Addressing homelessness by facing the challenge head-on
January 2, 2024 7:29 AM
by David White
This was originally an op-ed published in the Santa Monica Daily Press on Dec. 30, 2023. Updated April 5, 2024.
When I joined the city of Santa Monica a little more than two years ago, the city was in the midst of responding to a global pandemic, recovering from a severe economic crisis and working to address service gaps and much-needed program restorations. The pandemic’s economic impact on the city was glaringly apparent and, similar to many other communities, we experienced a rise in homelessness.
The City Council has made it clear that addressing homelessness in Santa Monica is a priority, dedicating additional resources to this work in the city’s recently adopted budget. As we close out 2023, I’d like to take a moment to highlight the initiatives and investments that we have implemented this year.
- The city deployed a third multi-disciplinary outreach team, known as C3 teams, to provide coverage beyond the downtown and beach area to cover the entire city. The city now funds a total of eight street outreach teams to connect with people experiencing homelessness, consisting of both general outreach workers as well as multi-disciplinary teams that include mental health professionals, housing case managers, substance use specialists, medical providers, psychiatrists, and peers with lived experience. In addition to providing street-based care, they connect people with a host of local and regional resources, including housing, to streamline the outreach process.
- A huge step forward in this year’s budget was the formation of a new city department dedicated to housing and human services, with new Director Heather Averick coming in to lead the comprehensive effort to address homelessness in Santa Monica. She’s been here a little under a month, so we’ll give her a moment to get her bearings. But I know she’s going to bring great leadership, strategies and solutions to an already hardworking team of talented staff come 2024.
- The Police Department has hired more than 20 new officers in 2023 and, thanks to new revenues from voter-approved Measure CS, resources have been allocated to expand the Homeless Liaison Program, or HLP Team, who specialize in collaboration with city departments and services related to homelessness. It will take time to hire the much-needed officers to deploy this resource, especially with anticipated retirements. Once the staffing is in place, the goal is to expand the HLP Team’s outreach work to seven days a week.
- Leveraging resources from L.A. County, the HLP Team is now partnering with the Salvation Army to offer outreach services along with connections to services and housing.
- The Directed Action Response Team, or DaRT — a partnership between Police and Code Enforcement — continues to work proactively addressing homelessness and matters of public safety on and around the pier, the beach, the Promenade and in downtown public spaces.
- Creating and sustaining affordable housing remains a strong priority for addressing the foundational causes of homelessness. In the past 15 months, affordable housing buildings on Lincoln Boulevard, Pico Boulevard, and 14th Street have all opened thanks to city funding, contributing more than 150 apartments to the city’s affordable housing supply.
- It’s becoming more apparent that focusing attention and services around behavioral health and alternative crisis response is critical to our success in addressing homelessness. This year, thanks to $1.5 million in federal funding, the city partnered with Initium Health to study different models of behavioral health care for Santa Monica. They launched a community survey and held several community listening sessions and focus groups earlier this year.
- The city continues to invest in programs that maintain a social safety net to prevent homelessness, keeping Santa Monica families and other vulnerable community members safe and housed. The city distributed more than $10 million in grant funding to 18 local social services agencies offering 21 distinct programs and serving more than 28,000 participants.
- In a concentrated effort to keep our public spaces clean, a new Public Works team dedicated to cleaning up encampments has hit the ground running. In just the first three months of the pilot program, the Homeless Support Team, or HoST, has cleaned up 339 locations and disposed of 40 tons of trash and debris.
And our work continues. Looking forward to 2024 and beyond, I’m tremendously optimistic about upcoming initiatives.
- Beginning in January, unhoused individuals with mental health and/or substance abuse issues who commit a misdemeanor in Santa Monica will have access to the Shelter, Treatment, and Empowerment Program, or STEP Court, right here in our city. This community-based, prosecutor-led collaborative diversion court aims to reduce the number of individuals experiencing homelessness in Santa Monica through resource navigation services while lowering recidivism and allowing for reallocation of resources. It adds to our already robust programming around alternatives to incarceration.
- In early 2024, the city’s much-awaited partnership with L.A. County’s Department of Mental Health is set to launch, deploying a therapeutic mobile van to expand real-time response for individuals experiencing behavioral and/or mental health challenges. This team will be deployed in response to 911 calls for service, in direct partnership with first responders.
- In taking another key step in addressing our community’s behavioral health needs, Initium Health will present the results of its work to develop a behavioral health strategy for Santa Monica and lay out next steps.
- The Laurel development on Michigan Avenue is set to open, bringing 57 new permanent supportive housing units for those in need. That’s on top of 221 affordable units that are under construction in 11 developments across the city.
- In addition to funding housing projects, the city continues to advance its work to build affordable housing on city-owned sites, including at Parking Structure 3.
- Thanks to added city funding, SAMOSHEL, Santa Monica’s homeless shelter, will expand its hours to accept referrals 24 hours a day, seven days a week, allowing our outreach teams and public safety personnel to connect people experiencing homelessness to shelter overnight, when other facilities are closed.
- Public Works is expanding the HoST team to five days a week, hiring full-time, dedicated staff and purchasing needed equipment to ramp up efforts to clean encampments in public spaces.
The city has also embarked on creating a multi-year, citywide Homelessness Strategic Plan to be completed and presented to the City Council in early 2025. Building upon our strong foundation of work to date, this plan will lay out a clear, coordinated and systematic vision for the city’s homelessness response system, and align all city departments around a shared vision, specific outcomes and investment of resources.
We’ll invite the community to provide input once it’s drafted. More to come on this exciting process very soon.
I want you, the community we serve every day, to know that we are committed to this work — and that above all, we are your partners. Our eyes are wide open, and we are focused on bringing forward and implementing real solutions.
Thank you for your continued support and partnership in addressing this critical issue for our community.
Authored By
David White
City Manager