Last year, El Cajon spent nearly $640,000 on programs that provide temporary or permanent housing for people living without shelter, and to address the impacts of those living homeless in the city.
And while El Cajon says it will continue to be at the forefront of helping its homeless residents in 2020, it wants to know: Will the three other East County cities step up and be part of the solution?
La Mesa, Santee and Lemon Grove, all smaller in size and population than El Cajon, say they don’t have the number of homeless residents that El Cajon does. They also don’t have the service providers that can be found in El Cajon, East County’s most populous city with about 100,000 residents.
Just a week before the countywide 2020 Point-in-Time count rolls out Thursday, El Cajon City Manager Graham Mitchell and City Council members voiced a need for more collaboration with their neighbors.
Advertisement
Homelessness is the topic El Cajon City Council members hear about most from its constituents and because of that, it’s the city’s highest priority, City Councilman Phil Ortiz said.
“The city can’t do this on its own,” Ortiz said. “I would like to see our neighboring cities and the county come together to have a regional plan, similar to the one forming in North County. The state of California also needs to treat this like a crisis. I would like to see more attention brought to this topic from leaders in Sacramento.”
According to the 2019 Point-in-Time Count coordinated by the Regional Task Force on the Homeless, El Cajon had 787 individuals who were homeless, the largest population of homeless in East County.
Last year, Point-in-Time counters found 46 homeless individuals in La Mesa and 35 homeless individuals living without shelter in both Santee and Lemon Grove.
Advertisement
Including outlying county areas, East County has the second-largest population of homeless individuals in San Diego County, the task force says. The report said last year there were 1,053 people homeless in East County.
Of the four East County cities, El Cajon is the only one that offers tangible places for homeless people to put a roof over their heads. And shelter is the No. 1 need, according to Bradley Russell, a homeless outreach worker at McAlister Institute, a service provider that focuses on substance abuse treatment and education.
Among those opportunities for shelter in El Cajon, the city pays for about 2,000 nights of housing annually through an agreement with the East County Transitional Living Center. ECTLC is a former motel that now offers emergency housing for up to 28 days.
Russell said the center is not always the right place for every homeless person, because those who need a stay longer than four weeks are not allowed to do so unless they take up a Christian-centered lifestyle. ECTLC is a faith-based community that offers longer shelter stays to those who take part in its religious programming, which many find off-putting with rules that are too rigid.
Mitchell, El Cajon’s city manager, recently told the City Council that when looking into what types of shelter the other cities offer, “there are a couple of absent names,” then mentioned Santee and Lemon Grove. Neither city has the dedicated shelter spaces like El Cajon, which will be sending out a Request for Qualifications to identify potential partners and solutions to expand shelter space.
Mitchell also highlighted El Cajon’s partnership with the nonprofit social services agency Crisis House for the work of a Housing Navigator. The navigator manages the city’s housing assistance funds with an annual budget of $150,000. Since the city’s 2017 collaboration with Crisis House, Mitchell said the navigator has found permanent housing for 86 individuals and 55 households.
Additionally, the city funds a program operated by The Salvation Army called “A Way Back Home.” The partnership since 2017 has found permanent housing for 73 people.
La Mesa has stepped up its efforts in recent years, joining the San Diego Regional Task Force on the Homeless in 2017, declaring a shelter crisis in 2018 and starting a Citizen Task Force on Homelessness last July. The task force meets monthly and has been reaching out to homeless organizations to help it make recommendations to the City Council.
Advertisement
At its Jan. 15 meeting, the task force said it was exploring how other communities are able to create housing opportunities for the homeless. The group spoke of the Zephyr apartments in the San Diego community of Grantville. Zephyr offers supportive housing project for 84 veterans where a Motel 6 once stood.
La Mesa’s Police Department began a Homeless Outreach Team in 2017 that offers services or assistance in signing up for services to homeless individuals. The police also work with the county’s Psychiatric Emergency Response Team, offering resources to residents who may have mental illness.
Santee Mayor John Minto said his city looks to law enforcement to help with the homeless, who mostly call the area around the San Diego River home. He also said the city gives block grant money to Crisis House and is in contact with ECTLC to identify people who might be candidates to stay at its facility.
Minto also said the Santee Sheriff’s Department is part of the Homeless Assistance Resource Team, which does outreach work throughout the county.
Though Lemon Grove Assistant City Manager Mike James said his city “doesn’t have the discretionary money some of the other cities do,” Lemon Grove works with groups such as Home Start, Crisis House and The Salvation Army as it is able.
Lemon Grove also hosted a workshop in November about homelessness in the city and said the city worked to help a family without shelter get housing in December. He said Lemon Grove staff will be bringing a report to the City Council in February that will give a comprehensive look at what it can do to help its homeless population.
Lemon Grove joined the other East County cities in the last few years to be part of the East County Homeless Task Force. That group first formed in 2016 to bring business owners, civic leaders and law enforcement officials together to create a regional approach to address homelessness in their communities.
In 2018, California announced the availability of $18.8 million in grant funding to provide assistance to address the homeless crisis, of which East County was granted $1 million. The Homeless Emergency Aid Program funds are distributed by the Regional Task Force on the Homeless and were announced last August for the first year of funding, with an option to renew for a second year.
Advertisement
East County funding included $300,000 to Crisis House’s East County Housing Connections program, for an expansion of its El Cajon-focused program ,and $625,000 to Home Start, Inc.'s East County Collaboration for street outreach and housing navigation for youth and families.
The East County Homeless Task Force has invited the community to its next general meeting where the Regional Housing Needs Assessment and local housing needs will be discussed. That meeting is scheduled from 9 to 10:30 a.m. Jan. 29 at the Pacific Southwest Association of Realtors at 1150 Broadway #100 in El Cajon.
"looking" - Google News
January 21, 2020 at 10:59PM
https://ift.tt/36kHRTX
East County looking for ways to deal with homelessness in 2020 - The San Diego Union-Tribune
"looking" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2tdCiJt
Shoes Man Tutorial
Pos News Update
Meme Update
Korean Entertainment News
Japan News Update
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "East County looking for ways to deal with homelessness in 2020 - The San Diego Union-Tribune"
Post a Comment