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HomeMy WebLinkAboutMINUTES - 06061989 - S.11 TO: BOARD OF SUPERVISORS FROM: Supervisor Tom Powers Contra Cost..a.} DATE: June 6, 1989 County SUBJECT: Assessment of Homeless Programs in Contra Costa County SPECIFIC REQUEST(S) OR RECOMMENDATION(S) & BACKGROUND AND JUSTIFICATION Recommendation: 1. That the County Administrator set up a meeting with the county's state and federal delegation and the 18 cities to develop a policy for planning the location of homeless shelters in Contra Costa County. 2. That the Director of Social Services inventory all funds from federal , state and local sources that are available for homeless and homeless support programs. Background: It is apparent that during the first week of May, the shelter program in Contra Costa County has met a serious set back due to the inherent problems of dealing with difficult planning decisions which provoke neighborhood concern. A legitimate neighborhood concern on land use is extremely important, yet it has reached, in some cases, proportions which totally prevent the county, state and federal programs from carrying out their policy decisions to deal with difficult human service needs in the community. The planning process has to take into consideration community wide goals as well as neighborhoods, but unfortunately, sometimes these goals are frustrated and create more serious community wide problems as well as neighborhood problems. A case in point is that recently, in Martinez and Richmond, homeless shelters were denounced by local concerns. On the evening of Thursday, May 5, 1989, the Richmond Planning Commission turned down by a seven to two vote a positive recommendation from staff to allow a fifty bed homeless shelter to be built by the Volunteers of America at the Souper Center. The primary expression of concern voiced by the neighborhood and by commissioners voting against the proposal was that Richmond has enough social programs in the area and in some cases they should go to El Cerrito. In Martinez, concerns were expressed that a church was being used for a homeless shelter in a neighborhood and that this kind of use may cause problems to the neighbors. CONTINUED ON ATTACHMENTt YES SIONATUREt RECOMMENDATION OF COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR RECOMMENDATION OF BOARD COMMITTEE APPROVE OTHER SIGNATURE(S) ACTION OF BOARD ON June 6, 1989 APPROVED AS RECOMMENDED X OTHER VOTE OF SUPERVISORS X UNANIMOUS (ABSENT — ) I HEREBY CERTIFY THAT THIS IS A TRUE AYES: NOES: AND CORRECT COPY OF AN ACTION TAKEN ABSENT: ABSTAIN: AND ENTERED ON THE MINUTES OF THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORSONTHE DATE SHOWN. CC: County Administrator ATTESTED Social Services Director PhiY Batchelor, Clerk of the Board of Supervisors and /County .Administrator •._.._ r_ ..- tt.. —v.+J� V�./(�.�/��/�/ r1 x.111 T.I I believe neighborhood concerns can be addressed but only if we have institutions that will allow us to deal with these serious problems and try as best we can to bring homeless individuals into positive environ- ment. Allowing them to remain on the streets and live under bushes and in danagerous circumstances does not enable us to deal with the issue of homelessness. It is frustrating, but we must tackle this problem as a caring society and as governmental leaders. Historically, housing needs were handled by cities and all levels of income were developed in urban communities without too much difficulty. In recent years, housing prices and rents have gone very high and low and moderate income housing has been difficult to build or even get approved because of community reaction. At some point in time, we must undertake to deal with this problem head on or allow a larger and larger segment of society to be disfranchised and denied a basic need - shelter. A homeless shelter is no different than a housing place for poor people to live while they are trying to get back on their feet. The Volunteers of America have successfully managed and constructed housing shelters throughout the United States and there is no reason to believe that they cannot do so in Richmond, Martinez or other places in the Bay Area. The county is attempting to carry out a homeless program with state and federal funding, but we are frustrated to do so unless we have an operator, such as Volunteers of America or Shelter, Inc. to allow us to institute the programs that we administer on behalf of the State and Federal governments. If we are hampered from doing so, we can only ask these governments to give us the authority and strength to carry out these policies since we do not have land use control capabilities in cities. The county has worked closely with Shelter, Inc. and Volunteers of America for some time trying to establish shelters in numerous communities throughout Contra Costa County. Each and everyone of these, not only in Martinez and Richmond, but in Pittsburg and Concord, have been frustrated by the local planning process. In some cases, I am sure the concerns are legitimate but they should be directly dealt with in the planning process. However, more apparent than legitimate planning concerns is the fact that these shelters are turned down based upon the concept, "Not in my backyard." - NIMBY. The problem obviously is, "Whose backyard should they go in?" The answer is, "Nobody's." If we cannot come to grips with the solution to this problem, government agencies should just admit the fact that they do not have the capability of dealing with the poor. I, for one, am not willing to give up on this until every avenue is pursued. At the same time, the county needs to reevaluate its resources to better determine the options it has open to it. These options should then be discussed publicly to determine the most effective and feasible solution.