The proposed Community Stabilization Intervention Team would refocus the city’s efforts to combat chronic homelessness. Photo: Pixabay
By Zendelle Bouchard
City Manager Steve Buck is encouraging the Sanford City Council to establish a Community Stabilization Intervention Team (CSIT) to address issues that remain unresolved despite years of effort by the city through its Homelessness and Overdose Task Forces and partnerships with local and regional agencies.
Buck outlined his proposal in a memo to the council that he presented at its April 21 meeting. He said that although the city has been successful in assisting many people in temporary crisis to regain stability in health and housing, a small number of individuals who are in chronic crisis present a challenge. “Repeated voluntary service offers have not produced sustained outcomes for this population,” he said, resulting in recurring impacts to our city parks and other public areas, and stress on our first response and emergency departments.
“CSIT is not intended to target homelessness itself, nor to penalize individuals,” Buck said, but “to close the gap between crisis response and long-term stabilization.” Current systems are strongest at responding to emergencies, but once the person is released from the hospital or emergency room, the follow-up that can help them move forward is the missing piece, he said.
Buck told the council that while the city’s persistent efforts at addressing and preventing homelessness are working well and will continue, refocusing attention and resources toward those individuals who are trapped in the recurring cycle of crisis is the next step. “Sanford can better align compassion with results” to provide a more effective path toward long-term stabilization for them as well as the community as a whole, he concluded.
If the council approves the CSIT, existing staff can get it started, but Buck expects he will recommend establishing a new staff position to take it over. At that point, he will come up with a mechanism and a means to fund it. Mayor Becky Brink called CSIT “the next major step” and agreed there is likely funding available so taxpayers won’t bear the cost.
The post A New Focus for Chronic Homelessness in Sanford appeared first on Sanford Springvale News.
