The city of Ceres has made progress in helping what seems to be an expanding number of homeless persons in Ceres the City Council heard last week.

Ceres Police Lt. Trenton Johnson, who oversees code enforcement activities in Ceres, gave a report to the council on homeless issues, emphasizing that help from the county’s CARE team “is a piece of the puzzle that Ceres  has been missing” which police and code enforcement cannot provide alone.

Lynnell Fuller, administrator of the Homeless Management Information Systems (HMIS) for Stanislaus County, gave an overview of the process of counting homeless person as well as shelter bed availability.

She said that the January Point-in-Time count of showed 2,091 homeless persons in Stanislaus County representing 1,790 families. Fuller said 302 volunteers were trained to carry out the count, including 14 in Ceres.

She noted that 88 percent of beds were utilized as of the night of the January count.

While there is room in shelters to take in the homeless, those who decline shelter services cited how they don’t like shelter rules (32 percent), how shelters don’t allow pets (20 percent) and how a shelter expects a person to give up drugs or alcohol to enter a facility (14 percent).

Raul Dominguez, a probation officer with the Stanislaus County Probation Department manages the Community Assessment Response and Engagement (CARE) Team and explained how the organization works. The CARE team is divided into two teams. The first, CARE 1.0, has a main goal of connecting with homeless persons to gain rapport “and try to get buy-in so they can engage into the services that we have to provide,” said Dominguez. The team includes case and behavioral health managers and mental health clinicians which assist in crisis situations.

“One of the main goals of the team is to find what is the barrier or what is keeping someone homeless and try to address those barriers in order to get them into housing or get them into a shelter or help them into recovery,” said Dominguez.

He noted the team provides services in the field where folks are in need.

“It’s about providing immediate services to people who want to engage in the services.”

Personnel from the county’s Community Services Agency (formerly the welfare department) stand by to help provide help with CalFresh or Medi-Cal issues. A nurse from Public Health is also available to channel homeless folks to receive medical treatment.

Another team member is a substance abuse disorder counselor for those who want to get into treatment.

The CARE 2.0 team is the case management side to providing an individual’s needs. This can include assistance getting copies of birth certificates, a Social Security card, filling out housing assistance applications, getting them to and from appointments and following up on treatment.

Police may make referrals to the CARE team from those individuals with the highest calls for service, the highest number of arrests and time in jail and those constantly in distress.

“That means the person the law enforcement team receives phone calls about a man out in front of Popeye’s and he’s walking around taking his shirt off and he’s talking to the air,” said Dominguez. “We’re trying to engage those people. They do not accept services willingly and are a little bit harder to reach.”

Ceres began connecting with the CARE team in January and has made contact with fluctuating numbers of homeless from month to month. In January seven contacts were made, one in February, 18 in March, five in April, 39 in May and 50 in June.

“Some of our biggest services we provide are substance abuse disorder and medical services,” he added.

Of the 50 contacted in Ceres during June, food and clothing were provided to 23; Narcan to 22; fentanyl testing strips to 27; medical services to 23; and housing to only three.

In answer to a question posed by Councilwoman Rosalinda Vierra, Dominguez said typically a homeless person has to be contacted seven to 10 times before they agree to receive help from the team. Some take as many as 20 to 30 additional contacts “to really take on the mental health assessment and get them into the help they need.”

Dominguez said that unfortunately many of the homeless persons refuse to take advantage of a free shelter.

“A lot them, if they’re dealing with substance abuse disorder they can’t use (drugs) in a shelter so they want to live their lifestyle. Since it’s not allowed, they’d rather not take the services.”

“There’s no formula to helping people. It’s not a mathematical equation. Everybody is ready at a different time. What we try to do is have as many contacts as we can for us to be there that time that they really want to accept services.” 

Noting the low number of homeless folks who found their way off the streets, Mayor Javier Lopez asked Dominguez if he feels goals are being accomplished. To that Dominguez said housing vouchers do not necessarily lead to a person finding a rental.

“Housing is very difficult in our community to find people places to stay.”

He said once people clean up their drug habits or stabilize their mental health, family will sometimes take them back in.

“Our main goals are to reduce the number of those calls for service from law enforcement.”

When asked if the CARE teams are being effective, Lt. Johnson said that “just one homeless person that receives housing is a win.”

He cited the example of one homeless woman in Ceres who received services through the CARE team who frequently took over the picnic tables under the Smyrna Park shelter with her possessions.

“That’s one person who is not spreading her stuff all over the covered area and that’s a win for us,” said Lt. Johnson.

The city of Ceres’ Code Enforcement Unit goes out daily to make contact with homeless persons and a list of locations is forwarded to the CARE team for follow-up.

Johnson noted that Code Enforcement has had to clean up “tons of garbage” in homeless encampments, such as behind the former Kmart building. He said once the property owner was advised they needed to fix holes cut in a fence designed to keep people out, the problem was resolved.

In another example, Lt. Johnson mentioned how the city removed squatters living in RVs on private property on Moore Road after the city was made aware of mounds of trash and stolen vehicles. The city cleaned up the property with the help of Bertolotti Disposal and the property owner has locked a gate preventing their return.

Mayor Lopez commented that Code Enforcement “has done a really great job” in cleaning up Ceres.

Councilman James Casey agreed that Ceres is improving but asked Johnson why abandoned shopping carts are being rounded up and stored at the city’s Harold Street impound yard and not returned to the stores which own them. Lt. Johnson said returning carts to individual stores is time consuming to city staff so the stores must come to the yard to retrieve them.

Councilwoman Vierra posed the idea of coordinating efforts with police, churches and non-profits “so we can actually know who’s doing what on which day and better coordinate these services because I just found out we have the shower … and it sounds like we have more than one church offering food.”