The push to end homelessness.

[JayByrd]

Ya sorry all you are doing is helping them by pulling the victim card for them. Many of my friends were out on the streets before 12 years old! Some of the sexually abused, some violently abused in foster homes. Today they are hard working citizens, some with families of their own. So your argument falls flat on it's face.

I know people who have recovered from cancer. Other people get it and die quickly though. It's not because those who recovered, tried harder or were of better character. Their circumstances were just different.

Some people are more resilient than others. Some people had the right supports at the right times and that kept them from falling to the very bottom of society. Some were already too far gone to be helped. There will always be people who overcome trauma and hardship. And there will always be people who couldn't. Your overall point seems to be that anyone who's ended up on the streets, is there due to their poor choices. So what do we do about them? What do we do about the ones who are too broken to be fixed? We could just leave them to their own devices, but that leads to anti-social, destructive behaviour that impacts those around them. No one seems to be okay with that. Heck, even when we as a society, offer help, they still behave in criminal, anti-social ways. That's simply the level they function at.

Some organizations try to improve their quality of life and reduce suffering. Connect them with resources so at least they have a chance. But there is no "cure" for people who can't function in society. The people those organizations serve, will continue to be who and what they are. On these boards, we make those organizations into villains, because we want someone to blame. We don't want to accept that this is society's problem, we want to blame John Howard Society, or City Hall, or whatever shelter is nearby.

You can't cure them, and taking all the supports away won't cause them to quietly die off and disappear. People on the streets have a knack for staying alive.

Society is broken, and it produces broken people. By the time they're living on the streets, it's almost always too late to get them back into society.

[rustled]

Ya sorry all you are doing is helping them by pulling the victim card for them. Many of my friends were out on the streets before 12 years old! Some of the sexually abused, some violently abused in foster homes. Today they are hard working citizens, some with families of their own. So your argument falls flat on it's face.

I know people who have recovered from cancer. Other people get it and die quickly though. It's not because those who recovered, tried harder or were of better character. Their circumstances were just different.

Some people are more resilient than others. Some people had the right supports at the right times and that kept them from falling to the very bottom of society. Some were already too far gone to be helped. There will always be people who overcome trauma and hardship. And there will always be people who couldn't. Your overall point seems to be that anyone who's ended up on the streets, is there due to their poor choices. So what do we do about them? What do we do about the ones who are too broken to be fixed? We could just leave them to their own devices, but that leads to anti-social, destructive behaviour that impacts those around them. No one seems to be okay with that. Heck, even when we as a society, offer help, they still behave in criminal, anti-social ways. That's simply the level they function at.

Some organizations try to improve their quality of life and reduce suffering. Connect them with resources so at least they have a chance. But there is no "cure" for people who can't function in society. The people those organizations serve, will continue to be who and what they are. On these boards, we make those organizations into villains, because we want someone to blame. We don't want to accept that this is society's problem, we want to blame John Howard Society, or City Hall, or whatever shelter is nearby.

You can't cure them, and taking all the supports away won't cause them to quietly die off and disappear. People on the streets have a knack for staying alive.

Society is broken, and it produces broken people. By the time they're living on the streets, it's almost always too late to get them back into society.

While I agree with much of what you've said, it seems to me that having pointed out the pitfalls of wanting "someone to blame", you've concluded by blaming "society" - it "is broken, and it produces broken people".

Society isn't "broken" - it's imperfect.

Human nature is such a massive variable, no one solution or ideology or method will ever result in a perfect society. Human nature means we will always have problems to solve. Solving problems works best if we are realistic, use plain language, and work together to focus our efforts toward positive outcomes. There is no panacea.

While I do not think any reasonable person would suggest "taking all the supports away", I think most of us would agree that the way we are providing supports now isn't working well. We need to figure out why - and how to do those supports better.

This means speaking plainly about what's not working, about mental health issues, drug addictions, and about the consequences of allow people who "can't be cured" to continue harming themselves and others. IMO it is never easy to figure out where a hand up becomes a hand out, where assistance becomes enabling, where a social program intended to alleviate poverty becomes more enticing than gainful employment. It's never easy to figure out how to provide for genuine need without incentivizing "need" and dis-incentivizing positive contribution to society.

