Tribe gets $626,000 grant for homeless aid
The Chicken Ranch Rancheria of Me-wuk Indians of California will receive a $626,000 grant from the state to help provide more interim shelter and street outreach for people experiencing homelessness in Tuolumne County.
Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the funding for the tribe in a news release last week as part of $20 million through the state Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency going to a total of 16 tribal communities for efforts to address homelessness.
“California is investing in getting people off the streets and into safe housing throughout the state with a particular focus on Native Americans and populations disproportionately impacted by homelessness,” Newsom stated in the release.
Leeann Hatton, community and social services administrator for Chicken Ranch, said the tribe will partner with Resiliency Village, the City of Sonora and several other community service organizations to “work on the ongoing challenges of homelessness in our community.”
Some of the funding from the grant will specifically be used to increase the capacity at Resiliency Village’s shelter on Big Hill and develop a pilot program focused primarily on providing streetbased services to homeless youth under 24.
Mark Dyken, co-founder and executive director of Resiliency Village, said on Tuesday that part of the funding will be used to develop an “octopod” on the organization’s property that would double the number of people they can house there from eight to 16.
“The best way I can describe it is eight tiny homes under one roof that would be accessory dwellings to what we have here,” he said. “Plans could change, but that’s how
we have it planned now.”
According to the grant application, the additional space at the shelter would be specific to unaccompanied youth under 25.
Dyken said that, while the additional funding and capacity at his organization’s shelter will be helpful, the overall situation with homelessness in the area will not get much better until there’s additional housing.
“If you were to imagine this thing like a funnel, the top of the funnel is people who don’t have housing, and the skinny part at the bottom is the amount of housing that’s available,” he said. “That’s the big issue… Nothing cures homelessness like a house.”
The funding will help bolster street-outreach efforts that Dyken said his organization has already been undertaking.
According to the tribe, the program will be called “Street Resiliency - The Road Home” and will have an emphasis on providing “education and advocacy to local schools and community agencies concentrating on unsheltered and foster youth.”
People older than 24 or 25 will also benefit from the outreach program, the tribe said.
“It is proven that a 20-year-old needs one type of support, and a 50-year-old needs another,” the grant application stated. “Our program will provide both, adjusting the support and resources to the need of the person.”
Outreach strategies will require developing an understanding of people’s individual circumstances and barriers preventing them from getting help through other mainstream services, the application stated.
The funding also will help provide direct referrals with the tribe’s Mathiesen Memorial Clinic and Red Feather Clinic in Jamestown to “support medical and mental health challenges,” according to the application.