The City of Concord will spend more than $500,000 to fund its own Mental Health Evaluation Team to work full-time with the city’s homeless population, and to expand the Coordinated Outreach Referral and Engagement (CORE) homeless outreach team partnership with Contra Costa County from half-time to full-time.
The Concord City Council in September voted unanimously to create its own Mental Health Evaluation Team and to expand the CORE team working within Concord from half-time to full-time. This week’s vote was for the funding and some other specifics.
The CORE teams, operated in conjunction with Contra Costa Health Services to help connect the chronically homeless population with needed services ranging from food and basic supplies to homes, each typically split time between two cities. Since its 2017 creation, the CORE team serving Concord has worked half of its time in Walnut Creek.
Also in 2017, Contra Costa Health Services and county police chiefs formed the Mental Health Evaluation Team program, in which a county mental health specialist partners with a city police officer to help guide the homeless to outpatient mental health services and related assistance. Such teams operate in east, west and central Contra Costa.
The city will contract with the county to oversee operation of both the expanded CORE team and the Mental Health Evaluation Team. Both contracts extend through March 2022. The $560,851 approved to fund both teams will come from the city’s Measure V half-cent sales tax fund to pay for, among other things, addressing homelessness issues.
The city will also have to devote one full-time police officer to the Mental Health Evaluation Team.
Separately, the county operates a Mobile Crisis Response Team that helps all police agencies in Contra Costa at no cost to those agencies.
What a complete waste of time and resources…why is the solution to the problem to address the mental health aspect of it? Duress from coming down off drugs or alcohol withdrawls is not a mental health issue. What will be done with the willing drug addicts and alcoholics? The mental health experts refuse to accept that a hreat number of homeless people are willingly living that lifestyle. Bring vagrancy laws, loitering, etc… It is completely obscene that Concord citizens with the amount taxes we pay to drive by homeless camps in the downtown area
@DF:
It is completely negligent and ignorant to say that drug and alcohol addiction is not a mental health issue. Get educated before you go on and on about what you think should happen to our homeless citizens. If that were your child, mother, sister, or brother. You would be damn grateful to have outreach trying to help them because you cannot. These people have the training and resources to help these individuals. You should be worried about helping the community. Not banning, bringing vagrancy laws, or loitering. Your post is completely obscene, not the city of concord and their efforts for our people.
What is obscene is the ignorant people who insist on enabling the feral humans who endanger all of us.
No human being should be relegated to sleeping on the streets . Whether it is mental health, drug addiction Or just lack of money . Between the city state and County Funds Temporary Or semi-permanent Facilities should be Operated . Any homeless person should be Picked up and taken to this facility for evaluation And in the meantime they will have a place to sleep , To clean themselves And three meals a day . Should they refuse they then run the risk of some type of Legal matters. But at least they have a chance to get off the streets And be safe . I have watched too many times Homeless man walk around total Santos and the businesses around it yelling, screaming And even assaulting Business owners and patrons . I have had a couple of run-ins with A few that were either Totally high or drugged out Or off their drugs and out of control . I don’t Have all the answers but I do know that From a humanitarian point of view These men and women should not be Allowed to have to live the way they are. And certainly not on City streets or public property .
@ Michael
All the resources to get off the street are there. The homeless shelters provide on site evaluations and access to resources. Whether it be mental health, drug addiction, military benefits etc…
1) homeless shelters provide access to counseling, three meals a day, mailboxes, showers, laundry.
You can still have the mailbox, showers and access to laundry facilities even if you do not want to stay in the shelter. Most people choose the streets because they want to continue there drug use despite being to residential rehab numerous times.
2) Most claim to be mentally ill and are screened by County Mental Health. However, the vast majority are (in my experience 90%) are drug addicts or felons that have burned every bridge. Unfortunately the people who are really mentally ill fall through the cracks because of these knuckleheads.
3) At the homeless shelters they have what is called homeless court to get your drivers license back if you lost it for any reason. If you complete a short program the court will waive fines and fees and give you your license back.
4) The goal of almost every homeless person is to get on SSI Disability. The attorneys coach them on what to do. They get denied but keep applying and they will usually have success. So now they don’t have to steal or panhandle as much to keep their addiction going.
5) Michael you mentioned legal problems if they don’t comply???? Too funny. You cant punish someone for not wanting help.
What’s happening now is homelessness is becoming a FERAL LIFESTYLE. They want for nothing, why work or go to rehab. They have an endless supply of donations and handouts. Why change?
We need more PERSONAL ACCOUNTABILITY and not support the VICTIM MENTALITY. In this country you can go to rags to riches in one lifetime. Anyone can get a student loan to improve themselves, wether in be college or trade schools.
