San Bernardino County makes major financial commitment in its effort to help the homeless

San Bernardino County has committed $72.7 million to fight homelessness.

The money, from federal, state, and county sources, will be used to help fulfill the goals outlined in the county’s 2022 Homeless Strategic Action Plan, according to a statement on the county’s website.

The plan, which the board of supervisors approved unanimously nearly one year ago, seeks to coordinate and expand the county’s housing and homeless programs, a process that began in 2021 with the merger of two agencies: Community Development and Housing and the Office of Homeless Services.

That action formed San Bernardino County Community Revitalization, which works with the County Administrative Office to develop projects that help the homeless, including building affordable housing.

Nearly $30 million of the $72.7 million will be spent on the expansion of Pacific Village, a homeless facility in San Bernardino with duplexes and trailers that accepted its first residents.

Other projects that will be helped by that funding are the Kern Street Adult Residential Facility, County Housing and Community Development, HOME-ARP, the Social Work Action Group, and Project Roomkey.

The board’s funding vote in March came one month before the results of the county’s 2023 Point In Time count were released, numbers that suggested the county needs to step up its efforts to solve its homeless problem.

The count identified 4,195 homeless persons in the county, up from 3,333 in the winter of 2022, an increase of 862 individuals or 26 percent year-over-year.

Nearly 40 percent of the adults and children surveyed in January reported that they became homeless for the first time during the previous 12 months.

Forty-four percent were not in a shelter and were classified as “chronically” homeless, meaning they had no place to live for at least one year and were plagued by a disabling condition, including mental illness or a physical malady.

The county did increase its sheltered homeless population between the 2021 and 2022 counts by 275 people, which shows some progress in finding housing options for homeless people, according to the statement.

In April, the county was forced to return $4.4 million to the federal government, money that was earmarked for homeless assistance. That pandemic-era funding originated with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and was to have been distributed to nonprofits that work with the homeless, but federal officials ordered it returned because the county didn’t spend it soon enough.

Clearly the county could be doing more to solve its homeless problem, said Supervisor Jesse Armendarez.

“This is unacceptable,” said Armendarez in the statement, referring to the county’s Point In Time results. “We must do more. Addressing homelessness is my priority, and the investments my colleagues and I are making to support county staff in their implementation of strategies will make a difference.

“We will ensure those funds are invested wisely to address this crisis.”

The strategic action plan focuses on three areas: finding shelter for people who most need it, developing more shelter space and improving the county’s homeless service system.

In the first category, the goal is to get at least 100 unsheltered people off the street and into permanent housing every year, with no more than 35 percent of those still using some homeless service, or services, provided by San Bernardino County

To develop more shelter space, the plans calls for working with cities and “other partners” to increase the number of beds in permanent shelters by 200, which will better serve the county’s diverse population.

As for upgrading the county’s homeless services, the action plan makes several recommendations, including increasing the number of staff responsible for helping homeless individuals find acceptable housing.

The county’s strategic action is a good approach to reducing the region’s homeless crisis because it follows the “housing first” approach that is becoming more common nationwide, said Eric Gavin, an Upland resident who has helped Upland and Fontana battle their homeless problems.

“Seventy-two point seven million dollars is definitely a lot of money, and it shows the county is making a serious commitment to solving its homeless problem,” said Gavin who is writing a book on homelessness and how to eliminate it. “I was on a county homeless commission two years ago, and our budget was about $10.3 million,

“But having a lot of money is not enough. You have to know where and how to spend it. That’s the big question, and it’s not always easy to answer.”

One area it should not be spent on is outreach, a flexible term that generally means trying to extend a social service beyond its usual limits, according to Gavin.

“That’s the one place where I believe it should not be spent because all you’re doing is looking for more homeless people when you don’t have enough shelters for the ones you’ve already identified,” said Gavin, a software designer who began working on solving homelessness seven years. “Why would you want to do that?”

Instead, money set aside to help anyone who has no permanent place to live should be spent on building more housing and improving services, Gavin said.

Above all such funding should never be wasted, which is why Gavin believes the U.S. government did the right thing when it made San Bernardino County return the $4.4 million grant.

“The agreement was that the county had a certain amount of time to spend that money, but it didn’t, so it had to give it back,” Gavin said. ‘That’s the way it should be. Next time maybe they’ll spend it quicker.”