Kern County got props Wednesday for achieving “functional zero” in the battle against chronic homelessness, a narrowly defined term that isn’t necessarily what it sounds like.
An organization called Built for Zero announced the county, along with the city of Bakersfield, has joined four other U.S. communities that have created an effective system for protecting highly vulnerable people with nowhere else to go.
“While this does not mean that the community will never have another person experiencing long-lasting or recurring homelessness, it does prove that this community has a system of support in place to promptly identify and place people on the pathway to home,” Built for Zero co-director Beth Sandor said in a news release.
