At the June 28 San Benito County Board of Supervisors’ meeting, Jim Rydingsword, director of the San Benito County Health and Human Services Agency (HHSA), and Enrique Arreola, deputy director of the Community Action Agency, gave their regular monthly update, with a bit of a twist.
The twist being a pitch for a high tech recycle center, along with a housing plan, that they say may just help reduce the number of homeless in the county.
“One of the things we did earlier this year was to begin to talk about a community collaborative,” Rydingsword began. “I’m dealing with issues around low-income folks and homeless individuals in the community. We know that lives are impacted a lot by social and economic conditions, and the best way for us to address those individually or as a community, is to look at them in a ‘whole person’ concept.”
Rydingsword said there is a growing interest at all levels of government to improve the coordination of social services, behavioral health, and public health and safety to work more efficiently with community partners who are also willing to step forward to work with county entities on issues facing the homeless and low-income families.
“We’ve talked to you before about housing first—a National Alliance to End Homelessness homeless assistance approach that prioritizes providing people experiencing homelessness with permanent housing as quickly as possible, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness—and that seems to be the model that is having the most success across the country,” he said. “Utah adopted a housing first strategy a couple years ago and, according to reports, have reduced their homeless population by 94 percent.”
To continue reading this very interesting article by John Chadwell, go to: http://benitolink.com/monthly-...ech-recycling-center
Comments (0)