Janet Liang, first vice chair of the CalChamber Board and executive vice president of Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc., moderates a discussion on the homelessness crisis at the CalChamber Board meeting on September 8. Panelists are Jed Leano, second term member of the Claremont City Council; Ben Metcalf, managing director, Terner Center for Housing Innovation at the University of California, Berkeley; and Graham Knaus, CEO, California State Association of Counties. Panelists agree that collaboration among the different government entities assigned to deal with homelessness will be a key to making progress on solving the crisis and that a one-size-fits-all approach to finding housing for the homeless hasn’t worked. Although individuals camped along streets and sidewalks (including persons with mental and health challenges) are the most visible members of the homeless population, panelists say, data that is starting to be collected show that a sizable segment of the homeless are less obvious but equally in need of assistance. Factors contributing to the homelessness problem include the high cost of and shortage of housing and a disconnect between what agencies are assigned to do and the power they actually have to implement policy goals, according to panelists.
