The Homeless and Needy Require Community Aid

Police and others who have frequent contact with the homeless of San Diego County say that the percentage of mentally ill people they are encountering is rising.

No one is certain why that is, but one conjecture is that the longer a person is forced to live on the streets, the more of a toll the emotional stress takes.

Last week the Board of Supervisors took the most important step yet in this community’s efforts to deal with the homeless, approving a plan to spend $1.2 million in state funds on aid for the mentally ill homeless.

The efforts would range from short-term crisis care to apartments where people can live while trying to get back on their feet. The program also will deploy teams of workers throughout the county to help those who live on the streets and have mental and emotional problems.

And a buddy system will be established, with volunteers paired with needy people to assist them and monitor their progress. In each aspect of the program, mental health professionals will be available to help homeless people become functional again.

The program was developed after county mental health workers spent time last summer talking with people in food lines and other places where the homeless congregate, and after examining the best projects of other cities.

This is an innovative program with great promise, and the county is to be congratulated for developing it.

At City Hall, a council committee appears ready to approve an emergency ordinance intended to temporarily halt the conversion of downtown residential hotels to other uses. The city Housing Commission, under pressure from the Regional Task Force on the Downtown Homeless and the City Council committee, is to produce a longer-range plan next month for saving residential hotels, where shelter can be obtained cheaply.

These are all important, positive steps. But there is more to be done, and other segments of the community are yet to be heard from. A committee of the regional task force soon will begin raising money from the private sector--businesses, foundations, churches--to open a daytime center where the homeless can go to get off the streets, bathe, do laundry, and establish a base of operations for job hunting.

The committee will be trying to raise $600,000 in half a year. Its success will be a good measure of the community’s true concern about its less-fortunate people.