Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning (MEAL)
Monitoring and evaluation (M&E) is a critical part of humanitarian aid and development work. This 20-minute course is a great introduction for those new to M&E or anyone wanting to improve their organization's M&E practices. Learn fundamentals including using the logic model, different types of evaluations, and an overview of common M&E terminology.
This is the first course in a series of short online courses from the Monitoring and Evaluation Technical Assistance (META) Project. These courses can be taken at your own pace and are available in English and Arabic. Explore the entire series here.
ABOUT DISASTERREADY
In 2013, the Cornerstone OnDemand Foundation started DisasterReady with a simple mission: To better prepare humanitarian and development workers for the critical work they do by providing high-quality, relevant online learning resources at no cost. DisasterReady is provided in English, Arabic, French and Spanish.
Jails are at the local level in town, cities, and counties. Must be monitored for corruption, human trafficking, slave\inmate labor for commercial purposes, and other abuses.
Consider abuses and inmate labor following the U.S. Civil War, Reconstruction, and Jim Crow laws.
A dorm room in the West Wing of the King County Jail, which is being converted into a homeless shelter.King County, Washington
King County, Washington’s plan stoked concerns about the link between homelessness and incarceration. Local leaders say they have a moral obligation to do what they can.
In recent years, King County, Washington, has been converting unused government buildings into housing for its growing homeless population. It set up a family shelter in a health center, for example, and built cottages at a warehouse. But the latest conversion is more unorthodox: Seattle will soon shelter at least 100 members of its homeless population in the West Wing of the county jail.
The plan fits into the broader efforts by the city and county to address their homelessness crisis. Today, more than three years after Seattle declared a state of emergency, over 11,600 people are experiencing homelessness there, comprising the third largest homeless population of any U.S. city. The county jail is one of at least eight unused government buildings or land sites to be used as a shelter or resource center, and while many homeless advocates and experts agree that it’s not a systemic solution, it is a bold and perhaps extremely overdue approach to handling some of the most urgent effects of this crisis.
“It doesn’t make sense to leave these sorts of facilities idle in the face of a described crisis that we have in our region,” said Mark Ellerbrook, director of King County Housing and Community Development.
But opening a wing of the jail to those experiencing homelessness has come with its own set of obstacles, and has raised concerns about the moral and ethical implications of bringing together two parts of the community that are already too often linked.
The county is on track to open the facility in early 2019. In November, the council approved $2 million to convert the facility into a shelter, and $4 million to cover operating costs for the next two years. Located in downtown Seattle, it is expected to operate for at least two years as a 24/7 shelter for adults, and provide case management, housing navigation, and meals for residents.
“If I have the opportunity to ensure a warm, safe place for even one additional person, I have a moral obligation to act, and I will,” said King County Executive Dow Constantine in an October press release announcing the transformation of the jail.
Until 2012, the West Wing of the King County Correctional Facility had been used to house minimum-security inmates. Although there are no individual cells, there are bars on the windows and an opaque film that make it impossible to see out. The building has showers, but they are in a large room, so there’s no privacy. And although it has a separate entrance from the surrounding jail, the door is centrally controlled, so visitors need to be buzzed in and out.
Ellerbrook said the county has been looking to modify all of these things for logistical purposes—residents will be free to come and go in the shelter, so a centrally controlled door won’t work—and to make it feel less like a detention center.
But no matter how many panes of glass or partitions are put in, this facility won’t be able to get rid of the very real fact that it was used as a detention facility and remains part of a jail. Even as an effort to mitigate a desperate problem, a symbolic link between homelessness and incarceration echoes a troubling reality.
In the U.S., about 15 percent of incarcerated individuals were homeless right before entering a detention facility. As much as half of the people who are homeless have a criminal history, and often those offenses are non-violent and related to being homeless, like trespassing and public camping. The startling links have become so apparent that some have taken to characterizing the U.S. penal system as the nation’s largest homeless shelter.
“This is a really, really charged image of placing people who are experiencing homelessness in a facility that is part of this haunting optic,” says Sara Rankin, director of Seattle University’s Homeless Rights Advocacy Project, which conducts research and analysis on homelessness.
