Local governments along the Pacific Coast innovate to address the growing issue of homelessness

Editor’s note: This is the first installment of a two-part series on solutions to homelessness.

What’s the solution to homelessness?

“It is apparent that there is not panacea to solve this complex problem, as it is diverse and nuanced,” Katie Grainger wrote in a letter to the SLO County Board of Supervisors as the chair/facilitator of Public Safety SLO. “However, I fully believe that a tiny house village is an appropriate step in the right direction, one which the community can get behind across sectors to unite and support.” 

Tiny home villages are just one proposed potential solution to the homelessness issue locally. While the village concept is still just an idea on the Central Coast, tiny home shelters are a reality in other places, as are a variety of other innovative approaches. 

The Sun spoke with several communities and organizations spearheading those projects to learn more about how effective they were at providing services to homeless individuals and getting a more permanent roof over their heads. 

Sanctioned camps

click to enlarge Local governments along the Pacific Coast innovate to address the growing issue of homelessness
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE CITY OF SAUSALITO
SANCTIONED : Last year, the city of Sausalito opened a sanctioned homeless encampment after a lawsuit filed by homeless advocates forced its hand. The camp, located on city tennis courts, houses more than two dozen people, but a recent tent fire and explosion raised concerns.

Santa Rosa’s approach to homelessness evolved out of necessity during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

In May 2020, as homeless encampments multiplied in the Northern California city and the threat of a COVID-19 outbreak grew, officials scrambled to establish Santa Rosa’s first sanctioned encampment, located in the parking lot of a city park and community center.

“We were not open to doing a sanctioned encampment prior to that, but I’d say the pandemic forced us to try new things and step outside of our comfort zone,” said Kelli Kuykendall, Santa Rosa’s housing and community services manager. “At that point in time, we didn’t know a lot about COVID-19 and how it might impact our homeless population. The city owns a shelter, but congregate shelter was not a good idea at the time.”

The city-managed encampment was large enough to host about 70 tents—each spaced 12 feet apart. Santa Rosa and its nonprofit partners provided toilets, showers, hand-washing stations, security, trash assistance, and various social and medical services to its residents.

After an initial wave of opposition to the project, Kuykendall said that the Santa Rosa community came to accept—and even embrace—the campsite, which drew in dozens of unhoused individuals over a six-month period.

“I had at least 100 questions and complaints in advance of our first virtual community meeting. … There was a strong opposition prior to us opening,” Kuykendall remembered. “And after that, we had very few complaints and didn’t really see any increases in calls for service. In the end, it certainly wasn’t perfect. But, overall, the feedback was positive.”

Santa Rosa isn’t the only California city to look to sanctioned encampments as a temporary stopgap to the sprawling problem of unsheltered homelessness. Cities like San Jose, Sausalito, Los Angeles, San Francisco—and even Paso Robles—have also tried them in recent years, to varying degrees of success.

Despite Santa Rosa’s success with an encampment, the city shuttered the parking lot site in November 2020. The project was always meant to be temporary, Kuykendall said, and officials were concerned about how the camp would hold up during the winter.

Today, Santa Rosa operates a safe parking site for unhoused residents living in their vehicles.

“What we’re seeing as the greatest need is people in their RVs and vehicles,” Kuykendall said. “We do still have tent encampments, but the majority are vehicles. We don’t have any plans right now to do a managed [encampment] site.”

Sanctioned encampments have been short-lived in other cities, too. In 2018, the city of San Jose experimented with Hope Village—a sanctioned encampment of about 17 residents near the international airport. But after a year, the Federal Aviation Administration broke it up—saying it was too close to the airport. The city never found a replacement location.

Some sanctioned encampments, like Sausalito’s, have a checkered record. Officials in the bayfront city opened an encampment on city tennis courts last year after homeless advocates filed a lawsuit over the city’s handling of an unsanctioned encampment near the San Francisco Bay. But the tennis court encampment made headlines for the wrong reasons this past February, when one of its 28 residents lit a tent on fire, causing a propane tank inside to explode.

