The Pima County Board of Supervisors discussed an update on the county’s initiatives aimed to address homelessness today during the regular meeting.
For those experiencing homelessness to find a bed, there’s a process that they have to go through called coordinated entry.
“It’s a way to triage people, those with the highest need to be triaged first,” Tom Litwicki, Old Pueblo Community Services’ CEO, said. “What happens is then they send this list of names out to different agencies.”
He said this process is helpful, in theory, but it comes with challenges.
“We have someone in front of us that has really high need,” he said. “And they’re with us right now, and we could provide that service, but we can’t because we have to wait for the coordinated entry process.”
Deputy County Administrator Steve Holmes said they want to expedite this process, but because the shelters are full, they have to find other resources.
“So at the end of the day, we have to look at other systems to see how we can address these issues,” Holmes said.
Litwicki said they are working to make more space for those experiencing homelessness but they need more funding.
“There are fewer cares act money out there,” Litwicki said. “We’ll do what we can to get people into these low-barrier shelter beds, but we’ll have nowhere near what we need for the next couple of years.”