The Riverside County Housing and Workforce Solutions Department on Thursday hosted a 4th District Homeless Symposium to facilitate a discussion on creating housing and addressing homelessness.
The symposium got underway at 9 a.m. at the Coachella Valley Rescue Mission, 47470 Van Buren St. It featured presentations from officials with Riverside County, the Coachella Valley Association of Governments and three local cities: Palm Springs, Desert Hot Springs and Palm Desert.
“Homelessness and housing has been one of my top priorities and it has been the last seven years supporting those efforts of Riverside County. It’s been seven years already,” Perez said during his opening remarks. “And obviously, although we’ve been working on these efforts for quite some time, there’s still a lot more to do.”
Perez’s opening remarks were followed by a presentation from the Riverside County Housing and Workforce Solutions Department on the Homeless Action Plan, according to Perez. The presentation went over how many people have been assisted and plans for the future.
Other discussions scheduled through the morning included the Coachella Valley Association of Governments on the CV 200 program, the three cities’ reports on specific initiatives addressing homelessness, and a roundtable covering each presenter’s successes, challenges and efforts to increase the supply of affordable housing.
“Having moved to conducting the homelessness point-in-time count once every two years, we are using this time to really take a step back and think through where we can get better,” Perez said in a statement.
