Senate Standing Committee on Budget and Fiscal Review

So, good morning. With our usual opening of a committee, as we are still taking precautions to manage COVID-19, we have access to this room for public comment and also on a teleconference. So those who would like to use the teleconference, the participant number is 877-226-8163.

It will also be posted on our committee website that's the Senate Budget and Fiscal Review Committee and the access code for today's hearing is 4400595. And I will maintain decorum as is customary. Any individual who is disruptive may be removed from the remote meeting service or have their connections muted.

So those who are providing testimony before the committee today are participating remotely. And for our remote participants, it is best if you mute your phones and computers so we don't get the acoustic feedback and use the raise your hand feature for me to be able to call on you. You will have to unmute yourself.

But then when you're finished, our IT personnel will put you back on mute. And public access, as I mentioned, people who are here, also people who are calling in, I've already given that number. And let's see if we can establish quorum now.

Not quite. Yes, we can. All right. Yes. Let us call the roll.

[Roll call]. We do have a quorum.

Great. So we've established quorum and we will formally begin. This morning marks the first oversight hearing for this year and we are hold three Senate Budget Committee oversight hearings in February.

That is our plan. And the focus of today's is affordable housing and homelessness. And the reason that we are holding an oversight hearing on this topic, besides that it is of importance to our California residents and also to our colleagues on the dais is also that we have made significant investments and when I say we.

The California state budget has made significant investments in this area in the last few years. And there's been increased investments from the federal government and also, in some cases, local funding. So the point of today is to get an update on the implementation of the state-level programs, of the programs that we have funded from the state.

There are issues that could arise today that may be covered in more detail in future Subcommittee hearings. So those of you who are on various of the relevant subcommittees and obviously we will find as we deal with this, that this covers things like mental health issues, so the Health Committee, state government issues, so that Subcommittee and also, in some cases, even the Public Safety. So, clearly, if there's anything that does arise as we have this hearing, please feel free to get into more detail of it in your Subcommittee meetings.

Let me turn to my vice chair, Senator Niello, and see if he has any comments before we begin.

First of all, when I came in, I immediately sat down here, not really thinking I should have sat next to you, apologize for that error in decorum. But I look forward to the information that we're receiving. I've received, reviewed some of it before, and I think we have some good questions for good discussion.

Appreciate that, Senator Niello. All right, so we are going to begin this hearing with an overview from our Legislative Analyst Office to give us so we all start on the same page of the type of investments that have been made and in what areas. So let us hear now from the Legislative Analyst Office.

Good morning, Madam Chair and senators. I'm Lourdes Morales with the Legislative Analyst Office.

I will be speaking this morning from a handout. If you give me a moment while I share my screen, you should have a copy before you, and it's also available on the LAO website. I hope that's now visible.

As you mentioned, I've been asked to provide an overview of the landscape of housing and homelessness in the state. As I present data on the scope of the challenges the state faces and summarize recent state actions to address housing affordability and homelessness, it makes for questions about the current implementation, as you mentioned, of these recent investments. We are working to compile such information and hope to sort of provide those details in our upcoming housing and homelessness budget analysis that you sort of may have additional questions that we may not be able to answer today.

However, the Administration may be better positioned to provide those updates, and they will be represented in the subsequent panels before you today. So jumping in. We know that housing affordability is a serious and widespread challenge in the state.

As the figure on page one depicts, Californians have spent a larger share of their income on housing than households in the rest of the nation at every income quartile, and households with the lowest incomes face the highest cost pressures. In particular, there are over 1.5 million low-income renters that face significant cost pressures, spending more than half of their income on housing. Additionally, an average home in California costs two times the national average, and Californians, on average, have a monthly rent that is about 50% higher than the rest of the country.

While many factors have a role in driving California's high housing cost, the most important is a significant shortage of housing. The figure on page two depicts how this shortage has increased California's home prices much faster than home prices nationally, in particular since the 1980s. While we generally have said that the state would need about twice as much housing built annually to keep up with California's cost growth, to keep it in line with escalating cost across the nation.

So again, generally to adjust for this, we've said California would build about twice as much housing. So while homelessness is a complex problem with many causes, the high cost of housing is a significant factor in the state's homelessness crisis. The next few pages of the handout need to provide insights into who is experiencing homelessness in California.

171,500 people experienced homelessness in California according to the 2022 point in time count required by the US. Department of Housing and Urban Development. That means California has more people experiencing homelessness than any other state in the nation, about 28% of the national total, despite California having 12% of the national population.

Furthermore, California also has the highest percent of unsheltered homelessness in the nation, at 67%. The figure also highlights a few other characteristics of people experiencing homelessness and how those have changed since January 2020, the last year. We have complete data allowing for a comparison due to data collection challenges associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.

I won't go into detail, but as you can see, sort of the largest increase from 2020 is in people experiencing chronic homelessness, while the largest decrease is with unaccompanied youth experiencing homelessness. The figure on page four shows the distribution of people experiencing homelessness in the state. In all, the communities identified in the figure make up nearly 75% of all people experiencing homelessness in California.

