Santa Monica seeks out the most vulnerable
By Francisco Vara-Orta
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
January 29, 2008
"The people out here in the middle of the night sleeping are the most challenging to get to use social services," said Danielle Noble, the leader of Maceri's group and senior administrative analyst with Santa Monica's Homeless Services office.
Noble and others say their hope is to get the most vulnerable homeless people into housing and help all the chronically homeless get in touch with agencies that can get them off the streets more quickly.
The project is the latest of Santa Monica's efforts to end its chronic homeless problem. Every night, an estimated 600 people sleep at shelters and on the city's sidewalks, streets and benches, city officials say.
The city formally launched its Chronic Homeless Project in 2004. As of this month, 77 people who had been chronically homeless are now housed, according to Julie Rusk, human services manager for Santa Monica.
In October, Rusk said, the city decided to collaborate with Common Ground, a New York City nonprofit group that launched a similar, successful effort to house homeless people living in Times Square.
Common Ground's approach is a technological breakthrough, said Gary Blasi, a UCLA law professor who has studied homelessness for 25 years.
"It's innovative because you are looking at the root of the problem and finding the homeless instead of them finding you," said Blasi, who observed another Common Ground effort in December on Los Angeles' skid row.
"Normally, the chronically homeless make it to agencies when in crisis, like emergency rooms," Blasi said. The Common Ground "approach isn't an exact science but targets the chronically homeless, the more difficult ones, that the shelter system historically leaves out."
In December, volunteers from county agencies and social service groups canvassed about 40 blocks of skid row with Common Ground, plotting the concentration of tents and sleeping bags and identifying hubs of drug activity.
The surveyors counted 471 people regularly sleeping on the area's streets and persuaded 350 of them to be interviewed. Recently, Los Angeles County supervisors unanimously approved a $5.6-million plan to house and provide health services for the 50 most vulnerable homeless people on skid row identified by the survey.
Each person is given a "vulnerability score" that is determined by factors such as length of homelessness and physical and mental health status, in an effort to predict an individual's risk of dying on the streets.
Read the full article over here.
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
January 29, 2008
"The people out here in the middle of the night sleeping are the most challenging to get to use social services," said Danielle Noble, the leader of Maceri's group and senior administrative analyst with Santa Monica's Homeless Services office.
Noble and others say their hope is to get the most vulnerable homeless people into housing and help all the chronically homeless get in touch with agencies that can get them off the streets more quickly.
The project is the latest of Santa Monica's efforts to end its chronic homeless problem. Every night, an estimated 600 people sleep at shelters and on the city's sidewalks, streets and benches, city officials say.
The city formally launched its Chronic Homeless Project in 2004. As of this month, 77 people who had been chronically homeless are now housed, according to Julie Rusk, human services manager for Santa Monica.
In October, Rusk said, the city decided to collaborate with Common Ground, a New York City nonprofit group that launched a similar, successful effort to house homeless people living in Times Square.
Common Ground's approach is a technological breakthrough, said Gary Blasi, a UCLA law professor who has studied homelessness for 25 years.
"It's innovative because you are looking at the root of the problem and finding the homeless instead of them finding you," said Blasi, who observed another Common Ground effort in December on Los Angeles' skid row.
"Normally, the chronically homeless make it to agencies when in crisis, like emergency rooms," Blasi said. The Common Ground "approach isn't an exact science but targets the chronically homeless, the more difficult ones, that the shelter system historically leaves out."
In December, volunteers from county agencies and social service groups canvassed about 40 blocks of skid row with Common Ground, plotting the concentration of tents and sleeping bags and identifying hubs of drug activity.
The surveyors counted 471 people regularly sleeping on the area's streets and persuaded 350 of them to be interviewed. Recently, Los Angeles County supervisors unanimously approved a $5.6-million plan to house and provide health services for the 50 most vulnerable homeless people on skid row identified by the survey.
Each person is given a "vulnerability score" that is determined by factors such as length of homelessness and physical and mental health status, in an effort to predict an individual's risk of dying on the streets.
Read the full article over here.
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