Council Members Propose Moving Homeless Outreach From Police To Social Workers

Speaker 1: 00:00 As we continue to have over 5,000 people living on the streets and the city of San Diego, it's becoming increasingly obvious that responding with police officers may not be the best way to help the homeless. Several cities have tried to modify their approach to working with the homeless, by forming hot teams, homeless outreach teams that combined police with social workers. But now some San Diego city council members say it's time to change the approach altogether. Joining us a San Diego city council, president Georgette Gomez. Thanks for being with us. Thank you for having me. So why isn't the current system working so well, why do you think there's changes needed? Speaker 2: 00:35 Well, I mean, I, when I first got elected, I was part of the special select committee on homelessness that, uh, at the time precedent vertical created. And, uh, one of the number one things that was highlighted and not even by us, but by somebody that came down from the housing, uh, commission from, from DC, from HUD, one other observations was us saying, Hey, the way that you're doing outreach is not the best and you really should consider, um, restructuring that PD, shouldn't be the ones offering assistance because the relationship is different. Um, and, uh, it really, and that really even led to when we just adopted the, the housing blueprint that we adopted unanimously by the council, it calls out for him for a different approach. So I think that it's time that we start really, uh, pivoting from, from what we have now to a different approach, just because we're seeing that that is not, not the, that's not the best resources that we have in utilizing it the way that we're doing. Speaker 1: 01:43 You've actually spoken with some of those experiencing homelessness about this concern and got, Speaker 2: 01:49 Oh, most definitely. I mean, I could tell you that I had a personal encounter. Um, as soon as we, we were opening up golden hall, the bottom floor, when we were trying to figure out and create, uh, a response to COVID and create more additional beds for folks to come in. Um, I can tell you that when I was leaving city hall, I encounter this gentleman that was trying to get in. Unfortunately it wasn't a walk in process. So we were, I was trying along with my chief of staff, we were trying to help him out. And, uh, we were trying to get him to the shelter, the emergency shelter on 16th and Newton and Barrio, Logan are the ones that alpha, uh, utilize this. But the only way he could get there was by a hot team, a PT coming in and getting him and driving him over there. Speaker 2: 02:40 Now, when that happened and this guy saw that he walked away. Now, that's just a perfect example that I personally experienced and then ask him why. And it wasn't because they were going to do anything to him, but it was just because he already had an experience that was not the best. So he was scarred. Um, and he just didn't want to take that risk. And this is not to speak on anything bad about PD, but he already does have that relationship, that interaction it previous times. So he, instead of in, he wanted its distance, he wanted a back. So he just decided to walk away and figure it out on his own. So that was very shameful and I just felt really bad. And that really was the, the, the tipping point for me. Speaker 1: 03:28 So there is evidence already in city Heights and North park that that's shifting away from law enforcement for outreaches working. What do we learn from there? Almost done. Speaker 2: 03:38 Definitely. I mean, I was able to partner with a council member, ward, the County, and we were able to identify private money to help us, uh, put together a program between North park, Hillcrest and city Heights, the mid city area, uh, to bring a long path. Um, they have a great program which has been extremely successful with no PD enforcement attached to it. They have over 47% right success of, uh, of engaging clients. They have a pretty high placement percentage as well. And the, really the, the, what we find there is that it's a social worker. Um, he is based geographically. So he's placed there in that is his whole, his, his only purpose is to serve the community in the mid city area. So he goes there every single day. He's building relationships. He under he's understanding intimately understanding the client in the eventually there's there's trust that gets developed over, over that relationship. Speaker 2: 04:47 And they, they really then that's when he starts figuring out, okay, what is the best program for you to be pleased too? And then he's doing all that process in mind, you all these interactions that this person is having, it's not coupled with PD at all. And they do know that at times you need PD to come, but this program really proves that there is a better path. There is a better way in this better way. It's actually leading to higher rates of success, of placing people in the proper prop, a program that they need to be placed. So now I'm calling for money to be reallocated, to start pivoting or outreached to model this type of outreach. Speaker 1: 05:29 Um, president Gomez. I just wanted to, I just wanted to ask you, um, so this change we're talking about would help make relating to the homeless more effective, but what about the shortage of actual housing to offer them? I know that there has been talk of buying whole motels to provide more housing for the homeless. Where do you stand on that? Speaker 2: 05:48 Yeah, I mean, that, that, that idea, they come, um, early, um, a couple of weeks ago and the housing commission has been evaluating some of the sites. My, my only one when the idea was ran by me, I, I basically, I just wanted to make sure that we're doing our due diligence, that we're not placing people in the, in the space that is not habitable healthy to live in. And then the other question that I had was, okay, why are we leasing? Why not just acquire these parcels, these, these hotels, and strike the star, basically transforming them to single occupied types of rooms, which is already a model that we have, and we know how to manage it. That makes sense to me. Um, I didn't want to go into this path of longterm leasing, and then we lose those units because we find that it's not worth buying, or we don't have the capital to buy it because then that's not permanent supportive housing. Speaker 2: 06:48 That's just once again, another, another bandaid at temporary housing and mind you, it's critical. We all, we need all the tools in the toolbox to really address this as critical issue. So I'm not against it, but I really do believe that we need to, to bring more units that are actual permanent supportive units. And if it means acquiring parse, uh, hotels. So be it, if it means having, uh, preventing the loss of single occupied, uh, units, and we currently happen, Lucy, we need to make sure that we're not losing any more of those. If it means actually developing and supporting develop, developing new units that are permanent supportive housing, that's real also critical. Uh, so there's, there's all, all sorts of ways in which we can, we can achieve adding more units at the end of the day. It's adding more permanent supportive housing is critical to, to resolving the, this crisis. Well, I'd like to thank you very much for your time, president Gomez. Thank you. I really appreciate it. We've been speaking with San Diego city council, president Georgia at Gomez. Speaker 3: 08:15 [inaudible].