Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Subcommittee No. 4 on State Administration and General Government
No chapters available yet
Legend
Transcript markers
- text Sentence being played
- text Search result
- text Intervention cited by the link you opened
Click a sentence to play the video from that moment. Select text to quote it with the speaker, timestamp and link.
More options
Speaker 1
And they are asking whether the people entrusted with public dollars remember the weight those dollars represent. And that brings me to the responsibility of this committee, subcommittee. Our responsibility here is not to decide who is right or who is wrong. It is to pause and to understand what has gone wrong. And more importantly what will it take to actually make it right.
This weekend my mother reminded me. Of something simple. When we reduce a failure to one name. One group, one party, or one person, we often avoid seeing something deeper. Because something when something truly breaks, when families feel it in their homes, in their bills, in their uncertainty, that failure rarely belongs to one of us.
It belongs to all of us, and I believe that all individuals sitting at this dais want to do good by the people of California. I know they do not want to carry that weight of shared failure. Not for our constituents, not for our state, not for the next generation. Even when times feel strained, we cannot allow disagreements to turn into, turn us into an enemies. And when we deliberate in this room, my, our responsibility is not to defend your one side or another, it's to pursue the right answer and to own the future that answers create.
If families are waiting, cannot afford distraction. If they're asking who is protecting them, we cannot afford status quo. This committee will be guided by a simple moral compass, focus, respect, accountability, and protection of the bottom rung. With that, I want to give an opportunity to our vice chair for opening remarks.
Speaker 3
Thank you, Madam Chair. There certainly is a lot these days to be frustrated by. We have a particularly challenging budget with the unusual circumstances of rising revenues with a widening deficit that traditionally makes no sense at all. And we're holding subcommittee meetings to analyze budget proposals that by the admission of the author of that budget proposal is not really his budget proposal. We have to wait until the May revise.
So it makes our job a little bit more difficult than normal. We certainly have the frustration of affordability. And
Speaker 4
with regard to that issue, it's not a matter of the various sides of the aisle attacking each other. It's a matter of attacking the policies that create those affordability challenges. Regulatory
Speaker 3
issues that have been established in the past, some in the distant past. Many people here didn't even vote on those. The regulatory authority of an unelected California Air Resources Board that is charged to do things that very few people that are here voted on that back in 2006 or 'eight whenever AB 32 was passed. The policies are the issue and I welcome my democratic friends for us to try to do something about that. Now bringing it back to this hearing, we'll be talking today about the never ending story of homelessness.
Struggling with a level of homelessness that skyrocketed during the sort of top down approach that our governor initiated when he was first elected establishing over 30 different programs to address homelessness. All of them specified at the state level to tell cities and counties exactly what to do with only one of those being actual flexible funding for counties who always have been the health and human services providers in the state of California. And thankfully, we have abandoned for the most part all of those top down programs and concentrated more on flexible funding to counties. Not everybody agrees that that's enough, but it is at least the appropriate approach because during that period of time we spent over $20,000,000,000 and then homeless numbers exploded. So remanding it again has historically been the case to counties with flexibility.
Flexibility it would be nice if it were if the flexibility were provided without the narrow guardrails of housing first as the only approach to getting people off of the streets. But the attraction of all of the counties doing things that work in their county, and I would submit that what works in LA is not necessarily going to work in MoDoc. But some counties will be more successful than others and the others can learn from those. Some hope we hopefully we can get to that direction of homelessness. So I look forward to the presentations today.
Thank you.
Speaker 1
Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair, I look forward to many hearings with you here. Would no, you're okay. All right. We'll go ahead and move forward.
I we will welcome public comment on the remainder of the agenda at the conclusion of our hearing, and we will be- beginning with- at the focus of as you know the focus of today's hearing is on homelessness our order of business today is as follows- we will open up with an update on the state of homelessness in California. We will then review and conduct oversight on state homeless data collection systems under the purview of California inter agency council on homelessness. And
Speaker 1
will review the conduct oversight on the homeless housing assistance and prevention program administered by. The housing and community development department and then we will close the discussion portion of our agenda by learning from our- tribal counterparts and local government partners to receive each half funding so that we can hear their perspectives about the significance of that program. And how adoption of the governor's proposed budget would impact them. And at the conclusion of the agenda will take public comment related to any item on the agenda. And I also want to just notify everyone that we will move the the one vote that we have over and so we will not be voting on it today.
And with that. We will start with item. So we will start with item two.
Speaker 1
to start us off today, I would like to ask Doctor. Ryan Finnegan of the Turner Center on Housing Innovation at the University of California Berkeley to feel free to begin when you're ready.
Speaker 5
Great. Thank you, senators. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today and also thank you for your continued attention to this issue and your dedicated work on it. It's important. So I'm just here to present some of the recent data and research that Turner Center has been conducting on homelessness programs in California in recent years.
That work includes analyses of administrative data from both federal, state, and local governments, as well as, interviews and collaborations with hundreds of local service providers, administrators, and people experiencing homelessness. I'll focus on four key points today. That includes recent trends in homelessness data where progress is being made, remaining challenges, and potential risks to sustaining our progress toward ending homelessness. So first, homelessness remains high in California, which I think is not news to any of us here in this room. This chart is showing you the number of people that were counted as experiencing homelessness on a given night in the regular point in time counts of homelessness.
And in 2024, this number reached 187,000. The chart is also showing you that most people experiencing homelessness in California were unsheltered during these counts, meaning that they were sleeping in tents, vehicles, on the street, or in places not meant for human habitation. The share of unsheltered homelessness has declined as shelter and transitional housing programs have grown in recent years, however. In 2019, about 72% of people counted during these regular counts were unsheltered, and that declined to 66% in 2024. Partial data from 2025 recently showed a 9% decrease in unsheltered homelessness.
Those are partial data and I'll return to what that means in just a little bit. To compare rates of homelessness between different places, we often compare the count of people experiencing homelessness to the total population, often for every 10,000 people in the population, how many are experiencing homelessness on a given night. In California, that rate is 48 out of every 10,000 people. That is more than twice as high as the national rate and it is the fifth highest rate of the 50 states. Research consistently shows that the main factor explaining states' homelessness rates is the availability or lack of housing that people can afford.
California's high and rising level of homelessness coincides with it having the third largest gap of affordable housing for households with extremely low incomes relative to the other 50 or the other 49 states. Now for any given person, the reasons for experiencing homelessness are extremely complex. It is often a complicated and compounding series of events that can include health crises, job loss, family breakups, substance use and mental health challenges. But when we compare why does California have a higher rate than other places, the disconnect between incomes and housing costs is the key factor. Homelessness is also a statewide challenge.
This map is showing you that the rates of homelessness are relatively high for most of the 44 continuums of care in California, also called COCs, with darker shades of this map indicating higher rates of homelessness. COCs are entities that administer federal homelessness funding and coordinate services for designated regions, which in California are almost entirely counties or collections of counties. So although California's large cities contain the largest numbers of people counted as experiencing homelessness, the places that have the highest rates, which are the darkest shades of blue on this map, vary widely. And they include cities, they include largely suburban communities, and they include rural communities. Homelessness can look different between these different places as do the resources and the capacity to address it, as the senator noted.
So for example, we have heard from service and housing providers in rural parts of the state that the state programs and resources are particularly crucial for their efforts to end homelessness in their communities because they often lack the same kinds of local or philanthropic funding that is available in some of the state's larger cities. I'll just pause to note a few important considerations about what these data can or can't tell us and why different kinds of data might tell you different things. So the first is that the point in time counts of homelessness are meant to provide a snapshot. They give you the number of people on a single night, which allows you to do comparisons between places or comparisons over time, but that they are not the same people from one year to the next. And so, there are also two components to a point in time count, and that's an important consideration for understanding that 9% drop in unsheltered homelessness that's been recently cited.
So, in every year, each COC uses administrative data and other information to measure the number of people that are sleeping in shelter and transitional housing programs. That is called the sheltered count. Unsheltered counts typically come from teams, often local government staff, sometimes with volunteers as well, who canvas public and outside spaces. These counts are the most comprehensive data available for unsheltered homelessness, but they are also known to be significant under counts. They often miss people who aren't visible to count teams and that is particularly true in rural areas where the geographic spaces are very large to cover, and on tribal lands where counts are often not conducted or reported in the same way as they are for federally defined continuums of care.
And so while the sheltered counts are conducted annually, HUD only requires unsheltered counts to occur every other year. Even still, half of the COCs in California conduct an unsheltered count every year, but when HUD reports an annual statewide number for California, it reports the most up to date unsheltered count for about half the COCs. For the other COCs that didn't conduct an unsheltered count, it carries forward the value from the previous year. And this is where there might be some different numbers reported for what the 9% decline showed versus what the federal numbers from HUD will report when the official data are released at some point later this year. The 9% drop in unsheltered homelessness comes from 30 out of 44 continuums of care conducted in unsheltered count in 2025.
That means there are 15 COCs that are not represented in that 9% drop because they did not conduct a count in that year. However, when HUD releases its official numbers for the State of California, it will include those 15 COCs, but it will use the value of the unsheltered count from 2024. That means that it will artificially show a 0% drop in unsheltered homelessness simply because they didn't conduct a count in that year. When you combine the 15 COCs with that no new value, a zero percent drop, with the 30 COCs that showed a 9% drop, HUD is likely to report a 6.7% drop in unsheltered homelessness in California. So it does not mean that the 9% number is incorrect, it just means that those two values were conducted for different sets of continuums of care based on the recency with which they conducted an unsheltered count.
The other important comparison here is between what these point in time counts, which are often usually reported by HUD, will show versus what the state's internal administrative data will show from the Homeless Data Integration System or HDIS. The HDIS, rather than meaning to be a snapshot, is a dynamic picture of who is served by local homelessness programs across the State of California. That allows us to understand the characteristics, numbers, and outcomes of people served by programs, and it helps us understand both why there might be rising numbers of people experiencing homelessness while there is also progress being made by programs. So I agree with the senators. It is often extremely frustrating to understand when more is being done to address homelessness, why are more people experiencing it?
And the HDIS data give us a powerful tool for understanding exactly what's going on here. And those data show that on average a couple 100 people are successfully placed into permanent housing programs every day. However, a larger number of people are entering homelessness because they can't keep up with rents with the incomes that they have. And so that disconnect is what the HDIS data allow us to understand in a way that the point in time data can't describe in that same way. There is also a difference in how you would interpret the trend in a point in time count versus a trend in HDIS data that rely on services.
A rise in a point in time count is pretty clearly showing a rise in the level of homelessness. But if you observe an upward trend in the HDIS data, that can reflect several things at the same time. It can mean that the level of homelessness and need for services is increasing, but it can also mean that homelessness service programs are expanding their capacity and reaching a larger number of people and doing a better job of meeting the need that already existed. And it can also mean that the data reporting systems are improving and that a larger number of programs are reporting better data on the people that they are serving and their outcomes and therefore we see a larger number of people reflected from one year to the next in this HDIS data system. I defer to my colleagues at the Interagency Council to share more details about those data, but I wanted to add some notes on why might we expect to see or interpret things differently between these different data systems that are often used in California.
Given that, I'll note a few areas of progress that stand out in some of the recent data. The first is that we've observed significant growth in the capacity of homelessness service, shelter, and housing programs, and that state funding has been a significant component in that growing capacity. So this chart is showing an upward trend in both the supply of permanent supportive housing, so those are deeply affordable housing units paired with services. That's often an important intervention for helping people with significant and complex needs become and stay housed, as well as time limited rental subsidies, also called rapid rehousing. That's an intervention that's meant to help families and individuals who enter homelessness very quickly move back into housing on the private market, often with just maybe six months to twenty four months of rental assistance as they recover from significant events in their lives, regain employment, increase incomes, and work towards stability.
The chart also shows that after several years of decline, there was a rapid and substantial increase in the supply of shelter and transitional housing beds, which is often called interim housing in California. That rapid increase was catalyzed by Project Roomkey during the COVID nineteen pandemic, but in the years since then, Roomkey wound down and with state, federal, and local investments, many local governments and providers have managed to maintain that increased capacity in interim housing programs. Those programs have also increased in the breadth of the services and supports that they provide for the people entering them. That includes significant case management, housing navigation assistance, and increased integration with homelessness subsidy programs that are meant to provide an off ramp for folks coming out of a temporary housing program and reentering the housing market. What's not shown in the chart but is shown in data sources like HDIS is that there's also been a growing number of people served by programs like street outreach, case management, housing navigation assistance, both inside and outside of the shelter and housing programs that are shown on that chart.
Again, state resources are key. Some of that is funded through things like the Encampment Resolution Fund and the HAP program, but much of it is also being funded through CalAIM, the Medicaid waiver program that allows Medi Cal participants to have some of their supportive services funded and reimbursed through Medicaid.
Speaker 5
are also areas of progress for specific populations experiencing homelessness that show up as reduced numbers of people counted as experiencing homelessness in point in time counts. And the progress being made for these groups helps illuminate lessons that can be applied across the homelessness services system. So I highlight two areas of progress here. The first is that between 2019 and 2024 on this chart, there was a 24% decrease in the number of youth who are not accompanied by an adult age 25 or older who are experiencing homelessness. There has also been a 15% decline in the number of veterans experiencing homelessness on a given night, and that 15% decline follows several years of sustained decreases in the numbers of veterans experiencing homelessness.
In our research with homelessness service providers, including providers focused on these two populations, we have found several key factors that contribute to success, and I'll highlight three of them here. The first is that there are many programs that serve these populations in a dedicated way that are able to tailor their programs to these groups' pretty distinct needs. So our research has shown that when programs serve youth in a dedicated way rather than youth entering programs for adults of all ages, their outcomes are better. And that's in large part because in these programs they are around folks dealing with similar issues, Service providers are able to provide supports for those distinct needs. That includes things like high rates of youth who have recently exited foster care and need replacement support, as well as a disproportionate rate of youth identifying as LGBTQ plus benefit from gender and sexuality affirming or sensitive care in a way that can be tailored in a youth program and is more challenging in other programs.
Similarly, we see that when dedicated resources are available, so that includes things like the set aside funding for youth dedicated services in HAP and HomeKey, the Veterans Homelessness and Housing Prevention Program, we see a decline in their rates of homelessness because programs are reaching them in a more effective way and they're able to kind of circumvent some of the larger, more complex wait lists for the generalized programs. And then third, we see that these programs do better when there is clear and strong coordination between all of the relevant public and private entities that provide these services. That includes things like committees that are dedicated to youth homelessness and programs within many of the COCs in California. And for veterans that includes a very strong coordinating role by the Veterans Administration who works very closely with nonprofit service providers, local governments, and the federal government as sort of a quarterback agency for ensuring program effectiveness. Of course, there are many challenges that remain.
