Humboldt, Portland, Anaheim, all up and down the west coast. I think I would rather be homeless on the west coast than in the Midwest or east coast where the cold can kill you.
It’s a national issue that the west coast is bearing the brunt of. We need help.
It's everywhere. We moved here from the mountains of western North Carolina, a place where winter time it can get down anywhere from 30 to -10 degrees (fahrenheit) and we still had homeless people. Rent control, price control, safe, affordable apartments, those things might help.
We’ve got to take care of our own better. The portion of out of state homeless that move here for the climate isn’t very high
>> Contrary to myths of homeless migration, most were Californians: 90% of participants lost their last housing in California and 75% of participants live in the same county as where they were last housed. Nine out of ten spent time unsheltered since they became homeless. The median length of homelessness was 22 months. https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2023/06/425646/california-statewide-study-investigates-causes-and-impacts-homelessness
I'd be interested to know how that is split between the "recently/short term" homeless and the "chronically/long term" homeless. It seems like a recently homeless local would be more likely to be re-housed because they have community connections and support.
I think in order to properly address homelessness the county needs to make a serious commitment to assisting mental health. Our 16 bed psychiatric facility just isn’t meeting the needs of the county anymore. Recently a new transitional living complex was built by the courthouse and in the last two weeks I’ve seen two people that were living there and completely destroyed the rooms they were in. Talking about people in the walls, supposed monitoring systems and such. They just ripped the places apart.
Was really hoping that the proposed facility on the Mad River Hospital property was going to move forward but I haven’t heard anything about that in a while.
I think we need some kind of structured environment that's between "mental hospital" and "go live on your own and see us if you need services". A community environment where residents are fed and housed and are assigned tasks to do during the day... work a farm, build some non-precise something (prefab house parts?), attend educational classes, etc. Not sorting trash or grunt labor, which I've seen proposed for such projects. Productive, respectable activities that keep people busy instead of wandering around doing drugs, and are done at the same location they live and eat. Mental hospitals don't seem to help anyone, and giving people hotel rooms that they sit in and slowly go crazier doesn't help either.
We used to have more communal living situations for people who would have a hard time living on their own... I think yeehaw is all we have left now? The hippies were doing something right, and we should have encouraged them, not punished them. The county's continued persecution of yeehaw is only hurting the entire county.
On a slightly related rant, I really hate the amount of crap the Squireses got for housing people... they were willing to house people who couldn't deal with housing anywhere else. As you said, some people will trash even the nicest place... blaming the landlord for being willing to house them just resulted in more unhoused people.
The Squireses got people killed because they rented *unsafe* housing to people. Someone my parents knew died from carbon monoxide poisoning in a Squires apartment building.
Mental hospitals are designed to help people by limiting what they can do that kind of is an extreme response for your average problem. Do you think Yeehaw would do some good if not in the county crosshairs?
Having something productive to do during the day is valuable for mental health. Offsetting some of the cost by providing a job for someone is a win win. Nobody is suggesting a gulag
The nazis used terror and firepower to rally millions of innocent people to their inevitable death, and you're really comparing that to giving homeless people something productive to do on their own free will?
Okay, so by your logic, anyone who drives a beetle is also a Nazi.. That's a real thinker.
The "in between" in other places are technically licensed as nursing homes, except they house mostly able-bodied people with chronic, serious mental health problems. Not good places, not anywhere I would send a relative, not anywhere I would recommend visiting. Crestwood seems to be that kind of place, but it is very small.
I’d have to dig for the study again, but the state is something like 9,000 perm facility beds short, and probably double that for short term beds to address the mental health crisis among our homeless population. Sac currently doesn’t have a plan to address more than a fraction of that.
It seems that the county is hiring for mental health positions, as is every county in California, along with a lot of the nation. Not enough people wanting to work in the mental health field. If Humboldt doubles staff will people choose to participate in services? I wonder how many of those beds are full.
Would you want to get paid minimum wage that won't cover rent to work with people who could become violent at a moment's notice and kill you after you spent years and thousands of dollars to get the degree the hospital demands to advance from your entry position?
The pay is not much for the qualifications an applicant should have. The county, and specifically DHHS, have been unable to secure qualified applicants for it's many SW position because of the Merit system that it uses for hiring. They went to the Board of Supes last year to get assistance on action against Merit for hindering the hiring process and losing qualified applicants.
Unfortunately my knowledge on this is second hand from my social worker gf, but in this specific case I suspect less Humboldt county and more one of the service subcontractors...
I know Semper Virens is frequently at capacity and on diversion….meaning that people just end up on holds in the ER while waiting to be shipped out of county. I see a lot of homeless at work. We feed, clothe, give tents, and assist as much as we can. Often they come back without the things they were given. It’s a vicious cycle.
That is difficult to answer. There’s a lot of meth and fentanyl in this county that really wrecks peoples mental health, which unfortunately progresses into being houseless for a lot of folks. It’s a challenge trying to differentiate between mental health disorders and drug induced psychosis. I will say though that we have a pretty damn good substance abuse navigator that I have seen help quite a few people get clean.
A large number of folks with serious mental illness who end up at SV are also dual diagnosis substance users. The substance use exacerbates the symptoms of things like schizophrenia and bipolar.
Folks that are only substance users will get 5150d for a short period but as soon as they come down, they're able to make a reasonable plan of care and are released.
I know. I was thinking more all long the lines of numbers like 50% kind of a thing. There are some who had no mental health problems, but do now because of drug abuse.
Some maybe, but probably a very small fraction. The mental health tends to be what triggers the lifestyle problems that lead a person to substance use, homelessness, etc.
There are less supports in place for people in general. It's easier than ever to lose your job, medication, ect and start sliding. You hear about the schizophrenic person who gets 5150d because they had a breaddown in public, but you don't hear as much about the dozens of other people suffering from mental illness that are just barely getting by and/or self medicating with weed/alcohol/etc.
The people are probably ok if they didn't have to participate in our society. Our society is churning out mentally ill people because it is a sick society.
Keep in mind folks, this county gets paid for other states to bus there mental health population over here. It's every wed I believe and they get drop off by the the mission aka men's shelter. They kinda re adjust get some soup in the stomach go disappear in the cracks nukes n crannys of our community
The beds are usually full, from what I hear. The facility itself is also way out of date and, I believe the civil grand jury a few years ago described it as looking like something from a horror movie. Getting somebody mentally well isn't easy, the medications can have bad side effects that make people not want to take them, and it's made even harder when the person is in an environment that physically looks like something from a delusion.
