SLO County to get $4.8 million for homeless aid — that could mean more housing

SLO County could receive about $4.8 million for homeless services in the next couple of years thanks to a $500 million one-time allocation in the state budget to pay for emergency aid block grants to help cities and counties reduce homelessness, county budget director Emily Jackson announced during budget hearings Monday morning.

The funds are not very restricted, meaning the Board of Supervisors has leeway it how it spends the money. The board will decide how to spend it after county officials get input from cities and the Homeless Services Oversight Council.

Conveniently, that council recently presented the board with a list of priority needs.

The council said it doesn't have enough resources to decrease chronic homelessness, citing a shortage of case managers (causing caseloads to be too high) and insufficient permanent supportive housing.

Big-ticket recommendations include:

• Creating 9 more case management positions in the near term and 21 in the long term.
• Expanding the 50 Now program by 10 beds (which the county already agreed to do).
• Building 366 multi-family permanent support housing units for singles and couples, plus 60 to 70 units for families with children.
• Converting a hotel or residential facility into apartment-style units for vulnerable homeless people.
• Creating 15 housing units for families fleeing intimate partner violence.

The estimated amount of money that would come to the county is based on last year's homeless point-in-time count report that identified 1,125 people who met the definition of homelessness in a single 24-hour period.

That was a 26 percent decrease from 2015, which was attributed to both problems with the count and the success of local services, particularly for veterans. In 2017, about 1,599 people were served by homeless programs in the county.

This story was originally published June 11, 2018 at 6:38 PM with the headline "SLO County to get $4.8 million for homeless aid — that could mean more housing."