Count Down — Nobody Home

The late Alexander Cockburn famously compared the 19th century Irish starved off their land during the potato famine while the British exported food from Irish farms to the murderous onslaught against the Indians of Northern California. “As here, economics and land acquisition were driving forces. The Irish were portrayed as hairy savages in the British press and pushed onto tiny plots of land. During the potato famine grain was shipped right past dying Irish people because to feed dying people would be to ‘interfere with the laws of the marketplace’.”

Cockburn noted that wherever there was genocide there were anthropologists, some of whom were "out and out spies like Evans Pritchard who remitted detailed information about Indians and their encampments to the Cavalry for cash after having done their kinship structures and verification interviews.” Cockburn also quoted anthropologist Alfred Kroeber's mystification at the demoralized Indians of Northern California. “There is now (1910)," Kroeber wrote, "one Indian for every eight who was here in 1850. The causes of this decline are obscure.” Cockburn said people on the receiving end of murder have two choices: “We can crawl around like guinea pigs — or stand up like a Bear.”

Cockburn added, “The Yurok were, Kroeber wrote on one occasion, an ‘inwardly fearful people — the men often seemed to me withdrawn.’ Kroeber mused that ‘for some reason, the culture had simply gone hypochondriac.’ Kroeber never got around to mentioning that between 1848, the start of the gold rush, and 1910, the Yurok population in the region was reduced from about two and a half thousand individuals to about 610. Disease, starvation and murder had wiped out about 75% of the group. It is as though an anthropologist studying the inward fears of Polish Jews never mentioned Auschwitz.”

No one would mistake the Board of Supervisors and their well-paid staff of self-described helpers of Mendo’s unhoused street tribes as anthropologists, but amateur anthropological opinions seem to be the only thing Mendo has to offer.

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Back in December when the 2015 “Point In Time Count” of Mendo’s homeless population was first discussed, the minutes of the Count Committee meeting stated: “Point-in-Time/Survey Committee: Hand warmers, rain ponchos and snacks [aka “incentive packs” or “little incentive bags” — It seems the homeless didn't spend the measly five bucks “appropriately”] will be given out in place of the $5 incentive [“gift”] card for responding to the survey. Homeless persons completing surveys will still be paid $5 in cash for every two surveys they complete. [Two years ago it was $5 per survey.] Surveys are going out for printing as well as flyers and they still need help. If anyone is interested in volunteering, they should include their name, contact information, and location they want to participate at. The Youth Activities under the We Count! Grant(s) are being planned and they need additional volunteers to conduct them in addition to sites such as the Family Resource Centers to hold the activities at. The activities will be happening throughout the day of the count at these locations. The courts are also in support and have set it up to where Drug Court Participants can participate in the Count and have it count as community service hours.”

Anna Shaw, Director of the Coast Hospitality Center (the group that’s expecting to move into Fort Bragg's Old Coast Hotel), sounded excited when she announced the upcoming Count in December of 2014:

“It's the time of year when we who work in homeless services do our annual Point In Time Count (PIC). [PITC?] This is when local volunteers, agency representatives and homeless volunteers themselves join together to count all [sic] the homeless in Mendocino County. The biannual ‘Point in Time’ count of the homeless takes place very soon. This count is required by HUD, and the better job we do of it, the more we can directly improve our services and those of other agencies like other agencies. Data from the count in 2011 was used for pending grant projects that will positively impact local homeless. If you are interested in volunteering for the project, please join us for a training session at one of the orientations listed below. It is an excellent way to give back to your community and build connections with community members from all walks of life in the process. Mileage is paid for drivers. It is and will be a fun and safe adventure. Every group is part of a team of three, which includes one homeless person, a staff member and a community volunteer. There are safety guidelines and we adventure with flashlights and a snack pack. We hope for a beautiful dawn.”

Translation: The more of these people we count, the more money the government will give us to help them.

Neither Ms. Shaw nor any other members of the County’s “Homeless Services Planning Continuum of Care,” formerly the “Homeless Services Planning Group” have identified any “projects” which “positively impact local homeless.”

But they certainly have positively impacted the coffers of the Homeless Services Planning Continuum of Care.

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Last Tuesday’s presentation of the 2015 Homeless Survey to the Board of Supervisors began when Health and Human Services Director Stacey Cryer introduced Sandi Canaday, “Program Administrator for Health and Human Services (HHS) Adult Services and the Chair of the Homeless Services Planning Continuum of Care.”

