Dear Council Members,
In reading Item 16, the quarterly report on the homeless population and the many services provided by the City of Sebastopol, I have several comments.
First, it appears that Maria Rico, the Homeless Services Outreach Coordinator, is doing an excellent job of using existing resources to expand her outreach to get people into the Coordinated Entry System. She seems to be working closely and conscientiously with the Police Department, which will hopefully help to move people off the streets into services. As I previously mention, there has been success in San Francisco’s Castro district when chronically homeless people had daily contact with social workers. It seems that Ms. Rico is employing a similar method and hopefully we will have positive results.
As Ms. Rico is meeting homeless people at the Sebastopol Christian Church, she is making good use of this opportunity to help homeless people connect with resources. I appreciate the fact that she is connecting people with available Safe Parking at the Community Church. She seems to have a good thought process in terms of using existing programs to their fullest potential.
My question are:
1) Why are we requesting more funding for SAVS when their facility is slated to close in June 2023?;
2) Why are we still in a state of Homeless Emergency? We have significant resources and an impressive Homeless Outreach Coordinator. Clearly, we are no longer in an emergency but at a point of productive stasis.
It is clear from this document that Sebastopol has substantial existing resources and services, especially for a City who has a population of 7500 and an extremely limited budget. I would encourage Council to start putting time and energy into supporting our business community with the same amount of thought and zeal as they do our homeless population.
Our City is struggling to fund basic City services and has a huge, outstanding infrastructure debt which has been made clear by many consultant reports including the Matrix Fire Department Report, the RSG Staffing analysis and the most recent Pavement Report.
In addition, our nonprofit organizations like the Arts Center are struggling financially.
We need revenue to support our basic services and to our nonprofits.
I encourage Council to start devoting more time and resources toward our business community and commercial landlords to help support our local businesses and to encourage development of hotels and infill housing downtown.
Best,
Kate Haug