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Press Release - Homelessness Grant
PRESS RELEASE
411 E. Kern Avenue Tulare, CA 93274
559.684.4200
March 8, 2022
For More Information Contact:
Josh McDonnell Deputy City Manager City of Tulare
(559) 684-4210
City of Tulare Receives Grant to Address Homelessness
The City of Tulare has recently taken a number of actions to address homelessness in the community. These actions are cumulatively intended to address the issue on all fronts, from supporting efforts to improve health and safety conditions for unhoused individuals to strengthening efforts to reduce the impacts of homelessness on the City’s public and private properties.
Amidst these efforts and recognizing that moving individuals out of homelessness is both complex and unique to each person, the City and five partner organizations are proud to announce successful application to the California Interagency Council on Homelessness Encampment Resolution Funding (ERF) Program. The ERF Program provides grants to organizations offering to provide improvements to health and safety conditions within homeless encampments with the goal being both the creation of meaningful paths to stable housing for unsheltered residents and the return of existing homeless camps to their originally intended uses, such as parks and recreation areas. The California Interagency Council on Homelessness (Cal ICH) awarded $1,566,604 to the City and its partners on Friday, February 25th, 2022.
The ERF award will be coupled with additional recent City actions undertaken to address homelessness, which include:
- An ordinance was enacted that prohibits or regulates overnight camping in the majority of the City’s parks.
- The City Council has dedicated $2,000,000 and City staff is working with a variety of providers to identify a site and construct a future emergency shelter.
- The City is considering the creation of a homeless outreach team that would respond to transient-related calls for service.
The Cal ICH’s generous ERF award will allow the City and its partner organizations to enhance outreach, engagement, and service offerings for upwards of 57 people experiencing homelessness within prioritized encampment areas. The City’s prioritized areas are a collection of sites near Centennial and Rotary Skate Parks as well as on vacant land between the Union Pacific Railroad and I Street.
Tulare’s ERF project will be led by case managers from the Kings Tulare Homeless Alliance, Kings View, and Salt+Light Works organizations respectively. These case managers will conduct daily outreach and engagement to foster trust and relationship building and to facilitate the usage of field-based integrative services and housing placement plans. With buy-in, case managers will implement a housing plan with their clients according to Housing First standards to secure housing at available emergency, transitional, and/or permanent housing units. And to foster sustainability, each client will receive funds to cover 12-months of rent, utility, and other household costs.
Specialty services under the ERF Project include the delivery of behavioral and medical health care from the Homeless Multi-Disciplinary Team with the Tulare County Health and Human Services Agency and the Adventist Health Mobile Care Unit. Unsheltered residents in the encampment areas will have access to first aid, wound care, health screenings, and medicine, as well as access to substance use assessment and counseling and a connection to social service programs.
The ERF Project also addresses critical basic needs. The target group of people will receive access to food, palliative relief items, a third-party operated two-stall bathroom and shower facility, and a waste removal service. In addition to the efforts aimed at improving health and safety conditions in the prioritized encampment area, the ERF project provides funds for park restoration planning and construction costs. With public input and collaboration, $280,000 in grant funds are available to accomplish physical improvements to amenities at Centennial Park.
The City and its partner organizations plan to begin the project by mid-May, with the goal being to facilitate the relocation of the individuals in these encampments to alternative facilities by the end of the calendar year.
ERF Program information and a copy of the Notice of Intent to Award are available at – https://bcsh.ca.gov/calich/documents/erf_intent_to_award.pdf https://bcsh.ca.gov/calich/erf_program.html