I-Team investigation: What progress is being made to combat Palm Springs homelessness

Experts in the issue of homelessness say the City of Palm Springs is making progress when it comes to getting people off the streets into homes. But looks can be deceiving. Homeless people are hard to miss in the city, just about everywhere you might go.

John Houston, a resident on East Arenas Street said, “I think it’s gotten worse in the past 7 or 8 months.”

Houston says he sees homeless people camping every night in the open field across from his house. “Every morning when I go to take my dog out I have encountered this tent city over there,” Houston said.

Some store their personal belongings next to this power box and sleep in a hedge next to Houston’s back wall. He’s called the city and says sometimes police move the people out. Sometimes they don’t.

One of those homeless residents identified himself as Geovany. “We really don’t have a choice out here with the law because the law runs us out of everywhere we go. We go downtown, they run us up here. We come up here, they run us back down there,” Geovany said. He says he doesn’t want to be homeless, but he can’t go home.

Palm Springs City Council member Christy Holstege says it may feel like there are more homeless people on the streets. But progress is being made. “And we get those stories, and what you see may be different than the data,” Holstege said.

According to the data, the 2018 Point In Time, or PIT Homeless Count, surveyed 126 unsheltered homeless people in Palm Springs. That number was 12 better than the 138 homeless people counted here the year before in 2017.

And a new local program started a year and a half ago called C-V Housing First appears to be producing results by getting unsheltered people into stable housing, not just shelters like the former Roy’s Desert Resource Center.

“There are some people who won’t go to a shelter that might want to go to permanent housing. Get an apartment, things like that,” said Holstege.

Palm Springs was one of six of nine desert cities that committed $103,000 to fund CV Housing First. Experts say the new program is showing positive results.

But in September, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in the case of MARTIN v. The CITY OF BOISE, “..as long as there is no option of sleeping indoors, the government cannot criminalize indigent, homeless people for sleeping outdoors, on public property..”

Holstege said, “the law changed, and so we are no longer allowed, and we really shouldn’t be arresting people for being homeless.”

The I-team was there as Holstege and fellow Palm Springs City Council member and homeless committee member Geoff Kors took part in the 2019 PIT Homeless Count.

Kors said, “We learn about our homeless residents. Why they’re here. Where they came from. What their situation is.”

This PIT count happens every year throughout America to count the homeless. It’s required by HUD, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, to determine where money should be spent to fight homelessness.

A nationally recognized expert Barbara Poppe used PIT Count numbers in presenting her findings on homelessness here in the desert to the Coachella Valley Association of Governments Homelessness Committee meeting.

“You have a good foundation, you have to scale that up, change some practices,” said Poppe who added Palm Springs, like other local cities, Riverside County and the local tribes all need to collaborate and spend even more money to really drop those homeless numbers.

Poppe said, “so in the long-term basis, preservation and expansion of affordable rental housing is going to be key to your success here in the region.”

That’s won’t be easy because the entire state has a shortage of affordable housing. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has even proposed spending more state money to build more affordable housing in his 2019 budget.

Is the city of Palm Springs willing to spend more money? Kors says yes. “We have spent considerably more money to address homelessness, help the homeless and transition people from living on the streets into housing,” Kors said.

Over the past three years, Kors says the city has found housing for more than 200 formerly homeless people.

And he says a million dollars has already been put into the city’s budget for homeless services. The city is also considering a new 60-unit affordable housing complex.

Back off East Arenas, Houston just wants somebody to do something.

Houston said, “Enforcement is critical. Because this is making it okay for them to be out here. And I don’t think this is okay. They deserve better than this.”

As for Geovany? Asked if he were offered an apartment or a shared place, not a shelter, but his own apartment,’ would he take that?” Geovany said, “Yes, in a heartbeat.”