I'll first note that homelessness is experienced very unevenly by race and ethnicity in California, and that is similar to the nation overall. This chart is showing you that the rate of homelessness for people in each racial and ethnic group, and how it compares to the rate for the state overall. So when a bar is going to the right, that's telling you that there is a higher rate of homelessness for people in that group relative to the state average. When a bar is going to the left, it's telling you that the rate is lower than the state average. And so for example, people identifying as American Indian, Alaska Native, or indigenous is 411% higher than the rate for the state's overall population.
The rate for black Californians is 292% higher. The chart does not show changes over time, but there are also differences in trends between groups including rapidly growing homelessness among the Latino, Hispanic, or Latine population. These differences and disparities result from many structural and systemic processes that include bringing upstream factors like differences in access to high quality education, labor market opportunities, and disparities in how people navigate the housing market. There are also systematic differences in criminal justice or foster care system involvement that increase the risk of homelessness for black people and other people of color leading to these disparities. I'll also highlight there is a growing and consistent need for health and social service supports.
So while the housing shortage is a fundamental cause of the homelessness crisis and is the key remaining challenge, there are many people who require more support than just housing in order to successfully exit homelessness and remain housed. So this chart is showing you that about 70,000 people on a given night in early twenty twenty four met the criteria for chronic patterns of homelessness. That refers to experiencing homelessness for at least a cumulative year in the previous three years alongside a disabling condition. Disabling conditions can include physical disabilities, serious mental health and substance use challenges, among other things. And so as the homelessness crisis has continued, rates of chronic homelessness have continued to climb as well.
And so homelessness, housing, health, and social systems must all continue breaking down silos in order to meet people's needs. That means a stronger connection between things like county social services and behavioral healthcare systems with housing programs and providers. But these systems sometimes work in different ways and they sometimes speak different languages. And so there is a need for the continued and important work of breaking down the silos and getting the care coordinated to meet people's needs holistically. Finally, I'll conclude by noting some potential risks to sustaining the progress that's being made in California.
The first is that HAP is an incredibly powerful resource for many local governments and homeless ness service providers, as the Senators have highlighted. And as the HAP program has continued, its flexibility, as the Senator noted, is a key part of its importance for these programs. And as we've reached now six rounds, many programs rely on HAP in order to sustain their operations. And the support that they get from the HAP program cannot easily be scaled down. So for example, a shelter program operating 100 beds cannot simply reduce the number of beds to 50 and reduce its, revenue from HAP to 50%.
If revenue declines, many programs will have to shutter entirely. The risk of programs having to close when losing a key funding source can derail the progress being made by the people those programs serve, but they can also lead to systematic reductions in the capacity of the system. Many of the program operators that we have worked with in our research have described that when they establish new programs, it requires a significant increase in their ability to stand up programs, train new staff and hire them, keep them on board, procure and operate new facilities. And that loss of capacity if a program is ended is not easy to regain if funding is restored a year or two later. And last, there are several federal changes that could affect tens of thousands of Californians' housing stability.
And so I'll highlight a few federal programs that are supporting tens of thousands of people right now with housing assistance that could face significant changes or reductions in the coming years in ways that might impact the level of need in California. The first is that the Emergency Housing Voucher Program, which was launched in 2021 by HUD with ARPA funding, is running out of funding at the end of this coming year. And there are currently 14,000 households living in homes that are leased with an emergency housing voucher. The recent federal budget did include additional funding for some replacement vouchers, but housing voucher scarcity is very significant across the State of California where costs are high and there was already a high level of need. And so there might be more resources needed than what the new federal budget provides in order to ensure stability for these 14,000 households.
There are also potential cuts to the largest federal homelessness funding program called the Continuum of Care Program that is administered by COCs. In our research, we have found that there are 32,000 people across the state that are living in permanent housing programs that are supported by Continuum of Care funds. Recently, HUD proposed a significant reduction in the amount of funding that can go to permanent housing, and that proposal was rescinded following a legal challenge. But that rescission could be temporary. In the coming year, HUD is expected to again propose new criteria or eligibility for this program funding and that funding is likely to have a much lower amount going toward permanent housing programs that currently support these thousands of households.
And finally, are also procedural changes to eligibility in the programs that are currently supporting people in California, including a recent proposed rule that will exclude families with mixed immigration statuses who currently live in HUD assisted housing. That includes housing vouchers and public housing. We find that about 7,200 households in California will be affected by this rule. These are households where, for example, there are three citizen members and one person who is ineligible by immigration status. That might be a person who's undocumented, but it might also be a person who's seeking asylum or has a temporary protected status.
And these families will be put in the position of either leaving assisted housing and trying to look for housing they can afford on the private market or separating with the ineligible member leaving the family in order for the remaining members to continue receiving assistance. And so in sum, I see that there's major challenges. Of course, the crisis persists and the need remains very high, but there are also areas where there's clear evidence that the investments being made by the state are making a significant difference and moving the needle. And those areas can be scaled up and the lessons and successes can be spread to other parts of the system. But in a time where there's increased uncertainty at the federal level, any changes in state funding will interact with that degree of uncertainty and could have a significant impact on the people serving locals I'm sorry, the people served by local programs and the people operating those programs.
I'll stop there and I'm happy to clarify or address any questions you might have.
Speaker 1
Thank you. Before we open things up to questions from members of the subcommittee, does the Department of Finance have any comment on this item?
Speaker 8
Paul Steenhausen with the analyst office. No, we don't have any remarks, but here to answer questions if you have any. Thank you.
Speaker 1
Thank you. And we will now open the discussion to questions from members of the committee. Mr. Vice Chair? This
Speaker 3
9% number that the governor mentioned it in his State of the State, but I don't think at that time that 30 of the 44 continuum of care that you referenced were counted. But now, if I understand correctly, what you're saying is there is a 9% reduction in 30 continuums of care in the state. Coincidental that those two numbers are the same. I'm not sure that that means anything. But are those those 30, are those all of the point in time counts for those areas that have since been conducted?
Speaker 5
Yes, that's correct. So the 9% number is coming from 30 that conducted the count in January 2025. There was unofficial analysis, unofficial meaning that these were not numbers that were published by HUD, but rather it was collected from each local continuum of care that published a report following their 2025 count. That was somewhere around mid-twenty twenty five for most of these COCs, and that analysis of the 30 that had published their reports did show a 9% decrease. I don't know if that analysis was the same basis for the governor's statistic, but that's That there are 30 that conducted a count, all 30 of them have published their own numbers, and those published numbers do show a 9% decrease.
Speaker 5
No, I'm sorry. Those are the twenty twenty five counts, so these were conducted a little over a year ago. The numbers that were recently collected as of like a couple of weeks ago or a few weeks ago among continuums of care, those numbers are not expected to be published by localities until sometime in the summer. So typically, point in time counts are conducted on a single night somewhere in late January by the COCs that do them. Even numbered years.
So there has been some staggering that was introduced by the pandemic. And so it was traditionally that about half of COCs did a count every year and the other half did them in odd years. There was not one done in 2021, so many did them in 2022 and switched to an even year cadence when they didn't do them every year, but some of them returned to their odd year cadence. So in any given year, it will fluctuate the number that do them. And typically the rhythm throughout the year is that they do the count in late January.
Localities publish their own reports with the summary of their data somewhere around the summer, and then HUD publishes the data for all continuums of care somewhere in December of that same year. That has been thrown off this year. So traditionally, HUD has published all of the counts from 2025 by December 2025, that didn't occur yet, and it's not clear when it will, but HUD has stated that they plan to release those numbers soon.
Speaker 5
So, I'll tell you what I think is true, but I apologize if I'm getting some of the facts wrong. I believe that the reason for January is because particularly in cold weather states, the number of people who will be outside is lower and the unsheltered counts are more prone to error. And so if you conduct the count in a month like January where it's colder, the presumption I believe is that more people will be in shelter and transitional housing programs rather than being outside and the shelter and transitional housing counts will be more accurate. Now that obviously is very different in California than it is in a place like New York where the system is different. That logic also means that you might see different patterns.
So for example, there might be people who are doubling up on a friend or family member's couch rather than living outside in January versus in July. So I think in general it is meant to minimize error, but there are absolutely different trade offs for various ways of conducting counts depending on timing, placement, etcetera.
Speaker 3
And is there any way of knowing the transitional impact? That is to say, how many people are homeless now that were also homeless, say, a couple, three, four years ago?
Speaker 5
Yeah. So point in time counts do often collect that kind of data, but those the detail of that information isn't typically reported to HUD and they don't publish that number in a kind of systematic national way. And so instead each continuum of care does a survey at the same time that they're counting people, and they will often ask very detailed questions about how long have you been experiencing homelessness this time, have you previously experienced homelessness, when did that begin? And so they can measure things like have people been experiencing homelessness for you know three years versus did somebody kind of move into homelessness in the last few months. There are also continuums of care that collect names when they do these surveys and they're able to match the name from one count to the next in order to understand how many people are newly counted this year versus were counted in a previous count as well.
But for that kind of information, the HDIS is a much more powerful tool for understanding how long has somebody been entering homelessness, what kinds of programs have they been using, and then kind of what is their trajectory. That's because the data track in real time their enrollments in different programs but also the data collected for those administrative systems. They're just able to collect more detail in kind of a cleaner way that's less prone to error.
Speaker 6
Thank you Chair and thanks for the presentation. Learned a lot from that. Can we distinguish at this point from the HAP investments in terms of between COCs, counties, major cities? Are we seeing any differential performance in terms of some of the outcome indicators that are related to the different colors of HAP grantees at this point?
Speaker 5
Yeah, so for the most part I defer to my colleagues at HCD and the Interagency Council who have been collecting systematic data on outcomes for HAP funded interventions. But I will note that I think there are two important notes based on the research we've been doing. The first is that there were significant changes to the HAP program and how those funds are administered over the course of the rounds where there was increased consolidation of coordination and planning between HAP grantees within the same region. So for example, the city, county, and continuum of care of Sacramento are all HAP grantees and from one round to the next there was an increased amount of coordination between those three entities in terms of their plans for using the HAP funds. And so in some ways it can be hard to say like what happened with the COCs allocation versus the counties when they're coordinating their use in a particular way.
The other thing that I'll note is that in some ways the way that each grantee is using its allocations and funds kind of plays into where they happen to sit in their system. So for example, in some places, a city will be disproportionately the lead entity for running shelter programs, whereas the county might be in charge more of some of the service or perhaps contributing to the supportive housing programs. And in that case, the outcomes will look different simply because one entity is disproportionately running housing programs while one entity is running shelter programs. And so it will look like the housing programs are housing more people simply because that's what those programs are doing versus what the shelter programs are doing. And so there there are complexities there, but I defer to my colleagues at at CalICH and HCD for more detailed information.
Speaker 6
That will foreshadow a question for them later. But on the so similarly then, I'm only asking in case you have done separate research from them, and you noted, I think for veterans and for youth, that those investments that were specific and targeted were more effective than the general investments or general programs in terms of achieving the state's desired goals for persons experiencing homelessness in those categories?
Speaker 5
Yeah, yeah. So I think maybe to put it more specifically, I think what we learned from those providers is that when they saw that they had a dedicated stream of resources coming to serve the populations that they work with, they engaged in a really kind of transformational planning process often in some of their programs. And so for example we heard from many youth homelessness service providers that when they knew that there was this set aside amount of funding specifically to serve youth. There was already a close knit community of youth providers and they were able to engage in a strategic planning process where they were kind of internally coordinating on who will invest in what types of services in a continuum of intervention. So some kind of saying, okay what we clearly saw amongst us was that there was a gap in kind of a subsidy program for youth who are coming out of transitional housing and so they could internally coordinate on how to make that investment, how that program can best interface with the existing programs, and that led to increased rates of exiting from transitional housing programs as an example.
Speaker 6
We know that, or it led to reports by those agencies that their belief is, or their numbers which we don't have, are that they are achieving increased numbers of exiting, or is it researcher yours
Speaker 5
Yes, great question. I don't have the numbers and the data at my fingertips. I don't want to overstate what I believe the numbers might say, but I am basing that on the interviews that we have conducted with homelessness service providers. And then I have also kind of read other analyses that attribute some of these transformational changes to increased numbers of people exiting transitional housing, but I don't want to overstate my knowledge of those particular findings. But I also want to be clear that it is we did not hear or learn that investments were less effective for populations other than these groups.
Just that because these groups have a smaller number of providers that tailor their services in more specific ways and could rely on a more predictable stream of funding coming to them, they were able to engage in this really proactive and system level planning. What we heard from other providers is that HAPS flexibility is tremendously beneficial, but because it is so flexible it means that there are many, many ways and priorities that those resources could go to. And so it was simply a wider and more complex set of decisions and planning that needed to be done for addressing a more diverse and larger population in need of services. And so like I don't want to say that the money was not used effectively in other programs, it's simply that for the more tailored populations, the planning process could look different.
Speaker 6
I appreciate that. I this is I think this is a key through line for a lot of today's hearing because there's a cost to that, right? If we if we had a tailored program for every population experiencing homelessness, the coordination, information reporting, data management, accountability, costs of that are not trivial, and our ability to track the outcomes from the state's perspective. Because HAPA's HAPA's not generalized program to say, hey, we just wanna help out in whatever way that we can. Like, do have expectations here around what both the chair and the vice chair said earlier of reducing the number of folks experiencing homelessness, reducing the number of returns.
We have a set of expectations that are state interests, that are different, as a former mayor, you have local interests too, but the state has a specific set of interest. And so the question I think that's come up for the today and for last year as well is, many of the the regions and the grantees and and especially the COCs have invested in in a lot of what you've described. And I I have to say, you know, this is foreshadowing. I'm not convinced that, an advisory board of folks with lived experience or a long term strategic plan or a three or a three year process to develop a racial justice lens on how on homelessness, you know, services or whatever that those are those fit within the pocket of what what we're trying what the state's interests are. Like, local regions and communities have their own responsibility for homelessness that predates and postdates us And the development of the capacity to do that in the way that the regions want to is is not our business.
And we can't measure the outcomes. So part of part of the question that's that's guiding me is this this battle between the the the governor and local governments, which has been omnipresent, and and with in which they're both wrong. They both ascribe a lot of causality to their actions. When it was bad, it was all the fault of local governments and, you know, damn them. And now that, you know, that it's down, you know, yay us, look what we all did together.
You know, everybody wants to take credit for the good news and and ascribe the bad news to, you know, really complex social factors that, nobody can get their arms around. But it's kinda our job to get our arms around around those and figure out what are the most effective strategies that we can measure, that we can hold accountable, and that we can prioritize, given the long term, state's fiscal forecast as well. So very much appreciate the research. Looking forward to some of these topics coming up again in the ensuing panels. Thanks.
Thanks, Madam Chair.
