Lakeside lessons in reducing homelessness
Given up hope that California will ever house its 150,000-plus homeless population? Dubious that your community could ever reduce homelessness to zero? If so, then you should go jump in a lake. Either Tahoe or Elsinore will do. South Lake Tahoe and Lake Elsinore — separated by 460 miles, 5,000 feet in elevation, and 25 degrees in average temperature — are demonstrating, with jet-ski speed, how other California places might support all their homeless neighbors. Within two years, both municipalities could achieve “functional zero,” meaning homelessness is rare, brief and non-recurring.
Such successes have two dimensions. First, COVID-19 has opened government spigots and new possibilities. Last year, South Lake Tahoe and Lake Elsinore were among California’s first cities to join the state’s $600 million Homekey program, which allows cities to purchase and convert motels into long-term housing for homeless people. Amid the state’s disjointed overall approach to homelessness, Homekey, funded via the pandemic-inspired federal CARES Act, stands out for its flexibility and fast impact.
Second, more cities are realizing that the biggest obstacles to reducing homelessness are not the people living on the streets, but the community conflicts over the issue. South Lake Tahoe, among California’s colder places, and Lake Elsinore, among its hottest, could take advantage of pandemic funding for homelessness because they had forged local consensus first.
In Tahoe, the cold was the inspiration for community leaders to open the Warm Room, a winter shelter, in 2015. At the time, there was no year-round shelter or permanent supportive housing in South Lake Tahoe, population 22,000 — or anywhere else in El Dorado County. To find supportive services, people experiencing homelessness there sometimes had to travel over Echo Summit to Placerville.
But in the year before COVID hit, the Tahoe Coalition for the Homeless, the nonprofit running the shelter, was planning locally based, long-term support. And in January 2020, the coalition hired an executive director with long experience in the Bay Area, Cheyenne Purrington.
COVID accelerated the Tahoe efforts. The coalition built a data sharing network to identify those most in need, and used Project Roomkey, a temporary state program, to house 30 people in the EconoLodge. When Homekey funds became available in the fall, the coalition purchased three motels that are now being turned into permanent supportive housing for 70 people.
Purrington says this investment is paying off in fewer police calls and emergency room visits. It also demonstrates the power of such investments in less populated places. “With a community like South Lake Tahoe, we can end homelessness with these three properties,” she says. “If small communities don’t have resources to do this, people start bouncing around and end up in larger cities where there are services.”
Lake Elsinore, a Riverside County city of 70,000, is learning a similar lesson.
In 2016, the city was divided over growing homelessness; breaking up encampments didn’t seem to work. So, in 2017, the city formed a homelessness task force with local officials, law enforcement and concerned citizens. “Homelessness was such a divisive topic here,” says city official Nicole Dailey, a task force participant. “The task force allowed us to work.”
Lake Elsinore then offered little support; homeless individuals often were sent to Riverside or the Coachella Valley. But the task force changed that. A nonprofit, Social Work Action Group, or SWAG, took over homeless services. The city used pre-pandemic grants to secure one motel for emergency housing and to turn a former convent in nearby Perris into more housing.
When Homekey arrived with $3.1 million, the city purchased a motel downtown. It opened on December 30 with a nautical name, the Anchor.
When the Anchor’s SWAG manager Robel Kevorkian gave me a tour, the Anchor was immaculate. People occupied 14 of the 16 rooms, each equipped with a kitchenette and bath. The staff include social workers, a nurse practitioner, an occupational therapist and a substance-abuse counselor. There’s a classroom for clients, a vegetable garden, even a swimming pool. The Anchor provides breakfast and lunch, leaving the resident clients to make their own dinner, but one current client is such a skilled chef that he often cooks for everyone.
Homelessness is not over in Lake Elsinore. From one room at the Anchor, I could see a homeless person camped on the city’s Riverwalk. But functional zero for chronic homelessness isn’t far away. The city’s homeless count is down more than one-third since 2018. And the city is already planning expansion of the Anchor.