Big news from Homeless Services Center:
Today, the 180/180 initiative in Santa Cruz County held a community event to celebrate surpassing their goal of housing 180 chronically homeless people and announced their new goal of ending chronic homelessness in Santa Cruz County by 2020.
The celebration, held at the Simpkins Swim Center in Santa Cruz, included city and county elected officials, law enforcement and judicial representatives, local business leaders, and 180/180 initiative partners.
The 180/180 initiative was launched in May 2012 as a multi-agency, collaborative community effort to identify, house and support medically vulnerable homeless individuals and families.
With support from a wide array of service-provider organizations, government agencies, faith-based groups, businesses, and volunteers over 200 people were housed since the start of the campaign – thus surpassing the 180 goal.
At the event, Director Phil Kramer announced that the 180/180 initiative will continue to house and support chronically homeless individuals and families but under a new name and logo that reflects their new goal: 180/2020 – Making a 180 degree change to end chronic homelessness in Santa Cruz County by 2020.
The organization is keeping the ‘180’ to indicate the 180 degrees of system change necessary to make this happen as well as the 180 degree change in the lives of chronically homeless individuals they help house, and including ‘2020’ to indicate the new timeline.
With an estimated 600-1000 chronically homeless individuals in Santa Cruz County, they estimate it will take five to six years to provide them with housing and support.
The Housing First approach used to house and support individuals and families experiencing chronic homelessness provides them with permanent housing as quickly as possible and connects them with supportive services to help them stabilize and start on a pathway to improved health, well-being, and community integration.
The Housing First approach also saves taxpayer dollars.
The 100,000 Homes campaign – the national campaign that inspired the 180/180 initiative and also surpassed their goal, housing 102,000 people – recently released a national study that indicates communities save an average of $13,000 per chronically homeless person housed.
Using this estimate, the 180/180 initiative is saving taxpayers an estimated $2.6 million annually.
To stay abreast of 180/2020’s goal to end chronic homelessness, to volunteer, or to donate, please visit www.180santacruz.org.
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