Riverside develops its own plan for reducing homelessness

The Homeless Action Plan, which recommends building more houses and making services more accessible, has already gotten some public support

 

Riverside has approved a comprehensive plan designed to ease the city’s homeless problem.

The Homeless Action Plan, adopted by the city council earlier this month, is a 32-page guide based on research conducted by the council’s Housing and Homeless Committee and the city’s Office of Homeless Solutions, according to a statement.

The Office of Homeless Solutions develops public and private partnerships and manages services intended to reduce and prevent homelessness.

“While there is still much work to be done around homelessness, Riverside is working to address this very serious challenge,” sajd Mayor Patricia Lock Dawson in the statement.

“This statewide problem continues to impact our residents, businesses and the community at large. Approval of the Homeless Action Plan reflects Riverside’s commitment to making wise investments and holds us accountable with measurable results.”

The plan spells out specific plans for reducing homelessness, which has become a severe problem throughout the Inland Empire:

• Build more houses, with an emphasis on affordable housing;
• Make more services available to people with no place to live, particularly physical and mental health assistance programs and substance abuse treatment;
• Make emergency shelters more available and effective, while creating a regional network of services;
• Educate the public as to the severity of the city’s homeless problem and why it must be reduced, if not eliminated.

The second goal – making services more accessible – has the support of the Riverside Downtown Partnership, a nonprofit that advocates on behalf of downtown businesses and provides services to them, like security.

Most homeless people aren’t inclined to seek help on their own, but making services easier to reach will make them more likely get some sort of help, said Jennifer Penner, the partnership’s executive director.

“We support the homeless action plan, and we are in strong support of more accessible services because it addresses the problems we see every day in downtown Riverside,” said Jennifer Penner, the partnership executive director. “Drug addicts, alcoholics, people with mental health issues aren’t ready to transition into housing, but better access to the services they need will help them get there.”

This year’s point-in-time count – an annual one-day survey of the nation’s homeless population conducted by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development – estimated that 514 homeless people were living unsheltered in Riverside, while another 410 were living in homeless shelters.

That’s the largest count of any city in Riverside County, which had 1,980 unsheltered homeless people when the survey was conducted.

Thirty nine percent of Riverside’s homeless population was living on the street, 17 percent in a tent or shed and 16 percent in a vehicle, according to this year’s point-in-time count.

The action plan’s introduction calls homelessness “a multidimensional problem that affects every city, state and county in the United States, and the point-in time data supports that contention. The 2021 count found that an estimated 326,000 people experienced sheltered homelessness on one night in January 2021, an eight percent year-over-year decline.

Data regarding unsheltered homeless people was not gathered because of the pandemic.

The number of sheltered people in families with children declined between 2020 and 2021, as did homelessness among veteran. Sheltered individuals experiencing chronic homelessness increased by 20 percent during that time.

The federal government defines chronic homelessness as anyone who has been homeless for at least one year and dealt with mental illness, substance abuse or a physical ailment.

Homelessness is one of the three biggest problems facing Riverside today, and it’s one that’s never going away entirely, Councilwoman Erin Edwards said.

“I’d like to say we’ll get rid of homelessness some day, but I can’t,” said Edwards, who chairs the council’s Housing & Homelessness Committee. “My five-year-old daughter is not going to grow up in a world without homeless people. But we can reduce the problem if we address it properly.”

Riverside officials began working on the plan more than one year ago. The finished product includes elements mandated by the state, and it conforms to a similar homeless document released by Riverside County earlier this year, which calls for a 75 percent reduction in both the number of first-time homeless people repeat homelessness.

“We wanted to make sure that we’re going in the same direction as the county, and not contradict anything they’re trying to do,” said Edwards, who joined the council in 2019 and represents the first ward. “The one area that has really resonated with people is our goal of improving availability of services. “We’re getting a lot of support for that.”

But making services more available to homeless people won’t necessarily solve homelessness, according to one homeless activist.

“I’m glad housing is the number one goal, because you can’t solve homelessness without homes,” said Eric Gavin, an Upland resident who has worked with several Inland Empire cities to help them reduce homelessness.

“Increasing services without housing is totally pointless,” Gavin said in an email. “The concept of homeless people “accepting services” is borderline silly. I can accept all the mental health and drug counseling in the world, but if I have nowhere to live, I’m still homeless.”

Still, Gavin praised Riverside’s action plan, calling it a solid overall assessment of the city’s homeless problem.

“I think they put it together real well,” Gavin said. “It’s comprehensive, and I think it addresses all of the issues.”