white breast meat chicken every time. so if you're not going to make your own chicken soup tonight, do what we do...make it progresso. . good morning, welcome to "view ks point, i'm aaron xd gilchrist. there's a number of non-profi÷ of ending this problem. our guests are jan sacharko at new hope housing based in fairfax county and reneeq pope s the assistant director of community services in prince georgesrcounty department of social services and jay melder,á the chief of staff for d.c.'s department of human services.t( welcome to you all. and what i'm hopingw3 is that we'll have a conversation that reallyc serves to educate a lot

points to tackle here. the firstfá i'll ask you is jus to talk about what you are seeing, whatfá homeless looks l( in your municipalities. >> prince georges county, we inlp families about 70% are feme headed families and the other 30% are male. when you getçó down to individus seeking assistance that have no are just an individual, that numberi] balances out and princ georges to about 50/50. in 2012t(fá we began to work to framewo2 of a service system for homeless and unaccompanied youth, began counting youngt( peoplebl specifically between 1 and 24 and that number has averaged around 150 overt( the last several counts. who are experiencing -- xd

sheltering assistance. >> thexd larg%&? area you coves fairfax county, what is the homelessly problem look like there? >> if you look at the numbers over the time count, we're seeing a downward trend from a high in 2008 over 1800 people now last year about 1200 7gcuut the count is lower this year. that's true for a lot of northern virginia, the count on over the course of the year we think we're seeingçó morexd peo experiencing homelessness for short times. we're doing well but there's still a lot of peoplexd right o the line so trying to figure oui and options for housing to keep the numberq going down. xd jay, in d.c. we have a lae urban cityt(çó and the homeless issue has been getting a lot of press. talk about what the district is dealing with inxdçó terms of hog the problem is. >> think first thing for

aboutt( homelessness in the district is to realize the district is one of a few jurisdictions and thatq means w have a law we're obligated to shelter families and individuals outside as it is now. on any given night in washington, d.c., 7,000 people arexd experiencing homelessness. you know, more than -- about 1400 individuals you know, over 1,000 families and so you know, whatfá we see is just a huge ne to investñr in solutions that wk and solutions and housing solutions that really haven't been available toxd the distric in the last couple of decades, but nowrwith mayor xdñibowser çóc% to startçóñi going&háhp &h

turn the otherñr way in the district and start to decline. >> iq think what people don't always realize when we talk about this topic, there arew3ñi many differentrreasons how people end up in a homeless situation, you know, we talked aboutxd housingfá and talk abou housing is sort of the big thing, i don't have a place to live. there are other issues that lead to that situation. >>ñi what are some of the other things people have toxd deal wi that will then lead to homelessness? >> there are social issues that create -- that have an impact cñ homelessness. we talked about that before the show about for example the recession, right? folks being --3w having difficy maintaining employment or lost their t(employment, the hi rates of foreclosures andçó that. there are economic reasons why people become homelessxd

soleles homeless, whether it be a divorce or abusemyçó circumstar death. sometimes that shakes up the family scenario. medically fragile childxd or someone who didn't have health insurance ands7 episodic thing occurred and they are out of come back and ask you to talk about what some of the things are you're doing to help. we talked about the housing point but there are folks -- families dealing withçó those+v individuals and individuals with substance issues. we'll talk about the efforts out there to deal lywh the big we'll be right back on "viewpoint" in just a moment.

[000:06:41;00] [000:06:42;00] choose, choose, choose. but at bedtime? ...why settle for this? enter sleep number, and the ultimate sleep number event, going on now. sleepiq technology tells you how well you slept and what adjustments you can make.

you like the bed soft. he's more hardcore. only at a sleep number store, all beds on sale right now save 50% on the ultimate limited edition bed, know better sleep with sleep number. [000:07:11;00] (singing) i just can't wait to meet you, sweet child you're on the way, i'm filled with

expectation, and you're growing everyday... (instrumental) welcome back,çó ast(jf we ce our conversation about addressing the issue of homelessness in the,rjfarea. we talked earlier about solutions. i asked you, how do we solve this problem of homelessness and part of the answer was there's no one big sor5u)jy right?lp >> what we're trying to do is find a housing solution that will work for each person or family where they areçó in that situation. and it might be some simplew3 assistance for short term or joó assistance where they havew3 stable income. for other people who self-sufficiency might not be a possibility because of

development disability, how do we find supportive housing for them. we think at some level housing is going to be part of the solution but what is the exactt a big part of it is really theñ number one reason, the inability toi] afford rent.c the reason why somebody is going to become homeless. >> thatñi means it's not always that soa'ne doesn't have a job or doesn't want to work, a roof over yourfá head? >> absolutely. i would say homelessness isxd l% people %),f experiences whether it's açó sickness, job lossok o some type of event in their life that will separate them from stability. peoplec with means don't up in the street or in çóshelter. it's 100% an economic issue. i know that the entire region