Despite some challenges of sanctioned encampments—including their cost (Santa Rosa’s cost nearly $700,000 to operate)—Kuykendall said that they are very effective at attracting more service- or shelter-resistant populations. They also help reduce the impacts of unsanctioned encampments.

“The best thing we learned is that people will come in—people who have been resistant previously to come into previous shelter models,” Kuykendall said.

While it’s never a long-term solution to homelessness, a sanctioned encampment can also be a valuable touchpoint for services or a first step to permanent housing. Santa Rosa had some success at housing individuals who stayed at its encampment, Kuykendall said.

“That was really our focus—that this is not the end destination,” she said. “Let’s stabilize people and house them.”

The whole person

click to enlarge Local governments along the Pacific Coast innovate to address the growing issue of homelessness
PHOTO COURTESY OF THE CITY OF SAUSALITO
UNSANCTIONED : Sausalito’s solution to a homeless encampment that formed near the San Francisco bay front was to relocate it to a city park.

Many individuals experiencing homelessness need medical attention, mental health care, social services, or substance abuse treatment in addition to shelter. But it can be difficult to find a place to live—and stay there—without addressing those other needs, said Melora Martin, a senior strategist with the California Health Care Foundation. 

“We often find particular people experiencing homelessness don’t necessarily present with, ‘I need housing.’ They present with, ‘I need care for this pain I’m having, or symptom I’m having.’ [Addressing this] can be a gateway to the other services they need, including housing,” Martin said. 

This year, the Golden State is transitioning to a new program called Enhanced Care Management: a Medi-Cal-focused initiative designed to meet individuals experiencing homelessness where they are, and give them one point of contact who can help coordinate services to meet all of their needs—physical, dental, behavioral, and developmental-—as well as give access to social services, according to the California Department of Health Care Services. 

Currently 25 of California’s 58 counties have Enhanced Care Management programs specific to their needs, and Santa Barbara County’s not too far behind as it completes a program application, said Department of Behavioral Wellness Chief Quality Care and Strategy Officer Susan Grimmesey.

“To have a true whole person care model, there has to be the funding so that you have the dedicated coordinators within each of those systems. You’d have this actual team, and that’s something we don’t have. We have good relationships and believe in it, but from a practical standpoint we don’t have the designated teams,” Grimmesey said. 

If the application’s approved by the Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors and the state, the county could incorporate a housing retention team, life skills training, a tenant curriculum, and counseling services for individuals experiencing homelessness by September, she said.

“So often, we help individuals establish housing and assume now [that] they got the housing, they’ve got what they need. We know now how important it is to have a significant amount of support with independent living skills, life skills, benefits coaching, and having people on-site that can be there to provide support,” Grimmesey continued.

Santa Barbara County looked to programs set up in Monterey and Alameda counties as models, Grimmesey said. The two counties were both a part of a 2016, five-year pilot program called Whole Person Care—which looked at coordinated service efforts for individuals experiencing homelessness, but wasn’t a part of Medi-Cal yet—explained Alameda County Homeless Care and Coordination Director Kerry Abbott.

Alameda received $140 million from the California Department of Health Care Services to implement its pilot program—which ran until December 2020 and is transitioning to Enhanced Care Management this year—with a priority of helping individuals navigate housing applications, Abbott said. 

“It takes a lot more than just showing up for an interview to make that work. Housing coordinators worked with clients on everything from accessing documents to moving into housing; from preparing for meetings [to] identifying preferences. Services were a huge part of Whole Person Care,” she said. 

According to 2020 Alameda County data, 299 people received intensive support through its Enhanced Housing Transition Service Bundle, and 1,691 people received landlord relations and dispute resolution coaching under its Housing and Tenancy Sustaining Service Bundle.

Although providing all the services a person may need is a move in a positive direction, the statewide housing crisis presents a barrier that services alone cannot overcome, Abbott added. 

“What it really comes down to is the housing crisis in California is desperate. There’s not enough housing, and it’s extremely expensive,” she said. “Whole Person Care was intended to address all of the barriers that people might be facing to improve their health, and housing is one of the biggest barriers.”

New Times Assistant Editor Peter Johnson and Sun Staff Writer Taylor O’Connor contributed to this story. Reach them through the editor at [email protected].

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