XPost: oc.general, ca.politics, sac.politics
XPost: alt.politics.democrats, alt.politics.homosexuality, alt.society.mental-health
From:
leroysoetoro@barackobama.com
https://www.ocregister.com/2019/10/07/orange-countys-mentally-ill- homeless-population-is-way-out-of-proportion-says-ex-mayor-of-lake-forest/
Did neglect on behalf of local public officials lead to an outsized
increase in the number of severely mentally ill homeless people living on
the streets of Orange County?
That’s what James Gardner, the ex-mayor of Lake Forest and a retired
clinical psychologist, contends based on research he plans to present to
the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, Oct. 8.
Gardner’s study of the recent Point In Time homeless count highlights
figures that indicate the number of homeless mentally ill people in Orange County more than tripled between 2017 and 2019.
But Susan Price, the director of care coordination for Orange County and
the point person on addressing homelessness, reiterated in a phone
interview Monday that the numbers reported in earlier Point In Time counts
were extrapolations and are not as accurate as the on-the-street
interviews undertaken for the 2019 count.
“I don’t think there is any meaning trying to compare prior results to
2019,” Price said. “It is the best data we have on the homeless count.”
The Point In Time homeless count is required by the federal Dept. of
Housing and Urban Development at least every two years.
Gardner shared the first of what he says will be a five-part report,
“Homeless and Mentally Ill in Orange County – 2019,” that he spent eight
months researching. He pored over figures from the local Point In Time
count and those from other counties around the state.
Gardner’s 40-page analysis includes a chart that shows fewer than 500
homeless people, in each of three previous Point In Time surveys from
2013, 2015 and 2017, said they were dealing with a mental health issue. In 2019, the number jumps to 1,600.
And from 2017 to 2019, Orange County also represented the highest increase
in the percentage of homeless people reporting mental illness among all counties in California, “an incredible 133%,” said Gardner.
“No other county recorded a similar change, and, in fact, most counties experienced a decrease,” Gardner wrote in an email he sent on Sept. 17 to Orange County executive officer Frank Kim.
Gardner calls his findings “remarkable and disturbing” and argues that differing methodology from past years, or varying from county to county, doesn’t account for the striking change.
Instead, he said, it’s dollars and cents.
Gardner blames the county’s history of not spending state money available through the Mental Health Services Act that California voters approved in
2004. For several years, Orange County had been criticized by homeless advocates for holding that money in reserve, and in 2018 the federal judge
in the homeless civil rights lawsuit raised his concern, spurring the
county spending that is now underway.
“Why are we increasing so much? Because everybody else is spending more,” Gardner said, adding that the tumult in removing more than 700 people from
tent encampments at the Santa Ana River Trail in early 2018 was another contributing factor.
“That was unique to us, that craziness there,” he said of the riverbed
upheaval that had the county temporarily placing homeless people in
motels, including those whose mental health issues continued to be
inadequately addressed under county supervision.
Gardner served on the Lake Forest City Council from 2014 to 2018, and was
mayor in April 2018 when a group of south Orange County mayors
unsuccessfully proposed locating an emergency homeless shelter in
Silverado Canyon. Gardner opposed the site for being too far from
services.
Last year, after U.S. District Judge David O. Carter chastised county
officials for socking away tens of millions in unspent Mental Health
Services Act dollars, the Board of Supervisors publicly acknowledged their failure but said they had been misled by county staff on available
resources. News accounts of more than $200 million in untouched money,
however, dated back to 2015.
A state audit in February 2018 found that many counties in California had
not spent those mental health dollars, but that Orange County was sitting
on the second-largest reserve in the state. In March 2018, the board
approved spending a total of $90.5 million from its MHSA reserve on
permanent supportive housing for homeless people.
Since June 2017, the county has spent about $372 million in Mental Health Services Act money on a range of services, including housing, according to county figures, with more than $271 million budgeted for fiscal year 2019-
20. The publicly-privately funded $40 million “Be Well” mental health hub
in Orange is expected to play a major role in helping homeless people with mental health issues when it opens next year.
Gardner’s study comes at the same time researchers at the California
Policy Lab on Sunday released their report on how physical and mental
health care issues, along with abuse and trauma, have contributed to the housing needs of the state’s unsheltered homeless population. And a Los
Angeles Times article published Monday maintains that mental health,
substance abuse and physical disabilities play a larger than previously reported role in homelessness in Los Angeles County.
--
No collusion - Special Counsel Robert Swan Mueller III, March 2019.
Donald J. Trump, 304 electoral votes to 227, defeated compulsive liar in
denial Hillary Rodham Clinton on December 19th, 2016. The clown car
parade of the democrat party ran out of gas and got run over by a Trump
truck.
Congratulations President Trump. Thank you for cleaning up the disaster
of the Obama presidency.
The Obama-led Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) approved Uranium One in fall 2010. With a little luck, we'll see
compulsive liar Hillary Clinton in jail before she dies.
Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the
The World According To Garp.
Obama increased total debt from $10 trillion to $20 trillion in the eight
years he was in office, and sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood queer
liberal democrat donors.
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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