1) Thank you Laura for this well organized/written piece. 2) It seems to me the best people we've got are doing the best they can - and they sound well organized and quite competent 3) There, but for the grace of ____, go I.
County budget $28MM or $14,000 for each homeless person. Overall spending $208MM last year $104,000 per homeless person. Throw in another $25MM in Measure O funding or $20,800 per homeless person with "mental health issues". After some searching I could not find what % of homeless with mental health/addiction issues accept treatment but suspect is a pretty low number which raises questions about what measure O money is being spent on.
The $1MM in measure O money spent in Sebastopol during the last three years raises even more questions. The table heading says "Spending by City". When confronted with the fact that no one in the city was aware of $1million dollars in mental health services, someone said it was some sort of allocation not actual spend. There was also a reference to $700,000 spending on Horizon Shine but is closed prior to most of the funds shown in the table. The notice that we have to apply for next year's measure O funding and only have 2 days to do it was fun. Maybe, the county did not get the message we don't have a team of people in the city working on this. We barely have anyone working on anything at this point with vacancies. Mary Gourley is doing great work but there are limits.
You didn't mention the 278 MST mental health calls in the city that again no one was aware of. Many were made together with law enforcement. Even with the mayor's call for our own mental health team, it is surprising that no one was aware that the MST was in Sebastopol almost every day last year?
The overall message was the county has amassed funding and infrastructure to address homeless issues with multidisciplinary teams. Sebastopol has a 1/2 time outreach coordinator that does busywork for the COE system. It seemed like Mr. Sullivan got the message. He seemed open to the idea that the homeless in Sebastopol are also the homeless in West County and the County needs to cross into our little city. Supervisor Hopkins frequently comments on her willingness to help the city but there was never any follow through, perhaps because she does not "see any homeless in Sebastopol".
They are invisible if you don't want to see them. They are sleeping by the city hall and library, at the side door of Rite Aid, in the alcove by the boot maker and in cars in the Safeway parking lot. There are a growing number of motorhomes and trailers in the shopping centers. One motorhome was just towed off of Morris street. Drug dealing is quite visible in the Safeway parking lot among those sleeping in cars. With school reopened, our high school students will be a potential new market for the drug dealer there. A recent fire in the Laguna was due to a homeless camp.
1) Thank you Laura for this well organized/written piece. 2) It seems to me the best people we've got are doing the best they can - and they sound well organized and quite competent 3) There, but for the grace of ____, go I.
County budget $28MM or $14,000 for each homeless person. Overall spending $208MM last year $104,000 per homeless person. Throw in another $25MM in Measure O funding or $20,800 per homeless person with "mental health issues". After some searching I could not find what % of homeless with mental health/addiction issues accept treatment but suspect is a pretty low number which raises questions about what measure O money is being spent on.
The $1MM in measure O money spent in Sebastopol during the last three years raises even more questions. The table heading says "Spending by City". When confronted with the fact that no one in the city was aware of $1million dollars in mental health services, someone said it was some sort of allocation not actual spend. There was also a reference to $700,000 spending on Horizon Shine but is closed prior to most of the funds shown in the table. The notice that we have to apply for next year's measure O funding and only have 2 days to do it was fun. Maybe, the county did not get the message we don't have a team of people in the city working on this. We barely have anyone working on anything at this point with vacancies. Mary Gourley is doing great work but there are limits.
You didn't mention the 278 MST mental health calls in the city that again no one was aware of. Many were made together with law enforcement. Even with the mayor's call for our own mental health team, it is surprising that no one was aware that the MST was in Sebastopol almost every day last year?
The overall message was the county has amassed funding and infrastructure to address homeless issues with multidisciplinary teams. Sebastopol has a 1/2 time outreach coordinator that does busywork for the COE system. It seemed like Mr. Sullivan got the message. He seemed open to the idea that the homeless in Sebastopol are also the homeless in West County and the County needs to cross into our little city. Supervisor Hopkins frequently comments on her willingness to help the city but there was never any follow through, perhaps because she does not "see any homeless in Sebastopol".
They are invisible if you don't want to see them. They are sleeping by the city hall and library, at the side door of Rite Aid, in the alcove by the boot maker and in cars in the Safeway parking lot. There are a growing number of motorhomes and trailers in the shopping centers. One motorhome was just towed off of Morris street. Drug dealing is quite visible in the Safeway parking lot among those sleeping in cars. With school reopened, our high school students will be a potential new market for the drug dealer there. A recent fire in the Laguna was due to a homeless camp.