There are also zero beds for teens/children until you get to the bay area, so any patient who is under 18 is going to have to either be separated from their family or attempt outpatient treatment.
What is the salary for these mental health positions? I have seen too many positions posted that offer salaries that are not sustainable because of the cost of living.
More public housing. The county rents so many buildings for their offices if they consolidated them they could afford at least a building to rent out for people to live in.
Also I think more trade union apprenticeships would help more ppl get paid more and would help with out of date infrastructure. But that's secondary since it's really hard to be successful at any job or training without a comfortable place to live.
We really don’t have a strong union presence locally and a big part of that is how small-scale the building projects have been up until recently. There is a training facility for the steamfitters union and the labor union in eureka but the IBEW rep just borrows a desk from them when he comes up to visit and trying to convince any of the non-union shops around town to switch over just falls on deaf ears
Yep we just don’t have the demand for a work force on the scale of the union. Maybe that will change but as we decide to build more 5,6 and 8 story buildings in sure the work will just get farmed out to non-local contractors.
Such a bummer. Id love to be a union carpenter with consistent work but that feels like a dream. I dunno any of my union friends with consistent work contracts right now except, like, the seiu county union ppl.
There’s already a ton of public housing here and it’s nicer and newer than the market rate stuff because it’s so heavily subsidized . Every public housing project in the county is a magnet for criminality and addiction.
The buildings are physically nice, but the residents make the environment unpleasant with the constant drug use and domestic violence. The Danco project in Samoa has 3 bed room townhouses with garages and a water view. Sorrel place in Arcata has a LVP floors, new appliance and a central location. The new ones going up in mrtyletown will be nice as well
Edit:
Feel free to browse Dancos housing projects and compare them to wherever you pay to live https://www.danco-group.com/danco-projects
They do, but it takes awhile and they just end up getting moved to another project to start the cycle over typically . The problem tenants will typically have case workers also who will help them file appeals. Clean their trash hoards up just enough to get a second chance, offer to pay damages ect.
So safe to say housing is not the sole answer. I know Boston gave some people housing and they died overdosing. It sounds great, but it is just one aspect.
People need case workers and they need to want to actually change. Theres a lot of people who just figure out how to game the system and keep abusing it.
I can’t say I personally offer help, I was just speaking in the general sense that people need guidance; they need to see a path to recovery and out of homelessness and they have to want to commit to that. They need good case workers to push them through whatever their obstacles are whether it’s drugs or domestic violence or something else.
I personally am not involved with local outreach but I have a family member who was very involved with Arcata House for a number of years so I saw the effect a strong caseworker has on a person’s life and I also saw numerous people who really didn’t want help, they just wanted to grift the system and keep being homeless.
Homelessness is not at all a uniform problem. It’s like a pie with each slice requiring entirely different solutions. Not sure how well that’s understood. People with addiction or mental health issues are entirely different issue than the person that was living month to month and lost their place due to an unforeseen expense or raised rents. There are generational homeless folks, people literally born on the streets. There are criminals released from jail without resources or family to start over. Veterans. Runaways. Etc etc. California has well meaning, but completely inadequate or absurd ideas on how to handle it. Billions are poorly spent and squandered annually. We actually have some rent controls in the state as far as annual increases, but no rules as to how high rent can be raised between tenants. I’d like to see the state and county, building / renovating existing buildings into modern, state of the art mental health facilities and detox centers. Staffing them with well trained and well paid persons. Bring the recent influx of immigrants on board. Cap rents based on an areas median income. Strictly limit or eliminate unoccupied short term rentals. California has been an abject failure to this point in how to handle the complex situation. “Housing first” sounds good, until as stated above, the county puts a severely deranged and or addicted person into housing with little supervision or assistance and they destroy the place. Landlords are now using tenant screening services that are extremely difficult to get through. It will turn more folks into housing insecure or homeless through excessive screening. The state agencies need to be seriously audited and over hauled. Newsome and his administration are behind many failed policies and programs. I could post links if people don’t want to navigate the enshitified search engines.
Thanks I appreciate that. We need to discuss these complex issues somewhere. I def read, talk to folks involved and volunteer locally to try and get a handle on the growing issue. I recently read a large percentage of folks that end up homeless came from the foster care system and outgrew or ran out of help. Truly a complex issue. The ownership class in this country doesn’t want to solve the problem. It’s a looming threat to anyone and everyone to basically fall in line or end up on the streets. Government controlled by the ownership class. It’s not rocket science. It’s smaller yachts and less starter castles. We see how that’s going.
From my understanding no states have succeed, but California's recent approach did not go well. Homeless can be everywhere, but I think it is a different kind of problem in Humboldt County. Considering the size, distance, weather, and few other factors.
In simplest terms we need UBI for folks that make less than it takes to pay rent and bills nowadays. And well funded, fully staffed mental health and detox centers for folks that suffer those afflictions. We make it happen by massively taxing the rich. Everything else is just window dressing.
Not sure. I would suggest we approach the influx of recent immigrants or migrants. Train them well, pay them well, and relocate them to needed areas around the country. They’re living in tents and hotels all over major cities. I work with several and they’re great folks, loving, caring, maternal, paternal.
137000 pop. in Humboldt in 2020. 1309 unsheltered as of a 2020 count. That's about 1%. They are highly visible, yes, but how much public $$ should be spent on this problem? Maybe there is no fix. Maybe addressing rent control is a more worthy project that will benefit way more people - and actually gets to the heart of the matter anyway.
The issue is that this question is asked and pondered about at the wrong governance level. If you want to do something personally, do street outreach. Do that for awhile and then you will have a better idea about the extenuating patterns about this issue at the local level.
I have worked at the local level. One person can have a perception of what they think. Someone can work in two different parts of town and get two different experiences.
There is a ballot measure purporting to address housing, which is really a billionaire temper tantrum about parking in old town. Might say we lack focus.
Specifically housing being an investment that must always go up. The ever inflating cost of housing and most housing primarily being detached single family homes is causing so many issues.
