David Riley

@rilzd

A man who sleeps among the trees overlooking the highway says this won't be his first winter homeless. He hopes it won't be his last.

For years, he spent winter nights in the Civic Center parking garage, but people like him were locked out of the facility in August. Now he and several friends sleep in an encampment of dirty mattresses and couch cushions on a hill alongside Interstate 490, just outside downtown. An American flag marks the spot.

The man, who gives his name as Henry Smith, says there's no room at some city shelters. Others won't take guys like us, he says, nodding to the 24-ounce cans of beer that he and two friends are nursing as they sit in lawn chairs. It's before noon.

"We're alcoholics," explains Henry's buddy, Tim. "We need help."

What will they all do when the snow flies, when temperatures drop below freezing?

"Get 15 or 20 quilts and hope we wake up in the morning," Henry says.

***

No one argues that the parking garage was the best place for people like Smith to stay.

But the lockout prompted renewed questions about what can or should be done for an estimated 30 to 40 people who took refuge there. Some have lived this way for years, and by many accounts, outreach workers have had difficulty coaxing them off the streets.

The episode also plays into a broader, years-long discussion among public officials and service agencies about how the community can most effectively help the several hundred people in Monroe County who at any given time have no consistent place to call home. They range from families coping with recent personal and financial crises to men and women who have grappled with mental illnesses, addictions and disabilities much of their lives.

Nearly everyone agrees that putting homeless people on a path to permanent housing as quickly as possible is the best way to avoid a costly cycle of run-ins with emergency shelters and programs.

But the details and the first step — finding a safe place to stay the night — aren't always as simple as they might sound.

***

Space in Monroe County shelters ebbs and flows, but it is clear there are nights when most available beds are full.

Monroe County contracts with 17 shelters to provide emergency housing and typically pays them between $30 and $45 a night for each person referred through the Department of Human Services. Shelters also offer beds for which they receive no county reimbursement, partly to serve people barred from public assistance. That's typically because they failed to comply with substance abuse treatment or other program requirements in the past.

There also are places like House of Mercy, a Hudson Avenue shelter that does not contract with the county.

When shelters are full, the county usually sends people who need emergency housing instead to hotels — most often, the Hotel Cadillac on Chestnut Street downtown. This is a more expensive option.

Altogether, the county spends about $5 million a year on emergency housing — roughly 90 percent for shelter payments, according to Kelly Reed, county commissioner of human services. The remaining 10 percent goes to hotels and eight leased houses where larger families are sometimes placed, she said.

"We only use hotels when there is not sufficient capacity in the shelters — often overnight or on weekends," Reed wrote in an email. "We move clients out of hotels as soon as possible."

The size of the shelter network is, in Reed's words, "a moving target." There were just over 500 local emergency shelter beds as of a report compiled for Rochester and Monroe County in 2012. A more recent report by the county pegged the number at 416.

It also is difficult to say exactly how many homeless people there are in Monroe County. An attempt to count on a single night earlier this year found 580 individuals — 515 in emergency shelters, 51 on the streets and 14 in housing for domestic violence victims, according to Reed.

Earlier counts over the past five years were higher — anywhere from about 700 to 1,000 people, according to figures compiled by ACT Rochester.

Overall, the system works pretty well, but it isn't perfect, says Mike Rood, social services director for the Salvation Army of Rochester, which runs four local shelters.

"Is there more work to do? For sure," he says. "And I am concerned about this winter."

***

Sister Grace Miller of the House of Mercy sees the use of hotels as one sign among many that the county is doing too little for the homeless. She has pressed county officials to fund a new shelter downtown with minimal restrictions on who can stay there.

Too many rules deter long-term homeless people from coming in and, ultimately, seeking help, says Miller, who was arrested Sept. 15 along with two other advocates while protesting inside the County Office Building.

"There's no drinking, no drugging in the House of Mercy," says Miller, explaining how her shelter operates. "We can't control what they do outside or down the street."

County officials say they have no plans to compete with existing shelters and balked at Miller's proposal, saying they are barred from funding any program that encourages drug and alcohol abuse. Miller says plenty of that goes on at Hotel Cadillac, and some people don't want to stay there.

"The money is there," Miller says of the county. "It's how it is being spent."

Reed says the hotel offers easy bus access for people to get to required jobs and rehabilitation programs, and that the Cadillac is more willing to accept human services clients than many other hotels.

A 2012 report to the county and city recommended a number of steps to reduce reliance on hotels, including the addition of 30 to 40 more permanent shelter beds — preferably within existing facilities — and expanding programs to get people into stable housing quickly.

There are shelter operators who, like the county, see a need for boundaries. Michael Hennessy, executive director of Open Door Mission on West Main Street, says while he would welcome another shelter, it should come with basic safety and health rules — not offer one more place for the homeless to "kill themselves slowly."

Hennessy says his facility has been willing to relax rules for those willing to take a step in the right direction.

"They're making decisions all along the way," Hennessy says.

Waiting for dinner recently at Open Door Mission, Phil Childs says he landed there after losing his job eight or nine months ago, and that he may soon move to New York City to stay with his brother.

In the meantime, the shelter has treated him well, he says.

"It's a lot of peace in here," Childs says.

***

Some shelter operators say they worked with the county to step up outreach at the garage before its closure. The county-connected local development corporation that owns the facility and Mapco, the company that runs it, began talking about their plans at least a year and a half earlier, citing complaints from customers and declining sanitary conditions.

Rood says sweeps by outreach workers brought some people from the garage into Salvation Army shelters. John Paul Perez, director of housing services for Catholic Family Center, says shelters also have tried to be more flexible with rules and curfews over the past year and to focus on "harm reduction" — rather than asking a drunk person to leave, for example, letting him sleep it off and connecting him with a case manager in the morning.

Shelters also are trying to better coordinate available beds.

But all involved acknowledge some of the people who stayed at the garage remain on the streets.

"Now they're scattered all over," Miller says. "They're going where they can find some kind of shelter — the trees, under the bridges."

One challenge in fighting homelessness county-wide is how different each case can be, requiring a different approach. No two homeless people tell exactly the same story, but if there's a common thread, it's overwhelming challenges while living in poverty, according to Perez.

"This thought that we're self-sufficient is a little bit of a myth," he says. "The majority of us are sort of lenient on each other and certain systems in society that support our lifestyle.

"Folks with poverty don't have those supports."

Tim, who sleeps above the highway along with Henry, says he once had a job as a cook at a city restaurant, but he lost it because of his drinking.

Tearing up, he calls the other guys at the camp his family now. "We look out for one another," he says.

But his plans for winter aren't clear.

"When the snow comes down, we've got to relocate quick," he says.

DRILEY@DemocratandChronicle.com

Twitter.com/rilzd

To get help

Monroe County spokesman Justin Feasel said people seeking emergency housing can go to the Department of Human Services at 691 St. Paul St. between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. on weekdays or call (585) 442-1742 after hours and on weekends.