Preventing Homelessness is Part of One-Stop Effort

By most measures, Adell Erozer’s efforts to help Manatee County’s homeless population are a resounding success. The “one-stop-center” approach to food, clothing, education, training, health care and other needs served 6,622 people in 2010. And that number doesn’t include children.

But the facility on 17^th Avenue West near McKechnie Field faces two problems, says Erozer. Neither has an easy solution. The first is parking.

The center is helped by many volunteers, some of whom arrive by car. The medical and dental personnel also come by car. And soon the parking lot is full. Erozer is using some of the organization’s tight funding to rent 14 spaces from an adjacent property owner.

She’d like to buy adjacent property to solve the parking problem, but that’s proving difficult.

“We’re studying our options,” she told Patch. “At some point it doesn’t matter how many clients we have if we still have parking issues.”

City codes are inflexible, and parking could be a “limit to growth” of the facility.

The second issue Erozer faces is more nebulous. The organization is heavily dependent on grants and donations. But when a donor writes “One Stop Center” on a check, the bankers groan.

“We lost our identity when we moved here” in 2009, said Erozer. “The ‘One-Stop-Center’ doesn’t work. We need a better brand.”

The board of the Community Coalition on Homelessness – the name that should be on the check – has grappled with this marketing question for at least a year, with no resolution in sight. And the confusion is mirrored by the work the center actually does.

To prevent homelessness the center offers help to people facing foreclosure and eviction. A major component of Erozer’s annual budget is helping people pay the monthly rent.

“People come here to eat because it saves the money they need to pay the rent,” she said. But capturing the concept of preventing homelessness is proving illusive. “Our board has struggled with this for more than a year,” said Erozer.

“Not everybody we work with is homeless. We’re here to prevent homelessness,” said Erozer. “We want to help the people at risk of homelessness too.”