Santa Monicans Asked to Give Their Two Cents’ Worth on Homeless Problem

By Olin Ericksen
Staff Writer

September 6 -- What scores of Santa Monicans say now will help shape how the City deals with its top priority -- homelessness -- over the next six years.

Three months shy of publishing a much-anticipated audit of the City’s current homeless system -- called the Continuum of Care -- consultants for the non-profit Urban Institute have been busy conducting interviews and gathering perspectives from a wide cross section of Santa Monicans that will impact homeless policies far into the future.

That’s because the data collected will not only help decide which programs work and which need tweaking, but the information will help build a five-year strategy to reduce the City’s homeless population, estimated at 2,000.

“We are casting a very wide net,” said Martha Burt, a principal research associate at UI.

From focus groups made up of the homeless to interviews with non-profit directors, case managers, City officials, food providers and residents, the consulting team is working to incorporate diverse views, Burt said

More than 50 individuals have responded to the Washington D.C.-based consultants via suggestion cards alone, according to City officials. And three City Council members – Bobby Shriver, Richard Bloom and Herb Katz – were interviewed at length.

Why so much input?

“The issue of homelessness is so controversial that the way to handle it is not always the obvious answer,” said Burt. “It’s quite difficult to balance so many different points of view.”

In addition, much may be at stake, especially for local service providers.

John Maceri – who heads OPCC, the city’s the largest service provider, sat down with UI consultants in recent weeks.

“They conducted a very thorough review,” said Maceri of the efforts. “I’m anxious to see the report”

While Maceri said he is confident the report will show OPCC has provided invaluable counseling, shelter, food and other essentials to help the area’s most impoverished get on their feet – he’s said publicly he is concerned that the City may feel the need to cut back on the Continuum of Care in favor of other strategies.

For nearly two years, the City has worked to launch an expensive homeless strategy – known as “Housing First” – that rents apartments for homeless individuals and families to move them from the streets into a more supportive setting.

Already the City is spending much of a $1 million federal grant on rent to house handfuls of homeless who have lived on the street the longest and are the biggest drain on area emergency systems.

Maceri has said he worries that the City will lean too much towards the “housing first” approach – which proponents say has been successful in Cities such as New York.

Yet City officials and UI consultants say it is not a question of favoring one approach over the other, since both a “housing first” strategy and a “continuum of care” approach are needed.

“You can’t talk about one separate from the other,” said Burt, noting both will be needed to tackle such a complex issue.

To weigh in on Santa Monica’s homeless problem visit http://pen.ci.santa-monica.ca.us/hsd/HomelessEval/index.htm or email the urban institute at santa_monica_homeless@ui.urban.org