Construction on Gravenstein Commons, another homeless housing development, could begin this month. We reached out to St. Vincent de Paul director Jack Tibbetts to talk about the community's concerns
Remarkably frank analysis by Jack Tibbetts, who admits his own imperfections and experiential lessons learned in his own learning curve, of the failure of the Housing First model, which IS the orthodoxy of HUD and and housing policy academics but houses people first, just as its name proclaims, but fails in immediately addrssing underlying drug and personal problems.
Mr. Tibbets acknowledges a "high-barrier" model of offering housing to persons more likely to change behaviors has a higher chance for success, with rules rather than well-intentioned but soft-hearted permissiveness, but even then notes there is institutional pressure within academia to water the standard down to "medium-barrier" so as not to offend anyone. (This is the weakness within "woke" which, among other reasons, calls down the hostility from the present Presidency.) Mr. Tibbets notes correctly that families and addicts cannot just be lumped together on a continuum score as if one size fits all, which seems to have been one of the initial flaws with the current Elderberry Commons. (And also, by its very name, wasn't Elderberry intended for homeless ELDERS?) Rather than comment further, I encourage people to read the article: This deep dive is well worth reading in its entirety. It offers informed perspective on a difficult problem. Thanks to Sebastopol Times for this intelligent presentation....
Although unedited verbatim discourse on a complex subject is difficult to precisely comprehend, my reaction remains the same: 1. the bell curve of human 'types' will always produce those on the fringe who need special help, 2. it is incumbent on the civil society to provide that help, 3. I don't see any better alternative to the approach being tried (Elderberry Commons and Gravenstein Commons), 4. I can't intrinsically fault the management approach (es) laid out by Jack Tibbetts, 5. it is probably too early to tell if that management approach is successful, 6. my hat is off to those engaged in managing and 'supervising' Elderberry. And, finally, ' There but for the grace of ___ go I.'
One more idea for a part 2 - we were promised when Elderberry opened it would house vulnerable homeless from Sebastopol. Did that every happen? There were promises to the city council that there would be some units (forget the number) dedicated to Sebastopol Homeless. We interpreted that as an empty promise because the COC decides who goes where and they don't seem to prioritize finding a person living on the bench by the Sebastopol library and getting them into Elderberry or Gravenstein. The biggest advantage touted by Housing First and alluded to in a weird way by Mr. Tibbits, is getting homeless off the streets and into housing reduces costs to the city. The problem is we are not getting anyone off our streets, so the cost savings is to surrounding cities or the county. We see an increase in costs instead. Mr Tibbits put a shiny ribbon on the problem pointing out that the police just have to drive back and forth between the two facilities and not range all over the city. In fact, because we don't house homeless from Sebastopol, they have to do both....Cost relative to prison and a mental hospital was raised in a comment on your other article. I did a little math, and it seems like this approach is at least as expensive, maybe more. Would be difficult to get the real numbers but you might have collected them in your research.
Unfortunately, there were NEVER actual promises that Elderberry would house homeless from Sebastopol, although there WAS an expression that it would house homeless ELDERS as the most vulnerable population, hence the name. People heard wanted they wanted to hear: actual promises that were never made, notwithstanding the creation of illusions. In fact, when Barbie Robinson, then county health admininstrator, spoke at a town hall meeting and was directly asked how many Sebastopol people whould be housed, she apologized for not having that information! The reason: becaue there was no such information, except for blue sky.
"Local preference" is actually banned under more generalized county-wide funding models. The only way an elder Sebastopol homeless person (of which there were only one or two at the time, neither of whom wanted to enter the county process) could have qualified was to enter the county system then being operated through a county-managed encampment at Finley Park, accept services as offered to be rehabilitated as much as possible, get qualified, get scored under the Continuum of Care, and then ONLY get local preference if their score was a tie with another qualified applicant who was not from Sebastopol. Thus, now we have no elders housed there, and no one with previous ties to Sebastopol. My basis of knowledge: past chair of an ad hoc volunteer advocacy group, West County Homeless Advocates.
Your memory is good. I tried to find the video of the first meeting. I recall a lot of promises that were not believable but our only choice is to hold public officials accountable to the extent we can. You should attend Sebastopol city councils and share your expertise. The council and the city staff don’t always get the information they need to understand the problem.
