HomeMy WebLinkAboutCM Homelessness____________________________________________________________________________________
FOR CITY CLERK ONLY
Council Meeting: December 21, 2020
Disposition: Accepted report
Agenda Item No: 7.a
Meeting Date: Dec 21, 2020
SAN RAFAEL CITY COUNCIL AGENDA REPORT
Department: CITY MANAGER
Prepared by: Andrew Hening City Manager Approval: ______________
TOPIC: HOMELESSNESS
SUBJECT: INFORMATIONAL REPORT ON STATUS OF HOMELESSNESS IN SAN RAFAEL
RECOMMENDATION:
Accept Informational Report and Provide Direction to Staff.
BACKGROUND:
In January 2017, according to a report from the Bay Area Economic Institute and McKinsey Consulting,
Marin County had the seventh highest per capita rate of homelessness in the entire country. By
January 2019, however, overall homelessness in Marin had fallen by 7%, long-term chronic
homelessness had declined by 28%, and unsheltered homelessness in San Rafael had dropped by
30%. Over this same two-year period, approximately 80% of California counties saw increases in
homelessness, including a 20% increase in San Mateo County, a 31% increase in Santa Clara County,
and a 43% increase in both Alameda County and Contra Costa County. These numbers were not an
accident. Beginning in the spring of 2016, the City of San Rafael, alongside the County of Marin and
local nonprofit partners, began implementing a series of pilot programs that ultimately became county-
wide strategies for transforming Marin’s homeless service system.
The initial drive for change was spurred by community concerns about the impacts of homelessness in
Downtown San Rafael, specifically issues like flagrant public intoxication and untreated mental illness.
As the City, County, and local providers began to focus on these issues, we began to see to that
behaviors were not being generated uniformly across every person experiencing homelessness.
Instead, we realized that a small number of very sick, vulnerable, and mentally ill people were
generating a hugely outsized impact. Ironically, our providers knew all these people by name. In some
cases, we had been serving them for decades. In short, though we didn’t have the language at the
time, we realized our problem was chronic homelessness.
Chronic homelessness is used to describe people who have experienced homelessness for at least
a year — or repeatedly — while struggling with a disabling condition such as a serious mental illness,
substance use disorder, or physical disability. Making up to just 10-30% of the overall homelessness
population in any given community, these individuals tend to generate significant public complaints, as
well as substantial systemic costs. One study in Marin at that time, which focused specifically on
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chronic inebriates, found that these high-needs individuals were costing the community $60,000+ per
year in public services (e.g. emergency room visits, EMS transports, criminal justice interventions). At
the same time, these were also some of the most vulnerable people in the community, on average
dying 20+ years earlier than their housed peers from treatable chronic illnesses.
To begin to address this hard-to-serve population, a team of local leaders, which was co-led by the
City, began visiting other Bay Area communities to learn more about how this group could be helped.
During those field trips, we discovered an outreach program in San Mateo which had essentially ended
chronic homelessness in their downtown. The San Mateo Police Department led the effort by
convening every local service provider, creating a by-name-list of the most challenging individuals in
their community, and then meeting every two weeks to develop and implement customized housing
strategies for each person. This effort seemed promising, so the City, the County, and local partners
launched the Marin Homeless Outreach Team (HOT) in early 2016 with an initial focus on Downtown.
In its first 18 months, HOT housed 23 of the most high-impact, long-term chronically homeless
individuals in San Rafael. Because of the success, the League of California Cities named HOT a state-
wide best practice for addressing homelessness.
Based on HOT’s early success, our team started looking at ways to scale our impact. The tipping point
was when we discovered Community Solution’s Built for Zero campaign (BfZ). BfZ is a national
movement of over 80+ communities who are working to end chronic and veteran homelessness by
using a shared methodology and data standards. To-date, with the help of the BfZ model:
• 1 California community (Riverside City & County) has ended veteran homelessness
• 3 communities nationally have ended chronic homelessness
• 11 communities nationally have ended veteran homelessness
• 44 communities nationally have driven a community-wide reduction in homelessness
The BfZ methodology is predicated on:
• Integrating the Local Team: Traditionally, homelessness response systems are deeply siloed.