Ms. Canaday told the Supervisors that the Count is required by the federal Housing and Urban Development Department to continue to receive Continuum of Care funding. In fact, she said, HUD provided a total of about $2.1 million in total grants to the Continuum of Care recipients in Mendocino County in 2015.

According to Ms. Canaday, the money went to the Mendocino Community Development Commission (CDC), the Ford Street Project, and HHS, from where some of it trickled down to the Mendocino Coast Hospitality Center (an Ortner subcontractor) in Fort Bragg, and the Ford Street Project in Ukiah. The latter two organizations provide very limited “transitional housing” and “supportive services.” None of the other participating organizations got any of the $2.1 million, nor, of course, did the homeless.

The Count, Ms. Canaday explained, involves tallying people in shelters and transitional housing, plus people staying in places “not meant for human habitation” (streets, cars, bridges, tents, porches, driveways, “outdoors,” etc.). The Count does not include “couch surfers” or temporary visitors and family members who come for a visit and never leave.

Ms. Canaday then introduced Paul Davis who works for Hospitality House and is Chair of Point in Time Count committee.

Davis explained that the survey form had 40 intrusive questions addressing “service utilization, medical coverage, education history, income, runaway history, pregnancy status, and criminal history.”

Mr. Davis described the difficulty he and his staff had in getting the lengthy HUD survey forms down to one legal size sheet of paper “to save on printing costs.”

Not every homeless person encountered was individually surveyed. In cases where they came across groups of people who didn’t want to participate, they took “observational data” — counts, ethnicity, age range, and, if known, why the people in groups weren’t surveyed.

A few homeless people helped with the surveys. They got $10 an hour plus $5 for every two completed surveys. Davis giggled a bit when he noted that the “incentive pack” included a rain poncho: “But there hasn’t been much rain.”

Davis’s Count Committee held many meetings to plan for the Count (using up a nice chunk of the $2 mil, no doubt), reviewing past Counts, looking at changes to the survey that HUD may have made since the last Count, and “we brainstormed for new ideas.”

In November the enumerators held a four-hour training and planning session attended by over 20 people who broke up into “action elements” for Count preparation: groups included General Planning, PR and marketing, training, survey development, and budgeting. They made schedules and plans and came up with several “good ideas.” One “good idea” was putting out flyers and buying radio spots to “let homeless people know what we were doing” so they’d “participate and be available for surveying.”

The committee also identified homeless camps they already knew about from prior surveys or other contacts.

On the Coast, the area Mr. Davis manages, Davis sadly noted that, “Our community volunteer trainings were not very well attended.” Plus on the day of the Count ten homeless volunteers who had attended the trainings, didn’t show up for the Count.

That bad start only got worse. “In spite of our efforts, when survey groups arrived at known homeless encampments the homeless people were not there in many cases. We were able to conduct only a relative handful of surveys on the day of the count. And our observation of homeless individuals who could not be surveyed did not come close to adding up to the amount of people that our organization has on its roster. There was evidence of recent activity in many of those locations, but not many people to be found. In the days following Count Day we attempted to identify as many street homeless as possible with the help of homeless survey workers, staff from our organization including some of our board members and several community volunteers. Many of the homeless individuals, especially young people ages 18- 24 refused to take the survey and many were agitated and had a lot of skepticism about the idea of being surveyed. In spite of that we were able to deliver approximately 150 surveys. But that's only about 50 more than the number of people we typically serve.”

Wait a minute. $2.1 million per year to “serve” 100 people on the coast? The Counters say 40% of the homeless are on the Coast, so that’s per $8400 per “client” per year — the equivalent of $700 a month rent.

Lessons Learned: In the future Davis said he and the Counters will consider random samples from selected locations and extrapolate the number of homeless from their observations. "I'm personally in favor of that," Davis said. "It might be better suited to us and more cost-effective” (i.e., less work for the surveyors). “And it would give us more accurate and usable data. [sic] Our committee will be discussing that for the next Count.”

"Funding is limited in most of our communities for street outreach,” continued Davis, “but I think we could benefit from doing more of that [“outreach”] so that the people we count are more educated on the value of this data collection."

Veronica Irwin is Project Manager for Homeless Services at Ford Street Project in Ukiah.

