In a circumstance rarely
encountered with grand jury reports, the Santa Barbara County Board of
Supervisors agreed with all six findings in a 2021 report about housing the
homeless that focused on using two state programs.
And while the board agreed
with all the findings, it only agreed with four of the six recommendations that
accompanied them.
The response said four of
the six recommendations had already been implemented, but the remaining two
would not be implemented because they aren’t warranted.
Supervisors unanimously
approved the response to the report titled “The Keys to Housing the Homeless”
on Tuesday to meet the Feb. 15 deadline for submitting it to the presiding
judge of the County Superior Court.
The “keys” addressed in
the grand jury report were the state Roomkey and Homekey programs that provide
funding for temporary and permanent housing.
Through Roomkey,
vulnerable elderly homeless with underlying health conditions were provided
with rooms plus appropriate services. Through Homekey, a county-owned office
building was converted into housing for homeless individuals.
“Well, I think this is the
most agreement I’ve ever seen in five years on the board with a grand jury
finding — and that’s a good sign,” 1st District Supervisor Das Williams said after
hearing a staff report on the proposed response.
“It’s because of two
things,” he continued. “It’s because, No. 1, the dynamism of the level of
progress the staff and and this board has made in the last couple of years.
“Normally, even when
there’s a lot of recommendations we agree with, it takes a while to get there,”
he said. “This level of progress for the first time that I’ve seen in
addressing homelessness in a couple of decades worth of trying, this is the
fastest momentum, the most momentum I’ve ever seen.”
He said that allowed the
staff to say, “Hey, we already did that,” when preparing the response to the
report.
“Even the points of
disagreement really aren’t,” Williams added.
He said the staff could
have responded “already implemented” for recommendation five — that the county
and all city councils get together to develop and implement a funding plan for
the programs — because that’s what the Elected Leaders Forum does.
He said the other
recommendation that won’t be implemented actually was, just not in the manner
the grand jury envisioned.
That recommendation was
that the Community Services Department to form an alliance with all city
councils to develop a roster of hotels and motels willing to participate in a
Roomkey-type program.
“I think, fortunately,
people are ready for solutions — more ready for solutions — than they ever have
been,” Williams said.
Recommendations already
implemented included that the supervisors and all city councils collaborate to
establish Roomkey-type programs in both ends of the county and that they
jointly identify potential Homekey sites.
Other already implemented
recommendations are that County Community Services Department solidify a team
to replicate the successful efforts in converting buildings into homeless housing
and that the Public Health, Behavioral Wellness, Social Services and Community
Services departments seek ways to fund wraparound services.
Second District Supervisor
Gregg Hart thanked the grand jury for bringing the state programs to the
attention of the public along with how the county has been implementing them.
“I think the public should
be really pleased that we are making progress,” Hart said. “It is not easy to
do, as we heard earlier about some of the challenges in these projects, but the
successes are real, and they are individual people, our neighbors, who have
been living on the street for many, many years and [in] circumstances that are
really difficult for us to contemplate.”
Hart said using hotels and
commercial spaces to provide individual housing with dignity is the right
solution.
“The success is evident in
the number of people we’re actually moving off the streets,” he said, noting
700 homeless people were provided with housing in each of the last two years.
However, he said, the
problem is finding a continuous, stable flow of money to support the programs.
“But we’re going to
continue because we know this approach works,” he said.
He asked the public to
urge their federal and state legislators to provide more funds.
santamariatimes.com
Mike Hodgson
Feb 9, 2022
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