Santa Cruz County homeless services dealt double blow as MHCAN, Downtown Streets Team abruptly shutter

Amidst a tight fiscal year in which local governments are pulling back on social safety net resources, Santa Cruz County’s effort to serve its homeless population was jolted by news that two key community services have suddenly closed their doors. 

The campaign to rescue the Mental Health Client Advocacy Network from fatal budget cuts was a marquee story during county fiscal negotiations earlier this summer. Despite an otherwise austere spending plan, county lawmakers rejected the cuts and voted in June to continue funding MHCAN, the only day center for people with disclosed mental illness.

However, the organization now appears to be in peril. 

Earlier this week, MHCAN abruptly shuttered without explanation. The organization has apparently run into financial issues and the board of directors voted to fire the executive director, District 3 Supervisor Justin Cummings told Lookout on Friday. 

A sign posted to the door of its headquarters and clubhouse on Santa Cruz’s Cayuga Street alerted its clients, who are mostly homeless, that MHCAN was “closed until further notice.”  

“Thank you for your understanding and anticipated cooperation while we navigate this uncertain time of MHCAN,” the notice read, signed by the board of directors. The organization will continue offering postage pick ups for clients on Friday. 

Several directors and members of staff declined Lookout’s repeated requests for comments. Some employees were busy inside the building on Friday. One who stood outside next to a pile of empty produce boxes also declined to comment, but offered that staff was cleaning up but not cleaning out. 

“There is no statement from MHCAN or the board of directors at this time,” Danette Lawrence, board chair of the organization, said via text. 

Cummings said his office, as well as elected officials and staff from the city of Santa Cruz, expected to meet with the organization next week. 

“We want to make sure we’re working with trustworthy organizations, so we want to get to the bottom of this,” Cummings said, noting that the organization “had to get rid of their executive director,” Tyler Starkman, but did not offer further details on the reason. Starkman did not return Lookout’s request for comment. 

Within the same week, local officials also learned the Downtown Streets Team planned to close all of its locations throughout California on October 31. The Downtown Streets Team offers case management work, gift cards and support resources to people experiencing homelessness in exchange for community maintenance work, such as sidewalk cleaning and litter pick-up.

The nonprofit, which receives state and local funding, operates in 16 communities, from Salinas to Sacramento. Representatives from the organization did not return Lookout’s requests for comment. 

Santa Cruz City Councilmember Sonja Brunner, who works for the Downtown Association, said she received word of the closure on Friday. Brunner said the DST cited “some broad reasons” but the councilmember declined to go into any detail. 

“It’s very sad, they were here for eight years in Santa Cruz and brought a lot of support to our community and a lot of case management and resources,” Brunner said. 

In an Aug. 30 Modesto Bee article, DST CEO Julie Garnder described the abrupt decisions as “heartbreaking” and the result of manifold pressures. Shutting the organization down, she said, was “never something that we wanted nor had anticipated at this level.”

“I wish I had a satisfying kind of single reason for the cause of this, but really it is a plethora of reasons that kind of go back to the current political and financial climate that we’re facing as a homelessness organization right now,” Gardner said in the article. “The funding landscape for nonprofits and community-based organizations at large has shifted in an extreme way, and we are feeling the impacts of that.”

Larry Imwalle, the city of Santa Cruz’s homelessness response manager, told Lookout via text message that the impact is “difficult to assess at the moment.” 

“The most immediate impact (and concern) will be the current program participants,” Imwalle said. “… The local Santa Cruz homeless service providers are a resilient group, but the federal and state funding, and policy landscape is continuing to make it a more complex and challenging operating environment for community based organizations.” 

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