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Official Count of Pasadena’s Homeless Announced Monday

Homeless numbers decrease overall, while “chronic homeless’ numbers rise

Published on Monday, April 25, 2016 | 9:23 am
 

As the number of homelessness in Los Angeles County continues to rise, the number of homeless in Pasadena has decreased for the sixth consecutive year. This year’s just-released count, presented to the Pasadena City Council Monday,  shows 532 homeless people in 2016, down from 632 last year.

In 2011,Urban Initiatives reported that the count of the homeless population in Pasadena was 1,216. In 2012 the number was  904. In 2013 it went down again to 772, and again in 2014 to 666. Last year’s report, published in April of 2015, showed that there were 582 adults and 50 children without stable residence in the Pasadena community.

This year’s count was conducted on January 27, 2016.

“The count and survey are important in the ongoing effort to end homelessness in Pasadena,” said Dr. Sofia Herrera, Associate Director of the Urban Initiatives Office in January, “because they support local grant requests submitted to the federal government for funding of local services.”

In addition to documenting the scale of homelessness, the volunteers also collected demographic information, such as age, history of mental illness or military service, in order to customize the city’s response to current needs, said Urban Initiatives’ co-founder Joe Colletti.

According to this year’s report, which was coordinated by Urban Initiatives in partnership with the City of Pasadena, the City of Pasadena Housing Department, and the Pasadena Partnership, the homeless in Pasadena have significant needs which make make them more visible to the public. Nearly half of them are chronically homeless, an increase of 14%.  These homeless may have chronic health conditions, mental illness, a history of domestic violence, and physical disabilities. In addition, 65.9 percent of the homeless are men, while 33.9 percent are woman, and 0.2 percent are transgendered.

Previously, the reports states, homeless persons in Pasadena were forced to navigate an “uncoordinated set of programs that did not not always offer permanent solutions to ending their homelessness.”

Since 2011, however, the Pasadena Partnership has concentrated on a “Housing First” Policy which, according to the report, is a “simple philosophy that offers permanent, affordable housing to homeless individuals and families.” Those involved in the program are assigned case managers who help connect them to community-based support systems with the goal of keeping them permanently housed. Unlike with many other housing programs, participants in the program are not subject to sobriety, income or treatment requirements. According to the report, over 88% of these program participants do not return to homelessness.

In fact, according to the report, had the city continued to use its previous service models for dealing with homeless, 1,543 persons would be homeless in 2016, as opposed to this year’s 530.

The Pasadena program also follows the 2010 Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness, developed by the United States Interagency Council on homelessness. The federal program has set goals in several areas—Ending veteran’s homelessness by 2015, ending chronic homelessness by 2017, ending  family homelessness by 2020, and ending unaccompanied youth homelessness by 2020.

Based on that program’s goals, Pasadena has made significant progress in ending Veteran homelessness, reducing the number from 89 to 44 since 2011. And, according to the report, “Pasadena is on track towards achieving the goal of ending family homelessness by 2020. Since 2013, there has been a significant downward trend in the number of people in homeless, accounting for a 71 percent decrease during that time.”

Pasadena is also on track to ending unaccompanied youth homelessness by 2020, with “a relatively low and stable” 36 such persons in Pasadena in 2016.

However, the report also stated that Pasadena would be unable to end the problem of “chronic homelessness” by 2017, since nearly half of the city’s homeless fall into that description. The City will continue to use its Housing First policy to deal with that issue, the report said.

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