HomeMy WebLinkAbout03.18.21 Board Correspondence - FW_ Sheltering
From:Snyder, Ashley
To:Boston, Shelby;Kim, Sang;Pickett, Andy
Cc:Paulsen, Shaina
Subject:Board Correspondence - FW: Sheltering
Date:Thursday, March 18, 2021 8:53:44 AM
Morning Shelby,
Please see the below correspondence that went to the full Board this morning.
Take care,
Ashley N. Snyder
Assistant Clerk of the Board
Butte County Administration
25 County Center Drive, Suite 200, Oroville, CA 95965
T: 530.552.3307 | F: 530.538.7120
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From: Jeff and Penny <osters4444@comcast.net>
Sent: Thursday, March 18, 2021 6:36 AM
To: Clerk of the Board <clerkoftheboard@buttecounty.net>; Connelly, Bill
<BConnelly@buttecounty.net>; Lucero, Debra <DLucero@buttecounty.net>; Ritter, Tami
<TRitter@buttecounty.net>; Kimmelshue, Tod <TKimmelshue@buttecounty.net>; Teeter, Doug
<DTeeter@buttecounty.net>
Subject: Sheltering
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This from Michael Madeiros:
Butte County sheltering considerations per Michael Madieros:
The COC has an accurate total of available shelter beds and what programs meet
actual shelter requirements and designations.
The available beds has always been a very misleading tool used by providers in Butte
County. First take the Esplanade house, they are not a shelter, nor are they a
program for the homeless or a service provider catering to the homeless. In fact, that
program is a giant reason why we are in the situation we are in. They offer absolutely
zero in terms of shelter beds or homeless services. They do not meet any federal or
state requirement, yet they misled the public and community and funded themselves
for years and years causing programs that could’ve assisted homeless to not be
funded.
Counting CHAT transitional housing program beds as shelter beds is also very
misleading because the consumer utilizing those programs PAYS for those
placements. You have to have a funding source and be eligible to obtain those
placements they are in no way a shelter.
And there are several programs that, by this standard, provide beds and housing that
are not on this list. It is vital that the community understand the only shelter options
the community has in regards to federal and state regulations is The Torres
Community Shelter (True North Housing Alliance). It is also important to understand
that although now they say they are a low barrier shelter, they have made that switch
back-and-forth several times over the years in order to qualify for funding.
Traditionally they are not a low barrier shelter and do not allow, or generally have not
allowed, the very people we are talking about when we are talking about the
homeless and the destructive force in the community.
Understanding admittance policy and the correct populations for what a program
actually serves is absolutely vital to provide services that don’t enable but actually
produce outcomes.
And my point is simply this: All you ever have to do is look at the Torres Shelter and
realize they stay right around half empty.
The problem is not shelter and it is not beds; if that was the problem we would have
built a larger low-barrier shelter a long time ago. Every service provider would have
demanded that they would have partnered together and they would have made that
happen. Every provider knows any shelter that is built will go basically unused, in fact
that is the national trend, people refusing to utilize shelters and that is why the federal
government has started to go away from sheltering. The service providers want a
dependent population, they want them all housed in individual housing units, and they
want them to remain dependent. Shelters go unused and creating more beds or
building more shelters is an absolute waste. The focus has to be on treatment
facilities!
Jeff Oster
Chico