“57 workers and volunteers participated in the inland count,” said Irwin. “About 175 surveys were completed. We had similar problems, volunteers not showing up for training, then not showing up for the count. We had a number of homeless people signed up to help with surveys, but only three showed up that morning. So a lot of our specific knowledge about the encampments was lost because we did not have those people to go out with us.

"One team went out to known encampments that are extremely remote. But unfortunately they didn't find anyone, even in places that had long established and known encampments. We ran across places where there was obviously an encampment as there were sleeping bags, camp stoves and lots of other camping equipment there, but no one was present.”

When the team went out the night before Count Day to a known encampment in the "Perkins area" (outside Ukiah city limits) “they found a huge encampment and were told they were not welcome there. And they were told to leave immediately. They did their best to get an idea of the number of people that were there but in the best interests of their own safety and out of respect for the people that were there the team quickly left."

"We experienced a lot more aggression this year directed at volunteers than we have in the past as well as low participation by homeless persons despite the financial incentive [sic — $10 an hour for less than a day, plus $2.50 per survey]. I actually feel that because we used to do $5 for every survey, this year it was $5 for every two surveys and previously the respondents received a $5 gift card that they could spend. But this time it was a gift package and I just feel it wasn't quite as good a response because those things had changed. We believe there may have been a collaborative effort on the part of the homeless this year to avoid being surveyed."

Supervisor Tom Woodhouse: “I've witnessed that too, that it is getting more aggressive out there for people at times. It's a sad big change."

Irwin: “We are focusing more in our surveys to work with the chronically homeless who had been on the streets longer and trying to make an impact there."

The total Count of homeless for 2015 was 1032. Two years ago it was 1344.

“Very few youth showed up for any of the outreach events,” lamented Ms. Irwin. “And overall many of the young people simply refused to be surveyed and expressed agitation and skepticism about the surveys."

About $3800 was spent in direct costs for the count. Most of that was spent on "supplies," the rest on mileage and "labor."

Mendo’s Point in Time Committee was made up of ten paid staff representatives from the Coast Hospitality Center, County Adult Services, Willits Community Services, Love In Action (a Ukiah non-profit), Redwood Community Services (another Ortner subcontractor), and the Ford Street Project. Oversight was provided by Ms. Canaday’s Continuum of Care Committee.

Supervisor Woodhouse asked, “Why is the number of chronically homeless down so dramatically?”

Canaday: "We have not changed anything. The questions are provided by HUD specifically for the chronically homeless. It's self reporting. We just ask the questions. I would say probably a big percentage of that reduction is that we overall captured a lot less this year." (I.e., the reason it’s down is because we didn’t count as many.)

Supervisor John McCowen: "The count is way down. We're dealing with a very transient population that shifts around frequently. Plus some of the other issues described. I think it's appropriate to look at alternative methodologies but in the meantime what is the potential impact of the reduced count on our ability to receive funding? Will this hurt our chances in securing funding because the count is down? A superficial glance at that could say, Oh, they don't have much of a need any longer because of these reduced numbers? Or is there a way to overcome that?"

Canaday: “I wouldn't know exactly what the response would be for that, but I would say that HUD's goal is to end homelessness. So I think contributing constantly to what we have—”

Veronica Irwin (of the Ford Street Project) jumped in: “I would just like to share that we have had a lot of fluctuations in the Point in Time Count in the past. HUD has told us over and over and over again in all of the — everything they give us, they understand that this is a snapshot, a look at one night within our population, they understand that our methodologies do not include a lot of people, that we try to capture those who we know where they are and are more visible. But they made an effort to not be visible this year and it was really hard to count them. So I do not see anything within the HUD guidelines or in any of the literature they provide that the amount provided to us and what we’re eligible for has anything to do with the results of this. It has to do with the numbers that we serve as long as we meet our targets in our programs, which we have consistently done, as well as continuing to demonstrate the need within our community."

Lizzie Guthrie of MCAVN (Mendocino County AIDS Volunteer Network): "It was our group that went out the night before. We went to 17 places right here in the Ukiah Valley where there are normally homeless people. I agree with everyone who has spoken. For whatever reason this year it was almost like, Let's all vacate. So we really do have a count that does not include many homeless people that many of our agencies are familiar with. When we would ask them a day or two later why they weren’t there, I won't even say some of the expletives that came back at us about, you know, it's no good, it's not going to help, they just want information — there is a lot of mentally ill people and people who have extreme mental health disorders that were actually the hardest to reach in this endeavor.”

