COMMUNITY COMMENT: Aurora's plan an obvious failure on homelessness

As your readers must know, as a frequent contributor, I am always on the side of furthering the goals of social justice and welfare in our community and country. However, as a taxpayer and a contributor, I have also voiced my concerns about "getting more bang for the buck"; the explosion in the number of nonprofit organizations; and, the need for proper review and oversight to make sure that the goals and objectives of these organizations are being achieved.

In 2005, when Aurora Inc. burst upon the scene with its disingenuous goal of eliminating all homelessness in the Evansville Area within 10 years, I raised the question as to whether this just wasn't another "Mickey Mouse," make-work program for social workers and whether their $100,000+ government grant couldn't be better spent.

Now with only 2 years to go and homelessness not yet eliminated, they have spent $35,000 on an outside consultant to facilitate a weeklong replanning process. One of the consultant's recommendations is: "set up a single point of entry to resources needed by homeless households or those at risk." It would seem to me that this obvious idea should have been accomplished years ago. The consultant also recommends the local group set another date to eliminate homelessness if they don't believe the goal of 2014 is likely. I'm willing to bet that they don't stick with their 10-year goal but pick another date further down the road so they can continue to justify their existence.

Your readers, including this one, would probably be interested in knowing the amount of money Aurora has spent on salaries and overhead the past 8 years and what has actually been achieved during that time. It's a shame we don't have a "sunset" mechanism to review periodically all governmental programs and grants to see if we are getting the most "bang for our buck"!

I believe we need programs to provide shelter for the homeless, but I can't help but feel that it's time for Aurora to close up shop rather than throwing money after its unachievable goal of eliminating all homelessness!