Del Norte Residents Seek Solutions to Homelessness with Board of Supervisors, City Council

This is a press release from the True North Organizing Network:

CRESCENT CITY, CA, AUGUST 8 — Seeking sustainable solutions to address homelessness, a concerned group of Del Norte County residents, supported by the True North Organizing Network, is launching a comprehensive campaign to end it — not just manage it — by rallying the community and critical stakeholders to the cause. Our group will meet with the Del Norte County Board of Supervisors at 10:00 AM on August 14, and with the Crescent City City Council at 6:00 PM on August 20.

For the past year, human beings without shelter have sought assistance in one form or another from Pastor Dana Gill Port of the United Methodist Church in Crescent City. “There are at least 156 homeless students in the Del Norte School District and it’s trending up,” Gill Port said. “We have as many as 500 homeless adults as well. It’s a crisis, and not just a crisis for the people closest to the pain. This is a moral crisis for our community as well.”

Equipped with sobering and hopeful information gained from 10 months of research on local homelessness and what other communities are doing to solve it, our group will encourage the Del Norte County Board of Supervisors and Crescent City City Council to pass resolutions making ending homelessness in our community a top priority. Our group will also invite officials to join in a community-wide collaborative effort to develop innovative and sustainable solutions to homelessness.

“People are suffering, and it’s impacting our entire community,” said group member and Crescent City resident Jill Lapple. “We don’t pretend to have all the answers, but we can’t keep pointing fingers at each other or demanding that the people who are homeless somehow solve the problem. The communities that are being successful are doing so by working together in a collaborative manner. That’s what we’re hoping to achieve with our effort here.”

True North supports local grassroots leadership and action to address important community issues. “People have more power than they realize”, says True North, Lead Organizer Mike Thornton. “We encourage people who care about making our community better by solving homelessness to come to the County Board of Supervisors meeting on August 14 at 10:00 AM, and the Crescent City City Council Meeting on August 20 at 6:00 PM, and show them that this is a priority for their constituents.”

True North Organizing Network develops leadership in communities with common values across Tribal Lands, Del Norte, and Humboldt Counties. True North supports families, elders, youth, and individuals of diverse faith traditions, races, cultures, and economic capacities working together for powerful change. United, using the power of relationships and a disciplined community organizing model, True North leaders are courageously challenging social, economic, and environmental injustice in our region.

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Canyon oak
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Canyon oak
5 years ago

Harness the Homeless
Mandatory community service by means of traditional Labor camps is the most practical way to resist public vagrancy.

Kelley
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Kelley
5 years ago

Wow! Great work True North! Keep us all posted on the good ideas you come up with.
Yes,this is a moral crisis in our nation. Thank you for tackling it.

Entheogen
Guest
5 years ago

Let’s not feel sorry for them.
Usually it’s due to their poor choices in life. Or they choose not to work. If they really didn’t want to be homeless they would have sought help already.
They may have to migrate to where the jobs are like in the grapes of wrath. Living on the North Coast is a privilege.

nines
Guest
5 years ago
Reply to  Entheogen

I am reeling in the irony of your screen name. Holy Cow, your entheogens are not working.

Entheogen
Guest
5 years ago
Reply to  nines

Personal responsibility!

Unapologetic!
Guest
Unapologetic!
5 years ago
Reply to  Entheogen

You just sound callous.

Entheogen
Guest
5 years ago
Reply to  Unapologetic!

I love everyone . I don’t feel sorry for everyone . I feel sorry for hard-working people who have fallen on Hard Times . We all have a responsibility to eachother not to be a burden on society. The percentage that have slipped through the cracks I want them to have the necessary safety nets and help. But if you live around here you see who our homeless population is made up of……

Kelley
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Kelley
5 years ago
Reply to  Entheogen

Maybe I dont feel sorry for anyone. Sometimes, but not usually.

What I want is housing and jobs for people. I want the health care and child care to support them in having those jobs.

Also. Life trauma is a real thing. It causes real problems with the psyche and the soul. Yes, I know there are people who don’t fall in the trap, People who are saints and marvels in spite of overwhelming odds. But holding that up to someone who has fallen is a bit like saying “why aren’t you more like your sister?”

I surely wish Betty Chin was teaching what she sees innately to the social work students at hsu.

WOW!
Guest
WOW!
5 years ago
Reply to  Entheogen

And more callous than the last. Lol

Canyon oak
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Canyon oak
5 years ago

“True north” is a champion of any trending progressive/globalist social cause in order to keep its founders capitalized, but read into the hidden motive behind their name And see what’s they’re really about…
By “true north” , they mean the “true north” of the Mexican empire, which only lasted for 20 or so years anyways, once the Spanish project folded, and ended in del Norte county, the “true north”, Right?
They advocate for a confused form of micro colonialism, inspired by the Spanish conquistadors they supposedly despise.
Hope those grants keep coming in con-artists!

WOW!
Guest
WOW!
5 years ago
Reply to  Canyon oak

Russian bot.

Mike
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Mike
5 years ago

Im going to say something that is insensitive in this day and age, instead of spending money on the side effects of drugs can we just fix a road, or fund a hospital, or make sure a school has school supplies? Not very glamorous but how about doing what is actually supposed to be done for once?

reality
Guest
reality
5 years ago

Thanks for having this article, we don’t get a lot of news up here….

Having said that, well, we lost our manufacturing base and with that a lot of good jobs. Sadly those jobs went to other countries who don’t value paying their labor fair, nor do they have environmental laws like we do.

NPR had a few guys talking about how we couldn’t make shoes here because we’d not be able to afford them. Their family is, you guessed it, in the shoe making business (all of it over seas).

Ask yourself, would you rather pay $200 for a pair of shoes made well and with respect to the labor and natural resources that made them and NOT have worthless jobs here and on top of that homeless people all around?

I worked at a plant that packaged bird seed. We used to buy our bags local. But they decided to “save” millions and buy them from China. Misprints galore and the plastic didn’t seal right often. I said to them, if you put the people making them here out of a job, who will buy our seed?

I know, I know, it would require work, effort. But it would be best for human kind and the planet.