(KGTV) — Encampment Resolution Fund has served 180 individuals since last April, but the latest point-in-time count shows that homelessness has increased across the coastal North County region.
Tents once lined the ravine along Buena Vista Creek, where the cities of Carlsbad and Oceanside meet.
Less than a year ago, the creek bed was filled with encampments.
Today, overgrown vegetation and a few walking paths have replaced what was once a network of makeshift neighborhoods.
The Encampment Resolution Fund kick-started a cleanup effort a year ago, and those with the program say they have seen significant improvement.
"There was little tent neighborhoods, and there was, you know, almost avenues and boulevards and a main street, um, and now it's really grown over and you can kind of see where nature is taking back," Sofia Hughes, Manager of the program, said.
The two cities worked together on the cleanup effort.
As of now, the program has helped move people out of the creek and into housing.
"Currently, we've housed about 75 people with this grant, and we have served 180 individuals since last April," Sofia said.
Despite those efforts, the most recent Point in Time Count shows homelessness increased in several coastal North County cities. Carlsbad saw an increase of nearly 9%, and Oceanside saw an increase of almost 14%.
Oceanside Police Chief Valdovinos said the numbers were unexpected.
"Which surprises me actually, because, um, I think over the last year we did such a good job, specifically in that ERF area of getting housing, um, to our, our homeless," Valdovinos said.
Valdovinos said the Oceanside Police Department currently has a homeless outreach team, but he hopes to shift those responsibilities to social workers in the future. He said officers were spending significant time on tasks that fall outside traditional law enforcement duties.
"So our homeless outreach team folks were spending a lot of time, you know, driving homeless folks to, to appointments at the DMV, Social Security, um, picking up medication," Valdovinos said. "To me, it didn't make sense that we were paying a police officer or police officers, um, to, to do that work when a professional, an expert, a social worker could do that work for the city and probably do it better than we could.”
Across the North County coastal region, homelessness increased by 5.1%, according to the Point in Time Count.
Hughes also added that the City of Oceanside reported an almost 20% decrease in 911 and non-emergency calls related to homelessness over the past few years.
