Homeless plan given a boost

CITY HALL — Homeless service providers Thursday agreed to pursue several strategies aimed at reinvigorating a 2003 plan to significantly reduce the number of homeless people on the streets of Glendale.

The Glendale Homeless Coalition — an umbrella organization that includes dozens of representatives from nonprofit, local and county social service agencies — has about five more years to show it has drastically reduced the amount of chronically homeless people in the city, or risk federal funding cuts.

Glendale is one of only four county cities that operates its own homeless services and outreach plan, known as the Continuum of Care, separate from the county. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development provides the majority of financial support for the programs, but unless conditions attached to the money are met, future competitive funding applications could receive lower scores, resulting in less money for the city.

While Glendale is known for its relatively robust network of homeless service providers, and for consistently meeting its program targets, it has struggled to get chronically homeless people off the streets and into transitional housing programs.

Many of the so-called service-resistant transients suffer from mental illness or drug addiction, complicating outreach efforts, service providers say.

And their afflictions often prevent them from entering programs that require clients to pass drug screening and other safeguards.

Nearly 80 chronically homeless people were counted in Glendale in 2007, which is about 27% of the city’s total homeless population, according to city reports.

The Homeless Coalition will conduct a new count of the homeless population in January.

Los Angeles County housing authorities this year declined a $1.85-million funding application for a 24-hour intake shelter at PATH Achieve Glendale, the city’s largest homeless services provider.

The First Step Housing Program would have provided 25 beds for the chronically homeless at the agency’s current site on San Fernando Way, in the city’s industrial corridor.

“That would have filled a gap in our continuum,” said Ivet Samvelyan, the city’s homeless services coordinator.

While current homeless outreach teams have started developing relationships with the mainstays, they have nowhere to take the transients for any long-term shelter or care due to drug addictions or mental illnesses.