The remaining 25% are experiencing homelessness in other sort of remaining regions of the state. As you can see on page five, people experiencing homelessness in California are overwhelmingly male. However, as page six depicts, the share of sheltered and unsheltered homelessness varied based by gender.

Despite unsheltered homelessness being high in California, we see some genders disproportionately experiencing unsheltered homelessness. In particular, the vast majority of transgender, gender-nonconforming and questioning people experience unsheltered homelessness, while women experiencing homelessness are the most likely to be sheltered. Now, turning to page seven and eight, which address race and ethnicity, certain populations disproportionately experience homelessness.

For example, while Black and African American individuals make up about 7% of the state's total population, they comprise 30% of the people experiencing homelessness. This final figure on homelessness depicts how the number of people experiencing sheltered and unsheltered homelessness in the state has changed since 2010. We see both the overall increase in homelessness in recent years and that unsheltered homelessness has grown faster than sheltered homelessness.

The data I just presented is based on the annual point in time count required by HUD, the US. Department of Housing and Urban Development. While this data is informative, it also is important to recognize its limitations.

Efforts to produce an accurate and complete count are hindered by various factors, including for when it's just difficult to conduct the point in time. There are sort of capacity constraints and other challenges at the COCs which are administering the counts. The PIT count also just provides a snapshot, but we know that there are also people that cycle in and out of episodes of homelessness throughout the year that might not be counted.

And as I mentioned previously, COVID-19 has further complicated data availability. Is that the high point in time count underrepresents the number of people experiencing homelessness. The state's new Homeless Data Integration System, HDIS, offers some more information that can, particularly over time, complement PIT count data. The system allows the state to access and compile standardized data collected by the Local Continuance of Care, which administer and coordinate homelessness programs about the people they serve, thereby capturing more information about the delivery of homelessness services in the state and a broader population of people experiencing housing instability.

The Delivery Interagency Council on Homelessness, known as CalICH, which operates the system, anticipates updating it over time to focus more on the outcomes of people accessing services to help the state and local entities better assess their progress towards preventing, reducing, and ending homelessness. On pages eleven and twelve of the handout, we summarize some of the information currently available through HCIS. Excuse me.

For example, the data demonstrates that people access homelessness services locally. Very few people access homelessness services in more than one California COC. Of the people that do access multiple jurisdictions or services in multiple jurisdictions, most did so in adjacent neighboring COC, suggesting that those experiencing homelessness in California do not tend to migrate to other regions.

On page 13, we outlined how federal, state, and local entities work together to fund and administer a variety of programs aimed at helping people afford housing and assisting those who are experiencing homelessness or are at risk of becoming homeless. Zeroing in on the State, there are a number of state departments primarily responsible for administering the state's housing and homelessness programs. Those would be the Housing and Community Development Department, HCD, the California Housing Finance Agency, and the California Tax Credit Allocation Committee, as well, as I previously mentioned, the California Interagency Council on Homelessness.

This council, in addition to functioning as a traditional Department in administering homelessness programs like HHAP, the Homeless Housing Assistance Prevention Program, also has a broader role in addressing homelessness. The Council convenes representatives from a number of state departments and seeks insights from stakeholders to develop policies, identify and coordinate resources and services that aim to prevent and address homelessness in the state. In addition to these core departments that I just mentioned, other state departments either administer the state seeking out programs or have other sort of more targeted or limited roles in addressing housing and homelessness needs.

For example, the Department of Veterans Affairs in the state. Locally HUD, establishes these continuance of care, which I mentioned to coordinated administer services locally within a particular area. Often a county or a group of counties. Cities and counties make land use decisions in their communities that affect housing, and they also sort of collaborate with their local COCs or in some hate cases, sort of spearhead those efforts to address housing, affordability and homelessness in their communities.

Finally, as the state's housing and affordability housing affordability and homelessness crisis has become more acute, the state has taken a larger fiscal role in funding and supporting local governments. Additionally, the Legislature has adopted major legislation aimed at addressing the high cost of housing in California. The figure on page 14 aggregates the total for major discretionary spending actions within the state entities principally responsible for administering housing and homelessness programs.

That being CalICH, HCD, CalHFA, and TCAC the Tax Credit Allocation Committee. The peak in 2021-22 fiscal year reflects that a portion of discretionary federal funds provided to the state in response of COVID-19 were used to increase funding to support housing and homelessness. That concludes my comments for this portion of the hearing.

I'll cover the remaining portions of the handout in the subsequent panel, which will dive more specifically into some of the recent investments. Thank you and I'm happy to take any questions when appropriate.

Thank you. So the point of that opening was to give sort of the broad overview of how we count homeless, how many homeless there's estimated to be in California, as was pointed out, the different demographics of it and the next panel is going to go into.

Ms. Morales so far just talked about the different agencies in the state, but not the total dollar amounts. And that will be in the next panel. But if there are any questions anyone would like to ask about the presentation so far, Senator Caballero.

Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for the presentation. I appreciate the background and information. Are we still? Is the current methodology for determining what our homeless population is still the point in time count? Is that still the only way we do this?

So the point in time count is federally required. It informs formulas of how the state receives federal funding to address homelessness. The state also uses it as a mechanism to inform its distribution of funding primarily through the HAP program.

So it is an important tool, but as I mentioned, it's also important to recognize the limitations of that. It does not provide a complete count in all cases. And so relying on other sources who are available to sort of further flesh out populations and get a better picture on homelessness is important.

So again, it is the best tool we have. We recognize its limitations and drawing on other tools where available, like the HDIS system I mentioned, will be important moving forward.

Okay. I appreciate that. It just seems to me that we use systems that are so fraught with problems. If it's a rainy day, then it throws off your PIT and it's a little bit like when we go in and test the soil with a stick in the ground. It's just crazy in this day and age. So I just think we ought to think about what might be better ways to be able to get a really good idea of what's happening out on the streets. So thank you for that.

All right, the list I have is Senator Laird, then Senator Roth and Senator Padilla and then Senator Durazo. Senator Laird.

Thank you very much. I was going to raise the same issue that Senator Caballero raised. But just with that and page four on the presentation about the chart of people experiencing homeless, both of those are very urban centric, such that if you go in a non-urban area and try to do a count.

People are really hiding for safety, hiding for other reasons, and it's really hard to get at them. We can talk about that more at length. But the other thing is that looking on page four at the count, it just does the raw numbers and shows the obvious thing that big urban areas have the biggest count.

But it doesn't take into consideration that some of the non-urban areas have a higher per capita homeless population than the urban areas. So if you are guiding the programs we're going to talk about in the next panel, how do you have people in smaller governments or smaller areas trying to get ahead of a higher per capita thing? And I'm prepared to talk about that more, but I just wanted to sort of make the urban centric comments on both the counting and the population.

I don't know if you wanted to make any response or not to Ms.. Morales. It's not a question, per se, but go ahead.

I would just sort of acknowledge that there are sort of unique challenges in addressing homelessness in sort of more roles, sort of more spread out communities. There's certainly more challenges in having sort of the community-based organizations that can provide services. And so that is certainly something that sort of merits consideration as the state moves forward.

Before I call on Senator Roth, I think the point that Senator Laird is making, we should get account per capita because while he is pointing out that there's rural areas that have higher per capita within our urban areas, there are cities with higher per capita which is not captured with what we get now. So I think a count per capita is helpful because I think personal, I think that while we do not have adequate funds to direct towards completely solving this or causing all unsheltered people to be housed tomorrow, we certainly could direct the funds where the greatest population is if we had that kind of count. Senator Roth.

Thank you, Madam Chair. When I was preparing for this hearing and reading the binder that I was provided, I was certainly impressed with the number and breadth of programs that we have in play in the housing and homeless arena and the amount of money actually that is also involved in them. And it also occurred to me that I was having some difficulty assessing the programs themselves.

And I'm just wondering, throwing this out to the LAO this may be more appropriate for the next panel but whether we actually have designed a matrix to measure the impact and effectiveness of all of these programs individually and collectively, that's my first throw out. And then the other quick question I have is where does the subject of mental health diagnosis and treatment of the homeless intersect with our funding of these numerous housing and homelessness prevention programs?

Because obviously there are some people who are homeless for reasons associated with loss of a job, medical expenses, a whole variety of other life situations and crises. And then in addition to that, there are, it seems to me, some percentage of those who are homeless who are homeless because they don't wish to be sheltered, perhaps because they don't understand, perhaps because they have a mental illness.

So my question relates to the intersection of our mental health programs and funding with our housing and homeless programs. I don't know if that's appropriate for you, Madam LAO.

Senator Roth. One second Ms.. I think we will ask her to respond but also you can direct that question in a later panel to Dr. Golly additionally. Go ahead, Ms. Morales.

Thank you. To begin to the first part of your question about how we sort of assess the programs, as I mentioned, we are in the midst of compiling some information that we hope to package as part of our sort of subsequent budget analyses in the weeks to come. But I would say as we think about these programs they all have a variety of sort of different goals.

And so as we think about sort of what the deliverable outcome is we sort of need to adjust it to what the mission of the program is. In some cases, the program is really about building additional units and so sort of that raw count will be really important. In other cases, it's about providing more services or perhaps sort of preparing land or facilitating projects that will lead to more units over time.

And so that's something we're trying to tease out and sort of flush out as we sort of think about how to assess the effectiveness of these programs. On your other point, as we'll get into sort of the homelessness spending, the funding that also about building behavioral health infrastructure. So creating sort of more capacity to sort of serve people with behavioral health needs that are experiencing homelessness. The services and sort of wraparound support that may be needed to support that is something that typically provided on the county-level. And sort of I'll let sort of the Health and Human Services Agency sort of speak more about how they are facilitating sort of that side of the spectrum.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Certainly. Senator Padilla.

