Sheriff on "Sheltering Assistance" Applications

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Sheltering Assistance program to address homeless encampments. If you are
a housing first person, you're welcome to open your house
to someone in need. And as Adam said on email,
Sheriff Hansen's great has approached to the homeless is a
giant checkmate or rather put your money where your mouth
is and the sheriff joins us for a few minutes

(00:22):
this morning. Is that? Is that what you're up to here, Sheriff.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
We're trying to Hey, look, it's the tent encampment problem
is an uncomfortable topic and sometimes you got to have
uncomfortable conversations to find solutions done comfortable topics. So you know,
here's the bottom line here. You know, one thing about
the position of sheriff, regardless regardless of who is in
it is sheriff answers directly to people. There are no

(00:47):
politicians between the sheriff and the public that they serve,
much to the chagrin of some politicians. I would say, yes,
but you know, this is a constant complaint that we
receive from our bosses, from the citizens of Douglas County.
They're concerned about the growth of these Tenton camments. It's
been a ten percent growth in this population over the

(01:10):
last ten years in the Oma metro area. It's a
real problem. People see it every day, and I think
what people are really starting to realize is that, you know,
when we conflate homelessness with the folks living in these
Tenton camments, it's not fair, it's not right. These folks,
vast majority of which are struggling with unaddressed behavioral health
and addiction. And so when we go down and try

(01:32):
to move these folks out of these encampments, we constantly
get pushback from the housing first folks. You can't do
that until they have a house. You can't do that
until you give them permanent housing. Well, these folks have
such underlying challenges. Mayf you just hand them a key
to a house or an apartment, it's going to go
very badly. They're going to be right back there in

(01:53):
a few months. So we want to give those folks
an opportunity to help and if they would like to
to open up their home as a as a safe,
temporary or permanent housing option, we want to be able
to be able to vet them and potentially connect them
with some of these folks living in these tent encamments,

(02:15):
But as you mentioned, we've got to make them fill
out a form. Are you willing to take in a
sex center? Are you willing to take in someone with pets,
with a family, someone who's a selling and then this
is really what we're struggling with in these Tenton camments.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
Well yeah, that's the problem, isn't it. I mean, what
liability would the county have if somebody takes an individual
and on that individual commits a sexual assault in our
home or worse.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
Well, it's a completely voluntary program, and this would be
no different than you going down there and meeting someone
in the street and offering to come into your house.
We're not compelling anyone to do it. We're just simply saying, look,
if you if you're interested in opening up your home,
that we're going to be able to connect you with
the social services folks that can try to connect you

(03:04):
with folks in need. But here's the deal. I wouldn't
do it. I wouldn't advise my mom to do it
or my family members to do it because it's not safe.
Because these folks have serious challenges. And that's the point.
Why is it not a good idea to bring them
into someone's home, especially if they're a housing first advocate.
But it is okay to let them live in the

(03:26):
alleyway behind some hard work and single mom her house.
She's got three kids and she's pulling down three jobs.
Why is it okay to have them live along a
business in Douglas County and disrupt their customer base and
disrupt their employees. It just doesn't make sense. And so
we got to find We got to find real solutions,

(03:48):
and sometimes you have to bring tough issues to a
head to do that.

Speaker 1 (03:51):
What is the option for law enforcement if it has
determined that one of more of these individuals is quote
dangerously mentally ill as opposed to just having issues and
being harmless mean threat to the public.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
You know, that's that's a tough one. That's a moving target. Right. So,
not only do we not have enough behavioral health infrastructure
in Nebraska and in this area for a multitude of reasons.
You know, they shut down a lot of the acute
inpatient behavioral healthcare facilities decades ago, and that's why you
ended up seeing these folks on the streets and in

(04:30):
prisons and in jails. But you know, we have shelters
and and you know, are they the are they the
perfect option? No, but they're they're safe. There's that's where
services come from. Most pathways to success and living in
dignity start at the front door of a shelter. But
you know, a lot of people think it's undignified to

(04:51):
have to make people go through a shelter. But oftentimes
these shelters are the best option for them. And that's
why I'm a big believer. Support your local as, with
your time, with your treasure, with your support, because that's
the subject matter experts that really have the ability to
solve this problem.

Speaker 3 (05:09):
Well, they also are the first step toward breaking addictions.
You know, if you're going to shelter, many of these
folks have, you know, alcohol and drug addiction issues. Well,
if you're in a shelter, you have to stop doing that,
and a lot of them don't want to. But that's
the other plus of a shelter. They're actually intervening with
their medical issues, which nobody else seems.

Speaker 1 (05:30):
To want to do.

Speaker 2 (05:32):
That's exactly right. Sanapprancis House has an amazing in house
infatient sobriety program. It's voluntary, it's called Miracles, and they
always have open bedspace. And see that's part of the
problem too, is we took away a lot of the tools,
or we don't have a lot of the tools to
do involuntary support on these folks that need to help,

(05:54):
either through the bord of mental health or through other
government systems. And so of course these folks are not
going to voluntarily go to get the help they need
if they're gripped in uh in the throngs of addiction
and acute mental health.

Speaker 1 (06:10):
And I do me in favor of Sheriff, let us
know if you have any takers in this program, and
you might.

Speaker 2 (06:16):
You never know, Yeah, we might, and if we do,
we'll carefully vet them and make sure we connect them
with the right social services folks, because you know, we
want to make sure we don't have some kind hearted
elderly person open up their home to a dangerous fellon.
We would never do that. But the point, it's an
important point that needs to be discussed.

Speaker 1 (06:33):
None the less, Indeed, appreciate your time.

Speaker 3 (06:35):
You'll get some takers for this. This is a generous town,
This is uptown where people want to help, and I
just hope they don't get burned.

Speaker 1 (06:42):
Well, but you could have done that before, so I
don't know. It's it's you got it. It's dangerous. You
got to say, I would love to, but I don't
know that you know anyway. Aaron Hanson here on Aby's
Morning News