Letter to the Honorable Gavin Newsom, Governor of the State of California - Congressman Correa Urges State Of California To Send Emergency Resources To Fight Homelessness In Orange County
Letter
Dear Governor Newsom:
Thank you for your Administration's focus on homelessness. Our state is in a crisis. We applaud your initiative to provide emergency shelter to help people in immediate need. In Washington, we are working on legislation for federal grants for cities that build homeless shelters to have funding for increased police, fire, and sanitation services.
Orange County--especially the cities of Anaheim and Santa Ana--needs the state to deploy emergency housing resources as well as Los Angeles County. The level of homelessness is severe in the County. When compared nationally, Orange County has the largest homeless population of a mid-sized county in the United States.
The city of Santa Ana has 1,700 homeless people in 2019, up from 1,000 the previous year. Anaheim has 1,200 people sleeping on the streets. This put a strain on city budgets. For example, Santa Ana spent $25 million this past year in services up from almost $17 million.
Also, in terms of decency, people are living on train tracks and other areas in poor condition. We need to focus on long-term solutions such as building more permanent supportive housing and helping people who have a mental illness, substance abuse, and severe financial problems. But in the short-term, we need to assist our cities in providing give them a safe, weather-protected place to sleep at night.
As you focus the fight to end homelessness, I urge you to consider providing similar resources to the cities of Anaheim and Santa Ana, as well as state-owned land to construct a navigation center. We are in need of additional support in our fight to restore our city and help our fellow citizens trapped on our streets. The construction of a navigation center is crucial to connecting those in need with the resources available to them while protecting taxpayer dollars.
While these emergency measures will not solve our longer-term problems, they will provide us with the time necessary to implement permanent supportive housing options throughout the county, while showing our taxpaying citizens we are serious about solving this problem.
Sincerely,
Source