Report 2020-112 Recommendations

To help ensure that it has adequate levels of services and service providers in its area to meet the needs of people who are experiencing homelessness, the Fresno City Housing Authority should coordinate with its CoC to ensure that the CoC annually conducts a comprehensive gaps analysis in accordance with the plan it has developed under federal regulations. To be effective, the gaps analysis should consider whether adequate services are available in the areas where individuals are experiencing homelessness and should contain strategies to address any deficiencies.

To ensure that it adequately identifies its long-term strategies to address homelessness, the Fresno City Housing Authority should coordinate with its CoC to implement a planning process and develop a comprehensive plan that meets all federal requirements by August 2021. The planning process should ensure that the CoC updates its comprehensive plan at least every five years.

To comply with federal regulations and ensure that its CoC's decisions reflect a variety of perspectives, the Fresno City Housing Authority should, by August 2021, coordinate with its CoC to ensure that the CoC's board is representative of all relevant organizations.

To reduce barriers to CoC membership and to encourage participation, the Fresno City Housing Authority should coordinate with its CoC to conduct an analysis of whether its membership fee is necessary and, if it is not, to eliminate it by August 2021.

To ensure that individuals experiencing homelessness have adequate access to the coordinated entry process, the Fresno City Housing Authority should, by August 2021, coordinate with its CoC to assess the feasibility of establishing a dedicated telephone hotline for providing information about available services, assessing individuals' needs, and referring those individuals to appropriate housing or homeless service providers.

To increase the efficiency of the coordinated entry process, the County of Fresno City Housing Authority should coordinate with its CoC to determine how long it takes to locate individuals after they have been matched with a service provider. Specifically, it should use the referral data that HUD required CoCs to collect as of October 2020 to determine whether locating individuals after they have been matched with a service provider is a cause of delay in providing them with services. If it finds that excessive delays exist, it should coordinate with its CoC to implement processes such as deploying a dedicated team to locate these individuals when appropriate housing and services become available.

To ensure that the State effectively addresses the statewide issue of homelessness, the Legislature should require the homeless council, in collaboration with all state agencies that administer state and federal funding for homelessness, to collect and track funding data on all federal and state-funded homelessness programs, including the amount of funding available and expended each year, the types of activities funded, and types of entities that received the funds.

The Legislature should require the homeless council to prioritize its statutory goals with an emphasis on giving higher priority to coordination of statewide efforts to combat homelessness. To this end, the Legislature should require the homeless council to finalize its action plan and ensure that the plan documents the State's approach to addressing homelessness in California and that the action plan is updated regularly.

To ensure that the State has access to comprehensive data about homelessness, the Legislature should require all state entities that administer state funding for homelessness to ensure that recipient service providers enter relevant data into their CoC's HMIS, as law allows, as a condition of state funding. The required information should include, at a minimum, the same or similar information that recipients of federal CoC program funding must enter.

To ensure that CoCs are aware of processes and practices that can improve their efforts to combat homelessness at the local level and to provide CoCs with the necessary technical support, the Legislature should require the homeless council to develop statewide expectations and guidelines that CoCs and other local entities must follow as a condition of receiving state funding. These expectations and guidelines should consider best practices available from relevant local, state, and federal entities and should address, at a minimum, developing effective comprehensive plans, conducting PIT counts effectively and efficiently, increasing collaboration among service providers, conducting gaps analyses, and ensuring an effective coordinated entry process.

To the extent that the homeless council believes it does not have sufficient resources to implement any new statutory requirements, the Legislature should require the homeless council to conduct an analysis to determine its budgetary needs for implementing any new statutory requirements.

To help ensure that it has adequate levels of services and service providers in its area to meet the needs of people who are experiencing homelessness, the County of Mendocino should coordinate with its CoC to ensure that the CoC annually conducts a comprehensive gaps analysis in accordance with the plan it has developed under federal regulations. To be effective, the gaps analysis should consider whether adequate services are available in the areas where individuals are experiencing homelessness and should contain strategies to address any deficiencies.

To ensure that it uses the most effective method of identifying individuals in its county who are experiencing homelessness, the County of Mendocino should, by August 2021, coordinate with its CoC to conduct an analysis to determine whether the use of a mobile application to conduct its 2022 PIT count is feasible.

To ensure that it uses the most effective method of identifying individuals in its county who are experiencing homelessness, by August 2021, the County of Mendocino should also coordinate with its CoC to formalize and implement the CoC's process for collecting and responding to volunteer feedback after its PIT count.

