By Travis Gettys
Enquirer contributor

FLORENCE - Money isn't the only barrier keeping homeless people off the streets.

Zoning codes shut non-profit agencies out of many cities, and homeless people often don't have access to transportation that could take them where they can get assistance, homeless advocates say.

"I understand that they don't want us in the high-rent areas, (but) just tell us where we can be," said Mac McArthur, executive director of Transitions, a Bellevue drug and alcohol addiction treatment agency.

About 30 homeless advocates and others met Wednesday at Northern Kentucky Development District offices to discuss ways to break through regulatory obstacles, as part of a Bush administration initiative to keep chronic homeless people off the streets.

A chronic homeless person is someone who has been without a home for at least a year or has been homeless at least four times in the last three years, according to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

That excludes families, because a chronically homeless person must be, by definition, single.

Families often become homeless when their house burns. Another reason families are left homeless is that their utility service has been terminated, which disqualifies them from federal Section 8 housing assistance. Public housing also can be denied to anyone with a felony conviction.

"The only (homeless) people who are visible are the ones out with signs," said Linda Young, director of Welcome House, a Covington shelter for women and families.

"Not from where I stand," she said, adding that it's difficult to put a public face on homeless families due to confidentiality issues.

Chronic homeless people make up only about 15 percent of the national homeless population, but they consume half of all resources, said Harry Carver, policy coordinator for the Kentucky Housing Corporation.

That is because they often are mentally ill, developmentally disabled or have substance abuse problems, Carver said, or some combination of the three.

Most homeless people in rural Kentucky are white, single moms, while the urban homeless tend to be single men, Carver said.

Recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions require cities to set aside zoning space for adult entertainment, and McArthur lamented that no similar pressure is applied to local governments to allow social service agencies.

"It's the most effective form of discrimination that's legal in America," McArthur said.