Quick Take
The Santa Cruz County Civil Grand Jury issued five reports on Thursday, covering a wide range of topics. Most notably, it focused on challenges contributing to the housing crisis and flaws in the county’s approach to behavioral health, along with pedestrian safety, election integrity, and concerns with the free parking at the county office buildings.
The Santa Cruz County Civil Grand Jury issued five reports on Thursday on a host of issues, including the county’s behavioral health system and the ongoing housing crisis.
The government watchdog urged county behavioral health to improve its data systems, internal processes and collaboration across departments. On housing, the group suggests a financial feasibility study to better understand how many housing units are likely to be constructed in the current landscape and how the county can increase that number.
The civil grand jury is a state-mandated, volunteer-led government watchdog made up of 19 members. To examine the current housing crisis, members interviewed local officials in charge of zoning, permitting and planning, along with private developers and housing advocates.
The group found that there is a notable gap in meeting housing goals countywide. With the county more than a quarter of the way through the current Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) cycle, the group argues that the county should have issued more than 1,100 permits for the 4,634 units the county is on the hook for in unincorporated areas this cycle, which ends in 2031, but has permitted only 279 units.
“Without significant intervention, the County is unlikely to meet its RHNA 6 goals or make significant strides towards combating the housing crisis. Continued underperformance may also expose the County to increased State oversight, loss of local land-use control, and other statutory consequences,” the report reads.
The report adds that there are potential major consequences for lagging on housing development, including state implementation of ministerial approval without public hearings in front of an elected board; builder’s remedy, which allows developers to maneuver around local zoning rules and regulations; loss of funding; and a worsening of the housing crisis.
In order to better understand how local regulations and construction economics affect housing production, the grand jury suggests a far-reaching feasibility study that identifies constraints most detrimental to construction, changes that would increase the number of units built, and how successful the county’s current approach to housing would be in reaching its goals. The study would incorporate various market factors, including construction costs, interest rates and rents, as well as county-specific components like height limits, parking requirements, permit costs and allowed density. This analysis, the group says, would provide a much clearer picture of the kinds of conditions most conducive to housing development.
The group also recommends that the board of supervisors publish the county’s annual progress report once submitted to the state and consider creating a regularly updated dashboard for all new units under development in the county.
Despite the grand jury’s concerns, county spokesperson Jason Hoppin told Lookout that there are many projects heading through the approval process. He added that the county’s housing element was approved in just April 2024, and the county had to complete a rezoning process, which took a year.
“It’s really premature to be judging progress. There are numerous projects in progress, whether they’ve formally pulled permits yet or not,” he said. “[The pipeline] is fairly full and we’re looking at a lot of projects in a lot of areas. We’re expecting to meet the 2031 target.”
Regarding the county’s behavioral health program, the grand jury’s report said that despite receiving more than $18 million annually from county reserves, “county leadership and the public lack essential financial, operational, and performance information needed to evaluate the sustainability and value of Behavioral Health services.”
Broadly, the report says that a lack of coordination with the jail, one of the county’s biggest behavioral health providers, is a major concern. It adds that more than half of inmates have moderate to severe behavioral health needs, but the county does not have data integration or cross-referencing capabilities to effectively track things like service histories and healthcare transitions. It says the county “must urgently complete the long-delayed financial plan, clarify its federal matching obligations, and adopt actuarial and data-driven tools that support proactive management of high-cost beneficiaries.”
Regarding the jail, the grand jury’s report says that the current facilities are not designed to handle the incarcerated population with severe behavioral health and substance-use disorders, which can cause inadequate treatment and recidivism.
Some incarcerated people who have been county Behavioral Health Division clients could also experience gaps in treatment plans. The grand jury recommends the sheriff’s office and Behavioral Health collaborate on a report on the current conditions, including current deficiencies, an estimate of how many inmates may be served on a normal day, sites that could be repurposed for additional space, and a discussion about alternative sources of funding.
The grand jury found that the county executive office and Behavioral Health did not complete a requested financial plan by the end of 2025, leaving the board of supervisors and public in the dark on information necessary to make decisions about resource allocation, performance expectations and sustainability. It also says that the two offices don’t align in their understanding of typical requirements for federal funding, which could mean that the county is allocating too much money from the general fund.
County Behavioral Health has not implemented a “level of care” tool, an assessment that helps determine the resources and amount of care that a patient receiving mental health services needs, making it difficult to manage high-cost patients. Last year’s grand jury report on the health service agency had a similar critique.
Among other reports the grand jury issued Thursday, its report on election integrity was positive, and found that the county elections department is strongly protecting elections. Its report on pedestrian safety, however, found that it remains lacking locally, and urged local jurisdictions to continue pushing toward reducing traffic fatalities and serious injuries to zero.
The grand jury also criticized the ParkMobile service at the county building, asserting that the free parking stock should not require personal digital data or present other barriers to access.
The county board of supervisors is required to respond to the housing crisis report and the behavioral health report within 90 days. The sheriff and county are also required to respond to parts of the behavioral health report.
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