More than 30 Santa Cruz County community members came to the 418 Project on Thursday to hear local city and law enforcement officials discuss positives and negatives surrounding the city and county’s housing crisis. The event also featured a screening of the Andrew Purchin documentary “What’s Home? Creative Listening Across Differences,” which explores the county’s housing crisis through collaborative art projects created among artists, writers, musicians and both housed and unhoused people, along with a song by local rap artist Alwa Gordon.
homelessness
Posted inPolitics & Policy
Santa Cruz city leaders look to sales tax measure to fund homeless services as state grant set to run out
The Homelessness Response Action Plan has been the City of Santa Cruz’s working policy document on homelessness since March 2022, and has guided its approach to connecting people on the street with services, shelter and permanent housing. However, the plan was largely shaped around a $14 million state grant that will run out next July, leaving funding for one of the region’s more successful homelessness strategies in question just as its momentum is beginning to build.
Posted inPolitics & Policy
Can licensed tent villages ease California’s homelessness epidemic? This nonprofit thinks so
Taking people off the street and into tents is a new twist on homeless shelter being explored by the San Francisco-based Urban Alchemy in two tent villages operating in Los Angeles and Culver City.
Posted inPolitics & Policy
Homelessness fell in Santa Cruz County, but advocates say too many still struggle with low wages, food insecurity
Local housing leaders say they are pleased to see Santa Cruz County’s homelessness levels falling, but highlighted the deep-rooted issues that pervade the county. Those include food security, not enough shelters, low wages and no effective way to identify and track the entire unhoused population.
Posted inPolitics & Policy
Santa Cruz County 2023 point-in-time count shows lowest homelessness level in over a decade — but ‘still a lot of gaps’
Santa Cruz County’s homeless population decreased by more than 20% compared to last year, according to a February survey. But local officials point to ways the county can continue to improve, including better financial-assistance resources and tenants-rights education, paired with more support from federal and state governments. The one-day count has its limitations, and one advocate says “it doesn’t feel like there have been a lot of big wins” in the past year.
Posted inLatest News
A California city was making a difference on homelessness. Then the money ran out
Gov. Gavin Newsom poured ‘unprecedented’ money into homelessness, but providers say his use of one-time grants does not allow for long-term solutions to the state’s biggest crisis. Grass Valley, a small town in the Sierra Nevada foothills, is proving to be a cautionary tale of the state’s approach to homelesness.
Posted inOpinion from Community Voices
The day the Santa Cruz homeless crisis knocked on my front door
In April, a homeless woman knocked on Sheila Carrillo’s door on the Westside of Santa Cruz. She was stunned, but then realized something else: She knew the woman. She gave her food and a shower and helped her get to a treatment center. But Carrillo wonders what will become of her and so many others who recently lost their homes when the city cleared out the Sycamore Grove encampment.
Posted inPolitics & Policy
The biggest survey of homeless Californians in decades shows why so many are on the streets
The largest survey of homeless Californians in decades aims to dispel myths about what drives that state’s most pressing crisis. It found that addiction and mental health conditions rarely cause homelessness.
Posted inPolitics & Policy
Pogonip homeless encampment clearing to stretch into July as some residents head to armory
Crews contracted by the City of Santa Cruz, aided by police, continued the second phase of clearing out Pogonip encampments Monday. Daniel Extine of Clean Team Associates, the Santa Cruz-based company contracted by the city to do most of the clearing, said workers expect to have all six phases of the cleanup completed by mid-July. Residents such as Santos Martinez, 58, were preparing to move to the armory.
Posted inPolitics & Policy
After very public Benchlands clearing, Santa Cruz taking quieter approach with Pogonip homeless encampment
In this edition of In the Public Interest, Christopher Neely looks at what’s different about efforts beginning Monday to clear the homeless encampment in Pogonip from how the City of Santa Cruz moved residents out of the San Lorenzo River Benchlands last fall.
