San Benito County endorses ‘comprehensive program’ to address homelessness

After receiving a presentation May 9 from Graham Kraus, CEO of the California State Association of Counties (CSAC), the San Benito County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to endorse CSAC’s Accountability, Transparency, Housing, Outreach, Mitigation & Economic Opportunity (AT HOME) plan.

Graham described the creation of AT HOME as the “first comprehensive program to address homelessness in the state of California.”

“The most basic thing about government is to clarify who’s supposed to be doing what,” he said, “and in homelessness that doesn’t exist in California, and it doesn’t exist in any other state in the country. Given the crisis level that this issue is at in California, that needs to change.”

Graham said California’s inability to define who does what is “leading to confusion on the part of the public, and there is no real accountability within the state government.”

“Money is flowing in one direction to counties and cities and the work that is being done is completely disconnected from that flow of dollars,” he said. 

Graham added that in coming up with the program, CSAC analyzed years’ worth of investments, policy changes and work done at the local and the statewide levels. In addition, he said CSAC got input from counties on what works, what doesn’t and the challenges to making progress.

Graham said the AT HOME plan aims to streamline the process to focus on homelessness with local accountability, which he said is the uniqueness of the plan because no one with the state is held accountable.  

The plan includes a single, locally developed, countywide plan with one “fiscal agent where the dollars flow through” that aligns responsibilities for who is doing what with the dollars to address local homelessness issues. The county would have the unique authority to address the overall approach to homelessness, he said.

He said the county’s and cities’ responsibilities would have to be clearly defined.

“We’re recommending a framework that would include cities being responsible for citing, standing up, and funding homeless shelters and transitional housing, permanent supportive housing, and doing encampment cleanup and sanitation where there are encampments in incorporated areas,” he said. “If these issues exist in the unincorporated area, then the county would be responsible.”

If the county were to adopt that framework, it would significantly change the process in San Benito County as the county is the lead in operating the homeless shelter on San Felipe Road, providing transitional housing and offering other programs aimed at addressing homelessness. 

BenitoLink reached out to Enrique Arreola, Deputy Director at the county’s Community Services and Workforce Development agency to ask how this framework could change services within the county but at the time of publication he had not returned the call. 

Graham added another change CSAC is advocating for is ongoing funding from the state rather than the current one-time grants process.

He said rural counties “need to have maximum flexibility because your infrastructure is different” and “there needs to be flexibility so you can put something in place that makes sense for your community.”

Graham said CSAC has been working with the governor and state legislature, and has held meetings with the White House and other federal entities to advocate for the program.

A bill was drafted and released May 9, and sent to Gov. Gavin Newsom in an effort to replace the language in the governor’s current homelessness accountability bill (AB 799).

By endorsing AT HOME, he said the county would add its voice to the coalition, giving it the strength and unity to address homelessness statewide.

“This is certainly not perfect, but it is the only comprehensive plan that is on the table to address homelessness in California,” he said.

Supervisor Kollin Kosmicki said it is important that CSAC take the lead to bring about a “consistency from county to county.” He said, however, the problem is more than a shelter issue.

“The biggest issue here is a drug addiction issue,” he said. “This is a mental health issue. And yes, it’s an economic issue to a certain extent, but it’s largely a drug addiction and a mental health issue and that’s where the focus of any plan on homelessness should be.”

Supervisor Bea Gonzales said the CSAC plan would give the county “teeth to address more in terms of public services, whether it’s drugs, alcohol, mental illness, we’ll be able to allocate how and where the funds need to be put so we can address our own individual problems.”

While Supervisor Angela Curro agreed that drug addiction factors into the homelessness problem, she pointed out that many homeless individuals are not willing to seek help or go into homeless shelters or obey the laws of the community.

“The only way we’re going to address homelessness is with nonprofits, with individuals that have the ability to connect with people and transition them out,” she said. “But how do we help fund that? That would be through the AT HOME program, in my opinion.”

Resident Elia Salinas said that while the government has been unsuccessful in dealing with homelessness and has only assured job security for those in charge of programs, there is a local organization that is delivering results.

“We have a nonprofit here in town with Linda Lampe and Our Father’s House who actually takes people off the streets and helps them.”

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