The powers-that-be in City Hall have finally decided that accountability is needed when it comes to providing services to the homeless population.
It’s about time.
After 20 years of using taxpayer money to fund a host of service providers and social programs aimed at getting homeless people back to self-sufficiency, City Hall wants an outside assessment of how effective their respective efforts have been. It is unbelievable that this kind of evaluation has not been done already, following two decades of work and tens of millions of dollars spent on the homeless problem. The lack of an independent evaluation is even more ridiculous given the fact that homelessness has been the No. 1 concern among residents for at least the past five years, according to City Hall surveys. We would argue further, that it has been a top issue among Santa Monica residents since the late 1980s when the delivery system was first established.
We applaud the City Council in its decision earlier this week to spend $126,000 to hire an outside social policy research organization to conduct an independent evaluation of the local government’s homeless delivery system.
However, there are many caveats that need to be made regarding this evaluation, which we feel should be conducted more like an independent audit. The researchers need to be extremely cautious when evaluating the information given them. We need a truly independent assessment, but wonder how that can occur given the close relationship that city staff and social service providers have with each other.
The research firm, The Urban Institute, has elected to first interview city staff and those who manage the nine agencies that City Hall funds. The researchers also are relying upon those agencies and government-paid staff to provide them with numbers as to how much money is spent, how many people have gone through the system, and who it has helped. We find it questionable that the very people being evaluated are the ones who are meeting privately with the researchers and giving them the bulk of the information.
We certainly hope that the researchers take into account that many of these staffers in the private and public sectors are very close and might protect one another so they can keep their programs afloat.
Santa Monica’s “Continuum of Care” for the homeless, which takes in $2 million in funding annually from City Hall, is really a multi-million business. As long as it exists, hundreds of people are employed, many of whom have nice, high-paying salaries with excellent benefits provided by the government and nonprofit organizations. And let’s not forget all of the consultants who benefit from such homelessness problems. It’s really a win-win situation for social service providers and government workers. They get paid well, have job security and feel good about themselves for helping people. And so do the politicians.
If this is going to be a truly independent study, the research firm must look elsewhere for answers and also rely on interviews with homeless people who have used the system, as well as members of the community, law enforcement and emergency personnel. It will be absolutely essential to get views from the numerous factions within Santa Monica to see where there are commonalties and differences of opinion in terms of how we fund, manage and provide services to the homeless.
That is not to say we don’t have faith in The Urban Institute, which is the firm that was hired by City Hall. It is a reputable company that was established in 1968 after President Lyndon Johnson forged a committee to examine ways to address social problems, such as homelessness and unemployment.
We need to maximize this opportunity so we can have an accurate assessment of how effective our money is spent. The goal here is to get a realistic idea of what is working and what is not so we can utilize our resources efficiently. That way, we will be able to capitalize on what programs are successful and which ones should be eliminated. The public can no longer accept programs and agencies that do nothing more than enable homeless people to stay on the streets in Santa Monica.
If the study doesn’t show the true successes and failures of Santa Monica’s system, it was an additional waste of time and money. And when the study is completed, if policy makers don’t follow through and actually implement the recommendations handed down by the research firm, then they have failed.
And if the community doesn’t closely watch the process to ensure that it is independent and free of conflicts, what was the point to begin with?
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 28, 2006. Read the original PDF.