ARTICLE
We are in crisis. Just shy of a couple of days over one year ago, Governor Newsom gave his state of the state speech. He lamented about the health of California’s economy but his opening focus was captured in these words: “For all the wealth and all the leadership the state shows in fighting climate change and other critical issues, California cannot ignore that it is also home to a housing crisis that has led to hundreds of thousands of people living on the streets or in their cars. “Let's call it what it is, the governor said, “A disgrace.” We covered that storyline in the Feb. 26, 2020 eNews. Chamber eNews 2-26-2020. At last week’s monthly Community Affairs Committee (CAC) meeting hosted over Zoom, our guest speaker was Robert Ratner, Director, Housing for Health for Santa Cruz County. Robert spent a majority of his presentation offering an update on where we are today in addressing our homeless population and where we need to go to make a huge uptick in reducing the number of people that remain unsheltered in our community. Robert has been in his position since November 2020 coming from a similar position in Alameda County. Robert noted the track record on addressing our homeless population in Santa Cruz County and throughout California cities does not show any remarkable improvement. There has been a decline in the number of homeless in our region according to the point-in-time count in 2019. The point-in-time count was suspended for 2021 due to health and safety concerns during the pandemic. That count determines the federal funding resources going into local communities. However, from the front window viewpoint in our city and county, the homeless population appears to be growing and is more visible in our downtown, along the San Lorenzo River, and on the heaviest traveled corridor in the city at the Highway 1 / Highway 9 intersection. The visual plight of the homeless in our community is not new. As Santa Cruz Mayor Donna Meyers commented in a recent column in the Santa Cruz Sentinel: “Everyone in Santa Cruz acknowledges that our community has struggled with finding real solutions to homelessness for decades. The search for solutions on how to ‘solve’ homelessness has shifted at the state, national and international levels, our local approaches have followed suit. As a city and county, we largely have to follow the money.” You can read the Mayor’s full article here: Mayor Meyers - No Easy Solutions to Homeless Issue. The Mayor points out a report released by the California Legislative Analyst’s Office, which documents the severity of the homeless crisis California is experiencing. According to the report, in 2019 there were 151,000 Californians in homeless status, an increase of 16% compared to the previous year. 72% of those homeless were unsheltered. That is a similar statistic to what we see in Santa Cruz County. This decades-in-the-making crisis is at a tipping point where the California Legislature and the Governor must step up to help local communities address the problem with a strategic plan. To better understand the complexity of California’s homeless crisis, here is a good read that explains and explores the issue: https://calmatters.org/explainers/californias-homelessness-crisis-explained/ Again, quoting Mayor Meyers, she is concerned as to why the money isn’t the only answer. “There is no Department of Homeless Solutions in California. In fact, if you type the State of California Homeless Plan 2020 into your favorite browser, you will not locate a statewide plan, rather plans to spend one-time money, create databases, and lots of editorials on who should be in charge, who should be accountable and who is at fault.” Herein lies a deeper discussion that was uncovered in an audit of California agencies and departments by the State Auditor. The audit report is entitled, Homelessness in California: The State's Uncoordinated Approach to Addressing Homelessness Has Hampered the Effectiveness of Its Efforts. You can read the summary here: http://165.107.17.53/reports/2020-112/summary.html and full report: http://165.107.17.53/pdfs/reports/2020-112.pdf The content of the report identifies the disjointed approach, the inconsistencies of the Continuum of Care in local communities and lays out the responses to the audit from various cities and counties. As CBS - Sacramento reported a few days ago, California has spent $13 billion in the last three years to tackle a massive homelessness problem likely to worsen with the pandemic, yet its approach is so fragmented and incomplete as to hinder efforts at getting people into stable housing, the state auditor said in the report released last Thursday. The office of state auditor Elaine Howle said that the state continues to have the largest homeless population in the nation “likely in part because its approach to addressing homelessness has been disjointed.” The office recommended that California copy other states in charging a single entity to oversee efforts or be responsible for developing a statewide strategic plan. The full story is here: https://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2021/02/11/california-homelessness-audit/ During Director Ratner’s presentation to the Chamber, he stated