Speaker 1
Thank you. I kind of want to take it back to slide number two and just kind of, you know, one of the things that really just popped out for me was the fact that in this graph here we have the sheltered and the unsheltered. And it seems like it's pretty much not even but the same for some time. And then there's a bit of a spike a little bit before 2018. It goes down and then it continues upwards, right?
Can you speak to that spike and the ongoing, just, you know, challenges there?
Speaker 5
Yeah, yeah. So I think, in some ways that volatility in the numbers is often expected when the nature of the count is often kind of subject to a lot of external events. So so just to give you one example, in point in time counts where there are significant storms on the day of the unsheltered count, it typically leads to a significant reduction in the number of people who are counted because teams have less visibility, less coverage, it's harder to see folks. So I think there is some significant volatility that sometimes comes from simply external factors that can lead to a spike or a drop in some places. There have also been a couple of other factors that lead to significant changes, like a shift in methodology.
And so many of the continuums of care have changed their methodology for conducting these counts in a way that can lead to a higher number because they're conducting them in a more rigorous way. So for example, sometimes some cities have begun doing the count solely with or predominantly with local government staff who receive a more extensive amount of training than the teams of volunteers who necessarily are trained less for conducting the count. So the data entry is simply more challenging when they're not getting as much training in how to do some of that. So I think first some of these spikes and dips can be attributable to like sometimes some of these different volatilities will overlap in a way that leads to a spike and sometimes they will overlap in a way that leads to a dip. But I think that the other element of it is sometimes that there have been significant changes in local interventions that lead to significant shifts in people from unsheltered locations to sheltered locations, for example.
A big part of the change that we're going to see in the twenty twenty five counts from LA, for example, has been attributable to the Inside Safe initiative. And so that led to a significant drop in people experiencing unsheltered homelessness in some places and an increase in the number of people experiencing sheltered homelessness. So the total count might not change as significantly as one or the other, but instead it's people moving from outside to inside. So there are multiple fluctuations that can occur that lead to spikes and dips. But I think the long term trend is simply attributable to the fact that there's more people entering homelessness than programs are able to help exit it.
I Does that answer your question? I'm sorry.
Speaker 1
Yeah. I I just wanted to point out, I mean, the numbers seem to be pretty consistently below 150,000, right? From, I would say, 2008, 2009, and then right around 2019, that's when it went over one hundred and fifty. But if you look at even just 2009, right, this is when the housing crisis was occurring, right? People were losing their homes.
They were, they didn't know where to go. It was a huge problem. Yet the number, it took, it, can't see what happened before then, but it does show that it got close to 150, but then it began to come down, right? You know, I would assume that's 2010 and thereafter. So, even in a scenario where we had, you know, lots of people, you know, losing their home or potentially losing their home or lost their home, they the number was still below 150.
So, I mean, obviously, I would assume that the changes in the way that we're counting is different then than it is today. But obviously, I think just visibility wise, I think that we'd see a huge, you know, difference between then and today. So, just kind of wanted to
Speaker 1
Point that out and see if there's anything that I'm missing that I should, you know, take note of as as, you know, we're having this discussion?
Speaker 5
Yes. Yes, Senator. Thank you. So I think, in part, the the kinds of factors affecting the the different people in the housing market were a little bit different in the foreclosure crisis than the ongoing shortage of affordable housing we're experiencing today. And that's in part because the foreclosure crisis was affecting folks who were able to become homeowners, even if it was sometimes in a predatory or precarious way.
And the folks who are able to become homeowners, a loss of housing is tragic and challenging for them, but often what occurs is if they lose homeownership, they're able to move into renting, they're able to move into maybe situations with other family members versus what's going on in the more recent years with the shortage of affordable housing is affecting the people primarily who are like kind of already holding on by their fingertips. And so the nature of the housing crisis in the foreclosure era is a little different than the nature of the housing crisis today in terms of who's getting hit by it most profoundly. And so the folks who are kind of already holding on by their fingertips in the rental market, they're not able to fall back on quite as many other supports as the people who might have been homeowners experienced a foreclosure. So work by Margot Kuchel and her team at the Benioff Center Housing and Homelessness Initiative, they did a statewide study a couple years ago that traced these trajectories. And it's a long trajectory for many people from experiencing a housing disruption to actually like living outside.
And in many cases it really depends on where you start when the disruption begins. And so if the disruption begins when you are a homeowner, even precariously so, There are many other ways that people kind of fall back onto other supports versus when it's somebody who is a renter in the lowest cost apartment who experiences disruption, they're already much closer to the brink of living outside.
Speaker 8
Just to add a point, this is what doctor Finian was referring to. But if you look at housing prices with COVID, 2021 was about 15% higher in cost than the year before and went up another about 15%. You had rents go up significantly, and a lot of people who didn't have rent control or some kind of cap on increased rents were affected and saw big increases. And so there was really a spike. You can see around 2020, 2021, 2022, a spike in costs.
And back in 2008, you kinda had the opposite in a lot of ways where you had lower costs for for a lot of people. So just the connection between cost of housing and homelessness.
Speaker 1
The other I have one more question for you. How many so when money goes out to the COCs and then they provide that money to grantees, How many different, like, funding streams do could be used by a particular grantee? I mean, what are I mean, I've heard CalAIM could be used. What are the other, like, public revenues that could be used to supporting these efforts?
Speaker 5
Yeah, so varies widely. It varies widely between places across the state and the type of program that they're running. So in many of the rural areas or smaller communities where there's less federal funding and less local funding, often a program could be funded by HAP alone or it could be funded by something like a combination of HAP and local government funding. Things are more complicated sometimes in for larger programs operating in places like the Bay Area, Los Angeles, San Diego, where there's a more complicated mix of resources available. And so to give an example, there's like shelter programs in Alameda County, like in Oakland or Berkeley, where there might be five different revenue sources that sustain the operations of that shelter.
Sometimes they're simply layered together to make ends meet in a kind of pooled way that could include HAP, it could include funding from the county and funding from the city and philanthropic funding and perhaps a small amount of federal funding that's administered by the COCs or passed through by local governments. And sometimes those funds are combined in a way that there's perhaps like half funding and local government funding that pays to keep the lights on and pays the operational staff. So that's like the front desk, the security, the janitors. And then something like CalAIM, which is a reimbursement approach, will pay for part of the case management or assistance with applying to housing assistance programs. And so it's sometimes kind of hard to know exactly how much each source is contributing to the whole when they're divided in that way, but it varies widely.
Speaker 1
Is there a way to figure that out? And can you elaborate a little bit more on CaliM? I mean, I did a little bit of research on it and saw that there was quite a bit of funding that they provide.
Speaker 5
Yes, yes. Is, so first there is a way to figure it out, I think what my awareness of the HAP reporting is typically that folks are reporting what they are using the HAP funds for and that there is not as much reporting on a program by program basis what other funds are being combined with HAP. But I defer to my colleagues at HCD who will know that for sure. But they do report at the system level, like here are all of the breadths of resources that we have available when they are applying for HAP funding and what they intend to use those resources for. We have uncovered this in our research and uncovered is the wrong word, sorry but we have measured this in our research of what programs are using and how they're combining them.
And that's where we see this really wide variation between one program and the next. I will say that providers have also shared that when they are layering lots of sources together, it does complicate the extent to which they are able to administer their services. So the centers have pointed out, when there's multiple different funding programs that each have their own rules and their own compliance structures, it can become very complicated for the provider to say, okay, we can use HAP funds for our general operations, but this funding from the VA can only serve our beds that serve veterans, or this funding can only serve people with substance use challenges. So that can increase the complexity of combining funds. And then for Cal AIM, the Turner Center has been conducting some research on how different housing providers are using that.
What that allows is for a reimbursement of specified eligible services that get approved by counties and managed care plans. So there's variation from one county or managed care plan to the next in terms of exactly what services get covered and how they get reimbursed. But it also works differently from the provider's point of view than receiving funds via a grant from a county or from the state, for example, because they have to reimburse for specific services and specific clients. So instead of being able to say, for example, we got $1,000,000 from HAP and $1,000,000 from CalAIM, it's we have $1,000,000 from HAP for our operations and then on a client by client basis and service by service basis, we submit for a reimbursement of the costs of providing those services.
Speaker 3
looking at this trend, they're now submitting that coincidence is not causation. This does coincide with some significant happenings, if you will, in our past. One is Proposition 47 was passed in, I believe, 2014. And the effect of that proposition was to completely decriminalize all drug use offenses, which prior to that, the consequence of a drug use conviction or potential conviction was drug court, which was tremendously effective in getting a lot of people off of drugs. That virtually disappeared after the passage of Proposition 47.
And there is disagreement as to how much drug issues contribute to homelessness, but it's certainly a significant contributor to homelessness. The other is in 2016, California codified Housing First. And that very well coincides with the significant increase in homelessness numbers. And then in 2017 or 'eighteen was the Boise decision which impacts the, at least enforcement issues. How much would you say each of these things contributes to the increase in homelessness?
Speaker 5
Yeah, so the I think all of those events certainly correspond to things that matter a lot, but I'm not sure that I can give quantitative, you know, assessments of the extent to which they impact the overall trend. So just to maybe like look through them one by one, the research that I've reviewed on the drivers of homelessness rates at the community level rather than at the person level. So like at the person level, absolutely, substance use challenges, mental health challenges, all of them increase, the risk of homelessness and make it much harder to exit homelessness. But at, like, a community level does the rate in California increase because the rate of those challenges has gone up relative to other places. I have not seen like strong research that shows that there's been this growing rate of substance use challenges that leads to an upward trend in homelessness relative to other places that have experienced a similar increase in the rate.
So for example, in West Virginia it has one of the highest rates of like diagnosed substance use disorders and has also experienced a large increase in that rate, but it hasn't experienced the same increase that California has. And so I think it's hard to pin down how much does that lead to an upward trend, although on a case by case basis it is absolutely meaningful to the people who are trying to grapple with those issues and homelessness at the same time. In terms of like the Housing First program model, I think what we would expect to see if Housing First was serving people in a less effective way is that people would exit two permanent housing programs or stay in them less successfully. And so what would drive the upward trend in the number of people experiencing homelessness is that people aren't able to exit. And in my reviews of the data, what I've seen in California is actually that the rate of people exiting isn't going down, it's just that the rate of people entering homelessness has increased more significantly.
And so if the rate at which people are entering homelessness is one of the key drivers in this upward trend of the number of people on a given night, then I wouldn't attribute that to the adoption of a housing first model for the programs that serve people who are already experiencing homelessness. So it would be a different set of drivers who are affecting people who aren't yet experiencing homelessness and then get pushed into it as the key driver for this particular trend. And then last in terms of the Martin v. Boise decision, I think if the inability or constraint on, encampment resolution actions was leading to the rise in unsheltered homelessness, then what I would expect to see in the data is that there are many shelter beds that are not being filled because localities lack the ability or the resources to move folks from an encampment and into a shelter transitional housing program. Instead, what I've seen in the data is that shelter beds are and transitional housing programs are typically at capacity and have long wait lists.
And the constraint for successfully moving folks indoors is that they lack the space to move folks indoors. And where we have seen success is when like in some programs like Inside Safe and other initiatives or encampment resolution funded efforts around the state. When the effort to resolve an encampment is paired with all of the outreach and services and increased shelter capacity, that's when we see the more successful moving in from outdoors to indoors and folks staying inside. And so I think enforcement certainly has changed following the Martin v. Boise and then the grants passed decisions.
And I think it certainly varies a lot in terms of how local governments respond to it. But what I've seen as a driver of the rate is the resources that are available.
Speaker 6
Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm not gonna ask you for any conjecture about the effect of the statewide vote on the plastic bag ban or the measure to increase the amount that we contribute to the Rainy Day Fund that also occurred at the same time. But I do want to note, maybe, I don't know if this is really a question, but just to note that, at least a couple of us come from local government, that the incentives under the Boise decision would have suggested that you would have expected an increase in sheltered homelessness because if you wanted to tackle encampments and other enforcement issues, your only option was to assure that there were more shelter beds available so that everyone could access them. We didn't see that in the data and if so we saw more unsheltered homelessness and less and no increase in sheltered homeless during that period. So I'm not sure that Boise, which I've shared the Vice Chair's quarrels with, but I'm not sure we can ascribe these numbers to to that.
And then secondly, just to also note that twenty sixteen to twenty twenty and twenty twenty to twenty twenty four were very different federal government regimes in this space. And what we saw during that that twenty sixteen to twenty twenty period was was very little federal investment and engagement and we as the chart shows, we saw basically no increase in in in in sheltered homelessness and that's because the capacity wasn't there. The investments weren't there in order to make that happen And that's the period with one of the largest jumps in the gap between sheltered and unsheltered. So we'll need a different study to try to untangle this more. But other technical question is, obviously, the sheltered, unsheltered is one of the key things that we're paying attention to here with a particular focus on unsheltered.
Of course, these stat charts are are are hard to read from that that perspective because I can't really tell the unsheltered changes over time other than your statement that it that it declined. Is it possible, mister Finnegan, if you would provide to us the same chart but split so we can see the differential changes between both of them actually? Because here it's just difficult. The sheltered base makes it difficult to distinguish what's actually going on with unsheltered unless you have a really close eagle eye on the graph itself. I would appreciate it if you share that with the committee.
Speaker 1
Well, I thank you, Doctor. Finnegan, for your presentation. This item was, information only, but again we I think we're all very much invested in figuring it out and getting it right. And I thank you for your time today and for answering our questions. And we'll go ahead and at this moment move to agenda item number three.
Thank you, Senator. Thank you. So, item three on our agenda today involves oversight of the homelessness data collection systems at the California Interagency Council on Homelessness. I'd like to ask Megan and Sydney to come on forward. You're here.
And also, Marshall is the Executive Officer at the California Interagency Council on Homelessness, and Ms. Winnett is the Director research for the council. And just feel free to begin when you're ready.
Speaker 10
Thank you madam chair. Just if we can queue up the power point. I'll just give it a quick second. Great, thank you. I think we're still in the morning.
Good morning Madam Chair, members of the committee, and staff. And thank you for the opportunity to present to you all today. I am Mega Marshall, I'm the Executive Officer for the California Interagency Council on Homelessness. And I'm joined by our Director of Data and Research, Cindy Bennett. Cal ACH is responsible for statewide coordination, data integration, and accountability infrastructure across California's homelessness response system.
And so, hearing is intended to discuss HAP, the outcomes of HAP, the data available around HAP. But we serve the ecosystem of statewide investments, including some that were discussed in Health and Human Services purview. So, we'll walk through the key data systems California relies on, give an overview of HDIS, which is the homeless data integration system, its accomplishments, and demonstrate how we're now able to answer long standing questions about outcomes and cost effectiveness, and close with our progress in the implementation of AB seven ninety nine. I will not spend too much time on key data sources. They were, I feel, thoroughly covered by Doctor.