The FERAL POPULATION all know about these resources. It requires a tiny bit of effort and they don’t like that. They just keep throwing their hat in the SSI Disability ring because they know the more they try it increases their chances to get money they never earned and probably never paid into.
Wake up people.
Well said, Mental Health Matters
Many of these men and women have chosen this lifestyle over multiple offers of assistance to get off the street. If as you say they should not be “allowed” to live this way, how do you propose we stop them?
One small step for humanity, one giant step for City Council
I’ll throw out my 2 Cents here.
I work for a public agency that was tasked with cleaning out a large camp in Concord in the mid ‘90’s. The camp was inhabited by about 30 residents who appeared to be in their 20’s and 30’s. We posted 30 days prior that the area was going to be cleaned out to give them time to make what arrangements they could. On the day of the cleanup the city provided a bus, and a flat bed truck for their belongings, and offered them transport to a shelter that could provide beds, laundry services, counseling and employment assistance. Not one of them went. They seemed to have established the life they wanted and were content with it.
SMH
@Duwana
why do you personalize this? I worked in social services for years. It’s attitudes like your’s that are problem when addressing homelessness. You look at it like what if that was me? This is what I would want to happen….It isn’t you and alot of homeless people just want to drink, get high, and live respinsibility free without some bookworm telling them how they should live. Being a willing addict or alcoholic is not mental illness its a choice
@DF OFTEN the drugs and alcohol are the way of dealing with the mental health issue. There are also long term affects of drugs that create or exacerbate what’s already there. This is a great start. Hope it helps.
@DF:
It is completely negligent and ignorant to say that drug and alcohol addiction is not a mental health issue. Get educated before you go on and on about what you think should happen to our homeless citizens. If that were your child, mother, sister, or brother. You would be damn grateful to have outreach trying to help them because you cannot. These people have the training and resources to help these individuals. You should be worried about helping the community. Not banning, bringing vagrancy laws, or loitering. Your post is completely obscene, not the city of concord and their efforts for our people.
These efforts must start with diagnosis. Some homeless are just folks down on their luck, some have mental problems, others drugs & alcohol, and for some it’s a lifestyle choice. Help tailored to each will be far more effective than our Governor’s plan of simply tossing them in a hotel.
woah
your being manipulated again
slow your roll
this is not about mental health we pay millions …hundreds of millions on programs allready on the books ….that we are taxed for
stop beating the dead horse of helping drug addicts and bums
again your being manipulated
here is the first line of this post
The City of Concord will spend more than $500,000 to fund its own Mental Health Evaluation Team to work full-time
to fund its own …..
so they are taking tax money our tax money again and claiming they are going to fix the problem ….
THAT THEY CREATED
lets see …their sanctuary policy for the city was erected without a vote
which brought in hundreds of bums from out of state
then they ..yes they pushed for those policies to include illegals
but wait there is more
so we have a policy they installed and
blanketed us with bums and druggies and illegals
that WE pay for
then they turned to their demorat programs for housing and said hey only give low income to the illegals …bypassing american citizens and puttin dem on the street
the demorats create problems so they can swoop in with our money and claim to stop it …..has a demorat politician ever stopped something
and yes the council is full of politicians as well as the board of supasukas
they are in essence laundering tax money to who ever is on this panel
like they do on a daily routine
dont fall for it and demand they take real action
and help all of us
and not shove the boot to the neck of landlords
as the council gives loop holes to developers scooping up the low priced land after the newscum shoved us aside with lockdowns and made businesses fail
its all a game that they were slow rolling
but covid from china gave them the push they needed to speed up the raping of the state …..
you voters gave them the power now they are using it ….to get rid of you
nice job
maybe you should go out and write your initials on a street and ask for money
It’s (past) time to reinstate real help for people who are not capable or willing to modify their (bad) behavior, for whatever reason. If you don’t agree that we need to balance sympathy, with “tough love” laws which allow mandated medical and physiological care…you are (a big) part of the problem.
I agree. Contribute the money to NAMI and lobby to change to make conservative laws accessible to help these poor souls suffering in the streets, ruining our communities and distracting law enforcement/ Courts.
The lack of compassion and depth of ignorance in many of these comments are absolutely and utterly mind blowing. Our country is indeed severely plagued with a “poverty of compassion”.
You are wrong in believing the City of Concord has compassion for the homeless, that’s not what’s going on here. All that is happening here is a new way of arresting or holding a mentally ill person has been designed by an organization of PD Chief’s – which Concord is adopting. A new protocol for dealing with difficult mentally ill homeless. street people.
These people sitting on the council don’t care one iota about the homeless. I recall when Carlyn Obringer was Mayor she loudly demanded that East County officials open a shelter. Concord, she believed, was doing too much for the homeless by allowing a county shelter to be located in the city.
Again, I think the fact that the first 500K of the tax hike money passed by voters in Concord is going to fund a new way to arrest people – a new protocol for ;locking up people – says in all about Concord City government.
