Bill Halle is concerned that the folks he has cared for and loved for more than three decades — and the community-at-large — are being ill-served by two popular programs aimed at the needy.

“They're killing our community,” said Halle, who is the director of the Grace Youth and Family Foundation on Center Avenue.

Halle, who has served the homeless and those with drug and alcohol addictions for 31 years, said he feels the “Housing First” and “Harm Reduction” philosophies are having a negative effect not only on Butler's homeless individuals, but on the community too.

The models are supported by the state and federal agencies that fund social service programs that target homelessness and addiction.

He said the Housing First philosophy is meant to connect homeless individuals with housing immediately, without requiring them to participate in various social programs and classes aimed at getting them back on track.

According to endhomelessness.com, “This approach is guided by the belief that people need basic necessities like food and a place to live before attending to anything less critical, such as getting a job, budgeting properly, or attending to substance use issues.”

Halle said that philosophy doesn't take into account the people it's meant to help.

“To the average person, this makes sense,” Halle said. “But if you're talking to an addict, they are not thinking with a logical brain.”

He said if a person who is addicted to drugs is given housing, paid utilities, food and a free phone, there is no reason for them to break their addiction and work to get sober.

He said right now in Butler, formerly homeless people who are unemployable because of their addictions are in temporary and long-term housing and cycling through the taxpayer-funded system with completely unaddressed issues.

“They're coming in one door and out the other,” Halle said. “We are building empires of government-funded, nonprofit agencies whose existence is justified by perpetuating the problem.”

Halle stressed that he is on the side of those who struggle, and wants to see them get the treatment and therapy they need to become thriving, independent citizens.

“I love these people. I serve these people,” he said. “But the programs are perpetuating them to destroy their lives.”

He said the community is affected when non-profits or government-funded agencies buy buildings to create housing for the homeless because the municipality will no longer receive taxes from that building. Neither do those living in the building pay taxes, because they do not work.

That means a drop in municipal or school district revenue, which affects everyone.

The impetus for Halle's decision to speak up came a few weeks ago.

A homeless man who had spent several nights sleeping in the GYFF warming shelter on Center Avenue and then moved on to the county's semi-permanent housing on North Street called him to report he would be returning to the shelter because he was told “his 30 days were up” at the semi-permanent housing facility.

On the same day, a man who had been staying at the GYFF warming shelter told Halle that he had been accepted to move to the very same housing facility that the first man had to leave.

“We need to return to having people be required to meet outcome stipulations to get assistance,” Halle said, “and develop programs that help people from homelessness to independence and not from homelessness to independent housing and three months later back to homelessness.”

He used as another example a young single mother who, through no fault of her own, had to leave her home with her daughter.

The woman entered the system in the county and was assigned a caseworker. She moved into temporary housing with her young child.

“Thirty days later she found herself out on the street and having to come here,” Halle said.

Staff at GYFF worked with the woman and helped her find a job and independent housing.

“We did in a week-and-a-half what could not be done for her in over 30 days (in county-supported temporary housing),” Halle said.

He said the plethora of programs in Butler are well-known among the region's homeless population, and in the past two years he has heard people staying at his warming shelter state that they came to Butler to take advantage of its many free programs.

Non-profits, said Halle, are justified by their numbers.

“And the numbers are because the system is broken,” he said.

He said residents are moving out of the Butler School District, where he is a school board member, because of crime and other issues.

“We're killing our communities through Housing First and Harm Reduction,” Halle said.

Allyson Rose, the county's community development coordinator, sees things very differently.

“I am 100 percent in support of those programs and that's truly what I believe in,” Rose said on Monday.

She said if a client is addicted or struggling with mental health or other issues, basic needs like housing must be met before progress can be made on the problems that got them there.

In addition, Rose said, it's impossible to apply for a job or insurance without an address.

“As a human services worker, you have to start with understanding,” Rose said. “You need to meet people where they are.”

She said Catholic Charities is the first place an individual goes if he or she finds themselves homeless for any reason.

There they are directed to emergency housing at GYFF with Halle or at Safe Harbor, a Catholic Charities facility at their building on West New Castle Street.

Rose said if needed, a case manager there will connect addicted clients with drug or alcohol programs according to what their insurance or medical assistance program agrees to pay for.

A facility on North Street offers interim housing, Rose said, which the county uses for people who are temporarily displaced.

“It's short-term (housing) for people who have a long-term goal,” Rose said.

The Lighthouse Foundation in Middlesex Township offers transitional housing up to 24 months, Rose said. A case manager there creates an individualized service plan for each client in which goals are set and actions listed that would help the client achieve the goal.

The caseworkers sit down with clients once per month to ensure the client is working toward those goals and to determine what additional help they may need to achieve them.

For example, a goal to get a job might entail the caseworker lining up help with creating a resume or providing a list of companies that are hiring.

She said the county's Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and permanent housing support programs are the only county programs that fall under the Housing First model and do not have a maximum length of time a client can use them.

Regarding harm reduction, Halle said providing naloxone over and over instead of therapy to break a drug user's addiction and return to a productive life is counterproductive.

According to the Harm Reduction International website, the model “refers to policies, programs and practices that aim primarily to reduce the adverse health, social and economic consequences of the use of legal and illegal psychoactive drugs without necessarily reducing drug consumption. Harm reduction benefits people who use drugs, their families and the community.”

But Halle said administering suboxone to opioid addicts and methadone to heroin users is putting a Band-Aid on the problem.

“What works is long-term drug and alcohol treatment and therapy,” he said. “Harm Reduction is causing this short-term fix that is causing people to die.”

He said over his 31 years of interacting with addicts, more people are dying under the Harm Reduction model.

Halle said the Harm Reduction program also affects the homeless problem in Butler, as removing an addict from housing after 30 days and with no intervention is not conducive to returning an individual to a normal life.

“It's so frustrating,” Halle said. “The system is not working. It's not having the outcomes it's meant to have.”

Donna Jenereski, the director of the county's drug and alcohol program, defended the Harm Reduction theory.

“The focus of Harm Reduction is the safety and well-being of the individual,” she said.

She said the program began with a needle exchange program at the onset of the HIV crisis in the 1980s.

“It's not to encourage continued use (of drugs), it's to allow these people safe means of doing what they're doing and not spread disease,” Jenereski said.

Methadone and suboxone to replace heroin and opioids, she said, are only a part of a treatment plan that includes therapy.

“The medications alone help people from a cognitive standpoint, but without treatment they are not going to progress,” Jenereski said.

The medications serve a specific purpose on the long road to recovery, she said.

“They are utilized to really help an individual focus on treatment and diminish the cravings and desire to use, so they can start to focus on treatment and making the changes that they need to make,” Jenereski said.

Halle said the two programs are providing a challenge to his work helping the homeless and those who are addicted to drugs or alcohol.

“I'm tired of burying people,” he said.