Finnegan, but happy to answer any questions that the committee might have. But just to highlight that we use multiple data sources to understand homelessness at both the population and system level. Each data set has a distinct purpose, cadence, set of limitations. Our role is to integrate and to do best at interpreting the sources to produce clear statewide accountability. So, will go ahead and shimmy on over to this slide you see there that we have highlighted in blue HDIS, that is where we'll spend the bulk of our time with you all.
Queuing Sydney up, I just want to provide sort of the linkage between the locally operated homeless management information system or HMIS and how it connects to HDIS. So HMIS is the federally governed system used by all 44 continuums of care. It collects individual level data on demographics, services, and outcomes with very clear limitations. Data is self reported. It only includes those who seek services or accessing services.
And it excludes tribal homelessness and victim services providers excuse me, victim service programs. Cal ICH maintains HDIS, which aggregates HMIS data statewide, providing the most complete picture of service usage and outcomes that California's ever had. It is the first of its kind. We are the only state to have this level of statewide collection of information, absent the states who are also their own continuum of care. So but this is the largest, most unique statewide collection of homeless data.
So just to underscore a point here, HDIS aggregates the data, but the state does not control what is collected in HMIS or how it is collected. HMIS is governed entirely by the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development data standards. So, that, I'll turn it over to Sydney to share more on HDIS.
Speaker 11
Thank you to the chair, vice chair, and committee for having me here today. I'm excited to talk to you all about HDIS. HDIS is the country's first state level integrated homelessness data system. The system is still quite young, first launched in 2021. HDIS brings together person level data from California's 44 COCs providing the state's most comprehensive and current picture of homelessness services.
Just five years ago, this system didn't exist and its creation was foundational for our statewide homelessness reporting and accountability efforts. As you'll see on the graphic in the slides, the data starts with each continuum of care and their HMIS system. That's where local service providers, including recipients of federal and state funding, enter data on their clients who are accessing housing or services. On a quarterly basis, each COC sends the data from their HMIS system to HDIS via a secure file transfer. That data is complex, totaling millions of records statewide.
CAL ICH then conducts an extensive process to prepare the data. This includes de duplicating and matching clients across the continuums of care to have that full picture, resulting in a statewide data warehouse that meets our reporting needs. CalICH has a multi step process to ensure accuracy and data quality. This includes a pre upload screening tool, manual file reviews, automated error reports, and summary figures, which our staff review to confirm data quality and consistency. Our data quality in HDIS relies on accurate local reporting.
Cal ICH works to proactively identify any potential issues in the data, and we partner with the continuums of care to resolve them in real time. We wanted to highlight that COCs have been great partners in this work and have been extremely responsive to our requests to make data quality improvements. One way we do this is through our COC data quality tool which flags over 200 errors before the data is uploaded to HDIS in the first place. We are partnering with state departments to require the use of this tool. CALICH also uses the results statewide from our data quality tool to tailor technical assistance via our HDIS Connect webinars and individualized support we provide to each continuum of care.
HDIS captures data on projects, people, and enrollment so that we can see which services people receive and the outcomes that follow. No other statewide system provides this level of detailed insight. Projects are the interventions that COCs operate to address homelessness in their community. Through the implementation of Assembly Bill nine seventy seven, CalICH partners with the administering state departments to ensure that we are able to track state funded projects in our HDIS system. HDIS has its demographic data on people accessing services, which provides important information on their housing needs and allows us to look at data separately for populations like youth, veterans, and families with children.
And then we have data on each enrollment for a person who's receiving services, the time frame of that enrollment, and the outcomes that follow. And that's the foundation we use for our performance measurement. HDIS serves three core functions. The first is measuring progress towards the state and local efforts to prevent and end homelessness. So this includes our action plan goals and accountability commitments.
We also use HDIS to understand disparities and advance equity, and to analyze the effectiveness of state program investments, which we'll be talking about more later with the implementation of AB seven ninety nine. HDIS data is the backbone of statewide accountability. This timeline here shows the rapid and sustained progress CalICH has made in less than five years since the launch of HDIS in 2021, including our work to implement several pieces of legislation pertaining to HDIS. So, the launch of HDIS in 2021 included our public facing and continuum of care facing dashboards. Shortly followed in 2022 by the release of California system performance measures, which are still used by the HAP program to this day.
And those were the state's first homelessness performance measures. In 2023, in collaboration with Doctor. Finnegan and the Turner Center, we published the first statewide homelessness assessment in California. And then we also began our important work to implement AB nine seventy seven technical assistance, which is the program through which we are supporting administering departments and their grantees with HMIS reporting, and the reason we will have all of this data on state funded programs and their effectiveness. Then in 2024 and 2025, we stood up interagency dashboards and compliance reports as part of AB nine seventy seven implementation.
We also released our public facing health act dashboard that sets goals for reducing homelessness among domestic violence survivors, their children, and unaccompanied women who are experiencing homelessness. We also partnered with our council member departments and the Health and Human Services Agency to begin linking homelessness, health, and social services data to get an even fuller picture of homelessness outcomes in California. And then this year into next year, are very focused on our public state program dashboard, which will be part of our AB seven ninety nine implementation, and we'll come back to you in a few minutes. And then also, we will be focusing on data for single women with children, which were added to the Health Act population and will be coming to that dashboard as well. I will now pass it back to Executive Officer Marshall to talk about our ability to measure cost effectiveness, as well as CaliSeq's implementation of AB seven ninety nine.
Speaker 10
Thank you Sydney. So I'll turn now to the question of cost effectiveness raised rightfully and prominently in the state auditor's twenty twenty four report. So as this committee is aware, reporting accountability requirements have significantly evolved over the now six rounds of HAP. For example, HMIS reporting was not required until the fourth round of the program. And HAP rounds operate on a multi year funding cycle.
So these realities made early cost effectiveness assessments incredibly challenging. But with three years of consistent standardized requirements and using the auditor's own methodology, we can answer the question of, is HAP a cost effective investment? So again, using the state auditor's methodology, and that was simply comparing the cost of an intervention to the public cost of doing nothing, HAP IV specifically is highly cost effective. So to calculate, to achieve the $9,172 average cost per person permanently housed in the fourth round of HAP. And again, we're highlighting this round because this is the first round that required entry into HMIS, And therefore is lifted up into HDIS.
But we divided that, the $515,600,000 in HAP IV expenditures by the 56,210 people placed in permanent housing in the fourth round of the program. So the auditor used a national estimate of $50,000 per year for the public cost of one person experiencing chronic homelessness. I will say California's cost of not addressing an individual experiencing chronic homelessness is actually somewhere in the ballpark of $110,000 per year of no intervention, no services. But for the sake of comparison, wanted to use the $50,000 figure that was used in the auditor's report. So even with that conservative number, HAPS cost per permanent housing exit is far lower.
So I wanna note that the dashboard displayed on this slide, that top photo that you see there, HAP HDIS reported program outcomes per AB nine seventy seven. Those were never intended to be public. They were meant to be internal tools, internal thermometers of sorts for us to assess program effectiveness and outcomes. But it became public in response to the audit to show that CaliSiege could in fact produce public data dashboards with the information that it was requiring grantees to enter into HMIS. So the dashboard's underway for AB seven ninety nine.
And I'm not sure how numbering of bills works, but nine seventy seven and seven ninety nine are unfortunately close together. But I refer to them as companion legislation, they complement one another in this way. But the seven ninety nine dashboards will go much further. So they will be designed specifically with Californians in mind. Intuitive, plain language, easy to understand while maintaining the transparency legislature, the auditor, the governor has has called for and expects and and everyone deserves, right?
So,
Speaker 6
Of course. So the this this way of doing cost effectiveness, I think tell me if I'm wrong, assumes that if there was no HAP, no one would or at least of these clients would have exited homelessness, right? Correct. I mean, is that a reasonable
Speaker 10
question? It is the methodology that the state auditor used in the report that it produced in 2024, and so wanted to, for comparison's sake, wanted to use that here. But as I was getting ready to highlight, the July dashboards will go much further with a different methodology. All right. So, turning now to AB seven ninety nine, I want to emphasize that despite, you know, our increasing statutory workloads, Cal ICH has never missed statutory deadline.
So every statutory deliverable with a due date has been completed on time or ahead of schedule in our existence. And I feel that's important, given the inclusion of Cal ICH on a watch list for high risk investments from the auditor. July is the next major step forward in creating a unified statewide accountability framework. And the timeline for that is to have these public facing dashboards available on or before June 2027. So, with that, I want to highlight the five components of the statutory deliverables within AB seven ninety nine, most of which we have completed, all of which that remain are on track.
So, first we, you know, AB seven ninety nine required the addition of the Governor's Tribal Affairs Advisor to the council. We're very excited to have Secretary Christina Snyder Ashtari join. You saw in Doctor. Finnegan's presentation the disparity that exists in persons who are Native American, and unsheltered homelessness in particular, but overall. And so, her addition was incredibly important to our council.
That was completed. Second is to coordinate applications for funding. That is an ongoing component of the work of the interagency council, which again consists of 19 department directors, cabinet level secretaries, and two persons two community experts appointed by the legislature. And that work is included in each of our public council meetings. Third is to develop and maintain a strategic funding guide and calendar of new and existing funding opportunities.
We're very excited to release this on March 4, which is our next quarterly council meeting. It is an interactive tool that makes it easy for a Californian who wants to know what are the what is the totality of the state's investments in housing and homelessness? Not just HAP, not just ERF, which are two very important tools, but just a program within a much larger ecosystem. And four and five are very related. Those are deliverables that are on track to being met by the statutory due date.
So collecting fiscal and outcome data on or before 02/01/2027, and annually thereafter. Just want to note that HMIS, and therefore HDIS, does not collect fiscal information in the way that is required for us to produce a fiscal dashboard. So we are continuing to work on a web based application that would make those dashboards compatible with the outcome dashboards that we'll be producing. And again, on track to meet those publicly available tools on or before 06/01/2027. So, as we close, I just want to emphasize where the state is headed.
We're aligning statewide measures across our homelessness action plan and AB seven ninety nine ensuring that performance is tracked consistently across departments and programs. This is incredibly challenging given the unique nature and language used in legislation authorizing those programs. Definitions vary in home from something as simple as what is homelessness, what is defined as homelessness is different in entitlement benefited programs that are mostly operated by the Department of Social Services compared to what we see in the flexible nature of HAP. But those are things that we are committed to tracking and consistently in these dashboards. We're organizing all public reporting around our action plan goals, there are five.
So regardless if you're an entitlement program or a flexible program such as HAP, we want to know your exits from unsheltered homelessness, your moves into housing, housing retention, homelessness prevention, and lastly, an increased housing supply. How many units are you contributing to the ecosystem? We're designing these dashboards again to meet the expectations for transparency and public expectation for clarity. It should not be that challenging to answer questions of how many people exited homelessness and went into permanent housing. And so, again, the dashboards that we have, the tools we have now were not designed to be public facing.
We understand that are addressing those in the implementation of these seven ninety nine dashboards. So, closing, California has now the strongest data infrastructure we've ever had to answer these really important questions. HDIS gives us the ability to measure outcomes and identify disparities statewide. Seven ninety nine builds on that. And, yeah.
With that, I will I'll wrap it up. I see folks are pressed for time. But thank you and look forward to answering any questions that the committee might have. Do we have any
Speaker 1
questions from the LEO or Department of Finance? No? Okay. Members of the committee? Okay.
We'll go with our Vice Chair.
Speaker 3
Thank you. On the last slide, comment about presenting outcomes through the lens of five action plan goals and you list exits from unsheltered homelessness exits to housing retention prevention and increased housing supply. So, is there any attempt to measure the ultimate success of homelessness programs, and that is self sufficiency?
Speaker 10
And thank you, Senator, for the question. These are the five action plan I should note that these are the first action plan goals to have been established by the council. Previously, the action plan was a collection of the state's investments and you know, who they were eligible to be awarded to, general program outcomes. But they varied in nature of reporting requirements, public reporting requirements. These five goals are the first opportunity for us to capture as an ecosystem the outcomes of these investments.
Secretary Moss, is our Business Consumer Services and Housing Secretary, as well as the co chair Secretary Johnson of California Health and Human Services Agency, are deeply committed to developing workforce measures and metrics. We have also the California Workforce Development Board who is represented on our council as well. I'm sure you're tracking, Senator, the work requirements that are embedded now in entitlement benefits. And that lends itself, I would say, seamlessly to us adding those exits to self sufficiency in the next version of the action plan.
Speaker 3
I ask the question because I rarely hear that articulated in any homeless plans. And I would hope that and I'll admit that there are some people that are homeless that are they're homeless because they're dysfunctional and maybe they can never be self sufficient. I'll allow that that might be the case. But the ultimate goal of any social services program with regard to people that need assistance, the ultimate goal has got to be self sufficiency. And as I said, I rarely hear that articulated.
So I'm glad to hear that perhaps that will become a better part of what we're aiming toward. With regard to oversight and ensuring that funds are appropriately utilized, you provide any standards or selection criteria that can help local governments utilize to identify who the best partners are to work with?
Speaker 10
Cal ISH does not. I'll defer to our sister Department of Housing and Community Development who administers HAP in particular. But those expectations of caliber of partners are mostly included in the standard agreements that are held between the administering department and the direct grantee. And so in the instance of HAP, that's a city, a county, and a continuum of care. And so insurance is always a big one that comes to mind.
Oftentimes we'll hear from community based organizations that they are not in a position to carry the level of insurance required, but it is required for a reason. And so those are things that I'm sure my colleague Megan Kirkaby can speak to a little bit more definitively. But those things are outlined in standard agreements.
Speaker 3
Perhaps the answer is similar with regard to the findings of some fraud in the Los Angeles area and evidently more recently in San Francisco. Do you take steps to root that out or is that also the other entity that would monitor that?
Speaker 10
I would I will offer my experience prior to this appointment. I served almost twenty one years in local government. Sacramento County was my longest point of service.
Speaker 10
I tell you this every time and you forget every time. In fact, there's a photo of me at 18 years old when I started my county career and you then supervisor, but
Speaker 10
I'll include it next time I'm asked to present to this subcommittee. Apologies for the tangent. But, yeah, so in those two examples though, I will say that the system was operating as designed in that those instances of suspected fraud or you know abuse of government dollars were identified by the state's grantee. So in both of those instances, it was the local government entity or local partner who identified through their monitoring processes, which are outlined expectations of those are outlined in standard agreements. They are the ones who happened upon those points of concern.
