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California State Auditor Logo COMMITMENT • INTEGRITY • LEADERSHIP

Homelessness in California
State Government and the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority Need to Strengthen Their Efforts to Address Homelessness

Report Number: 2017-112

Response to the Survey From —
Tehama County CoC

 

HUD provides two lists of California Continuum of Care (CoC) key contacts: one for Northern California and one for Southern California.
You can find these lists at https://www.hud.gov/states/california/homeless/continuumcare.
  1. Enter the CoC number for which you are completing the survey.

    CA-527
  2. Enter the CoC name for which you are completing the survey.

    Tehama County CoC


  3. Enter the organization within the CoC that you represent.

    Alternatives to Violence

  4. What type of organization do you represent?.







  5. How many staff (full-time equivalents) does your organization employ?

    23

  6. Does your organization provide homeless services directly for clients?


    Alternatives to Violence (ATV) provides services directly to individuals and families who are homeless due to fleeing domestic violence. Additionally, ATV acts as the HMIS Lead and CoC Lead Agency for CA-527. ATV does not provide direct services to the general population of individuals and families experiencing homelessness in Tehama County. This is a unique arrangement that came about as a result of CA-527's relatively new status as a single-county CoC. ATV's CoC Planning Grant is the only CoC Program funding in the geographical area. Zero providers in the county currently receive CoC Program funding for direct service projects, however, ATV and one additional organization receive funding through the ESG Program administered by HCD to the Balance of State CoC's in California.

  7. Are you a direct recipient on your CoC's HUD application?
     
  8. Approximately what percentage of the funding your organization administers is from HUD for the CoC program?

    1

  9. If not your organization, is there another organization in your CoC that administers the majority of homeless services funding?




    Poor and the Homeless (PATH) Tehama County Coalition's RRH is ESG funded and provides services to the general homeless population in Tehama County, as well as seasonal emergency shelter, a project that receives no significant federal funding.

  10. Does your CoC conduct an unsheltered Point-in-Time (PIT) count annually? (Including those years not required by HUD)
     
  11. In which year did your CoC begin conducting an annual unsheltered PIT count?

  12. Why did your CoC decide to conduct an annual unsheltered PIT count?

  13. What funding sources do you use to conduct the annual unsheltered PIT count? (Check all that apply.)





  14. How did your CoC facilitate the annual unsheltered PIT count?
    (For example, did you increase the number of volunteers, or find additional funding?)

  15. Did your organization have any challenges in implementing an annual unsheltered PIT count?



  16. How has conducting an annual unsheltered PIT count affected your CoC's operations and/or outcomes? If you have any data or analyses, please share specific metrics.

  17. Why does your CoC not conduct an annual unsheltered PIT count? (Check * all that apply)







     

  18. Please elaborate on the reasons why your CoC does not conduct an annual unsheltered PIT count.

    Very few providers in the county receive funding that requires them to participate in the CoC or in CoC-mandated activities. Unsheltered PIT Counts require a significant amount of participation from service providers, many of whom do not have other funding that will support their staff's time as they participate in such an event. This leaves much of the work to community volunteers-everything from soliciting donations to fill the "goodie bags" handed out to respondents to conducting the count itself, to entering the data collected. Volunteer time and "asks" for donations are a finite resource, especially in a small, rural community. Such a resource must be budgeted as any other resource. The CoC and its community partners must conserve a portion of this resource for conducting activities like Tehama County's annual LIFT Event, at which individuals and families experiencing homelessness, as well as Tehama County residents with low or very low incomes can access a wide variety of resources in one place, on one day. While unsheltered PIT Counts provide valuable insights through data collection, similar data is also collected at the LIFT event while providing valuable services to the population that the CoC aims to serve.


