Editorial: SLO County needs a new approach on homelessness
A county-wide joint powers authority could be the solution
–Novelist Pearl Buck wrote, “The test of a civilization is the way it cares for its helpless members”. Sadly, if we were scored on how we care for our homeless neighbors, we would receive a failing grade. Every homeless encampment, overflowing shopping cart, and lonely soul sleeping on a cold sidewalk is a powerful reminder that we must do better.
Four months ago we established the Citizen’s Homeless Commission to assess, as outsiders, what was going wrong and why our community was seeing the homeless problem getting worse, not better. Here is what we found. First, the existing organizations do amazing work and are full of awe-inspiring people. Second, despite their exceptional efforts, they are encumbered by an inefficient governance system that produces an overall lack of coordination and accountability. Third, all the money and strategic plans in the world won’t make a difference without governance reform.
We are happy to see that there is a new push to resolve the issue after everyone agrees that the status quo is not good enough. However, government appears to be returning to their silos to make “new” plans. For example, this past Tuesday, the City of San Luis Obispo announced it is working on a 2-year plan. The county as well is working on a new 10-year plan, this to replace the failed 10-year plan of 2008.
All of the organizations and government entities in this county are doing good things, and are trying hard, but without a system that imposes a coordinated approach to targeting individual’s needs and addressing foundational issues – housing – then we will be having the same discussion year in and year out.
Therefore, we have proposed the establishment of a single governing authority to bring order, impact, and accountability to the effort to end homelessness. This authority, a Joint Power Authority (JPA), is a government entity authorized in state law to allow multiple jurisdictions to work together in an to address a single regional issue. Through a JPA regional issues can be tackled without the problem of the gaps, redundancies, and inefficiencies that are endemic to patchwork approaches. Existing JPA’s address issues of water, infrastructure, and land. We propose a JPA that includes the County and all 7 municipalities. It could also include various community service districts or educational institutions. The JPA we propose, the San Luis Obispo Housing Infrastructure and Services Authority (SLO-HISA) would prioritize coordinated approach toward the unique housing and service needs of our unhoused population.
How it is unique
Our proposal overcomes 2 major barriers that have limited full effectiveness of current programs. First, we propose model ordinances that create “build-by-right” language. To oversimplify, as part of joining the JPA, all municipalities would agree to adopt rules that, if followed, would allow builders to avoid the massive amounts of regulation in order to build the necessary stock of low and ultra-low income housing. To be clear, we are not proposing that builders could haphazardly build anywhere, the JPA would be responsible for identifying areas and guidelines. The streamlined process would be designed to bring suitable housing online quickly and without the years of debate, delay, and cost that sabotages many good projects.
Second, the JPA would be responsible for coordinating services for all unhoused individuals in the county. Ultimately, there are only approximately 2500 unhoused neighbors in our county. Given the resources we spend in this area, we should know who these people are, where they are (in the physical, mental, and health sense), and what steps have been and should be taken to improve their condition. Targeted intervention is a term that is used in education, the military and business; we need that approach here. In order to intervene, we need to have the necessary data; we need to know our neighbors. Then we need to address their specific needs no matter where they find themselves.
Who does this help?
Everyone. If we coordinate our approach to this problem, everyone will benefit. The most obvious impact will be to our collective living conditions. The reason that this area is one of the best places in the world to live and visit is because it is “happy,” “clean,” and “welcoming.” These are words used when the apparent standard of living is high; we are judged by the least among us. Our businesses will flourish, our government will be more efficient, and of course, we will be doing right by all of our neighbors.
Next steps
We all feel a sense of urgency and that’s good, but now we need to build collective will and take action. We urge the County to create a task force by January 15, 2022, with a report date of June 15, 2022 – to assess how real governance reform could improve accountability and lower homelessness in our community. If our proposal is not acceptable for some reason, we would ask that the task force propose a better one.
As citizens we undertook this effort because we believed we could be objective and say what others couldn’t due to their close ties to organizations and government entities that spend many millions of dollars in this space. We have no agenda other than one: we want our community to pass Pearl Buck’s defining test – to demonstrate that we can devise accountable and effective systems that successfully care for the least fortunate among us.
Sam Blakeslee is CEO/president of Blakeslee & Blakeslee
Gregg Gillett is an attorney and lieutenant colonel in Cal Guard
