Did COVID-19 make Fresno’s homeless problem worse? Here’s why we might never know
Each January, Fresno service providers and volunteers go out and tally the number of people experiencing homelessness, producing a key metric that helps government officials calculate the amount of money is needed to help the people living on the city’s streets.
But that won’t happen this year, officials told The Bee.
The Point in Time count is one of the many casualties of the coronavirus pandemic.
“We racked our brains on how we could do it, and we couldn’t come up with a way that would be safe,” said Jody Ketcheside, vice-chair of the Fresno-Madera Continuum of Care, who coordinates the count.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which mandates the count, permitted Fresno to cancel it this year, Ketcheside said. Dozens of other California cities have asked for the same waiver, including Los Angeles and Sacramento.
Ketcheside said they got the waiver because federal officials determined Fresno had their finger close enough to the pulse. The by-name list of people with whom service providers have made contact this year had only 500 fewer people than they tallied in January. Fresno will nonetheless count the number of people staying in shelters.
Last year in Fresno, over 300 volunteers over two nights roamed the streets in small groups until midnight, and counted the highest number of people experiencing homelessness in Fresno and Madera to date — 3,641 people, up from 2,508 in 2019.
While the majority of people were unsheltered, the sheltered count more than doubled, from 439 in 2019 to 960 in 2020.
That was before the pandemic hit.
Since March, unemployment has skyrocketed, and rent prices have spiked. Mike Rhodes, a local advocate and independent journalist, said he believes more people are experiencing homelessness in Fresno than ever before.
“It’s so much worse than anybody realizes,” Rhodes said. “And with the coming evictions, because people can’t afford their rent, God knows what it’s going to look like in six months.”
The count would have likely underestimated that number, anyway, The Bee previously reported. The federal definition of homelessness excludes people who are doubled-up, couch surfing or staying in a cheap motel room, and even those living outdoors can be easily missed during one of the coldest months of the year.
Historic amounts of homeless funding for Fresno
The Point in Time count is supposed to help HUD determine how much funding each jurisdiction receives during national competitions, but Ketcheside said there aren’t any federal dollars up for grabs this year. If they become available, the government will likely rely on the previous year of data, she added.
The count has also guided state lawmakers in funding allotments— “but as far as state funding goes, it feels like it just keeps coming,” Ketcheside said.
Fresno City Council President Miguel Arias said in conjunction, the region has received over $100 million from the state and federal governments to fight homelessness.
So far, officials have provided approximately 460 new shelter beds in Fresno and Madera, which are frequently at or near capacity. When faced with the decision of adding more beds for shorter lengths of time, officials repeatedly chose to extend current services to prevent further displacement.
Refurbished motels from Project Homekey are slated to provide hundreds of new beds for interim and eventually permanent housing, but not until later in 2021.
Transparency remains an issue in Fresno’s homeless response, report says
Rhodes is skeptical about how much of a dent the millions will make in the wake of a scathing Grand Jury report. The report, published in October, found Fresno’s homeless response lacks transparency and oversight.
Among the key findings was that despite a $150,000 grant, Fresno never got off the ground a backbone organization designed to oversee the various agencies implementing housing solutions. They also found the potential for conflicts of interest in the allocation of homeless dollars.
“There’s nobody overseeing that funding, so we’re kind of stuck in this difficult place of millions of dollars coming into Fresno, things don’t get better, they get worse because there’s no accountability,” Rhodes said.
Officials countered they have measures in place to prevent conflicts of interest and ensure oversight.
Rhodes said that while some homeless services undoubtedly made a difference, the millions remained intangible for thousands still on the streets.
“Here are these poor people, sitting out on the street, and they don’t even get so much as a bottle of water,” Rhodes said.
This story was originally published December 22, 2020 at 1:31 PM.
