Homeless center opens in Fullerton; Newsom joins ribbon-cutting

Excerpted from Fox11 News

By CNS Author

"Gov. Gavin Newsom Thursday hailed a new center in Fullerton that will aim to address the root causes of homelessness.

The Homeless Outreach and Proactive Engagement, or HOPE, Center will be a "unified command center" for social workers and local law enforcement to work together on helping transients get off the streets. The North Orange County Public Safety Collaborative, which comprises officials from 11 cities, has received $35.8 million in state funding to address homelessness in a variety ways.

'You've seen a 23% reduction in your point-in-time count (of homeless) in this county -- one of the best-performing counties in the state, and it's because of the leaders here today,' Newsom said at a ribbon-cutting for the new center. 'Let's keep up the good work.'

[...]

Newman said, 'Today's ribbon-cutting builds on five years' of efforts to create 'an innovative and promising model to address the root causes of homelessness -- using data-centric, evidence approaches.'

In the spring of 2017, Newman said he met with multiple area police chiefs and city managers on ways homelessness could be addressed.

Out of that meeting, the group worked on a 'regional, multi-city collaborative' approach to the issue, using data.

'And we're doing it without arrests,' Newman said. 'We are making progress without having to arrest our way out of it, and that's a change that makes a huge difference.'
 

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