On Dec. 6, the city of San Fernando opened the doors of the Business and Community Resource Center in City Hall – described as a hub of resources, information and opportunities for residents and businesses.
Operating out of the resource center are Kenya Marquez, housing coordinator; Christina Moreno, social services coordinator; Kanika Kith, deputy city manager of economic development; the North Valley Caring Services (NVCS) outreach team; representatives of the nonprofit Home Again LA; and business services from ICON.
Beyond a space for helping the businesses of San Fernando thrive, the center holds the heart of the newly developing Homeless Response Center.
In 2022, the city released its first-ever Homeless Action Plan (HAP), which sets a five-year timeframe to develop a response to homelessness.
The city of San Fernando most recently counted 72 unhoused people within its 2.4 square miles.
The plan sets three goals: establishing a Homelessness Response Center, eliminating unsheltered homelessness in San Fernando and utilizing partnerships with upstream services while creating mechanisms to measure success.
It does this by focusing on three priority areas: developing the city’s capacity to prevent and end homelessness, supporting the service needs of unhoused folks and addressing root causes to prevent homelessness.
The first step taken this year in creating a Homeless Response Center was executing the yearlong contract with the nonprofit NVCS for street outreach services. The second was the appointment of Marquez and the most recent is the development of the resource center.
Marquez is responsible for overseeing and implementing the homelessness services, initiatives and contracts – basically, she manages the response center and oversees the implementation of the HAP. She is also focusing on addressing the third priority of the action plan: homelessness prevention.
HAP identified “the development of affordable housing and Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH)” as one of the most critical issues contributing to unsheltered homelessness in San Fernando.
Many people may slip from poverty into homelessness – rent increases become too expensive, food prices eat away a larger portion of monthly income, wages don’t keep up with inflation or a medical bill becomes a financial burden. These are just a few of the potential problems people are facing today.
Catching someone before they fall into homelessness can ease the burden on the resources that it takes to lift someone out of homelessness.
Marquez and her supervisor Erika Ramirez, community development director, are trying to address the root of these problems.
“It’s helping to fill in that gap and trying to think of [in the] long term ‘how can we help?’” said Ramirez.
Being a small city without the capacity to directly provide resources, it’s developing partnerships with organizations, nonprofits and the county to make already existing resources readily available to San Fernando citizens. This is part of the third goal of the plan: “leveraging strategic partnerships with upstream services” to divert people from needing the homelessness response system.
“The idea, because we are a small city, is to really be able to be a hub for resources. And so we’re trying to create partnerships in which we can have residents, and unhoused neighbors as well, access those resources,” said Ramirez.
They said the goal is to be a one-stop shop, where citizens can get connected to established organizations that can aid them with anything from food and rent assistance programs, to job placement and childcare services.
The resource center is the first step in creating that resource hub for residents of San Fernando, and Home Again LA is the first partnership in homeless prevention.
Where NVCS offers homeless outreach, Home Again LA offers rental assistance, rapid rehousing and employment assistance programs. Additionally, they process Cal Fresh and low-fare Metro Transit applications directly from the resource center.
Albert Hernandez, the chief executive officer at Home Again LA, reported to the city that they helped four San Fernando households with rental assistance in December.
As a partnership, the organization offers its services free of charge to the city but only operates from the center on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
Ramirez told the San Fernando Valley Sun/el Sol that they aim to have the program structure and all the partnerships established within two years, so they can have time to evaluate and measure the success of the programs.
Marquez is early in her appointment, but as partnerships and contracts are finalized, she is eager for more resources to become readily available to residents.
Most importantly, she wants to hear what the needs are of the community.
“We, as a city, want to be able to be transparent and address and answer questions that residents, business owners, community members may have concerning homelessness,” said Marquez.
The City of San Fernando’s annual homeless count will take place on Tuesday, Jan 23, at 8 p.m. To volunteer visit: theycountwillyou.org/san_fernando