Watsonville City Council approves city’s first homelessness strategic plan

The Watsonville City Council is taking its next steps to help reduce the number of unhoused residents in the city by adopting its first homelessness strategic plan. 

“Without a homelessness action plan, we’re just taking shots in the dark,” Watsonville Deputy City Manager Nick Calubaquib said during Tuesday’s council meeting.

The newly adopted plan will outline the city’s approach to reduce homelessness within it boundaries, said Calubaquib. To develop the plan, staff across all departments collaborated with the city’s homelessness task force, which is made up of residents, local nonprofits, business owners and service providers, he said. 

The homelessness strategic plan focuses on four areas, determined with the help of residents at workshops last year: housing, policy and funding, prevention and resources, and management and enforcement. 

After a drastic increase in homelessness last year, Watsonville saw improvement this year, according to the annual point-in-time count conducted in January. The number of unhoused residents decreased by 50%, going from 673 to 335. 

Despite the better numbers, homelessness persists, and its real week-to-week impact requires better understanding. 

Public Works Director Courtney Lindberg asked why the numbers are decreasing, and where these residents are going. The aim of the new plan: to “paint a picture” of the state of homelessness in Watsonville and then to better address the issues accordingly. 

Calubaquib told city councilmembers that the outline has three overarching goals: end suffering on the streets, share and protect public spaces, and create opportunity. 

The city, through this plan, hopes to put the majority of its efforts into providing additional housing for residents, followed by creating new policies and acquiring more funding, said Calubaquib. 

“We want to focus on hopefully building more units that are accessible to all income levels,” said Mike Kittredge, director of homelessness and prevention services for Community Action Board of Santa Cruz County and a member of the task force.

Increasing the number of shelter beds and affordable housing options to match the demand is a priority, said Kittredge. Currently, Watsonville has a number of affordable housing units both available and in development, said Carlos Landaverry, the city’s housing manager. The city’s affordable housing ordinance requires most new developments to offer units that are affordable to low-income families. 

The plan also calls for an update on zoning ordinances to include regulations and procedures for low-barrier navigation centers — shelters that have fewer restrictions on pets, personal items and paperwork — in order to increase the number of beds available within city limits. 

The planning department is currently working on recommendations for those zoning updates and aims to come before the council for a vote early next year, said City Manager Tamara Vides. 

Watsonville will have its first low-barrier navigation center in December, once construction on the 34-unit “tiny village” located at Westview Presbyterian Church is schedule to be complete. The shelter will house up to 36 residents living along the Pajaro River levee, many of whom are currently displaced from their hand-made shelters due to ongoing sweeps. 

The goal is to “right-size” the housing system for Watsonville, with the eventual ambitious goal of reducing the number of unhoused residents to zero, said Kittredge. 

To accomplish that, the homelessness task force recommended that the city partner with schools and nonprofit developers to create permanent supportive housing with wraparound services, said Landaverry. “The expected outcome is to expand the access to affordable housing for all of our Watsonville workers and vulnerable populations,” he said. 

Like many jurisdictions in the county, Watsonville is faced with significant budget restraints. Earlier this year, it narrowly avoided a budget deficit. Evan Morrison, executive director of People First of Santa Cruz County and a task force member, said that if Watsonville wants to support its homeless population, it needs to fund homelessness support itself. 

The city invests now nearly $2.3 million a year in services to prevent homelessness and support community well-being, which is distributed across all departments. For example, the library — which receives $100,000 each year — provides a space and resources for unhoused residents. 

Councilmember Jimmy Dutra raised concerns about the need for additional funding to help address homelessness in the city. “I just feel like we too often give false hope to people thinking we’re going to be able to do something, and then we don’t do it, and then it falls back on us,” he said. 

The first step to applying for money is identifying what the city wants to do, said District 4 Santa Cruz County Supervisor Felipe Hernandez, who attended Tuesday’s meeting. He added that Watsonville can also choose to collaborate with the county to apply for different grants, which is how the City of Santa Cruz has been able to generate additional funding. 

“This plan that you guys are doing is going to identify the issues and where you want to spend the money, so that we can actually apply together with grants,” Hernandez said. 

Watsonville Mayor Maria Orozco said she views this plan as a way to maximize the city’s resources and avoid duplicating efforts. She added that the homelessness strategic plan will also help pinpoint efforts that are not effective, and allow city staff to think of better solutions. 

The strategic plan also addressed support for an expansion of mobile services for unhoused residents, such as mobile hygiene centers that make showers and laundry more accessible. City staff also mentioned that one of the plan’s goals is to create a multi-agency management and enforcement task force to address issues caused by “homelessness-related” crimes. 

“We can’t address homelessness without a plan,” Orozco said. “I think this is the step in the right direction.” 

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