“Assessing the Threat of

Santa Cruz County Board of Supervisors (10 recommendations)

Mental Health Advisory Board (3 recommendations)

Soquel Union Elementary School District (1 recommendation)

Sheriff-Coroner (5 recommendations)

Felton Fire Protection District Board of Directors (1 recommendation) Published June 27, 2018 Page 10 of 19 2 017-2018 Consolidated Final Report 119 As previously discussed, respondents to Grand Jury investigative reports do not have a statutory duty to provide verification that analyses or changes have been completed; therefore, the current Grand jury opened a new investigation to determine how government officials followed through on their 2016 commitments. We summarize graphically our findings in Figures 1 and 2. Figure 1 shows the number of recommendations that each government entity committed to consider within 6 months and whether it followed through on those stated commitments. Figure 2 shows the number of recommendations that each government entity committed to implement at a specified time in the future and whether it it followed through on those stated commitments. Figure 1 shows that four of the five submissions provided the current Grand Jury with documentation describing the actions taken to analyze a recommendation; the fifth submission showed that the organization addressed the issues identified in the 2015-16 Grand Jury’s recommendations at some point in time. Figure 1: Actions Taken to Analyze Recommendations Within 6 Months Published June 27, 2018 Page 11 of 19 1 20 Santa Cruz County Grand Jury Figure 2 shows that 12 of 15 submissions confirmed to the current Grand Jury that a

In September 2017 an article in the Santa Cruz Sentinel quoted a staff member in the County’s Human Services Department: We should be housing every youth we see. We should not be walking and stepping over the youth that are lying down or standing around who are homeless. We should be interacting with them, we should be engaging them and thinking about, ‘How can I personally, in Santa Cruz County, contribute to this cause?’ ‘How can I end youth homelessness on an individual basis?’[40] More than one in four of Santa Cruz County’s homeless is a young adult or an unaccompanied minor child. They are, for the most part, invisible members of our community. Recognizing the urgency to solve youth homelessness, there have been many well-intentioned efforts at the local, State and federal levels, some of which have been very effective but limited in their scope. Implementation of the HUD Continuum of Care model is a significant step toward resolving the problems identified in this investigation, as well as the other difficulties facing the children and young adults who are homeless in Santa Cruz County; however, while the grants and other funding have addressed some systemic deficiencies, additional resources will be required to achieve the County’s goal of ending youth homelessness by 2020. Published June 19, 2018 Page 12 of 18 2 017-2018 Consolidated Final Report 85

C1. The COE and CSO responded quickly and comprehensively to the recommendations of the 2016-17 Grand Jury report and drafted a plan that creates a firm foundation to address the safety of our students in the context of targeted school violence. C2. The COE and CSO have demonstrated clear commitment to providing ongoing training so that school staff and law enforcement can function collaboratively and respond effectively to threats of violence in our schools. Published April 12, 2018 Page 4 of 9 2017-2018 Consolidated Final Report 9

C1. The Grand Jury commends our County’s law enforcement agencies for incorporating the new methodologies set forth in the CIT course and adapting their procedures to those methodologies.

C1. The Board of Supervisors and the County Administrative Officer initiated, for the first time in Santa Cruz County history, a strategic planning process and performance improvement effort. Published June 7, 2018 Page 8 of 14 2017-2018 Consolidated Final Report 67