Santa Cruz County Continuum of Care Coordinating Group

FIVE-YEAR STRATEGIC

PLAN ON HOMELESSNESS

2003-2007

DRAFT

Sponsored by: County of Santa Cruz

City of Santa Cruz

City of Watsonville

City of Capitola

City of Scotts Valley

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements........................................................................................ 3

Executive Summary......................................................................................... 4

Mission, Vision and Guiding Principles.............................................................. 9

The Santa Cruz Continuum of Care Coordinating Group and

Plan Development......................................................................................... 11

Schematic of the Relationship Between Continuum of Care Entities................... 16

Homelessness in Santa Cruz County............................................................... 17

The Definition of Homelessness............................................................ 17

Data Sources..................................................................................... 17

Demographic Profile of the Homeless Population in the County............... 19

What are the Housing Needs of Homeless People in the County............. 21

What Are the Service Needs of Homeless People in the County.............. 25

Chapters

Housing.............................................................................................. 33

Jobs and Income................................................................................ 50

Supportive Services............................................................................ 57

Health................................................................................................ 67

Plan Implementation............................................................................ 78

Participants in the Planning Process............................................................... 83

Tables

Table 1 Shelter Status of Homeless Persons in the County ............ 21

Table 2 2001 Fair Market Monthly Rents (HUD 2001) by

Number of Bedrooms................................................... 23

Table 3: Housing Wage Needed by Number of Bedrooms............... 23

Table 4: Wait List for Subsidized Housing, April, 2001..................... 24

Figures

Figure 1: Schematic of the Santa Cruz Countywide Continuum of Care......................................................................................................... 16

Figure 2: Public Assistance Received .......................................... 26

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This Plan comes out of the shared vision, experience, analysis, and time of scores of people who participated month after month in planning meetings; who facilitated, translated for and contributed in focus groups; who took the time to review and thoughtfully respond to drafts of the Plan; and who provided the administrative support to reduce ideas to paper.

The Santa Cruz County Continuum of Care Coordinating Group is grateful to each of these people for their work to transform our community to one where all residents have the stable housing and services they need to live in dignity and reach their highest potential.

The Coordinating Group extends gratitude to the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors for its leadership in directing the creation of this document. It also thanks the Board and the Cities of Santa Cruz, Watsonville, Capitola, and Scotts Valley for the shared funding of the development of the Plan and the commitment to working together to achieve the Plan's goals. This is truly a collaborative effort.

Special recognition is due to the members of the Coordinating Group’s Planning Committee for their extraordinary contributions of time and expertise (members are identified in Participants in the Planning Process), and to the Santa Cruz County Human Resources Agency--Cecilia Espinola, HRA Director; Nora Krantzler, Senior Human Services Analyst; and Michelle Greenwood, Executive Secretary--for their exemplary effort in staffing the Planning Committee’s work.

Finally, the Coordinating Group thanks the following staff of HomeBase/The Center for Common Concerns, for their patience and skill in facilitating the preparation of this Plan: Tony Gardner, Karen Gruneisen, Piper Ehlen, and Jessica Flintott.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The Santa Cruz County Five Year Strategic Plan on Homelessness seeks to create a comprehensive and coordinated system of affordable housing and support services for the prevention, reduction and eventual end of homelessness. It identifies outcome objectives in the areas of housing, jobs and incomes, supportive services, health care and the overall administration and coordination of the County’s Continuum of Care system. For each outcome objective identified in the plan, specific action steps are laid out for implementation.

In this way, the Plan provides a common blueprint to guide the County, the Cities, service providers, the business sector, philanthropy, and the broader community in realizing the vision of a community in which all residents have stable housing and services they need to live in dignity and reach their highest potential.

Background & Planning Process

Santa Cruz County has a long history of community-wide, collaborative work to provide a range of homeless housing and services. These efforts have grown into a full countywide Continuum of Care system with all of its components, including prevention, emergency shelter, transitional housing, permanent affordable and permanent supportive housing, supportive services at each stage, specialized programs and outreach for each homeless subpopulation, and integration with “mainstream” programs. Nonetheless, homelessness in the county has grown to approximately 3,300 people on any given night. Accordingly, the County Board of Supervisors directed the lead entity for the countywide effort to respond to homelessness, the Santa Cruz County Continuum of Care Coordinating Group, with staff support from the County Human Resources Agency and consulting assistance from HomeBase, a nonprofit technical service provider on homelessness, to develop a five-year strategic plan to respond.

Work on the plan commenced in February, 2001. Through monthly four-hour meetings, the Group developed the Plan’s recommendations and gained needed community input. The Group developed a vision, mission, guiding principles, topic-specific outcome objectives, and action steps. Its work was guided by an ad hoc Data Committee which gathered and analyzed existing information on the homeless population and their needs, and by an ad hoc Public Outreach and Civic Engagement Committee which facilitated public review of Plan drafts and elicited input from homeless people through focus groups.

Plan Themes

There is no easy fix to homelessness. While the strategies in this Plan to respond effectively in Santa Cruz County are numerous and diverse, there are some recurring ideas, which the Coordinating Group identify as the foundations to their Continuum of Care:

Housing, Housing, Housing

Homelessness will exist until there is sufficient housing affordable to those with the lowest incomes. Accordingly, the number one priority in this community must be to take all action to ensure the preservation of existing and creation of new stable, affordable housing.

