Editor’s Note: This will be the first of several stories regarding passage of Santa Monica’s budget.
In what may be a record for efficiency, the Santa Monica City Council passed its budget on Tuesday after about three hours of conversation and debate.
The $745 million document had received multiple hearings in recent weeks but Council had a last minute opportunity to tinker in the margins with much of their focus on expanded resources targeting homelessness and crime.
The budget includes a contract of up to $400,000 with Berry Dunn McNeil & Parker to develop a Homelessness Strategic Plan and while the expense had long been part of the budget, it was the subject of conversation again on Tuesday with Councilmembers wanting assurances it would generate tangible results.
The origins of the plan date back to November of 2022 when a study on the city’s homelessness response and prevention efforts recommended the development of a comprehensive homelessness strategic plan that would advance the already completed study by clarifying roles and responsibilities of city departments, involving community partners, improving metrics and reporting to track progress and demonstrating a return on investment.
According to staff, the plan will leverage the city’s expertise and investments to develop alignment, clear vision and accountability while conveying the story of the city’s efforts and documenting progress as they move forward.
Councilwoman Christine Parra said this kind of plan has been a longstanding priority for her. She said homelessness cannot be completely solved but she wanted the plan to examine duplicative efforts, identify areas for improvement and ultimately make a significant impact with real results.
"It really needs to look at everything and give us a plan of like, how do we move the needle forward? Right, and is that what the plan is going to do for us? Not just look at everything and give us metrics? Or really take a look at everything and see what efforts we’re duplicating what things we can pull back on, and how can we move the needle forward …"
Deputy City Manager Anuj Gupta said the City already has policies and programs in place regarding homelessness but the plan will identify a clear goal for all those disparate efforts and create a unified system for evaluating efforts.
"We also have areas that we know we can do better," he said. "We can engage better, we can partner better, we can communicate better, we can certainly track and report better and so I think these partners are people that we’d be able to work with to identify how to organize and leverage and amplify and accelerate the things that are working. And then where are the gaps in our efforts, really close those gaps."
While the plan is being developed, additional money was approved for expansions of existing programs including street teams who conduct outreach throughout the city.
"Their job is to work with those who are most vulnerable in our community and connect them to services and housing and provide services to them in the field," said City Manager David White. "So right now with the way we’re structured, we currently have teams that work, for the most part largely concentrated in the Downtown and beach areas, and that’s represented about 40% of our homeless population."
He said while even more resources will be needed to address the scope of the city’s crisis, the budget includes money for an additional team that will focus East of Lincoln.
"I don’t think that will likely be enough resources for the East of Lincoln area, but it’s certainly a start and a commitment to deploying resources to address folks that are experiencing homelessness in that part of the community," he said.
In addition, SMPD will expand its dedicated Homeless Liaison program and the City authorized a two-year $446,250 contract with the Salvation Army to fund an outreach team to work with the SMPD program citywide. The Salvation Army team will help respond to problems raised through the City’s 3-1-1 reporting system that includes user submitted complaints about a variety of issues.
"So I don’t know that we’ve well publicized this feature but you now can report either homeless issues or active encampments to 311 as well," he said. "So this team is absolutely part of that multi-layered approach to working with folks who are experiencing homelessness on our streets."
Staff said the newly funded teams would be official as of the July 1 fiscal year and would begin work as soon as they were hired. The larger strategic plan will be finished by May of next year with a community engagement phase beginning later this year.
Additional homelessness actions included the expansion of hours to allow for 24/7 intakes at the downtown Santa Monica shelter, allocating funds to support eviction prevention and the addition of a dedicated Santa Monica Fire Department case manager.
