$3M In State Homeless Funding Withheld From Marin

BY ELI WALSH

MARIN COUNTY, CA — Marin County was set to receive roughly $3 million from the state to reduce homelessness before Gov. Gavin Newsom's recent pause on funding, county officials said Tuesday.

About half of the $2.99 million in funding would have supported the county's street outreach and family case management while the other half would support the expansion of so-called permanent supportive housing, which often includes onsite access to social services.

According to Gary Naja-Riese, the director for homelessness within the county's Health and Human Services Department, the county has already received roughly 25 percent of the overall funding and has already allocated it toward outreach to unsheltered residents.

"What we're trying to do is turn the curve on that increase in homelessness that we saw during the pandemic and return to pre-pandemic numbers, which represents approximately a 15 percent decrease in unsheltered homelessness," Naja-Riese said during Tuesday's meeting of the county Board of Supervisors.

Newsom announced on Nov. 3 that the state would pause the dispersal of $1 billion in Homelessness, Housing Assistance and Prevention grants until the state's local governments review and develop new plans to more aggressively reduce homelessness.

The current plans submitted by every county in the state and 13 of its largest cities under the grant program would only reduce homelessness by 2 percent by 2024, Newsom said, a rate he called "simply unacceptable."

The state has provided more than $1.5 billion in HHAP grants across the program's first two rounds of funding, dispersing the money based on state-approved, three-year plans submitted by each jurisdiction that effectively reduces the number of unsheltered residents and increases the stock of permanent housing units

Newsom is expected to meet with local government leaders on Friday regarding the state's approach to reducing homelessness.

Marin County's point-in-time homelessness count - a one-night census of the county's population of sheltered and unsheltered homeless residents - determined that the local homeless population grew by 8 percent between the previous count in 2019 and 2022 and now totals 1,121 residents.

The county's submitted homelessness reduction plan includes goals of reducing the county's population of unsheltered homeless residents by 122, or 15 percent, by the next point-in-time count in January 2024.

The county also aims to reduce the number of people becoming homeless for the first time by 212, or 20 percent, by June 2025.

"As a community, we really need to do all we can to create more affordable housing, preserve the affordable housing we have," Board Chair Katie Rice said. "It's absolutely critical we do that work."

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