On Monday, the Pittsburg City Council is being asked to approve a 3-year agreement with Contra Costa health Services for homeless outreach.
The move comes as the latest Contra Costa County Point in Time Count showed the City of Pittsburg saw an increase in homelessness between 2023 to 2024. It jumped from 58 to 110.
According to the three-year contract, the total cost is $880,848 for a Coordinated Outreach Referral and Engagement (CORE) program services to assist individuals living in a state of homelessness within the boundaries of Pittsburg.
The Agreement will be funded by $874,738 in PHLA funds and Housing Successor Agency (HSA) funds will be used to pay for the difference between the total cost of the Agreement and the PLHA grant funds, which is anticipated to be $6,110. HSA funds will also be used as an advance in the event that HCD is delayed in remitting the grant funds to the City.
Through the State’s Project Home Key program, the County acquired Motel 6 and turned it into a permanent shelter named Delta Landing in 2022. Conversion of Motel 6 into a shelter has financially impacted the City because Motel 6 was no longer able to generate and pay transient occupancy tax to the City. To help ease some of the impacts, the County funded a CORE Team dedicated to Pittsburg (Pittsburg CORE Team) for fiscal years 2021/22 and 2022/23. The County’s funding of the Pittsburg CORE Team expired on June 30, 2023.
The CORE program works to engage and stabilize homeless persons and families through consistent outreach and to refer the unhoused to resources such as shelters, daytime drop-in care centers, emergency food, job training, healthcare, mental health counseling, transportation, substance abuse treatment, and other services. CORE teams serve as an entry point into the County’s coordinated entry system for the unhoused and work to locate, engage, stabilize, and house chronically homeless individuals and families.
Pursuant to the Initial Agreement, the Pittsburg CORE Team consists of 2 staff members who will each work 40 hours per week, Monday-Friday, 8 am-4 pm. The work schedule may be revised based on the City’s needs. The Pittsburg CORE Team will provide the following services:
- Identify and initiate contacts with homeless individuals living on the streets, assess their housing and service needs, and facilitate connections to shelter, benefits, behavioral health and primary healthcare services.
- Respond to calls for outreach and engagement from the City staff.
- Conduct a standardized intake and needs assessment assuring all homeless individuals contacted are entered into the Homeless Management Information System used by the Contractor.
- Conduct VI-SPDAT (Vulnerability Index-Service Prioritization Assistance Tool), a housing assessment tool assuring that homeless individuals who are provided services hereunder are entered into the Coordinated Entry system for prioritizing their needs for longer term housing.
- Partner with assigned City officer(s) during CORE Team’s work shifts throughout the week as needed and as determined by the City.
- Connect homeless individuals, also designated as “homeless clients,” via phone or in person with other points in the homeless service continuum including, but not limited to, interim housing, substance abuse treatment, mental health counseling, benefits, etc.
- Perform special assignments that include, but not limited to, homeless counts and presentations.
- Conduct patrols of strategic areas within the city limits on foot and via vehicle.
- Observe and report threats to the health and/or safety of homeless individuals (or threats by homeless individuals to the health or safety of others) encountered in the field and determine the need to request for uniformed police, fire or other emergency personnel.
- Maintain direct communications with the City’s Police Department to report illegal activity.
- CORE Team supervisors and outreach workers will participate in monthly meetings with the City’s Police Management, as well as with public and private partners as deemed appropriate by the City.
- Contractor will provide a monthly report to the City which will describe the services rendered during the previous 30 days, as well as the names of the persons rendering the service
According to the staff report, the homeless crisis is not particular to any city. Because most cities do not have the resources to tackle homeless issues on their own, many cities partner with counties and service providers as an efficient and cost effective way of addressing homelessness.
The City is no different. For example, the City uses some of its Community Development Block Grant funds to fund organizations who provide meals and conduct food distribution and administer healthcare services to the unhoused. Various housing funds have been used to assist projects that constructed residential units for those who were previously homeless or at the verge of homelessness. The City also provides in-kind services to assist the shower program offered to the unhoused. The City is dedicated to working with its partners in providing resources and assisting in the homeless efforts.
