Policy & Legislation
Legislative Forum Scrutinizes State's Homelessness Plans
May 14, 2008
Assemblymembers Sally Lieber (D-Mountain View) and Dave Jones (D-Sacramento) convened an informational forum on May 6, 2008, to quiz state department heads on the status of the governor's ten-year plans to address chronic and family homelessness.
Approximately 40 attendees heard from four department directors, who explained how they are implementing strategies in the draft Ten-Year Chronic Homelessness Action Plan. When legislators questioned why the plan had not yet been formally adopted, the directors could not offer a clear response or reason not to adopt the plan. Instead the directors focused on how they are attempting to implement the plan's strategies without formal adoption.
Assemblymembers Jones and Salas were joined by Fiona Ma (D-San Francisco), Joe Coto (D-San Jose), and Mary Salas (D-Chula Vista). Marti Fleetwood, HomeBase, provided an overview of the development of the Ten-Year Chronic Homelessness Action Plan, and Ginny Puddlefoot, California Research Bureau, detailed recent research about homeless youth (Voices from the Street: A Survey of Homeless Youth by Their Peers).
Legislators also explored ways to increase interactions between state departments as needed to end homelessness. Suggestions included passing a resolution urging the governor to adopt his ten-year plans; appropriating $125,000 to support meetings and staffing of the State Interagency Council on Homelessness; and continuing efforts to form a Joint Legislative Committee on Homelessness.
Terri Parker, Director of the California Housing Finance Agency (CalHFA) emphasized the need for continued interaction between departments, stating "The education from the policy summit at Asilomar has been invaluable in departmental operations since 2005."
The other participating department heads -- in addition to Parker -- were Dr. Stephen Mayberg, Department of Mental Health, Lynn Jacobs, Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD), and John Wagner, Department of Social Services.
Among other successes, development of the draft Ten-Year Chronic Homelessness Action Plan helped create the Mental Health Services Act (MHSA) Housing Program. Forty-one developments from 14 counties are currently in process of accessing this new program to create 500 homes.
Contact: Zack Olmstead, (916) 447-0503 x 108 or .
