Platform on Homelessness

By Terry O'Day

Homelessness is a housing problem, so we must provide housing before services and increase case worker outreach to encourage homeless to use services. We must have zero tolerance of bad behavior because our residents feel unsafe.

Since the late 1970's, chronic homelessness has been a major concern of voters in Santa Monica. We are a compassionate community with the resources to support our neighbors in need, but our patience has been tried by the large numbers of chronic homeless on our streets, the aggressive behavior of a small subset of these people, and the meager actions of our neighboring cities in addressing the problem.

We need a compassionate, but realistic approach to reduce chronic homelessness, and we need it now. Fortunately, a few national experiments are reducing chronic homelessness in other cities and new leadership in our neighboring cities may provide a roadmap to address this problem. Here is what I propose for Santa Monica:

• Fully utilize the Housing First model pioneered by other major U.S. cities
• Combine this model with aggressive + non-police + case worker outreach
• Cooperate with the new leadership in neighboring cities, like Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Councilmember Eric Garcetti in Los Angeles
• Establish zero tolerance for abusive behavior
• Eliminate all food programs in our public space

According to the 1999 special census of the homeless, Santa Monica has 950 to 1084 chronic homeless in its streets, parks, and open space on any given night. Most reports suggest that figure is higher today. It is important to recognize that although these people are the flashpoint of concerns about homelessness in Santa Monica, the vast majority of homeless are families with children, women, and only temporarily homeless in a given year. Our web of social services must be strong to support these individuals, who need a temporary boost to restore their ability to provide for themselves, while still addressing chronic homelessness.

HOUSING FIRST We must recognize that homelessness is fundamentally a problem of housing.

In college, I co-founded the Stanford Homelessness Action Coalition as a community organization of students and local homeless people dedicated to solving problems facing the homeless in the area. At the time we took the position that we must change our focus from the daily services that sustain homelessness to first providing housing. Recently, this approach, coined "Housing First," has been applied in over 20 cities nationally and is credited with reducing homelessness in big cities like New York and small cities like Henderson, NC. The New York Times recently reported on the federal program. The program premise is that "it is cheaper to put the chronically homeless right into apartments, and provide medical and addiction treatments there, than to watch them cycle endlessly through shelters, soup kitchens, emergency rooms, detoxification centers and jails."

Confirmed homeless individuals are first coaxed into small rooms of their own, which is likely more attractive than typical drug treatment or group homes. Then the participants are monitored by social workers and offered psychiatric and other services that might stabilize their lives. Breaking addictions is not a prerequisite for entry.

It is time to make Housing First Santa Monica's core approach to homelessness. This approach is credited with reducing San Francisco's chronic homeless by 28 percent in two years, Dallas by 26 percent, and Raleigh-Durham, N.C. by 15 percent.

AGGRESSIVE CASE WORKER OUTREACH + THE PHILADELPHIA EXPERIMENT In Philadelphia, chronic homelessness has declined 60 percent over five years.

In addition to its Housing First program, "the city sent squads of outreach workers into the streets, day and night, to persuade -- not force -- the homeless to make use of all these services. When the outreach workers made the offer, they had services and housing to offer right there on the spot, with no waiting... -- and that's a crucial difference, because most homeless people don't or can't wait or keep schedules." SF Chronicle, June 13, 2004

By early 2005, Philadelphia had reduced the number of homeless in the streets to 250, compared to 824 five years earlier. They did not do this be shipping them to other cities. They did it by shipping them into city-supported services. Essentially, they provided a path for the homeless to get off the street, made it less attractive to pursue an alternative path, and aggressively communicated to the homeless to get them on the path.

Santa Monica should increase outreach workers to aggressively encourage chronic homeless to seek services, and reduce our reliance on the police department.

SANTA MONICA + ON THE EDGE OF THE LOS ANGELES METROPOLIS Solving homelessness in Santa Monica means acting on a regional level. Our city provides more than its share of services, with $1.6 million from its general fund for services in Fiscal Year 2005-06. For context, the City of Los Angeles, with more than 45 times the general population of Santa Monica but spends only 3 times what Santa Monica spends (almost $5 million in 2003).

For the first time in years, new leadership in Los Angeles, represented by Antonio Villaraigosa and Eric Garcetti suggests an increased commitment to solving regional homelessness. Villaraigosa has appointed Torie Osborn as Homeless Czar. Torie previously led Santa Monica-based Liberty Hill Foundation and understands Santa Monica's experience with homelessness. Additionally, Bobby Shriver's regional approach and bold concepts, such as using federal property in West LA for the homeless, have drawn new resources and attention to homelessness, including attracting former County Supervisor Ed Edelman as Santa Monica's Homeless Czar.

The Santa Monica City Council must work with its neighbors to resolve homelessness. My endorsements from leaders in the region show I can deliver on this requirement.

ADDRESSING THE ROOT CAUSES, BUT NOT IGNORING THE SYMPTOMS Families and women often report being fearful of the bad behavior of Santa Monica's downtrodden. While we pursue the root causes of chronic homelessness, we must also:

• Have zero tolerance for abusive behavior
• Eliminate all food programs in our public space
• Increase accountability of city-supported services
• Find and prevent other cities from dumping their homeless in our city

• Address the root cause of homelessness
• Follow a proven model for success
• Redirect funding to where it is proven to be most effective
• Relieve our police so they can focus on enforcement
• Address bad behavior by the people on the street
• Assure that Santa Monica's neighbors are not taking advantage of our compassion
• Acknowledge that while we cannot change everyone's behavior, we can protect everyday people from abusive behavior
• Maximize our chance of reducing long-term, chronic homelessness on our streets

New leadership is needed in Santa Monica to advance this agenda. Elect Terry O'Day to Santa Monica City Council November 7th.