Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of articles for our third annual “State of Homelessness” series focused on the homeless crisis in California. To read more turn to today’s Opinion page.
LAKE COUNTY— The increased need for homeless services is very apparent to county officials, struggling to keep their emergency shelter, located at 1111 Whalen Way in Lakeport, open. It is currently one of two homeless shelters operating in the county.
At the moment the Sunrise Services Foundation nonprofit manages the emergency shelter, which opened its doors in February of 2023 in response to extreme cold and snow this winter. The shelter took over the location after the last administrative contracted entity, the Oroville-based Elijah House Foundation left unexpectedly in August of 2022 leaving several homeless residents in a vacant building with no power and no place to go. A recent review from the Lake County Civil Grand Jury shared that “The allegations of former staff and clients, if true, raises potentially actionable legal issues.” According to this review, an audit of Elijah House operations while they were operating the shelter in Lake County is unfinished but includes several “red flags” which the Grand Jury notes should have been discovered upon proper vetting of the organization.
At the July 25, 2023 meeting of the Lake County Board of Supervisors, the board approved a 90-day extension of the emergency shelter as well as an increase in its budget, raising the contractual agreement from $307,200 to $460,800. This increase in budget is correlated directly to staffing and supplies including food as monthly operational costs for the shelter have reached $51,000.
At the recent meeting, the board raised concerns arising from this increased budget as well as the termination of the shelter’s original director Yvonne Cox which was followed immediately by the arrest of the shelter’s newly hired director Christopher Bloodworth for a personal domestic violence matter. (The charges were dropped by Bloodworth was allowed to retain his $5,000 position as shelter director) Ultimately the board approved an extension until October with the caveat of the item returning shortly for further review as there is a strong community desire to keep the shelter open, while continuing to accept requests for proposal in order to obtain a permanent shelter solution.
Prior to establishing this shelter, the Board of Supervisors approved an agreement between the Scotts Valley Band of Pomo Indians and the Lake County Office of Education’s Healthy Start Program and a subsequent award of $5.2 million dollars from the Tribal Homeless Housing Assistance and Prevention grant from the California Interagency Council of Homelessness in order to create a shelter for native youth at the historical Lucerne Castle. The proposed plans were opposed by some members of the public who were concerned the project would not aid local residents and only add to the decay of the facility. The project began and ended before anyone even realized it was happening and that building is once again on the market for sale, although real estate deals to purchase the property were still being negotiated at press time.
According to an article titled “Partial 2023 California Homeless Count Results Reveal a Statewide Increase of Nearly 9 Percent” written by Joe Colletti PhD from www.homelessstrategy.com, there is an increase in homeless populations in the 24 Continuum’s of Care that have submitted results. Colletti shared “The 24 CoC’s collectively counted 9,936 or 8.6 percent more persons as sheltered and unsheltered in 2023 when compared to the number of persons they counted as sheltered and unsheltered in 2022.” The report further states that “Nine Northern California CoC’s counted 599 or 2.9 percent less persons in 2023.” The PIT count is required biennially and Lake County is one of the six counties that has not yet publicly released their data.
