INDICATOR

 STATUS

 TREND

This indicator tracks the number of persons in the Santa Monica homeless population and identifies the percent of homeless people who are served by city- funded organizations and effectively transitioned to permanent housing. No Sustainable City Plan target has been developed for the number of homeless persons in the city, but the target for service provision to the population is an upward trend.

Between 2002 and 2007, the number of homeless Santa Monica residents obtaining city services on any given day rose from 2,566 persons to 2,743. Of those 344 were transitioned to permanent housing, an increase from the 244 in 2002.

Santa Monica hosts a disproportionately high per capita share of the homeless population measured in both LA County as a whole, and in surrounding western LA County cities.

• 144 people have been enrolled in the Chronic Homeless Program since its inception 2004.   Of the 144, 50 (35%) have transitioned to permanent housing, and 28 (19%) are in temporary or transitional housing.
• Project Homecoming has helped 79 homeless people reunite with family or friends who can provide housing and support.

Priority goals of the city’s Human Services Division  are to reduce the number of homeless people on the streets of Santa Monica and to move the most vulnerable, chronically homeless individuals into housing. The city funds seven core agencies and 21 programs that exclusively serve homeless people and at least six additional agencies that provide services to homeless people as well as other low-income populations.

During the course of counting and trying to move homeless people off the streets, city’s  Human Services Division has identified several sub-populations which require special programming to assist.  Those programs are: 

1. Chronic Homeless Program – Assists chronically homeless persons living on Santa Monica streets and other outdoor public places by helping them to secure housing, benefits and supportive services, including mental health treatment and/or substance abuse treatment.
2. Serial Inebriate Program – Provides rental subsidies to house persons who are chronically homeless and addicted to alcohol. 
3. Serial Inebriate Outreach Program - Provides voluntary substance abuse counseling by CLARE Foundation staff to individuals who have been arrested and are in custody at the Santa Monica jail. The program promotes participation by offering residential rehabilitation as an alternative to prosecution. The primary goal of the Program is to link people who have committed non-violent crimes with social services as an alternative to jail.
4. Project Homecoming - Provides and arranges travel assistance (usually Greyhound bus tickets) for homeless persons or persons at-risk of homelessness in Santa Monica who wish to be reunited with their friends or family out of the area.
5. Homeless Community Court - Uses the criminal justice system to promote participation in treatment in exchange for reducing or eliminating criminal sanctions and rewards successful participants in case management by dismissing and/or reducing their outstanding citations or warrants.

A systemic problem making reduction of numbers of homeless difficult is inflow of homeless people from other areas, near and far. While the city’s continuum works hard to move people off the streets, our capacity to do so in a region with approximately 73,000 homeless people is impossible.  Until homelessness is addressed throughout the region, there will be homeless people on the streets of Santa Monica.

Regional Homeless Count
Though the Sustainable City Plan information reported above tracks the number of homeless people receiving city services, the federal government now requires a biennial census of homeless persons to qualify for federal aid.  This census involves a physical count of homeless persons, a projection of total homeless population based on that physical count, and a survey of various characteristics of the homeless, including reasons for being homeless, drug and alcohol abuse and domestic abuse among the homeless as well as a detailed demographic profile of the homeless.

The 2007 estimate for the number of homeless persons on Santa Monica streets, not all those receiving city services, at any point-in-time decreased by 24% (1,506) from the 2005 estimate (1,991). Across Los Angeles County, the overall decrease was 17% - from 88,345 in 2005 to 73,702 in 2007. 

This census conducted by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, LAHSA, is not only a powerful tool to measure any future reduction of homeless people, but a hopeful sign of regional and federal attention to the issue long familiar to Santa Monica.  Thus, the fact that the number of people directly enumerated on the streets of Santa Monica decreased by 30% from January 2005 to January 2007, represents a reliable measure of the community’s progress in reducing street homelessness. 

Stay current on homelessness in Santa Monica by reviewing the city’s Human Services Division website
on the topic.