Fresno County has a homelessness plan using CA money. Why one supervisor won’t support it
A new homelessness action plan adopted Tuesday by the Fresno County Board of Supervisors aims to reduce the number of unsheltered people in the Fresno-Madera area by about 8% from 2020 levels over the next two years.
The action plan is one requirement for the county’s Department of Social Services and the Fresno Madera Continuum of Care on Homelessness to receive about $6.7 million through June 2024 for programs to serve the region’s homeless – a population estimated last year at almost 3,800 people.
About $1.2 million more could be available if the county reaches its service goals.
The money will be used for street outreach to unsheltered people and families to steer them to assistance programs; “rapid rehousing” services including rental assistance; engaging landlords to expand the available inventory of affordable housing; emergency shelter and case management; interim housing as people and families await placement in permanent housing; and diversion programs to connect clients seeking emergency shelter with permanent housing to avoid homelessness in the first place.
The plan also includes services for homeless youths ages 18 to 24.
The money is from a third round of grants from the state’s Homeless Housing Assistance and Prevention program. It is but one piece of an array of funding sources aimed at helping the homeless in Fresno County, the city of Fresno and Madera County that, over recent years, have added up to tens of millions of dollars, said Laura Moreno, a program manager with the county’s Department of Social Services and chairwoman of the Fresno Madera Continuum of Care.
The COVID-19 pandemic also brought in multiple pots of money to the county and its neighbors for homeless assistance, much of it targeted toward specific components of the population including veterans, disabled, people receiving CalWorks assistance, and more, Moreno said. “This (grant and plan) isn’t all that there is; there’s a whole lot of other things happening,” she said.
Supervisor Steve Brandau opposes
County supervisors Brian Pacheco, Buddy Mendes, Nathan Magsig and Sal Quintero all voted to approve the plan during the board’s meeting Tuesday morning. Supervisor Steve Brandau, whose District 2 includes the northwest area of the city of Fresno, was the lone “no” vote on the plan.
Brandau did not explain his vote during the meeting. “I didn’t hear a plan,” Brandau told The Fresno Bee after the meeting. “I could not relay with confidence that there is a plan.”
Brandau added that it’s not that the money isn’t needed to help the homeless, but that he was looking for more tangible signals of effectiveness and results from the programs. “What was lacking was a genuine, authentic update on how we are improving lives with all this money,” he told The Bee.
More than $3.1 million of this round of money from the state between now and June 2025 is aimed at emergency shelter and bridge housing services. Almost $2.2 million will be directed toward two years of rapid rehousing services to serve about 60 adults and 11 young adults ages 18 to 24.
Between street-level outreach to homeless people and direct shelter, interim and permanent housing services, the plan establishes a goal of increasing the number of people who have access to services by 1,137, or about 30% from 2020 levels. It also calls for reducing the number of people who are homeless and without shelter on a daily basis by 215, or about 8% of 2020 levels.
Moreno said homeless people are more likely to benefit from staying in shelters for several months rather than one or two nights of emergency shelter.
“We really hope that people stay longer, because usually one night, two nights, one week or one month isn’t going to resolve the issues in most cases that led people to homelessness,” Moreno told supervisors Tuesday. “So we’re really looking at three to six months at least.”
At the height of the coronavirus pandemic, she added, some individuals were housed in shelters for as long as a year or more because county health officials recommended that homeless people stay in one place rather than return to the streets.
In some instances, diversion programs may help people experiencing a one-time emergency such as a car breakdown that disrupted their ability to get to work and forced them to lose their housing. “Maybe we can … quickly repair the car and maybe get them back into housing (so) that their stay isn’t very long,” Moreno said.
“But for others, it’s usually a bit of a cycle, something that occurred that really is not one time,” she added. “We’d like those folks to stay longer.”
Hard to estimate homeless population
While the goals in the plan adopted Tuesday are based on 2020 estimates, the current scope of homelessness in Fresno and the greater Fresno/Madera counties area is difficult pin down.
The latest attempt to count the homeless population in the area was the January 2020 Point in Time survey conducted by the Fresno Madera Continuum of Care. At that time, the estimate of 3,641 homeless – concentrated mostly in the city of Fresno – represented a 43% increase from the 2019 survey.
The coronavirus pandemic forced cancellation of the 2021 Point in Time survey. A 2022 survey was conducted in February, but the tally from that effort has not been released by the Fresno Madera Continuum of Care. Moreno said results are likely to be released in July.
Earlier this year, however, the city of Fresno estimated that there were about 5,200 homeless in Fresno and Madera counties, including 4,200 in the city alone.
