City leaders to decide on Rapid Rehousing program to help homelessness in DHS
A new program called Rapid Rehousing may soon be coming to help the city of Desert Hot Springs handle its homeless issues. The city is working with the Coachella Valley Association of Governments on the potential new program.
Rapid Rehousing would use rental housing as a means to house homeless persons for a certain period of time.
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Residents met with city leaders at the Carl May Community Center Tuesday afternoon to discuss the new program.
Some Desert Hot Springs residents, such as Steven Tassopoulos, don’t like the idea of homeless people being moved near their homes.
“You don’t know who these people are. You don’t know what their backgrounds are. You don’t know what kind of lives they led. It could create an opportunity for them to bring friends to the area that are less desirable. Crime could increase,” Tassopoulos said.
Homelessness, city leaders say, has been a recent issue throughout the valley, particularly after Roy’s of the Desert, a homeless shelter, announced that they are closing this month.
“We’ve lost the shelter in the western Coachella Valley, and Indio has got its hands full with its shelter down there. So we need a solution. but a solution that turns residential neighborhoods into homeless shelters, homeless houses, isn’t going to work,” said Desert Hot Springs Council Member Russell Betts.
Betts says the program would involve putting as many as four homes in Desert Hot Springs up for rent and putting 6 to 10 beds inside each of them. Clients would be allowed to stay for a maximum period of up to 90 days.
Betts believes this could create issues for neighborhoods moving forward.
“You have people who are only going to be living in these houses for 90 days, and it’s just not an environment suited to have a program like this,” he said.
City leaders say they’re open to talking about all options, hoping to come up with an eventual solution.
“I don’t know how you become homeless, but I know there are people out there that are homeless. I haven’t had that experience, so I need to listen to the professionals,” said Desert Hot Springs Mayor Scott Matas. “I need to listen to the people that maybe are homeless. I need to listen to the people that know about homeless people and make an educated decision about what to do about the homeless here in Desert Hot Springs. Doing nothing is not the right thing.”
Betts says that the number of houses could change. Two other western valley cities, Palm Springs and Cathedral City, are listed as a part of the Rapid Rehousing program.
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