The motto of our city should be “We arrest, we jail, and we do it better -and more expensively – than any city in America” For years the Concord PD – thanks to this odious rip PD labor union in Concord (the Concord POA) – has had a stranglehold on our city budget, to the point almost nothing can get done to improve the city.
Yet City Manager Valerie Barone, and our sad sack Concord City council – most stooges for the Concord POA – believe the way to improve the city is more spending on law enforcement! We need this new medical evaluation unit to do the work the Concord POA members don’t want to do! Unbelievable.
The City of Concord needs a new library, a teen center, a gym to play basketball, decent outdoor basketball courts, more money for the arts , more money spent on kids. Getting or doing these things , as surrounding cities are doing, is how you improve a city.
We do not need more money spent on law enforcement in Concord, that should be clear to all the city council people and Valerie Barone too. The ;purpose of city government isn’t to set up a huge gravy train for people that work at the PD. But that’s exactly what you got going on in Concord, sadly. What you are seeing in Concord is municipal corruption which is being sold to us as “good government” and wrapped in a flag of “law enforcement”
When you start instructing your law enforcement agencies to not enforce certain laws that would prevent the homeless from erecting their filthy tent cities with all the trash and problems associated with them, you slowly erode into what other cities have evolved into. Once again, these feel good approaches only exasperate the problem.
Nobody has instructed the police not to enforce laws in Concord. The mental health team is under the umbrella of Concord PD. It is mental health workers working with police. The police are also actively taking reports of encampments, and do clear out encampments when they deem is necessary to do so. There are only so many officers, and they have other duties. They cannot focus on the homeless issues when they have higher priorities like breaking up gang related activity, or traffic enforcement, or responding to thefts.
The same people who are angry that the police aren’t cracking down enough on homeless people, would be upset if they focused more on homelessness and weren’t addressing bigger problems.
Of course the police have been informed to not enforce certain laws. Natalie just made that up.
@Chris 👍🏼
Natalie, in Concord all big public policy decisions are being made by the bigwigs at the Concord PD, not the city managers office or the council. The fact that the PD is getting the first 500,000 of the recently passed tax hike is no accident. The PD in Concord completely controls the budgetary process. It’s been that way for many years.
As many know, Concord PD officers are among the highest paid in Northern California, even though Concord is a low crime suburban city. The benefit packages the PD officers are getting are just fabulous, many PD officers in Concord are retiring now with pensions in the 150,000 to 175,000 range.
Because the Concord PD sucks up most of the budget in Concord already, the Concord PD labor union can hardly argue for higher pay and benefits for members, so what they are doing with the new “mental health team” is they are trying to lighten their work load. 5150 cases are just a big pain in the butt for the officers, so they came up with this new mental health team gambit to get out of some work the officers don’t like doing.
Natalie, the fact of the matter is in Concord taxpayers are being ripped off big time by this odious PD department we have. The PD labor union is so powerful now they run the whole city, pretty much. Evidence of this is everywhere. Concord, for example, spends 56% of the budget on the PD, while WC spends just 28%. Do the math Natalie!
City Manager and the Concord City Council could do something about the bloat going on at the PD – unbelievable amounts of city tax dollars are being squandered stupidly and needlessly at the PD, but Valarie Barone and Concord City Council members fear the “wrath” of the Concord POA. If these folks don’t go along with this corrupt PD labor union we have in Concord they will be out of work in a hurry.
How about starting with cleaning up after themselves!!!!! Behind aqua tech? Has anyone seen the shanty towns in the creek!! Garbage everywhere. Under the freeways. Crap everywhere. Clean it up!!!!!! Rarely wearing a mask. Rules don’t apply to everyone I guess.
@DD and @Darwin: No rational healthy person is going to be content with sleeping in a grubby sleeping bag on the streets, wearing unwashed clothing. I have volunteered around homeless people, have had friendships with homeless people. They are stuck, and don’t know how to get out. Even the people who are obstinate, will have moments where they admit that they want more, when you really get to know them and talk to them.
@DD, you witnessed a situation where a group was asked once. Sometimes a person has to be offered help multiple times before they say yes, and they have to asked the right way. SMH is used to convey disapproval and impatience. If that is your attitude towards the homeless, it’s understandable why homeless people would feel antagonized by you.
Younger adults tend to form cliques and avoid shelters out of desire for pack safety. It can be difficult from someone 18-30 to be living in a homeless shelter with older people. Some younger homeless people are living with the trauma of being physically abused, and don’t want to be in tight living quarters with strangers. Some people have pets that can’t be taken into a shelter.
No rational healthy person is going to vote for democrats, yet here we are.
