Humboldt County Civil Grand Jury Looks at Housing First Approach to Homelessness
Over the next few days, we’re going to be posting the 2018-2019 Humboldt County Civil Grand Jury reports. They are easy to read and informative.
As a little background:
The Civil Grand Jury is part of the . Consisting of nineteen citizens, it is an arm of the court, yet is an entirely independent body. The presiding judge of the superior court, the district attorney, the county counsel, and the state attorney general act as its advisers.
Responsibilities
The Civil Grand Jury is an investigative body having for its objective the detection and correction of flaws in government.
The primary function of the Civil Grand Jury is to examine all aspects of county and city government (including special districts and joint powers agencies), to see that the monies are handled judiciously, and that all accounts are properly audited. In general, the Civil Grand Jury seeks to assure honest, efficient government in the best interest of the people.
This is a press release from the Humboldt County Civil Grand Jury:
This is the first report from the 2018-2019 Humboldt County Civil Grand Jury. The report focuses on homelessness in Humboldt County and is titled:
Like, Home? There’s No Place…
In 2016, upon the recommendation of consulting group Focus Strategies, the City of Eureka and Humboldt County jointly resolved to adopt a Housing First approach to tackle homelessness. The underlying principle of Housing First is to place a homeless person into permanent housing as quickly as possible, without preconditions such as sobriety or participation in mental health programs. Once the person is housed, they receive services, such as mental health or substance abuse treatment, to help them remain housed.
The Housing First model is a proven method and can, in the long run, reduce our homeless numbers significantly. However, Housing First requires an adequate stock of affordable housing, which Humboldt severely lacks. Interim housing where people can stay until permanent housing is available is in short supply. There are far more homeless than available emergency shelter beds and many homeless people have constraints preventing them from using existing shelters. At the rate affordable housing is currently being created, it will be many years until we have enough. Until then, our current and future unsheltered homeless will need somewhere legal to stay, both day and night.
The Grand Jury investigated whether strict adherence to Focus Strategies’ recommendations makes sense when our poorest residents have no rental options and increasing numbers of people are living in their cars and on the streets. Our investigation assessed which segments of the homeless population are underserved by local government and homeless service providers. We analyzed short and long term shelter options and considered measures local government might take to supplement Housing First efforts to address the immediate and widespread need for shelter. Our investigation also considered what steps might be taken to speed the generation of sorely-needed affordable housing.
There is no silver bullet that will eradicate homelessness in Humboldt County. The report offers a number of recommendations which, if implemented, could significantly improve the quality of life for many of the County’s residents–both homeless and housed–while the affordable housing crisis persists.
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Let’s hope the STUPIDvisors listen for a change!!!
With the economy taking more of a downturn this is going to be more and more of an issue if we treate people like family is a good start tiny house communities can work especially with good community gardens where people can fill they are needed and help ground there minds with good food to share lots of other opportunities to help maintain and advance and expand these communities with arts music and laughter
This is a tough question. No easy answers.
my brother is homeless
has turned down all help to get into an apartment and paid for by us relatives . he just stayed in his truck .
2 months ago he got sick , turned out to be lymphoma , cancer .
doctors told him he needs a place to stay to get treatment . he still told us to stuff it on helping him . had another hospital stay of 2 weeks and was told he gonna die without treatment .
now he staying in one of betty chinn’s places and getting treatment . we are happy . however , he says soon as treatment is over he going back on the streets living in his truck .
homeless needs to want help first before they can get into any homeless housing project . lots love the freedom of not being tied down anywhere . no matter what is offered , they have to want it first .
Just cause he doesn’t want help, doesn’t mean hundreds others don’t want help also. They way you speak of your brother, I’d wouldn’t want your help either. Folks usually don’t get better when always talked down to.
Nonsense. There is a pattern to most homelessness, even if mental illness or drug addiction plays a part. Paranoia, inability to adjust, anger, unwillingness to look at themselves, etc. Even though I have never been sure whether someone who is chronically homeless believes their own stories of how they got there, the stories all follow the same soap operatic themes of how someone acting maliciously was to blame for their losing a job and they never were given another choice or lied to them or took advantage of them. In the hundreds of stories I’ve been told only one man said that his situation was his own fault because he always chose what was immediately fun over a future good. Continuous impulsive and reactive choices, whether because of mental illness, drug addiction, personality disorder, etc, are how they arrived where they are. And, until they get to a certain age or state of ill health where they can see they will die otherwise, they generally prefer and repeat those choices. Some even facing death keep repeating the same pattern. Even when they are willing to listen, plenty of guidance is needed just to get to a spot where they connect their own actions to the consequences.
