|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
While San Mateo County must submit a one-day homeless count to the state every two years, for County Executive Mike Callagy, the day is an opportunity to assess the progress of the county’s zero homelessness initiative.
Carolina Moscoso, a LifeMoves outreach team member, grew up unhoused from age four until she was 16. She said helping the unhoused has been her life calling. She believes the county’s zero homeless initiative is achievable because she was given the resources and guidance to return home.
“I’ve been doing this my whole life,” Moscoso said. “I’ve seen people change their lives. I’ve seen families come out of homelessness.”
Moscoso is one of the dozens of LifeMoves employees and volunteers who met at the North Fair Oaks Community Center to get in groups and find their assigned counting area during a Thursday, Jan. 25, one-day homeless count. The location is one of 10 where the 330 volunteers met at 5 a.m. to count camps and vehicles before unhoused people left their sites to start their day.
The event, organized by San Mateo County’s Health Services Agency in collaboration with local nonprofits, is held biannually to provide a “point-in-time snapshot” of the number and location of people currently experiencing homelessness, according to the county. In addition to helping inform resource allocation within the local community, the count also satisfies requirements from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to generate a snapshot of homelessness nationwide.
Callagy rattled off areas in Redwood City he wanted to check. One site that fronts Highway 101 in a cul-de-sac off of Veterans Boulevard used to be filled with RVs, in which people were living.
On Thursday, Callagy noticed the site was clear.
“I think this is a result of the Safe Parking program that Redwood City had,” said Callagy.
The city allowed the people in the area to park their vehicles in a city-owned parking lot, and then they worked with them to find them housing, he added.
As encampments dissipate, it’s a sign of progress, Callagy said. But in areas like Seaport Boulevard, the site continues to grow with makeshift shacks and people’s belongings.
In 2011, the one-day count recorded roughly 1,800 people. By 2013, the count rose to its peak: 2,000. Between 2015 and 2019, homelessness in the county fell to an average of 1,400 people. After the pandemic, in 2022, the homeless count recorded 1,800 people, according to the county’s website.
Callagy said he hopes the results from this year’s one-day count falls to 1,200. According to the county, the results from this year’s count will be published on its website around this summer.
By the break of dawn Thursday morning, Callagy noticed two individuals, Jerry and Scott, outside their encampment off Veterans Boulevard near the freight line tracks, only a few feet from the Highway 101 overpass.
Callagy approached the men to speak. They discussed how they became unhoused and asked them what they needed to help them get into housing.
One of the men, Jerry, who has been homeless for more than five years, said he built the wooden structure in which he lives. He sealed it with caulking to protect it from the outside elements. It has steps leading to the door, a barbeque, and a propane grill. Callagy noted that Jerry is a talented builder.
Callagy asked Jerry why he didn’t stay in a shelter.
Jerry said he has been in and out of jail and struggled with drug use. But shelters such as the Navigation Center have strict rules and curfews he doesn’t want to abide by. He also said that he felt like every time he went into a shelter, he was arrested for an outstanding warrant, which led him to believe the shelter was calling the police on him.
Scott, who lives in the same area, used to work and live in San Francisco. Over a few months, his drug use caused him to lose his home, he said. While he doesn’t like living on the street, there isn’t any other option, he said.
He said he has a hard time sleeping because he is worried about thieves and transients setting his shelter on fire. He also said he used to love working, but once he relapsed, he stopped doing anything, adding it’s no way to live.
Moscoso said she believes LifeMoves will need to continue to help its clients understand why they are using drugs; it could potentially help get them off the streets.
“And help them pick up healthier habits,” Moscosco said.
The county has purchased three hotels, which it will transform into permanent supportive housing, and built four housing developments for the same cause. It has also built the Navigation Center, a temporary shelter in Redwood City, according to its website.
The one-day count is just the beginning of a more extensive outreach program Callagy envisions.
“I am going to try to get the outreach team out here and in the area, so they will know you, know who you are, know your situation, and find you opportunities to get you off the street,” Callagy said to Jerry.
Jerry also added that his transition from the Maguire Correctional Facility wasn’t good. He said he didn’t receive any assistance and was thrown back out onto the street to fend for himself.
Callagy responded by saying the county needs to do better.
“These are real lives on the street, and they don’t want to live like this,” Callagy said later in the afternoon to the Pulse. “They aren’t living; they are surviving, and that gets tiresome, and that takes a lot of energy to survive.”
The one-day count volunteers use cataloged locations in a database to find unhoused people. Outreach team members, like Moscoso, help find sites and contact people.
“That’s really where the system’s flaw is,” Callagy said. “Where the (outreach team) will be going back to this location and checking on the occupants, trying to get them in the system and getting the services they need.”
Callagy would like to see the homeless count happen more frequently. He wants outreach teams, composed of employees like Moscoso, to count and make contact with people experiencing homelessness every month. He’d also like the teams to bridge the gap between the street and the shelter instead of just counting occupied sites or vehicles.
Moscoso said the unhoused need a support network to lean into, and that’s what LifeMoves has dedicated its work toward.
“One of my favorite quotes, ‘The most common way people give up their power, is by thinking they don’t have any,’ by Ellis Walker. And many of our clients feel that way, that they don’t have the power to make those moves, to change their lives around,” Moscoso said. “So that’s our job, to instill that hope.”