There is also some concern about who the jail shelter will be able to serve. Alison Eisinger, executive director of the Seattle/King County Coalition on Homelessness, said although shelter in government buildings is a positive step, by putting it in a jail, King County could be cutting down on the groups of people—especially the most vulnerable groups—that will feel comfortable living there.
Ellerbrook said county officials have made an effort to listen to homeless advocates and address their concerns, and have acknowledged that this is not the ideal location for a shelter. But they have also spent years looking at available, county-owned facilities and “what we have left, quite frankly, is this facility,” he said.
Seattle’s homeless numbers have also reached such concerning levels that there is no doubt once this facility is up and running, it will fill up. Until a comprehensive solution to the crisis is found and implemented, perhaps that is the most important fact right now.
Inside an abandoned warehouse on the northern end of downtown Houston is an encampment where approximately 20 homeless people stay each year. The ground is covered with cardboard, old newspapers, and plastic bottles of water coated in grime. On one wall, a mural reads: “Look for the Beauty Within the Most Frightening.” At the moment, there’s no one here.
The people who live in this “community,” as retired Houston Police Sergeant Steve Wick describes it, have been asked to clear out for the occasional hazmat sweep of the area, which he says can cost up to $60,000 each time. They’ve done two such sweeps in the past year, and the last one was a multi-day effort to remove accumulated debris.
“You have people that are sleeping on the same ground they’re going to the bathroom on,” Wick says, noting that it’s a major health risk, especially for fecal-born illnesses like hepatitis.
Wick, who led the homeless outreach team for the Houston Police Department until his retirement in January of 2019, would pass out water bottles every week as he made rounds through each of Houston’s three major homeless encampments and visit another half-dozen popular bridges or intersections where homeless people congregate. His goal was to convince as many as possible to connect with some of Houston’s social services and seek permanent housing, or possibly mental-health or drug addiction treatment.
Houston, which is held up as a model of success in finding permanent housing for homeless veterans, has in many ways an ideal team of people working to find solutions for the chronically homeless: an engaged police unit, a seasoned group of social and policy workers, and a city looking to innovate and improve. But finding homes for non-veterans who are chronically homeless involves more challenges, and the city’s homeless leaders are looking for creative ways to find solutions through collaboration and reducing bureaucratic hurdles.
***
In 2015, three cabinet secretaries—of labor, housing and urban development, and veterans affairs—came to Houston for a celebration. The fourth-largest city in the country had reached an unprecedented achievement: Houston had found homes for 3,650 veterans in just three years.
The coordinated efforts stemmed from a Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) training in Florida in 2011, where heads of the Houston and Harris County housing authorities, directors of city and county housing development departments, the regional unit of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), and those in Houston who were locally funded to do veterans work, sat together at one table to talk about Houston and Harris County’s homelessness problem. The group that came out of that training, Housing Houston’s Heroes, started off with a modest goal: to find permanent homes for 100 veterans in 100 days.
They mapped out how many different steps a veteran would have to take to get into permanent housing and found that the process required over 150 different steps, from securing a photo ID and birth certificate to filling out nearly identical paperwork for the housing authority and the VA—the sort of bureaucratic obstacles that can be daunting for anyone, even the most organized professionals.
“We got it down to 50 to 60 steps,” says Eva Thibaudeau-Graczyk, vice president of programs for the Houston Coalition for the Homeless. The process of streamlining these steps included changing the documents required by the local housing authority to include alternate forms of ID, and having the VA and housing authority share paperwork.
“We started to learn the power of navigation, and take [homeless veterans] one-on-one through each step of the process,” Thibaudeau-Graczyk says. “We’d drive them, wait with them, visit properties with them too.”
They also began organizing housing events through the Houston Housing Authority, whereby landlords could directly connect with people who needed homes, while staff would be on hand to process paperwork, background checks, and housing assistance.
In 2011, Houston had 8,538 people experiencing homelessness on a single night; by 2015, 3,652 of those people—the homeless veterans—had found homes. Once the city had established such high success metrics in solving homelessness among veterans—a press releasedeclared an “effective end” to veterans’ homelessness in Houston—the coalition turned its focus to chronic homelessness.