the Continuum of Care group in Santa Cruz County, Homeless Action Partnership, will likely change in the near future. These community advocates for the homeless population have been addressing a moving target where one-time funds from Sacramento are simply not enough to change the direction in a significant way. We are fortunate that there is an organization in our community that was created in 1998 named the Santa Cruz Citizen’s Committee for the Homeless. Now known as Housing Matters, this organization has evolved into four emergency and transitional housing shelters for nearly 230 people, a medical clinic, and a 12-bed medical respite care facility. Housing Matters: https://housingmatterssc.org/about/our-mission/ is noted as the most effective organization in Santa Cruz County helping our homeless population move from unsheltered to sheltered and eventually to gainful employment and permanent housing. Its track record is greatly appreciated by the business community. A new homeless facility at 119 Coral Street is close to receiving final approval from the Santa Cruz City Council. The project is to construct a five-story, mixed-use project to provide services and 100% affordable supportive housing for the chronically homeless at the Homeless Services Center Campus at the corner of Highway 1 and River Street. The first floor will consist of a new recuperative care center, a behavioral health clinic, and uses related to the upper-floor residences. The upper four stories will consist of 120 supportive single-room occupancy (SRO) units and one manager’s unit. In closing, our homeless crisis cannot be solved in one or two years — it will take a substantial effort to review our federal, state, and local homeless policies to repurpose our system of services. A long-time business associate of mine, Michele Steeb, wrote a book entitled, Answers Behind the Red Door, Battling The Homeless Epidemic. You can read more about the book and Michele’s work in the homeless services industry here: https://californiaglobe.com/section-2/policy-and-personnel-hamper-californias-efforts-to-address-homelessness/ Michele points to a report released last November. The United States Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH) released a new plan to address homelessness. The plan recognizes the significant failures of Housing First as a one-size-fits-all approach. Instead, they propose a trauma-informed approach that re-couples other critical needs such as mental health, substance abuse, and employment training with housing. The long road ahead regarding our homeless population is not a government problem — it is a community problem — that needs to be addressed by all of us. Robert Ratner’s final comment to us last week summarizes the place we are in. A place of hope where we learn who the homeless are and how a community can find ways to meet their challenges.
We are in crisis. Just shy of a couple of days over one year ago, Governor Newsom gave his state of the state speech. He lamented about the health of California’s economy but his opening focus was captured in these words: “For all the wealth and all the leadership the state shows in fighting climate change and other critical issues, California cannot ignore that it is also home to a housing crisis that has led to hundreds of thousands of people living on the streets or in their cars. “Let's call it what it is, the governor said, “A disgrace.” We covered that storyline in the Feb. 26, 2020 eNews. Chamber eNews 2-26-2020.
At last week’s monthly Community Affairs Committee (CAC) meeting hosted over Zoom, our guest speaker was Robert Ratner, Director, Housing for Health for Santa Cruz County. Robert spent a majority of his presentation offering an update on where we are today in addressing our homeless population and where we need to go to make a huge uptick in reducing the number of people that remain unsheltered in our community. Robert has been in his position since November 2020 coming from a similar position in Alameda County.
Robert noted the track record on addressing our homeless population in Santa Cruz County and throughout California cities does not show any remarkable improvement. There has been a decline in the number of homeless in our region according to the point-in-time count in 2019. The point-in-time count was suspended for 2021 due to health and safety concerns during the pandemic. That count determines the federal funding resources going into local communities. However, from the front window viewpoint in our city and county, the homeless population appears to be growing and is more visible in our downtown, along the San Lorenzo River, and on the heaviest traveled corridor in the city at the Highway 1 / Highway 9 intersection.
The visual plight of the homeless in our community is not new. As Santa Cruz Mayor Donna Meyers commented in a recent column in the Santa Cruz Sentinel: “Everyone in Santa Cruz acknowledges that our community has struggled with finding real solutions to homelessness for decades. The search for solutions on how to ‘solve’ homelessness has shifted at the state, national and international levels, our local approaches have followed suit. As a city and county, we largely have to follow the money.”
