I’ve been thinking a lot about yesterday’s article in the P-I about how the state is going to refuse funding to SHARE/WHEEL if they don’t provide certain information about their folks. I know a little something about being homeless and staying in a shelter, even if it wasn’t in Seattle.

The database in question is called Safe Harbors, and it’s a pretty standard one with, from what I hear, some serious security on it. SHARE/WHEEL doesn’t want to report on anyone because they believe homeless people should be allowed to be anonymous–that way if they get back on their feet, there won’t be a paper trail haunting them. Which is great, and makes perfect sense. But you know what they need more than a lack of a traceable past? They need beds.

Safe Harbors doesn’t require agencies to verify their information (unlike, say, unemployment or welfare databases), and most of the fields have a “client declined to answer” type option. If they wanted to, SHARE/WHEEL could turn in a whole database full of 9-year-old transgendered Mickey Mouses, and the state would have to accept that. (They probably wouldn’t, but that isn’t my point.) What the city is trying to do is make sure that their information isn’t duplicated so that they can get accurate figures and decide where the spending ought to go. And that’s going to make a lot of people cry nanny state, but at least they’re trying.

I appreciate both sides of this argument. I really do. And I don’t actually believe that everyone isn’t going to come to a compromise in the end. I’m just a little concerned that the people everyone claims to be concerned about–the homeless population–is going to get completely screwed in the meantime.