adopts a hou&ñ firstq fill philosophy which is an evidence based practice that just means that housingçó in and of itselfs achieve their fullúsbsp'r so that no matter what someone is going through, homelessnessñ isn't their master status. it's jmko x"tjrat work, housing solution that work and connect those people to housing and they rbvt a foundation from whichok to be going through. they are going to see much greater outcomes thanq if you waited forxd that housing assistance to come along. maybe they reached aid behavioral threshold or got a job to pay rent or something. >> i'll bring it up, d.c. is looking at now closing d.c. general where so many families have been house for a number of maller shelters across the ci>5

outcomes you're looking to achieve there? and really against our values that we would have aq place like d.c too old, conducive to supporting families to exit shelter.fár when we hear from community members all the time, this is a biggish why, we have to close and replace d.c. general. we know best practices around the country sayko that smaller dignifiedq attractive places ar going to best support people back into housingt( in the+ community, backxd to a path to greater success. so what we've donex"is put togethv9z 8 ward strategy, homelessness doesn't originate in one neighborhood in the district or one place in the originates all over the and goingqñuz take all of us working together, every ward has jurisdiction has a part to play. what bowser really wase1i] comm to was an all eight-ward

strategy whi](÷ we did, found eight sites in each ward around house no morei)#9 50 familu( each. they are going to be lpbeautifu attractive and community. they are going to be wraparound families who are there for the time. so we can help them getok back into permanent housing in the community. >> you talk about the community. obviously you're building these in thexde1cc community. what's been the response? has there beenzv a backlash fr folks who will live in the neighborhoods where the new shelters wirc be? >íññ#irst off, we have a lot of support. i think more than 12,000xd peop signed a pledge to end homelessness which calls out closing and replacing d.c. generalxd specifically. when we announce the sites we went immediately into communities and that was last week. we went into every ward of the city at the same time in community?; meetings and going back again for monthsfá and for the years that itfá will take t :m,aaa1jut a lot of questions, they have a lot of concerns. and it really up to us to answer

those questions and some folks aretpu(áárjá t about it. on both sides. b]tv we're going to enter into really healthy discussion about information that peopl%ñf need d show theme1 that these places tt to be in stark contrast to anything we've see.p in the really best in class kind of facilities thatxd the community can be proud of and most importantly that are going to be places tictxd are effective for the services that families need. >>x+oç renee, jay used the term wraparound services, we talk about finding housing for people #vá rj a foundational thing. but then there are all of these other things that folks may need help with, that's something that has been front of mind in the work you do? itfá crosses over the work we a do. homelessness is sort of a subseá ñfá do homelessness so it's your job.

it involves our health care systemg:d making sure we're getting our handsñi on folks th are frequent users and try to get them connectede1 to a medic home that ma allows them to work. it's about how our employers structure their businesses and howfá our rental system respond to foz9ñ it's about looking very hard down the stream and saying where's our next group of folks going to be coming t(from, this wholey1 silverlp tsunami, baby fixedi] incomes ande1 how do wer across the continueup to figure what we need wr)(cround folks. different folks need different things. you have social welfarejf and public welfare dollars and health care dollars and housing dollars and homeless dollars and veteran dollars. veterans have put large moneys -- amounts of moneyok th )jju and thexd feds andlp state intoñi wrappin services around specifically that population and putting in

place what they need to move out of homelessness. >> it all has to work together to work at all ñireally. >> we'll continue this it's always worth

remembering... that icing the cinnamon rolls is a privilege not a right. give it a pop. here in vineland, home of progresso, we love all kinds of chicken soups... but just one kind of chicken. white breast meat chicken every time. so if you're not going to make your own chicken soup tonight, do what we do...make it progresso. welcome back. as we+ju)áut our convers1(=9 about addressing the homelessness issue thatt( reall is present across the >pááv particularly we're talking about it in our area. jay, while we were in thexd bre, you were mentioning some of the efforts to help veteranse.c deg

with homelessness have really been sort of really working and we've seen nationwide on endingt( i think nationwide veteran homelessness dropped 36% jurisdictions have been solutions that work to scale that's going to meet the need. if we can bring that same type of practice to other populations, tofá families and individuals to chronicfá ñi homelessness, we'll see those in thelp district, this first yr in the mayor's budget we really invested heavily inñr those solutions. i think 36 millionçó in permane support and 26 million in rapid rehousing, 100 million inok eve year that she's in office. if wet( can invest inçó those solutions at work, just like we've seen in veteran

