Yolo County has been awarded more than $2 million to help the area’s homeless.
Within the last decade, the homeless count in the county has hovered around 500 people. In January 2015, the city of Woodland’s homeless population reached 192 — the highest count reported over the past eight years and the highest in the county.
As such, the county and its cities have been working to curb these numbers through funding numerous programs and agencies. For example, in 2015, the county and City of Woodland adopted a 10-year Homeless Plan.
In the county’s most recent push for homeless aid, the Health and Human Services Agency, in partnership with Fourth & Hope, submitted a grant proposal to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration to provide “intensive wraparound care” to the county’s homeless who are also suffering from mental health and substance use disorders.
The proposal was organized after the county learned of SAMHSA’s Cooperative Agreements to Benefit Homeless Individuals grant, intended to help local communities provide treatment services, permanent housing, peer supports, and other critical services for those experiencing homelessness and mental illness or substance use disorders.
On Thursday, it was announced that the county was awarded $2,399,328 to fund their three-year Extended Hope Project — $799,776 annually.
According to county documents, the project will help their target population by providing each person with improved housing stability, behavioral and physical health, self-sufficiency, criminal justice involvement, purpose, and community. It will do this through a two-year, integrated treatment approach that includes identification, assessment, and triage of the individual’s health issue; intensive case management and treatment; and housing navigation and permanent placement.
The Extended Hope project will staff a clinical program manager, two outreach workers, two case managers, four peer support specialists, a housing navigator, an employment specialist, and a 24-hour crisis response team. Between 10 and 12 clients a year will also be provided 90-day residential substance use treatment.
Direct delivery of these services will be operated by Fourth & Hope. Other partners include Yolo County Health and Human Services Agency and Sacramento Steps Forward.
Yolo’s city and county governments have been working to help the homeless population through providing services rather than arrest them.
Earlier this year, Woodland joined Yolo County in initiating the “Housing First” pilot project to include allocation of up to $100,000 in 2016-17 funding to assist placing unsheltered homeless people in permanent housing.
The county’s homeless problem is one that extends to the rest of the state.
In May, Gov. Jerry Brown threw his support behind an ambitious $2 billion plan to build housing for the state’s mentally ill homeless population. Under the plan, the state would issue $2 million in bonds, which would be repaid over 20 to 30 years with money provided under Proposition 63 — the “millionaires tax” for mental health services that voters approved in 2004.
Combined with federal and local funding, this bond could finance 10,000 to 14,000 homeless people, an estimated 30 percent of whom suffer from mental illness.
Contact Lauren King 530-406-6232