BfZ communities build integrated, multi-agency teams which take responsibility for getting to
zero.
• Real-Time Measurement: BfZ communities build privacy-protected, continuously updated, by-
name lists of all those experiencing homelessness to track and respond to the problem in real
time.
• Rapid Cycle Testing: Homeless is too dynamic for ten-year plans. BfZ communities use the
same iterative problem-solving skills that have revolutionized global health efforts like the fight
against polio to test, evaluate and scale the highest impact strategies quickly.
• Targeted Housing Investments: Many cities have ramped up affordable housing with no effect
on homelessness. BfZ communities use real-time data to make targeted investments that yield
reductions.
Encouraged by the example of BfZ communities who were farther along in the process than we were
(e.g. Montgomery County, Maryland, a suburban community outside of Washington, D.C. had reduced
chronic homelessness by 50%; Bergen County, New Jersey, a suburban community outside of New
York City had ended chronic homelessness), in October 2017 we officially launched our new
countywide “Coordinated Entry System”. Coordinated Entry took the by-name-list concept we piloted in
San Rafael with HOT and made it a countywide system. We shifted from subjectively determining who
the most high-needs individuals were and instead moved to more objective measurements of
vulnerability to determine housing prioritization.
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Of course, the by-name-list was just the first step – it was the organizing principle. To be successful, we
needed more housing and services. Prior to the launch of Coordinated Entry, we had been reliant on
one-off openings in existing supportive housing programs, as well as an occasional housing voucher
from Marin Housing Authority (MHA). Impressed by our results, however, in the summer of 2017, MHA
pledged 70 annual slots on the Section 8 Waitlist for referrals from Coordinated Entry. This
commitment, in turn, was contingent on the County of Marin providing sufficient supportive services to
ensure these high-needs individuals were receiving sufficient assistance. Fortunately, at that same
time, the State of California released new funding through “Whole Person Care”, which was designed to
provide counties the resources they needed to serve individuals who are high utilizers of the healthcare
system. Because of the new vouchers and service dollars, our community was able to launch “Housing
First” at scale, and since October of 2017, we have housed over 300 of the most visible and vulnerable
homeless individuals in Marin, and even during the pandemic, we continue to house 6+ people per
month.
Housing First is an evidence-based best practice for housing people experiencing chronic
homelessness. Historically, communities often make housing contingent on a person first getting sober,
getting medicated, getting employed, and thriving in emergency housing. The result is that the most
high-needs people are unable to meet these requirements, precisely because they are high-needs,
and, thus, they never get housed. Housing First flips that notion on its head. It treats the lack of
permanent housing as the paramount, foundational challenge. Once someone is back inside, then they
can begin to work on their sobriety, employment, etc. Interestingly, the long-term retention rates in
Housing First programs are in some cases 200% higher than the status quo of “treatment first”. Since
October 2017, of the 200+ chronically homeless people we’ve housed, over 90% are still housed. For
individuals who were homeless in San Rafael, based on data from the Police Department and Fire
Department, we have observed a 54% reduction in EMS transports after people are housed and an
86% reduction in police interactions. Of note, thanks to the flexibility of the housing vouchers, the
people who are being housed are finding units throughout the county, not simply in San Rafael,
including Mill Valley, Corte Madera, San Anselmo, and Novato.
In addition to the City’s strategic efforts around chronic homelessness, over the last five years there
have also been a number of tactical changes that have also gone into effect in San Rafael to mitigate
the impacts of homelessness in our community.
• In 2017, based on a Memorandum of Understanding between the City of San Rafael and the
Ritter Center, the Ritter Center stopped providing homeless mail services. The City now funds
Ritter ($10,000 per year) to administer PO Boxes at the San Rafael Post Office on Bellam Blvd.
