Initiative Aims To Provide Pathway To Addiction Treatment For Homeless
The Petaluma’s Sober Circle program, a collaboration of about a dozen groups including the Petaluma Health Care District, the Committee on the Shelterless, or COTS, and the Petaluma Police Department, has surpassed expectations.
Santa Rosa Press Democrat:
Sobriety Program For Homeless People Yields Results In Petaluma
At this time last year, Paul Palmer was going on seven years of being homeless. ... Palmer, 52, is now off the streets and has been sober for three months, thanks to Petaluma’s Sober Circle initiative. He is one of 21 people who completed treatment at Center Point Drug Abuse Alternatives Center during the program’s first year. Six have found permanent housing; Palmer, who is in temporary housing, hopes to add to that number. (Warren, 3/1)
In other news —
KPBS:
San Diegan Appointed To California’s Homeless Housing Initiative
A new state program aimed at providing housing for homeless individuals with serious mental illness is slowly coming together. The "No Place Like Home" program was approved by Gov. Jerry Brown last year. The program allows the state to use $2 billion in bonds from Proposition 63, the Mental Health Services Act passed by voters in 2004 to impose a 1 percent tax on personal income above $1 million, to pay for the construction or rehabilitation of permanent supportive housing for mentally ill homeless people. (Cabrera and Cavanaugh, 3/1)