It seems to me the biggest hurdle we face is ensuring the appropriate supports are available for those who truly need them, without enabling those who simply want them (and without making it easier for those who prey on those least able to fend for themselves).

As you say, among our homeless there are those who can't be cured, and I'd add there are many who do not want to be "cured" - at least, not yet. The worst thing we have done, IMO, is warehousing our most vulnerable people together with those who will hurt them and prey on the surrounding neighbourhood, who persistently undermine the community we all must share.

[fluffy]

Human nature is such a massive variable, no one solution or ideology or method will ever result in a perfect society. Human nature means we will always have problems to solve. Solving problems works best if we are realistic, use plain language, and work together to focus our efforts toward positive outcomes. There is no panacea.

While I do not think any reasonable person would suggest "taking all the supports away", I think most of us would agree that the way we are providing supports now isn't working well. We need to figure out why - and how to do those supports better.

There is a "basic" in human psychology called Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs proposed by Abraham Maslow in 1943. He postulated that there is an order to fulfilling human needs whereas one level must be met before progress to the next is possible. At the bottom of the order are physiological needs, food, clothing, a roof over your head, followed by what he called safety or security needs, a trust that the first level of needs will continue to be met, a level with could include job security.

According to Maslow the basics must be fulfilled before progress beyond that point is possible. This is where human nature comes in, where many just can't or won't progress past stage one. This is where the problem sits, but it also makes it plain that food and housing is an essential step that must be met first.

We could look to government's continued cutbacks in mental health and addiction support as a big contributor to this "stalling out" at stage one.

[rustled]

Human nature is such a massive variable, no one solution or ideology or method will ever result in a perfect society. Human nature means we will always have problems to solve. Solving problems works best if we are realistic, use plain language, and work together to focus our efforts toward positive outcomes. There is no panacea.

While I do not think any reasonable person would suggest "taking all the supports away", I think most of us would agree that the way we are providing supports now isn't working well. We need to figure out why - and how to do those supports better.

There is a "basic" in human psychology called Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs proposed by Abraham Maslow in 1943. He postulated that there is an order to fulfilling human needs whereas one level must be met before progress to the next is possible. At the bottom of the order are physiological needs, food, clothing, a roof over your head, followed by what he called safety or security needs, a trust that the first level of needs will continue to be met, a level with could include job security.

According to Maslow the basics must be fulfilled before progress beyond that point is possible. This is where human nature comes in, where many just can't or won't progress past stage one. This is where the problem sits, but it also makes it plain that food and housing is an essential step that must be met first.

We could look to government's continued cutbacks in mental health and addiction support as a big contributor to this "stalling out" at stage one.

While it's a contributing factor, blaming the government isn't helpful. We've simultaneously seen a massive shift in societal expectations: from criminalization of aberrant behaviours, to compassion for those engaging in aberrant behaviours at the expense of those around them.

IMO, this was a result of the same over-simplifications that so often get us into trouble: "if only the government would provide enough mental health and addiction support" isn't any more helpful than "if only the government would provide enough food and housing".

"Fulfilling the basics" isn't a magic bullet, whether it's the Salvation Army voluntarily "fulfilling the basics", or the employer or the taxpayer mandated to finance the government "fulfilling the basics" - that alone will never be enough, even coupling it with providing more mental health and addictions support will never be enough. Human nature comes in everywhere - not just at what you're referring to as "step one":

• * It's human nature for some to be fiercely independent.
  * It's human nature for some to be greedy.
  * It's human nature for some to enjoy contributing.
  * It's human nature for some to prefer making financial contributions to hands-on contributions.
  * It's human nature for some to voluntarily contribute more than others.
  * It's human nature for some to think "others" aren't contributing enough.
  * It's human nature for some to resent contributing anything at all.
  * It's human nature for some to take whatever they're given and make the best of it and find a way to contribute in return.
  * It's human nature for some to take whatever they are given and demand more.
  * It's human nature for some to take whatever they're given, and take whatever else they want as well.
  * It's human nature for those who believe they are already giving enough to resent being told they must give more.
  * It's human nature for those who believe they are already giving enough to resent seeing those they are giving to waste whatever they are given, and still take more.

It's also human nature to think there are relatively simplistic, ideology-based solutions to complex problems, that if only others would agree with the basics of a particular ideology, we would progress.