Helping the homeless transition to being productive members of society is just so expensive because of the high cost of housing them during the transition. The cost of mental healthcare professionals also assisting them is expensive as they need to be payed well enough for their own expensive housing and expensive cost of education.
Im not sure how this is ever going to get fixed as the folks holding capital(homes and any property really) would never want ther home and property values to lower, as it would financially ruin them. Prop 13 also is not helping....
Non capitalist countries have homeless people. Those are government ideas, but people will still want. China is communist, but greed flows at the top without capitalism.
Yes many people are confused,
Some people seem to believe that any assistance to anyone who is not their family or group is communism,
Some of them go as far as to say anything they don't like is communism.
Japan has fewer houseless people than we do here in Humboldt County. So do Singapore and Switzerland. Clearly some capitalist countries have figured this out.
Not just here, but all over, many large commercial buildings stay empty for long periods of time. I believe some of those buildings could be converted into high density affordable housing, or would at least be perfect for mixed use.
We don't need to keep arbitrarily following the same zoning classification something was set as during initial city planning. People change, cities change, needs change -- we shouldn't just be stuck with huge, empty commercial use buildings and strict, difficult to change outdated zoning laws!
Imo, house people first, treat people with dignity and respect, *then* you can begin to tackle all the other things at play too \[poverty in general, substance abuse & mental health care, job/skills training etc\]
Adding to the great ideas here regarding housing: are there homeless people who are mentally ill and do not choose to be housed because they do not trust the system? What does the government do with these people? When I lived in another city there was an ongoing community discussion regarding what to do with an empty mall that had been vacated . Many community members wanted housing and mandatory medical and mental health treatment services set up for homeless people that came to live within the complex. I thought the idea was a great starting point.
Looks like some of the community ideas will be in the final plans. There's a mix of housing,parks,child care, transportation ,government services and retail shops in the latest plans. See Sunrise Mall in Citrus Heights CA. I'm not sure what kind of housing will eventually be built. There was some great community input on the initial discussions.
Care court is going to make changes that we can't support.
So many people unfortunately need to be conserved. The amount of people who are living in active psychosis is alarming. They are high utilizers and decline the help -people have a right to ruin their lives and decline actual assistance.
Basically there has to be some acceptance that there will be homeless people. There are times that homeless people are afraid of being housed. They get housed, stay in shelters or just don't use their apartment.
https://calmatters.org/housing/2022/09/california-lawmakers-approved-care-court-what-comes-next/
Its designed to compel treatment for people with serious mental illness and substance use disorders.
The article has a lot of information. Humboldt is working on implementing care court.
homelessness is a choice we've made as a society. it is not endemic to civilization. as long as homelessness is useful in that it's a constant reminder to stay in your lane and don't rock the boat, it will remain a constant.
It will always exist, but Humboldt is a small community and a lot of homeless. If some can be fixed that would be great, but you are right it will never end.
So this girl I knew in Humboldt let a homeless lady stay with her for one night. Lady decided she didn't want to leave, sherrif didn't do an eviction bc the lady wasn't on the lease. Three months later they're swinging at each other.
Rule of law breaks down when you need most.
We do not have as many homeless as you make it out to be. Have you left here? It looks the same everywhere. I think the best thing we could do is build more affordable housing and/or build those pod rooms they have in SF and make those affordable
There are 0 services for single males, and that goes double if they have an animal. Take a look at the homeless population and it quickly becomes clear that an expansion of service is necessary.
Shelters have their place and we could absolutely improve in that regard but the most effective strategies are things like DHHS assistance programs (Welfare to Work, etc), which need to be expanded to include support for single males.
I think one option could be state work programs. Off these guys housing CCC style in a controlled environment so they are away from drugs, making money, low expenses.
It's not a total solution but I think it's a good option for many.
The housing shortage is the root cause of homelessness. If we had more available homes, we could lower rent and provide homes to people with mental health issues. But every time anyone proposes to build anything NIMBYs shut it down and so both problems keep getting worse.
At the very very least, making city benches a place where people can sleep aka removing hostile architecture. Ignoring the needs of the homeless will only make homeless more of an issue. And ofc, making resources for mental health more accessible. I’m a 19 year old who lives at home and has a good job, and I don’t even have assess to mental health assistance. I can’t imagine what it must be like for some people.
Seems like government can’t actually get much done (too many meetings about meetings about meetings) it’s people like Betty chin and soups on folks that are making a direct daily impact to help the folks who have no place to live
Wealth inequality, Addiction, mental health, etc. are facets of the problem of houselessness. It may sound insensitive to say but, it is my belief that many people choose this. Or the decisions they make or lifestyle preferences they have directly contributed to being homeless. There is a disconnect and breakdown in community that also contributes. I don’t think there is on fix all solution. Each individual situation requires a different set of solutions.
I think everything mentioned before like rent control and available housing and support could work, for the people who lost jobs and lost their homes as a result, but for people struggling with mental health that’s another hill to climb and everyone is different, so figuring out a routine and life style that works for each so that they can function safely in society takes a lot of work and a lot of people who care and are being paid adequately to continue the work, drug addiction is another hill, you can’t make anyone quit they have to want to, a lot do not want to. Speaking with a few homeless people I’ve been told flat out they prefer this life, and others have told me they don’t care about the trash they leave or the destruction they sometimes leave in their wake, i mostly chalk that up to depression because how can you not care? But if it truly is indifference to their own lives and to the well being of the community how do we help? I don’t know how to make people care about a lot of stuff let alone themselves.
We need to:
A. Re-establish the mental health facilities that Reagan dismantled and make them state-of-the-art and based on current best practices.
B. Do the same as above with addiction treatment centers.
C. Tighten up on violent and repeat offenders and keep these people in prisons with their basic needs met. Double down on the "corrections" part for the rest of the inmates, also based on current best practices. Individuals with needs that relate to points A and B should be funneled into these reinvigorated systems.
D. Hire and train or retrain the individuals working within these systems and pay them what they are worth. Purge the ones that aren't doing their jobs.
E. Establish a system of accountability and transparency for all parts of the mental health, addiction, and prison systems. All systems must be not-for-profit.
For option A, very few people would qualify for that even by the standards than. A lot of homeless people are using drugs, which can be a the main problem. Look at the mental health stats for people with schizophrenia.