So clearlake fool is pretty spot on. Some persist in thinking that chronic homelessness is because a person did not get the services they needed but the reality is that one person can burn through a lot of people’s willingness to help without being willing to change their behavior at all. The best success society can have is to offer help to those who, while still blaming everyone else, at least show a willingness to compromise. For those people, offering a place to live with some counselling, may be an affordable though limited success.
Ok that’s the pattern of hopelessness. Now our job is to find the pattern to ending hopelessness.
If we get stuck in their hopelessness then we are not more functional than they are.
This grand jurysummary stops just short of saying directly what needs said: the county has yet to be successful in its housing element.
It’s supposed to be stopping all developers until there are developers for all segments of society. “If they dont have housing, you dont have housing” in so many words.
John Ford, its on you man. What you got to say?
That ignores a whole lot of reality. The reality that most people are struggling to provide “normal” cost housing for themselves already. At least in California. Saddling them with even higher housing costs so that they subsidize other’s mandated “low cost” mean some them will be even less able to afford housing themselves. So they then fall into competition for these limited “low cost” housing, pushing the next rung down out of being able to afford anything again.
Besides lack of affordable housing doesn’t make up much of the reason for chronic homelessness anyway. You give a person an income and they poorly chose to spend it, they will not be able to pay for housing anyway. Making up scenarios where this defect doesn’t exist sounds agreeable but is no more going to happen that clapping brings back Tinkerbell.
The way some forms of affordable supportive housing work, they deduct 1/3 of the person’s public aid/social security check for rent automatically. Then they can spend the rest poorly if they choose, but they have contributed to their housing costs.
You are kidding right? There are already a number of places that are able to help the willing! You can lead a horse to water……
What is his reasoning for wanting to return to his truck?
A lot of people prefer liberty over oppression, and living in his own truck might be his way of achieving his liberty.
Have you and your family tried helping in the ways he would appreciate help? Tricking out his Truck (with his approval of each design and/or change), getting him a van he can stand up in, .. I don’t know what he has or what he needs, you’ll have to ask him.
There are scores of helpful tips online, even on YT.
Bob Ellis : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAj7O3LCDbkIR54hAn6Zz7A
Chrome & Cruz at VanCity Van Life: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xdciQuY19I&list=PLzjkjqEYjKpajGchT_Mm8wskMfPZlnKPY
Cheap Uhaul truck tiny house conversion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfzWWGw6QXs
Too many to list in a post, but these might be of help.
That Bob Ellis one has a Nomad living in his Semi truck, that I haven’t watched yet, but it might be of interest.
Housing first strategy seems like a long shot for Humboldt…and the approach isn’t working elsewhere, but maybe in a few decades it could make a difference here
It has been working elsewhere. InfoLies is BS.
You mean like in SF and LA?
Every report I’ve seen claiming that housing first works used the metric “people without houses” as the measure of success. Well fucking duh, if you move people into houses, there will be fewer people without houses. And then they gloss over the percentage that end up affording housing on their own, stopping using drugs, stopping stealing or committing other crimes, etc… because those numbers would cast serious doubt on calling it working.
Instead, what actually happens is you end up with a Squires property, but worse, and paid for with tax dollars. The same people continue committing the same crimes, using and dealing drugs, etc, etc, just now they do it in a house. Which they immediately trash. Police calls go through the roof. Neighbors get mad. Property values plummet. And the taxpayers are constantly paying to clean up the trash, repair the house, etc, if they don’t give up and let it become even more of a public nuisance.
(On a side note, the Squireses have done far more to reduce homelessness than every single useless politician in this county combined. They’ve been providing affordable housing and dealing with people no one else other than an overfunded government branch would ever deal with)
You have to address the people before you can address their lack of housing. They need to get off drugs, get to work, and decide they want to help themselves. This will probably take a facility where people aren’t allowed to leave until they’re sober and employable, and lots of money to run it. But at least it’ll actually solve problems instead of create them.
