New Year New Updates: State and Local Homelessness 2020

There is a lot of commotion in the City of Santa and the entire state of California around how governments can be more efficient in reducing the number of people experiencing homelessness. Recent data documented by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development reveals that California has “more than 151,000 homeless people, including more than…

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Getting Focused on Homelessness

At our last committee meeting in October, our staff presented on Focus Strategies which is a unique consultant group whose entire focus is on applying a systems approach to addressing homelessness. Their fundamental goal is to reduce homelessness to being “functionally zero” within communities. Focus Strategies has done an initial assessment in the City of…

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Housing, Just What the Doctor Ordered

California legislators have been busy this month approving and reviewing legislation to help support Governor Gavin Newsom’s plan to focus on addressing California’s homelessness issue. In regards to creating more housing, Assembly Bill 101 involves stronger incentives to encourage more housing production throughout the state. Whereas, Assembly Bill 516 focuses on alleviating the stress of…

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State Budget Blues and Dues

We previously did an article on Governor Gavin Newsom’s proposed January Budget which you can view here. The Governor’s “May Revise” was released on May 9th and it highlighted the changes to the previously proposed January budget. To read the full synopsis click the button below. The newly updated $213 billion dollar budget is $4.5…

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Business Council Position and Resources on Homelessness

On Thursday March 21st the Santa Cruz County Business Council Board of Directors voted unanimously to adopt a formal position on the issue of homelessness. This decision comes as the issue of homelessness is reaching a breaking point locally, with the number of people sleeping outside having increased in the latest Point In Time (PIT)…

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Measure G Update: FIT Program

By: Robert Singleton The Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors heard their first update of the year on the new Focused Intervention Team (FIT) program, which is a combination enforcement and social services effort, funded through Measure G, to address chronic recidivism. As you may recall, the Business Council Board of Directors voted overwhelmingly last…

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HEAP: The Future of Homelessness in Santa Cruz County

By: Josephine Buchanan As part of a law signed in by our previous Governor Jerry Brown, Santa Cruz County is set to receive $20 million over the next two years in the form of a grant to address the homelessness crisis. This funding called HEAP (Homelessness Emergency Aid Program) is a $500 million block grant…

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