Dear Council,
SAVS just received $723,441 in taxpayer money via Measure 0 funds.
This money will allow SAVS to run Horizon Shine un�l it is closed due to St. Vincent’s Homekey Project of 22 units of Permanent Suppor�ve Housing.
I ask that SAVS use some of its funding to reimburse expenses Ci�zens of Sebastopol have paid for in the last year. Those include Police �me.
On the following table, you can see that the Police visited Horizon Shine 185 �mes over the course of 1 year. That far exceeds the typical amount of Police calls to a single apartment complex.
If each Police Call costs the City/Ci�zens $400, SAVS should reimburse the City and Ci�zens of Sebastopol $74,000 to cover the expenses of the Police Service. Ci�zens of Sebastopol are told we need to freeze hiring in our understaffed Police Department. This $74,000 could go toward staffing a dispatch posi�on or another junior posi�on.
During the April 19 discussion of the Senior Center, there was indica�on that the Senior Center was providing meals to Horizon Shine in the amount of $7 per meal.
About 2 hours and eight minutes into the mee�ng, Council Member Rich says something like, “In this current physical year to the extent a por�on of the $45k is subsidizing Horizon Shine this should have come to city council. I am very uncomfortable with that.” The issue of meals being provided by the Senior Center to Horizon Shine was never resolved. I ask that there be an accoun�ng of this service and that SAVS use its grant money to reimburse any addi�onal costs to the City and Ci�zens of Sebastopol.
I request that SAVS use the majority of its $723,441 grant to give the residents of Horizons Shine housing s�pends of at least $24,000 (two years of rent) to prevent its residents from returning to homelessness.
If the point of all this money is for people to find permanent housing, the fastest and most direct way is to give them a housing s�pend for a significant amount of �me so they can find work and become independent.
It is an incredible waste of �me and money if people end up on the streets a�er millions have been spent on temporary housing, case management, social work, food, u�li�es, and medical care.
Best,
Kate Haug