![\"\"](\"https:\/\/img.lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/19114045\/0909-Tide-4.jpg\")
To help find housing or shelter for the Days Inn residents, the city has contracted with an Orange County-based nonprofit called Illumination Foundation.<\/p>\n
The organization\u2019s co-CEO, Jack Toan, says his staff is moving as quickly as possible but concedes they\u2019ve never confronted such a tight deadline. If Long Beach\u2019s shelter becomes full, Toan says, people might be offered beds in shelters run by Illumination in Orange County.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur team is working very hard and I know it\u2019s been difficult for everyone in the field right now,\u201d he says. \u201cWhat we don\u2019t want to do is put anyone who is vulnerable out on the streets.\u201d<\/p>\n
‘This whole thing has been a nightmare’<\/b><\/h5>\n
Cynthia Taylor bounced between different apartments in Long Beach over the years until the rents rose so high that she began sleeping in her car and, eventually, on the sidewalks in Belmont Shore, where she was a familiar presence.<\/p>\n
The pain and swelling in her legs from cellulitis became unbearable and she was forced to use a walker to get around. As her condition deteriorated during the pandemic, concerned residents called Christine Barry, a local advocate with a reputation for helping <\/a>some of the most difficult cases of homelessness.<\/p>\n Barry, who runs her own nonprofit called Ashlee\u2019s Homeless Fund, knew she had to act fast when she saw the elderly Taylor sitting with a cart containing her life\u2019s belongings at the corner of Bay Shore Avenue and Second Street.<\/p>\n \u201cHer condition was really bad,\u201d\u00a0 Barry recalls. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t safe. She couldn\u2019t fend for herself. If she had stayed out there she would have died.\u201d<\/p>\n Through her city connections, the 71-year-old activist was able to secure Taylor a room at the Days Inn as part of Project Roomkey, which was created as shelters reduced their capacity to curb the spread of COVID-19. Now, Barry has been trying to rescue Taylor again, along with another resident, Dennis, who she managed to place at the motel a couple of months ago.<\/p>\n Dennis is 75 years old and 90% blind. He had been living on the streets near the Trader Joe\u2019s in the Los Altos shopping center for more than two years when a panicked resident called Barry after the disabled homeless man was almost hit by a car.<\/p>\n Dennis, who says he has no living family members, had been staying with a friend in his 90s but was asked to leave because of his hoarding behaviors. Dennis says that as his eyesight deteriorated, he kept close to familiar places.<\/p>\n \u201cI just went slow and had people helping me, making sure I knew when the lights turned green,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n Barry says case workers told her that Dennis would be placed in an assisted living facility. But last weekend, she says, he informed her that the facility was located too far away, in Lancaster.<\/p>\n Late Wednesday, Barry told the Post that she finally scored a breakthrough in her months-long advocacy for Dennis. She says the city\u2019s contractor, Illumination, has located a board-and-care facility in the Westlake area of Los Angeles that is willing to accept Dennis, even though his Social Security status is still up in the air.<\/p>\n A solution may be close for Taylor, too. Barry says the city has agreed that a group shelter would not fit her needs and is committed to finding her another hotel room.<\/p>\n \u201cThis whole thing has been a nightmare,\u201d Barry says. \u201cIt\u2019s unbelievably frustrating. There\u2019s just no sense of urgency in helping these people.\u201d<\/p>\n City officials, while acknowledging the emotional strain on the Days Inn residents, say the program overall has been successful in at least one of its key goals\u2014to protect vulnerable homeless individuals from contracting COVID-19.<\/p>\n Duncan of the city\u2019s homeless bureau says 324 people participated in Project Roomkey\u2019s three Long Beach sites and none died from the virus, although about a dozen individuals succumbed to other health issues and drug overdoses.<\/p>\n He says roughly 20% of participants ended up in some kind of permanent housing but did not specify whether those individuals found their own places or were placed by the city in housing that included vital services.<\/p>\n Duncan says that 20% of the participants received emergency shelter, while about 10% were placed in transitional housing. Nine percent, he says, returned to the streets. The city has no information, Duncan says, on the whereabouts of 22% of the participants because such records were not being kept early in the program.<\/p>\n Overall, Gov. Gavin Newson has estimated<\/a> that more than 22,000 people statewide were served by the program, roughly one fifth of California\u2019s homeless population.<\/p>\n In Long Beach, Duncan also says residents received mental health support and other services during their hotel stays, although some residents who spoke to the Post said they received few, if any, such services while in the program.<\/p>\n Duncan acknowledged that, during the early months of the pandemic, the city faced challenges in providing housing, mental health and other services because staffing was stretched thin and there was a focus on providing support while minimizing contact.<\/p>\n As restrictions loosened, Duncan says, services were stepped up, including providing emergency housing vouchers to Roomkey participants, guaranteeing payment to landlords willing to rent to unhoused individuals.<\/p>\n One Roomkey resident, who asked not to be named, said she\u2019s had a housing voucher for months but can\u2019t find a landlord willing to accept one. \u201cThese vouchers are like toilet paper,\u201d she says. \u201cNo one will take them. They do nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n Barry, for her part, says she plans to push forward to fill the gaps left by the city\u2019s homeless bureaucracy.<\/p>\n A former substance abuse counselor, Barry became involved in helping others after meeting Long Beach Police Officer Rich Armond, who serves on the department\u2019s Quality of Life team.<\/p>\n At the time, Barry was struggling with the death of her 33-year-old son Michael, who was a liver transplant patient, while Armond was still coping with the loss of his 20-year-old daughter, Ashlee, who died in an accident<\/a> in 2014.<\/p>\n The two bonded as they spanned the city helping homeless people to help ease their shared grief. \u201cI was his pitbull,\u201d she says with a chuckle.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/img.lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/28165723\/0914-Lisa-1.jpg\")
City calls Project Roomkey mostly successful\u00a0<\/b><\/h5>\n
The activist and the cop on a shared mission<\/b><\/h5>\n