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. First and foremost for the broad discussion certainly having the honor of Chairing Sub Four. I look forward to having a much more comprehensive and integrated sort of conversation around these issues.

I think just a couple of brief comments. First going to be very interested as we get into the panel discussion a little bit later about the strategic sort of intersection between all of the various complex elements that contribute to folks experiencing homelessness either in a long-term or acute sort of situation. And there are a lot of dimensions to that.

And certainly understanding the proposals by the Administration then considering from the Legislature how we might measure effectiveness and impact, particularly in an environment when we're looking at reduced resources or deferring the application of resources. I'll be moving putting a Bill across this afternoon that addresses one of the key factors that we tend to overlook. A lot of the resources focus that's proposed and maintained seem to be on the production side of housing to address homelessness and that is very critical element.

But there's a big piece of that in terms of the wage standard. The fact that a larger and larger segment of this state's workforce are, despite the amount of hours they work, which is slowly creeping up, able to sustain themselves in terms of their basic needs is sort of the white elephant in the room. And at some point in the broader discussion is going to need to be addressed because that just simply can't be ignored.

So I'm really looking forward to the conversation, looking forward. Certainly this is how we might integrate and maximize impact across all of the factors involved and seeing how we're proposing to allocate resources in terms of where the focus is and not just on the production side and also how we measure impact in a very clear way. So appreciate the conversation Madam Chair. Thank you.

Certainly. Senator Durazo and then Senator Smallwood-Cuevas and Senator Niello.

Thank you Madam Chair. Good segue from my colleague from San Diego just broadly saying from the LAO and I will be asking this, the panel members as well, families living on the edge of economic eviction. What does that look like? What's that picture? Because it's got to be helpful.

We have to know what that is as we address homelessness because we can just be helping families and people who are already homeless unhoused. But then every day there could be more. How many more? How do we address that? And unfortunately right now we're treating housing as a business issue, not as human right issue.

So any thoughts about how we get the kind of information, the kind of statistics that would help us? Because we're just going to be spinning our wheels here unless we find a significant way. And I think that one of those is these economic evictions that we still haven't seen the worst of. Any thoughts?

Yeah as I mentioned in my sort of opening comments, there's 1.5 million Californians that spend more than 50% of their income on housing and so clearly for those hardships or something not going right could sort of really lead to sort of their housing being lost. This is an area around evictions where we really sort of sought additional data, unfortunately sort of unclear what statewide data there is on eviction filings and sort of the outcome of those. We have sort of looked into information sort of compiled by the courts but there are some sort of challenges that sort of make it difficult to have a sort of complete picture.

We know that there were significant investments from the federal government that provide eviction assistance that it has rolled out and sort of helped address at least the immediate concerns around sort of wave of evictions in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. But this is something sort of remains an important issue and there isn't sort of readily available statewide data to give us a sort of complete picture of who is specifically at risk or how many filings there are ongoing on a statewide level.

So that's not available to us?

Not that we sort of know of at this point.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Senator Smallwood-Cuevas.

Thank you so much, Madam Chair and really appreciating this robust conversation and dialogue and comments made by my colleagues about our point of departure. In my view, in terms of particularly in L.A. County where we have that huge bullseye, in terms of how we are impacted by this crisis. Our point of departure is an economy where there are far too many communities that are in economic crisis and having worked for many years representing workers in low wage and unwage realities, particularly Black workers, we see a disproportionate economic impact that now is resulting in a disproportionate homelessness impact in our community.

I'm curious about the ways in which we reconcile the 9% and the 30%. 9% of the population, Black Californians, 30% of the homelessness population.

When we zoom into that big bullseye on L.A., it jumps from 6% to 40%. The disparity inside of the disparity is my question and when I look at the list of funding sources, it's unclear in terms of the policy design, the implementation evaluation and the service delivery how much of this is targeting these disparities, particularly the racial disparity. If you can imagine what homelessness is for the entire state and how we are all reeling, it only gives you a glimpse of what that feels like inside of a population that is just 6%, that's carrying 40% of a homelessness version. That is a completely destabilized community.

So my question is what is the ways in which we are analyzing and looking at our target populations, particularly those that are overburdened in this crisis by race? And how are we providing culturally competent tools and remedies and funding to address that very targeted population? We know there's a lot has been said about Prop 209 which is an immoral law in my view that does not allow us to be explicit in mandating diversity and inclusion and equity. So in that context, though, the suffering is real and it's there and it's growing. To my colleagues point, we're not even able to really even measure how quickly it's growing because we're missing that very important data.

But what are the ways that we can ensure that we are acknowledging the unique ways in which this crisis is paralyzing and destabilizing and creating so much suffering, particularly in black communities in my district?

Ms. Morales, before you answer, Senator, you may want to well, I hope that some of our next panelists heard your question, because I think that it is an appropriate one to also ask them. I think what Ms. Morales can provide us is whether in her look at these things, if that has been a lens through which we directed our funding.