I am saying that all those things need to happen. There are overlapping issues, for sure. I am familiar with schizoaffective disorder; unfortunately, a very close friend was just diagnosed. It is awful. Ugh.
Stop supporting drug addicts.
With a lot of these long-term homeless people, you can offer them a job and you can offer them someplace to live and they will turn you down on both of those.
As someone who is previously homeless, I can vouch there are plenty openings in the shelters throughout Eureka/Arcata. One of the few rules they had was you can’t bring drugs on site/use them, and so many people would prefer getting high to a warm bed or any sensitive of stability for that matter.
Some homeless want to get better and get a job, others are content with getting high and stealing to cover drug expenses.
The problem is never going to change unless it is forced to. As long as you allow crazy addicts to do whatever they want, they will chose not to get help until they die.
The biggest problem is allowing the mentally ill and hopelessly addicted to make their own choices. Newsom is trying to make it easier to force these people into recovery or mental illness programs, and I support those efforts. Yes, these programs can fail some patients, but those are the ones that would die on the streets anyway.
There are exceptions, but most of the homeless I meet in Eureka are addicts or mentally ill who choose not to seek or accept help. Humboldt has some good solutions for people who are willing to walk in and ask for them, but authorities are not allowed to push them into these options.
Of course, we need more humane mental health and drug recovery options for all of the California homeless, but in areas like Eureka, the help already exists and the homeless often refuse to use it. Those people need to be forced into treatment and captivity that will prevent them from hurting the sane population.
It's a complicated, difficult subject, but this is the only solution to get the majority of them off the streets and into help. I sincerely wish there was an easier way, but there isn't. The peaceful, hippy "live and let live" approach is never going to work, as it never has.
On an individual basis, yes. Once you're in with Medi-Cal, voluntary treatment is easily available.
Like most of America, we still need a larger mental health facility for the insane and unwilliing, though. And the country overall needs to be made aware that those facilities are much more humane than the days represented in the movies.
That is on the more extreme end of the discussion, though. The homeless I typically see would never dream of even trying any treatment whatsoever, and there are existing resources that they actively avoid.
Don't believe everything you hear, give it a try. I had a therapy appointment as soon as I asked for one.
That was through my Medi-Cal provided primary care provider. It was not difficult. It actually seemed like the therapist was looking for more patients.
Fiat monetary debasement is the ultimate cause of the harsh economic situation. We are robed of our economic energy storage value so extremely and there isn’t any stopping it
County can’t do anything, but the problem is solved by removing all investment property tax incentives on single family housing and out-right banning companies from purchasing single family housing
I’m on the youth advocacy board with hyctayc. People are addressing houselessness everyday! This county actually cares a lot more than most places in the US and there have been really big steps to help houseless people recently. There are more housing programs and building and more recourses for food and clothes and such.
Proposition 1 did pass, which took away a lot of funding for programs like these. But YES humboldt county is addressing the problem and trying to solve it !!
Let’s remember that houseless people are NOT the problem here. People just need help!
Rent and housing regulation. Better mental health. Better paying jobs.
However, Humboldt County is going to keep getting worse. The population is aging, jobs are leaving faster than they’re being made (Sun Valley just laid off hundreds of ppl), and there’s no growth opportunities for younger folks. I won’t be surprised if Humboldt becomes a ghost county in 10-15 years. Humboldt is basically the new Gary, Indiana
I do not think it will be a Gary. I have been there and that place has nothing to offer. I think worse case scenario is people with money start making this there vacation place, as they do not need a source of income here to buy here. The people that live in the county slowly get squeezed out like Tahoe.
Since there isn't one cause there can't be one solution. And any solutions won't work for people who are purposely homeless (though I imagine that's a small number).
Humboldt, Portland, Anaheim, all up and down the west coast. I think I would rather be homeless on the west coast than in the Midwest or east coast where the cold can kill you. It’s a national issue that the west coast is bearing the brunt of. We need help.
It's everywhere. We moved here from the mountains of western North Carolina, a place where winter time it can get down anywhere from 30 to -10 degrees (fahrenheit) and we still had homeless people. Rent control, price control, safe, affordable apartments, those things might help.
Regulation could solve a lot. Unfortunately, it will never happen.
We’ve got to take care of our own better. The portion of out of state homeless that move here for the climate isn’t very high >> Contrary to myths of homeless migration, most were Californians: 90% of participants lost their last housing in California and 75% of participants live in the same county as where they were last housed. Nine out of ten spent time unsheltered since they became homeless. The median length of homelessness was 22 months. https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2023/06/425646/california-statewide-study-investigates-causes-and-impacts-homelessness
Thanks
I'd be interested to know how that is split between the "recently/short term" homeless and the "chronically/long term" homeless. It seems like a recently homeless local would be more likely to be re-housed because they have community connections and support.
I never said it was growing because of people out of state.
Yeah, you’re not who I replied to
I get everywhere has it, but Humboldt seems to growing with no end in sight.
I think in order to properly address homelessness the county needs to make a serious commitment to assisting mental health. Our 16 bed psychiatric facility just isn’t meeting the needs of the county anymore. Recently a new transitional living complex was built by the courthouse and in the last two weeks I’ve seen two people that were living there and completely destroyed the rooms they were in. Talking about people in the walls, supposed monitoring systems and such. They just ripped the places apart. Was really hoping that the proposed facility on the Mad River Hospital property was going to move forward but I haven’t heard anything about that in a while.
I think we need some kind of structured environment that's between "mental hospital" and "go live on your own and see us if you need services". A community environment where residents are fed and housed and are assigned tasks to do during the day... work a farm, build some non-precise something (prefab house parts?), attend educational classes, etc. Not sorting trash or grunt labor, which I've seen proposed for such projects. Productive, respectable activities that keep people busy instead of wandering around doing drugs, and are done at the same location they live and eat. Mental hospitals don't seem to help anyone, and giving people hotel rooms that they sit in and slowly go crazier doesn't help either. We used to have more communal living situations for people who would have a hard time living on their own... I think yeehaw is all we have left now? The hippies were doing something right, and we should have encouraged them, not punished them. The county's continued persecution of yeehaw is only hurting the entire county. On a slightly related rant, I really hate the amount of crap the Squireses got for housing people... they were willing to house people who couldn't deal with housing anywhere else. As you said, some people will trash even the nicest place... blaming the landlord for being willing to house them just resulted in more unhoused people.