If You Go:
Pittsburg City Council Meeting
June 17, 2024 at 7:00 pm
65 Civic Avenue, Pittsburg
Staff Report, click here
Agreement, click here
Related Stories:
- June 3 – 2024 Point in Time: Contra Costa County Sees Increase in Homelessness
- June 3 – Martinez Set to Return to Part-Time Core Team
- May 10 – San Pablo Approves New Homeless Outreach Services Partnership
9 comments
City should demand strict accounting of money spent and city council should review each year and issue a written report. Look to California state auditors report how state has failing.
Auditors SLAM California’s $24 BILLION spend on shelters and rent subsidies, with little to show but 53% rise in homelessness to 180,000 this past decade
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13292861/California-audit-shelters-rent-homelessness.html
California State Auditor report
https://information.auditor.ca.gov/reports/2023-102.1/index.html#chapter2
Hell yeah!!! Antioch get ready to ship all homeless to Pittsburgh. Opportunity lives not in Antioch but Pittsburg.
How can we clear up the Slatten Ranch Rd., within Antioch and behind Target, on the walking path before Chic Fil A’s opens up? I drive by daily on my way to work, and they’re moving like lil critters, early a.m. You make them relocate, and they’re back by night, then BOOM, dumping begins and the rest return.
Pittsburg getting into the “unhoused” business. What can go wrong?
I came up with a plan to house them not using a commercial building. We need land and just build them cement areas with coverage. They don’t want to do nothing, and some people don’t like looking at them.Stop wasting time and money and do it right.
We need a street sweeper on Railroad Ave. In Antioch. The minute they clear out the encampment of homeless all over the street, here come the ones in Rv’s. They are no different then the other ones who live in tents and boxes bringing furniture having bonfires, starting fires, torching cars, defaulting in the street and wondering in our yards making us residents feel afraid to leave our homes or wake up to a fire burning in front of our houses. It’s out of control. And they keep returning. Why can’t they put big boulders on sidewalk near storage place so they can’t camp there and we don’t have to be nervous about living in what use to be quiet place.
I’m not sure I see any problems with this. To me, what matters is looking at results after the first year. If there are no results, then we need to put that money elsewhere.
Local programs will not help much. It just moves the homeless around and the problem is statewide. Until this state gets serious about mandatory inpatient treatment (addiction and mental health) for those on the streets unable or unwilling to seek it out, California will continue to be a magnet for the homeless. Real change, unfortunately, certainly won’t happen under the current governor and state legislative supermajority.
To all the people, homeowners, apartment dwellers, adult children living on a couch in your Mama’s house. Anyone feeling superior who looks down their nose onto the homeless . It’s not the homeless people you should fear, it’s the fact that most of you are just a pay check away from becoming another homeless statistic. Maybe Through no fault of your own , maybe just an unfortunate series of circumstances you too could become the scourge of the community. The villain who is the scapegoat for all the community woes. The fall from your high and mighty pedestal in reality may just be a short drop to pushing your very own shopping cart. Imagine How would you want to be treated if it were you out on those cold hard streets desperately seeking a safe ,warm,dry place to rest your bones. Searching for a clean bathroom to relieve yourself because the last 4 places denied you the privilege of taking care of a natural bodily function. Try finding a private place to wash your hiney, your hair ,your teeth, your clothes. All the things you take for granted when you have access to hot and cold running water. And remember without garbage services you must tote all your refuse away. And where are you going to legally take it? Remember you just can’t leave your possession because abandoned items will surely be taken so you must carry all your belongings with you. Because you don’t have tents with locking doors. It is a struggle to maintain yourself on the streets to keep your body clean, to keep your possessions safe and secure, to live under stressful conditions 24hours a day surrounded by people who are dealing with their own tragic situations. And still maintain your sanity,and keep a positive attitude. Imagine you have a job interview. You want to look your best . So you get up. find some water. tote it back. build a fire . In a big pot boil the water , find a private spot to bathe, while hoping your clothes are clean enough and don’t smell like smoke from the fire. By the time you do all this you have missed the interview or your mindset is so messed up from stressing you say fuck it. And sink deeper down this hole. Anyway my point is please be kind . Do judge others when you are not qualified to judge their struggles. In the end it’s not the clothes you wear ,the car you drive ,or the size of the house you live in. It’s the way you treat other people that really says what kind of person you are. Be kind to everyone and strive to be happy