But otherwise, I think for the next panel, it's a very appropriate question. And I would just share that the citations you mentioned are similar in terms of the I don't know the full Bay Area, but the San Francisco and Oakland area in terms of the percentage of African Americans who are homeless compared to as large.

But Ms. Morales, go ahead, and then Ms. Cuevas will ask that that question also be answered by our next panelists. Go ahead.

Thank you, Senators. Historically, the state, or historically local governments, have really taken the lead at addressing homelessness challenges in their own communities. As the problem has become more acute, the state has taken a much more active, sort of primarily sort of fiscal role in addressing homelessness, making additional dollars, significant amounts of additional dollars readily available to local governments so they can address homelessness in their own communities.

As I mentioned previously, that funding has largely gone out through sort of formulas informed by the results of the point in time count. So providing the largest dollars to the areas where there are a larger number of people experiencing homelessness. But the state has to this point, largely allowed local governments to make their discretionary decisions about how to then allocate those dollars, to address the specific needs and specific populations within their own communities.

Initially, there is very little sort of reporting around how local governments were doing this. I'd say that as that program has evolved and more rounds of funding have come out, the Legislature has put in additional reporting requirements and sort of more rules around accountability. So the state has more insight into what local governments are doing, given sort of the timing of how their report, their reporting is coming back to the state.

We don't have all that information at this point, but I agree with sort of Senator Skinner that sort of hearing from the Administration and from some stakeholders that are represented here about how they're used locally will be really important. Thank you.

So just to clarify, you're saying that the state does not or has not in any way tracked the ways in which those dollars have been applied to the targeted population that is disproportionately impacted by homelessness. And in this instance we're talking about the black community. You're saying the state has not done that.

So I'll leave it to sort of BCSH to sort of speak specifically about the sort of data points they've sort of collected, but speaking more broadly about how the state has sort of distributed resources to local government so they can make sort of their decisions about distribution. It's largely been informed by the PIT count results to this point.

All right. Senator Niello.

Thank you, Madam Chair. It is fitting that we would have this as the first oversight hearing, since homelessness is one of the most significant challenges facing our state right now. And with regard to the budget process, that of course, reflects our priorities as a state.

And while we will have to cut and defer, there is still a substantial General Fund, certainly as compared to that which I left twelve years ago, and the degree to which we cut or defer and the degree to which we fund should reflect our priorities relative to homelessness and other priorities too. I have a comment and a question. The comment relates to the challenges in collecting accurate information.

And these point in time counts, they are, as the LAO pointed out, imprecise at best. And I recall an article that I read in the newspaper about a point in time count a few years ago where the article was attempting to dispel myths. And two of the myths is that homelessness people experiencing homelessness is significantly a mental health and substance abuse issue.

And the article submitted that, no, it really wasn't because they asked them whether they were mentally ill or abusing substances. The newspaper article actually said that. But the question I have is on page nine, the graph that shows the trend in homelessness is striking because you'll see that there is a gradual decline in homelessness up to the year 2015 and 2016.

And then we have the explosion that we've experienced. 2016 was the year in which California adopted Housing First as its guiding policy relative to homelessness. So my question of the LAO is do you think that that relationship is mere coincidence or is there a direct relationship of the effect that Housing First might have had on our inability to address homelessness? And do you have information on other programs throughout the state or the country that tend to try to circumvent that? In particular, that in San Antonio, Texas.

Thank you, Senator. Our office has said that the main well, a number of reasons there are a number of reasons that a person sort of might become homeless. The sort of primary reason is the high cost of housing in the state.

And so we would say that as the housing affordability and sort of housing shortages have been more acute, it's sort of the main driver that results in sort of that increase you see on the figure you referenced. We don't have any sort of specific comments around sort of Housing First or the San Antonio case that you mentioned, but we can sort of look into it and provide more follow up.

Thank you.

Senator Dahle.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you.

Go ahead.

Great information that you provided us here today. I want to go to like the 30,000 foot level. We've spent a lot of money, no doubt about it. And I think that we have a lot of information here. But I think we really are lacking the players, which are the counties and the cities at this table because we are doing top down legislation and funding. And what I'm hearing is kind of along the same lines as Senator Laird brought out.

At least in the very vast rural areas of my district. We're finding that we gave one-time monies, which is very difficult for a county or a city or provider to really do a plan on one-time monies because they're trying to get mental health clinicians, they're trying to deal with drug and alcohol issues, housing, all those things, not knowing that their funding source how long their funding source is going to be available. That's what I'm hearing.

So it's very difficult to plan or to even hire somebody if you don't have a funding source that is going to go in the future. So I just want to ask, have you reached out to the people who are actually providing the services that's the county health departments and the cities that are on the front lines of dealing with this.

Opportunities to convene a variety of stakeholders, including sort of the state departments administering some of these programs. But folks on the ground is is really important. And so we do, as we analyze the Governor's proposals, seek out a variety of stakeholders to inform any comments or recommendations our office makes.

