SANTA CRUZ >> The feeding
program Food Not Bombs hoped to physically draw attention to the plight of the
homeless Santa Cruz with its second free outdoor brunch where Highway 1 and
Highway 9 intersect Thursday.
A Santa Cruz County grand jury
report, which was released publicly at about the same time as cars were flowing
by dozens partaking in fruit and muffins at one of the county’s busiest
intersection, had a similar aim.
“This is just highlighting the
instability of the social service crisis in Santa Cruz and really in the whole
country,” said Food Not Bombs co-founder Keith McHenry. “The Food Not Bombs
thing is that we think that broadly speaking, this is a wealthy community and
nobody should have to live on the streets.”
Both Food Not Bombs and the
grand jury report offered solutions to what they saw as the greatest problems
facing an estimated 3,500 people without their own homes and 80 percent
unsheltered across the county, according to the latest available statistics.
The former plans to escalate its free meal offerings, mobile shower service,
possible portable bathroom rentals and more, as the area’s largest homeless shelter
faces a major cut in services July 1.
The grand jury report urges
area homeless-serving agencies to include emergency shelter are part of their
strategies, not just focusing on permanent supportive housing efforts. Targeted
agencies include Encompass Community Services’ River Street Shelter and the
three Homeless Services Center shelters, individually aimed at short-term,
family, and transitional housing clients.
A 100-bed National Guard Armory
also serves as an emergency winter shelter from November to April.
“Emergency shelters can be an
important entry point for the homeless in beginning or continuing the process
of rebuilding their lives and accessing services which may lead to stable
housing,” the report found.
Santa Cruz County, the cities
of Santa Cruz, Capitola and Scotts Valley also are urged to increase emergency
shelter on a prioritized basis, find a more permanent location for the winter
shelter, allocate additional funds for case managers and seek out more
emergency shelter grant funding.
Center Executive Director
Jannan Thomas, in response to the report, said she agreed particularly with the
concern about insufficient case management. Potential relief on the horizon may
come in the form of a legislative bill that would allow case management
services to be billed to the Affordable Care Act, she said.
“We in the county have a
shortage of case management services, which is why we haven’t been able to use
the housing vouchers, 50 of them. That also means that those 50 people could
have moved out of the shelter, if we had the resources,” Thomas said. “I think
it’s important for people to match their expectations to the amount of resources
that are available.”
The Homeless Service Center is
scheduled to discontinue day services ranging from daily meals and showers to
bathrooms and mail, and closure of its nearly 50-bed Paul Lee Loft, comes due
to about a $600,000 expected budget shortfall.
Other of the program’s
services, such as its family and interim-stay shelters, are expected to remain.
The financial problems are largely due to the non-renewal of a $350,000 U.S.
Housing and Urban Development Emergency Solutions Grant, which the center had
consistently received for years, officials said.
Officials from the state
Housing and Community Development department, which administers the Emergency
Solutions Grant, said they plan to meet with Homeless Services Center leaders
on June 18 to discuss the grant’s loss, said Deputy Director of External
Affairs Evan Gerberding. The center’s application did not include some
information requested of it, she said.
“That is not to say they did
not submit data, they did, but not the specific data that was requested in the
NOFA (Notice of Funding Availability),” Gerberding wrote in an email. “As such,
we could not equitably compare it to other applicants that did provide the data
that was requested.”
Thomas said that those involved
with her organization are focusing much of their attention on finding funding
to keep the services and shelter open for some or part of the coming year. No
alternative state or federal grants are open for application at the moment, she
said.
Some 28 Homeless Services
Center employees were notified of a pending layoff due to the cuts, center
board President Claudia Brown said.
June 11, 2015
Santa
Cruz Sentinel
By
Jessica E. York
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