@LiarLiar and you’re WAY outnumbered. 🙂
I’ve spoke to many homeless in San Francisco during the past decade. What I’ve encountered are mostly individuals with substance abuse and mental health issues. I’ve also asked many if they were interested in getting clean and moving into some kind of transitional housing. They overwhelming told me ‘NO, not interested’ because they would have rules and be held accountable. Sorry Nat, you are living in a fantasy. I’ve only seen one large city that has a concrete plan which is working to address homelessness and that is Salt Lake City.
@Chris and in SLC, most of the homeless are offered to get clean through the Mormon Church. The biggest difference is that they have a plan AFTER they get clean. They put homeless to work and give them a way to make money directly through the church. They have them make food or work on cars, etc. It’s also very hard to sleep outside in Utah in the winter. California doesn’t have the follow through for the homeless like other states do, we get them clean, or temporary mental health treatment, but nothing is sustainable here because everything is too expensive!
@Chris, addiction is a disease of the mind. Addicts can be convinced to be change their lives with persistence and the right type of motivation. I personally have gotten 2 addicts off the streets. One went back to family out of state, and another went to a rehab program out of state. There are people who can be reached, and it is right for the city to fund social worker programs.
Salt Lake City made an overflow shelter, but it’s not meeting it’s target goals for helping the homeless. The broke up some camps recently, but homeless are still wandering around Salt Lake City. They don’t have a magic answer that Concord can replicate.
Waste of money-it will make no difference for the feral, who have demonstrated time and time again that they would rather stay outdoors then to have any sort of structure.
This is why the streets are so poor in Concord- 500 grand could help that issue.
My family has suffered for over four years for our loved one’s bipolar mania. No amount of this stupid waste of taxpayers’ money has dealt with the problem that this grandfather, father, husband needs to be hospitalized and back on his meds. All these hotels, etc. are a waste. laws to conserve a diagnosed mentally ill Veteran need to be changed.
This is all about and the beginning of our local governments defunding police. They will likely take the money needed out of the police budget and there will be less cops on the street keeping the tax payers safe.
Has anybody checked out the housing costs for one person in CoCo County on craigslist?
Even for shared housing, working folks are looking at paying at least $850 monthly rent plus utilities (another $100). If a homeless person qualifies for SSI, he gets $945 a month to spend on rent and nothing left over. If he remains unhoused, he gets $1101 (due to no kitchen) a month but can’t accumulate more than $2k total or he’ll lose his monthly SSI. So he’ll spend his SSI on crummy Motel 6 rooms and whatever until he’s broke again (usually within days of getting SSI).
Why don’t homeless people work?
Usually it’s a number of factors, such as nowhere to handle basic hygiene, lack of social and work skills, mental illness, inability to hold a job, substance and alcohol abuse, to name a few. Some homeless people used to have good paying jobs but have been out of the work force long enough that they given up finding a job.
City of Concord PR people can claim all they want that these new mental health evaluation teams – footed by us taxpayers to the tune of 500K a year – are designed to “help the homeless” but they are not telling the truth.
The primary beneficiary of the mental health teams will be City of Concord employees and staff. These mental health teams will lighten the workload of members of the Concord Police Officer association, and they will also lighten the workload at the City Attorney’s office ( fewer PD related law suits to mess with.)
Why am I not surprised the first 500K of the recently passed tax hike is going to benefit City of Concord employees. That’s pretty much the norm in Concord, pampered City of Concord employees and staff – overpaid beyond belief (30,000 more per worker than WC!) get everything, taxpayers get nothing for their tax dollars.
Nor will the homeless be getting much either. All the mental health teams will do is decide weather the person experiencing a mental health crises will go to jail or to the county hospital; Concord POA members – after they turn the homeless person over to the county – can then go on a donut run.
They should be put in the forced labor camps if they want to sleep on the street and throw their trash everywhere
That sounds rather harsh. We can do better than that. Currently, there is a giant overflow shelter they call “Portland”. We must supply complimentary bus tickets to Portland.
@Lars, you are completely wrong. Neither Valerie, nor the City Council care about the Police Union. Valerie and the City Council have let the Police Administrators pad their salaries by allowing these managers to work OVERTIME on HOLIDAYS while forcing other necessary employees to take the holidays off.
The cops negotiated contracts, and the City signed off on them. As far as CPD being the highest paid in the Bay Area or state, I would tell you they are not even in the top 20. Clearly you just don’t like cops.
Perhaps you should try to become a police officer, or run for city council, and show us all how the job is done. In fact, instead of becoming a police officer, you should become a reserve police office (therefore drawing no salary or retirement), AND run for city council.
My wife called the City of Concord non emergency line the other day because the Willow Pass crew was having a huge bonfire and the person who picked up snapped, “It’s not illegal to be homeless!” My wife was shocked and said, “No it isn’t, but they are having a huge fire in a dry creek bed right behind businesses.”