Email to the Director of Sonoma County Department of Health Services

Santa Rosa is proposing to approve submission of a $30 million HomeKey+ application with Burbank Housing Development Corporation for 63 units aimed at “the development of permanent supportive housing for Veterans and individuals with mental health or substance use disorders who are at risk of or are experiencing homelessness”.  The application supports Caritas Homes Phase II.  

Caritas Homes Phase II is the final stage of the larger Caritas Village project consisting of Caritas Center, a comprehensive housing-focused homeless services facility including transitional and interim housing located at 301 6th Street, and Caritas Homes Phase I, a 64-unit affordable permanent supportive housing development located at 340 7th Street. Both Caritas Center and Caritas Homes Phase I are complete and operational. 

As you are acutely aware, much effort has been expended over the past year by your Department, and the Sonoma County Homeless Coalition, to rectify the failure to anticipate and include adequate resident support services in successfully-acquired Homekey-funded project sites from the beginning of their development.  These projects were not, however, anticipated to serve the more severely mentally-ill and substance-using resident populations as are HomeKey+ projects funded by Proposition One.

But having worked with your staff and the community to understand the limits of funding housing needs with Proposition One funding for moderate mental health and substance use residents, I have to admit that this application to Prop One funding now confuses me.  It sure does look like the City and Burbank are proposing building units that will house residents whose needs combine mental health and substance use with chronic homelessness and veteran status.  If they anticipated serving the clients you claim are yours, wouldn’t they need to obtain funding from you to do it more succesfully?

I am also disappointed that the application has received no discussion at the Sonoma County Homeless Coalition, Behavioral Health Board, or City of Santa Rosa Housing Authority.  It is another example of the continuation of silo-focused planning in a county which should have learned better by now.