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Today, HUMBOLDT CONVERSATIONS concludes a series about the City of Eureka’s efforts to address homelessness and the mental health crisis – specifically, the work coordinated by the UPLIFT Eureka program.
Today, we get a law enforcement perspective on those efforts with Commander Lenny La France, who leads the Eureka Police Department’s Community Safety Engagement Team, which is tasked with respond to many calls from the city regarding homelessness and people in crisis.
Previous episodes of this series included:
With that: Commander France. Video above, transcript below.
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JOHN KENNEDY O’CONNOR:
Well, welcome to another Humboldt conversation. I’m here now with Commander Lenny La France who is the Community Safety Engagement…who is part of the Community Safety Engagement team…it’s quite a long sentence…for the police department of ‘Eureka.
Commander La France, nice to meet you. Thank you very much for talking to us.
FRANCE :
THANKS.
O’CONNOR:
Now you’ve launched the CSET, which is a partnership with the City of Eureka’s Uplift Eureka Program and the EPD. When was the program launched?
COMMANDER LEONARD LA FRANCE:
The program was created in July 2018 when we were looking to solve some problems along the seafront in the old town.
O’CONNOR:
And what is the mission of the CSET program?
FRANCE :
CSET’s mission has now transformed from where it began to where it is now. So it’s really focused on mental health issues, substance use disorders, and then mental illness.
O’CONNOR:
And it really helps the most vulnerable in the community, doesn’t it, that’s what it’s for.
FRANCE :
Yeah, it’s really more of a less policing unit, more of a social service program, but also has the ability, obviously, to enforce laws as well. But he’s much more able to connect people directly to resources on the ground and do much more proactive outreach with people.
O’CONNOR:
And the main area you cover seems to be the old town, waterfront, city parks as well, but it actually covers the whole city.
FRANCE :
It does. So initially the goal was to really look at the city parks, old town and waterfront. However, as this program matured we looked at more issues of mental health and mental illness throughout the community. And now CSET responds to 40% of all mental health calls in the city. They respond to people in case of a crisis call.
O’CONNOR:
We’re also going to talk to Jacob Rosen, because that’s another partnership the city has created. But when I spoke to Jeff Davis of Uplift Eureka, he described the CSET program as very, very successful – very successful, I think he said. So what progress has been made in the five years of existence?
FRANCE :
So I think a lot of it is about the human connections that we make with people who are either on the streets, or having crises or mental health issues, or wanting to seek treatment. So, the possibility of directly connecting people from the streets to a rehabilitation center or from a street to a housing program. It was a success for us. I think of the past… since 2018, about 220 people and more directly from the streets to rehabilitation centers. And then of course with our partner Uplift, which is our outreach side of our sister unit, they did I think it was 150 people in housing. It’s probably a low number, but we’ve done a ton of people in housing in addition to our other programs.
But there is a lot of other data that we collect. So people are connecting to resources, including housing, you know looking at food, clothing, whatever, to really address those needs and those gaps that are in the community that we’ve just filled until this that we can send them to a much larger organization to kind of do the long-term work.
O’CONNOR:
And which are these organizations with which you are in partnership?
FRANCE :
So we work with a lot of people. The largest is obviously the county, DHHS. We also work with Betty Chinn, the Mission, the Salvation Army, St. Vincent DePaul or Free Meal. I think there are 50 partners we work with in total.
O’CONNOR:
And in fact, a new warming center opened in the city a few weeks ago.
FRANCE :
There is, yeah. So it’s been one of our projects for probably a few weeks. The chef came up with this idea and passed it on to us in about a week and a half. We had the warming center operational and in partnership with Lifehouse and also with Betty Chinn Day Center. And so, actually open tonight at Betty’s and it’s been a long time, we’ve had between 3 and 12 people staying there. But again, that’s 3-12 people who aren’t on the street when it’s most vulnerable over time.
O’CONNOR:
The weather has been very rough this year, it has been very difficult. So how do you see the program developing in the future?
FRANCE :
It’s a good question. Our vision is really to have a three-and-a-half-pronged approach to re-addressing mental health, homelessness, and addictions issues. We have CARE, which is the mental health arm of the city. We have Uplift, which is our homeless outreach team. We want to add a medical component so either a paramedic on that team who can solve simple problems like if someone has a foot injury or wound care they can solve it on the ground rather than taking a ambulance and send him to St. Joe’s, taking them to a bed – which is pretty rare these days, beds. We can handle it, and half will be law enforcement, because we’re not always needed, but we are definitely needed at times. So it’s a three-and-a-half-pronged approach.
O’CONNOR:
We had an interview on Humboldt Today with the mayor – actually, over a cup of tea. She brought up homelessness and there was a very surprising reaction from the audience saying, you know, homelessness, mental health issues and so on. It is the problem of the individual. It’s not something the city should be diverting resources to. I would really like your comments on that. It seemed very hard to me.
FRANCE :
Yeah, I would disagree. I think when you look at the issues, some of the biggest issues in this community are the correlation that is going to be homelessness. But once you peel the onion more, you see more of the mental health pull, you see more of the addiction pull, you find childhood trauma. And so, of course, these are just the surface layers. We have to go back further. And there is a lot of correlation. And then, of course, there is also the correlated crime. So crime, scourge. And so we have to proactively address these issues instead of saying, hey, it’s not our problem, we can walk away.
O’CONNOR:
And following that, some of the criticisms were that if people aren’t encouraged to help themselves and the resources are put there, then the situation is just exacerbated again. And that sounds like a very cruel thing.
FRANCE :
I agree. Sometimes you have people who don’t want any help. Our 2022 survey data is about 30% said they were among our homeless people we surveyed who said they were satisfied with their lives. I believe it’s 30%, or somewhere in that range.
So again, we cannot create that will for them. But those who are really, really mentally ill, who can’t make decisions on their own, really have difficulty making decisions on a daily basis, at least we can push them in a certain direction or provide them with services. We can also use law enforcement officers, and also use the justice system if we need to hijack the system to get people to help that they really need.
O’CONNOR:
Well, it has a big impact. It’s been five years now and obviously it’s having an impact on the street. So, congratulations, and hope for future success. Commander La France, nice to meet you. Thank you so much. Thank you for joining us for a Humboldt Conversation and join us very soon for another Humboldt Conversation.