PA City Council sets aside money to help ‘high-risk’ homeless

After recent and highly contested decisions by the Palo Alto City Council to close Cubberley Community Center at night and create a ban on people living in cars, city officials have voted to spend $250,000 on improving living conditions for the homeless population of the city.

SAM GIRVIN/The Stanford Daily

This spending budget would include funding homeless shelters and case managers—employees who will be in charge of locating homeless individuals and guiding them through the housing procedure by facilitating logistics with the landlord as well as handling personal issues and long-term housing retention.

In an Oct. 7 City Council meeting, an 8-0 vote initiated a partnership between Santa Clara County and the City of Palo Alto to assist those who are at high risk and have had contact with the criminal-judicial system get off the streets as soon as possible.

These actions have been categorized as a one-off, short-term solution addressing a small portion of a much larger problem that still needs to be solved. City officials and others involved with these new efforts have simultaneously expressed the need for more sustainable, long-term solutions to the problem.