That, I think, is where too much of our energy and effort and resources go - convincing "others" to agree with any ideologically-based approach.

Much better to use plain language and be clear about our intentions. Is our objective to "create a better society for the good of all"? With the issue of homelessness, I think, we'd have more success if our objectives are less vague and more succinct:

• * determine how best to meet the basic needs of vulnerable street people with mental health and addiction issues (likely a wide range of services, provided through a wide range of complementary agencies)
  * determine how best to prevent those who persist in preying on others from continuing to do so - our compassion for the vulnerabilities of the predator cannot preclude preventing them from continuing to prey on others
  * determine how best to provide opportunities for the homeless to contribute in positive ways to their community, for those interested.

Homelessness is a complex problem. What we are currently doing - more shelters, more soup kitchens, more harm reduction strategies, more compassion, less criminalization, less prosecution, less incarceration - STILL isn't working.

[JayByrd]

Homelessness is a complex problem. What we are currently doing - more shelters, more soup kitchens, more harm reduction strategies, more compassion, less criminalization, less prosecution, less incarceration - STILL isn't working.

But the goal of these resources isn't to "solve the problem" or make life better for you and me.

Shelters are there to provide shelter. They do that. Harm reduction is there to keep people alive. It does that.

If you're saying the above are simply a waste of resources, I don't personally agree, but I also don't have an argument against that.

[fluffy]

Homelessness is a complex problem. What we are currently doing - more shelters, more soup kitchens, more harm reduction strategies, more compassion, less criminalization, less prosecution, less incarceration - STILL isn't working.

Homelessness is only as complex a problem as we choose to make it. The areas seeing marked success in reducing homelessness have approached it much more simplistically, they need a home, give them one. These programs are discovering that from a point of view of public funds, it is actually cheaper to give a chronically homeless person a home with no strings attached than to provide care for them in the street. Secondly, their chances of recovering from whatever underlying problems caused their homelessness in the first place are vastly improved when housing is taken off their "to do" list. Shelters and soup kitchens are bandaid solutions, helpful perhaps for those who's homelessness is temporary in nature, but not a solution for chronically homeless.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/20 ... ness-utah/

Scroll down to: "In 1992, a psychologist at New York University..."

Salt Lake City's "Housing First" program has become a guiding principle for effective homelessness solutions, all based on a simple ideal, give them a home and deal with the rest later. It will be better for those in the program and cheaper for the taxpayer in the long run.

[rustled]

Homelessness is a complex problem. What we are currently doing - more shelters, more soup kitchens, more harm reduction strategies, more compassion, less criminalization, less prosecution, less incarceration - STILL isn't working.

But the goal of these resources isn't to "solve the problem" or make life better for you and me.

Shelters are there to provide shelter. They do that. Harm reduction is there to keep people alive. It does that.

If you're saying the above are simply a waste of resources, I don't personally agree, but I also don't have an argument against that.

I'm not saying the above are simply a waste of resources - this isn't either/or. "Simply" stating anything is unhelpful.

I see this as a community use of resources. The goal of using the community's resources to provide shelters for those in need is to provide for those in need - particularly those unable to provide for themselves and contribute to their community, and also those who choose to use them. Providing shelter becomes a waste of resources when the community's resources are taken advantage of by those who choose to "need" them and - rather than contribute to their community - do harm to their community.

Harm reduction vis a vis drug use and addictions is intended to keep people alive so they can avail themselves of supports that will help them make better choices. When instead a harm reduction strategy not only keeps people alive, it becomes a means to make it easier for a greater number of people to continue to take from their community on their own terms - a means through which a greater number of people can more easily continue to harm themselves and others - that harm reduction strategy is creating a negative effect overall and becomes a waste of resources.

As I said earlier, human nature makes homelessness a complex problem. There's no simple solution.

We do have a social responsibility to those who are homeless - they are part of our community.

As part of our community, those who are homeless have a social contract, too.

Handing out soup or providing shelter does not come with an expectation the person receiving the soup or the shelter will earn it - we're no longer in the era of workhouses and Poor Law. There were pros and cons to the workhouse approach.

We are expected to respect the homeless as people with basic human rights and treat them with dignity. What's missing in this social contract is any expectation of reciprocal respect for their community. Some homeless are respectful of their community, and quite clearly a significant number of them have no respect whatsoever. Those providing the resources have a reasonable expectation those taking will make some effort, too.

