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Governor Gavin Newsom announced that the San Mateo County receive $14.1 million to launch a plan to provide housing and services to people now living in small encampments scattered from south of San Francisco to Menlo Park.
The grant, along with local and other funds, will help move people into permanent supportive housing and temporary housing.
Available assistance will include behavioral health and substance abuse treatment, mental health counseling, medical care, and case management services.
"This grant we received today is expected to address hundreds of our most complex unsheltered individuals living in 26 encampments, some of them as small as 15 people living under bridges, under creeks and along roadways. We are determined to house these individuals," said Mike Callagy, the county's executive director, during a virtual press conference hosted by the Governor's Office.
“Many of these people are living in tents and cardboard boxes – just think of what they went through during the recent storms,” Callagy said. “They are some of the most vulnerable people we have in this community and this grant will help us address those people.”
The county said that in conjunction with the grant, efforts will focus on more than 200 people who now live along transportation corridors that include Coastal Highway 1, Interstates 92 and 101, El Camino Real, Interstates 280 and 380 and others.
And, the county said, these are primarily shelters for "critically" homeless people - that is, people who have been homeless for more than a year (or repeatedly) and at the same time experience a disabling condition such as a serious mental illness, a substance use disorder and/or a physical disability.
The county grant was among $192 million in homeless assistance for cities and counties announced by the Governor's Office, garnering the $14.1 million it had requested.
"People want these tents and encampments removed, but they want them removed in a compassionate and thoughtful way," Newsom said. “This is a program that works.”
For his part, Warren Slocum, president of the Board of Supervisors, said that "this is the type of action that we know is necessary, to help end homelessness in San Mateo County."
“Homelessness is a crisis that has been brewing for ages,” Slocum said. “It’s not a crisis that we can take ages to fix.”
The immediate goal will be to "bring more services to the field than ever before," he said.