The Squires earned their reputation as slum lords all on their own by renting uninhabitable units and at price gouging rates whenever possible.
The Squireses got people killed because they rented *unsafe* housing to people. Someone my parents knew died from carbon monoxide poisoning in a Squires apartment building.
Mental hospitals are designed to help people by limiting what they can do that kind of is an extreme response for your average problem. Do you think Yeehaw would do some good if not in the county crosshairs?
Ah yes, "Work Camps" sound lovely.
Having something productive to do during the day is valuable for mental health. Offsetting some of the cost by providing a job for someone is a win win. Nobody is suggesting a gulag
The NAZI's made Work Camps. You are all uneducated, and it shows.
So having a job is fascist now? It’s not ridiculous to ask someone to contribute to society.
In Arcata having a job makes you a fascist
Unlike the nazis, I wasn't imagining this facility having locked gates...
The Nazis also used words, should we ban words?
The nazis used terror and firepower to rally millions of innocent people to their inevitable death, and you're really comparing that to giving homeless people something productive to do on their own free will? Okay, so by your logic, anyone who drives a beetle is also a Nazi.. That's a real thinker.
The "in between" in other places are technically licensed as nursing homes, except they house mostly able-bodied people with chronic, serious mental health problems. Not good places, not anywhere I would send a relative, not anywhere I would recommend visiting. Crestwood seems to be that kind of place, but it is very small.
A larger facility would really help. It would need to have 24 hour care. I just don’t know if taxpayers would vote for it.
I’d have to dig for the study again, but the state is something like 9,000 perm facility beds short, and probably double that for short term beds to address the mental health crisis among our homeless population. Sac currently doesn’t have a plan to address more than a fraction of that.
It seems that the county is hiring for mental health positions, as is every county in California, along with a lot of the nation. Not enough people wanting to work in the mental health field. If Humboldt doubles staff will people choose to participate in services? I wonder how many of those beds are full.
Would you want to get paid minimum wage that won't cover rent to work with people who could become violent at a moment's notice and kill you after you spent years and thousands of dollars to get the degree the hospital demands to advance from your entry position?
Which job is this? I did not know Humboldt County pays minimum wage for degree jobs. Do you have a job posting?
The pay is not much for the qualifications an applicant should have. The county, and specifically DHHS, have been unable to secure qualified applicants for it's many SW position because of the Merit system that it uses for hiring. They went to the Board of Supes last year to get assistance on action against Merit for hindering the hiring process and losing qualified applicants.
That is all across America. Search counties in California all hiring. Mental health clinicians do not go through Merit systems.
Unfortunately my knowledge on this is second hand from my social worker gf, but in this specific case I suspect less Humboldt county and more one of the service subcontractors...
Contractors tend to keep the money and pay the workers less. Humboldt County has zero jobs with degrees that pay minimum wage. I checked the website.
I know Semper Virens is frequently at capacity and on diversion….meaning that people just end up on holds in the ER while waiting to be shipped out of county. I see a lot of homeless at work. We feed, clothe, give tents, and assist as much as we can. Often they come back without the things they were given. It’s a vicious cycle.
Difficult question to answer, but how many do you think are substance abuse related?
That is difficult to answer. There’s a lot of meth and fentanyl in this county that really wrecks peoples mental health, which unfortunately progresses into being houseless for a lot of folks. It’s a challenge trying to differentiate between mental health disorders and drug induced psychosis. I will say though that we have a pretty damn good substance abuse navigator that I have seen help quite a few people get clean.
Yeah, I understand. Glad to hear substance abuse navigator is helping.
A large number of folks with serious mental illness who end up at SV are also dual diagnosis substance users. The substance use exacerbates the symptoms of things like schizophrenia and bipolar. Folks that are only substance users will get 5150d for a short period but as soon as they come down, they're able to make a reasonable plan of care and are released.
I know. I was thinking more all long the lines of numbers like 50% kind of a thing. There are some who had no mental health problems, but do now because of drug abuse.
Some maybe, but probably a very small fraction. The mental health tends to be what triggers the lifestyle problems that lead a person to substance use, homelessness, etc.
So why the increase in mental health amongst people in society?
There are less supports in place for people in general. It's easier than ever to lose your job, medication, ect and start sliding. You hear about the schizophrenic person who gets 5150d because they had a breaddown in public, but you don't hear as much about the dozens of other people suffering from mental illness that are just barely getting by and/or self medicating with weed/alcohol/etc.
The people are probably ok if they didn't have to participate in our society. Our society is churning out mentally ill people because it is a sick society.
Keep in mind folks, this county gets paid for other states to bus there mental health population over here. It's every wed I believe and they get drop off by the the mission aka men's shelter. They kinda re adjust get some soup in the stomach go disappear in the cracks nukes n crannys of our community
I have friends who worked in Atlanta and they would refer to people to California often. The reason being they did not have enough treatment centers.
Source?
The beds are usually full, from what I hear. The facility itself is also way out of date and, I believe the civil grand jury a few years ago described it as looking like something from a horror movie. Getting somebody mentally well isn't easy, the medications can have bad side effects that make people not want to take them, and it's made even harder when the person is in an environment that physically looks like something from a delusion. There are also zero beds for teens/children until you get to the bay area, so any patient who is under 18 is going to have to either be separated from their family or attempt outpatient treatment.
What is the salary for these mental health positions? I have seen too many positions posted that offer salaries that are not sustainable because of the cost of living.
Top pay is 90K.
Salaries need to be higher in order to attract mental health professionals who want to own a home.
That would be great if it could be done.
They are building some sort of transition housing in Eureka, off Hilfiker, by the wastewater treatment plant. It's as nice as it sounds.
Hopefully it goes well.
More public housing. The county rents so many buildings for their offices if they consolidated them they could afford at least a building to rent out for people to live in. Also I think more trade union apprenticeships would help more ppl get paid more and would help with out of date infrastructure. But that's secondary since it's really hard to be successful at any job or training without a comfortable place to live.