Previously Ritter had been serving 500+ clients with this service.
• In 2018, based on the same Memorandum of Understanding, Ritter stopped providing shower
services Downtown, which had previously received approximately 300 visits per week. The
closure coincided with the launch of the Marin Mobile Care mobile showers, which are now
operated by Downtown Streets Team in East San Rafael, Novato, Fairfax, and Sausalito. They
are also approved to operate in Corte Madera and Larkspur.
• Through continued leadership from the City, every city and town in Marin is contributing to the
Community Homeless Fund. Since 2018, the fund has been used to support the mobile shower
program as an outreach platform for Coordinated Entry. With total annual funding of $180,000,
San Rafael contributes $36,000 a year. The current three-year funding commitment ends after
FY20-21; however, Marin Community Foundation has provided $180,000 to cover FY21-22.
• The City continues to support the Downtown Streets Team ($75,000 for FY20-21), which is a
work experience program designed to beautify the community while helping people
experiencing homelessness regain the skills and confidence they need to reenter the workforce.
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After starting as a pilot in Downtown San Rafael in July 2013, the program is now operating city
and countywide.
• The City continues to provide proactive outreach to the homeless community through the Police
Department’s Special Operations Unit, which is led by Sgt. Carl Huber and includes San
Rafael’s Mental Health Outreach Liaison Lynn Murphy (and comfort dog Blue).
2020, of course, has provided new challenges and opportunities for our community’s homelessness
response. Given the inherent health vulnerability of people experiencing homelessness, there has been
considerable concern about a possible outbreak within the homeless community. To help mitigate this
concern, there have been a variety of new initiatives, primarily led by the County of Marin’s Emergency
Operation Center, to mitigate this threat (to-date, there has not been a significant outbreak in the
homeless community). Those efforts have included:
• Expanding shelter capacity by as much as 60% by working with local hotels and motels
• The County passing and extending a countywide eviction moratorium to prevent an inflow of
new people experiencing homelessness
• Providing emergency rental assistance to over 1,000 households, which included funding from
San Rafael’s CDBG allocation
• Leveraging County of Marin disaster service workers to continue outreach to encampments
throughout the county
• Conducting mass testing at various homeless service providers to assess whether or not an
outbreak has occurred (it has not to-date)
We have also seen tremendous progress on the housing front in 2020. Homeward Bound of Marin has
started construction on 32 new units of permanent supportive housing at their Mill Street Center.
Additionally, in November the City Council approved allocating funding from the Affordable Housing
Trust Fund to support the County’s purchase of 3301 Kerner Boulevard through the State of California’s
Project Homekey initiative. This will produce another 44 units of permanent supportive housing.
ANALYSIS:
San Rafael’s new City Council is inheriting a strong foundation of strategies, tactics, and partnerships
that are driving measurable improvements to homelessness in San Rafael. With that being said,
homelessness is one of the most complex challenges our community faces, and moving into 2021 and
beyond, there are a number of policy questions that would greatly aid in directing staff’s time and
energy over the coming months and years:
- How does the City Council want to respond to the ongoing challenge of encampments and
unsheltered homelessness?
- Given the economic fallout of the COVID-19 crisis, as well as other underlying issues like the
cost of housing and the lack of sufficient mental health services for high-needs people, how
does the City want to work to prevent more homelessness in our community?
- To what extent and in what ways should the City engage with neighboring cities and towns to
address homelessness?
- Is the City currently investing adequate resources in our response to homelessness?
- Are there possibilities to continue to provide effective social services in ways that mitigate any
potential negative community impact, such as working to relocate some services that are
currently offered Downtown?
- What is the future of the City’s current portfolio of homeless service contractors (e.g. Downtown
Streets Team)?
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Staff is looking forward to working with the new City Council on these and other policy concerns.
FISCAL IMPACT:
There is no fiscal impact associated with this report.
RECOMMENDATION:
Accept Informational Report and Provide Direction to Staff.