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Chapter 8: Support Services SUPPORT SERVICES Introduction Homeless persons, while obviously homeless, tend to be scrutinized with more emphasis on the "homeless" and less on the "person". Like anyone else, they exist in a multiplicity of roles: customer, citizen, constituent, sibling, parent, extended family member, student, spouse, life partner, employee, and many others. Often the stigma and trauma of homelessness and the existing stratifications in our society can strip away many of the rights and privileges inherent in those roles of people. Support services for homeless people are a very wide range of activities which are essential to the maximum potential of self-reliance and stability. These support services seek to restore those avenues of support, interdependence. personal advocacy, basic needs, and self-confidence that are present for the vast majority of society through the multiple roles in life, but which are eroded away for homeless people. Support services run the gamut from things such as transportation, care for children and other dependents, to literacy education, legal services, counseling, and clothing. Those without a regular residence lack critical services such as meals, phone service, showers, and storage for their belongings. Without these and other essential services, no one can be successful at maintaining employment and self-sufficiency. As welfare reform efforts limit the ability of all but the most severely disabled to rely on income supports such as Social Security and TANF, support services become all the more essential in assisting homeless and formerly homeless people to cope with and obtain even minimal sustenance needs. This Section focuses on five categories of support services: transportation; child and dependent care; minimal needs; life skills; and, food and nutrition. Other equally important support services such as Rrofessional mental health counseling and medical services addressed in the Integrated Health Care Chapter following this one. Although the availability of services varies throughout the geographic areas of the county, they are consistently not available in sufficient supply to met the needs of the county's homeless and other low income families. The recommendations and actions steps in this Section seek to maintain and improve the existing services network while working to address the gaps in support services. In all support service areas, efforts should be made to expand, leverage and coordinate the use of volunteers. Alameda County-Wide Homeless Continuum of Care Plan: April 1997 101