In other words, you have to be crazy or drug-addled or drunk to be skeptical of this entire unhelpful charade?

“Those of us who served those populations feel pretty badly that not even us were able to get some information that would have been very very helpful,” continued Ms. Guthrie. “So that overall count, it's my belief that it's not true and that there are many many more, particularly those who are the most vulnerable who were the least likely to be surveyed."

Board Chair Carre Brown: “According to the Coast Survey it says that they went to many locations but not many people were found. So maybe they have their own communications network." (Laughs)

Stacy Cryer: “We try to not to— we try to destigmatize.”

“Destigmatize.” This is one of the latest PC buzzwords introduced locally by former Ortner Honcho now County Mental Health Director Tom Pinizzotto. If you’re onboard with the Helping Professionals you “destigmatize.” If not, you’re a negative “stigmatizer” — akin to a racist, homophobe or anti-Semite. If you oppose turning the Old Coast Hotel in downtown Fort Bragg to a mental health facility, you’re a “stigmatizer.”

Cryer continued: “If we think about our own personal reactions to a census count and how many of us hide off the grid during a census count that's done by the federal government, it shouldn't surprise us that homeless people react the same way. None of us want to be counted by ‘the Man’ — the government.”

Yeah — that’s right. There must be a lot of Fox News watchers among the local homeless.

“Part of it might just be that,” continued Cryer. “Lack of trust, mistrust in governmental organizations that we see across the country. I’m just trying to put everything in perspective. We know we don't have enough housing. We are working on it in every way we know how [sic] across the spectrum with many of our partners and we definitely need more housing. Housing First is a great model. We have applied for that funding but we didn't get it. We will apply again and hopefully we will have better luck in trying to position ourselves along the way to be in line for that.”

Supervisor Dan Hamburg, as usual, went Irrelevant Bigthink: “I'm glad I didn't speak before because the last dozen speakers have been amazing and inspiring and I really respect what you're doing and I don't envy you the work that you're doing. Stacey, as you often do, you kind of hit it on the head. The fact that a lot of homeless people don't trust the people who come to help them makes them like most people in this country — I'm from the government and I'm here to help you [smiles]. You don't have to be homeless or mentally ill to look askance at that kind of comment. It really does get back to the fact that there really isn't a lot of trust of the government and that is pretty well founded. Somebody sent me a report today with an email by Senator Elizabeth Warren who has become kind of a champion of the vanishing middle class and the fact that so much of the economic benefit that has been derived in this country has been over the last two decades to the top 1%. This is the fallout from that to some measure. I'm not saying that's all of it. But what Senator Warren is talking about is how this two decades of hollowing out the middle class and creating more poverty is coming home to roost. I wish she would run for president instead of some of the people who are [Hamburg couldn’t bring himself to utter the word “Hillary”] because I think she really gets it but I don't want to go into a long speech but I do want to really thank the people here for what you're doing and your courage and your steadfastness and your willingness to do some really unglamorous work on behalf of the County. Thank you.”

Woodhouse: “I don't always agree with Supervisor Hamburg. But thank you very much. I wasn’t surprised at the aggressive behavior because there were some people who are on drugs and fighting and everybody gets crazy when they are inebriated.” (Another vote for only-drunks and crazy people would avoid Mendo’s wonderful helpers.)

“But I wanted to comment,” continued Woodhouse, “I think it's a little off subject, but I think it's — in Willits, Our Daily Bread serves at St. Anthony's and they have been under pressure for a long time and now they're closing at the end of the month, so I see the pressure on a lot of homeless people and maybe there's less marijuana money, the businesses are feeling it, and the homeless are probably getting less income. I think it's genuine frustration and fear out there."

Board Chair Brown had difficulty figuring out how to end the entirely useless rambling hour-long discussion: “Do we have a motion? Do we need a motion? To receive, um, the information? Then— uh, the Chair says we have the receipt [of the report] and [laughs uncomfortably] we will go forward with no motion. I want to thank staff and everyone who has come today to present. It's very useful information sent for us. I know you'll continue to work and try to analyze the data that was collected as we go forward but I want to thank you for all your hard work and the organizations that work with you. Okay. Thank you so much.”

Not one word about spending some of the $2 million — per year — on actual housing or work farms. Instead, Mendocino County “will go forward with no motion.”