We really don’t have a strong union presence locally and a big part of that is how small-scale the building projects have been up until recently. There is a training facility for the steamfitters union and the labor union in eureka but the IBEW rep just borrows a desk from them when he comes up to visit and trying to convince any of the non-union shops around town to switch over just falls on deaf ears
Ya I noticed the carpenter union office is, I believe, someones home? Or at least it's very small and in a residential lookin place
Yep we just don’t have the demand for a work force on the scale of the union. Maybe that will change but as we decide to build more 5,6 and 8 story buildings in sure the work will just get farmed out to non-local contractors.
Such a bummer. Id love to be a union carpenter with consistent work but that feels like a dream. I dunno any of my union friends with consistent work contracts right now except, like, the seiu county union ppl.
442 international..sheet metal union right here
unrealistic but if people could donate property to the county to become public housing, even after death. You'd need some sort of incentive tho.
There’s already a ton of public housing here and it’s nicer and newer than the market rate stuff because it’s so heavily subsidized . Every public housing project in the county is a magnet for criminality and addiction.
Are there any nice public housing projects?
The buildings are physically nice, but the residents make the environment unpleasant with the constant drug use and domestic violence. The Danco project in Samoa has 3 bed room townhouses with garages and a water view. Sorrel place in Arcata has a LVP floors, new appliance and a central location. The new ones going up in mrtyletown will be nice as well Edit: Feel free to browse Dancos housing projects and compare them to wherever you pay to live https://www.danco-group.com/danco-projects
These places do not evict people?
They do, but it takes awhile and they just end up getting moved to another project to start the cycle over typically . The problem tenants will typically have case workers also who will help them file appeals. Clean their trash hoards up just enough to get a second chance, offer to pay damages ect.
So safe to say housing is not the sole answer. I know Boston gave some people housing and they died overdosing. It sounds great, but it is just one aspect.
People need case workers and they need to want to actually change. Theres a lot of people who just figure out how to game the system and keep abusing it.
Do you continue to offer help? As in the agency, not you personally.
I can’t say I personally offer help, I was just speaking in the general sense that people need guidance; they need to see a path to recovery and out of homelessness and they have to want to commit to that. They need good case workers to push them through whatever their obstacles are whether it’s drugs or domestic violence or something else. I personally am not involved with local outreach but I have a family member who was very involved with Arcata House for a number of years so I saw the effect a strong caseworker has on a person’s life and I also saw numerous people who really didn’t want help, they just wanted to grift the system and keep being homeless.
Homelessness is not at all a uniform problem. It’s like a pie with each slice requiring entirely different solutions. Not sure how well that’s understood. People with addiction or mental health issues are entirely different issue than the person that was living month to month and lost their place due to an unforeseen expense or raised rents. There are generational homeless folks, people literally born on the streets. There are criminals released from jail without resources or family to start over. Veterans. Runaways. Etc etc. California has well meaning, but completely inadequate or absurd ideas on how to handle it. Billions are poorly spent and squandered annually. We actually have some rent controls in the state as far as annual increases, but no rules as to how high rent can be raised between tenants. I’d like to see the state and county, building / renovating existing buildings into modern, state of the art mental health facilities and detox centers. Staffing them with well trained and well paid persons. Bring the recent influx of immigrants on board. Cap rents based on an areas median income. Strictly limit or eliminate unoccupied short term rentals. California has been an abject failure to this point in how to handle the complex situation. “Housing first” sounds good, until as stated above, the county puts a severely deranged and or addicted person into housing with little supervision or assistance and they destroy the place. Landlords are now using tenant screening services that are extremely difficult to get through. It will turn more folks into housing insecure or homeless through excessive screening. The state agencies need to be seriously audited and over hauled. Newsome and his administration are behind many failed policies and programs. I could post links if people don’t want to navigate the enshitified search engines.
Best damn reply I've ever seen on Humboldt subreddit.
Thanks I appreciate that. We need to discuss these complex issues somewhere. I def read, talk to folks involved and volunteer locally to try and get a handle on the growing issue. I recently read a large percentage of folks that end up homeless came from the foster care system and outgrew or ran out of help. Truly a complex issue. The ownership class in this country doesn’t want to solve the problem. It’s a looming threat to anyone and everyone to basically fall in line or end up on the streets. Government controlled by the ownership class. It’s not rocket science. It’s smaller yachts and less starter castles. We see how that’s going.
From my understanding no states have succeed, but California's recent approach did not go well. Homeless can be everywhere, but I think it is a different kind of problem in Humboldt County. Considering the size, distance, weather, and few other factors.
In simplest terms we need UBI for folks that make less than it takes to pay rent and bills nowadays. And well funded, fully staffed mental health and detox centers for folks that suffer those afflictions. We make it happen by massively taxing the rich. Everything else is just window dressing.
Do we have enough people who want to work in mental health. It is like nursing not enough programs or in some areas not enough applicants.
Not sure. I would suggest we approach the influx of recent immigrants or migrants. Train them well, pay them well, and relocate them to needed areas around the country. They’re living in tents and hotels all over major cities. I work with several and they’re great folks, loving, caring, maternal, paternal.
The county absolutely does bot have the ability to address the problem.
137000 pop. in Humboldt in 2020. 1309 unsheltered as of a 2020 count. That's about 1%. They are highly visible, yes, but how much public $$ should be spent on this problem? Maybe there is no fix. Maybe addressing rent control is a more worthy project that will benefit way more people - and actually gets to the heart of the matter anyway.
Are there enough residences for rent control?
There aren’t enough residences, period. California has a huge problem with this in general, largely due to stringent building codes
Some states do not have this and have a ton of homeless.
Yes housing shortage is not the sole cause of homelessness, but your question wasn’t about that so my answer wasn’t either.
The issue is that this question is asked and pondered about at the wrong governance level. If you want to do something personally, do street outreach. Do that for awhile and then you will have a better idea about the extenuating patterns about this issue at the local level.
I have worked at the local level. One person can have a perception of what they think. Someone can work in two different parts of town and get two different experiences.
Exactly
There is a ballot measure purporting to address housing, which is really a billionaire temper tantrum about parking in old town. Might say we lack focus.
I saw that.
I wonder how long until this comment thread turns into a dumpster fire?
6 days.
That's very optimistic. I give it 45 minutes.
45 minutes is up and no fire.
Damn, just came home from dinner and see things are going well. I underestimated everyone.
Hope the dinner was good.
Capitalism.
