Wellness

Shelters are one of the most contentious topics in the homeless services sector, but a new crop of models seeks to change that paradigm. Homeless shelters have long been criticized as a means of warehousing people who are homeless rather than providing them with a pathway to stable housing. Some unhoused folks have said they experienced violence, sexual abuse and other traumatizing experiences while in shelters. Some advocates have also chided the traditional shelter model for creating high-barrier, treatment-first programs that exclude more unhoused folks than they help. “Everybody who became unhoused experienced some kind of trauma, and then by the time they get to the shelter, they’ve experienced multiple additional traumas and mental illness challenges – all those kinds of things that happen when someone is homeless,” says Lena Miller.