Did their own investigation, referred it to local law enforcement who then opened you know a larger investigation. A year and some change later, we hear about public charges. So, is always, particularly as somebody who's dedicated their career to supporting those in need, it is always incredibly disappointing to see, you know, these come to light. But in the instance of LA and San Francisco, that is what we would hope to see. Government partners are doing their due diligence and monitoring who they are contracting state dollars for.
And in instances of concern are using due process to root those out.
Speaker 3
Okay. And you're right. That is how it should be discovered and I promise not to be so forgetful.
Speaker 6
I I wanted to return to the the the colloquy we're having on the on the slide. We don't need to return to that slide necessarily, but so with these changes or with the updated, whichever one, this is 799, 97960 But with these changes, so will we, we'll be able to distinguish programmatic interventions in the dashboard and start to provide for grad students, for Turner, for LAO, for the auditor, for you, and obviously for us, start to be able to better distinguish these kinds of investments, are working, are more, are working more effectively than these, or at least under certain conditions? Is it gonna give us that level of information?
Speaker 10
I will just take a moment to take us back to almost the beginning, this slide here. And that nope, I guess it was one ahead. Projects. So project type is the thing that we will be able to dive into those deeper analysis. Sure, we can dig in then to what is funding those project types.
But is HAP being as flexible as it is and dependent on local implementation of those dollars, you cannot compare the entirety of HAP as a state fund to, for example, CalWORKS Housing Support Program, which is for an eligible population of families with minor dependent children who receive entitlement benefits. Those are not apples to apples comparisons. What we will be comparing are outreach projects, shelter projects, permanent housing projects, to determine where the investments are being made that are most likely to result in increases in housing, housing retention, etcetera.
Speaker 6
And I'm sure Ms. Kirkby will later correct my comments about planning and collaboratives and advisory committees and what have you that we've turned the dial down on those over the more recent rounds, to focus more on these in these project areas. But will that also the the dialogue we're having with with mister Finnegan about about these the other active the what used to be in the HAP reports, the largest category, other. And it does include some of these kinds of activities. And I know we'll hear later from a local, I think, COC about using the funding for biweekly planning meetings, for strategic planning sessions, and that sort of thing.
Will is there a category in the in the new in this system that will that will be sort of not, you know, not housing or shelter or or services?
Speaker 11
Other is a category in HDIS. We see virtually no programs in that category, and we're trying to, for all the programs that are labeled as other, reach out to figure out what kind of services they are and get that into one of our other project types. HDIS only includes projects that are serving people at risk or experiencing homelessness. So, something like coordination efforts that are not directly serving people experiencing homelessness or at risk would not be entered into our data system. We're really looking at all of the outcomes of housing and services and not other components around coordination that would be collected, that data would be collected through the administering departments in other ways.
Speaker 6
Okay, so we we would we would still be able to through HDD and the agency, LAO, and finance, still be able to tease that out though, right? The the we we wouldn't be putting the advisory committee for example. We say, that's that's pretty closely related to this housing project, and so we want to put it in that. We'll count it as direct housing. We'll still be able to know the non housing, non services, not services, I mean projects that we're talking about or programs.
Speaker 10
Yeah, we would. And I just want to add, specifically in HAP six, Cal ACH has worked in lockstep with HCV in the review of those regional plans, using our SPMs to measure against progress over time for each of those jurisdictions. And doing targeted technical assistance offerings, depending upon what has been most recently submitted for those plans. And so I'll use an example, if this would not be the case. But if it were the case that all of your HAP dollars were going to other, and we saw decreases or no positive progress being made in your SPMs.
You are then required to have a conversation with HCD. Cal ICH is there to support to determine, you know, budget change proposals, for example, that would make investments more likely for you to see that forward momentum and progress in meeting your SPMs. So it is not as HAP is incredibly flexible for a reason, should be driven by local need, tempered with. We still expect to see progress being made in these areas.
Speaker 6
Great, I appreciate that because I think although I agree with the last statement, I don't think it is a long term sustainable state strategy for it to be nearly as flexible as it is. In fact, it's become less flexible over time as we've learned more. Some And of those initial investments that we were making in capacity and in learning, don't need to be continuously repeated. And so that is one of the lessons that we've learned through the various rounds by design. And I think it seems to me that we will need to get more and more like a regular like you referenced a comparative program in DSS or whatever.
It'll look more like that if we're able to achieve some sustainable funding. I think the other reason why I was asking this is that, the question about cost effectiveness, that I'm hopeful that we'll get better measures of cost effectiveness and not just an update from 50,000 to 100 and something thousand for the avoided cost side. Every domain in state policy has the same point of view. Certainly, I come from the world of education. It's like, if we just spend $1 in education, we'll avoid all these costs, which is true and also not that relevant because we can't capture the county health costs and the prison costs from twenty years later.
Like it's not really meaningful as a cost benefit analysis in that way. And and and we and we apply it to every single thing. The water project, this park, like everything the state does can almost always meet that test if you're if you're if you're counting all the cost that any agency public or private or nonprofit bears. I hope we use this opportunity to to zero in on that too because we want to you I I mean, I think we need to and the auditors comments are are on target that we need to be able to use the data system to make real choices, not simply to celebrate ourselves in individual programs and those that are part of ICH, but really to make a choice about what's really working for for folks in in communities that need that that that that that need shelter and services. The so I wanna turn to the audits.
I'm I'm the vice chair of the joint legislative audit committee and the senate's lead there. And so there's there's two I wanted to to follow-up. One of which is several audits in in itself. But and so firstly, the the original audit, and this is not so much for you, but as much as for the the the committee committee staff is that in addition to the the audit of the state, there were also audits for two local jurisdictions, San Diego and San Jose and I I I would just note that we still have many outstanding items from that audit. Several from the City Of San Jose about its performance measures, its financial reporting.
These are not like wildly shocking findings. I want to be able walk out of here thinking that there's a national scandal or what's happening. But we also need to follow-up in that space around what is happening. Those are two exemplars statewide, but to understand their progress in responding to findings. On the ICH side, it seems reasonable to me, although I think the auditor's choice to raise this in the high risk audit was not justified.
I mean, is this is I mean, there this is not a high risk, item in this way. It may be important, but it's not high risk. But given but given that aside, the auditor's concern about the the the the capacity of of of the council to perform the next steps, given how long we are from the first steps, and how much validation and what has to happen on performance measures and fiscal indicators and what have you, that and you've noted how challenging it is and what the staffing challenges are also. So I just want and I know you said it's going to be on time, it's going be on time, but can you dive a little deeper into that? How be can assured that the specific areas that the auditor has identified that that they think is problematic in terms of your ability to complete in in a timely basis?
How how you how you how you see things differently and how you think we're going to we're going to meet the the the deadlines?
Speaker 10
Yep, thank you for the question senator. So with regards to, in two components of those dashboards right there, the program outcomes and then the fiscal data requirements. The program outcomes are things that we have now. That is why we are aligning those measurements with our action plans, so we're not starting from scratch. We have that infrastructure currently.
Where
Speaker 10
are now are receiving all of the variables that each of the departments collect with respect to their individually administered programs. I think it was mentioned earlier, some of those are on a reimbursement schedule. So there's a tremendous amount of validation that happens from those departments before they send a reimbursement check to their grantee. HAP obviously is front loaded, it's a very different operation, but it is, and one of our largest, and of course, the most flexible investment, those fiscal dashboards exist now on HCDU's website. And so the validation that happens for those reimbursement based programs, coupled with the fact that our second, you know, program of interest being HAP, those fiscal dashboards exist now.
So it is a matter of identifying a web based application for those departments to submit those fiscal outcomes to, And for us to automate, you know, reporting for the programmatic outcomes.
Speaker 10
Senator, if I might just respond to you'd mentioned, you know, the iterations of HAP and investing in advisory bodies and planning groups and so on. And I'm sure probably everybody on the local panel can speak to the fact that, you know, they understood this to be a one time investment. And it was meant to address gaps that existed for their community. And for most, there had been no investment or no dollars available to develop those advisory bodies, advisory boards historically. So I think that is why you've seen over time, you saw those investments being made on the front end and earlier rounds of HAP.
Because historically, there had not been any opportunity to bring everybody together. In LA, you have 88 cities, you know, rural communities, Obviously, there's a different challenge to bring your local partners in. So, I just wanted to highlight that folks were operating under the assumption that this was a one time investment and what could that investment look like to better understand the needs of their community.
Speaker 6
I think it's a fair point. Coming from, well not your county, but coming from local government.
Speaker 6
I do represent a part of Sacramento County. I represent part of Sacramento County. So if you are from Ileton, then, well, it's great to see you here. Well, either way. But, so, you know, obviously, the both the world and the state are constantly imposing new expectations and costs on local governments.
And so I get the the the intuition, but, you know, we don't support in any way the the the writing of general plans, to provide more housing. I mean, we don't we there's a lot of stuff that that that if you were if that local communities and COCs would want us to do in the in other domains where where when we put money out for affordable housing, we don't we've never allowed the affordable housing developers to, take 25% off the top for for strategic planning and for coordination. We don't do that. And so I think it was an unrealistic expectation from a lot of folks at the beginning that if we're gonna make a if we're gonna do a historic investment in homelessness, that that would be okay. But I've but I've been encouraged to see the department and many of the applicants, you know, move beyond that quickly to what we really need, is the actual projects and interventions that we're learning about that really work on the ground.
Thank you. Thanks, Madam Chair.
Speaker 1
Thank you. I have I need to process all of this a lot more. I think I need a little bit more time to process all of this. But I do want to start with some just very basic questions that for me internally will really be helpful in really understanding the rest of the information that you provided here today. And I
Speaker 1
to start with the interagency council that began or was established under law or legislation. Was it 2017 and then implemented in 2018?
Speaker 10
I believe it was 2016 implemented in 2017. And at that point in time, was known as the Homeless Coordinating Financing Council, HCFC. But we underwent a transformation and a reorganization of the council in 2021. And that reflects our current structure.
Speaker 10
The major difference was establishing the co chair model. So it had historically been the secretary of business consumer services and housing agency as the chair. Co chair model, obviously incredibly important because the majority, in fact, of our investments and our ongoing investments are made through Health and Human Services based programming. So that was the most significant. Really bringing in those Health and Human Services departments closer to the fold and implementing September requiring those investments also to enter into HMIS.
Speaker 1
Okay, great. And then, the first homelessness action plan began, what was it? 2021. Okay. So, but it was drafted throughout 2019, 2020 or something along that?
That predates my appointment. I can't speak
Speaker 10
Why it's currently a three year plan is because then we can measure true progress over time. As a you know, again, of the multi year funding cycle of HAP in particular, It is incredibly challenging to measure the overall effectiveness of a program that is still in operation. Okay.
Speaker 1
And then also just want to make sure, the first round of HAP funds went out in 2019, 2020?
Speaker 1
Okay. And are you also tracking, I mean I think that we would want to also have a sense of what the real estate market within those COCs looks like in terms of I think it's also like a cost issue, right? If you are trying to look for, you know, location or to be able to provide additional housing needs. I mean, is that being included at all? Do you think that's of importance?
Speaker 10
It's in having served the majority of my career in local government in Sacramento County, Yuba County, and Placer, all three incredibly different. Most of the time I was in Sacramento County. But incredibly different landscape of homelessness, experiences of homeless causes of homelessness, and availability of housing to ultimately resolve. We have internally what we refer to as community profiles to help the interagency council staff to help my team understand what exists and where the constraints might be, so that we can support our council member departments. And I'll use HCD as the example.
CalACH follows very closely for all 58 counties for the 14 big cities, you know, city council meetings, board of supervisor meetings understand the nature of local politics and how policy is impacting or potentially impacting outcomes of investments. And so in those instances, work closely with HCD to flag, we're concerned about this trajectory and its impact on outcomes for HAP, or outcomes for Encampment Resolution Fund, for example. Those not things that we would include necessarily in an action plan.
Speaker 1
Okay. And the reason why I bring it up is because there's been a lot of talk about the role of private equity playing in, you know, housing, particularly here in California. And so, just like I said, I wanted to just touch on that and see if that's something that you see as an issue that's contributing to this.
Speaker 10
I would say, superficially I would say, not as developer or financing expert, absolutely. And represented on our council are CalHFA, HCD of course, and the tax credit allocation committee folks who also have a unique set of experiences with their stakeholder infrastructure and rely on their expertise in those spaces.
Speaker 1
Okay. Well, I think I just that's all I have at the moment. I can't think like I said, I think I need a little bit more time to process So, some of I may get back to you on additional questions. But at the moment, is it. So, I'll go ahead.
Thank you so much for your time, for being
Speaker 1
we'll see you soon. Again, item was also just for information only purposes and we'll go ahead and move to agenda item number four. We have item four involves an update and oversight over the homeless housing assistance and prevention program administered by HCD. Okay.
Speaker 3
Madam Chair, if I may, I will be probably departing during your presentation. I, had scheduled a dental appointment before, this was scheduled, and I have to take it. And it does involve drilling and I can tell you I would much rather stay here than go there.
Speaker 12
You. I'm Megan Kirkby. And then I asked Sydney Bennett from CalACH to just stay up here with me because I think I can, you know, I think it might even be helpful to see how some of this works together, but you know between the HMIS, HCIS system and how we collaborate together with the funding and our grantee partners. But I'm Megan Kirkby, I'm a deputy director at HCD, And we are very grateful to be the stewards of HAP, tribal HAP and the Encampment Resolution Fund program. We're currently in the sixth round of HAP.
And it's obviously matured a lot over that time in some of the ways that have come up already. And mostly I'm gonna talk about HAP with all of you today, our sort of broader general HAP program. But in acknowledgement of our tribal partners who will be on the panel later, I just wanna also acknowledge our role in tribal HAP. And Leanne Hatton Parks is here today, who's a tribal specialist for HCD that works on our amazing tribal affairs team. And this is our fourth round of tribal HAP.
And I'm really excited to announce that we received 68 federally recognized tribes apply in this round, which is an 86% increase. So it went from 16 to 21 to 37 to this round having 68 tribal applicants to that program. So just a small, a small, thank you for the small caveat. But, you know, that's something we're, we're excited to see. And then also, the legislative analyst office prepared a very good primer, a detailed overview of a lot of the accountability evolutions in HAP.
So, I'll try and just keep to some highlights there. But obviously, Senator Cobaldan brought this up, one of the biggest evolutions in my mind is that use of funds, of really acknowledging we want to see investment. We wanna review these applications to see investment in in housing funds, but that can be any kind of housing solutions, right? That can be rental assistance. That can be interim housing that has a connection to perm.
That can be permanent housing. That can be, but it is really the focus on those evidence based strategies that we see impact the outcomes we wanna see in homelessness. A lot more of that regional coordination, making sure that those partners have a plan, that they're applying together, they're talking to each other about that plan, that those regional entities are avoiding duplication between each other, that they're leaning on each other. Transparency is the other big piece. I'm always available outside of these hearings to talk through all of our tools and materials, but along with the HDIS items you heard about today, we were the first homelessness program to put our specific HDIS data online in a public dashboard.
