Another City Could Be Ready to Ditch Housing First
The Vista City Council will consider a new homelessness policy that departs from Housing First, prioritizes Vista’s homeless residents and more. The post Another City Could Be Ready to Ditch Housing First appeared first on Voice of San Diego.
Vista may soon have a new homelessness policy, and like the one approved in Escondido a couple months ago, it calls for a crackdown on criminal activity, shelter priority for Vista residents and a rejection of the Housing First approach.
It’s a continuation of a larger trend in San Diego County where more and more cities are changing how they deal with homelessness, even if it goes against past precedent set by state and federal initiatives.
At last week’s City Council meeting, Mayor John Franklin introduced a homelessness policy draft that is almost identical to one adopted by the Escondido City Council on Feb. 28.
The council ultimately voted to table the discussion and bring it back later, but here’s what they will consider.
Housing second: The policy draft starts by recognizing homelessness as complex issue with multiple solutions, and it goes on to say that the Housing First policy ignores other significant causes of chronic homelessness like mental health disorders and substance abuse disorders.
Housing First contends that a stable home is the first step to helping people recover from life on the streets and drug and mental health crises.
Many experts agree that supports like behavioral health and substance abuse treatments are ineffective without first providing stable housing.
In the largest study of homelessness in the U.S. since the 1990s, researchers from UC San Francisco concluded that permanent supportive housing is the answer for those experiencing chronic homelessness, behavioral health disorders and substance abuse disorders.
This subsidized housing should be offered with voluntary supportive services and no requirements of sobriety and treatment, the study found.
Margot Kushel, the principal investigator of the study, spoke about her findings at Voice of San Diego’s Politifest event last year.
“Supports without housing do nothing,” Kushel said at the time. “We could do the supports … if we had the housing. The answer to this crisis is housing.”
But this policy says the opposite.
“We recognize that drug addiction and untreated mental health concerns are the primary causes of homelessness for chronically homeless persons living unsheltered,” the statement draft says. “We believe independence can be achieved and encouraged by addressing the underlying causes of homelessness before long-term housing is provided.”
The Housing First policy, the draft says, prevents funding for sober housing and effectively forces recovering addicts and sober homeless people to live among active narcotics users.
Franklin also emphasized the need for a sober shelter.
“Why can we not agree that narcotic addiction is a driver of chronic homelessness,” Franklin said at the April 23 meeting. “We should not negate or minimize that fact.”
However, departing from the Housing First policy could ultimately put federal and state funding dollars at risk.
In 2016, California adopted Housing First statewide. As a result, California now requires any state‐funded homeless program to abide by the principles of Housing First, including allowing tenants to stay housed regardless of substance use.
The same rules typically apply to federal funding sources, as well.
“My concern over this type of language is that it would eliminate the ability for us to receive over $9 million in funding that we receive for our Housing First policy that is built into our strategic plan to address homelessness,” Councilmember Dan O’Donnell said.
Public safety first: Though the policy draft acknowledges that not all homeless people participate in criminal activity, it does support the use of law enforcement to deal with what the policy describes as “pervasive and consistent level of criminal activity that exists within the unsheltered population.”
The draft specifically highlights the impacts that vandalism, arson and public defecation and urination are having on parks, creeks, waterways, public buildings and local businesses.
At the meeting, Franklin said substance abuse disorder can often lead to criminal activity.
“We don’t have to pretend that these negative impacts don’t happen or don’t exist, we can acknowledge the harm that they cause,” Franklin said. “I think it’s important for us to give voice to that.”
Vista (also) first: Finally, the statement supports helping unhoused residents from Vista or those who have direct ties to Vista before helping others.
Vista had 88 unsheltered homeless people at the time of last year’s point-in-time count, which was the third highest unsheltered homeless population in North County.
At the meeting, Franklin said he met a few people at Vista’s new Buena Creek Navigation Center that had come from other cities.
“I’m glad that they found their way to get some help, but when we talk about running out of shelter space… clearly, we cannot provide shelter for 11,000 unsheltered people in the county,” Franklin said. “We should not be open to people coming from anywhere in the county before we have served our own population.”
The city’s resources are not closed to people in need, but they are open first to people who have a connection to the city of Vista, he added.
The City Council ultimately voted 3-1-1 to table the discussion with Deputy Mayor Katie Melendez abstaining and Franklin opposed.
One more thing: The council also discussed a possible ban on camping in public places, specifically around schools, in parks and around waterways.
The proposed ban would only be enforced if shelter beds are available, and a homeless person still rejects an offer for shelter and chooses to stay at their encampment.
The council also discussed offering mental health services and addiction recovery services to these homeless individuals instead of requiring them to pay a fine or go to jail.
But the majority of councilmembers agreed to revisit the discussion after the U.S. Supreme Court reaches a decision on a major homelessness case. The case, Johnson v. Grants Pass, will decide whether cities can legally ban or limit homeless people camping in public spaces.
The Supreme Court is expected to reach a decision by the end of June.
The post Another City Could Be Ready to Ditch Housing First appeared first on Voice of San Diego.
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