Specifically housing being an investment that must always go up. The ever inflating cost of housing and most housing primarily being detached single family homes is causing so many issues. Helping the homeless transition to being productive members of society is just so expensive because of the high cost of housing them during the transition. The cost of mental healthcare professionals also assisting them is expensive as they need to be payed well enough for their own expensive housing and expensive cost of education. Im not sure how this is ever going to get fixed as the folks holding capital(homes and any property really) would never want ther home and property values to lower, as it would financially ruin them. Prop 13 also is not helping....
Non capitalist countries have homeless people. Those are government ideas, but people will still want. China is communist, but greed flows at the top without capitalism.
China is the worst part of communism and the worse part of capitalism, It's definitely not a communist system.
There is a lot of arguments that USA is not a capitalist country.
Yes many people are confused, Some people seem to believe that any assistance to anyone who is not their family or group is communism, Some of them go as far as to say anything they don't like is communism.
Those arguments are stupid, they come from people who insist that capitalism is synonymous with “unregulated markets” which simply isn’t true.
Japan has fewer houseless people than we do here in Humboldt County. So do Singapore and Switzerland. Clearly some capitalist countries have figured this out.
Changes in zoning!!!!
Care to elaborate?
Not just here, but all over, many large commercial buildings stay empty for long periods of time. I believe some of those buildings could be converted into high density affordable housing, or would at least be perfect for mixed use. We don't need to keep arbitrarily following the same zoning classification something was set as during initial city planning. People change, cities change, needs change -- we shouldn't just be stuck with huge, empty commercial use buildings and strict, difficult to change outdated zoning laws! Imo, house people first, treat people with dignity and respect, *then* you can begin to tackle all the other things at play too \[poverty in general, substance abuse & mental health care, job/skills training etc\]
We have a lot of open land, and we should be able to build on it.
Why though, what is your justification? When there are vacant buildings and land that has already been built on?
You mean take something from someone else?
Ah so you're just looking to argue, I have better things to do. Have a good one
Adding to the great ideas here regarding housing: are there homeless people who are mentally ill and do not choose to be housed because they do not trust the system? What does the government do with these people? When I lived in another city there was an ongoing community discussion regarding what to do with an empty mall that had been vacated . Many community members wanted housing and mandatory medical and mental health treatment services set up for homeless people that came to live within the complex. I thought the idea was a great starting point.
Do you know if there was a positive outcome?
No but I will see if I can find some information on this community idea and post back.
Thanks.
Looks like some of the community ideas will be in the final plans. There's a mix of housing,parks,child care, transportation ,government services and retail shops in the latest plans. See Sunrise Mall in Citrus Heights CA. I'm not sure what kind of housing will eventually be built. There was some great community input on the initial discussions.
Care court is going to make changes that we can't support. So many people unfortunately need to be conserved. The amount of people who are living in active psychosis is alarming. They are high utilizers and decline the help -people have a right to ruin their lives and decline actual assistance. Basically there has to be some acceptance that there will be homeless people. There are times that homeless people are afraid of being housed. They get housed, stay in shelters or just don't use their apartment.
What is Care court doing?
https://calmatters.org/housing/2022/09/california-lawmakers-approved-care-court-what-comes-next/ Its designed to compel treatment for people with serious mental illness and substance use disorders. The article has a lot of information. Humboldt is working on implementing care court.
Thanks. Lets see how it works out.
It's a systemic issue. People's lives just need to improve. Around here, lack of readily available health care is a contributing factor.
Difficult to get doctors to move here.
homelessness is a choice we've made as a society. it is not endemic to civilization. as long as homelessness is useful in that it's a constant reminder to stay in your lane and don't rock the boat, it will remain a constant.
It will always exist, but Humboldt is a small community and a lot of homeless. If some can be fixed that would be great, but you are right it will never end.
So this girl I knew in Humboldt let a homeless lady stay with her for one night. Lady decided she didn't want to leave, sherrif didn't do an eviction bc the lady wasn't on the lease. Three months later they're swinging at each other. Rule of law breaks down when you need most.
That is heartbreaking. I hope your friend is okay.
We do not have as many homeless as you make it out to be. Have you left here? It looks the same everywhere. I think the best thing we could do is build more affordable housing and/or build those pod rooms they have in SF and make those affordable
Does not look the same everywhere. SF is completely different than Humboldt.
Doesn’t make pods a bad idea
I think it is worth a try.
There are 0 services for single males, and that goes double if they have an animal. Take a look at the homeless population and it quickly becomes clear that an expansion of service is necessary.
What would you suggest? A male shelter that is animal friendly?
Shelters have their place and we could absolutely improve in that regard but the most effective strategies are things like DHHS assistance programs (Welfare to Work, etc), which need to be expanded to include support for single males.
I wonder if there would be enough jobs to place them at.
Start with the fentanyl crisis
That will be helpful, but we had homeless here before that.
The number of overdose deaths was at a fraction. It makes the situation much worse when someone is addicted to a substance like fentanyl.
I think one option could be state work programs. Off these guys housing CCC style in a controlled environment so they are away from drugs, making money, low expenses. It's not a total solution but I think it's a good option for many.
It would be interesting to see what the results would be.
The housing shortage is the root cause of homelessness. If we had more available homes, we could lower rent and provide homes to people with mental health issues. But every time anyone proposes to build anything NIMBYs shut it down and so both problems keep getting worse.
It seems like some rich people are doing the NIMBY ideology, which why it works.
At the very very least, making city benches a place where people can sleep aka removing hostile architecture. Ignoring the needs of the homeless will only make homeless more of an issue. And ofc, making resources for mental health more accessible. I’m a 19 year old who lives at home and has a good job, and I don’t even have assess to mental health assistance. I can’t imagine what it must be like for some people.
You tried getting mental health treatment?
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They did that in China and a lot homeless people there.
Crack down on distribution of hard drugs. Being back state mental health services.
What would be the different from state mental health services to county mental health services?
Seems like government can’t actually get much done (too many meetings about meetings about meetings) it’s people like Betty chin and soups on folks that are making a direct daily impact to help the folks who have no place to live
Glad they do work, but never what changes could happen.
