I’ve begun thinking about homelessness back in my home county because despite living there for 21 years I haven’t really put in to perspective my past experiences with homeless people as well as the mentally ill. With all that we’ve learned so far I figured what better place to look at and see what steps are being taken to aid the homeless. On the county’s Human Services website I found a 10-year plan to end homelessness in San Mateo County called Housing Our People Effectively (HOPE) that appears to have been implemented in 2013, and intends to bring together businesses, nonprofits, and public sector agencies to address the core causes of homelessness in a coordinated and cost-effective manner. The plan is built around the two key ideas of housing and prevention, and lists four recommendations for ending homelessness. These are: increasing housing opportunities for the homeless as well as those in serious risk of becoming homeless, providing aid in a timely fashion to support independence and stability, create standards to track progress made towards ending homelessness, and in turn reporting progress to the community and stakeholders, and lastly, developing long-term leadership in the community to sustain the efforts being made to end homelessness. The cost of this plan is estimated at approximately $1.56 billion over the course of ten years to create, maintain, and operate 7,900 units of permanent and supportive housing, and is to be primarily funded by state and federal resources.

This seems like a great step forward, though as I read further in to the plan it goes on to say that the usage of emergency and social services by homeless people can cost upwards of $70,000 per person, per day; this could result in the 10-year plan costing around $2 billion over the course of its duration simply to continue providing homeless people with current services that for the most part don’t end homelessness.

Another thing warning flag in my head was the number of housing units proposed in this plan compared to the number of homeless I found in San Mateo County for my data exercise. The census I found for the 2015 homeless count in San Mateo County reported 1,722 homeless people compared to the 7,900 units of housing proposed by the HOPE plan. I’m unsure as to why the numbers are so different, but I suspect there couple be a number of reasons behind it. I’ll post a link to the Human Services website for you guys to check out.

http://hsa.smcgov.org/center-homelessness