Homelessness is constant to enhance in Santa Clara County, in response to knowledge launched Thursday, with 6,000 individuals housed since January 2020 and a decline within the variety of individuals searching for assist for the primary time.
The brand new numbers recommend the county’s beefed-up efforts to get individuals off the streets, and forestall them from ending up there within the first place, are working, in response to county officers. However the area has a protracted solution to go to satisfy its aim of housing 20,000 individuals by 2025. And enormous homeless encampments, together with alongside the Guadalupe River Path in San Jose, proceed to shine a highlight on the crushing magnitude of the disaster.
In 2019, the county counted 4,771 unhoused individuals who reached out for providers for the primary time. Final 12 months, that quantity dropped to three,172 — a 33% discount. However whilst that quantity shrinks, it’s nonetheless outpacing the variety of homeless individuals who discover housing.
Two years in the past, for each homeless one who secured housed, one other two or three grew to become newly homeless. Now, for each two who discover housing, one other three turn out to be homeless.
“So it’s getting higher,” stated Jennifer Loving, CEO of Vacation spot: Dwelling. “Nevertheless it’s nonetheless the other way up.”
The numbers launched Thursday symbolize the one current knowledge out there on homelessness in Santa Clara County. The county, like many others within the state, delayed its federally mandated homeless census twice throughout the pandemic. The census, throughout which volunteers tally each unhoused individual they see throughout a single night time, is set to happen subsequent week. The final one, finished in 2019, tallied 9,706 individuals dwelling on the road and in shelters — the very best quantity in over a decade.
Because the COVID-19 disaster swelled in 2020 and homeless encampments grew all through the Bay Space, Loving and different Santa Clara County leaders unveiled a five-year Group Plan to Finish Homelessness. Final summer season, they introduced promising progress — almost 5,000 individuals had been housed, new homelessness was down 29% and the county was on the way in which to assembly its targets, they stated.
It’s unclear what, precisely, led to the drop within the variety of individuals turning into homeless. On the time, Loving anxious progress could be erased as soon as COVID eviction bans expired. A lot of these protections resulted in September, and the final are expiring in April, even because the state struggles to fund all of its requests for rental help.
However to this point, new homelessness has continued to drop, in response to the county’s numbers. The county additionally has ramped up its homelessness prevention system, which supplies money assist to assist struggling tenants pay hire. That program went from serving 1,540 individuals in 2019, to 2,140 individuals final 12 months.
The county additionally elevated its shelter and short-term housing capability from 1,882 beds in 2019 to 2,227 beds final 12 months.
“This report has proven that the County has made nice strides in making progress towards the Group Plan to Finish Homelessness targets,” Santa Clara County Supervisor Otto Lee wrote in a press release, “however we should proceed to focus our energies on addressing the basis causes of homelessness.”
Consultants agree these root causes embrace an absence of low-cost housing. The county is also making progress in constructing everlasting, inexpensive housing, with 830 new houses in 9 developments funded by the Measure A housing bond now open. Eleven extra tasks are below development, with seven set to open this 12 months. Funding for an additional six lately was accredited by the board of supervisors.
The system is working, Loving stated, however its capability shouldn't be almost large enough. Increasing inexpensive housing choices sufficient to make a noticeable dent in Santa Clara County’s homelessness disaster would require important federal assist. And to this point, she stated, that’s been missing.
The county requested the federal authorities for 11,000 emergency housing vouchers throughout the pandemic, and acquired simply 1,031, Loving stated. Regardless of rising want, Santa Clara County has seen only a 4% improve in baseline federal funding for inexpensive housing and rental help over the past 20 years, in response to Preston Prince, government director of the county’s Housing Authority.
“We don’t manage to pay for,” Loving stated. “However the cash exists. The Feds will not be doing their jobs they usually have been failing the state of California for so long as I’ve been doing this work.”