It’s been less than a month since volunteers fanned out across Santa Barbara County to attempt to count the homeless population.
While local governments, nonprofits, and others dedicated to addressing homelessness await the results, one countywide program announced some promising data from its initial efforts. But the year-old Home for Good program in Santa Barbara County, which finds homeless individuals and families safe housing and critical services, noted that there is still much more work ahead.
The United Way of Northern Santa Barbara County coordinates, oversees, and manages the program, a collaborative effort of nonprofits, local governments, businesses, and other partners. The program is an attempt to merge existing efforts to help the county’s homeless into a single coordinated program with the goal of getting individuals off the street and into housing quickly, as well as connecting them with important social services.
At a Feb. 19 meeting, members of the Santa Maria City Council received an update on the program’s first year of working toward that goal. During the presentation, United Way Director of North County Outreach Dorothy Mogavero described the results of the program’s efforts in 2018 as an “extraordinary success.”
Mogavero said that much of that work during the first year was focused on gathering data and information about the county’s homeless population, as well as trying to get the word out to them about the program. The program’s efforts included contacting homeless individuals and families, assessing their needs, and using that information to create a database that various agencies, nonprofits, and other program partners could use to share information.
“This database has drastically reduced some of the duplication we saw in the past,” Mogavero said. “We were able to reach out to each other and coordinate what were doing for each individual and family.”
In 2018, more than 1,463 homeless individuals in need of housing and services in the county participated in the program, including 249 in Santa Maria. Mogavero said part of the successful contacts came from a street team, as well as placing program workers in areas where the homeless tend to congregate, like city libraries.
Once workers make contact with individuals, they can conduct a needs assessment and help get participants services and, most importantly, begin the process of trying to find housing through the program.
While Home for Good’s first year was mostly focused on making those contacts and gathering data, 2019 will be spent tackling the challenging task of finding them housing. Home for Good is a “housing first” program, meaning it’s based on the principle that having safe and stable housing increases the likelihood that someone will be able to stay off the street, use whatever services and supports they might need, and more easily attain independence and self-sufficiency.
The second phase of the program, after identifying needs and services, is to get homeless participants “document ready” to get housing.
“There are specific documents that an individual or family will need in order to be placed in housing when it is available,” Mogavero said.
According to data presented at the Feb. 19 meeting, Home for Good was able to get 24 homeless families document ready for housing in 2018.
Once they have documentation, the program then faces the task of actually getting those families housing, something that Mogavero admitted would not be easy in the midst of California’s affordable housing crunch.
“We need available housing,” she told the council. “And as you have heard us say in the past, we cannot solve this homelessness problem if we can’t build [housing], but we cannot build our way out of this problem quickly enough or in sufficient numbers.”
The difficult task of finding housing was reflected in the program’s 2018 data. Of the 249 individuals identified by the program last year, 26 families and 145 individuals were currently in need of housing.
“We have to create new relationships and creative opportunities with landlords and even consider other creative housing techniques,” Mogavero said.
To meet the need, Mogavero said Home for Good had already identified 200 supportive housing units on various properties in the county, all of which are in differing stages of development.
City Spokesman Mark van de Kamp acknowledged the challenges of meeting the housing needs for those in the program.
“The demand is bigger than the supply, and it’s hard to keep up,” van de Kamp said in an email response to questions from the Sun. “This is an issue pretty much anywhere in California.”
Van de Kamp did note that the city has some upcoming affordable housing projects that could help tackle the problem. Those include the 40-unit Sierra Madre Cottage project for seniors, the 80-unit Residences at Depot Street, and 30 manufactured homes planned for the Cox Street Housing Project.
“The city does not have an inclusionary housing ordinance, but the city’s Community Development Department has processed several affordable housing projects … and has worked with applicants to ensure their development objectives,” van de Kamp wrote.
The housing will not only help the homeless in the program, but could also help the city show that it is working to meet the state’s recent efforts to get cities to build more affordable housing.
Despite the challenges, Councilmember Gloria Soto acknowledged the critical role that housing plays in getting homeless individuals off the street and keeping them there.
“Before you can expect anyone to sober up or get mental health services, having a safe home is the first step,” she said.
Soto also pointed to the numbers of individuals and families seeking housing and services through the program as a counter to the common stereotype that many homeless people want or choose to live that way.
“I think that there is this huge misconception that a lot of people who are homeless or houseless refuse services,” she said.
For more information about the Home for Good program, visit liveunitedsbc.org or call (805) 450-3558.
Staff Writer Chris McGuinness can be reached at cmcguinnesss@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Feb 28 – Mar 7, 2019.