Steve Kight, executive director of the Orange County Partnership to End Homelessness, has tendered his resignation after serving less than a year, potentially adding more delays to a project that already is years behind schedule.
Kight said in a telephone interview that his wife, Stephanie, was offered a job in Columbus, Ohio, which also is close to where their grandchildren live.
“That’s the only reason I resigned,” he said. “I’m pretty passionate about what’s going on in Orange County.”
“My only real concern is to make sure that keeps going,” said Kight.
Kight’s resignation takes effect June 30.
“I hate to see him go,” said Supervisor John Moorlach in a telephone interview. He said Kight has done a “great job” building relationships among the hundreds of often-competitive nonprofits that work in the county to serve the thousands of adults who are homeless or facing that prospect.
Moorlach said the executive committee of the Commission to End Homelessness has established a search committee to find a replacement for Kight.
Kight became executive director of the partnership last August after a months-long search. The county set up the commission with the condition that it would provide money for the executive director’s salary for a year only, and after that he or she would have to obtain donations from outside county government.
The idea to end homelessness nationwide by 2020 was proposed in 2008 by then-President George W. Bush and expanded by President Barack Obama.
But by the time Kight was hired, Orange County was so far behind in its work that last year it dropped “by 2020” from the commission’s name.