***Correction: In this article, The Daily inaccurately reported that there has been a 40 percent drop in homelessness nationwide in the past three years. In reality, homelessness has only dropped up to 20 percent. The Daily also inaccurately reported that supportive housing, which would place people with addictions inside shelters, would help fix the vicious homeless cycle. Supportive housing would actually place people with addictions inside housing, not shelters.***

Enlarge
#gallery http://daily.stanford.edu/image/full/8109
Gus Jewell

Kevin Fagan and Brant Ward of the SF Chronicle addressed the issue of homelessness last night before an audience of Stanford community service groups. The pair shared insights gained from close interaction with the homeless and suggestions for mitigating the problem in the future.

San Francisco Chronicle reporter Kevin Fagan and photographer Brant Ward spoke to Stanford students last night about chronic homelessness, giving their opinions on effective responses to the issue. The pair shared personal stories and images with an audience including members of Stanford Project on Hunger (SPOON), Stanford in Government (SIG) and Night Outreach, among others.

Fagan and Ward’s five-part homelessness series “Shame of the City” ran in the San Francisco Chronicle from 2003 to 2006, when Fagan took a year off from the Chronicle to be a Knight Fellow at Stanford. When the project started, there had not been regular coverage of the homeless population anywhere in the country for more than 20 years.

“Our bosses at the Chronicle said take as long as you need on this issue,” Fagan said. “We did not anticipate the [beat] lasting three years.”

The duo documented the lives of homeless people in the Tenderloin district and other parts of San Francisco, including families living in vans, crack addicts who went in and out of rehab, prostitutes and mentally disabled people. Through their work they formed close attachments with their subjects.

“To get pictures of people shooting heroin into their necks — it takes weeks to develop these kinds of friendships,” Ward said. “When you go to that effort to get to know someone, you get to care about them.”

“It’s OK to be a human while you’re reporting,” Fagan added.

About one third of their closest interview subjects, Fagan and Ward learned, died after they were interviewed.

Through their personal encounters, the pair quickly came to see that homelessness was not an issue that could be solved overnight.

“It became clear to us that homelessness is not just a problem because you don’t have a place to live,” Fagan said. “It happens because you don’t have a way to deal with your ailment, be it alcoholism, addiction, mental illness, so you don’t have a way to stay in the place you’re living.”

The way to fix the vicious cycle, Fagan and Ward said, is through supportive housing, which would involve placing people with addictions inside shelters and bringing counseling services on site to deal with ailments the homeless suffer from. By maintaining regular daily care of people suffering from ailments that lead to homelessness, they argued, social workers have a much better chance of making a lasting impact than police or rehab centers.

Fagan described San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s new program called “Care Not Cash,” which aims to implement supportive housing policies in San Francisco, a city notorious for its large and visible homeless population. Other cities, including London, New York, Philadelphia and Denver, are exploring similar methods of supportive housing to address the needs of their homeless populations.

In the last three years, there has been a 40 percent drop in homelessness nationwide, Fagan said. The publicity associated with the “Shame of the City” series brought much-needed attention to the issue.

“The stories that we did provided people with statistics and examples that helped point people towards solutions,” he said. “It had an impact from the highest to lowest levels of government and continues to have an effect.”

At the conclusion of the slideshow and talk, students showed interest in discussing the issue further. Several returned back to dorms for discussions led by their Service Outreach Coordinators. Event coordinator Tommy Tobin ‘10, a member of SPOON and SIG, noted that the entire discussion will be aired on Stanford iTunes within 10 days.

To read Fagan’s complete series, visit http://www.sfgate.com/homeless/.