Fresno nonprofit leaders say bed space running low as city moves to ban homeless encampments

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- Fresno nonprofit leaders interest radical volition person fewer places to spell if the metropolis cracks down connected encampments.

"We conscionable simply don't person capable abstraction for each level," Matt Dildine said. "Our waiting lists are hundreds of radical long."

Dildine leads the Fresno Mission, a nonprofit that offers housing, counseling, food, and different services to Fresno's unhoused population.

Recent information reported by the Fresno Madera Continuum of Care shows that much than 3,200 radical were stateless successful Fresno successful 2023. They are present astatine the halfway of heated discussions wrong Fresno City Hall.

City Council Members met connected Monday to instrumentality the archetypal measurement toward banning sitting, lying, sleeping, and camping successful nationalist places.

It came a week aft the politician called connected cities to ace down and a period aft the Supreme Court gave the greenish airy to specified laws.

"What I consciousness similar this ordinance is doing, what I consciousness similar the state's doing successful presumption of its interaction ... We're drowning successful the mediate of a lake, and past you're telling maine I'm drowning successful the mediate of the ocean," Dildine said.

The Mission's telephone for assistance comes arsenic akin nonprofits, similar Fresno's Poverello House, accidental its exigency shelters are typically 99 percent full.

"There's not capable structure beds to structure everyone, nor bash I deliberation the metropolis oregon county, oregon anyone else, is presenting that arsenic a world successful our community," CEO Zack Darrah said. "We find that determination is simply a batch of need."

Back astatine the Mission, Dildine recognizes wherefore the metropolis assembly is considering specified enactment but says it volition bash small to code the basal causes of homelessness. He is calling for a caller attack that combines short-term and semipermanent needs.

"We person a displacement that's much focused connected gathering places for exigency lodging with attraction wherever that attraction is not optional," Dildine said.

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