  19. What would cause your CoC to conduct an unsheltered PIT count in the years not required by HUD?

    CA-527 would be more likely to hold unsheltered PIT Counts in years that HUD does not require such a count be held if funding were available to combine the count with an event that would provide valuable services and or resources to the population that is to be counted. Increasing the capacity of member organizations is one of the primary objectives of the CoC. If successful in achieving this goal, the CoC anticipates that annual unsheltered counts may be feasible in future years.



  20. What sources does your organization use to fund the HUD-required PIT count of unsheltered homeless? (Check all that apply)






     

    In-Kind donations of goods and volunteer labor

  21. How much did your CoC's 2017 PIT count cost?

    Less than $1,000 in cash expenditures; however, in-kind donations are estimated at about $6,000
  22. How many people did your CoC require to conduct its 2017 PIT count? (Staff, volunteers, and others)

    20

  23. How many of those identified in Question 22 were volunteers?

    15

  24. Does your CoC recruit volunteers for its unsheltered PIT count from organizations outside the homeless services community?



    The community at-large through advertisement in the local paper, churches and other faith-based organizations.

  25. Please share your perspective on the reasons your CoC's unsheltered homeless population in 2017 did or did not change from that in its previous unsheltered PIT count.

    There was little change in Tehama County's unsheltered count from 2015 to 2017. However, weather conditions in January make it difficult for volunteers to access some encampments. Additionally, because Tehama County has only a seasonal emergency shelter, we know that the unsheltered population close to doubles in the warmer months when those counted in shelter in January are again left with no place to go.

  26. Has your CoC reallocated funding in the past?



    Tehama County CoC has no annual renewal demand, hence we have no funding to re-allocate. Tehama County CoC received it's designation as an independent, single-county CoC in February of 2015. HUD has not made available any funding for "new" projects in the time since. Until funding for "new" projects becomes available, the only funding available to CA-527 through the CoC program are CoC planning funds.

  27. How often does your CoC reevaluate final priority rankings for the HUD CoC Program Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA), based on HUD priorities?




  28. How often does your CoC perform the following gap analyses?

    Housing gap analysis—Annually

    Funding gap analysis—Annually

    Service gap analysis—Annually

    Other (please specify)—

  29. In what year did your CoC perform each of the following for the first time, or leave the row blank if it is not applicable.

    Housing gap analysis
    2017

    Funding gap analysis
    2017

    Service gap analysis
    2017

    Other (as you identified in question 27)

  30. Does your CoC employ specific strategies for identifying alternative funding for programs that are reallocated or do not receive HUD funding?



    CoC member organizations work together to identify funding opportunities for themselves and for other partner organizations.


  31. Does your CoC have a strategic plan that integrates other publicly-funded programs that provide services, housing, and income supports to poor persons whether they are homeless or not (mainstream benefits and services)?



  32. Please provide a web address to your CoC's most recent strategic plan or email it as an attachment to CoCSurvey@auditor.ca.gov.

  33. When did your CoC complete its first strategic plan?

  34. How often does your CoC update its strategic plan?

  35. How has your strategic plan benefited your CoC?


  36. Why has your CoC not developed a strategic plan?

    CA-527 is currently in the process of developing its strategic plan. Limited funding, as well as limited participation in CoC activities by community providers, was an obstacle to development of this plan in the past. Recent funding opportunities, such as the No Place Like Home Project's technical assistance funding and private community grants have motivated participation in CoC planning and development of the strategic plan and have provided the resources needed to conduct such an activity.

  37. What grant-seeking or fundraising activities does your CoC engage in?

    CA-527 currently implements local competitive processes for selection of provider applications for recommendation to HCD for both the competitive and non-competitive components of the annual ESG funding opportunities. Additionally, a local competition was implemented in 2016 and in 2017 for funding applications for CoC Program Permanent Housing Bonus funds to be included as part of CA-527's annual Consolidated CoC Program Application. Also included in the consolidated applications for 2015, 2016 and 2017 were applications for CoC planning funds. Current activities, such as the development of the strategic plan, are being conducted with the goal of allowing local provided to be well-situated to be competitive in federal, state and private funding competitions in the future.

