![]() IBM made that happen at a very critical time.” Having everyone at the table and talking about clients from different perspectives was instrumental. “They worked through different scenarios and the personas in those processes. ![]() “We had caseworkers and program managers doing Design Thinking and it was really amazing,” says Staats. To tap into the experience and knowledge of ACCESS Sonoma IMDT members, Sonoma County and IBM Consulting™ conducted an intensive IBM Garage® planning workshop. It’s given us a huge amount of momentum.” “The issue was integration and the ability of our teams to use ACCESS Sonoma with IBM - to surgically go after the problems of the community. There is an abundance of resources,” says Gore. “The issue is not as much a dearth of resources. But to achieve this goal, ACCESS Sonoma needed to accelerate IMDT deployment and provide team members with the tools and technology to make an impact. The goal was to help the community’s most vulnerable citizens receive the assistance they needed and become more self-reliant. When FEMA shelters began closing two weeks after the fire, many people still had no place to go, and the homelessness crisis worsened.ĭuring this period, the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors launched a new program called Accessing Coordinated Care and Empowering Self-Sufficiency (ACCESS) Sonoma County. It burned 36,000 acres, destroyed thousands of buildings and displaced hundreds of people into shelters set up by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). “That’s where IBM came in.”īut then new challenges surfaced in October 2017, when the Tubbs wildfire raced through Sonoma County. “To collaborate, you need a way of getting data out of all these systems in a format that is very user friendly for the caseworkers.” says Staats. “We continued to have high rates of homelessness, and we needed to do something.”Īfter learning about how another large California county used IBM solutions to improve safety net services, Sonoma County managers also began consulting with IBM. “We had a revolving door of clients getting served, one department at a time, but not really maintaining sustainable solutions,” says Carolyn Staats, Director of Innovation for Sonoma County Central IT. Just like many other governments, Sonoma County had a siloed organizational structure, which impeded information sharing and coordinating services between departments. There has to be a commitment to going out and serving clients over and over again, especially those who are chronically homeless.” ![]() “Our teams do a great job with connecting with unhoused people, but when you connect in the field, it isn’t just one touch. “One of the challenges in serving the homeless population is coordinating services,” says Rivera. These organizations worked together to provide integrated services for clients in need. The County also formed integrated multidiscipline teams (IMDTs) consisting of members from safety net departments including Health Services, Human Services, Child Support Services, Probation, District Attorney, Public Defender, Sheriff’s Office and the Sonoma County Development Commission. Recognizing that too many people were falling through gaps in the social safety net, local government officials launched the Sonoma County Safety Net Collaborative. “We needed to rethink, redesign, and come up with a better solution, a better service delivery for our clients, for people like Patricia and her son.” “However, we were not seeing the outcomes we expected, with folks continuing to fall into homelessness, and not receive the long-term support they needed,” says Tina Rivera, Director of the Sonoma County Department of Health Services. Over the years, Sonoma County devoted significant resources to addressing homelessness. “And underneath it all, we have a growing homelessness crisis.” We’ve had five fires, then a series of floods, droughts and the pandemic,” says James Gore, District Supervisor from the 4th District of Sonoma County. “We encountered a series of bludgeoning natural disasters. But homelessness in Sonoma County was complicated by additional factors. The causes of homelessness are complex, including lack of affordable housing, poverty, mental illness and substance abuse, among other challenges. At one time, it had the third highest rate of homelessness per capita of any county in the US. However, like so many other communities in California, Sonoma County struggled with homelessness. ![]() Patricia and her son were among the many hundreds of unhoused people living in vehicles, campers, tents and other improvised shelters in Sonoma County – a place more widely known for natural beauty, wineries and affluence.
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