Editor’s note: Today, our newspaper joins forces with nearly a dozen other north-state publications for our fourth annual “State of Homelessness” edition. Since our first joint collaboration in 2021, our aim has been to report on what is happening in the always-complicated world of homelessness in cities from Santa Cruz to Vacaville and the Vallejo to Butte County. Each of the MediaNews Group newspapers in our area have contributed a story with the latest look at what’s happening with homelessness in their towns; as always, our hope is to show that this is not problem confined to the boundaries of of any one city or county. Together, our reporters and editors learn something new from this project every year; we trust you will, too.
With COVID relief spending coming to an end and increased capacity to gather an accurate Point-In-Time count, both Vacaville and Solano County writ large saw an increase in their unhoused population in 2024.
The latest available numbers from two years ago show the unhoused individuals living in Solano County is estimated to have increased by 46 percent, according to the January PIT Count. The total number of sheltered and unsheltered people who are unhoused in the county rose to 1,725, according to the CAP Solano County JPA.
“The PIT Count also presents an opportunity to raise awareness of the myriad of challenges our homeless residents face, hear firsthand experiences from those experiencing homelessness, and demonstrate the compassion and generosity of the Solano community,” a report from the JPA explains.
Vacaville has 194 unsheltered individuals and 39 sheltered for a total of 233, an estimation the city’s police department closely mirrors with 253 individuals.
Vallejo accounts for the most unsheltered individuals and unhoused individuals across Solano County, with 665 unsheltered and 17 sheltered individuals. Fairfield has 414 unsheltered individuals and 201 sheltered individuals in the count. Suisun City had 73 unsheltered people, and unincorporated Solano County had 60. Rio Vista had 12. Dixon had 11 and Benicia had three.
According to the 2022 PIT Count and the Solano County Housing Element, 1,179 people experienced homelessness in January of 2022 in Solano County. Of those, 920 were unsheltered.
Shelter capacity in the county is completely full, with 120 of 121 transitional beds in use and 169 out of 187 emergency shelter beds in use.
Forty-nine percent of respondents identified as white, 26.6 percent identified as Black, 18.7 percent as Hispanic/Latino, 2.3 percent as American Indian/Native Alaskan, 1.8 percent as Native Hawaiian/Pacific islander and 3.6 percent as multiple races. Statistics show that 69.1 percent of respondents identified as male, 26.9 percent identified as female, and 4 percent identified as “other.” 5 percent of respondents said they were veterans and 3.6 percent were unaccompanied youths.
The numbers show that 36.3 percent of respondents self-reported as having a substance abuse issue, and 29.5 percent self-reported a mental health condition. 24.3 percent identified as having a chronic health condition, and 20.5 percent identified as having a physical disability. 6.8 percent self-reported a developmental disability and 0.5 percent of respondents self-reported HIV/AIDS.
Megan Richards, a facilitator for CAP Solano Joint Powers Authority, said in 2023 that her organization’s job is to address regional homelessness and provide access to state and federal funding for service providers. It also creates the Point in Time Count, which is used to allocate funding from both the Department of Housing and Urban Development and also state funding streams.
Richards described the PIT count as “one piece of data used to understand homelessness in communities across the nation.” The count is taken on one date within the last 10 days of January and is used to count both sheltered and unsheltered homeless individuals.
The numbers try to get a picture of the demographics of the homeless experience, she said, and can be used to assist in comparison between areas.
The City of Vacaville provided an update last week on its efforts to aid the unhoused population within the city where City Manager Aaron Busch ran down the city’s budget for the unhoused. The city spends $3.4 million yearly on the issue through housing and community services, $2.9 million yearly on the police response and $272,000 in nondepartmental funds.
“Our philosophy, my philosophy, is the team is to help those that want help and try to convince those that aren’t sure,” says Sargent Andy Stefenoni, leader of the Community Response Unit.
Some percent of unhoused individuals self-reported a substance issue, he said. 57 percent suffer from a mental health issue and 44.6 percent suffer from both. Stefenoni said that over the last 14 months, eight unhoused people have died in Vacaville, six of whom died of Fentanyl overdoses.
“We do have a huge number of overdoses that people do survive,” he said. “It is an epidemic, to be honest with you.”
The police department also funds shelter beds and hotel rooms for homeless individuals in the city, he said. Recent decisions by both the Supreme Court and the Governor’s office have done little to alter the status quo for his department Stefenoni said.
“From my team, it changes nothing,” he said. “Enforcement has never been the number one component when it comes to outreach, especially when it comes to CRU.”
One of the largest changes in Vacaville’s policy toward the unhoused was the addition of a warming center in the winter, a controversial decision by the council last year. Interim Parks and Recreation Director GeorgeAnne Meggers-Smith said the faith-based community reached out last year about putting together a warming center for the winter months, which Parks and Rec responded to.
“We only hit the triggers five nights last winter,” she said.
About 58 visits occurred over the five nights, she said, some of which were duplicate visitors.
Community centers serve as cooling centers in the summer, she said. This year the Ulatis Center was activated 15 times from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., and staff were present at all times. The centers served about 12 patrons per day each time they were activated, marking their busiest summer.
Busch said the warming center triggers were identified and passed by the city council. The warming centers are opened if the weather is forecasted below 40 degrees with rain or below 32 degrees for more than two consecutive days.
“it takes a lot to activate, especially the warming center because it’s not occupied by staff,” Busch said.
“I understand what the criteria has been,” Danny Wells, a community advocate, said in reply. “But it doesn’t at all seem to be compassionate. When we talk about medically saying ‘yes at 32 degrees you can freeze to death,’ but as far as compassion if you’ve been out in 38 degrees, it’s cold at night.”
Wells noted that the center was only open for five nights last winter, and he challenged the city to be “more generous.”
Trevor Macenski, Chair and Executive Director of the CAP Solano JPA and Benicia City Council member, said at a groundbreaking of the Vallejo Navigation Center earlier this year that solutions to this issue need to be countywide efforts.
“The reality of homelessness whether it’s in Solano County or anywhere in California is that it’s not one particular community’s responsibility to solve it alone,” he said. “At the JPA, we’re all committed to making sure that we can try to address homelessness as well as provide essential services for our county residents in a collaborative manner so that we can actually try to have a one-stop shop, taking individuals in that need services, trying to get them outcomes which they desire and ultimately trying to get them in housing.”
The Navigation Center, a process years in coming, is hoped to increase the county’s shelter capacity.
“This is absolutely in line with our ability to address homelessness within Solano County,” Macenski said of the JPA’s investment in it. “This is one of the largest amounts of allocations that the JPA has made to a single project probably in the last five or six years, and part of that is because we know that there is such a need in south Solano County. We’re really happy that this project came together.”
Busch said that the JPA will continue to see focus from the cities because this issue will take considerable funding over time. Working collectively with the other cities makes them more likely to receive state funding, he said.
“This is something that the governor’s office is really investing heavily in so that they can build these JPAs across the state so that they can then put money back into the counties and the cities across those areas,” Busch said.
The CAP Solano JPA is only the second one of its kind in the state, he said, which puts Solano ahead of the curve on this issue moving forward.
“Getting seven cities in the county to agree on one methodology was a bit of an effort,” he said.
