HLC Housing Agenda Blog

Staggering statistics on growing need in the community

Today I attended a meeting of San Mateo County’s Continuum of Care steering committee. The Continuum of Care has been the US Department of Housing and Urban Development’s framework for communities to provide services to homeless individuals and families. The Continuum process brings together government agencies, nonprofit service providers, and other community members to plan for and manage a continuum of homeless services.

Increasingly that includes homelessness prevention and rapid re-housing for people who are temporarily homeless. The recent passage of the federal HEART Act explicitly allows for local communities to use their federal homeless services funding to do just that.

At today’s meeting, Michele Jackson, executive director of Shelter Network, reported that they are getting 600 calls a week from people who need shelter.

Another committee member reported that as of mid-August the core service agencies, which provide people with front-line access to services at seven locations throughout San Mateo County, have used up their Season of Sharing money for this quarter, and won’t get more until October. The Season of Sharing is a major provider of one-time emergency funds, such as move-in costs for someone to get a new apartment or temporary assistance to a family hitting a rough patch. It’s run by the San Francisco Chronicle and is funded by private donations. That makes me concerned about the Chronicle’s declining readership, and rumors of its demise or mutation into another form. Will they still keep the fund?

In better news, the City of Redwood City acquired a 23-unit apartment building to use for below-market rate homes. Five of the units will be used to provide “housing first” to people who are chronically homeless. Once they have stable housing, they can access other services they might need, whether medical care, substance abuse treatment, or mental health care.