Q & A with David Rout, Homeward Alliance Executive Director
I spoke on the phone with David Rout, Executive Director at Homeward Alliance, about people experiencing homelessness and the types of services the organization provides. We also discussed the issue of mental health treatment within homeless populations.
Chronic homelessness is up 266% in Colorado since 2007, with the largest percentage increase in homelessness compared to any other state. California has seen a 101% increase since 2007 while Washington’s homeless population increased 59% for comparison.
Homeward Alliance provides a variety of care options to people experiencing homelessness, although Rout says more could be done to treat mental illness within the community. 10% of homeless people who responded to surveys in Fort Collins suffer from a serious mental illness while 17% suffer from PTSD.
Can you give an overview of Homeward Alliance and the services provided to people experiencing homelessness?
Our mission statement is to empower individuals and families who face homelessness to survive, move forward and thrive. We operate a range of programs that are intended to provide everything from basic needs assistance, like helping people with supplies and gear and outerwear that they need to survive the elements and make it through the night when they’re actually experiencing homelessness.
Really the bulk of what we do is longer term support in the form of case management for people and direct client assistance, helping pay for rent and that sort of thing to help people escape homelessness.
We operate the Murphy Center, which is the county’s hub of services for people who are experiencing or at risk of homelessness. We operate a lot of programs out of there but then we also operate the building itself and it’s about 20 different agencies that operate a range of services so it’s designed to be a one stop shop where people can come and access whatever services they need and moved toward escaping homelessness.
Describe your position as Executive Director at Homeward Alliance. What does your job look like?
My role is somewhat of an administrative role. I oversee the organization and sort of less day-to-day operations and more the long-term vision and mission of the organization — program development, program evaluation. There’s a lot of inward looking things too like improving the organization, organizational culture and looking at things like diversity, equity and inclusion within the organization and how we’re doing relative to some of our specific goals. It’s a lot of strategic, longer term planning around the organization, both internally and externally. The other kind of big piece of my job is community level. It’s representing the organization and the community and pushing forward community initiatives and community partnerships that develop new programs, develop new infrastructure to serve people who are homeless or escaping homelessness and trying to create system level change.
What is Homeward Alliance and the Murphy Center’s approach to mental health treatment for people experiencing homelessness in Fort Collins?
We don’t provide mental health services as an agency. We partner with agencies that do. Primarily with Summit Stone Health Partners. Summit Stone Health Partners has four full time employees that are based at the Murphy Center. They are our on-site mental health providers at that building and then we also we also just have a lot of regular communication with specific Summit Stones employees who work with people who are homeless.
We will occasionally refer people who don’t want to work with Summit Stone for various reasons and so if somebody doesn’t want to work with Summit Stone, we might make referrals to some other mental health provider in the community but because Summit Stone is so ingrained in our homeless service system, that’s where the overwhelming majority of people are referred. It’s really just partnerships with Summit Stone. That’s our primary way of providing mental health services.
Our wheelhouse is really case management. It’s wraparound support and helping connect people to other services like mental health, like physical health. You know, all sorts of things just help helping people with whatever their life goals are, their housing goals, their career goals, there are all sorts of different things. It’s a lot of leaning on other agencies that have much more specific programs like mental health support.
Do you think people experiencing homelessness in Fort Collins have adequate access to mental health care or do you think there are areas that could be improved upon?
I do not think that people who are homeless have adequate access to mental health services. That is not a criticism of Summit Stone. It is a criticism of the scarcity of resources that exists really across our entire country when it comes to mental health services for people who are homeless. I think that that Summit Stone does an amazing job with the resources and staff that they have but as a community we could use a lot more therapists doing the work that Summit Stone does. I think overall there needs to be more sort of holistic health services provided.
I think we have we have proven as not just as an agency but as a community, as a continuum of care, that we that we are well equipped to help people escape homelessness and maintain housing but we do not have the resources to do it quickly enough. We do not have the resources to do it for everyone and that is why overall, we are constantly fighting an uphill battle and unable to you know, move the needle enough that we can actually have a chance of ending homelessness in our community.
