OAKLAND — Alameda County will spend $340 million to tackle its growing homelessness crisis over the next three years.
The money will go toward a variety of programs to get people off the streets and into housing.
The ambitious effort includes a drop-in clinic at Santa Rita Jail, where people battling substance abuse can get immediate help after their release from custody.
The plan also calls for a 16-bed center at 9702 International Blvd. in Oakland for people who are experiencing a psychiatric crisis. Visitors will be able stay for up to 10 days before getting recommendations on future care.
“Our overall goal is that an additional 3,000 individuals or households would obtain or maintain housing from this new, one-time funding investment,” Colleen Chawla, director of the Health Care Services Agency, told the Board of Supervisors Nov. 20, when it backed the aggressive approach.
Elaine de Coligny, executive director of EveryOne Home, a nonprofit that works to end homelessness, noted the additional money in the county’s plan is a one-time fund and estimated it would cost $300 million annually to get most homeless into sustainable housing.
“We have to make a commitment to meeting these ongoing needs because it’s within all of our interests not to have residents of Alameda County living on the street,” de Coligny said.
Slow and stagnant wage growth, high rents and the lack of affordable housing has resulted in a growing number of homeless, according to a report on the plan.
The report said a renter would need to earn $48 an hour to afford the median asking rent in Alameda County of $2,553, citing a UC Berkeley study that analysed online listings in April.
Programs that provide shelter and housing will get $178 million annually, an increase of $38 million, under the plan. The amount spent on outreach to help homeless people navigate social services will double, to $24 million.
A one-time injection of $90 million on top of the $83 million that Alameda County spends each year to assist the homeless will pay for the effort.
The move to boost funding follows last year’s “Point-in-Time” homeless count — carried out during a single 24-hour period — which showed more than 5,600 people were without shelter in Alameda County. It marked a 40 percent increase over the previous two years, according to the survey by EveryOne Home.
Supervisors Nate Miley and Keith Carson called for more help in the unincorporated areas of Alameda County, where just one transitional housing facility is available.
“We are the government out there,” Miley said. “There is no excuse. No excuse.”
Next month, supervisors will consider funding a bus fitted with showers and restrooms that would visit the unincorporated areas, as well as a waste disposal program for recreational vehicles.
A “tiny homes” project in Castro Valley is also in the works.
An estimated 440 to 660 homeless people live in the unincorporated areas, with most in Ashland, Cherryland, Castro Valley and near Livermore, according to the survey.
The county’s plan for the next three years was crafted by a group that included representatives from the Social Services Agency, the Community Development Agency and other departments.
The plan follows Alameda County voters passing Measure A1 in November 2016 to issue $580 million in bonds for affordable housing. Some $216 million of that money will be invested in the county over the next three years, which will help boost the effort to get people into permanent shelter, the group said in its report.
Money for the initiative will come from the county’s general fund and state grants, as well as Assembly Bill 109, which allows funds that would have gone toward state prisons and other institutional facilities to flow instead toward programs in local jurisdictions for low-level offenders.
