City of Santa Cruz awarded $4 million in state funding to tackle homelessness

SANTA CRUZ, Calif. (KION-TV)- On Monday, the City of Santa Cruz announced they got $4 million from the state's Encampment Resolution Program.

In a press conference, City officials said the grant they received from the state will be going towards outreach and trying to house to 55 people living in encampments in the Harvey West Park and Coral Street area.

"Tt's going to allow us to really focus on a particular area of town with a large encampment and really focus on providing services to the people that are in that encampment and moving them on a pathway towards more stable and secure housing," Larry Imwalle who is the City of Santa Cruz Homeless Response Manager said.

Imwalle says they're working with Housing Matters who say they have 20 units for people who live in the Harvey West encampment and on Coral Street to help them transition into interim housing. 

Tom Stagg who is the Chief Imitative Officer for Housing Matters said that the the first step is to hire a housing navigator, case manager and two specialists for substance disorders.

"So they'll be working with them for up to six months, on an individual basis to set some goals and work on things that will get them into housing," Stagg said.

Imwale said that they anticipate the 55 people living in those encampment areas will get into interim housing but for permanent housing the number will drop.

"Our goal is to get 30 of those, 30 people into permanent housing through this focused work during the grant period," Imwale said. "Of course, if we can get more in that, that will be a great that will be success."

City officials said that their goal is to get the people permanent housing by the end of the two-year grant period.