Manhattan Beach’s homelessness efforts bear fruit
Members of the Homelessness Task Force were recognized last month. Top row, Councilmember Steve Napolitano, Mayor Pro Tem Richard Montgomery, senior analyst George Gabriel, Diane Wallace, Councilmember Suzanne Hadley, and Kelly Stroman. Bottom row, Mayor Nancy Hersman, Gita O’Neil, Lucia La Rosa Ames, Barbara Kubo, and Councilmember Hildy Stern. Task Force members not pictured: Lee Bar, Lee Phillips, Michael Solis, Ken Deemer, and Chris Davis. Photo courtesy City of Manhattan Beach
The City of Manhattan Beach last month disbanded its Homelessness Task Force, not for lack of effectiveness, or because the problem the citizen advisory group was formed to address was solved. The task force had simply served its purpose: helping the city begin to tackle the issue of homelessness locally in new and more productive ways.
Members of the task force, which was formed in September 2018 and grew from five residents to 11, were recognized at the Nov. 19 City Council meeting. Senior management analyst George Gabriel, the city’s homelessness liaison, credited the task force with helping form the city’s Homelessness Plan.
“Their efforts have been extremely fruitful, and we benefited from them as a community,” Gabriel said. “Amidst homelessness numbers increasing throughout the county, the number [of homeless people] in Manhattan Beach has decreased from 41 to 21.”
Gabriel credited the task force for helping compile a homelessness resource guide and helping with lobbying efforts that were successful in obtaining a second full-time mental health clinician from the LA County Department of Mental Health (the clinicians are shared between the three Beach Cities and El Segundo; Manhattan Beach now has one clinician ride along with police officers two days a week, doubling its former coverage). Finally, Gabriel said the $330,000 grant obtained from LA County Measure H funds to help fund the South Bay/Beach Cities Homelessness Plan was, in part, made possible because of the focus brought to bear on the issue by the task force.
“You have been instrumental, and I thank you for dealing with me,” Gabriel told the task force members. “And I think the community thanks you as well for your efforts in attending monthly meetings, staying involved and being diligent on homelessness issues.”
“I think we need to be honest,” said task force member Diane Wallace. “The success is because of George in the last year.”
Gabriel was appointed homeless liaison 18 months ago, at a time when the issue was drawing increasingly vociferous concerns in the community. The annual count conducted by volunteers with the LA Homeless Services Authority showed an increase in homelessness in Manhattan Beach from 6 in 2017 to 41 in 2018. Residents, particularly those active on NextDoor.com, were extremely concerned.
Gabriel, in an interview, said that those homeless counts, while useful, are not entirely reliable as a data set — even the 2019 count, which dropped drastically and seemed to coincide with the city’s efforts.
“I think we in the city are glad to see the count go down, especially after the large jump from 6 to 41. It was a positive,” Gabriel said. “But maybe 41 was not truly indicative of what we see on a daily basis here, so we really went down to a number that was probably more accurate. That being said, the homeless count numbers are a time and place count, and that’s fluid, because the local homeless population moves around on any given day. We are not sure how to gauge that count.”
The count, which takes place again in January, last year showed nearly 59,000 homeless people in LA County, a 12 percent increase from 2018. Gabriel does not altogether dismiss the significance of Manhattan Beach’s drop, but his emphasis is that the city finally has a strong plan in place going forward. A key to that plan is using the Measure H funds obtained from the County to contract Harbor Interfaith Services, who have a strong regional track record of successful intervention with homeless populations.
The contract, which is part of the South Bay/Beach Cities Homeless Plan, was approved by the Council in October and over the next 16 months has very specific targets HIF must reach, per its terms. Harbor Interfaith has agreed to bring at least 200 homeless people into individual case management, documented per LAHSA standards; of that number, at least 24 will be placed in interim housing, and 32 into permanent housing. At least 50 will also be referred to treatment programs.
“One of the questions we had for Harbor Interfaith was this, ‘These are the goals, will you be able to reach these?’ And they said yes,” Gabriel said.
Measure H funds will be available for the next decade, and if efforts are successful, HIF and the Beach Cities homeless plan will be able to continue. Gabriel said the idea is just to keep adding tools to local cities’ toolboxes in dealing with a problem that has no single easy solution. The combination of changes the city has made includes outlawing camping anywhere in city limits, adding more mental health outreach, creating the homelessness resource guide, and the HIF contract. The hope is also to eventually be able to retain beds in regional homeless shelters for use by the local population.
“We are trying to use everything in our tool box, whether it’s mental health services, whether its enforcement, or whether it’s community education,” Gabriel said. “It’s not one all-encompassing solution. Many solutions are needed to solve this.”
The city’s approach is in keeping with the intention of the LA County Homeless Initiative, the outgrowth of which was the $355 million a year Measure H, a sales tax approved by voters in 2017. The County hoped to foster not just one large plan, but specific plans for each city.
“We are still in the beginning phase,” Gabriel said. “We are looking at this and assessing…Manhattan Beach has not been very engaged on this topic for a long time. Redondo Beach was kind of taking the lead on it. Part of the success of the County’s plan is that they are now getting cities involved in dealing with a countywide issue. And Manhattan Beach is one of those cities which in the past was not that involved. Now we are plenty involved in this.”