Report: County has twice as much homeless as state average
After conducting this year’s point in time count in January to count the number of the homeless population in the county, the Imperial Valley Continuum of Care Council released a full report of its findings Thursday.
The IVCCC found the Valley’s homelessness rate is more than two times higher than the California average.
The biggest difference between this year’s report compared to 2016 is the amount of homeless accounted for, in 2016 a total of 380 were counted while this year a total of 1,071 were counted. That accounts for 0.65 percent of the population compared to the state average of 0.29 percent.
Despite the big spike in the number, IVCCC officials said that even though the rate might have increased the discrepancy between those numbers is due to a better coordinated and staffed effort to account for as many of the homeless population in the Valley this year.
“We did a much better job (counting the homeless population) but we know we did not count everyone, we know there are more homeless out there than what we were able to count,” said Les Smith, president of El Centro Chamber of Commerce and a member of the IVCCC.
The point in time count took place on the evening of Jan. 27 throughout the Valley at day shelters and transitional housing programs and was followed by a count in the Slab City area the following day.
The point in time count is used to account for homeless populations in order to seek additional funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to combat the matter. The HUD definition for homelessness accounts for people who reside in places not meant for human habitation such as cars, parks, emergency shelters and in transitional housing.
“At the local level the point in time count allows us to identify those areas and identify many of the reasons for the problem so we can come up with solutions to address the issue,” said assistant District Attorney Deborah Owen.
According to the report, 47 percent of the unsheltered homeless population is considered to be chronically homeless. Nearly 10 percent are young adults ages 18 to 24, close to 13 percent are seniors that are 62 years or older, while veterans make up 11 percent of the group.
People surveyed attributed their “homelessness” to three major factors such as unemployment, mental illness and substance abuse.
Only 6 percent of those surveyed are employed, 26 percent of the respondents acknowledged they suffer from a mental illness and 16 percent said they use controlled substances.
According to the report, one in every four homeless people accounted for are women. According to the report’s findings, 65 percent of the homeless women with children under the age of 18 said the primary factor of not having a home is due to unemployment while 49 percent of them also mentioned domestic abuse as a factor.
Other noteworthy data obtained is that 57 percent of the unsheltered homeless population lives in Slab City. When mentioning the last place that they were housed for more than 90 days, 48 percent said they last resided within the community, 33 percent said they last resided outside of the state, while 15 percent came from other parts of California.
Now with a new base of data, officials are set to begin moving forward with possible solutions to reduce the numbers.
“We have a great deal of work to do, but I know we are a community of compassionate problem solvers, so I know we’re up for the task,” said Nancy Sasaki, executive director of Alliance Healthcare Foundation.
The IVCCC has identified five steps that are needed to begin addressing homelessness in the region. Those steps include developing a comprehensive plan to engage in efforts that have been proven to have the most success in addressing issues that are pervasive and county-wide; obtain additional funding and resources; establish a coordinated entry system by 2018 to allow the population in need to have access to assess their individual needs in a most effective manner; recruit additional volunteers for future counts to gather more accurate and complete data and further education and involvement from the community and stakeholders to address the issue.
“We are talking about how can we help to collect this data and connect people to services so we can reduce the number of homelessness, use data to gather more resources to help with the issue,” said Peggy Price, director of Imperial County Department of Social Services.
For Owen one of the most valuable pieces of information obtained from the report is how deep is the effect of substance abuse and mental illness attributes to homelessness in the Valley, she said these findings signal to gaps in the services available locally to be able to have a more effective approach to reducing the number of homeless.
“There is no residential drug treatment program that will address substance abuse as well as mental illness. That identifies a gap in our services that can help people in our community,” Owen said. “If the reason identified for homelessness is substance abuse or mental illness we are not going to eliminate homelessness which is our goal unless we effectively address the underlying problems in our community.”