But in the years that followed, even with improvements, the same accountability and streamlining efforts haven’t worked as well with the non-veteran population.
For one thing, homeless veterans benefit from more federal funding and increased public support.
“In non-veteran homelessness, the only federal agency that has money to do anything is HUD, and it’s a small amount of the overall budget,” Thibaudeau-Graczyk says. “When you pair HUD money with VA money for veterans, you can create a system that is on steroids.”
Wick, who worked with homeless populations from 1994 through 2018, first as a bicycle officer and then as the leader of the homeless outreach team, says that solving homelessness is not as simple as just connecting someone with the right caseworker or apartment. It requires support from social services, long after the apartment keys have been handed over. This is especially true when it comes to finding shelter for the chronically homeless—people with four or more episodes of homelessness within the past three years for a total of 12 months or longer, or one or more current consecutive years of homelessness.
Wick tells the story of Felicia, a woman with a traumatic brain injury, mental-health impairments, and incontinence, who spent years between the street, hospitals, and jail. Wick followed her progress through this broken cycle and realized she needed a guardian who could manage her disability payment. He referred her to Harris County Guardianship, where, after an investigation and capacity assessment, she was given a guardian, who found her a personal care home. Felicia went back to the street again, but this time the guardian intervened, and Wick says that Felicia’s been off the street since early 2018.
But that effort took years of sustained, dedicated police work, and for a woman like Felicia, positive changes and stability are not always permanent.
“People who live on the streets are a community—they like hanging out with like-minded people,” Wick says. Without a support network, a sense of belonging, they often return to the street.
***
Houston Police Commander Bill Staney had always seen the homeless encampments under the IH-59 overpass in Houston during his 37 years as a police officer, but it wasn’t until he was assigned to the homeless outreach team that he went to look inside.
Now, once a week, Staney or someone from his team gives an update at the Houston Coalition for the Homeless meetings at the Beacon, Houston’s largest day shelter, which sits downtown, a few blocks from Minute Maid Park. Staney and his team have a list of names of the chronically homeless who need (and are willing to go to) permanent housing.
Those unwilling to move are allowed to stay in the encampment, as long as they follow certain rules that keep the place safe and livable. Houston’s encampment ordinance limits excess accumulation of property: Occupants of public areas are permitted one tent, a bike, durable medical equipment, and the equivalent of three cubic feet of belongings not considered infected or a health hazard.
In the 100-person meeting, caseworkers can check where their clients’ names are on the waiting list for permanent housing, and how long it will take, or what paperwork or forms of identification are needed. If there is a gap or a flag, someone from case management, Houston Coalition services, city police, or public transit police may be there to answer it.
The goal is that there are no hold-ups or missed emails or bureaucratic obstacles, so that anyone who wants to transition from chronic homelessness to permanent housing will have few if any delays in doing so.
Ana Rausch, senior research project manager for the Houston Coalition for the Homeless, says that people in Houston still see homeless people panhandling on the street or huddled in encampments, and may be largely unaware of all the work the coalition has done in finding permanent homes for over 15,000 people since 2012. But that still leaves 4,143 people sleeping on the street or in shelters, by Houston’s own count. (For comparison, 3,675 people sleep on the streets in New York City, a number that does not include the 60,000-plus homeless New Yorkers who sleep in shelters).
Wick acknowledges Houston’s success with ending homelessness among veterans, but sees that group as only a small subset of the homeless population. He’s skeptical of numbers that suggest Houston’s broader homeless efforts have been a success, calling the metrics of doing a homeless count “flawed at best.”
“By definition, homeless people are people without homes, so you don’t know where to find them,” Wick says. Describing the methodology behind the HUD counts, he says, “They give a section of the city to people who aren’t familiar with the city, they look for people. They see a man with a backpack, they count them as homeless. They see a vacant house, they assume there are homeless people in the house.”
Still, the collaborative partnerships within Houston are what convince Wick that progress is achievable. “Prior to this, we’d never had an outreach team. Police officers have certain tools in their tool belt to take care of problems; [the Houston homeless outreach team] is just another tool in that tool belt to take care of street habitation.”