Did you receive any feedback from them? Like I've heard about how the way we're administering the funds and also the projected outcomes? Have you heard back from them on ways that we could actually maybe give them the resources in a way that would make it work better for them?

We've certainly heard significant calls from some stakeholders seeking sort of ongoing funding to address homelessness. What our office has said in the past is that the Legislature sort of puts together sort of its plan and thinks about how it wants to sort of engage with local governments to sort of jointly address this issue, that it should sort of identify a funding source that matches with what it identifies as its state role. So, for example, if the state identifies its primary role as supporting the development of infrastructure, then in that case, one-time funding may be appropriate.

However, if the state sort of wants to take a different approach and sort of provide more, for example, like rental assistance as a way to sort of prevent homelessness, then sort of identifying a long-term, sort of ongoing revenue source would need to be identified to sort of fully support that. So it really is about matching what the state identifies as its role with the appropriate revenue source.

I would just suggest that at some point, maybe this Committee should engage with the people who are actually doing the services, because what I'm hearing.

We will hear in one of our next panels from one of the providers who gets money from the various sources. And in this next panel, we also will hear the specific amounts of money we've given to the different but if you please, if there's another overarching and otherwise, we'll get into the specifics, and certainly those questions are appropriate there. Okay, so let's go to our next panel.

And our next panel is regarding the investments. So we'll get into those details that many of you have raised some issues about that you can then ask further questions. So Ms. Morales is going to present first on the specific investments we've made. Then we will hear from the Deputy Secretary for Homelessness Business, Consumer Services, and Housing Agency. Then we'll hear from the Chief Deputy Director of the California Department of Housing Community Development.

And finally, we'll hear from our Secretary of California Health and Human Services Agency. Ms. Morales. Go ahead.

Thank you, senators. Let me share my screen once again.

So I will be referencing sort of back to my prior handout during this portion of the hearing. The table on page 15 identifies the major recent budget actions within the California Interagency Council on Homelessness, as well as Department of Social Services and the Department of Healthcare Services, since the 2018-19 fiscal year, which is when the state began to take an increased fiscal role in addressing homelessness with the establishment of the Homeless Emergency Aid program known as HEAP. HEAP provided sort of large cities and continuous care funding for a variety of short-term housing solutions for people experiencing homelessness, such as shelter and rapid rehousing.

I will not go through every program. But as you can see, sort of overall, about $12 billion in discretionary funding has been appropriated in recent years to address homelessness in these departments. Nearly $5.4 billion to the Interagency Council on Homelessness.

Primarily, as I mentioned before, used to support local government efforts to address homelessness in their communities. 2.3 billion to DSS, primarily to expand housing and homelessness support for people participating in some of the state's safety net programs, and $4.6 billion to DHCS, primarily for infrastructure to support people with behavioral health needs. Importantly, I will emphasize that this table captures the major sort of discretionary spending actions related to homelessness programs for these select departments. In some cases like, for example, DHCS Housing Support Program programs have ongoing base funding appropriated before the 18-19 fiscal year, which is not reflected in this table.

On page 16, we provide just a high-level sort of takeaway from the recent state actions to address homelessness. Overall, the state has an increased role in addressing homelessness by providing significant, although mostly one-time and temporary funding towards infrastructure and flexible aid to local governments in recent years. Thank you.

That concludes my comments for this portion.

All right, before I go to the next panelists, if there is any specific question about these particular allocations. Senator Smallwood-Cuevas?

The one question I had in terms of the appropriations was: Have there been any funds offered by the state? And funding to deal with the issue of housing discrimination and enforcement through what was then the Department of Fair Employment and Housing or Civil Rights Office. There was an exhaustive study done in LA County, a committee that was focused on housing impacts in the black community in particular, and the analysis just showed very distinct housing and employment discrimination in terms of private landlords not offering housing to black applicants who were just trying to find affordable housing for their children. In many cases, we're dealing with a private housing market right that is supplying affordable subsidized housing.

And increasingly that implicit, sometimes explicit bias comes into that process. And so I don't see any particular investment in those kinds of housing access strategies, which is to address some of the historic and current bias that is in the housing market, particularly for black and immigrant renters.

Thank you, Senator, so you are correct. The Civil Rights Department does have sort of oversight and sort of authority over sort of ensuring that landlords and others are not discriminating in the areas of housing and employment. We don't have that Department listed here.

I would say that over recent years, there have been proposals to provide more resources as sort of personnel to the department to sort of expand their capacity. I'll also highlight there was legislation recently around discrimination against sources of income. So essentially, insurance.

There's no discrimination for someone that's using a housing voucher, and there was resources to implement that law. I could sort of follow up, though, with your office with more specifics around the dollars.

Senator Roth.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Since you're presenting on these major recent housing spending augmentations, I just have a question. General question regarding them, and perhaps again, it's better for the next well, I guess this is the next panel, so we'll see.

