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Statement - North County/Sunnyvale Shelter Stakeholder Update Report

County of Santa Clara Board of Supervisors Meeting on August 13, 2024 on Item 26 Receive Report from the Office of Supportive Housing relating to the North County Shelter (Hamlin Court, Sunnyvale) Stakeholder Outreach Plan

Statement by Board Vice President Otto Lee

Thank you to Interim Director KJ and the Office of Supportive Housing, OSH, for the report back. [Agenda Item 26 Link]

I’m glad to see OSH has developed an effective outreach plan that brings in key stakeholders, particularly our unhoused neighbors and residents with lived experience in homelessness, and I appreciate the work that went into this plan, as well as the work OSH is doing every day.

That being said, the unfortunate reality is that this outreach plan needed to be in place before the transition, not after it.

During our May 21 Board meeting, I and several of my colleagues expressed concerns about the loss of shelter capacity for single adults, and about the lack of time given to soliciting stakeholder feedback.

I think the rocky transition at the shelter over the last two months has borne out those concerns; having this robust stakeholder input process in place up front might have made for a smoother process, not just for the county and for the operator but most importantly for the residents at the shelter. 

Our responsibility to them and their needs should be paramount through this process, and frankly, I have been disappointed in how the leadership at Bill Wilson Center has handled that responsibility, particularly in light of the scabies outbreak at the shelter. 

We have clients at the shelter who say they’ve been mistreated, clients who have struggled to communicate with their case managers, clients who have been placed in housing opportunities but cannot move forward with the process of exiting into those housing opportunities.

There was not an interim plan shared with stakeholders on what would happen to single adults looking for shelter in the northern part of the county. 

Most concerning, during this transition, we’ve had clients come close to falling out of the system and potentially being forced to start their search for safe housing from square one. 

I understand this transition needed to be done on short notice to ensure the shelter continued operating, and that this has been an enormously challenging process for all involved, but if even a single unhoused resident falls out of our continuum of care during this transition, then we have failed that resident.

It’s critical that moving forward we pursue a transparent course that draws on input from key stakeholders and doesn’t shy away from constructive criticism, and I do believe this plan will help us do that. We are stronger together that way.

At the same time, let’s continue to prioritize achieving a net zero reduction in shelter beds for single adults in North County; the Palo Alto Homekey site slated to open in 2025 will make significant progress towards this, but there is still work to do to ensure we not only preserve our current shelter capacity in North County, but expand it.

I look forward to the Administration coming back to the Board with recommendations for this in the very near future. Thank you.