[rustled]

Homelessness is a complex problem. What we are currently doing - more shelters, more soup kitchens, more harm reduction strategies, more compassion, less criminalization, less prosecution, less incarceration - STILL isn't working.

Homelessness is only as complex a problem as we choose to make it. The areas seeing marked success in reducing homelessness have approached it much more simplistically, they need a home, give them one. These programs are discovering that from a point of view of public funds, it is actually cheaper to give a chronically homeless person a home with no strings attached than to provide care for them in the street. Secondly, their chances of recovering from whatever underlying problems caused their homelessness in the first place are vastly improved when housing is taken off their "to do" list. Shelters and soup kitchens are bandaid solutions, helpful perhaps for those who's homelessness is temporary in nature, but not a solution for chronically homeless.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/20 ... ness-utah/

Scroll down to: "In 1992, a psychologist at New York University..."

Salt Lake City's "Housing First" program has become a guiding principle for effective homelessness solutions, all based on a simple ideal, give them a home and deal with the rest later. It will be better for those in the program and cheaper for the taxpayer in the long run.

You're ignoring the complexity of human nature. The piece you quoted from describes some of the complexities. What has happened in Seattle is a result of human nature.

Utah's a different state with different expectations.

In their apartments they could drink, take drugs, and suffer mental breakdowns, as long as they didn’t hurt anyone or bother their neighbors.

Reciprocal social contract - that's not what we have here in BC.

(Note also the heavy involvement of the LDS Church. Conservatives, working to solve a social problem.)

Rules and expectations:

Over at Grace Mary Manor, I am given a tour by the county housing authority’s Kerry Bate—one of the men who helped persuade the LDS church to loan Pendleton to the task force. Grace Mary Manor is home to 84 formerly homeless individuals with disabling conditions such as brain damage, cancer, and dementia. You have to have a swipe card or get buzzed in at the front door, and there’s a front desk manager during the day and an off-duty sheriff at night. Bate explains that one of the biggest problems in giving homeless people a place to live is that they often want to bring their friends in off the street—they feel guilty. So there are rules to limit such visitations.

“It gives the people who live here a way out,” Bate says. “They can blame it on us.”

That's not what we have here in BC.

[fluffy]

You're ignoring the complexity of human nature. What has happened in Seattle is a result of human nature.

Seattle is an extreme case, and "human nature" is not the cause of their rise in homelessness. The real causes are directly related to the cost of housing:

The cost of living in Seattle has significantly risen in the past decade due to gentrification, a statewide ban on rent control, lack of publicly owned affordable housing, and the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic . These have all culminated in an increase in the homeless population. Another contributing factor to the rising price of housing has been Amazon establishing its headquarters in downtown Seattle and the subsequent influx of high-wage tech workers due to the tech boom, between 2010 and 2017 the median rental cost in Seattle rose 41.7%, while the national average was only a 17.6% increase.

It's a red herring to point at an extreme case as a wide-ranging example of the problem as a whole. The first step in dealing with homelessness is to give them a home. It has already been shown in successful programs that simply giving homeless people a place to live gives any support that follows a greater chance of success, and reduces the overall cost of supporting these people. This should be a no-brainer if it weren't for people putting all their energy into coming up with excuses not to help instead of take a more pro-active approach. Sadly, it is also human nature to try to brush our failures as a society under the carpet, and ignore the fact that we have lost our sense of community. I have always held that one measure of a society's maturity is in how it cares for its less fortunate.

I suppose we will see how this approach plays out when the housing projects planned for the old motel sites on Skaha Lake Road come on line.

[rustled]

You're ignoring the complexity of human nature. What has happened in Seattle is a result of human nature.

Seattle is an extreme case, and "human nature" is not the cause of their rise in homelessness. The real causes are directly related to the cost of housing:

The cost of living in Seattle has significantly risen in the past decade due to gentrification, a statewide ban on rent control, lack of publicly owned affordable housing, and the economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic . These have all culminated in an increase in the homeless population. Another contributing factor to the rising price of housing has been Amazon establishing its headquarters in downtown Seattle and the subsequent influx of high-wage tech workers due to the tech boom, between 2010 and 2017 the median rental cost in Seattle rose 41.7%, while the national average was only a 17.6% increase.