It’s illegal and unconstitutional to force someone into a “facility” like you describe. We have something like that already, it’s called “prison”, and despite banning drugs and alcohol completely and offering educational and vocational classes, they have an extremely low success rate. In fact, many people end up worse off after incarceration than before it.
Besides that, some people are just not employable, whether due to naturally occurring conditions or drug induced ones. Sometimes they’re just too far gone. So what then? Are we supposed to leave them on the street? Incarcerate them permanently? Put them in nursing homes? Put them in death camps? We could provide them with supportive housing for less than the cost of prison.
Yes, we do already have prisons, and it’s just as legal to put a criminal into a non-optional rehabilitation program as it is to send them to prison. Unlike a prison, it could have a much more open design, possibly individual private housing units within an outer enclosure, unfettered access to communications, and a focus on education rather than punishment. But, unlike just giving them a house, their access to the outside world would be restricted to prevent drug usage and the commission of further crimes against the public. Good behavior would be encouraged by the threat that anyone who is harmful would be sent to prison instead, a much less pleasant place to stay. I suspect a strongly structured day would help a lot of them.
If someone is genuinely unemployable, then it’s up to the disability system to give them enough help to live. If the disability system can’t do that, then it needs to be improved.
Bushy, you are harsh but not completely wrong. The squiers have helped a lot of people, people i love included, but dam they are fucked up dysfunctional themselves!!
How can anyone make upwards of a $100gs a month and always be broke with everything falling apart? Personality disorders to the max. Ive been up close enough to see what i am describing. Their troubles invited the tenants they have. The tenants didnt cause them.
Show us some stats on all these troubles with Housing first programs, not just claim it to be true.
And housing first should not be tolerating crime. Its not good for other people trying to get moving. The programs should also not be overly concentrated. Otherwise that produces ghettos.
Fwiw, we have a great homeless court a d a good judge running it. But he needs housing units to put people in si the folks he sees can get stable. He’s great with the population he serves and motivates them with love as well as firmness.
Let’s not forget that the Squireses have an interest in harboring drug use and drug dealing on their properties – no one sober would be willing to rent their falling down, deathtrap properties. If Humboldt’s drug problem were solved, the Squireses wouldnt have tenants!
Don’t forget about the people who can’t afford first, last and a security deposit. A lot of the people renting from them are on Social Security and can’t afford high rents. There is also that motel on 4th street that is being renovated, who owned that and what are they going to do with that?
I think the biggest issue I have is seeing the young people that stand on the street asking for money. I am a senior citizen and I worked hard for what I have and will not give it to an able bodied person.
It is certainly a shame that seniors on social security are at the mercy of people like the Squireses for sub-standard housing.
The disability system needs affordable housing for the people it serves. There’s an extreme shortage of affordable housing, but that’s not the disability system’s fault.
No. It’s the result of unlimited regulation and unlimited immigration.
Right, the Squrieses supply “affordable” housing to the bottom rung of society, the government says you can’t do that, fines them and tears one of their buildings down and then the government says we need a tax to build more housing like the one we said the squires couldn’t have. But at a much, much higher cost. I just wish there was a way to help the homeless people that got dealt a raw deal in life and aren’t just drug addicts, you know like if there was a drug test or something. I would love to help homeless people, I just haven’t met one that wasn’t a drug addict.
I guess I should specify the chronically homeless, to use the term in the paper. Those are the ones that invariably made the decision to have drugs instead of have a life, and the ones that cause most of the problems. The other groups of homeless, like seniors who can’t afford rent increases and such, are the ones who would most benefit by affordable quality housing options. And not shit on their walls and then have the city blame the landlord for it. huh?
The building/drug den that was set on fire and also full of dirty hypodermic needles? Yeah, that’s a great model for affordable housing! How dare the gubbermint tear it down!
What do you think will happen when the exact same people move into a government-provided house?
Well, for one, it shouldn’t be a freestanding house, it should be an easy-to-monitor apartment building. Part of the reason the Blue Hero(i)n was so bad was because the motel layout allowed all sorts of people to come and go all over the place. A tiny house village would have the same problem – too difficult to control access and maintain security. So, an apartment building with an controlled access format and maybe an enclosed central courtyard. On site social services and security.
