Homelessness

Homelessness is an extremely complex issue as each person is homeless for different reasons.

Currently the police in Seal Beach do a great job in this area. If a homeless person enters a neighborhood, neighbors can call dispatch at 562-799-4100 and request that “I am concerned for the welfare of this person in my area. Could you please come and check on this.” And the police will send a car out to try to resolve the situation.

The optimal solution, in my opinion, is to re-unite the troubled person with either family or friends to get support in trying to get them back on their feet. I am very supportive of this and supportive of the Seal Beach Police Foundation which raises money to help fly or give bus money to a person that would like to re-unite with relatives. There have been two recent cases where the Seal Beach police homeless liaisons were able to accomplish this.

Also recently the County has been supportive and is assisting with having a mental health professional come once a week to do a drive-along with our officers. They are able to get help a bit easier directly with the mental hospitals if the individual needs help. It is a team effort. I believe a team consisting of police officers, County health and human services specialists as well as psychiatric clinicians can eventually be put together.

I am currently communicating with the homeless liaisons in Seal Beach, Long Beach as well as elected officials in neighboring cities to see if we can come up with solutions for the different situations that we are all coming across more frequently in the past few years. Seal Beach and Long Beach meet regularly now regarding this issue to see what ways we can work together.

I would like to combine an operation that helps keep our neighborhoods safe while at the same time reaches out and helps those in need to move on to a better situation.