A rebalancing of San Luis Obispo County's budget is coming and organizations like the Center for Family Strengthening are losing two key programs: the Medically Fragile Homeless program and the Parent Connection program.
“Losing that capacity to keep the operations of this organization going and prevention work is what I'm very concerned about," said Lisa Fraser, Executive Director of the Center for Family Strengthening. "At the same time, I'm doing my best to sort that out because I don't really know what the final answer is.”
Fraser says 80% of their budget relies on government funding to be able to help the more than 3,000 people they serve. The state and federal budgets are also expected to create budget shortfalls for county services.
“We want to look out not just for the health and well-being of their community, but people who work for the Center for Family Strengthening and our multiple prevention programs," Fraser said.
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But it’s not just the county budget that has an impact on homeless services and programs.
“We are currently reviewing the different budgets that are coming out from the federal government and analyzing what those impacts could be for us locally.”
Suzie Freeman with the county’s Homeless Services Division explained that while it remains to be seen what the state budget proposal will do for funding, the federal budget has already proposed major cuts to the Department of Housing and Urban Development by $33 billion, which could inhibit grants and programs like these:
- Continuum of Care Program (CoC)
- Emergency Solutions Grant (ESG)
- Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS (HOPWA)
- Housing Choice Vouchers (aka Section 8)
- HOME Investment Partnerships Program (HOME)
- Community Development Block Grant (CDBG)
“If the budgets are finalized as they are now, we're going to be working alongside many of our community partners to identify which programs we need to prioritize for our community members," Freeman said.
On April 16, these projected cuts were discussed in the county’s Homeless Services Oversight Council (HSOC), which saw grant funding for housing reduced by almost $3 million and grant funding for shelters also reduced by almost $3 million.
Organizations like ECHO in Northern San Luis Obispo County are more self-sufficient, and regardless of the government funding, they rely on 40% of their budget from community support, including 3,000 volunteers in 2024. According to Austin Solheim, the Director of Operations and Development for ECHO, olunteers provide "between $1.5 and $2 million" for the work they do to bring services to their campuses across Atascadero and Paso Robles.
Meanwhile, Fraser is looking forward to receiving Medi-Cal reimbursement for non-clinical forms of care that will include community health workers and family advocate services.
“We're ready to do this with that other source of funding to help," she said.
The county budget will be discussed again at the next Board of Supervisors meeting on May 20 ahead of the county budget hearings in June.
