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SR-062408-1F~® ~;tyof City Council Report Santa 6lonica City Council Meeting: June 24 2008 Agenda Item: ~-~ To: Mayor and City Council From: Timothy J. Jackman, Chief of Police Subject: Joint Homeless Outreach Service Provider Recommended Action Staff recommends-that the City Council authorize the City Manager to negotiate and execute a contract with The West Coast. Care Foundation, Inc., in an amount not to exceed $250,000, to provide outreach services to homeless persons in conjunction with the Police Department. Executive Summary The Santa Monica Police Department has established a joint outreach program in which the Police Department works in conjunction with The West Coast Care Foundation to administer direct intervention and outreach services to homeless persons in order to help them into housing, shelter facilities, medical facilities, return them to their families or other care givers, and to help them rebuild their lives. Immediate intervention efforts have been focused on new arrivals and those people that have been homeless in Santa Monica for relatively shorter periods of time to provide alternatives before they take up permanent residency on the streets of Santa Monica. This intervention includes, but not limited to, working with. the person's previous service providers and other resources outside the city of Santa Monica.. Long term outreach efforts to Santa Monica's most long-term, vulnerable homeless will focus on linking them to other established providers within the City's continuum of care. Funds for this contract are available in the current adopted budget. Discussion The Santa Monica Police Department (SMPD) participates in cooperative efforts with other City departments, government agencies, private service providers, and community-based groups to address homelessness and community concerns regarding homelessness in Santa Monica. The Department, through its Homeless Liaison Program (HLP), contributes to this collaborative process by conducting appropriate law enforcement actions, while at the same time connecting homeless individuals with local service providers that offer homeless clients with a variety of housing, rehabilitation, 1 medical, psychiatric, and employment resources. While this collaborative model has produced many successes through the years, overall effectiveness has been limited by the fact that the HLP Team has been the City's primary source of contact with homeless people on the street, requiring the team to perform both enforcement and. outreach functions. This changed when the West Coast Care Foundation began operating in Santa Monica. The West Coast Care Foundation arrived in Santa Monica in 2006 with experience that demonstrated that social service providers could successfully break through the resistance to change associated with chronic homelessness by bringing consistent and continual outreach directly to the streets where homeless people were living. West Coast Care's philosophy is that intervention which delivers objective, honest, and compassionate feedback to help homeless persons better .understand their situation, could eventually overcome the self-defeating mindset that develops while living on the streets without resources, hope, or strategies for success. West Coast Care applied for funding from the Community Development Funding; however, being recently transplanted to this area they had not established themselves adequately in order to qualify for city funding. Using its own private funding sources, West Coast Care began applying this philosophy in October 2006, initially concentrating its services on homeless persons living on Santa Monica's South Beach and later expanding its area of operation to Main Street, Palisades Park, Reed Park, and the Third Street Promenade. West Coast Care's service providers conducted hundreds of face=to-face interventions with Santa Monica's homeless each. day, ultimately attractirig the attention of the HLP Team. The HLP Team began delegating outreach needs to West Coast Care; allowing the HLP- Team to concentrate on necessary enforcement activities.. Increased enforcement led to an associated increase in outreach, and a symbiotic relationship developed between the HLP Team and West Coast Care in which each was able to augment each other's missions. 2 From October 2006 until the first quarter of 2008, West Coast Care made thousands of contacts with people living on the streets of Santa Monica. Some of these people were the chronically homeless who were resistant to service and change. West Coast Care convinced some to accept services and housing and others to return to their families and prior homes. Many were recent arrivals that had opted to remain homeless in Santa Monica. West Coast Care worked with these people to convince them that there were better options than living on the street and to help them rebuild their lives. In many cases, West Coast Care outreach workers convinced homeless people that their best resources were their own families. During the year and a half that West Coast Care operated under its own funding, roughly 250 chronic and newly arrived homeless people were permanently reunited with. their families in different parts of the country using their own funds and the cities "Project Homecoming Program". This fits into our current action plan by ensuring that other "communities" deal with their fair share of homeless and the individual who decides to come to Santa Monica for any reason do riot begin the process of "anchoring" themselves in our community. When West Coast Care ran out of funding in early 2008, the efficacy of consistent outreach oh the street had already been well established with the Santa Monica Police Department. In order to continue providing this service, the Department seht out a Request for Quote to local homeless service providers. West Coast Care was the only service provider that responded. On March 17, 2008, West Coast Care entered into a professional services agreement with the City, in an amount not to exceed $70,000, and began providing service on March 18, 2008. West Coast Care only provides "outreach" services and utilizes the cities "Project Homecoming Program" to assist the homeless return home. This differs from other providers in such that West Coast Care does not provide. long term counseling, shelter -beds, assist with financial aid and all of the other services that are performed and keep a homeless person in Sarita Monica. 3 In the first seven weeks of its contract with the City, West Coast Care made approximately 1500 contacts with homeless people on the streets of Santa Monica, in the Santa Monica Jail, and at the .request of other city-funded homeless service providers in the Santa Monica Continuum of Care. During this same period, West Coast Care helped 48 homeless people find alternatives to living on Santa Monica streets. Thirty four were returned to family and friends in various parts of the United States and Canada, seven were placed into long term rehabilitation or treatment- programs, and one requested to be transported o jail in Orange County in order to straighten out his affairs so that he could rebuild his life. Contractor/Cohsultant Selection In March 2008, a Request for Proposals seeking qualified applicants to provide collaborative outreach, in conjunction with the Police Department, to the homeless population in the City of Santa Monica was issued. Eleven .Request for Proposals were sent out and one proposal was submitted by The West Coast Care Foundation. The West Coast Care Foundation is currently providing the services for the City. Financial Impacts & Budget Actions The contract amount to be awarded to The West Coast Care Foundation is $250,000. Funds are included in the FY2008-09 budget at account number 01306.555010. Prepared by: Neela Patel; Senior Administrative Analyst -Police Budget 4 Approved: Forwarded to Council Reference Contract No. 8938 (CCS).