maryland and d.c., we're having a lot of success too. if we apply those same practices, we'refá goingçó to s the same results. >> , who don't want help? someone says i don'ñt want to g to a shelt arexd or don't need your help, how do >e,ñ helpt( t ÷n live a different lifestyle? >> for people who refuse help, it comes down to trust. if somebody is literally t( homeless, someone broke their trust it must have been a family or something, you have to build the çótrust. we have outreach workers and i cannot say enough good things outreach. day in and day out and pack supplies and sit down and talk.( shelter, i thinkñi if you come into shelter, we have a housing option for you and get your own place or i cant( connectñi you something else. it's never about coming into shelter per se but what's going took happen after. i'll share a quick story if i can.

we juste1 housed a veteran on january 20, the day before the blizzard hit, refused help fo2ñ years. got out of jail, been in for ten years, he was a engage d in services. outreachñioks7 workers we have helping, one day he saidñi i'm getting too old for this and getting an i.d., born in the virganz islands. that out he was a veteran, we can get you veterans benefits and it of help until trust was built. he was with us for seven and a half?; years until he said i'm ready. 9-3w about the issue, the problem and think @r(t&háhp &hc% more funding, but really it much is a personal level, these are pk"tñi dealing with people and we need to sort of start thinking3wlpxd of it that way.

>> a lot of the reasons they worked. >> absolutely. >> there hasn't been anything to trust in. when you do invest ine1u soluti shelter neighborslp or somebody that they've known forxd/1÷ lon time get into housing, all of a thought was possible for themselves is now possible. when you/"11e start to exchange the system and really start to show folks that there is an option forñi you and we'v we're here for you, it really changes the game. >> that's great.

we'll pause here for just a moment. there are folks who are thinking how can i help? we'll come back and tell you how you can help. welcome back to "viewpoint." we have a group oflp experts to

help us understand the homelessness issue. a lot of folks want to help. we are aware of how bad the our area and people are looking for little ways andbi what do you say to someone who calls you up andçó says i want ó help? individual as the>0#rson making the call, right? i think we've talked about housing being a okxdw3ñipreemin are you a landlord? private homeowner who wants to rent your home? are you willing to come on this journey with us and help us help folks make that connection between housing opportunity and theiri] ability to pay at whater that levelxd is, right? and are you a individual that has a skilled trade? are you a dentist? are you a doctor or lawyer or are you someone whoxd would be willing to take someone in who can't pay youxd and do somethin pro bono. what can you add to the pot that is something you have to bring to the table? are you someone who would just

so interested in theokñi idea o street outreache1 +' talklp to folks, i want to connect with people at a different level? can you volunteer to be partokñ a street é more we remobilize the more capable we are oft( helping people. are you someone who doesn't want to get that close to the issue but do you want to write a check for things likee1 replacing somebody's i.d. orlp getting thr birth certificate replaced because when they went onñr strt they were evicted and lost their papers. it takes money to put those things in zvplace, you can'tñi those qthings.q how can we helplp you come backo a place of having your vital records together so you can handle your business? 4p>> there's a lot ways people can help. it's not always writing a check. it's how you connect to that person, i think.

>> what do you say to people88(o say someone asked me for moneyç >> it's not fáunhelpful. it's not going to change someone's long term economic status, change their economic comfortable with doing and want to do, by all means do it. if i have spare change, anöy cfo someone asks me, i often do. i don'tw3 look at it -- it's no the solution tow3 xdhomelessnes maybe the solution to hunger at the moment but xdyeah. >> jan, i'll ask you too about the part of thisçó changing people's minds and language really matters when we're about it. everybody here -- i've been listening and happy with the language we share. using the phrase the label, the homeless, oçólpdehumanizes peopd people have different circumstances and creates a class of people that does not ex0. fz use people first language. people experience homelessness. by describing it as an i] experience, that means that's

something that can end. we can actually end thisg for ae1 community. >> i think that is a great

thoughtxd for us to end conversation. >> thanks for having us. us for "viewpoint." kathleen matthews: too many nights, i lead the 11 o'clock news with stories of gun violence. and like many of you, my family lived through the beltway sniper crisis. in congress, i'll fight to expand background checks on guns and ammunition, ban assault weapons, and mandate gun safety locks,

because too many kids die from accidental shootings. let's show the nra as democrats, as americans,

as parents. i'm kathleen matthews and i approve this message. right now, mayhem in michigan. several dead, others wounded in what police are calling random shootings in kalamazoo. what we're finding out about the suspected gun man. big wins for donald trump and hillary clinton in the race for the white house. the next challenges as the field of gcandidates even smaller. >> i people have spoken and i respect their decision so