February 3, 2025
“Homelessness isn’t inevitable—it’s a policy choice. At the heart of the Homeless Industrial Complex lies a critical failure: we’ve overcomplicated the solution.”
— Damien Talley, Vice President of Supportive Housing, Colorado Coalition for the Homeless
Introduction
In early January, 2025 Homeless Action! began developing a statement to identify key priorities for services addressing homelessness in 2025. This draft is intended for the general public, the Homeless Coalition Board, the Behavioral Health Planning Board, and other government and community bodies.
Prologue: A Broken System
Homeless Action! has existed for over twelve (12) years. After these years of trying to work within the homeless response system, we have found it riddled with inefficiency and waste. Despite many laudable efforts, the Homeless Point in Time Count still shows over 2,000 people outside on any given night (and that is considered an underestimate.).
Assumptions
In considering this paper, there are a few assumptions to be aware of:
- Everyone needs a place to call home where they have a door that they can close, a pillow that they can lay their head on, and the right to privacy in their own space. There is a necessity to stop thinking of homeless people as “other”; they are us – just poorer.
- The employees and boards of both homeless service providers and County or government groups are working within a flawed system. Nevertheless, they must hold themselves accountable for genuine success which could be generated by more allocation of funds and creativity.
- Concern for all people requires respect for the efforts of any one person and a commitment to listen to differing opinions.
- In 2025, local efforts at housing must focus on local solutions in the face of anticipated limited funding and probable changes in regulations at the Federal and State levels..
Homelessness Statistics
- 2024 Point-in-Time (PIT) Count: 2,522 individuals (up from 2,266 in 2023)
- Homeless individuals with Behavioral Health Challenges: A large number of individuals identified in the PIT survey report psychiatric (BH) and substance use disorders(SUDS) conditions. We estimate that about one-half, or more, qualify for behavioral health services.
- All people who are homeless need both physical and mental health care. That should be the first thing to tackle after shelter because no one can do good if they don’t feel good. People who are homeless who have disabilities or other needs could be better served with less costly methods and Stepping Stone graduated levels of support.
Current Challenges
- Behavioral Health Gaps: There is limited accessible mental health care for people who are homeless. Many individuals cannot “check enough boxes” to qualify for assistance. The 2025 Behavioral Health Transformation planning process is a place to incorporate the concerns raised in this paper.
- Systemic Waste: Agencies and organizations spend millions of dollars on administrative overhead, studies, and fragmented efforts without achieving significant impact. They operate disconnected, duplicative, and inefficient programs. They avoid transparency and fail to prioritize transparently assessed outcomes.
- Ineffective Planning: Temporary fixes like warming stations or sanctioned encampments (while necessary) provide minimal relief without addressing long-term needs. Health care and law enforcement have large roles/investments in serving people who have no home, yet they have vague and sometimes conflicted goals, and limited planning participation.
Invitation to Homeless Action! Strategic Initiatives
Can improvements be systemic and transformative? What is needed includes:
- 24/7 Drop-in Centers. Assure that there are places to legally go 24 hours a day, seven days a week,
- Build housing for all. Assure that all housing includes sufficient residences for people with extremely low income (ELI). Low income housing is systematically impossible for homeless to access. Waiting lists to get applications, waiting lists once applied for, application fees, etc. reveal this as, in effect, a “weeding out process”.
- Comprehensive Behavioral Health Services: Increase access to mental health care tailored to the needs of homeless individuals. Providing resources for people with different needs and vulnerabilities.
- Integrated Plans: Coordinate planning, funding, data collection, and evaluations for services addressing homelessness, mental health, and addiction services.
- Integrated Drop-In Centers: A Critical Priority: Establish drop-in centers linked to Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs), staffed with therapists, healthcare providers, caseworkers, housing navigators, and financial advisors; all trained in homelessness issues. While implementation will require funding, the cost can be offset by savings from reduced healthcare expenses and incarceration rates. [See also CalAIM opportunities]
- Less costly methods and Stepping Stone approaches:
- Shared Housing
- Community Houses/Master Leasing
- safe authorized parking
- job and peer support training and collaboration, which involve people who have been homeless with environmental and community projects in paid positions and apprenticeships.
- Streamlined Management: Consolidate resources and management under a unified system to reduce inefficiency, ensure accountability, and maximize impact.
Further Proposed Solutions
- Centralized Support and Collaboration: Explore the creation of a single Non County entity to support grant management, staffing, evaluation, and resource coordination. Partner with local nonprofit organizations, health and business groups to pool resources and expertise for greater impact.
- Unified Training Programs: Standardize training for all service providers to improve consistency and effectiveness.
- Policy Reform: Advocate for evidence-based policies that prioritize outcomes over compliance.
- Repurpose Public Properties: Transform vacant buildings into housing or service hubs.
- Expand Affordable Housing: Use legislative powers to subsidize and incentivize high-density housing, especially near transit hubs.
- Embrace Innovative Approaches: promote community-based housing solutions such as shared housing and master leasing.
- Listen to those with experience – honor people who have been homeless, elders and each other.
Conclusion
Sonoma County faces immense challenges, but homelessness is not an unsolvable crisis. As long as the public views homelessness as a plague to be eradicated rather than a chronic problem to be addressed, there will be no support for real solutions. We invite everyone concerned to shift the narrative. The public needs to hear the truth; the realities of how people become homeless, and the daily struggles they endure, and possible solutions.
The fear that helping the homeless means sacrificing personal safety or financial security is a myth, deeply ingrained and dangerously effective. How do we fight it? The public may come to understand that the dysfunction isn’t just failing the homeless – it’s failing everyone.
Currently, nonprofits compete for funding, creating a system that prioritizes financial survival over effective service. This competition drains resources, fosters inefficiency, and ultimately harms those in need. To solve homelessness, we must reject fragmentation, embrace collaboration, and implement strategies that create lasting, humane solutions. The time for change is now.
Final things we know:
- Cal AIM via the Health Centers could be crucial.
- The Behavioral Health Planning process this year will “drive” real planning.
- The Feds will gut the CoC nationwide
- The solutions are still local.
- Big private funders (and potential funders) have to take responsibility to demonstrate they are a key part of the solution to housing issues in Sonoma County.
Homeless Action! remains committed to advocating for meaningful change.
[Chat GPT assisted] Prepared by Gerry La Londe-Berg for Homeless Action!