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By Olin Ericksen
Staff Writer
April 12 -- The promise of a new comb was enough
for one homeless man. For others, who knows what it will take
to accept help. But there is a new group trying to find out.
Perhaps the most coordinated and specialized homeless outreach
group yet assembled is cajoling, pressuring and peppering
homeless individuals with seemingly quirky questions to reach
those entrenched on Santa Monica's premier shopping street.
Ranging from cops and homeless service providers to Veterans
Administrators and City officials, nearly 30 people formed
specialized teams one day last month and scoured the Third
Street Promenade to make direct contact with the most hardened
homeless on the busy strip.
Part of a larger three-year-old strategy to focus on those
hardest to reach -- called the Chronic Homeless Program --
the pilot walk-through took an individualized and specifically
tailored approach to reach homeless people in a single geographic
area, according to City officials.
"This was done on a case-by-case basis, one individual
at a time,” said Julie Rusk, the City's Human Services
Manager and one in a team of City officials tackling homelessness.
Referring to last month's walk-through as "a good start,"
Rusk said the group talked to 16 homeless and each one was
then "connected to a service provider."
While two have since disappeared, at least one well-known
homeless person has agreed to enroll in the City's housing
program, which currently pays rent and provides supportive
services for the longtime homeless who suffer from a myriad
of mental and substance abuse problems, according to officials.
Yet reaching out to a homeless population, some of whose member
have been living on the streets as long as twelve years, can
be a daunting task that requires a special touch and patience,
said Rusk.
"They've shunned people, severed relationships and fallen
out of society, and it's going to be a challenge to reconnect
them," Rusk said. "You really need to be creative
to reach people… There is no straight line to success."
Although he may not follow through, one man agreed to at
least talk with service providers if they would buy him a
new comb, a sign of engagement that is a huge step forward,
said Rusk.
It is also these seemingly obscure and little objects of
desire, Rusk said, that could be the key to enticing them
to eventually accept services and perhaps, later, housing.
The choice of locations is also important. Downtown is known
to have the largest concentration of homeless, numbering 418
of Santa Monica’s 1,192 homeless individuals counted
in a one night tally two years ago.
The large and concentrated homeless population has made homelessness
the most pressing issue for businesses Downtown, leading to
sometimes-strained relations between the business community
and the City.
"We hear over and over that what our customers are most
affected by are the homeless, parking and traffic," said
Kathleen Rawson, executive director of the Bayside District
Corporation, which manages Downtown.
Rawson was among a handful of business leaders -- including
new Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Jim Lynch -- who
helped coordinate the outreach effort.
"We are basically (providing) moral support at this
point," Rawson said
While agreeing with its premise, Rawson said such outreach
-- which will be tried in other areas of the City -- must
be combined with other approaches if it is going to work.
Stronger laws that punish those who aggressively ask for
money, a major concern of many business owners, will be needed
if the program is to succeed in moving some of the homeless
out of the area, Rawson said.
"I think their efforts will have limited effect on the
more aggressive, panhandling homeless," she said.
While that proposal could lead to potential public debate
as staff continues to explore drafting a stronger anti-panhandling
ordinance, the latest outreach was a sign of good faith, both
City and business officials agreed.
"Five or more years ago it would have been an us against
them mentality. . . and now it's simply not that mindset on
either side anymore," said Rawson. "That's a great
thing about all of this."
In the meantime, Rusk hopes to continue the new approach,
but acknowledges the program is no panacea.
"These are people who have been on the street for a
very long time," she said. |