Closing the Front Door to Homelessness: Prevention

Prevention of homelessness must be a cornerstone of a Continuum of Care system. The majority of people who enter the homeless assistance system receive help and exit the system relatively quickly. But no sooner do people successfully exit the system than they are replaced by others. This is why the number of homeless people does not go down. If we are going to end homelessness we must prevent people from becoming homeless.

Local and Regional Engagement and Collaboration

Any successful effort to address homelessness must involve the support and collaboration and full engagement of the entire community, including the County, the Cities, service providers, the business sector, citizens, and people who are homeless or who formerly were homeless. While unique strategies are targeted to meet the needs of specific localities, coordinating efforts regionally, within the County and within the entire Bay Area, is necessary in order to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the County's efforts.

Accessible Safety Net Services for Improved Care and Financial Stability

Coordination with mainstream, safety net service systems must be improved in order to better meet the needs of people who are homeless or at-risk and to provide greater long-term financial stability for the Continuum of Care system.

Integration of Services

Homeless individuals benefit greatly from integrated support services programs, which coordinate the provision of housing, health, employment and other services to address the complex and interrelated barriers to self-sufficiency. These programs are highly successful and Santa Cruz County encourages the use of integrated services programs.

Outcomes-Based Accountability

The Santa Cruz County Continuum of Care goes beyond an effort to create a full spectrum homeless assistance system which manages people's experience of homelessness. This is a long-term plan with specific, measurable, appropriate, realistic, time-bound and stakeholder-centered outcome statements and action steps related to systems changes. The Plan is not successful until system change is achieved.

Homelessness in Santa Cruz County

The Plan text in this chapter includes:

· Data on the number and characteristics of homeless people in the County

· An analysis of Key Needs of homeless people in the County

Outcome Objectives and Action Steps

The Homelessness Plan is divided into five chapters, each of which addresses a key area of need in the effort to reduce and prevent homelessness. Each chapter identifies outcome objectives for that area of need and action steps to guide implementation.

Among the outcome objectives of the Plan are these:

1. 50% fewer of the lowest income households will lose their housing and become homeless.

2. 50% more families and individuals without shelter will receive emergency shelter.

3. 100 more families and 100 more individuals will attain self-sufficiency with the aid of transitional housing and services.

4. The overall countywide stock of housing affordable to family or individual households with extremely low or low incomes will be increased by 50%.

5. The overall countywide stock of permanent supportive housing available to families or individuals with serious and permanent life disabilities and extremely low or low incomes will be increased by 50%.

6. Each year, 10% of homeless people will obtain jobs at living wages or obtain better jobs with higher incomes and employment benefits.

7. 80% of homeless people will eat 3 meals a day.

8. All homeless children will attend school.

9. An additional 400 people per year will receive medical care (increasing the total to 2,500) and an additional 240 will receive urgent dental services (increasing the total to 300).

The chapters of the Plan include:

I. Housing. Recognizing that increasing the availability and accessibility of housing affordable to those who are homeless or have extremely low incomes is key to reducing homelessness in Santa Cruz County, this chapter focuses on a variety of strategies to maintain and expand a full continuum of housing options, including emergency shelter, transitional housing, supportive housing and permanent affordable housing. Needed emergency shelter will be provided through proposed new facilities for families in the North and South County; a permanent year-round facility for adults to replace the winter armory; motel vouchers for seniors, the ill and frail; and private home placements for youth. Enhanced linkages between shelters and supportive services will reduce cycling back into shelter. Three new transitional housing facilities for families with children, youth and adults with mental illness and/or substance abuse issues with stronger linkages to permanent housing for graduates are called for. A plethora of strategies to maintain the existing supply, and develop new affordable housing are set forth. The stock of permanent affordable housing with supportive services for those with disabilities will increase through priority funding efforts and creation of integrated service teams linked to homeless housing.

To prevent homelessness, the Plan seeks to dramatically decrease the number of the lowest income households who lose their housing through emergency rental and utility assistance and eviction prevention measures, coupled with an increase in the housing units made available by landlords to low income families with subsidies through incentives to landlords, and ensure that people will not be discharged from public institutions into homelessness.

II. Jobs and Incomes. To realize the goal of self-sufficiency, this chapter’s outcome objectives and action steps seek to address the need for employment at living wages and removal of the barriers homeless people face in accessing public benefits. It includes action steps to increase the availability of pre-employment services; expand access to job training, especially for higher paying jobs; and identify and alleviate the barriers to employment faced by homeless people with special needs. This chapter’s action steps also seek to increase the availability of financial assistance, money management and support for asset accumulation, for those who are not making a living wage. In addition, this chapter focuses on working with employers to broaden the employment opportunities available to homeless people though specialized training and placement programs.

III. Supportive Services. This chapter focuses on the provision of a broad range of support services, all of which are key to reducing the incidence of homelessness. In order to make the best use of resources and facilitate greater coordination in service provision, a key focus of the action steps in this chapter is on assisting mainstream agencies to more effectively meet the needs of homeless people, thus expanding the quantity and quality of services available to them. In addition, there is an overall focus on ensuring that the