Addressing Homelessness: Santa Monica kicks off development of citywide strategic plan to address homelessness
January 19, 2024 3:50 PM
by Heather Averick
Updated March 11, 2024
City leadership from all departments gathered In January for a strategic planning session that will support the development of a comprehensive, coordinated roadmap for how the city addresses homelessness in Santa Monica.
In the FY 2023-24 budget, the City Council directed staff to create a Homelessness Strategic Plan, or HSP, that aligns all city departments around a shared vision, goals and investment of resources for addressing homelessness. The need for this plan stemmed from a report by consulting firm Moss Adams LLP, who conducted a comprehensive audit in November 2022 of the city’s homelessness response and prevention efforts and recommended the city would benefit from a comprehensive plan that sets clear policy direction, promotes alignment across city stakeholders and supports regional efforts.
Last year, the city hired consultants with extensive experience in local government and homelessness strategic planning to help guide the effort. These consultants have been interviewing key city staff to gather input on the city’s current strategies, as well as goals and needs for the future to further the work.
The goal of the leadership meeting was to bring all city departments together to lay out the foundation for the HSP by:
- Developing mission, vision and guiding principles
- Setting actionable, focused objectives for achieving the city’s goals on homelessness
Taking the ideas and goals from the leadership strategy session, the consultants are now working with city staff to refine and finalize the framework for the HSP, which will build upon the work done over the last decade to lay out a transparent and systematic vision for the city’s homelessness response. The consultants will present the initial framework to the City Council in early 2025.
For more information, visit the city’s webpage on homelessness: santamonica.gov/topic-explainers/homelessness.
Authored By
Heather Averick
Director of Housing and Human Services