OPCC Outreach Makes Dent in Palisades Homelessness Rate

By ERIKA MARTIN | Reporter

The Pacific Palisades Task Force on Homelessness’ (PPTFH) ground-breaking initiative to use private funds to combat homelessness has so far brought six people into shelter, thanks to the field work of Maureen Rivas and Glanda Sherman.

Rivas and Sherman are outreach coordinators with Ocean Park Community Center (OPCC), the largest social services agency on the Westside, with whom the Palisades task force has collaborated to provide housing, mental health, substance abuse and domestic violence services.

Under them, the program is in able hands. After just over a month on the job, the pair can greet almost any homeless individual in the Palisades by name and has quickly produced measurable results.

Both Rivas and Sherman have long histories of working with homeless populations and are eager to help their clients achieve permanent stability and put an end to what they call a revolving door of services.

“These people have a life. They have been somewhere and done something,” Sherman said. “I want to get to see the other side of their lives—the success stories.”

Rivas said some of the population in the Palisades has been in the area a while, but most travel back and forth between Santa Monica, sleeping in the Palisades where it’s safer and quieter.

“The population we serve, in different financial circumstances, would be your neighbor,” she said. “They’re just people. They have their wants, their dreams. We go in without any judgment on where they’re at because you have to meet them where they’re at.”

According to Sherman, many local homeless people knew OPCC’s outreach coordinators would be coming to the Palisades and some said they were looking forward to it.

“We’ve had good and positive interactions with people, to the point where a young lady was saying, ‘Now that you’re here, even though I may not be ready, it gives me hope that I will be able to make up my mind and there’s somewhere I can go,’” she said.

Both have found mental health to be the biggest roadblock in building relationships.

“You might just show up and say, ‘Hey, how you doing,’ until they have a moment of clarity and they recognize you,” Rivas said. “It’s a slow process. Other ones will cuss us out. So it’s just, ‘Alright, nice seeing you, I’ll be back tomorrow.’”

Consistent daily contact is their relationship’s foundation, Sherman said, which is bolstered by OPCC’s expansive access to services.

“We’re not giving up on you. We’re coming back, and we’ll keep coming back,” she said. “And the fact that we’re from such a large organization that is one of the largest in this field, we have all the resources to pull on.”

Sherman noted the example of the nurse the group has been able to dispatch to meet with “Timmy,” who has shown a better response to those with medical backgrounds.

Once the outreach team is able to get someone to accept shelter, they drive them in themselves to Turning Point, OPCC’s newest interim housing facility, and process their intake paperwork.

From there, clients are hooked up to mental health services, given a mental health and medical assessment and if possible set up with So cial Security or Veteran’s benefits. If they’re able to work, OPCC will coordinate with Chrysalis to help them enter the workforce.

Unlike with other shelters, individuals may take pets and personal items with them, and OPCC works with those who are still abusing substances.

“We address the behaviors, not the fact that you’re still drinking or getting loaded,” Rivas said.

Those who have been taken in often communicate with friends still on the outside and encourage them to accept help or ask the outreach team to visit specific clients, Rivas said, and right now the organization has two individuals waiting for beds to open up.

“Throughout the United States there aren’t enough shelters to accommodate the homeless,” she said. “I could understand if you went to downtown LA and you went to the Midnight Mission, you wouldn’t want to go back. But Turning Point just got renovated. When people come in, it’s mind-blowing to them because they think, ‘This is not what I expected.’”

The best way for Palisadians to help the outreach team do its work, she said, is to treat homeless individuals as you would a neighbor. “Just say, ‘Hey, how’s it going today?’ You don’t have to stop and have a conversation.”

But when a conversation does take place, Sherman said, you can see the beauty in their stories.

“You can see the emotion, the hurt and the pain, and you can see their strengths,” she said. “You don’t see all of the other stuff that causes them to be marginalized and misunderstood.”