Homelessness Proposals
The city has now committed to spending $1.6 million for the Day Shelter, but the vision for that space is not consistent with the budget and does not appear well positioned to make a substantial impact on the number of unhoused residents spending their days on the streets. What began as a plan for a pleasing, inviting, and constructive space for people to be during the day has transformed into an expanded service center, which would not appear to be a critical or pressing need in terms of eliminating unsheltered homelessness during the day, and certainly not a need worth a seven-figure annual investment.
Council should take the following steps to get this program back on track:
Reaffirm the need, goals, and funding for a day center, and ensure that there is a zero-barrier space for people to access during all operational hours.
The day shelter must be accessible to all members of the community as a space to relax, shower, use the facilities, eat a meal, and get out of the elements.
Clients must not be required to engage with any services in order to be on site. Rather, having a space for people to relax, while simultaneously co-locating service providers in the space, allows service providers to meet people where they are at and to let people accept help when they are ready to benefit from services.
Create a plan to align countywide homeless services providers. If this space is to succeed in moving people out of homelessness and not just out of the way, there must be a concrete and specific plan for how all providers in the county will be invited in at regular schedules to engage in service provision on site.
What problem(s) does this proposal aim to solve?
A day shelter that is not accessible for unhoused community members to simply spend time in is neither a successful model nor is it the vision city council asked to have executed at its 2022 retreat.
At a price tag of 1.6 million dollars this day shelter must be more than just an extension of BSH’s operation hours or an expanded coordinated entry facility.
If this shelter is not a welcoming place to our most vulnerable community members they will not participate.
This space is only useful to the degree that it provides shelter from the elements, opportunities to use showers, toilets, etc., hot meals, and a place to be safe without any requirement for service engagement.