With a median household income of $56,629, El Dorado County is one of this region's wealthier counties. As of 2004, less than 7 percent of its population was living below the poverty line.
Compare that to Sacramento County, where the median income was just $47,215 in 2004, with 13.6 percent living in poverty.
By all measures, the people who live in El Dorado County can afford to support a homeless shelter, either through philanthropy or the leveraging of government grants. But as winter closes in on this mountain county, there will be no shelter in El Dorado.
Scores of people sleeping under bridges and overpasses will be completely on their own.
As a story Monday in The Bee noted, El Dorado County's sole previous shelter, the Grace Place at Camino Seventh-day Adventist Church, closed in May. The numbers of homeless outgrew the size of the facility, according to Art Edwards, president of United Outreach, a nonprofit that ran the shelter.
United Outreach has since been working to secure a $1.47 million grant the state has offered to build a new shelter somewhere in the county. The group hopes to provide job training and other services, and to be completely self-sufficent by 2011.
But finding a site for the shelter hasn't been easy. Residents in Pollock Pines have blocked plans for a shelter in their community. An alternate site near Placerville is a possibility, but only if the county and United Outreach can work with local residents to address the inevitable concerns.
Compared with Sacramento County, El Dorado doesn't have a huge homeless population. But as more people lose their homes or fall behind on rent, the numbers are growing. Tent camps can be found in South Lake Tahoe, Sly Park, Placerville and other parts of the county.
The people in these camps include veterans, teenagers and women who have become homeless because of abusive relationships. One woman, Susan Mobley, reportedly froze to death in March while sleeping in a Placerville park.
While establishing a permanent shelter is a tough endeavor in any part of California, El Dorado County's problem is not resources. It's the will to get the job done.
By not providing a shelter during this coldest time of the year, the county is effectively telling the homeless to risk death by exposure, or to use services in another county. Neither is a very neighborly response, in any sense of the word.
How you can help
United Outreach, a nonprofit helping the homeless in El Dorado County, is seeking volunteers and donations. Contact the group at (530) 677-1915 or go to its Web site, www.uoedc.org.
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