Where do we go from here?

Santa Cruz can no longer afford to ignore the growing number of people living on the streets. Unsanctioned homeless encampments continue to grow exponentially, and they are becoming more of a health and safety issue for us all, including those people experiencing homelessness. The city and county must take action to provide trash collection, sanitation stations, animal control and security to this vulnerable population.

There has to be a safe place for everyone -- if they are sanctioned and supervised by the city and county. That was always supposed to be the plan, with millions available in funds from the city and county and multi-layer plans researched and recommended -- and then COVID-19 hit.

Just a year and a half ago our city was grappling with short and long-term solutions on how to deal with this growing complex crisis where we live and elsewhere, with city staff researching successful communities dealing with their own homelessness crisis.

Today, when you combine the fire reality with the impact of COVID-19 on our economy and too many people out of work and renters nearing eviction, the complexity of people experiencing homelessness will only increase dramatically. The lack of affordable housing, social and economic inequity, mental health and substance abuse problems only exacerbate a problem that’s not new to Santa Cruz.

According to the 2019 Santa Cruz County Homeless Census & Survey Comprehensive Report, a survey that’s done every two years, there were 122 families with 419 individuals experiencing homelessness more recently (19% of the total homeless population). Slightly more than half (53%) were living unsheltered. Who knows where that number is now — or where it might be in the next six months.

My wife and I want to help, but the information on our city website about homelessness is a few years old. And when we reached out to Caltrans, they passed responsibility back to the city and county due to COVID-19. After reaching out to our mayor, city council, chief of police and one of the county supervisors, only the county supervisor Ryan Coonerty responded, saying he’s trying to work with the city on solutions. We also know that law enforcement can’t be responsible for it all.

There are seemingly no plans in place, no fully functional transitional camps, and we assume, not enough shelters to accommodate those in need of housing. And if there are, we can’t find the up-todate information and don’t understand why these encampments are growing.

There are also local nonprofits assisting the homeless, and that’s another channel for us to investigate further, like Housing Matters. However, we reached out to them and we’ve received no response to date.

We’ve also reviewed all the city council candidates’ campaign websites, and while there seems to be a consistent message of more affordable housing, working with the city and county and local service providers, providing mental health and addiction services, there’s not much about supervised transitional camps that were so hotly debated last year.

Where do we go from here? How do we help as community members beyond donating to local organizations and food banks? How can we help to execute the recommendations of the Community Action Committee from over a year ago? Voting will help, and maybe new city council members can eventually develop and sustain viable solutions, but the impacts aren’t immediate.

With local government budgets taking huge revenue hits going forward, a daunting fire recovery only just beginning, and with the weight of today bearing down more and more each day, where do we go from here? Our city leaders, county leaders and entire community can no longer disregard the growing unsanctioned encampments. We all need to be a part of the solution today.

Everyone deserves to be safe, to sleep safely and to have access to the resources they need to improve their lives whatever their circumstances are.