by Craig Wiesner – San Mateo Daily Journal – February 20th, 2024
An elderly diabetic homeless man spent his days and nights outside a fast food restaurant in the Sacramento area, often drunk, in dire straits, causing dozens of calls to first responders and trips to the hospital. As anyone working with chronically homeless people knows, it can take dozens of times for someone like this man to accept any offer of help, let alone accept an invitation to a shelter. Getting a chronically unhoused person to go to a congregant shelter is incredibly difficult but Sacramento had something new to offer. One afternoon, when the man was a bit more sober, an outreach worker offered him his own tent in a “Safe Ground” campsite. He said “Yes” and was driven to Miller Park. Three weeks later, Ben Worrall, Director of Outreach for the City of Sacramento’s Department of Community Response, walked through Miller Park and spotted the man he knew all too well, and he had made a complete turnaround. He had begun working with behavioral health to reduce his drinking, got his diabetes back under control, had put on a little weight and was walking, talking and strong. Today, months later, he is paying for stable permanent supportive housing. His story is one of MANY recent positive outcomes thanks to creative solutions like Miller Park.
The City and County of Sacramento are doing something historic and new, working together in partnership with many traditional and nontraditional organizations, in a tightly coordinated way, to move as many people off the streets and out of ramshackle encampments as they can. Most importantly, they are achieving the holy grail of success metrics, “positive exit rates,” moving people from homelessness into secure, permanent housing. Last year 61% of families who were temporarily housed in the city’s motel program had positive exits! And in the short time “Safe Ground” campsites have been operational they’ve had a 45% positive exit rate. Now the city is taking the concept one step further, opening a new campus on Roseville Road where upwards of 240 people can eventually be housed in sleeping cabins and trailers. Like our own San Mateo County Navigation Center, this type of housing overcomes the resistance homeless people have to accepting help by offering them private space rather than dorm style congregant shelters. Getting folks to accept shelter is just the first step though, in the important work of figuring out what issues each individual is facing and working to overcome those difficulties to help reach that positive exit.
With 10,000 unsheltered people in the Sacramento area the problem is daunting but Director Worrall feels good about the progress being made, especially in the last year and a half. Just in the last six months his team enrolled 1,765 people into HMIS, the Homeless Management Information System, a federally mandated database that helps track and coordinate services to people. In just about any endeavor, having accurate data is crucial to success and getting that many people enrolled in such a short time is a testament to Worrall’s staff and their dedication to helping people. In my interview with Worrall and Tim Swanson, the city’s Communications Manager, I asked what they thought might be the key to overcoming such a massive issue as having 10,000 unhoused people in the area. Their answer was that they are making a little progress every day through teamwork, a hub and spoke system connecting the city, county, and all of the agencies working together in a coordinated way. Sacramento, like many places, spent years with local municipalities, police departments, fire departments, county social service agencies, NGOs, and other organizations working separately, with the problems only getting bigger. Worrell said that “the continuum of care has made huge progress” since the city and county entered into a legally binding partnership. “I just wish I could take a few stairs to chat with one of my county colleagues instead of going across town,” he said. Despite a little distance between offices, everyone is working together in a way that they never had before. It’s working and he goes to work happy every day. He should!
Yes, California has more unhoused people than any other state. Yes, we’ve made mistakes, spent billions of dollars and the problem has gotten worse but I do believe we are on a new and better track. California needs thousands of more behavioral health beds for voluntary and compulsory (CARE Court and conservatorship) treatment, more temporary shelter beds, and much more affordable housing. We should audit everything, scrutinize every penny, replicate successful programs and abandon failures. “Safe Ground” campuses and San Mateo’s Navigation Center are examples everyone can learn from. Community First! outside Austin Texas is also worth looking at. Community, collaboration, teamwork, transparency and accountability are keys to success.