An inside look on housing insecurity in the city of Fresno with Phil Skei, the assistant director of planning and development. The Rampage sat down with Skei to talk about the City of Fresno HART team and how the City of Fresno is addressing homelessness.
What does HART stand for?
“Homeless Assistance Response Team.”
Who makes up the HART team?
“We have outreach workers. The group of staff we have on the HART team are all outreach; so we have mental health clinicians, folks from social service backgrounds and lived experience. We have a smaller group that’s a part of the HART team; those are code enforcement officers that primarily support private property enforcement. And then we have an even smaller group of police officers and they primarily support all of our public property.”
What is an example of an officer’s role in HART?
“They ensure that there is compliance as it relates to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). So if someone is lying across the sidewalk and somebody in a wheelchair is trying to use that sidewalk, it is our legal obligation to make sure the path of travel remains clear.”
What counts as an encampment?
“An encampment has been in the city of Fresno for more than a decade defined as 10 or more people camping in a particular public location for 10 or more days. People camp in many places throughout the city but that doesn’t necessarily constitute an encampment.”
When someone is told to move, where do they go?
“They’ll find another location somewhere in our city to camp or reestablish. I wish we had shelter bed for every person who is experiencing homelessness, but we just don’t. We’ve increased shelter beds by 96% in our community in the last couple of years.”
What services does HART provide to the community?
“We provide 175 showers weekly through our mobile showers weekly through our mobile shower and restroom operation. We have two trailers that rotate throughout the city five days a week. We have this incredible outreach team that meets basic needs, water and food. We provide mental health services and housing navigation. The City of Fresno operates animal services. We always help people get their basic documents, so birth certificates and social security cards. We help people job search, find employment, find housing”
Based on your experience, what are the major causes of homelessness in our area?
“Of course, we find a number of things. One of the big things there’s substance use is big, fractured family relationships is big, mental health is big. It’s not one thing, right? Of course loss of income, death of a spouse. It’s human life. I mean everyone has a story and every one of those stories are real.”
What has HART done since 2021?
“W2hen in our mayor’s leadership we helped facilitate more than 650 people getting off of our freeway embankments. We had folks all over our freeways and highways. We had so many fires and we had a couple deaths and our response was purely compassionate. We were like ‘Hey, this is not safe for you, and we have shelters for you.’ We had 80% of folks living on our freeway embankments except for shelter and we’ve been doing that for now for the last three and a half years now.”
How many unhoused people does HART serve a week?
“They [people] just call us and say, ‘Hey, I see someone who is experiencing homelessness and it looks like they could use some help.’ That then generates a call for service and so we respond. We have around 200 calls for service at all times, that outreach, code and PD are responding to. They’re not camping, and they may not even be homeless, frankly.”
Is the city’s actions having an impact?
“From 2022 to 2023 the City of Fresno reduced overall homelessness by 5.6%. I think it’s really good when you think about what was happening in the world of homelessness during that same time period in California and the nation. Statewide during that same time period, homelessness increased 5.8%. So we reduced by 5.6%, at the same state homelessness went up by 5.8% and national homelessness was up 12%. We are really hopeful and we’ve been working really hard.”
What do you want to say to those who have “exited” homelessness?
“I’m proud of those that have chosen, made the decision, did the hard work to exit homelessness. That is not easy. I’m so proud of every individual and every family that has done that.”
What is Fresno City doing to help with homelessness?
“We partnered with city college. We have your construction management students building tiny houses. They are building tiny houses to help provide permanent housing for folks on our streets right now. We have also helped provide funding to building housing units that your college is now renting to help. Your college is now renting them to help your students and members of your student body that are experiencing homelessness or housing insecurity so they have stable housing while pursuing their education.”
