On Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 63-year-old Peter Planteen drives through West Marin, checking up on homeless clients, some of whom he’s known for years. His white van, painted with the words “Community Action Marin—Care Team 1,” carries a box loaded with 100 heavy metal CDs he blasts while making the rounds.
“I play it loud, and it relaxes me,” he said. “This work is tough.”
Mr. Planteen, who claims to be the “only Republican social worker in Marin County,” supervises a four-member outreach team tasked with finding, meeting and connecting Marin’s homeless to the county’s service system, which is centralized in San Rafael and Novato. It’s a tough on-the-ground job aimed at identifying who, exactly, makes up Marin County’s homeless population. That group rose from 933 people in 2013 to 1,309 last year, according to the county, in large part due to a new method the county adopted for surveying and counting homeless individuals that gives a more accurate picture.
Of the county’s homeless population, 16 percent live in unincorporated areas. It’s these people whom, for six years, Mr. Planteen has sought to locate and refer to services. “I find them,” he said, “and we make a bridge of trust through time.”
Out in the field, Mr. Planteen talks with clients new and old, establishing trust by bringing them food, socks and sleeping bags, all with the aim of steering them—often with difficulty—toward the county’s services. Relying on “instinct and intuition,” he knocks on the windows of vehicles and treks out into the woods surrounding Tomales Bay and Bolinas.
West Marin’s homeless tend to cluster in Bolinas and around Point Reyes Station and Inverness for a specific reason: to live off the land and in relative peace. Many do not care for living indoors.
“People come out here because they don’t want to be bothered,” Mr. Planteen said. “That makes it difficult.”
Nevertheless, securing housing for his clients is his foremost goal, and he has had some success. Of the roughly 950 homeless people he has located, he has secured permanent housing for 60, three of whom were living in West Marin.
The county estimates that 32 homeless people live in Lagunitas, 10 live in Woodacre and nine in Point Reyes Station; 52 others live in other unincoporated areas. Mr. Planteen considered the county’s tally for Lagunitas to be much higher than it actually is, and added that he works with around 30 people in Bolinas.
Once, Mr. Planteen spent over a year checking up on a man who lived beside an outhouse along Tomales Bay. The man suffered from Parkinson’s disease and for months refused Mr. Planteen’s pleas to seek help. Finally he caved, made an appointment with a psychologist at Health and Human Services and was later put up in a hotel in San Rafael. Now, he rents an apartment in Terra Linda.
Alongside his persistence, Mr. Planteen’s own past equips him for the work. As a former alcoholic diagnosed with bipolar disorder, he is able to relate to his clients, most of whom suffer from acute drug and alcohol addiction and severe mental health illnesses. “If I didn’t have that experience,” he said, “I wouldn’t be able to do this job.”
All four members—called “peer providers”—of the care teams have suffered from drug or alcohol abuse and mental illness, and some still do. The teams represent one of several mental-health outreach programs offered by Community Action Marin, a nonprofit with a $15 million budget that was designated as the county’s official anti-poverty agency in 1967.
Mr. Planteen’s team focuses on the county’s severely mentally handicapped population and his primary objective is to hand off his clients to one of the county’s many mental health and housing programs, such as the Odyssey and Buckelew programs. From there, clients can be accepted into permanent housing after fulfilling a series of requirements that include seeing a psychiatrist regularly, working long-term with a case manager and qualifying for supplemental security income.
“Peter makes that personal connection until they’re at that point where they’re comfortable with him and they can take that next step to a housing program,” said Laurel Hill, executive director of Community Action Marin. “They’re not going to pick up a phone and call county mental health on their own.”
The inability to maintain stable housing in Marin has long been the core cause of homelessness, according to Health and Human Services’ homelessness analyst, Jason Satterfield. Last week, Mr. Satterfield gave a presentation to county supervisors that noted 71 percent of people in the county’s various transitional housing programs had moved into permanent housing in 2014.
In addition, 70 households were stabilized in 2013 by the county’s Homeless Prevention and Rapid Rehousing program, which provides funds for families at risk of eviction. Mr. Satterfield said 72 new permanent housing beds are anticipated to be available next year at a facility in Novato called Oma Village that is being built by Homeward Bound, a nonprofit that provides permanent housing throughout the county. Of the 72 beds, 45 will be for people in families and 27 for chronically homeless individuals.
But the county’s progress report came on the heels of a civil grand jury report that criticized Marin for failing to appoint a high-ranking official to serve as the head of Marin’s homelessness services. The report also criticized the county for not taking into account the full economic impact of Marin’s homeless population, including the impact on business and the cost of public safety.
“I appreciate all the things you’re doing, but please don’t devolve into being self-congratulatory about these programs,” Jack Nixon, foreman of the grand jury, told supervisors last Tuesday. “Something more needs to be done, and that’s why we’re asking that someone take charge.”
In their response, supervisors disagreed that the county needed the kind of high-ranking official the grand jury recommended. They did, however, agree that a better job could be done to calculate the full scope of the economic impacts of homelessness, and that the county budget reflect better tracking of specific expenditures for homeless services.
“I agree with a lot of what’s in the grand jury report,” Supervisor Damon Connolly said. “I think the county does need to step up and take the lead on homelessness.”
In West Marin, homelessness services are scanty, though Mr. Satterfield told the Light that West Marin is an area that Health and Human Services “wants to prioritize going forward for expansion of service.”
West Marin Community Services provides some services, such as a food pantry. The nonprofit donates half of the profits from the neighboring thrift store to a distribution fund that pays for food, gas vouchers, car repairs and medical expenses for those in need.
Socorro Romo, the resource center’s director, said she often points out homeless people she sees in the community to Mr. Planteen, who in turn will lead them to the resource center. And even though many of his clients reject outright his attempts to direct them to services, Mr. Planteen keeps up his route, hopeful that he can change someone’s mind.