  38. Are there any strategies or unique actions your agency takes that have strengthened your CoC?

    Development of Tehama County's strategic plan for addressing homelessness began in June 2017. A series of workshops were held over the summer to which a broad range of stakeholders were invited to participate. Through these workshops, priority areas were identified based on gaps in services, the needs of the local homeless population, and the unique geography of our County. Based on these priorities and the discussions that took place in the stakeholders' workshops, an outline of a proposed plan was drafted, and in early November, presented, along with background information and supporting data, to a special, combined meeting of the Tehama County Board of Supervisors and the City Councils from each of the three incorporated cities in the county, Red Bluff, Corning and Tehama. The presentation was well-received by the members of these bodies, and several members posed clarifying questions that the stakeholders' group has since addressed. As requested at this meeting, the stakeholders' group has drafted a resolution that will be presented as an actionable item at upcoming regular meetings of each so that formal support for the high-level priorities and objectives of what will soon become a comprehensive strategic plan can be confirmed and recorded. It is expected that this step in the development of the strategic plan will be complete by February of 2018. In the meantime, the stakeholders' group has continued to meet and is now appointing subcommittees to further develop the plan for each of the three identified priorities. Once the resolution has been formally adopted, technical assistance funds through the No Place Like Home program will allow the group to enlist the services of a professional consultant to develop the final strategic plan.

  39. Please provide any information about these strategies or actions.
    Feel free to provide web addresses to any reports or email them as attachments to CoCSurvey@auditor.ca.gov.


    Agenda, minutes and audio from the special joint meeting of the Tehama County Board of Supervisors, the Red Bluff City Council, the Corning City Council and the Tehama City Council at which the stakeholders' report on addressing homelessness in Tehama County can be accessed at: http://tehamacountyca.iqm2.com/Citizens/Detail_Meeting.aspx?ID=4665 A printable version of CA-527's 2017 PIT Count report can be accessed at: http://tehamacoc.weebly.com/2017-point-in-time-count.html and an interactive report on the same data can be accessed at: http://tehamacoc.weebly.com/2017-pit-interactive.html

  40. If you have any additional perspective or concerns, please provide this information in the space below.
    For example, if you would like to share additional information regarding homelessness, services, or funding.


    Since its inception in 2015, Tehama County CoC and its member organizations have been at a disadvantage regarding access to HUD CoC Program funding. Currently, annual funding through HUD's federal CoC Program is allocated to CoCs across the nation based on the funding that they were awarded in previous years, called its Annual Renewal Demand. Each CoC then has the freedom to re-allocate the funds that make up their renewal demand to the projects that it determines will best meet the needs of their community. Since there were no projects in Tehama County with existing CoC Program funding when Tehama County received it's designation as a CoC, CA-527 has no Annual Renewal Demand. Each year, this predicament causes Tehama County's system for addressing homelessness to fall further behind the same systems in geographical areas covered by other CoCs. In 2015, 2016 and 2017, CA-527 has dutifully completed and submitted the CoC Application, AHAR reports, System Performance Reports, and PIT and HIC reports to HUD in order to maintain its CoC designation. For most CoCs, the quality of these reports and the annual Application are used to determine their eligibility for funding of a minimum of several hundred thousands of project dollars, while the same activities only allow CA-527 access a somewhat negligible amount of CoC planning funds (about $5,000 in 2015 and 2016, just over $8,000 in 2017). CA-527 has worked diligently to back-fill this funding void, and has managed, predominately through utilizing funding that targets specific subpopulations (such as VOCA funding for victims of domestic violence) to create a patchwork of safety net programs. This unique situation has us a bit upside-down, in that it is the general homeless population that has inadequate access to housing resources. We continue to hope, each year, that HUD will reconfigure the competition so that Tehama County can compete on a level playing field with projects across the nation.

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