And so that's on our website along with the monthly obligation and expenditure data. All of our annual reports are online, all of our applications that include the budgets from our grantees are online. So those are some of our transparency evolutions that really helped address some of those audit concerns that I think folks heard about. And that is a place where the state auditor did sort of acknowledge a risk reduction, but appreciate the senator's point on other items as well. And then upstream policy accountability.
Investments, are and we want to make sure that it's not just about the money going out the door, but that upfront planning and activity within the control that we know creates upstream changes in housing and homelessness, and making sure folks are doing their legally required planning aspects there. So those are some of the evolutions that are probably just worth mentioning, but I wanna make sure to be able to be here to answer the questions that you all have. And I'll just end by acknowledging that in taking over stewardship of this, one of the things that's most important for us is that our North Star with accountability is about impact. I don't know, sorry. I'm getting on a cold.
That was a very weird slip, but about impact. And so where we are able to reduce duplication, we're doing it, right? We've had a lot of places where we had to do manual reporting because grantees weren't yet in the process of really using this HMIS system successfully. As we get more uptake with that, then we can reduce duplicative manual reporting. We streamline the monthly reports to be just that obligation expenditure information that helps us actually speed up disbursements and speed up interventions.
So it helps us see where folks are hitting walls. And then we were able to get rid of quarterly reporting and move just to annual reporting for those reports that sort of give us more detail on progress. So the monthly reporting is just the money, and then the annual reporting is sort of where you're telling us your broader progress story. And even that, we think there might be further opportunities to reduce as this HMIS, HEIS information kind of helps us. But we of course would never remove the important information that we aren't getting from those sources that we know you all are interested in.
So happy to have a dialogue and answer questions and, and do what's helpful, best for, for you all today.
Speaker 1
Thank you. Any questions from the LEO or Department of Finance? No? Okay. Committee members?
Mr. Vice Chair, before
Speaker 6
Just one. Mister mister Finnegan refused to answer the question of what exactly has caused the 9% reduction relative to the increases previous to that. Can you tell us what the answer is? I heard the Governor's theory it stated the state, but obviously we know more now than in terms of data, but can you give us a little nuance Did about
Speaker 6
Yeah, or other explanations. Obviously, a year ago the administration was frustrated with local implementation and local progress, and so were we. And this year, the governor was higher on it, because the numbers had changed, and obviously there's a lot. I'm not asking you to do a quick multiple regression study, what insights can you share with us about what are we, is our programs becoming more effective, are local regions becoming better at it? Or it not yet attributable to, can we not yet assign causation to any particular actions by the public sector yet?
Speaker 12
You're probably gonna always hear me say the same answer to that question until a researcher convinces The research has convinced me in one direction, and so, you know, if there's new research that reveals something else, I'll listen to that. But time and time again, it's that homelessness is a housing problem, and that the the things that we need to do are things that we are doing. And you know, a lot of the housing is is not the fastest moving policy tool in the world, but I think we are beginning to see see the impact of a lot of that that work and a lot of the effort being made by locals. But but yeah, you know, at the end of the day, the the cause of homelessness is that people are paying too much of their income per month on housing costs. And that doesn't leave a buffer for shocks that happened to every single person, right?
At some point your car's gonna break down or you get a job loss or, and if you don't have a buffer, that can start a cycle of homelessness that's actually really difficult to get out of. And similarly, it's the same cause for when we see less home ownership. It's that lack of buffer means we also don't have it's either saving for a rainy day or saving for that future investment. But either way that investment, that up front planning and investment in affordable multi family rental housing actually helps those two big housing issues substantially. And so that would be my my unregressioned answer to that question of when we see progress, where is it coming from?
Just because that's where the studies have pointed to before is the biggest impact we can have.
Speaker 6
Follow-up and I'm sure you saw this one coming, but if we're seeing some, if we're seeing progress and we're getting smarter about our evaluation and accountability and planning, then, why don't we, why don't we see an investment for the, for the next round of HAP in the, in the governor's budget?
Speaker 12
To me that contain, you know, I can't speak to why the governor make that decision, but I would say from a, from the place that I sit in, you know, it's also worth looking at that we just received applications for the HAP six round in August. And so just from a timing perspective, it's I think making sure that we're putting money into the system in a reasonable way that can get drawn down also in a reasonable way. So to me, it's not so much as a threat or a change in policy as just making sure that we're managing our pipeline of investment.
Speaker 6
I won't ask Ms. Kirkby to do two dental visits in two weeks, so No, thank you. Other questions? Thanks, Matt. Yeah.
You
Speaker 1
know, I want to go back and like touch back to what I said at the beginning, right, during my opening remarks about the fear, the anxiety that people are living. And remembering the various people that I've come across in my Senate District, people who own their mobile home and they feel like they're being squeezed out of out of the park where they pay rent at, or a farmer who's being who's on the verge of bankruptcy and doesn't know what is coming next, Or, you know, something as simple as rising property taxes now accounting for, you know, having to pay a mortgage that is not what you're used to paying or okay with paying. So, when people are kind of put to that brink, are even thinking or considering or accounting for those I mean, the situation is bad, but it could get worse, right? And I don't think we're really tracking or thinking of all those individuals that have stressed their struggle and their fear that they could end up being, you know, homeless. And so, just wanted to kind of get your thoughts on that, if you're thinking about it at all or included in it.
Speaker 12
Yeah. I mean, I think in doing this work, or in taking over stewardship of this, I think I'm a very curious person by nature. And I think a
Speaker 12
the transparency stuff is for you all, but it's also for us. And it's an important part of how we communicate with our grantees. And being able to, you know, have a dashboard that shows us every month how that money is being planned for, and how much still is yet to be planned for. I think that's, when I talk about the ability to intervene, that's part of what I'm talking about, is it gives us a chance to kinda go in and see, okay, where are we seeing which kinds of struggles, how can we help that grantee? Like not to be a gotcha and not to hold back money, but to help us intervene in a more strategic way so that we're addressing the concerns relevant to that community and being responsive.
And I do think transparency helps with intervention, but it also just helps that that transparency also means our grantees have more visibility with the public and with their constituents in showing how are they spending that money and what kind of pace is it coming at and where are there ways that adjustments could be made about that type of investment. And we've had really productive conversations where we've stepped in with our grantees that have been letting money kinda go unallocated for longer periods of time and kinda finding out what's going on. And I think there's been a lot of mutual education during that and ability to begin to see us, I'm not saying we're all the way there, but to begin to see us as a way to help with that fear rather than to be afraid of us. So that we can build that relationship to say, what is your community facing? How can we help you get this funding out faster to address those issues?
How can we help you find a local partner that might have similar experiences that you can build off of what they're doing to help your constituents faster?
Speaker 1
But we're not necessarily prepared for those potential, you know, possible, you know, additional variables, right? That over people and I'll just I'm going to give you like a personal I'll give you a personal example. You know, in my own home, share this with others, is that my mortgage went from $2,500 to $3,300 That's huge, right? A lot of people are facing that. You know, a lot of people have faced that.
And so, that's why, you know, kind of I asked are we, you know, have taken into account the, you know, the real estate market since in my humble opinion it plays a huge role. If we're not really, you know, looking at, you know, foreclosures, right? If people are about to go homeless, we're not taking that into consideration. Could be potentially facing be like not prepared for
Speaker 12
So, I think one of the most I think one of the best things in housing policy is the ways that we all work together. And so like can be a grant program that a local is using to address specific homelessness challenges. But it isn't the only thing that's going on. Part of, there's two big planning documents. Each city and county obviously does their housing plan, which would be bringing up everything you're talking about, right?
Like what are the financial circumstances going on in these communities? Where are we seeing these changes? Where are these risks? And then what are our plans and programs to address each of those risks, right? So every single governmental constraint that's coming up for that.
Where the regional specific issues are coming up. What are the programs that that community is putting in place to be ready to address those things. But then also in the HAP program, beyond that city and county, they're working with the whole region. The the big cities, the county, the continuum of care, to form a plan that is thinking ahead about each of those things. And thinking about who does what, right?
Who's on first? Where are those roles and responsibilities of addressing those issues? So, you know, and that does get to, that is gonna vary region by region and what they want the response strategy to be. But everyone does need to be thinking ahead about what those upcoming challenges are, and be coming up with those plans that are gonna prepare their community. But part of that preparation, going back to my comment before, understanding is that homelessness is a housing problem.
And so the example you gave of that increase in the mortgage or those kinds of things, part of that is making sure that we have communities that are setting the table for housing development to happen in a way that is going to create more access to communities, more affordability. And so it's not all on the local, it's a partnership, but it's about the local's job is to set the table, is to get the zoning in place, to have those productive policies, to remove constraints where they can, to make it more feasible for additional housing options to enter the system. And that does create relief in the system and create less opportunity for unexpected increases in payments and those kinds of things as well. That's part of our strategy to help create those economic smoothing, or that's part of our role. What we're supposed to do at the local, regional, and state level is help create responsible interventions that do create a smoother economic climate for our communities.
Speaker 1
You both, and thank you for your presentation and for your responses. I appreciate it. This information only item and no other questions, we can we'll go ahead and move to agenda item number five. All right. We now turn to item five on the agenda.
So, five is an opportunity for the subcommittee to hear from representatives of some of the recipients of HAP funds so that we may learn from their experience, expertise, and recommendations as we consider how to shape the future of HAP program. And we'll go ahead and begin with Deputy County Administrator Amina Floresbeck representing Fresno County and the work Fresno County has done to address homelessness.
Speaker 14
Thank you. So I just wanted to start off by saying that it's been really interesting to hear the dialogue this morning and I just wanna really confirm that no one is more bought in and invested in ending homelessness than our local agencies. As you, I'm sure are sympathetic to these are our neighbors, these are our friends, these are our relatives who are experiencing this incredibly low point in their life. So we are incredibly invested in in ending homelessness in our areas. I did wanna highlight, and and you all have this handout, but I did wanna highlight that in Fresno particularly, we have really leaned into partnerships and collaborative work.
Really, I want to thank the state and HAP programs in encouraging that and really kind of forcing it through HAP four Regional Action Plan requirements as well as HAP five MOUs through the Regional Action Plan which started in HAP four. What that did is it really forced the local jurisdictions and the COC to talk to each other and to plan collectively and collaboratively. And that that that has been a great addition. And then with the MOU, it forced the electeds to buy in as well at a different level. And so what that has done in Fresno in particular is it has really lended to a super collaborative approach to where we are now planning together and we are aligning contract language with our service providing partners.
We are aligning goals and priorities and really measuring outcomes and and holding our service providers accountable because we are being held accountable to to our funders, not just at the state level, but at the federal level as well. So this is all really lended to just a super collaborative approach in Fresno, which is necessary with changing funding structures and priorities from our funders. So what in particular HAP has allowed us to do, and really we have planned collaboratively with our city and our COC to do is utilize HAP to leverage other funding. So, that's been talked about quite a bit. We have included language in our contracts to require our service providing vendors to be CalAIM contracted with our local managed care plans, to leverage CalAIM to do things like street navigation, other community supports.
We as the county are also the lead agency for the CalAIM benefit of transitional rent. We are in the early stages of developing a flex pool that will serve our region really to more collaboratively and community wide, really assign housing or match housing to the local need, The local communities need. And Fresno County is an incredibly diverse County. We are about 6,000 square miles, 1,100,000 population, 80% of our unhoused, unsheltered population is in the metropolitan area. So we work very very closely with our two major metropolitan cities which is City Of Clovis and City Of Fresno.
We have monthly meetings with them to really plan for not just HAP funding, but homelessness response and housing response as a whole. And that includes by the way our electeds, it includes the mayor of the City Of Fresno and the mayor of the City Of Clovis, It includes several city council members and two of our supervisor board members. And so, we are doing all of that planning in response to, you know, the changes at the federal level. We are doing that planning in response to changes in potential HAP funding levels. We developed a pathway of different housing options with the changes in MHSA to BHSA and what opportunities are there to mitigate some of the impacts of both state and federal homelessness dollars as they pertain both to permanent supportive housing funding, as well as your more emergency housing options.
So this is all really been led by our cities, our county, and really you as the state, as the funder with the requirements for us to work collaboratively. We also wanna just really clearly communicate that we welcome accountability. We welcome transparency. I think our experience has been that it's not a simple problem that we're trying to fix. It's it's an incredibly complex problem that is contributed to by things well outside of our control.
And so as we try to to address the problem as an emergency response, it's difficult to really paint the whole picture, right? So I think there is a lot of response from the county and our cities and our local agencies that aren't captured well in data. That aren't reported easily. And so while we absolutely welcome accountability and transparency, think that it's particularly important to note that it just doesn't paint entire picture, or really the entire effort. I I did want to speak also to how, and I mentioned this briefly, but how we hold our service providing partners accountable for the funding that we subcontract to them, which the majority of of our local dollars both for our COC, our city of Fresno, and our county are the majority is subcontracted out.
Our our board and and the city and and our COC has taken a position that outcomes matter and system performance measures matter. And so we have started having cross jurisdiction jurisdictional meetings, both with our city contracted providers, our COC providers, and our county providers to align outcome expectations, align outcome language, and really just highlight the system performance measures. And you would think that would be kind of common sense to a service provider who enters into a contract, but that's not always the case and they often need that like technical assistance and really kind of firm communication to ensure that they are meeting our expectations. We do regular audits. We report to our COC board of directors, spend down and system level data, not just specific to HAP, although we specifically report on HAP, but throughout the entire system.
So that's how we really ensure accountability, not just for ourselves, but for our service partners. And then finally, I just wanted to mention relationship and interactions with HCD has been incredibly positive. We have experienced responsiveness by HCD. We have asked for technical assistance, and it has been granted. And whenever we have provided feedback, it has been responded to favorably and has been in many cases implemented, which has concluded really in improvements in the processes.
So, just wanted to make those statements and happy to answer any questions.
Speaker 1
Thank you. Up next, we are honored to have tribal council member Darla Merlin from the Tuolumne Band of Mewauk Indians join us today and share her community's needs and experiences. Welcome, and feel free to begin when you're ready.
Speaker 2
Sorry, I'm nervous. Darla Merlin. Hi, hello, how are you? My name's Darla Marlin. I come from the land of the Soaproot.
I work for Tuolumne Tribal Council and a tribal member. And I just want to thank you all for allowing me to speak here. I'm a bit nervous. I'm gonna come from a different perspective than from over here. So we do face homelessness in our community.
It's huge. I'm going to tell it to you from my lens. I live there. I work there and in the community every day. Our community, we are back in the backwoods, basically the back 40.