But progress—or even incremental improvement—isn’t the same as a solution, and a solution doesn’t come from a press release announcing that one city has found a way to end homelessness. The complex nature of chronic homeless and the chaos that permeates the lives of people who live on the street—including those who prefer the community of street living over stable housing—mean that even the most well-intentioned programs and community support may not be sufficient to solve the individual problem.
“When you look at government dollars, there are very specific things and ways in which those dollars can be spent, and a high level of oversight on those, and rightly so,” Thibaudeau-Graczyk says. “The reality is that, in human lives, it’s a lot messier than that. You end up needing money for situations that aren’t in federal regulations.”
The problems that accompany chronic homelessness—broken families, addiction, illness, and poverty—may have overlapping causes and solutions, but each homeless case requires individual attention and work. It’s a time-intensive process without easy solutions, and the transient nature of a population with such unpredictable and rapidly changing circumstances means that it’s hard to generate concrete metrics, which many federal programs require to show success.
“Homelessness is a sign of a society that is in the process of breaking down,” Wick says. “By the time people hit the street, they are there for a reason.” The homeless people he’s looked after, Wick says, “have made a lot of poor life decisions—they have reasons that make it very hard for them to get off the street.”
Wick mentions one of his officers who spends his free time volunteering with disadvantaged youth, providing some stability in their lives.
“He is doing more to prevent future homelessness than most are,” Wick says. “Attacking it from this end, I don't think there is a whole lot you can do except one person at a time. See one person, tackle their issue, help the one person off the street.”
Even in a city like Houston, where a measure of successful work with homelessness has garnered national attention, the work continues, with no immediate end in sight.
Support for this article was provided by Rise Local, a project of the New America National Network.
This story originally appeared on Pacific Standard, an editorial partner site. Subscribe to the magazine in print and follow Pacific Standard on Twitter to support journalism in the public interest.
If your driver's license or state-issued identification (ID) card was recently lost or stolen, contact your state motor vehicle agency.
When requesting a state ID, you may need to provide other forms of ID that contain your photo, full name, and date of birth. Contact your state motor vehicle agency to find out what you need to bring with you to prove your identity.
Social Security Cards
If your Social Security card was lost or stolen, contact the Social Security Administration (SSA) to request a replacement card.
Vital Records Documents Issued in the United States
Vital records documents consist of birth, death, marriage, and divorce certificates. State government vital records offices issue these documents. To get a copy of a vital record document, contact the vital records office in the state where the event occurred.
How to Replace Your Lost or Destroyed Vital Records
Replacing all important documents that were lost or destroyed in a flood, fire, or other disaster can be overwhelming. Although the process varies from state to state, these general steps can help you get started.
Replace your birth certificate. Find the vital records office in the state where you were born. Check to find out if you can obtain a certified copy of your birth certificate without any identification and follow the instructions. A few states don’t require a government-issued photo ID, or accept other solutions like a sworn statement of your identity. Some states allow your mother or father whose name is on the birth certificate to submit a notarized letter with a copy of their photo ID. If you do need your own government-issued photo ID to get a copy of your birth certificate, start with step 2.
Replace your driver’s license. Get this first if you cannot get your birth certificate. This task varies from state to state. In some states, you can do it online.
Replace your marriage certificate. You’ll need a certified copy as proof if you changed your name when you got married. Contact the vital records office in the state where you were married.
Replace your passport. Report your lost or destroyed passport to the Department of State. To apply for a new passport, you’ll need to fill out a form DS-11 and go to a passport acceptance facility or agency. You’ll need your birth certificate or a certified copy, and a government-issued photo ID.
Government agencies usually mail replacement vital documents. But if your home was destroyed in a disaster, you might not be able to get your mail. Contact your local post office and ask if you can pick up your mail there or request to have your mail forwarded to a temporary location.
Get a Copy of Your Birth Certificate
Your birth certificate is the most important document you'll need to prove your legal identity and age. You'll need it to apply for a passport or government benefits, enroll in school, join the military, or claim pension or insurance benefits. If you need a copy, where you were born will determine how to get it.
If You Were Born in the U.S.
