Report 2020-112 Recommendation 24 Responses

Report 2020-112: Homelessness in California: The State's Uncoordinated Approach to Addressing Homelessness Has Hampered the Effectiveness of Its Efforts (Release Date: February 2021)

Recommendation #24 To: Riverside County Department of Housing, Homelessness Prevention, and Workforce Solutions

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

6-Month Agency Response

Due to the amount of time it takes to locate individuals who are referred to housing in Riverside County (currently 2.5 days), we do not feel launching a dedicated team to locate individuals is required. We appreciate the state auditor's recommendation to make sure Riverside County CoC is tracking this measure regularly. We want to assure you that we have incorporated this measure into our regular/monthly Coordinated Entry System Performance Report that is shared with the Continuum of Care and is reviewed by our agency as the HUD Collaborative Applicant. To that end, we remain committed in reducing barriers that prevent unsheltered individuals from accessing housing and will look to implementing strategies such as the one proposed (e.g. deploying a dedicated team to locate individuals and others) should the average number of days for this measures increase and become unreasonable.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 6-Month Status: Fully Implemented

60-Day Agency Response

The Continuum of Care's Coordinated Entry System (CES) Lead Agency, has started collecting information from agencies participating in CES on the length of time it takes to locate individuals after they have been matched with a service provider. A first quarterly report is expected prior to June 30, 2021.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 60-Day Status: Pending

All Recommendations in 2020-112

Agency responses received are posted verbatim.