They will join forces to create a Regional Action Plan that in three years will help to initiate a solution for homeless people.
Pamela Cruz. Peninsula 360 Press [P360P].
With the goal of housing 75 percent of the Bay Area's homeless population, local and state leaders, housing experts, businesses and social justice advocates from the nine counties that make up the Bay Area will join forces to create a Regional Action Plan that over three years will help jump-start a solution to a long-standing problem.
So, after long talks to find the best solution for a whole year, this week was announced the strategy that consists of several edges.
At a press conference, Santa Clara County Supervisor Cindy Chavez, State Assemblyman David Chiu, and leaders of All Home, the nonprofit leading the effort, said that while the numbers sound like an ambitious goal, the project is expected to work.
As of 2019, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development reported that there were about 35,000 people on the streets of the Bay Area, and the project aims to reduce that number to 10,000 in just three years.
"We believe it can be achieved ?lowering the number of people on the streets? in part because the plan takes an integrated approach with a simultaneous provision of things that in the past we've pitted against each other," said Ken Kirkey, director of partnerships at All Home.
The Regional Action Plan (RAP), while consisting of several parts, focuses on two main areas: creating more housing and keeping more people off the streets.
In addition, it has an initial focus on extremely low-income residents with an emphasis on racial equity.
"We are seeing more people becoming homeless faster than we can re-house them. Cost-effective investment and prevention can keep our families and individuals stable and housed," said Sherilyn Adams, the organization's executive director, "We are seeing more people becoming homeless faster than we can re-house them. Larkin Street Youth Services.
This would mean providing accelerated cash payments, income-driven rental assistance, and other state and federal housing support to those affected by COVID-19.
Among the coalition's requests to the state are those on issues of social inequality, which call for the expansion of practices that measure equity levels in California, and for counties to extend the eviction moratorium for at least 60 days if the state's moratorium, which expires June 30, is not extended.
Moving homeless people into permanent or temporary housing
A major part of the project is to move homeless people into temporary or permanent housing, and to that end, the coalition plans that for every unit of temporary housing built, there should be two units of permanent housing and four units of homeless prevention interventions to keep people housed.
In that regard, Kirkey said the coalition intends to work with each of the counties to find a customized approach.
The coalition includes the mayors of San Francisco, Oakland and San Jose, local elected officials from all nine Bay Area counties, Facebook, Salesforce, Kaiser Permanente, Goodwill and Destination Home, among others.