Thats a jail. Thats not a benefit to anyone [edit].
Nope. Residents would be allowed to come and go, but guests would have to be visiting a specific resident and would have to sign in. Rich people in cities pay good money for this – it’s called having a doorman.
I have. There as some people so mentally impaired that they hear voices and think that these voices are out to get them. They truly believe the FBI or CIA have taken over their brains and mean to harm them. They are unable to sort out reality from fantasy. Some may take drugs but a lot of people in this state will refuse drugs that help them. Then frankly there are people who have so abused drugs, they are brain damaged and no longer have much control over their thinking at all. I’d say that about 2o to 30% of chronically homeless are that mentally disturbed.
Yay, more free shit for lazy bums, while I work hard and raise my family these turds get more free shit by the day.
Ay yi yi, do they ever let you out for fresh air? The people stealing your money and creating a life of slavery for you are the richest 5 people not the poorest million.
I know you cannot see those rich asses. I know they steal with a spreadsheet and not a gun, but they arent paying their taxes and they have completely rewritten the rules so that YOU pay their taxes and yours.
If you name the problem properly, you will find the solution much faster.
If you want out of your slavery, aoc recommends a high marginal tax on income over 10 million a year. Or Elizabeth warren suggests a 2%annual tax on held wealth of over $50million.
Or you can pick trump’s plan that gives billions in tax breaks to the billionaire class and increases YOUR debt and wage slavery.
Yet the biggest complaints about these tax cuts is from places like New York and California because that they capped the deductions that rich people use to reduce the taxes they pay, thus leading the richest people to move away from places that taxed them less. Apparently in reality, rich liberal states do not like the idea of increasing the taxes of the richest either.
how much taxes do you think you pay? do you receive any kind of welfare? like free healthcare or food stamps? do you do your taxes? most people (i think its like 41% of people) get all their money back from their taxes except social security. the only tax you probably pay is sales tax and if you do receive any thing from the government it is probably a wash in fact i would venture to say you are a negative on the system, just a guess, but if you take the child tax credit… mmm yeah probably
Start with the ones that want to get back to a more ” normal ” lifestyle first.
Yes, there are people that just do not want to live like ” normal ” people and will refuse.
There has to be a longish term follow-up, at least 3-5 years after graduation from the program to keep folks from falling back into homelessness.
It’s perfectly legal to live in a cardboard box. To live in a plywood box you need the proper permits.
Thats funny because its too true
You nailed it!
34 comments.
~guys,
The first sentence is not fact -“The Civil Grand Jury is part of the judicial branch of government”
#1 there’s no such thing as a “CIVIL” Grand Jury. If a wrongdoer is before a Grand Jury – the independent FOURTH BRANCH of a republic form of government – they are either set free, or do that little dance that’s done at the end of a common law rope.
#2 there’s no Benefit (caged)/Privilege (penalty $) in common law.
#3 we haven’t had a Grand Jury since 1956.
#4 the “Civil” Grand Jury is made up of Order Followers who answer to the County Counsel –State union of foreign British aligned BAR club.
I must add, that, in my opinion i think the wrongdoer should be handed over to the injured party’s family and they do what they will.
The courts are addicted to Grants too. Maybe this is a byproduct of one of those grants they needed in order to prepare for the next grant they’ll need in order to fix the problems that this grant produced. (not saying THIS case is problematic, but patterns show that most cases based off grants are usually problematic.)
https://www.justice.gov/grants
Free ssi/disability $, free cell phone, free housing, free needles, free healthcare, cheap drugs, unpunished thievery, and free government cheese!?!? Where do I sign up?
An extra tax on properties owned by foreign “investors” and banks, especially those who do not rent them or live in them even seasonally would help our housing stock immensely. There are possibly as many empty houses in the US as there are homeless families. Many of these houses and homes are not for sale or rent.
Not many empty homes here, yet, but many in the town of Mendocino, SF, LA, NY, Vancouver, Seattle, etc. When people can no longer afford SF for instance they move here- domino effect. Those “investors” are starting to buy properties in Eureka, Eugene, Portland etc.
Just as an example- Mendocino has problems keeping a volunteer fire dept because the rents are so high and housing in short supply. Yet local business owners say occupancy of those homes are at an all time low & businesses are suffering.