Formed by Gov. Mark Sanford in November 2003, the S.C. Council on Homelessness set out to create a 10-year plan to address homelessness.

Below are some of the strategies crafted. Smaller groups are meeting to discuss how to implement them.

Recommendations

• Help prevent the discharge of institutionalized or imprisoned people directly to homeless shelters by linking them with transitional housing options.

• Establish more affordable housing options.

• Offer subsidies to low-income renters.

• Fund an account that would provide emergency repair to certain properties not kept up by landlords to prevent tenants from being left homeless as a result of property code enforcement procedures when properties deteriorate.

• Help regional homelessness coalitions get federal housing grants.

• Create a low-income tax credit to pay for building affordable housing for the homeless.

• Develop a wet/damp shelter in each of five regions of the state. Wet shelters would serve intoxicated homeless people and allow them to drink on premises. Damp shelters serve intoxicated homeless people but do not allow drinking on site.

• Establish one shelter in each of five regions of the state for the chronically homeless. Anyone who has been homeless for more than a year, or more than four times in the past three years, is considered chronically homeless.

• Improve access to Medicaid for the homeless.

• Develop a statewide database of homeless cases to help manage the population

• Issue an annual homeless data report.

• Create a state-level office, accountable to the governor, on homelessness.

SOURCE: The S.C. Department of Mental Health. The full report is available at www.state.sc.us/dmh/homelesstateplan04.pdf