Jan. 8—ASHTABULA — A roundtable to discuss homelessness in the city brought out a variety of information for city council to review Monday evening in council chambers.
The opportunity to review ideas was organized by councilperson Jane DiGiacomo to provide people with opportunities to learn how other communities have dealt with homelessness across the country.
She provided council members with an article describing different aspects of working on the problem, and several police officers also attended the meeting to give their perspective.
Ashtabula City Manager Jim Timonere tried to define the scope of the problem in the city.
He said rumors there are 500 people in the gulf are untrue.
Timonere said there are 40-50 people in the city who are homeless and the focus of activities to assist people must deal with mental health issues and addiction.
He said people only hear of the folks who may be acting inappropriately, but there are many people who are taking advantage of services offered by social service agencies to keep them from being evicted or finding ways to sobriety.
Timonere said the mental health component is the biggest challenge for the 40-50 people he discussed. He said he hopes a day center might be a way to increase trust with those who do not necessarily want to find help immediately.
“They are in a constant struggle to survive and don’t see that they could have a place and not have to worry [about the day to day challenges of finding a meal and a place to sleep],” Timonere said.
He said only eight of 108 people who spent time at the Samaritan House returned to their former lifestyle.
Timonere hopes to eventually have the day center that would also have professionals from a variety of social service fields to assist people one by one as trust is developed.
Ashtabula City Councilperson Rolesia Holman urged council to listen to potential new ideas that may come from other communities.
“As an educator, I think it is important to see what other cities are doing,” she said.
Holman said she would also like to hear from other people’s perspectives on the situation.
DiGiacomo said, “I feel collaboration is the name of the game.”
She suggested forming an adhoc committee to review the problem, but Timonere asked her, and others, to attend existing meetings between social service agencies dealing with the problem on a day-to-day basis.
“I almost wish the word homeless was taken out of our vocabulary because what we are dealing with is untreated mental illness and untreated addiction,” she said.
The two Ashtabula police officers indicated many of the people they deal with do not wish to find help and jail cell availability hurts the chances of having some of the people held accountable for crimes, including throwing bricks through windows, assaulting others and similar activity.
Jail space is an issue and finding ways to forcibly put people in programs to help them against there will is a challenge.
Ashtabula City Prosecutor Cecilia Cooper said there is a way to find a person incompetent to live on their own, but it is ‘an onerous process.’
She said the legal process in Ohio means two hearings are likely needed with witnesses and it is not easy to complete.
“Getting the guardianship of a person … is a harder thing,” Cooper said.
Council members also discussed the challenges in finding people who may have mental illness issues, but also have a chemical dependency problem as well.
The idea of changing state law to streamline the process to help get people into treatment they need was also discussed.