Are you planning a part 2? Given that they are going forward there were many unanswered questions at the controversial council meeting where votes changed, and this was approved. There were questions about whether the grant amount would be enough for the project they envisioned. There is the consultant that is to represent the city. Is there one? What have they represented to SVdP so far? What are the final plans? I believe there was a promise of electric vehicle charging stations (crazy) to please the planning group. There were questions whether security fencing would be required? (Seems like a good idea based on Elderberry experience). I believe there were recommendations in the lengthy consultant report used to advise the council. Did any of the recommendations get implemented in the project plan? You make a good point that police calls may not in fact go down. Can the Sebastopol police continue the current rate of calls at Elderberry and add on the surge and then steady calls at Gravenstein? How much more might it cost if we need more officers? There are still quite a few calls in the area of the old Horizon Shine. Are these a continuation of homeless issues? How do businesses there feel about Gravenstein Commons. How about residents in the area. This will be quite different from Elderberry as there are business and residential areas impacted.
"...it should be seen as a good thing because it means people have the ability and have the frame of mind to know to call for help when they think something’s wrong." Mr. Tibbetts may be used to unconstrained resources. Sebastopol has just 7,000 residents in 1.9 square miles. They raised sales taxes by more than the maximum allowed by California law. There are no more trips to the well and the city is relying on one-time funds to balance the budget. Currently Elderberry is getting well over 40 calls per month.... doubling this number means something has to change. Either the police continue to deprioritize calls to assist residents and taxpayers, or taxpayers vote to increase property taxes on top of the new $260 fire parcel tax coming soon.
I vote for the high-barrier model. You can only help people who want to be helped. The other folks who can't or won't follow the rules of a civilize society, well need to be removed and placed in a confined situation at the cheapest possible cost.
Good interview, lots here to digest. This is information the city council has not been willing to share, for obvious reasons, I guess. Thank you, Sebastopol Times! My take is that the city better start planning for six months to one year of higher cost to provide police services once Gravenstein Commons is opened. The spill over issues will be more complicated because both residential and commercial areas will be impacted. The new Canopy project will be a neighbor. Existing families along Hurlbut were probably relieved to see Horizon Shine go, but based on crime reports there are still issues in that area. It is sad that County protocols will not let the city put any of Sebastopol's homeless now on our streets into these facilities. At least then we might see a reduction in total costs associated with them being helped and getting them off the street. Let's hope that Elderberry gets better before Gravenstein Commons opens.
Excellent interview. I agree from what has been presented, local control of rules by owners of the property could eliminate many problems. And yes....there for the grace of God go I.
“How you should judge success among housing providers is, what does that look like six months after the housing placement? What does that look like a year after the housing placement?”
Remarkably frank analysis by Jack Tibbetts, who admits his own imperfections and experiential lessons learned in his own learning curve, of the failure of the Housing First model, which IS the orthodoxy of HUD and and housing policy academics but houses people first, just as its name proclaims, but fails in immediately addrssing underlying drug and personal problems.
Mr. Tibbets acknowledges a "high-barrier" model of offering housing to persons more likely to change behaviors has a higher chance for success, with rules rather than well-intentioned but soft-hearted permissiveness, but even then notes there is institutional pressure within academia to water the standard down to "medium-barrier" so as not to offend anyone. (This is the weakness within "woke" which, among other reasons, calls down the hostility from the present Presidency.) Mr. Tibbets notes correctly that families and addicts cannot just be lumped together on a continuum score as if one size fits all, which seems to have been one of the initial flaws with the current Elderberry Commons. (And also, by its very name, wasn't Elderberry intended for homeless ELDERS?) Rather than comment further, I encourage people to read the article: This deep dive is well worth reading in its entirety. It offers informed perspective on a difficult problem. Thanks to Sebastopol Times for this intelligent presentation....
I feel for the businesses. Will we see security guards at Pacific Market again?
Although unedited verbatim discourse on a complex subject is difficult to precisely comprehend, my reaction remains the same: 1. the bell curve of human 'types' will always produce those on the fringe who need special help, 2. it is incumbent on the civil society to provide that help, 3. I don't see any better alternative to the approach being tried (Elderberry Commons and Gravenstein Commons), 4. I can't intrinsically fault the management approach (es) laid out by Jack Tibbetts, 5. it is probably too early to tell if that management approach is successful, 6. my hat is off to those engaged in managing and 'supervising' Elderberry. And, finally, ' There but for the grace of ___ go I.'
This actually is an edited transcript. I worked on editing it for about five hours. Still, it is pretty dense.
One more idea for a part 2 - we were promised when Elderberry opened it would house vulnerable homeless from Sebastopol. Did that every happen? There were promises to the city council that there would be some units (forget the number) dedicated to Sebastopol Homeless. We interpreted that as an empty promise because the COC decides who goes where and they don't seem to prioritize finding a person living on the bench by the Sebastopol library and getting them into Elderberry or Gravenstein. The biggest advantage touted by Housing First and alluded to in a weird way by Mr. Tibbits, is getting homeless off the streets and into housing reduces costs to the city. The problem is we are not getting anyone off our streets, so the cost savings is to surrounding cities or the county. We see an increase in costs instead. Mr Tibbits put a shiny ribbon on the problem pointing out that the police just have to drive back and forth between the two facilities and not range all over the city. In fact, because we don't house homeless from Sebastopol, they have to do both....Cost relative to prison and a mental hospital was raised in a comment on your other article. I did a little math, and it seems like this approach is at least as expensive, maybe more. Would be difficult to get the real numbers but you might have collected them in your research.