You can read the Mayor’s full article here: Mayor Meyers - No Easy Solutions to Homeless Issue. The Mayor points out a report released by the California Legislative Analyst’s Office, which documents the severity of the homeless crisis California is experiencing. According to the report, in 2019 there were 151,000 Californians in homeless status, an increase of 16% compared to the previous year. 72% of those homeless were unsheltered. That is a similar statistic to what we see in Santa Cruz County. This decades-in-the-making crisis is at a tipping point where the California Legislature and the Governor must step up to help local communities address the problem with a strategic plan.
To better understand the complexity of California’s homeless crisis, here is a good read that explains and explores the issue: https://calmatters.org/explainers/californias-homelessness-crisis-explained/
Again, quoting Mayor Meyers, she is concerned as to why the money isn’t the only answer. “There is no Department of Homeless Solutions in California. In fact, if you type the State of California Homeless Plan 2020 into your favorite browser, you will not locate a statewide plan, rather plans to spend one-time money, create databases, and lots of editorials on who should be in charge, who should be accountable and who is at fault.”
Herein lies a deeper discussion that was uncovered in an audit of California agencies and departments by the State Auditor. The audit report is entitled, Homelessness in California: The State's Uncoordinated Approach to Addressing Homelessness Has Hampered the Effectiveness of Its Efforts. You can read the summary here: http://165.107.17.53/reports/2020-112/summary.html and full report: http://165.107.17.53/pdfs/reports/2020-112.pdf
The content of the report identifies the disjointed approach, the inconsistencies of the Continuum of Care in local communities and lays out the responses to the audit from various cities and counties. As CBS - Sacramento reported a few days ago, California has spent $13 billion in the last three years to tackle a massive homelessness problem likely to worsen with the pandemic, yet its approach is so fragmented and incomplete as to hinder efforts at getting people into stable housing, the state auditor said in the report released last Thursday.
The office of state auditor Elaine Howle said that the state continues to have the largest homeless population in the nation “likely in part because its approach to addressing homelessness has been disjointed.” The office recommended that California copy other states in charging a single entity to oversee efforts or be responsible for developing a statewide strategic plan. The full story is here: https://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2021/02/11/california-homelessness-audit/
During Director Ratner’s presentation to the Chamber, he stated the Continuum of Care group in Santa Cruz County, Homeless Action Partnership, will likely change in the near future. These community advocates for the homeless population have been addressing a moving target where one-time funds from Sacramento are simply not enough to change the direction in a significant way.
We are fortunate that there is an organization in our community that was created in 1998 named the Santa Cruz Citizen’s Committee for the Homeless. Now known as Housing Matters, this organization has evolved into four emergency and transitional housing shelters for nearly 230 people, a medical clinic, and a 12-bed medical respite care facility. Housing Matters: https://housingmatterssc.org/about/our-mission/ is noted as the most effective organization in Santa Cruz County helping our homeless population move from unsheltered to sheltered and eventually to gainful employment and permanent housing. Its track record is greatly appreciated by the business community. A new homeless facility at 119 Coral Street is close to receiving final approval from the Santa Cruz City Council. The project is to construct a five-story, mixed-use project to provide services and 100% affordable supportive housing for the chronically homeless at the Homeless Services Center Campus at the corner of Highway 1 and River Street. The first floor will consist of a new recuperative care center, a behavioral health clinic, and uses related to the upper-floor residences. The upper four stories will consist of 120 supportive single-room occupancy (SRO) units and one manager’s unit.
In closing, our homeless crisis cannot be solved in one or two years — it will take a substantial effort to review our federal, state, and local homeless policies to repurpose our system of services. A long-time business associate of mine, Michele Steeb, wrote a book entitled, Answers Behind the Red Door, Battling The Homeless Epidemic. You can read more about the book and Michele’s work in the homeless services industry here: https://californiaglobe.com/section-2/policy-and-personnel-hamper-californias-efforts-to-address-homelessness/
Michele points to a report released last November. The United States Interagency Council on Homelessness (USICH) released a new plan to address homelessness. The plan recognizes the significant failures of Housing First as a one-size-fits-all approach. Instead, they propose a trauma-informed approach that re-couples other critical needs such as mental health, substance abuse, and employment training with housing.
The long road ahead regarding our homeless population is not a government problem — it is a community problem — that needs to be addressed by all of us. Robert Ratner’s final comment to us last week summarizes the place we are in. A place of hope where we learn who the homeless are and how a community can find ways to meet their challenges.