September 2019

Camp Clean-Ups

In early September, the Homeless Outreach Street Team (HOST) continued their ongoing clean up efforts. The photos below are of the area adjacent to I-5 in between Home Depot and WalMart. As you can see this abandoned camp took a coordinated effort and numerous resources to address. The HOST team can be contacted by calling their message line at (530) 661-7879. This number is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Please keep in mind that this is a message line and response times can vary.

July 2019

Homelessness in Woodland

Many communities in Yolo County and throughout our state have experienced an increase in homelessness.  The PIT (Point In Time) count results were just recently released showing the City of Woodland experienced an increase in homelessness of 81% from 2017 to 2019.  In 2017 the homeless count was 131 and in 2019 the homeless count was 238.  Two factors attributed to the increase in our homeless count.  Primarily there are more people experiencing homelessness in our city.  Secondly, the City of Woodland improved upon its methodology to complete this count making it a more accurate representation of the current population.  We deployed police officers and collaborated with our local shelter, Fourth and Hope, to find the majority of our homeless.

While our population has increased, so have our efforts to work collaboratively with other government agencies and non-profit organizations to pursue long-term, effective solutions for those experiencing homelessness.  With the addition of Social Services Manager and our H.O.S.T. team we are working closely with agencies such as Yolo County Health and Human Service Agency, Fourth and Hope, Yolo Community Care Continuum, Empower Yolo, Department of Employment and Social Services and the Yolo County Housing Authority in an effort to connect people experiencing homelessness to services that will lead to housing. 

We understand housing is only cure for homelessness however, with vacancy rates in Yolo County at 3.76% we are committed to measuring small successes along the way. These include; staff engagement, performing assessment and triage screening to facilitate service referrals, working with outside agencies for obtaining treatment where appropriate, and assisting individuals with emergency shelter services. These successes improve their ability to be housed and ultimately more successful in our community.

If you have questions or comments regarding homelessness in Woodland, please feel free to email host@cityofwoodland.org or call 530-661-7879.

If you have concern that needs immediate attention please contact 530-666-2411.