The issue for me is what's the overall plan for this particular general area, which is housing and homelessness? And I understand it's complex because we have both the state, we have the county and cities involved, perhaps other stakeholders. But of course, you need a plan in order to measure whether what you have at the end is efficient and effective and accomplishes the objective. So if I were to go to each of these line items, these discretionary housing spending augmentations in the budget, would I find in the budget or elsewhere a statement of goals and objectives? In other words, what we expect to get from adaptive reuse at 150 million & 250 million for a program total of $400 million?

Is that a fair question?

Yes, thank you. So I would say, in most cases, there was legislation that established these programs that sort of lay out the scope and mission of the program. Systematically, I'd say, for the funding provided to the Inner Agency Council on Homelessness. It's primarily a tool to get resources out to local governments, as I mentioned previously so that they can address homelessness in their communities.

For the Department of Social Services, it's primarily to provide additional housing supports to people participating in safety net programs. For example, people that are participating in CalWORKs or are part of the child welfare system. And then, for DHCS, it's primarily been around building infrastructure for people with behavioral health needs.

So that's sort of thematically how we've organized state resources to this point. But I can sort of follow up with more specific details on any of these.

Thank you. But then I know you can understand. And it's difficult for us to engage in oversight and to deal with accountability when there's not a specific goal and objective set out either by us at the state level or by the locals funneled to us at the beginning so that we can measure what the outcome is and whether it's good, bad or indifferent.

That's not your issue. But it's an issue that we have to grapple with at some point. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Certainly, Senator. Ms. Morales, I'm looking at the chart, and I see that Project Roomkey is spelled out. Maybe I'm just forgetting what acronym we used for Project Homekey, but which of these allocations incorporates Project Homekey?

The Homekey is reflected on the table on page 16 of your handout. We have it categorized as a housing program. The Roomkey is administered by the Department of Social Services, whereas Homekey and provides sort of leased rooms that were sort of thought of as more short-term during the height of the pandemic, whereas Homekey allowed local governments to purchase those and have those units available for interim or permanent housing.

And it's administered by HCD. So for that reason, we sort of distinguish Roomkey as a homelessness program and then Homekey is on the housing table in a lower page.

Interesting. This, I think, raises an issue for us in terms of how we look at data is that clearly, our programs that provide the most affordable housing could be viewed as programs in terms of trying to reduce our homelessness. Because obviously, as you pointed out in your opening, the issue of homelessness is primarily a factor of not an adequate housing supply and the cost of housing. There's other factors too, but those are the primary for why California has such a higher proportion of homeless than other states.

However, when we're looking at this, it's just something our subcommittees - I don't know whether I'll ask budget staff to prepare something for us that gives us -

- a little more info on either the directions. Many of these obviously were appropriations, but they had associated trailer bill. Some of them were separate policy bills, but some of them were trailer bill.

And they obviously would communicate in that what the specific objective or the direction in terms of what population and such. But that would be helpful because my understanding of Homekey is that, yes, it is a housing program and it is aimed towards providing permanent housing. It was directed to support people who were unhoused versus a person who may be spending 50% of their income on rent.

Anyway, I'm glad I asked the question because I didn't realize that the LAO had, in terms of the charts, made that distinction. Now, what I'm going to suggest is that we have all of the rest of the panelists speak before we ask questions because I think that they are going to provide us some detail that, as we are already clear, much of this overlaps. And while we won't hear from one of the providers in this next panel, what we will hear from when we do hear from that provider is how they receive.

In effect, it's 10, 12, 35 different sources of funds. And so they are trying to cobble together a lot of things in the delivery of their services. But let us go to our next panel, or rather our next panelist, but hear from all of them before we then ask questions.

So we will start with Dhakshike Wickrema, and I hope that I have not butchered your name who is the Deputy Secretary for Homelessness for Business, Consumer Services, and Housing Agency. Please.

Thank you. Good morning, Chair Skinner, Vice Chair Niello, and members of the committee. As the Chair mentioned, my name is Dhakshike Wickrema, Deputy Secretary of Homelessness at the Business, Consumer Services, and Housing Agency.

Thank you for the invitation to testify today on behalf of the California Interagency Council on Homelessness. A little bit about the Council. So, in 2017, the Interagency Council was established to oversee the implementation of the state's Housing First policies but also to oversee efforts to reduce the prevalence and duration of homelessness in California in 2022.

Last year, the Council was expanded-

Your audio just quit - her video, sorry. But obviously, both. Correct the connection quit.

You might come back on and turn your video off. It might work better.

I'm sorry. Did I?

Yeah, go ahead.

The council has expanded, and really, as you heard earlier, it's to forge collaboration across state government and promote innovative policies and collaboration in local communities across our state. As a result of the expansion last year, the Interagency Council now has an advisory committee comprised of 31 community members, and these include people with lived experience, people from our local communities, stakeholders like Doug Shoemaker, with expertise in solutions to housing.

