make something that's more neighborhood, Harlem Renaissance-y-type feel?" he says.

However, moving the facility could be the perfect opportunity to realize his vision of a different arts complex, in which 33 chronically homeless individuals could live in their own apartments with the support of 24-hour staff, two full-time case workers and an art therapist.

Clifford was inspired by the success of writing classes for the Drop Inn Center's recovery programs.

"They'd rather write a poetry thing than go to a boring therapy session," he says.

The plans for Liberty Lofts were drawn up. It would sit on the south lip of Liberty Street between Race and Pleasant streets. The entrance into a manned lobby would spill out through an amphitheater into a common courtyard and individual apartments. The Franciscans of St. Anthony Messenger were interested in using the building's storefronts along Race Street.

Clifford said the architectural drawings and the economic plans were on paper. Everything seemed on track to apply for state tax credits worth about $5.5 million -- until 3CDC abruptly pulled its support Feb. 18.

Clifford suspects 3CDC didn't understand that Liberty Lofts residents wouldn't be required to be entirely sober.

"They thought it would be like Animal House," he says.

They also disliked the size of the proposal. Clifford says 3CDC representatives told him, "The footprint is too big."

Kevin Armstrong, spokesman for 3CDC, is vague about the organization's objections.

"There are some details in the proposed plan that we think might be adjusted," he says. "Working through this would require more time than we have for this specific federal funding application."

Clifford acknowledges that they would've had to pull some late nights to finish the application, due in early March.

"The debate is whether we could have gotten over some of these hurdles and done it -- or if the delay was legitimate," he says.

3CDC declines to comment further.

"We think of the Drop Inn Center as a partner with whom we're working on this project and what we prefer to do is talk to them and work things out rather than discuss it in the pages of CityBeat," Armstrong says.

'What can we try?'
Similar supportive housing programs in San Francisco, Minneapolis and New York City improved the lives of clients and saved taxpayers money in health care costs, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness.

But it's also a matter of caring for people no matter where they are in their struggle with addictions and mental illness.

"I keep thinking about the guy in Kentucky who froze to death," says Georgine Getty, executive director of the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for the Homeless. "If he had been in his own apartment and he drank 'til he passed out, he would still be alive."

Joe Young, a 57-year-old Vietnam veteran, froze to death beneath a railroad bridge in Covington on Christmas Eve 2004.

At a Feb. 23 meeting at Buddy's Place on Vine Street, Getty and Clifford ask those who have been homeless and addicted what they think of the supportive housing idea. Clifford explains the concept to Wanda Rutledge, who's been clean 10 months after 47 years of expecting to die on the streets.

"We're also looking for other models for people who aren't ready, haven't been able to make that step," Clifford says.

Rutledge acknowledges that addicts have to take responsibility.

"Technically, alcohol is accepted in society, even though it's a drug," she says.

As Clifford and Getty draw up plans for the ideal supportive living space, they banter around the possibilities of security, programs such as Narcotics Anonymous, recreational activities, visitors, common areas and rules. James MacQueen wants to be able to smoke cigarettes.

"What if people want to smoke different things?" asks Rachel Lawson, who works with Getty.

"They should have the same privacy rights as any other American citizen," says David Cameron, who lives at Tender Mercies, an assisted housing program for people with mental illness.

The Drop Inn Center is scheduled to meet March 2 with 3CDC.

"We can't live with them or live without them," Clifford says. "We're kind of in a box at this point. But we also need to make sure, as we go forward in the collaborative deals, that we're not the only ones sticking our neck out."

At an emergency meeting Feb. 24, the Drop Inn Center's board concluded it must "broaden and change the conversation," as management guru Peter Block has often told them (see "Peter's Principles," issue of Sept. 3-9, 2003).

"Have a neighborhood conversation about the Drop Inn Center and how we feel we're tying to improve things," Clifford says. "None of the existing services have been making a dent to this point. OK, what can we do about it, what can we try next?" ©