DANBURY, Conn. (AP) - John Zanesky remembers growing up in Newtown and serving as a volunteer firefighter with Newtown Hook & Ladder, but all that was a lifetime ago.
Today Zanesky is homeless, waiting for Catholic Charities of Fairfield County to find a landlord who will accept his housing voucher so he can finally get a place of his own.
Zanesky, 49, is one of 140 people identified as homeless in Danbury during the national Point In Time count for 2015. He is also one of 25 men and women found to be chronically homeless and therefore qualified for immediate help through the Greater Danbury Housing First Program.
Every two weeks, the program’s placement committee reviews the list to determine which people are chronically homeless, defined as those living in shelters or on the streets for a year or more or having four episodes of homelessness in three years. Those who score highest on the assessment are given the next available housing voucher, which in this market pays up the $1,200 a month in rent and utilities.
Zanesky was grateful to be issued a voucher last week.
“I’ve been homeless for three years,” he said. “I had an apartment but lost it. I’ve been beaten up, slept behind dumpsters. I’m staying in the city shelter now.”
But having a voucher isn’t enough; you also need a landlord willing to take it. So far, Housing First hasn’t found any willing to do so.
Michele Conderino, director of Homeless Services for Catholic Charities, admitted to some frustration.
“I’ve issued 17 vouchers to the most at-risk and vulnerable individuals in our community,” she said Friday. “The difficulty is in finding housing units for these folks, landlords willing to engage with us.”
Conderino said landlords should realize that accepting a voucher means more than getting steady rent payments for an otherwise empty apartment; it also means getting a tenant with a support group to make his or her recovery work.
“The vouchers are linked to receiving support and case-manager care,” Conderino said.
This care comes from New Reach, a Fairfield County agency serving the chronically homeless with mental-health and substance-abuse disorders.
New Reach kicks in when a housing voucher is issued, providing help in finding housing, completing applications for Social Security Insurance and Social Security Disability Insurance, finding employment and helping with recovery.
“We step in at the critical time when people are transitioning from homelessness to having an apartment,” said Randy Grant, New Reach program manager.
“It is a very stressful and difficult time,” Grant said. “People can easily fall back into homelessness.”
Without the voucher and other services, a homeless person finds himself going from shelter to shelter so often it becomes the normal, preventing them from getting a job or the social services he or she needs.
New Reach is funded by two state grants through the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, Grant said, awarded based on its track record of success in other communities.
Travis Donnelly, 28, has been homeless off and on for 15 years. He has also received a housing voucher through the Housing First Program.
“This means everything to me,” he said, “A new start. I’m staying in the woods now.
Getting into an apartment and getting the help I need will mean not having to feel so much like I don’t belong. I can complete my schooling, become self-sufficient.”
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Information from: The News-Times, https://www.newstimes.com
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