Lamp Leads Downtown Pathway Home’s Registry Week
Lamp is a proud leader of Downtown Pathway Home Registry Week Sept. 12-16. Housing Specialist Alexis Austin helped to run the program, organizing and helping to train 75 volunteers to survey homeless men and women in four shelters in Downtown’s Skid Row area. Through the surveys, Downtown Pathway Home — a group of service organizations and shelters in Skid Row — will identify the most vulnerable homeless individuals, with the goal of moving 450 people into permanent housing in three years.
“Everybody is involved in this event, and working together has really taught people [in the service organizations] a lot about collaborating,” Austin says. “It’s been a really great experience. Once Registry Week is over, the real work begins.”
Lamp Executive Director Donna Gallup serves on the board of the Los Angeles Central Providers Collaborative (LACPC), which created Downtown Pathway Home to work with Community Solutions as part of the national 100,000 Homes Campaign.
To prepare volunteers for the survey process, Lamp and its partners provide a full background briefing on both efforts, as well as a more in-depth look at homelessness on Skid Row. Surveys using the Vulnerability Index took place at St. Vincent’s, the Los Angeles Mission, Union Rescue Mission and the Midnight Mission.
To be considered medically vulnerable, an individual must have been living on the streets for at least six months and have at least one of the following eight conditions:
- Liver disease
- End-stage renal disease
- HIV+/AIDS
- Age over 60
- History of cold or wet weather injury
- 3+ ER visits in previous 3 months
- 3+ inpatient or ER episodes in the past year
- Tri-morbidity (substance abuse + severe mental illness + chronic disease”
An outreach team including AmeriCorps volunteers working with Community Solutions will keep the registry. Three subcommittees made up of staff from Lamp and partner agencies, and focused on outreach and engagement, will work together to determine the people who qualify, and will collaborate with service providers to prioritize access to housing for the most vulnerable.
By better allocating resources for housing and supportive services, Downtown Pathway Home will make a real difference in the Downtown Skid Row area - reducing high-cost emergency and crisis services, reducing homelessness and saving lives.
Lamp is a proud leader of Downtown Pathway Home Registry Week Sept. 12-16. Housing Specialist Alexis Austin helped to run the program, organizing and helping to train 75 volunteers to survey homeless men and women in four shelters in Downtown’s Skid Row area. Through the surveys, Downtown Pathway Home — a group of service organizations and shelters in Skid Row — will identify the most vulnerable homeless individuals, with the goal of moving 450 people into permanent housing in three years.