It's a red herring to point at an extreme case as a wide-ranging example of the problem as a whole. The first step in dealing with homelessness is to give them a home. It has already been shown in successful programs that simply giving homeless people a place to live gives any support that follows a greater chance of success, and reduces the overall cost of supporting these people. This should be a no-brainer if it weren't for people putting all their energy into coming up with excuses not to help instead of take a more pro-active approach. Sadly, it is also human nature to try to brush our failures as a society under the carpet, and ignore the fact that we have lost our sense of community. I have always held that one measure of a society's maturity is in how it cares for its less fortunate.

Don't want to talk about why Seattle doesn't work?

Let's go back to the Utah model then, and keep looking for the differences between what they're doing and what BC is doing. Here's another:

“The point is to have a service person on-site,” Bate says. “So if Sally Jo is having a crisis, we got somebody here who can help. Their goal isn’t to take everybody off the street and repair them and turn them into middle-class America. Their goal is to make sure they stay housed.”

More involvement from the conservatives:

“The church donated all of this,” Bate says. “Before we opened up, volunteers from the local Mormon ward came over and assembled all the furniture. It was overwhelming. For the first several years we were open, the LDS church made weekly food deliveries—everything from meat to butter and cheese. It wasn’t just dried beans—it was good stuff.” (The Utah Food Bank now makes weekly deliveries.)

I ask him if this is why the programs work so well in Utah—because of church donations.

“If the LDS church was not into it, the money would be missed, for sure,” he says, “but it’s church leadership that’s immensely important. If the word gets out that the church is behind something, it removes a lot of barriers.”

“Why do you think they do it?” I ask.

“Oh,” he says, “I think they believe all that stuff in the New Testament about helping the poor. That’s kind of crazy for a religion, I know, but I think they take it quite seriously.”

The LDS church isn't a liberal institution. It is a very, very practical conservative institution. They have standards and expectations. Utah is a very conservative state. The people who wanted to solve homelessness had to work with the conservatives - turning up their noses at them and their contributions to the solution was never an option.

It's still an option here in BC, though. Perhaps that's why there are such big problems integrating our homeless shelters into our communities?

I note that they don't give the success stats for Santa Clara county. They do point out how important data is, and what happens when budgets are slashed.

So now they’re embarking on a five-year plan to house the county’s remaining 6,000 homeless. First, they’ve launched an extensive study on exactly how much homelessness actually costs taxpayers. Those costs are very hard to determine: There are so many agencies involved—hospitals, jails, police, detox centers, mental-health clinics, shelters, service providers—and they all keep separate records, separate sets of data used for separate purposes, all run on separate pieces of software. “Each department has an information system and a team that looks at the data,” says Ky Le, director of the Office of Supportive Housing for Santa Clara. “They have small teams who know their data best, how it’s configured and why, what’s accurate and what’s not.” Ky says that merging datasets has been “a tremendous effort,” but by integrating and analyzing it, Santa Clara hopes to better understand who’s already a “frequent flier” of clinics and jails, and, more tantalizingly, to develop an early warning system for who is likely to become one, and how they can be housed and cared for in the most cost-effective manner.

New housing needs to be found, or built, but with the market so tight, finding housing—any housing—is a huge challenge, one made worse when Gov. Jerry Brown slashed all $1.7 billion of the state’s redevelopment funds during the 2011 budget crisis. (Those funds have not rematerialized now that California has a huge budget surplus.) So they’re getting creative—”tiny homes, pod housing, stackable—we’re looking at it all,” Loving says. And they’re employing creative financing efforts, like “pay-for-success” bonds, in which investors (mostly foundations) would stake the construction funds and get a small return if the savings materialize for the county.

Our safety net has to be sustainable. This was a 2015 piece: where are they now?

It seems to me this piece proves it is a complex problem, requiring all of us to pull together and speak plainly about goals, impediments and consequences.

[fluffy]

The "further study" thing again ? It has been shown time and again that getting the homeless housed first reduces the overall cost of support. I don't dispute that it is a complex problem with many causes, but it has already been established that getting them housed is job one, and that accomplishing that both simplifies and reduces the cost of the steps to follow.

[foenix]

The "further study" thing again ? It has been shown time and again that getting the homeless housed first reduces the overall cost of support.