We have beautiful piece of land. But it's land that nobody else wanted. So we took that land. Our ancestors embraced it, made it their own, created homes, housing for generations to generations. And we always look for the next seven generations ahead of us to make sure that they're taken care of.
So some of our homes, they have three to five generations living in them. I'm one of those homes who has three generations that live in them due to the housing crisis. People moving into our area has raised the rents, has raised the housing costs. So it's not feasible for us to try and to live off the rancher area. Housing rents have gone from or used to be a four bedroom from 1,400 to 3,000, a huge spike.
Homes that would be normally 200,000 or 350,000 to 400,000. So it's an unbearable cost to our members. So when we look at things for the future, we do look at those items to make sure that we're taken care of and our members are taken care of. Let's see. I wrote a lot down.
I'm sorry. But for us, when we work with the state for state programs, the HAP, we're very fortunate to be able to apply for this. But then when I hear that there's $515,000,000 that's allotted to that program, 2% is only set aside for the tribes. We have 109 tribes in the state of California. So if every tribe was able to receive some of that grant funding, it's $94,000 per tribe.
That's not even enough to build a structure, to get infrastructure, foundations, because of the cost of everything has gone up. We're grateful that we can participate in these programs, but we should not be aligned with city and counties with these programs because our tribal government, we're unique. We're unique in that. So when we apply for grants for HCD, Cal Homes, we're required to submit waivers because they us to they tell us a grant, but then they turn around and tell us it's a loan. And with that being said, because we live on trust land, our trust land is held into trust by the federal government, which we, it's held in federal government for our tribal people in perpetuity for our future generations.
But sometimes we are not able to receive some of the grants because the waivers aren't passed. So then that's another struggle for us. Think HAP needs to be funded more in future. And I think they to they are reaching out to tribes now. They have reached out to tribes more, doing more roundtables.
I think we need to have a bigger seat at the table so that they know what our needs are. Because when they send out these NOFOs or the funding criteria, they don't know what tribes are about or what we do because we are structured structured different. That's where I'm at.
Speaker 1
Thank you so much. And our third witness here, we have the honorable Mayor Barbara Lee from the City Of Oakland. Come on.
Speaker 15
Well, good afternoon. Good afternoon. And members. Very happy to be here with you today. Thank you for giving me a chance.
You know, I as I'm reminiscing about my time here in Sacramento, just as FYI, I had the privilege to chair what was then the housing and state and land use committee of the state senate. So now I understand it's housing now, which is great. So it's good to be with you here at this subcommittee. And I really am happy to be able to present for a few minutes Oakland's use of homeless housing assistance and prevention program, a k a HAP, and the critical role that it plays in our homelessness response system. This hearing comes at a pivotal time, for Oakland.
We're preparing to release our homelessness strategy action plan. Last night, it was presented before our homelessness commission. It sets a clear goal, reducing unsheltered homelessness by 50% over the next five years. Let me be clear about this. So a racial equity approach is really needed in homelessness decisions at all government levels In order to achieve the universal goal of serving all house unhoused residents, we need targeted strategies that meet the needs of unhoused and at risk populations that are chronically left behind.
So to achieve that goal, we must invest across the entire continuum of care. There's no real silver bullet. Homelessness is driven by, and like in many communities, structural imbalance between influx and outflow. Now in Oakland, let me just give you paint a picture of who is disproportionately impacted by homelessness. People experiencing homelessness represent 58% of countywide homelessness, whereas Oakland is approximately 21 or 22% of the entire county.
But 74% of county wide homelessness population are black or African American. That's so you can understand the racial inequities stemming from many many years of of structural imbalance, structural racism. We help approximately 1,500 exit to permanent housing each year, but roughly 2,500 people become newly unhoused annually, and nearly again fifty nine percent of those who are becoming unhoused annually are black, which is a disproportionate rate compared to their 22% share of the city of Oakland's overall population. Prevention is naturally not just the most cost effective homelessness intervention, but it's imperative just to achieve racial equity in the entire continuum of strategies. To turn the tide, we have to reduce the influx and accelerate outflow of homelessness.
The most effective way to end homelessness is to prevent it. Oakland operates a nationally recognized targeted prevention program, but it must be scaled dramatically. Without stronger prevention investments, inflow will continue to outpace exits. HAP currently maintains or sustains 802 interim housing beds and program slots, serving approximately 1,600 people annually. These include community cabins, emergency shelters, safe parking, transitional housing for youth, and stabilization programs.
HAP is one of the very few funding sources that supports operations, not just capital. Capital dollars build housing. Operations keeps the doors open. Staffing, case management, which is extremely important, supportive services, and housing subsidies. Because of HAP investments, we have slowed the rate of growth in homelessness despite severe economic pressures.
We've strengthened cross department coordination and we've aligned our work under a comprehensive five point plan. One time or sharply reduced funding creates instability in a system that depends on continuity. Annual allocations don't align with multi year service contracts and delays in state agreement executions, of course, slow down the deployment of resources. So round seven of the half is significantly reduced. 802 interim housing beds serving 1,600 people annually would be at risk.
Prevention and outreach would shrink and progress toward our 50% reduction goal could reverse. Oakland continues excuse me, estimates that approximately 1,400,000,000.0 in additional investment will be required over the next five years just to meet our goals of 50% reduction. HAP fills a critical niche that few other funding resources can. With stable, flexible, and adequately scaled HAP funding, we can reduce inflow, sustain interim housing, increase permanent exits, and improve systems performance. Without it, we risk losing capacity.
We risk losing, you know, excuse me, we increase long term costs, and we risk losing our shared goal of reducing homelessness by 50% in five years. So our request is very clear, Add 500,000,000 to HAP round seven and, of course, have HAP round eight at $1,000,000,000. So I really thank you for your time and your commitment to our great state. I firmly believe that when cities such as Oakland and our state partners find funding allocations and legislative solutions, we can truly help our homeless population. We can reduce it, and we can help our neighborhoods and move forward in this state.
Speaker 1
Thank you, mayor. And up next, not last, well, last but definitely not least, have Laurel Weir, Principal Administrative Manager for the Homeless Services Division at San Luis Obispo County's Department of Social Service. Welcome.
Speaker 13
Thank you. Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to testify. My name is Laurel Weir, and as you mentioned, I'm Principal Administrative Manager in Homeless Services Divisions for San Luis Obispo County, where I oversee our Continuum of Care program. I also oversaw the first two rounds of HAP implementation and led the development of our round three application, and continue to work closely with HAP staff, who now administer from day to day.
Under federal Continuum of Care regulations, for those not familiar with COCs, the COCs are responsible for coordinating homeless housing and service systems within their geographic areas, as well as overseeing the COC grants and administering the homeless management information system, or HMIS. We're also very involved with HAP funding in our county and receive the HAP funding along with counties our county. HAP has been very important to our community to help understand how it helps to explain where we came from. In 2020, before we received our first TAP grant, there were only two general population shelters countywide, with about 170 beds total, compared to over 1,100 people experiencing homelessness on a given night. San Luis Obispo County had the third highest percentage of unsheltered persons in the nation that year among COCs of our size.
We also had only 133 permanent supportive housing beds other than the HUD VASH beds. HAP funding has kick started improvements, helping us to leverage funding to add beds and to allowing us to sustain those beds. Our results include a 49% increase in emergency shelter beds over a four year period, a 63% increase in non Vash PSH beds, and 75 more units in development, nearly 1,200 people placed into permanent housing through June 2025, and our unsheltered homelessness decreased by approximately 31% from 2022 to 2024. We're one of the counties that only does it every two years. And I can say, while we don't have the final results yet from our 2026 count, it is looking like we will also see a decrease in that count.
Regarding accountability, we use subcontractors for our HAP contracts. We monitor those expenditures and track outcomes. We also use prior performance data as scoring criteria when awarding HAP funding locally each round. And our COC also looks at overall system performance using the HDIS data, not necessarily project by project, but we can see what's happening because HAP has played such a role in our different programs. While we've made positive strides, we are concerned about what's on the horizon.
HUD's proposed 30% cap on funding for permanent supportive housing, or PSH beds, would eliminate roughly half of our COC funded PSH beds. And for comparison, HUD's proposing to cap it at 30%. Right now, we spend 70% of our COC funds on that, and nationwide, it's about 85% average expenditures on PSH beds using that funding. You've already heard about the imminent loss of the emergency housing vouchers. In our county, we stand to lose roughly 154.
This has already slowed housing placements in our continuum, because the housing authority is holding on to vouchers in order to try to have an exit path out for those who are losing their vouchers. Also, upcoming federal cuts to Medicaid and CalFresh will further threaten housing stability, including by reducing how many people we can serve with Cal AIM, since those who lose Medi Cal benefits won't be eligible for Cal AIM funded services. We are hearing from our providers. They have worked very hard to become part of the Cal AIM program, and it has also been helping. And this, in particular, is going to be very threatened by the changes that are coming up, and the more frequent recertifications, and the danger, particularly for homeless people, not to get the notices about their recertification, and to be able to pull together the documentation needed to demonstrate eligibility.
Also, the upcoming 50% reduction in HAP funding under round seven will likely further reduce services. We don't have spare funding to backfill this large cut. The county already invests more of its own general fund dollars in our homeless programs each year than our entire COC grant, And we have actively solicited our local cities to contribute to regional efforts, and they have done so. Our nonprofit partners have also used TAP funding to help leverage private funding. So, we are already tapping all of the resources that we've been able to tap.
We are also concerned about the governor's proposed new accountability prerequisites for the next round. While our county actually meet much of the criteria, such as achieving improvements in five of the seven system performance measures, which is well above the minimum required number of at least two. Other provisions are concerning. The provision that requires reductions in homelessness as a funding condition does not account for factors outside of local control. An economic downturn, spikes in housing cost, or significant changes in federal or state funding could have a far greater impact on homelessness rates than anything a local COC could counteract.
We could run a perfect program and still see homelessness rise because of what is happening externally. San Luis Obispo County also does have a pro housing designation, but in our experience obtaining that took significant time and effort. And we are concerned about setting such a short deadline for other HAP communities to achieve that. We also spend increasingly more time on HAP application development, and adding requirements to this increases the administrative burden, and could potentially delay deploying resources as staff have to spend more time working on the application rather than working on the local RFPs and the contracts. Moving forward, the absence of consistent predictable state homelessness funding is one of the most significant constraints on our ability to plan and perform.
Every HOP round has been a one time appropriation, although in the early rounds, we did have a better idea of what was coming, and that provided us with some certainty and allowed us to move forward with plans and braid together more effectively other funding to create some of the resources that I mentioned. With stable funding, we could plan strategically, leveraging resources with confidence, and also build and more easily retain a skilled workforce. It's hard to hire people when you're telling people it's a limited term position. We can only hire you for a year. We have concerns we also have concerns regarding the existing HAP funding formula that penalizes communities that successfully reduce homelessness by awarding the smaller allocations in subsequent rounds.
I understand the rationale for it, is the thinking is that, well, if you have less homelessness, therefore, you should need less funding. But that assumes that the HAP funding serves all homeless people in the community. The demand still exceeds supply even when progress has been made to reduce homelessness. Accountability and adequate funding are not intentioned. They're both necessary.
Progress we've made in San Luis Obispo County and across California is real, measurable, and at risk. I encourage the committee to support stable funding for the program and help us advance our progress in addressing homelessness. Thank you.
Speaker 1
Thank you. Do we have any questions from the LEO or Department of Finance? No? Okay. Senator Walden, would, do you have any questions?
Speaker 6
really have questions. I do wanna appreciate the panel. Mayor, good to see you. And, and I was intending to ask what the last panel has just covered, like, and everybody made reference to is, what are the what are the consequences of doing this every year, where the money is 50% or zero, who really knows? And we interrogated everybody last year about this as well when we were in budget discussions with the administration and with the other house.
And it is very clear that it's already difficult to administer and to run these programs. As we get better and better at identifying and implementing successful interventions, It is, it's a big accomplishment that a lot of local agencies are achieving, that they're able to do that despite not being able to make permanent hires or other permanent investments and despite the constant anxiety about where this program is headed. And I think especially this year, it's just, I'm just struck by you know, the budget, the Governor's budget proposal that's before us that simultaneously says we have 43, maybe 50, maybe more billion dollars more in revenue than we had anticipated. And this is a year and we're achieving a turnaround on reducing unsheltered homelessness in the state. And this is the year to stop funding HAP.
That doesn't add up. HAP, although I don't like that it's one year at a time, things that aren't one year, things that are just one year at a time are the exact things that we should be funding when we have dramatic surges in revenue that we don't necessarily think might be there the following year because of the structural deficit. And so, you know, I think it's the case is clear despite all the questions earlier about how we continue to make the program better and better and more focused and make sure that we're learning our lessons and being as efficient as we can, that is absolutely appropriate and necessary for us to, in our deliberations over the next couple of months on the budget, that we do exactly, as the mayor said, and restore the commitment to the next round of HAP to a billion dollars and make the appropriation for the following round. We're making progress, but 9% reduction even statewide It doesn't mean that we're two years away from solving all homelessness in the state, and the people of California know that, and they know that we're gonna need to continue to take these steps and to work at the local level.
Appreciate the panel. You've given a lot of you've illustrated the challenge and, but also the opportunity and the hope and that these investments can make a difference. So thank you for being with us and thanks Madam Chair.
Speaker 2
We're grateful as a tribe to be able to work with the state and HAP just because it's going to assist us in providing needs that's created barriers within those families who have those three, four generational households. Moving forward with being able to support with rents, it's going to help with the rent. It's going to help with possibly permanent housing, taking some of our members who are living in hotels to be able to guide them to assist them for housing. So, we're very grateful for that as well. We do have a large population of foster children in homes.
So, when they age out, some of those foster children become homeless. So, we would like to bring them back home, even if we can create stable housing for them. So this is a great opportunity and to give job training skills and all of that so they can plant to be able to save in case of another disaster or a shock, something shocking their family that happens. So, we're grateful and I hope that they keep funding the HAP program and that tribes are more diligent at being able to sit at the table.
Speaker 15
Thank you. May I just add one point to this conversation and that is affordability. We all know that affordability is here in California in most of our communities and it's hitting everyone. And we can't forget that the affordability crisis also impacts unsheltered populations. And in Oakland, we established this year the Office of Homelessness Solutions, which I just wanted to mention the five categories and strategies because they all impact impact the cost of living also.
And one is, of course, prevention, which includes rental assistance, outreach and access, encampment management, interim housing, and permanent housing. And so we we are looking at a continuum of how we address our unsheltered population, recognizing that we have to remember that affordability is what it is, unfortunately, and that gives us an added request in terms of the need to get to the billion because that is absolutely will impact also our strategies of homelessness.