For a certified copy of your birth certificate, contact the vital records office in the state where you were born for instructions on how to request a copy and get information on any fees.
If you need to get a copy of your birth certificate quickly, ask the vital records office at the time you place your order about getting expedited service or shipping.
If You Were Born Abroad, or on a Military Base Abroad
If you were born to American parents abroad, they should have registered your birth with the U.S. Embassy or consulate in that country, and received a Consular Report of Birth Abroad. You can get a copy of this report from the U.S. Department of State. Depending on the country, a vital records office in the nation may also list the birth.
If you were born on a military base abroad, and your parents did not register your birth with the U.S. Embassy, you may have to contact the hospital where the birth took place. You may also try contacting the base operator or public affairs office for the appropriate military branch.
If You Were Born Abroad and Adopted by a U.S. Citizen
The country in which you were born issued your birth certificate. If you need a replacement, you must contact the nearest foreign embassy or consulate for that country. A child born in a foreign country and adopted by a U.S. citizen will not receive a U.S. birth certificate. If the document is in a language other than English, you should also seek the embassy's help in getting the document translated if you require authenticated documents.
A marriage license is the piece of paper that authorizes you to get married. A marriage certificate is the document that proves you are married. Typically, the person who performs your wedding ceremony submits the license to the county office within a few days of the ceremony. Your marriage certificate is then issued and sent to you, usually within a month.
Obtaining a New or Duplicate Marriage License
Most marriage licenses expire within 30 days to a year, depending on the issuing state. If your license expires before you get married, you can apply for a new one. If your license is lost or destroyed after the wedding, before being submitted to the county, the person who officiated should contact the office that issued your license to obtain a duplicate.
Obtaining a Copy of Your Marriage Certificate
For a certified copy of your marriage certificate, contact the vital records office in the state where you were married for instructions on how to request a copy and information on any fees.
Even though the guidelines vary by state, all requests should include:
Full names of both spouses at time of marriage
Month, day, and year of the marriage
Place of marriage (city or town, county, and state)
Purpose for which copy of marriage certificate is needed
Relationship to persons whose marriage certificate is being requested
Daytime telephone number (include area code)
Request a Certified Copy of a Death Certificate
You may need to provide a copy of the death certificate of a spouse or other family member for a variety of legal reasons. These can include claiming life insurance, applying for a spouse’s pension and/or Social Security benefits; applying for Medicaid benefits; changing joint bank and credit card accounts, utilities, mortgages, vehicle titles, and leases; and remarrying. Check to see which require a certified copy of the death certificate and which require just a photocopy.
If the Death Occurred in the U.S.
You can request a certified copy of a death certificate from the vital records office of the state or territory in which the death occurred. See the instructions for that state or territory for details such as fees, address to write to, and the requestor’s required identification.
In addition to your state’s requirements, all requests should contain:
Full name of the person whose death certificate is being requested
Their sex
Their parents' names, including maiden name of their mother
Month, day, and year of their death
Place of death (city or town, county, and state; and name of hospital, if known/applicable)
Purpose for which the copy is needed
Your relationship to the person whose record is being requested
Your daytime telephone number with area code
If the Death Occurred Outside the U.S.
You will need to obtain a copy of the U.S. embassy or consulate's report of the death abroad for U.S. legal proceedings. See Death of an American Abroad for details on obtaining a copy of this report.
Divorce Decrees and Certificates
A divorce decree is an official document from the court that grants the termination of a marriage. It includes specific details of the divorce.
A divorce certificate is issued by a state vital records office. It shows that a divorce occurred but does not state all of the same information as a divorce decree. You can save time and money by determining which document you need before making your request.
U.S. Divorces
Get a Copy of a Divorce Decree
Contact the "county clerk's office" or "clerk of the court" for the county or city in which the divorce was granted.
If the divorce occurred outside the U.S. and you are in the U.S., contact the appropriate country's embassy or nearest consulate to find out how to get a copy of the divorce decree.
United States law does not require U.S. citizens to register a foreign divorce decree at an embassy. But if the foreign country in which your divorce took place is a signatory to the Hague Convention on the Authentication of Documents, you may bring your divorce decree to a U.S. Embassy or consulate to have it certified.
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