SECTION 1.

 The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:

(a) California has the highest rate of homelessness and the highest ratio of homeless people per resident, with 360,000 people sleeping on the streets or in shelters on any given night.

(b) Homelessness is traumatic for those who suffer it, often leading to separated families, exacerbation of health conditions, a rise in avoidable emergency room use, social and academic delays among children, and greater likelihood of incarceration.

(c) Many people who lack permanent shelter and the ability to access regular support ricochet through separate and expensive public systems: overburdened corrections systems, overcrowded hospital emergency rooms, mental health programs, substance abuse treatment and detox facilities, shelters, and emergency housing. As a result, people experiencing chronic homelessness use a disproportionate share of state and local services.

(d) Innovative approaches across the nation and within California show promise for reducing homelessness and the resulting impact on state services.

(e) Changing the system and reducing homelessness requires coordination and cooperation among federal, state, and local governments, as well as private sector organizations.

(f) Creation of a statewide coordinating council is an important and effective tool in supporting initiatives to end homelessness in California.

(g) Creation of a statewide coordinating council will stem avoidable costs of maintaining the number of homeless persons and will, therefore, result in reducing avoidable costs to multiple programs.

(h) Homelessness affects multiple systems in California at a very high public cost, including housing, mental health and substance abuse, education, corrections, foster care, health care, and veterans services. Reducing homelessness would produce cost savings for all these systems. The state adopted a Ten-Year Chronic Homelessness Action Plan in February 2010, but has no mechanism in place to assess progress or hold state agencies accountable to the action steps in the plan. A codified, structured interagency council on homelessness would help fill this gap.

(i) In November 2005, Governor Schwarzenegger created the Governor’s Chronic Homelessness Initiative, which included plans to form an interagency coordinating council to reduce homelessness. The Business, Transportation and Housing Agency’s 2005–10 Consolidated Plan further indicates the importance of an interagency council on homelessness. Despite these intentions, a council has not met regularly or publicly since the Governor adopted his Chronic Homelessness Initiative.

(j) California must give priority to developing consolidated, coordinated, and cooperative approaches to issues of homelessness, including, but not limited to, specific issues addressing homeless youth, families, veterans, parolees, victims of domestic violence, people with substance abuse or other mental health disorders, people with mental health and substance use disorders, people experiencing chronic homelessness, seniors, and disabled people.

(k) Working within current costs, a revitalized Interagency Council on Homelessness will reduce duplication of efforts and the costs of homelessness and will redirect resources to more effective approaches, developing a more integrated system and eliminating fragmentation. Other states have created interagency councils without initial investment of resources.

(l) California is not accessing all of the federal funds for homelessness that it should due to a lack of coordination among some agencies. Application for these funds could total millions of dollars, and requires state agency collaboration.