However, last week's gruesome discovery near Shoreline Station - where the victim and a handful of other transients were said to have made an encampment - was proof that solutions for homeless and transient populations remain slight and inadequate.
In January, officials conducted a one-night census of unsheltered individuals throughout San Mateo County. The January census found at least 83 people in Half Moon Bay who were homeless that night and an additional 162 people throughout unincorporated areas, including the Coastside, who needed shelter.
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"The census gave us a picture of numbers," Gordon said. "It didn't give us a picture of need."
One thing that the census confirmed was the desperate need for either a permanent shelter or a network of temporary shelters on the Coastside. Nonprofit leaders have lamented the absence of such a program for years.
Right now, anyone looking for a place to sleep must head over the hill to Menlo Park, Redwood City or San Mateo, or travel north to Daly City.
The census results, combined with the dropping temperatures of late autumn, are now spurring supervisors, as well as the county's Human Services Agency, to find some solution to the shelter problem by winter.
"We're approaching this with some degree of urgency," said Gordon. "We'd want that sorted out by mid-December if we're going to have anything available this year. We probably have the luxury of getting through October and early November with fairly decent weather."
Gordon said he would know after a Tuesday meeting with county staff whether there were any available funds in the budget to establish shelter services on the Coastside by January. If Human Services Agency doesn't have the money in its budget, Gordon said he might then schedule the issue for an upcoming board meeting to find the funds in the larger county budget. He admits, however, that he doesn't have "any concrete proposals," and that he's "coming at this (problem) conceptually at this point."
One of the few programs in the area for people who need shelter is Coastside Hope's three-night voucher program, which allows people to check in to the Holiday Inn Express for a brief stay before landing in "transitional" housing elsewhere in the county. That sort of housing is provided by social service agencies in one- or two-month allotments to people who are working toward finding and paying for their own home.
Fatima Soares, executive director of Coastside Hope, said that it's harder for her agency to find housing for individuals than families, simply because more programs exist for the latter.
Especially difficult for the county and nonprofits to address are issues surrounding transients. Since by definition transients are not members of a community, they either pass through town or fall through the cracks of local services. By contrast, a homeless family may have some relationship to the area. "Usually (families) find someone's sofa. People that live here do have some ties, even if it's not the best - they'll share a room for a while."
Developing services to address transients, however, proves a more difficult task. "It's much harder to work with someone who is passing through than someone who is local," Soares said. It's not that transient individuals don't deserve services, but assisting them becomes a question of resources, she said.
"I would say that ethically we should be taking care of our own," Soares said.
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