County officials have advanced a proposal to house a large group of people who are living on local streets while being treated for substance abuse disorders and approved a sweeping review of all contracts and programs related to homelessness.
Although differing opinions about how to best tackle the crisis were on display Tuesday, the board of supervisors were nonetheless unanimous when they approved both measures.
A number of details remain in the air and the votes directed staffers to hash out many specifics.
One proposal was for a pilot program to find housing for an estimated 100 people enrolled in county-funded outpatient treatment.
“These are dedicated individuals that are attending meetings, going for regular testing, putting in tremendous effort toward their recovery,” Supervisor Jim Desmond, the proposal’s sponsor, said from the dais. “I can only imagine how difficult it is to maintain sobriety when you’re still homeless.”
While the program would initially focus on North County, Desmond said hundreds of others should eventually receive the same help throughout the region.
The county’s chief administrative officer now has 90 days to figure out how to pay for the initial wave of housing and 180 days to explore expanding the effort.
The proposal also served as an implicit critique of California’s Housing First policy, which prioritizes getting people under a roof before any addiction issues are tackled. “It should not be our only approach to homelessness,” Desmond said earlier in the meeting.
Several members of the public spoke to defend the policy, pointing to a growing body of research that’s found expensive cities have more encampments, regardless of addiction rates, although the speakers were still generally in favor of the program.
The Regional Task Force on Homeless asked people about substance abuse during its most recent census, and of the respondents, more than a tenth of those in shelters and around a fifth of people on the street reported having a disorder.
The other vote asked for an outside consultant to audit how the county spends money on ending homelessness.
A “deep dive” from an “independent” source was crucial to figuring out where funding should go, said Chair Nora Vargas, who initiated the measure.
A contract still needs to be written before consultants can be hired. The review could then last more than a year and the chief administrative officer would have another six months to present the findings.
Supervisor Terra Lawson-Remer praised the measure and said there’d been a “lack of holistic analysis” on which programs were most effective.
Representatives of several local organizations spoke in favor of the move, including John Brady from Lived Experience Advisors and Jordan Beane with the regional task force.
