Study shows drop in homelessness in Santa Cruz County in past year

SANTA CRUZ — Coming out of a punishing winter and the end of the coronavirus pandemic’s state of emergency, Santa Cruz County’s homeless population has remained highly visible and yet significantly dwindled, according to results of a recent study.

The region’s annual homeless point-in-time count, conducted by volunteers on a single day in late February, recorded a one-year decrease of more than 21%, bringing the census to the county’s lowest recorded population of 1,804 unhoused individuals. The latest survey numbers were published Thursday, more than a month after local governments set in motion their budget plans for the coming fiscal years.

With the support of ongoing state dollars and a twisting labyrinth of specialized grants, Santa Cruz County’s efforts on the homeless front have expanded in areas of broader root-cause issues such as behavioral health and drug addiction challenges, in addition to tackling the local ongoing affordable housing supply shortage.

Limiting affordable housing efforts was the fact that Santa Cruz County continued to sit among the highest ranked in studies of rental housing affordability, including top slots in the 2022 report by the National Low Income Housing Coalition and the National Low Income Housing Coalition’s 2023 Out of Reach report. The county’s Rehousing Wave effort, working in collaboration with the Housing Authority of Santa Cruz County, placed 295 formerly homeless households — representing more than 425 people — into homes between October 2021 and early 2023.

Two of the three permanent supportive housing projects receiving funding from the state’s Project Homekey grants have opened their doors to tenants, including an initial offering from the planned 20-unit Veterans Village in Ben Lomond and the seven-unit Casa Azul in Santa Cruz. The third, a 36-unit Park Haven Plaza modular home  project in Aptos, remains under construction.

Both jurisdictions are working through multiyear strategic plans to address local homelessness.

Shelters vs. the streets

This year’s apparent improvement in the local homeless population — the survey was “conducted under challenging winter conditions,” according to a release from the collective Santa Cruz County Housing for Health Partnership — came a year after the county recorded a 6% uptick in homelessness. That survey took place while Santa Cruz County as a whole was in the midst of its largest effort to shelter homeless individuals, at its peak more than doubling its temporary bed count to over 1,000 with the help of state and federal coronavirus pandemic relief funds. As those funds ran out and hotel shelters shuttered, a long-standing city outdoor encampment in Santa Cruz’s San Lorenzo Park became a focal point of the area’s continuing need.

According to this year’s homeless census, 79% of people experiencing homelessness in February were unsheltered.

Then, in September, city officials completed a multimonth effort to clear out San Lorenzo Park’s Benchlands encampment’s occupants, offering alternative shelter options as each camp segment was fenced off and bulldozed. The camp’s estimated population reached, by some counts, more than 300 individuals at its peak and had at least 225 people as clearout efforts began in earnest, city outreach workers said. Occupants were offered assistance in seeking alternative shelter options, including options at the city-funded Overlook shelter effort at the National Guard Armory in DeLaveaga Park with 135 indoor and outdoor spaces, which complemented a more established self-governed camp for 27 people in a city lot at 1220 River St.

Many camp occupants did not go to or remain for long in the city shelters, resulting in a concentration of tent encampments in the city’s Pogonip park and nearby, along the Highway 9 corridor leading out of town. The encampment persisted before and after extensive winter storm damage to the area, until a similar city encampment clearing project  — begun at Pogonip in May — concluded in July. The city estimated that there were 65-75 occupied tents in the park at the cleanup’s start and that 35 people were connected to shelter services by its conclusion.

In addition to striking Santa Cruz, a major winter storm in March and subsequent breach of the Pajaro River levee near Watsonville heightened the focus on people living in tents along the riverbed. Even before dozens of families were put out of their homes due to flood damages, Watsonville itself was the only city in the county that recorded an increase of people experiencing homelessness this year. According to the point-in-time count, the recorded homeless population went up by 15% from the year prior, to 421 individuals.

In June, the state announced its award of a $8 million encampment resolution grant to joint recipients Santa Cruz and Monterey counties plus the city of Watsonville and the Pajaro Regional Flood Management Agency. The grant will fund placement of a new micro-home village shelter project to serve those living without shelter in the Pajaro River bed.

Beyond tent encampments, nearly half of those living without shelter in February’s count were sleeping in their vehicles. Meanwhile, an effort to restrict the city’s proliferation of people living inside large vehicles — often RVs — gained traction in the past year as a 24/7 RV safe parking program for about 14 vehicles was established in September and a handful of additional “Tier 1 and Tier 2” overnight-only parking sites were set aside throughout the city.

The complement to the parking program was a new city law, the Oversized Vehicle Ordinance, that will ban all unpermitted large vehicles from parking overnight on city streets in the coming months. The California Coastal Commission finalized a one-year permit clearing the way for the city’s contested law to be enacted in areas closest to Monterey Bay in June. Beforehand, however, the city must form a stakeholder committee and produce a rollout plan before launching enforcement efforts.

Ongoing funding efforts

In the city of Santa Cruz, which sustains the highest concentration of homeless individuals in the county, city leaders faced a turning point in June when they pledged millions of new city dollars toward a continued commitment to responding to homelessness. The move, reflected in a cumulative $2.7 million of general fund spending from the city’s 2023-2024 budget, comes even as two large grants — one federal and one state — are nearly depleted.

In April, the Santa Cruz City Council included addressing homelessness as one of its top strategic goals. In June, the council followed up on that commitment by approving a 2023-2024 budget that rolls over some $6 million remaining in the state and federal grant funds and adds its own dollars. The funds will double down on existing programs and cover ongoing homeless response personnel costs for its homeless response action team, police community service officers, outreach workers and contributions to the countywide homeless continuum of care.

Spending priorities for the coming year will include, most significantly, the $4.8 million needed to continue operating the City Overlook at the Armory. Other areas of planned spending include the three-tiered safe parking program, at nearly $530,000, the $230,000 storage program, $142,000 for severe weather shelter and the $80,000 transitional community camp at 1220 River St. However, efforts including purchasing small “pallet” shelters for the Housing Matters campus, a recreational vehicle dump station, an additional transitional housing community camp, development of an additional indoor shelter and a mobile crisis response team will be put on the back burner until the city can secure new funding with the help of a state lobbyist.