Homelessness growing in Alameda County, state of emergency declared.

When Alameda County adopted a $2.5 billion plan to address homelessness, it sought to stem the tide of a crisis that has intensified since the start of the pandemic. But nearly two years into the multifaceted effort, more people are still becoming homeless than are being housed.

The Board of Supervisors voted unanimously this week to approve a countywide state of emergency on homelessness that will give officials one more tool for turning the tide.

“We can’t just allow people to continue to live like this,” Supervisor Nate Miley said in an interview.

In Alameda County, the number of unhoused people grew by 22% to 9,747 people between 2017 and 2022, the majority of whom live in or outside cars. According to the county’s declaration, many of the unhoused have at least one disability, and the maximum social security disability check of around $1,000 is woefully inadequate to afford housing in the hyper-expensive Bay Area,

Furthermore, experts who work with the unhoused community say there aren’t enough services to support those with mental health issues, and that the rise in fentanyl usage has contributed to the crisis.

Alameda County has the power to declare a local emergency when residents of the county are facing “conditions of disaster or of extreme peril.” Given the growing numbers of unhoused people, and what the report calls the “devastating” impacts of homelessness, supervisors are confident that it qualifies.

Between 2018 and 2021, over a thousand people experiencing homelessness in Alameda County died, with an age-adjusted mortality rate nearly six times higher than the rest of the county. Almost half of those people were Black. A recent county survey showed that while Alameda County’s population is 10% Black, approximately 43% of its homeless population is Black.

For Miley, those numbers illustrate how the homelessness emergency is not merely a humanitarian issue, it’s also a social justice issue.

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