The city of Long Beach has confirmed that increased staff will be part of the new changes when a new operator starts to take control of its Project Homekey facility later this month.
“We are expecting changes within the day-to-day operations from what has existed to now, which will be worked through over the next several weeks,” wrote Jennifer De Prez, Long Beach Office of Public Affairs and Communications. “Within the area of staffing there will be an increase from 17 onsite support staff to 25. There will be four staff that are on-site case managers with one of the case managers being a mental health clinician.”
The site at 1725 Long Beach Blvd. had been at the center of concern by former employees who complained that lack of staffing may have contributed to increasing deaths of those enrolled at the facility. A total of eight people died on site, 11 others died off-site -- mostly at hospitals.
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Project Home Key provides temporary transitional housing and services for homeless people.
“The leading cause of death, where a cause was determined, was cancer,” the city of Long Beach wrote in an earlier statement.
“Even though having more support is necessary, that’s not exactly what’s needed at the site,” said D’Andre Beckham, a former case worker who spoke out about the lack of staffing and concerns it factored in more client deaths. “We need medical staff for all the members that are there. They are high acuity and they have multiple heath conditions that require a considerable amount of care.”
Long Beach said in its statement that “they will be continuing onsite partnerships with Healthcare in Action, Long Beach Community College nursing students, Wellbe Health, and Echo Hospice (palliative care). There are multiple people that are linked with an Enhanced Care Management through CalAIM to support with coordinating medical needs and will look at opportunities to link anyone else that is needing additional case management support specifically around coordinating healthcare needs.”
“With the help that is onsite, with the volunteer nursing students and ‘Healthcare in Action’ visiting every now and then, we don’t believe it’s enough to meet the needs of the clients,” said Danya Dominguez, another former case worker who along with Beckham made several attempts to address those concerns with the former operator and city of Long Beach homeless bureau director Paul Duncan, who cited cost concerns according to emails obtained by NBC4.
Only one medical staff has been assigned to the facility over the three years when 20 of its clients died.
The new operator “First to Serve” will begin providing operational support at the site on April 16 and take full operations on May 1.
