Progress continues on homelessness

On Tuesday, the Carlsbad City Council approved actions that will continue the city's progress on reducing homelessness and its effects on the local community. All support the city's overall strategy of directing resources where they will have the biggest impact on Carlsbad while leveraging regional programs already in place to combat homelessness.

"We are using best practices to serve as a facilitator of services where possible and fill in the gaps where needed to make a real difference for our community," said Mandy Mills, who leads the city's Housing & Homeless Services Department.

The actions taken by the City Council Tuesday include:

• Approving an updated Homelessness Action Plan, which includes the programs and initiatives the city plans to carry out over the next five years and the measures that will be used to track success.
• Approving agreements to accept a $2 million grant the city secured from the County of San Diego to expand Carlsbad's only homeless shelter to be able to serve women and families for the first time in the shelter's 30-year history. The La Posada de Guadalupe emergency shelter is operated by the nonprofit Catholic Charities Diocese of San Diego through a long-running partnership with the City of Carlsbad.

In 2017, the City of Carlsbad was one of the first in the region to develop a plan to combat homelessness at the city level. The updated plan lays out a comprehensive approach to addressing the regional, state and national trend of increasing homelessness:

• A specially trained Homeless Outreach Team in the Police Department focused on compassionate enforcement
• Contracted social workers, benefits specialists, rapid rehousing specialists and other resources that focus on transitioning people successfully into long-term housing and preventing new people from becoming homeless
• Expanding Carlsbad's only homeless shelter to include women and families for the first time
• Cleaning up encampments that pose a health and safety concern to the community
• Creating more affordable housing options
• A special program with the Humane Society that can temporarily care for the pets of people experiencing homelessness so they can qualify for short term programs that may not allow pets
• Updates to the city's municipal code that address the quality-of-life impacts of homelessness for local residents and businesses

According to Mills, in the last fiscal year, the city successfully placed 62 people into permanent housing and 110 into temporary shelters where they could receive needed services.

More information

Homelessness Action Plan
Feb. 7 City Council staff report
Reducing homelessness webpage
Expanding Carlsbad's La Posada de Guadalupe shelter

Mandy Mills, Housing & Homeless Services Director, [email protected], 442-339-2907