By Sharan Street
Published Aug 22, 2022

Many caring hands reach out in Santa Cruz County to help the unhoused community. Image credit: Roman Bodnarchuk Shutterstock

8-22-22: Who’s Helping the Unhoused?

California Local tracks more than two dozen topics, and one of the most pressing is homelessness. Visit the Santa Cruz County Homelessness Overview page and you’ll find articles written by our media allies and a digest of stories by other news outlets. And this week you’ll also see two stories by reporter Grace Stetson, whose work has been featured in many local publications. These are her first stories for California Local, and we’re thrilled to benefit from Stetson’s expertise on issues related to homelessness.

These articles add to the work being done by journalists about homelessness in Santa Cruz County—a problem brought into focus by the preliminary release of statistics from the Point-in-Time count done in February of unhoused individuals, and also the Aug. 9 release of a report to the Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors by the county’s Human Services Department. The patient reader can survey the entire report at this link—or check out the highlights as presented by Santa Cruz Local co-founder Stephen Baxter.

Shared Problems, Separate Missions

County governments take a leading role in coping with unhoused citizens throughout California, and that’s true in Santa Cruz County as well. But the city of Santa Cruz is also deeply affected by the homelessness crisis. Though it has only 24 percent of the county’s population, more than half of the unhoused live within city limits. Reporter Grace Stetson talks to different government officials and learns that tackling homelessness is a joint effort between the county and its cities that is made more difficult without updated data.

How the City and County Work on the Homelessness Crisis

A city-sanctioned homeless encampment directly adjacent to county government offices and across the San Lorenzo River from the heart of downtown Santa Cruz.

As the population of unhoused individuals and families in Santa Cruz has exploded, officials from the City of Santa Cruz and Santa Cruz County tackle the issue.

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Helping Hands

But government isn’t enough when it comes to solving a problem with complex roots. Some of the services that are most effective at changing the lives of those on the street actually come from nonprofit and community groups. As Stetson note, “These organizations are visible countywide, from serving food daily in downtown Santa Cruz’s Clock Tower to connecting with the unhoused for mental health services in one-on-one and group settings.”

Doing the Work

Santa Cruz is lucky to have local groups that look beneath the surface of homeless encampments and find ways to help.

Experts see these organizations as the most effective at fighting homelessness.

When It Rains, Will It Pour?

California’s dry season used to be a big plus—languid days filled with sunshine for months on end. Now, caught in a megadrought that scientists now say is a decade old with no clear end in sight, every week brings more headlines about water shortages. Here are two of Jonathan Vankin’s most recent stories on the subject—including the facts behind an eddy of stories suggesting that now Californians have to start worrying about a megaflood.

Newsom’s New Drought Strategy: Create More Water

Increasing water recycling is one way to increase the state's water supply, a new report says.

Gov. Newsom's calls to reduce water consumption to combat the ongoing drought have fallen short. His new approach? Add more water to the California's supply. A new state report details how to achieve that.

California Megastorm: The Real Risk of a ‘Biblical’ Flood

J and K streets in downtown Sacramento during the Great Flood of 1862. Another great flood could be on the way.

The chances of a 'biblical' megastorm devastating California have doubled over the past century, thanks to climate change, a new study warns. And as the globe continues to warm, the possibility of disaster only gets worse.

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