Speaker 2
add one more thing. I'm hoping in the future tribes can be added to the pit count because we are, as far as I know, we haven't been added to that pay count. So I think there's a lot more native Americans who are homeless in the state of California than what's being recorded. And I hope that's something that we can work with the COC and the state as well.
Speaker 1
I appreciate you all. And I just, again, to what I kind of first said is we're here to listen, right? I know that the anxiety, the fear, that's very much real. The need is real. And so, want to make sure we get this right.
We ask all the right questions and that we get all the information that we can from you all and what you're experiencing on the ground because that's important, right, as we're having conversations here and deliberating on various issues. I what I do, I'd like to ask a couple of questions as I was kind of just learning a little bit more about, you know, how it all works beyond, you know, beyond the state of, you know, beyond the funds that come from the state of California. One of the things is that it actually, I don't know how I even arrived to this, but I'll share it with you all because it just, it left a huge impact on it just impact on me. I was many of you know that I was raised in Fresno County, born and raised in Fresno County. And as I was going through some of the research, was reading some articles, I read a review about a provider in Fresno County.
And I'm just if it's okay with you all, I'm going to read this. It was a review that was left by someone, and it said, I was referred to them in December 2023 by legal aid. To date, it hasn't done anything to assist us while still housed to being homeless. I'm interested in knowing where their funding is coming from because they seem like a huge scam. We'll only help you if you have Medi Cal, which brought me to Cal Aim, right?
And then, at what Kellaim does, and I know Fresno County, you said that now you're you require that, right, in all your contracts. It seems like if you qualify, you could get 100. You can recover 100%, right? Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but I mean do you have an understanding to what extent Cal Aim is has a presence, you know, across various jurisdictions here?
Speaker 14
So, I just, I wanted to clarify that. When we require the leveraging of other programs like Calaim, it is, Cal Aim doesn't fully fund, for example, in our future street outreach model that we're designing right now, we're looking at funds like HAP and COC dollars, and currently actually utilizing some ARPA dollars to do supplemental essentially braiding of funds where HAP or these other more flexible funds will fund the parts of Cal Aim housing navigation or street navigation where those fundings won't, right? So, it's like the initial engagement, the rapport building with individuals experiencing unsheltered homelessness. That's not fundable through any CalAIM billable service. Once you actually engage and get you know, validation that they are Medi Cal recipients and accept the services, then you can bill Cal Aim to street navigation.
That doesn't mean that, for example, in our contracts that you won't provide services if they don't qualify for Medi Cal or that they don't currently, aren't currently enrolled in Medi Cal. We may assist you and enroll it. We will assist you in enrolling for Medi Cal if you meet the qualifications. And if not, then these other flexible funding sources will carry the load. But that's not an every person occurrence.
Most folks who are experiencing unsheltered homelessness qualify for Medi Cal. And if, like I said, if they're not enrolled currently, part of our job is to get them enrolled.
Speaker 13
I just wanted to say, so if you're looking for basic emergency shelter services, or getting assessed for, you know, permanent supportive housing. That happens whether or not you have Medi Cal. What Medi Cal has done is helped specifically with housing navigation, in particular. That's been very helpful, because then we can enhance in helping people to get into housing more people than we could before. It's really a capacity issue.
Cal AIM has expanded how many people we can serve. Without Cal AIM, it shrinks back down. And then, there's just more demand than so, longer waits.
Speaker 1
And then, I also thought there was understood that there was a drop a Health Net dropped a particular provider that has various locations across the state. I think it was 'sixteen I read in an article here. Are you familiar with that? It was the one on Blackstone. Oh.
It had caused layoffs and at least 200 people were in limbo.
Speaker 14
So, yeah. So, that was a CalAIM provided recuperative care program. What happened there is they lost their contract with the managed care plan locally. So, what we did in our collaboration with the city is we brought in another recuperative care provider to essentially fill the gap on an emergency basis. I mean, they literally mobilized in like twenty four hours with the assistance of the managed care plans who by the way are just some of our strongest partners in this work.
And so, got them certified, contracted, and nobody was exited to homelessness. And it was about two zero eight, I believe, individuals who were residing within that recuperative care facility. They have slowly been navigated to other locations. Again, no one has been exited to homelessness. But it really it took all hands on deck effort to address that situation.
But really that was caused by the service provider losing their contract for a variety of reasons with the managed care plan.
Speaker 1
Okay. But they had about 16 locations right across the state were impacted? Yeah. Not just in Fresno?
Speaker 14
Is that they're based out of Los Angeles and had lost some of the programs there. I know in our community it was just the one.
Speaker 1
Is anybody else experiencing that same kind of scenario in your parts of the state or? No? Okay. All right. Just wanted to make sure since it was based out of Los Angeles and I saw that there was 200 people there, it seemed like they were also stuck in limbo, wanted just to ask.
I don't have any other additional questions. Again, I thank you for your time, for being here, to everybody that participated in the hearing today. Thank you. I know that you took it was three hours long. So, I appreciate that.
I wanted to make sure that everybody had the opportunity to feel like they had, you know, their voices and input into this hearing. I really appreciate you making the time. So, with that, that wraps up our hearing. Thank you so much for coming. Meeting adjourned.
Speaker 1
I'm sorry. I lied. Okay. First, this is my first day. All right.
I'm forgiven, right? Okay. We've wrapped up the remarks and the panels. Now we're going to open it up to public comment. I lost my spot.
Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Okay. So, I'd like to invite any members of the public who are present with us today to approach the microphone for public comment.
Please form a line. When it is, your turn to speak, please state your name, your affiliation, and, and so that we have time for everyone to speak, please limit your remarks to one minute. You may begin.
Speaker 7
Good afternoon Chair, Denis Choisot for the California Coalition for Youth. We urge the committee to remember that the developmental needs of youth are much different than the rest of the homeless population. Just as we've taken different approach for youth in the juvenile justice system by no longer resentencing youth under the age of 25 to the state prison, which is being talked about today in Senate Subcommittee three. We must take a developmental approach to youth in the homelessness response system and its way and that's why the legislature created the Youth Set Aside in HAP. We urge the committee to provide 1,000,000,000 in ongoing funding for HAP and continue to increase the Youth Set Aside to 25% so we focus as far upstream as possible.
The lack of high school diploma is the biggest indicator that a young person will experience homelessness later in life, and fifty percent of chronic adults first experiencing homelessness as a youth. Youth are disadvantaged in many ways for just being young. They have a lack of credit, rental history, and earnings, and we really need to ensure that we can appropriately support them. Thank you.
Speaker 16
chair, I'm Erin Evans with the County of Santa Clara. The county supports committed HAP funding in the next fiscal year and we welcome accountability measures including providing data as we share the goals of ending and preventing homelessness among our residents. In our county HAP is supporting a nationally recognized homelessness prevention system that serves over 2,500 households annually. 95% of these households remain stably housed while receiving support through the program and 91% remain housed even two years later. We have doubled temporary shelter capacity.
We could name a number of different accomplishments. We're very proud of these outcomes. We also understand that there's a desire to incentivize other policies to help address the housing and homelessness crisis through HAP program requirements. We encourage consideration of flexibility for local needs as strengths and characteristics of local communities differ throughout the state. HAP is working and we really encourage this programmatic funding to remain permanent for long term planning.
Thank you.
Speaker 7
Good afternoon chair, AJ Johnson with John Burton Advocates for Youth. We wanna echo what others have asked for, 1,000,000,000 in this year for HAP. HAP has a 10% youth set aside and that set aside has served 50,000 youth statewide. It's reduced youth homelessness by 24% and unsheltered youth homelessness by 42%. So we definitely wanna see that continue.
We also have a separate request that we fund a minimum guarantee for youth. When HAP funding has fluctuated, this is really the foundation that serves youth. It's the only funding source for them across all communities, and without that, these services and shelters can't continue to operate. So we wanna preserve that progress and maintain that support. Thank you so much, and in terms of the other items on the agenda around the reorganization proposals in the governor's budget around the Interagency Council of Homelessness and statewide planning, We wanna make sure that youth and students who are experiencing homelessness both on the K-twelve and college side are integrated into those plans, treated then separately or left out altogether, so we encourage the legislature to ensure they're integrated throughout any of that planning.
Thank you.
Speaker 17
Thank you, chair and members of the committee. My name is Serena Bracey, J Bay youth advocate, and I reside in Yolo County and have been, personally on the brink of homelessness with limited resources. We are requesting that legislator to establish a minimum guaranteed to fund 80,000,000, in the state general funds offset by any annual investments in the homeless housing assistance and prevention program youth set aside. I believe that this is important as a former foster youth, I have personally been confronted that the very real threat of housing instability may remain in a persistent challenge in my future. I have depended on emergency grants from various agencies to avoid eviction or literal homelessness, an experience that is unfortunately widespread among transitioning foster youth.
This funding is critical and to ensure that youth are supported. Thank you. Hello. Thank you guys for letting me be here. My name is Izel Casillas.
I'm from Fresno County, currently attending UC Davis, and I've personally experienced homelessness. As someone with lived experience in foster care system, stable housing remains one of the most persistent and overwhelming challenges during and even beyond the transition to adulthood. The inherent uncertainty and instability of this period is intensified by a continuing lack of of family support, continuing to expose me to housing instability concerns. This truly heightens feelings of vulnerability. Secure housing is therefore a foundational concern for achieving successful independent living, making this funding a necessity to support foster youth like myself.
Exit and remain out of homelessness. We are requesting to the legislature to establish a minimum guarantee to fund 80,000,000 in state general fundings offset by any annual investments in the HAP program youth set aside. Thank you.
Speaker 9
Justin Garrett, the California State Association of Counties. CSAC is advocating for HAP round seven to be funded at a billion dollars and ongoing. This program is really an essential component of our collective efforts and recent success in reducing homelessness counties are committed to using half funding urgently effectively in a coordinated manner to meet the needs of our communities and also welcome accountability for instance we advocated for the regional plans to applications and MOUs that were included starting around five. However accountability must be aligned with the flexibility resources and authority to meet what is being asked and there are some challenges with how this is working with HAP right now. The state's one year at a time approach to funding and uncertain funding leads to instability in being able to successfully sustain programs and make long term investments and project commitments.
The lengthy review process and expanding requirements create delays in funding being distributed which delays individuals from receiving services. It shouldn't take more than twenty months from adoption for needed homelessness funding to get out into our communities. And there's real world impacts to these challenges, including stalled projects, uncertain commitments to successful programs, and taking away staff time from delivering services. And so along with the billion dollar request for round seven, we're advocating for round seven to be implemented in a simplified manner that incorporates the recent round six applications as well as letting grantees demonstrate progress towards meeting the new requirements given some have lengthy review processes. And this will ensure that the funding can be out by the September 1 goal date that's been established.
Thank you.
Speaker 18
Good afternoon chair Caroline Grinder on behalf of the League of California Cities. Cal Cities deeply recognizes how important the HAP program is to supporting our unhoused residents. We know now more than ever with funding uncertainty at the federal level that the HAP program is a critical source of supporting permanent housing programs up and down the state. Cal cities is requesting a restoration of HAP around $7 to 1,000,000,000 and also an ongoing appropriation making HAP a permanent program that our cities can depend on. At the same time, we look forward to continuing conversations around accountability.
Cities recognize important need to be held accountable to the funding that they spend addressing homelessness in our communities. At the same time, we really want to ensure that funding gets out the door quickly to those who need it on the ground and also ensure that onerous accountability requirements do not create barriers to accessing those funds or reason to withhold those funds from areas that really need that critical funding support. And additionally, we look forward to continued conversations about how those funds can continue to trickle down to cities that are smaller and rural with populations under 300,000. Thank you so much.
Speaker 19
We look forward to those conversations. Thank you. Thank you, madam chair. Megan Suber's here on the Los Angeles on behalf of the Los Angeles LGBT Center. We are here to voice our strong support for the $1,000,000,000 investment in HAP funding and the Youth Set Aside.
As the largest service provider of LGBTQ people in the world, the center serves more than 100 young people every day and houses hundreds more. These services keep you safe, stabilize them in moments of crisis, and prevent both immediate and chronic homelessness. We received $2,000,000 in HAP funding to support 44 beds at the center. The youth set aside is essential. It ensures young people get the targeted support they need before their situation worsens, and we urge you to maintain and protect this critical investment.
Thank you.
Speaker 20
Good afternoon, chair and senators. Porvir Bhattacharji with Housing California. Thank you for focusing today's hearing on HAP. HAP is our state's most important and effective tool for addressing homelessness. Since 2023, HAP has led to over 90,000 people being placed into permanent supportive housing, ending their homelessness.
This is a big reason why California has done so much better than other states regarding homelessness. In 2024, homelessness in California rose by only 3%, while it surged by 24% in the rest of the country. Since round three, HAP has had some of the strongest accountability measures of any state program with goal setting and system performance measures. This year, preserving HAP dollars are more important than ever, with federal changes threatening to push at least 41,000 Californians back into homelessness in 2026. HAP, which can fund the rental assistance and operating subsidies, can play an important role in keeping Californians in their homes, preventing them from entering homelessness in the first place.
We look forward to working with you to ensure that the HAP program continues to improve outcomes for unhoused people. Thank you.
Speaker 4
Good afternoon, chair and members. My name is Matthew Mengee. I'm with Inner City Law Center. We're a nonprofit in Skid Row in Downtown LA. We serve folks for homeless and at risk of homelessness.
I'm also here with bringing California Homes Coalition, and we're supporting a full $1,000,000,000 for the HAP program. HAP has been essential to helping reduce homelessness in LA County, maintaining shelter beds and homeless intervention programs. So really asking for support for that program. I wanted to also, you mentioned a client that had a problem with legal aid. Stay back to talk to staff and see if they're LA County resident, we'd love to serve them and see if there's any problem that we could address.
Thank you very much for your time.
Speaker 21
Good afternoon, thank you so much committee. I'm Eliane Chavez, I'm director of tribal programs with California Collision for Rural Housing. We are one of the TA providers for tribal HOP, and we're here to support the overall HOP and increasing those funds as long as well as with tribal HOP itself. Right now, the 2% is not sufficient as we've seen oversubscription in the last since since the initiation of tribal hhap, like by tenfold. With this round, with only 28.5 being allocated tribal hhap, a 116,000,000 was being requested by the the 60 plus tribes, which is insufficient, in order to further the tribes to be able to meet their housing needs and, in homelessness, rates that they have in their communities.
And so we do ask for more in tribal HAP in itself as well as overall HAP, because that'll also then include them into these homelessness and housing efforts that the state is doing. And at the moment, there has been very little effort in that part and very slightly included when it comes to addressing the tribal housing needs. And so I hope that we can continue having this discussion and continue being able to treat tribes at a government to government standpoint in which these programs need to be constructed from the beginning. So thank you very much.
Ask anything about this video — I analyse its transcript to answer.