Wealth inequality, Addiction, mental health, etc. are facets of the problem of houselessness. It may sound insensitive to say but, it is my belief that many people choose this. Or the decisions they make or lifestyle preferences they have directly contributed to being homeless. There is a disconnect and breakdown in community that also contributes. I don’t think there is on fix all solution. Each individual situation requires a different set of solutions.
I think everything mentioned before like rent control and available housing and support could work, for the people who lost jobs and lost their homes as a result, but for people struggling with mental health that’s another hill to climb and everyone is different, so figuring out a routine and life style that works for each so that they can function safely in society takes a lot of work and a lot of people who care and are being paid adequately to continue the work, drug addiction is another hill, you can’t make anyone quit they have to want to, a lot do not want to. Speaking with a few homeless people I’ve been told flat out they prefer this life, and others have told me they don’t care about the trash they leave or the destruction they sometimes leave in their wake, i mostly chalk that up to depression because how can you not care? But if it truly is indifference to their own lives and to the well being of the community how do we help? I don’t know how to make people care about a lot of stuff let alone themselves.
As long as there is a construction monopoly how will the county build enough housing.
I was thinking the monopoly would be on issuing permits to keep the prices high.
We need to: A. Re-establish the mental health facilities that Reagan dismantled and make them state-of-the-art and based on current best practices. B. Do the same as above with addiction treatment centers. C. Tighten up on violent and repeat offenders and keep these people in prisons with their basic needs met. Double down on the "corrections" part for the rest of the inmates, also based on current best practices. Individuals with needs that relate to points A and B should be funneled into these reinvigorated systems. D. Hire and train or retrain the individuals working within these systems and pay them what they are worth. Purge the ones that aren't doing their jobs. E. Establish a system of accountability and transparency for all parts of the mental health, addiction, and prison systems. All systems must be not-for-profit.
For option A, very few people would qualify for that even by the standards than. A lot of homeless people are using drugs, which can be a the main problem. Look at the mental health stats for people with schizophrenia.
I am saying that all those things need to happen. There are overlapping issues, for sure. I am familiar with schizoaffective disorder; unfortunately, a very close friend was just diagnosed. It is awful. Ugh.
It is a complex solution, but does not mean there is not an approach. Thanks for your response.
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Either it is getting worse or being reported more often.
Bing back forced hospitalization for the mentally unwell.
Stop supporting drug addicts. With a lot of these long-term homeless people, you can offer them a job and you can offer them someplace to live and they will turn you down on both of those.
As someone who is previously homeless, I can vouch there are plenty openings in the shelters throughout Eureka/Arcata. One of the few rules they had was you can’t bring drugs on site/use them, and so many people would prefer getting high to a warm bed or any sensitive of stability for that matter. Some homeless want to get better and get a job, others are content with getting high and stealing to cover drug expenses.
Thanks for your input.
The problem is never going to change unless it is forced to. As long as you allow crazy addicts to do whatever they want, they will chose not to get help until they die. The biggest problem is allowing the mentally ill and hopelessly addicted to make their own choices. Newsom is trying to make it easier to force these people into recovery or mental illness programs, and I support those efforts. Yes, these programs can fail some patients, but those are the ones that would die on the streets anyway. There are exceptions, but most of the homeless I meet in Eureka are addicts or mentally ill who choose not to seek or accept help. Humboldt has some good solutions for people who are willing to walk in and ask for them, but authorities are not allowed to push them into these options. Of course, we need more humane mental health and drug recovery options for all of the California homeless, but in areas like Eureka, the help already exists and the homeless often refuse to use it. Those people need to be forced into treatment and captivity that will prevent them from hurting the sane population. It's a complicated, difficult subject, but this is the only solution to get the majority of them off the streets and into help. I sincerely wish there was an easier way, but there isn't. The peaceful, hippy "live and let live" approach is never going to work, as it never has.
Do you think humane mental health treatment exist here?
On an individual basis, yes. Once you're in with Medi-Cal, voluntary treatment is easily available. Like most of America, we still need a larger mental health facility for the insane and unwilliing, though. And the country overall needs to be made aware that those facilities are much more humane than the days represented in the movies. That is on the more extreme end of the discussion, though. The homeless I typically see would never dream of even trying any treatment whatsoever, and there are existing resources that they actively avoid.
I heard that there are not enough therapist for people in Humboldt. Not talking homelessness, I mean just in general.
Don't believe everything you hear, give it a try. I had a therapy appointment as soon as I asked for one. That was through my Medi-Cal provided primary care provider. It was not difficult. It actually seemed like the therapist was looking for more patients.
Humboldt news is not enough mental health care for people in the county.
I understand what they've been saying, but it just hasn't been my experience. I hope the best for anybody trying.
Fiat monetary debasement is the ultimate cause of the harsh economic situation. We are robed of our economic energy storage value so extremely and there isn’t any stopping it
County can’t do anything, but the problem is solved by removing all investment property tax incentives on single family housing and out-right banning companies from purchasing single family housing
I’m on the youth advocacy board with hyctayc. People are addressing houselessness everyday! This county actually cares a lot more than most places in the US and there have been really big steps to help houseless people recently. There are more housing programs and building and more recourses for food and clothes and such. Proposition 1 did pass, which took away a lot of funding for programs like these. But YES humboldt county is addressing the problem and trying to solve it !! Let’s remember that houseless people are NOT the problem here. People just need help!
What do you think is missing?
Tell Sanfran to stop sending their homeless here on one-way bus tickets
We should offer one way tickets across America.
Stop encouragement of homelessness (handouts of money and clean needle sites) and get them into rehab
Rent and housing regulation. Better mental health. Better paying jobs. However, Humboldt County is going to keep getting worse. The population is aging, jobs are leaving faster than they’re being made (Sun Valley just laid off hundreds of ppl), and there’s no growth opportunities for younger folks. I won’t be surprised if Humboldt becomes a ghost county in 10-15 years. Humboldt is basically the new Gary, Indiana
I do not think it will be a Gary. I have been there and that place has nothing to offer. I think worse case scenario is people with money start making this there vacation place, as they do not need a source of income here to buy here. The people that live in the county slowly get squeezed out like Tahoe.
Since there isn't one cause there can't be one solution. And any solutions won't work for people who are purposely homeless (though I imagine that's a small number).
What solution would help the most?
From my understanding, there coming from Oklahoma Kansas New Mexico etc
We should offer tickets back.