SAN DIEGO – Local services, churches, government, and business leaders attended the fourth annual Regional Task Force on Homelessness Conference this month, held Dec. 10-11 at the San Diego Convention Center.
Titled “Harnessing the Power of Purpose,” this year’s RTFH conference saw its attendance grow to 1,300-plus, nearly double the attendance of the previous year.
Over the past three years, the RTFH conference has become a must-attend, attracting people from more than 165 organizations, including policy leaders, service providers, healthcare professionals, and individuals with lived experience. This year’s RTFH Conference was also expanded to three full days, with the best practices discussed, along with strengthening national collaboration, and addressing anticipated changes in federal homelessness policy.
Caryn Blanton of Shoreline Community Services, which administers a drop-in resource center for unhoused individuals to receive government services called Compass Station, led a panel discussion at the conference about their successful operating model in the beach area.
“We talked about how we collaborate with local businesses, government, the faith community, and other organizations,” Blanton said, adding her panel also vetted the challenges neighborhoods face in dealing with the unsheltered. “We talked about how we got started, and how we strongly believe in our community-led model that works here.”
But Blanton warned that a homelessness services center is not a one-size-fits-all model. “What works for us here at the beach may not work in Point Loma or Clairemont or Golden Hills,” she said. “People who live in neighborhoods should be addressing, driving the changes in development of homelessness services in their neighborhoods, because every neighborhood is different.”
In their RTFH panel discussion, Shoreline Community Services laid out its operating model. Blanton noted they discussed how their organization continues to collaborate and move forward together as a coalition.
“We also talked about the challenges we’ve had to overcome, how we are defining success, and how we measure the impact of our services.”
Discussing the cause and effect of collaborating to serve the unsheltered, Blanton noted that Sunny Lee of Discover PB talked about hiring Shoreline Community Services’ Community Care Crew to beautify PB, while Pastor Lund spoke of her church’s helping the poor.
Blanton added that she advised audience members on how to start their own neighborhood drop-in homelessness resource center, characterizing the mood of RTFH Conference attendees as “cautious but hopeful,” given the current situation with impending federal budget cuts expected in Medicaid and other governmental services helping the needy.
“We’re in a difficult place right now with funding being cut for a lot of people, especially those who were counting on federal funding,” she said. “We shouldn’t be saying, ‘Don’t worry, it’s all going to work out,’ because it might not, not for a while. We’re kind of in an in-between place where we can see what is currently happening.
“But there’s also an overall sense of hope, that we can continue to find a way to serve the unsheltered population with dignity and care, making sure we’ve got sustainable solutions for people in the long-run….. We don’t really know what is ahead.
“But together, the hope is that we can all have a vision for what can be. That was the overarching feeling of the whole conference.”
