Affordable housing shortage
SANTA CRUZ » Authors of an ambitious countywide plan to reduce homelessness countywide gave their first progress update this week, acknowledging that some early priorities may take longer than planned.
During a study session with the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, Housing for Health Division Director Robert Ratner lowered expectations particularly around the strategic plan’s goal of housing for all — or even a majority — of several hundred formerly unsheltered individuals living in eight state- and federallyfunded COVID-19 shelters. Funding to continue operating two veterans halls and six hotels — four in Santa Cruz and two in Watsonville — that were converted more than a year ago into shelters, is scheduled to dry up by Sept. 30.
As of early July, the county counted some 269 “households” or 304 people remaining in 370 available COVID-19 shelter spaces. The county has dubbed its effort devoted to finding alternative housing for those in the shelters its Rehousing Wave. The program employs local nonprofits to assist those in the shelter exit to housing prior to the shelters’ closures. The first and only shelter to close to date is the Santa Cruz County Veterans Memorial Building, where all occupants were placed in either some type of temporary or permanent housing, according to Ratner.
Overall, the Rehousing Wave teams had reportedly enrolled 140 households in the housing-finding efforts and had succeeded in housing just 15 households, at most recent count, Ratner said.
“I’ve been incredibly impressed by the work of our staff, mostly doing housing problem-solving work. I hope we can keep it up. I am skeptical,” Ratner told Supervisors. “I’m not sure we’re going to be able to keep that up. Obviously, our goal is to try to make that the reality going forward and that’s a core part of what we want to work on over the next six months.”
Ratner said the county has some 330 housing subsidy vouchers to assist people in relocating to affordable housing, but that there were not enough landlords willing to accept the subsidies in Santa Cruz County.
“If you just look at the vacancy rates here, there is actually technically more than enough housing available, but it’s finding the property owners who are willing to jump in and contribute, if you just look at the percentages,” Ratner said. “I think one of the challenges there is what the federal government authorizes, in terms of a rent level, is based on a survey that uses a methodology that changed eight years ago and kind of deflated and is not actually reflective of the market, it’s kind of the low end of the market.”
Sheltering families
Ratner also updated county leaders on its policy goal to end unsheltered homelessness for families with children under 18 by year’s end. On average, there are 280 to 330 homeless families counted across the county each month, while some 30 to 70 of those families remain unsheltered. Comparatively, about five to 20 families exit to permanent housing a month, he said. He recommended that the board greenlight a recommendation to create 30 to 70 new homeless shelter slots, in order to expedite efforts to shelter more homeless families.
The plan being discussed
Tuesday, dubbed the “Housing for a Healthy Santa Cruz Strategic Framework,” outlines a range of strategies with an overarching goal of reducing unsheltered homelessness by 50% and overall homelessness by 25% from January 2019 to January 2024, relying on federally mandated point-intime counts homeless population counts as a yardstick. A series of six-month updates are scheduled to keep county leaders updated on the latest efforts.
Based on data collected through a countywide homelessness tracking system, there were 2,577 households experiencing homelessness during the month of April 2021, compared to the January 2019 singleday point-in-time count of 1,440 households. According to the report, 64% of those households in April were in a housing program, versus 22% of households in housing in Jan. 2019.
“The overall increase in the number of sheltered households likely reflects the significant increase in public health emergency shelter resources and capacity during the COVID-19 pandemic,” Tuesday’s report states.