Resource center in Amarillo combines forces to help homeless

As executive director of the Guyon Saunders Resource Center for about six months, Joyce Knight has seen what the entry point for Amarillo’s homeless can be. The question is, will it be around for that to happen?

“It’s been my mission to become a true resource center again,” Knight said.

The Amarillo Globe-News reports the center is named for the former chairman of Corporate Systems, who died in 2006. Saunders had a heart for the least of these that included giving of money and giving of time.

The Guyon Saunders Resource Center is a place few just drive past. It’s almost hidden on the northern edge of downtown’s Tyler Street just beyond Second Avenue. To drive there is to stop there. There’s about 160, however, who stop there daily. But they don’t drive. They walk. They’re Amarillo’s homeless.

“The public really doesn’t know what we do,” Knight said. “Someone the other day called us ‘homeless headquarters.’ But we are the entry point in town for the homeless.”

Between 500 and 600 unduplicated homeless walk through the GSRC every month. For most, the only place they know to turn is through the glass doors where there’s a full-time staff of three, three security guards and 20 volunteer staffers.

Inside they register their name. Available to them is a day room, a day resource room, a family room for those with children. There’s a large room for storage of clothes and personal items in a maximum of two containers per person – “their dressers,” Knight said. They can establish a mailing address to receive mail. They can shower and do laundry. It’s the only facility in Amarillo that has this.

“We’re the front line,” said Bryan Gillispie, program manager who oversees the day room since 2005. “We’re the trenches.”

The homeless can obtain a voucher to Thrift City if they need clothing, or can get an ID card. Referrals can be made for counseling.

Also within the walls is Amarillo Housing First and a satellite office of the Amarillo police department’s Crisis Intervention Team. Sgt. Jason Riddlespurger heads a staff of six who work with mental health crisis events in the city. That’s often the homeless, where national statistics say 30 percent of homeless have mental health issues.

But Knight and the GSRC board of directors believe they’re still only dipping a toe into the homeless waters. There’s much more that could be done – and done better – they believe, but those plans also under the shadow of an uncertain future, one Knight calls “grave,” because of reduced funding.

She wants to put an emphasis on the “Resource” part of the outreach’s name where a person off the streets can have their case managed under one roof. That means accredited agencies which work with the homeless and indigent would have satellite offices there.

That would include agencies like the city health department for HIV checks and vaccinations, the Pavilion and its mental health evaluations, Adult Protective Services and even the nearby Salvation Army and a case worker. Volunteers have refurbished much of the look of the inside area, like the family room, but Knight wants to make better use of these areas. She has donated furniture, but now wants the agencies.

“Once we get the resource center happening, we can have everyone meet on a weekly basis and get together and coordinate case management,” Knight said. “They can sit down with other social workers and case managers and say, ‘Ok, I have this person and this is what I can do for them, but they also need A, B and C. The other agencies say that I can do A, the other can do B, and so on, so it’s coordinated care.”

In a recent meeting with other outside agencies, coordinated care was discussed for one particular problem street person who because agencies are scattered, treatment was hit and miss. Knight said within 10 minutes a plan was formed to help her.

“This can happen on a regular basis if we’re in one area,” she said.

Knight and some board members visited WestTown, a homeless resource center in Oklahoma City that serves more than 6,000 unduplicated homeless in its day shelters and 900 more in its resource center a year. WestTown has 17 governmental and faith-based nonprofit agencies and 15 more in the day shelter, so 32 overall.

WestTown has a 92 percent success rate in getting the homeless into housing, and Dan Straughan, the agency’s executive director, defines success as sustained housing for one year. He attributes that high rate to coordinated agency care inside WestTown.

“I have been doing this 14 years, and I can count on one hand the number of times someone has come in and said that they are homeless because they lost their job,” Straughan said. “It’s almost never that.

“It’s people who lost their job because they drink too much, and they drink because they’re bi-polar, and they can’t get any help from mental health services, and they can’t hold a job because of absenteeism because of that, and then no one will rent to them. It’s a cycle. No single agency can address all these issues.”

Straughan said different agencies were spread throughout Oklahoma City, and “we don’t have the most robust public transportation,” so most didn’t follow up on referrals.

“So now we put case managers and staff under one roof and operate like one giant agency,” Straughan said. “Now it’s all online. Every agency has access to a person’s records and we knit all these services together. It can be really hard to navigate the system, so just having all these agencies at the front end is huge.”

While Guyon Saunders would like to reflect WestTown and its success, the center is confronted with some harsh and complicated financial realities. It is scheduled to lose its funding from United Way in the next fiscal year.

United Way owns the building at 200 N. Tyler Street, and funds the day room program. Catholic Family Services, Amarillo ISD and West Texas A&M University were among several entities that once rented space in the building. That rent was used to fund the day program but those entities have left. UW determined not to fund that as a member program after this fiscal year. UW has tried to sell the building.

The GSRC has held member status with United Way, and is in the process of becoming its own 501(c)3 so that it can apply as a program provider, but there are no guarantees. Knight said in the next fiscal year between $100,000 and $150,000 is needed in its $350,000 yearly budget.

“I’m definitely not optimistic because money is tight,” she said. “I would say it’s grave. If we don’t raise that by the end of the year, we’ll probably close.”

In the past, the GSRC has been funded through UW and grants. There’s not been a history of fundraising. Last month, it received $17,000 from the Tall Tower Open golf tournament and a fundraising luncheon is a possibility.

“We have to let people know we exist,” she said. “That’s first and foremost. But really, we have to have downtown and community support and the only way people will buy in is to know about us.”

So, why is a place that serves as an entry point for the homeless all that important? Isn’t there Faith City Mission, Salvation Army, Downtown Women’s Shelter, Another Chance House? Isn’t this a replication of services?

Well, no, it’s not. To begin with, Faith City and Salvation Army, though they have other programs, are primarily overnight short-term shelters. Salvation Army requires residents to leave at 8 a.m., and not return until 4:30 p.m.

“Joyce has presented her agency as collaborative in nature,” said Kraig Stockstill, director of social services at the Salvation Army. “We do serve similar populations. I told her the other day I view her as a day shelter and the Salvation Army as the overnight shelter. The collaboration is important.

“I’ve seen Joyce work hard to reach out to other agencies and encourage ongoing dialogue to meet the needs of the population we serve.”

Without a Guyon Saunders Resource Center, would anyone notice? Would there be any kind of impact?

There’s the human factor, the commands of Jesus in Matthew, chapter 25, to feed, clothe and welcome. Then there’s another obvious one. As we saw with Tent City earlier this year, the homeless population isn’t going to just disappear if GSRC closes.

“Those 500 have no place to go during the day,” Knight said. “They go to where people are – they’re going to businesses, to parking lots. They’ll be panhandling and on street corners more than they are. This gets them to a centralized area.”

But it is also much more than a roundup. Roger Singletary, 57, is a volunteer for 20 hours a week in the front office area at GSRC. He came to the center two years ago off the streets. He got an ID, saw a doctor, received clothes and got help with some oral hygiene.

“I’d still be stuck out there if not this place,” he said. “I’d be dirty and not know what to do. I could be dead really. It’s hard to survive out there.”

Information from: Amarillo Globe-News, http://www.amarillo.com

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