My feeling as well, I'm also a firm believer in Maslow's hierarchy of needs pyramid. One can't elevate to the top of the pyramid until the bottom parts are satisfied like food and shelter. Finland also realizes this and looks like their model is making a difference.
This from 2018, I wonder how the program is progressing......

Here's how Finland solved its homelessness problem

The Finns have turned the traditional approach to homelessness on its head.

There can be a number of reasons as to why someone ends up homeless, including sudden job loss or family breakdown, severe substance abuse or mental health problems. But most homelessness policies work on the premise that the homeless person has to sort those problems out first before they can get permanent accommodation.

Finland does the opposite - it gives them a home first...........

“All this costs money,” admits Kaakinen. “But there is ample evidence from many countries that shows it is always more cost-effective to aim to end homelessness instead of simply trying to manage it. Investment in ending homelessness always pays back, to say nothing of the human and ethical reasons.”

The savings in terms of the services needed by one person can be up to 9,600 euros a year when compared to the costs that would result from that person being homeless, he adds.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/02/ ... elessness/

[PoplarSoul]

I know people who have recovered from cancer. Other people get it and die quickly though. It's not because those who recovered, tried harder or were of better character. Their circumstances were just different.

Some people are more resilient than others. Some people had the right supports at the right times and that kept them from falling to the very bottom of society. Some were already too far gone to be helped. There will always be people who overcome trauma and hardship. And there will always be people who couldn't. Your overall point seems to be that anyone who's ended up on the streets, is there due to their poor choices. So what do we do about them? What do we do about the ones who are too broken to be fixed? We could just leave them to their own devices, but that leads to anti-social, destructive behaviour that impacts those around them. No one seems to be okay with that. Heck, even when we as a society, offer help, they still behave in criminal, anti-social ways. That's simply the level they function at.

Some organizations try to improve their quality of life and reduce suffering. Connect them with resources so at least they have a chance. But there is no "cure" for people who can't function in society. The people those organizations serve, will continue to be who and what they are. On these boards, we make those organizations into villains, because we want someone to blame. We don't want to accept that this is society's problem, we want to blame John Howard Society, or City Hall, or whatever shelter is nearby.

You can't cure them, and taking all the supports away won't cause them to quietly die off and disappear. People on the streets have a knack for staying alive.

Society is broken, and it produces broken people. By the time they're living on the streets, it's almost always too late to get them back into society.

[PoplarSoul]

There is a "basic" in human psychology called Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs proposed by Abraham Maslow in 1943. He postulated that there is an order to fulfilling human needs whereas one level must be met before progress to the next is possible. At the bottom of the order are physiological needs, food, clothing, a roof over your head, followed by what he called safety or security needs, a trust that the first level of needs will continue to be met, a level with could include job security.

According to Maslow the basics must be fulfilled before progress beyond that point is possible. This is where human nature comes in, where many just can't or won't progress past stage one. This is where the problem sits, but it also makes it plain that food and housing is an essential step that must be met first.

We could look to government's continued cutbacks in mental health and addiction support as a big contributor to this "stalling out" at stage one.

[rustled]

The "further study" thing again ?

Nowhere did I say "further study" - that's quite the way to ignore what I did say, though! They're sharing data about what works - and what doesn't. The hope is to replicate successful strategies and avoid replicating unsuccessful ones - they're respecting the conservatives as allies.

It has been shown time and again that getting the homeless housed first reduces the overall cost of support. I don't dispute that it is a complex problem with many causes, but it has already been established that getting them housed is job one, and that accomplishing that both simplifies and reduces the cost of the steps to follow.

So, nothing to say about why "getting them housed" has worked as well as has in Utah? Seems to me you're pretty intent on pitching "housing first" while ignoring the elephants in the room:

In Utah, the public doesn't have a government intent on warehousing the homeless in shelters and wet facilities with open doors and inadequate supports, and this has contributed to the success of their housing strategy.

In Utah, the public has expectations for how the people they're housing interact with their community, and the social contract is a reciprocal one, and this has contributed to the success of their housing strategy

In Utah, conservative agencies did most of the heavy lifting to ensure the program would be a success.

In Santa Clara County, modeled after Utah, the project wasn't as successful and the program experienced a serious setback when deficit spending caused a budget crunch.