Unfortunately, there were NEVER actual promises that Elderberry would house homeless from Sebastopol, although there WAS an expression that it would house homeless ELDERS as the most vulnerable population, hence the name. People heard wanted they wanted to hear: actual promises that were never made, notwithstanding the creation of illusions. In fact, when Barbie Robinson, then county health admininstrator, spoke at a town hall meeting and was directly asked how many Sebastopol people whould be housed, she apologized for not having that information! The reason: becaue there was no such information, except for blue sky.
"Local preference" is actually banned under more generalized county-wide funding models. The only way an elder Sebastopol homeless person (of which there were only one or two at the time, neither of whom wanted to enter the county process) could have qualified was to enter the county system then being operated through a county-managed encampment at Finley Park, accept services as offered to be rehabilitated as much as possible, get qualified, get scored under the Continuum of Care, and then ONLY get local preference if their score was a tie with another qualified applicant who was not from Sebastopol. Thus, now we have no elders housed there, and no one with previous ties to Sebastopol. My basis of knowledge: past chair of an ad hoc volunteer advocacy group, West County Homeless Advocates.
Your memory is good. I tried to find the video of the first meeting. I recall a lot of promises that were not believable but our only choice is to hold public officials accountable to the extent we can. You should attend Sebastopol city councils and share your expertise. The council and the city staff don’t always get the information they need to understand the problem.
Are you planning a part 2? Given that they are going forward there were many unanswered questions at the controversial council meeting where votes changed, and this was approved. There were questions about whether the grant amount would be enough for the project they envisioned. There is the consultant that is to represent the city. Is there one? What have they represented to SVdP so far? What are the final plans? I believe there was a promise of electric vehicle charging stations (crazy) to please the planning group. There were questions whether security fencing would be required? (Seems like a good idea based on Elderberry experience). I believe there were recommendations in the lengthy consultant report used to advise the council. Did any of the recommendations get implemented in the project plan? You make a good point that police calls may not in fact go down. Can the Sebastopol police continue the current rate of calls at Elderberry and add on the surge and then steady calls at Gravenstein? How much more might it cost if we need more officers? There are still quite a few calls in the area of the old Horizon Shine. Are these a continuation of homeless issues? How do businesses there feel about Gravenstein Commons. How about residents in the area. This will be quite different from Elderberry as there are business and residential areas impacted.
"...it should be seen as a good thing because it means people have the ability and have the frame of mind to know to call for help when they think something’s wrong." Mr. Tibbetts may be used to unconstrained resources. Sebastopol has just 7,000 residents in 1.9 square miles. They raised sales taxes by more than the maximum allowed by California law. There are no more trips to the well and the city is relying on one-time funds to balance the budget. Currently Elderberry is getting well over 40 calls per month.... doubling this number means something has to change. Either the police continue to deprioritize calls to assist residents and taxpayers, or taxpayers vote to increase property taxes on top of the new $260 fire parcel tax coming soon.
I vote for the high-barrier model. You can only help people who want to be helped. The other folks who can't or won't follow the rules of a civilize society, well need to be removed and placed in a confined situation at the cheapest possible cost.
Good interview, lots here to digest. This is information the city council has not been willing to share, for obvious reasons, I guess. Thank you, Sebastopol Times! My take is that the city better start planning for six months to one year of higher cost to provide police services once Gravenstein Commons is opened. The spill over issues will be more complicated because both residential and commercial areas will be impacted. The new Canopy project will be a neighbor. Existing families along Hurlbut were probably relieved to see Horizon Shine go, but based on crime reports there are still issues in that area. It is sad that County protocols will not let the city put any of Sebastopol's homeless now on our streets into these facilities. At least then we might see a reduction in total costs associated with them being helped and getting them off the street. Let's hope that Elderberry gets better before Gravenstein Commons opens.
Excellent interview. I agree from what has been presented, local control of rules by owners of the property could eliminate many problems. And yes....there for the grace of God go I.
Nice job on the article!
Compassionate pragmatism. Or pragmatic compassion...
I so appreciate Mr. Tibbets’ honesty and transparency!
“How you should judge success among housing providers is, what does that look like six months after the housing placement? What does that look like a year after the housing placement?”
Michael - Um, stop bullying our paid subscribers, lol. We need them.