PD Editorial: Some cold truths about homelessness

The cold, wet storms battering Northern California this month may be a welcome respite from a punishing drought, but they’re just plain punishment for anyone living on the streets.

Here in Sonoma County, the most recent count found about 3,100 people without homes.

Some manage to couch surf with friends or relatives. Others can sleep in their cars or homeless encampments. And some find refuge at one of the local shelters, a network that grows during the cold weather months courtesy of local churches that open their doors to the homeless between October and April.

But about two-thirds are left outside, searching for places to get warm and stay dry. These folks can be seen sleeping in doorways and trudging along streets throughout Sonoma County, wearing a backpack or pushing their wet belongings in a shopping cart.

Homelessness is hard to ignore during the winter, but it’s a year-round reality that strains law enforcement, social services, emergency rooms and, not to be discounted, human lives.

Sonoma County officials say they plan to end homelessness here by 2025.

That’s an admirable sentiment. But it’s probably no more achievable than the federal government’s decree that all K-12 students be proficient by 2014.

Which isn’t to say the situation is hopeless.

Despite a sharp increase in rental costs, the number of homeless people in Sonoma County declined considerably as the local economy sputtered back to life following the Great Recession, falling from 4,500 in a 2011 survey to 3,100 in last winter’s count.

Many of those who remain are among the chronically homeless, a subset that includes people struggling with substance abuse and mental health problems.

They will need more than a roof over their heads to break the cycle of homelessness.

Services are available, and the strategy adopted by the Board of Supervisors - getting people housing first, then connecting them with services such as substance abuse counseling, mental health care and job training so they don’t end up back on the streets - is promising. But upfront costs are substantial, so progress is likely to be incremental.

This week, the supervisors approved a proposal to convert a vacant lot at the Sonoma County administration center into a village of tiny houses for about two dozen people.

It’s a worthy experiment, and, as Supervisor Shirlee Zane said, “If it works, and it’s cost-effective, we could expand it. We have a lot of county land out there that is not being used, so this could provide an ample opportunity to explore those areas.”

Success also could help Sonoma County compete for state funding to expand the tiny houses initiative or to experiment with other approaches. A bipartisan group of state senators offered a plan this week to redirect $2 billion from an existing surtax on incomes of more than $1 million to housing for mentally ill homeless people, echoing the supervisors’ belief that treatment is more likely to succeed when patients have stable housing.

That will require ongoing efforts, lasting long after these winter storms have passed.