Sonoma homeless organizations team up to better serve community

Of the three major homeless services providers in the Valley - Sonoma Overnight Support, Homeless Action Sonoma and Friends in Sonoma Helping (FISH) - each one operates a bit like an island. While they each offer a critical array of services, from daily meals to rental assistance to a future tiny-home shelter, a one-stop shop for local unsheltered residents is missing from the equation.

At Wednesday’s meeting of the Sonoma City Council, the city’s homeless consultant Andrew Hening shared that these organizations met earlier that same day to discuss how their united efforts could help end chronic homelessness locally.

Hening’s presented information about the state of homelessness in Sonoma and described the beginnings of a strategy to combat the issue locally with a more coordinate approach. Last week, Sonoma’s biggest providers sat down to come up with a new plan of action.

“The more immediate issue for the city to consider is this issue around chronic homelessness. The city of Sonoma, Sonoma Valley is not unique in this,” Hening said. “When systems of care are not designed to respond to chronic homelessness … people get stuck in this really vicious feedback loop.”

Over the past year, 156 unique individuals have received help from one of Sonoma Valley’s homeless organizations. Of those 156, 30 were completely unsheltered and 10 were considered high users of public resources.

Yet four out of five people experiencing homelessness only went to one of the Valley’s three providers.

Founder of Homeless Action Sonoma Annie Falandes said the creation of a collaborative task force will better distribute care in Sonoma Valley, especially for high-need individuals who are more distrustful of committing to a program.

“The system's broken, and that’s what the beauty of this task force is going to be, to fix that system,” Falandes said. “Right now we're all overworked, under capable, undertrained … and so I’m really happy when I have an issue and someone says, ‘I know how to fix that.’”

Hening detailed three major findings in his report. First, that Sonoma’s homeless organizations need to be configured effectively; second, that infrastructure to support chronically homeless people — who are the most costly and visible — is insufficient; and third, that there is no collaborative structure to address the previous two findings.

“The most powerful and important way that this is manifesting is we've secured support from (Sonoma Overnight Support), Homeless Action Sonoma, (Friends in Sonoma Helping), the police department, the fire department and the health center to begin creating and using this ‘by name list’,” Hening said.

The meeting of Sonoma Valley’s homeless organizations on Nov. 16 was a “major step from just a few weeks ago,” Hening said. The group will continue to meet weekly to share information about unhoused clients that will be added to a “by name list,” one of the best practices touted by the national homeless coalition Built For Zero.

The list may be the most important part of Hening’s plan for Sonoma Valley, in addition to greater collaboration between the Valley’s homeless organizations.

Once a homeless individual is put into the system, Hening said, their needs and progress can be monitored by task force members to provide informative care and resources, whether that includes physical or mental health care or items like clothing and food.

By looking at a profile of the individual, a homeless care provider can determine whether that person has a history of mental illness, if they’re a chronic user of substances or if they have been in frequent contact with law enforcement. This knowledge allows for better planning of that’s persons needs.

“It's ridiculous to think that as a community you're making a serious go at addressing street homelessness, if we don't have a proactive, consistent, methodical method of having a list of who is outside,” Hening said.

With more than 3,600 households living in poverty in Sonoma Valley, according to Hening, an understanding of how individuals operate within the network of homeless providers is key to building a stronger support system. Falandes is eager to be at the forefront of a new strategy to combat homelessness.

“I think it's the way the whole homeless movement is going, because (Hening) found that nobody can do it alone,” Falandes said. “We can look at the big picture, which is great because right now we're all just helping one little aspect of it.”

Contact Chase Hunter at chase.hunter@sonomanews.com and follow @Chase_HunterB on Twitter.

Clarification: A previous version of this article misstated the name of the proposed list for homeless residents as part of the Built For Zero program. The article has been updated to show it is a “by name list.”