To comply with federal regulations and ensure that its CoC's decisions reflect a variety of perspectives, the County of Mendocino should, by August 2021, coordinate with its CoC to ensure that the CoC's board is representative of all relevant organizations.

To expand access to the coordinated entry process, the County of Mendocino should, by August 2021, work with its CoC to establish an outreach team to assess the needs of individuals in rural communities who are homeless and to connect them to appropriate service providers.

To ensure that individuals experiencing homelessness have adequate access to the coordinated entry process, the County of Mendocino should, by August 2021, coordinate with its CoC to assess the feasibility of establishing a dedicated telephone hotline for providing information about available services, assessing individuals' needs, and referring those individuals to appropriate housing or homeless service providers.

To increase the efficiency of the coordinated entry process, the County of Mendocino should coordinate with its CoC to determine how long it takes to locate individuals after they have been matched with a service provider. Specifically, it should use the referral data that HUD required CoCs to collect as of October 2020 to determine whether locating individuals after they have been matched with a service provider is a cause of delay in providing them with services. If it finds that excessive delays exist, it should coordinate with its CoC to implement processes such as deploying a dedicated team to locate these individuals when appropriate housing and services become available.

To ensure that it identifies the projects that offer the greatest possible benefits when ranking applications for CoC Program funds, the County of Mendocino should, by August 2021, coordinate with its CoC to update the CoC's scoring tools and review-and-rank policies and procedures to give new and renewal projects an equal opportunity to receive federal funding.

To help ensure that it has adequate levels of services and service providers in its area to meet the needs of people who are experiencing homelessness, the County of Riverside should coordinate with its CoC to ensure that the CoC annually conducts a comprehensive gaps analysis in accordance with the plan it has developed under federal regulations. To be effective, the gaps analysis should consider whether adequate services are available in the areas where individuals are experiencing homelessness and should contain strategies to address any deficiencies.

To ensure that it adequately identifies its long-term strategies to address homelessness, the County of Riverside should coordinate with its CoC to implement a planning process and develop a comprehensive plan that meets all federal requirements by August 2021. The planning process should ensure that the CoC updates its comprehensive plan at least every five years.

To increase the efficiency of the coordinated entry process, the County of Riverside should coordinate with its CoC to determine how long it takes to locate individuals after they have been matched with a service provider. Specifically, it should use the referral data that HUD required CoCs to collect as of October 2020 to determine whether locating individuals after they have been matched with a service provider is a cause of delay in providing them with services. If it finds that excessive delays exist, it should coordinate with its CoC to implement processes such as deploying a dedicated team to locate these individuals when appropriate housing and services become available.

To ensure that it identifies the projects that offer the greatest possible benefits when ranking applications for CoC Program funds, the County of Riverside should, by August 2021, coordinate with its CoC to update the CoC's scoring tools and review-and-rank policies and procedures to give new and renewal projects an equal opportunity to receive federal funding.

To help ensure that it has adequate levels of services and service providers in its area to meet the needs of people who are experiencing homelessness, the County of Santa Barbara should coordinate with its CoC to ensure that the CoC annually conducts a comprehensive gaps analysis in accordance with the plan it has developed under federal regulations. To be effective, the gaps analysis should consider whether adequate services are available in the areas where individuals are experiencing homelessness and should contain strategies to address any deficiencies.

To comply with federal regulations and ensure that its CoC's decisions reflect a variety of perspectives, the County of Santa Barbara should, by August 2021, coordinate with its CoC to ensure that the CoC's board is representative of all relevant organizations.

To increase the efficiency of the coordinated entry process, the County of Santa Barbara should coordinate with its CoC to determine how long it takes to locate individuals after they have been matched with a service provider. Specifically, it should use the referral data that HUD required CoCs to collect as of October 2020 to determine whether locating individuals after they have been matched with a service provider is a cause of delay in providing them with services. If it finds that excessive delays exist, it should coordinate with its CoC to implement processes such as deploying a dedicated team to locate these individuals when appropriate housing and services become available.

To help ensure that it has adequate levels of services and service providers in its area to meet the needs of people who are experiencing homelessness, the County of Santa Clara should coordinate with its CoC to ensure that the CoC annually conducts a comprehensive gaps analysis in accordance with the plan it has developed under federal regulations. To be effective, the gaps analysis should consider whether adequate services are available in the areas where individuals are experiencing homelessness and should contain strategies to address any deficiencies.

To ensure that it uses the most effective method of identifying individuals in its county who are experiencing homelessness, the County of Santa Clara should, by August 2021, coordinate with its CoC to conduct an analysis to determine whether the use of a mobile application to conduct its 2022 PIT count is feasible.