It also includes people who have served in committees. Smallwood-Cuevas to address racial disparities, which you mentioned. The advisory committee is structured as a direct complement to the state council to provide extensive real-world and practical knowledge that supports state-level coordination efforts. And one way the Cal ICH Council is forging collaboration is in 2021, it adopted the first statewide action plan for preventing and ending homelessness, which is focused on purposeful and action-oriented coordination and policy alignment among the member state departments.

The plan has five major action areas: one, strengthening our collective state systems; two, interventions to assist people experiencing unsheltered homelessness; three, interim housing solutions; four, permanent housing solutions; and five, prevention activities. In September of last year, the council unanimously adopted its first annual update to the action plan, which helped us incorporate the work of the Health and Human Services Agency and the departments that were added at the beginning of 2022 to the council.

So this work continues to this day with an intentional focus on collaborative partnerships that often lie at the intersection of healthcare, social services, and housing, including Homekey. The plan includes over 150 activities across all 18 state council members, state departments, and agencies, each with proposed time frames and specific performance measures ensuring accountability of the state's actions and efforts. As part of our state effort, as the LAO mentioned, we are also starting to track outcomes from a statewide perspective.

So in the spring of 2021, the Cal ICH launched the Homeless Data Integration System, also called HDIS. This is a data warehouse that compiles and aggregates data from all the local continuum of care jurisdictions, and there are 44 of those local jurisdictions in California. HDIS, as it's called, was the first of its kind, and it collects longitudinal, statewide aggregate data on people being served in communities across the state.

This aggregate data informed our research when conducting the first statewide homelessness landscape assessment. This was mandated to Cal ICH by AB 140, which tasked the conducting of a statewide homelessness landscape assessment. Cal ICH, in partnership with researchers at UC Berkeley, UC San Francisco, and Apt Associates, compile data on state programs that were funded, implemented, or administered by state entities to serve people at risk of or experiencing homelessness.

And this study covers a three-year period: from July 1, 2018, to June 30, 2021. Includes three fiscal years: 1819, 1920, and 2021. The report assesses 35 state programs across nine state departments or agencies over the three-year study period.

We are in the final stages of finalizing the report and look forward to sharing this work shortly. And finally, this year, as part of our continuing efforts to track data at the state level, in partnership with the legislature, Cal ICH will be implementing AB 977. To further improve the availability, accuracy, and consistency of data on state-administered homelessness and housing programs, I'm now going to provide a quick overview of our grants, our existing resources, and proposed can you.

Just before you what is the data that you will be collecting specifically under that Bill that you just described?

Got you. So that's a three-year time period. We are looking at how many people were served, what kind of programs they were served through, and what the outcomes were in that three-year study period.

Thank you.

Sure. The Cal ICH grants team is small yet high functioning, and as you heard from the LAO, it administers grant programs such as the Homeless Housing Assistance and Prevention Program, also known as HHAP, and the Encampment Resolution Fund, also known as ERF. The HHAP program is designed to provide locals, including our largest cities, as well as our 58 counties and the 44 continuums of care, with flexible funding to assist their unhoused residents. So, for example, a HHAP recipient at the local level could use these HAP funds in tandem with Homekey projects.

The HHAP could fund the operating subsidies and activate those housing units, which allows people who are unhoused to move in to housing and live in supportive and stable environments. The third round of HHAP last year included a billion dollars in aid over five years to eligible localities, including funds set aside in round three for federally recognized tribal governments in California. The third round required applicants to include in their applications an outline of local needs, the resources they had, two-year performance goals, including goals related to racial disparities, and how they would come up with strategies to meet those goals.

So, in 2024, we will have an opportunity to review those goals and their performance. As the round three resources continue to flow into communities across our state, Cal ICH will continue to work with and monitor participating jurisdictions as they implement their two-year identified goals. And as round three resources are operationalized, the team is currently reviewing applications for the fourth round of HHAP, which will provide another billion dollars in flexible aid, with also the same requirements around goal setting and performance metrics.

As with round three, we continue to be intentional about the need to ensure these resources are being effectively used in support of local action plans and goals to build regional collaboration and capacity at the local level. And now a little bit about encampment resolution. These funds are first established in fiscal year 2021-22 and are designed to assist local communities to engage with people living in unsheltered situations and help them fund the services needed to understand their needs and then help them navigate to stable and permanent supportive housing.

The initial funding for encampment resolution round one was $50 million in 2021-22, which was heavily oversubscribed. And fortunately, the 2022-23 state budget augmented encampment resolution funds to 700 million over the next two fiscal years. So that's 300 million in 22-23 and 400 million in 23-24.

Thanks to this budget augmentation, Cal ICH was able to make additional awards to round one applicants who would have been funded if there had been sufficient resources at the time. Applications for round two are now being accepted on a rolling basis until June 30, 2023. And finally, a quick update on proposed budget investments.

Even amidst a difficult revenue environment, the Governor's proposed budget for fiscal year 23-24 maintains another billion dollars for a fifth round of HHAP. Importantly, the administration looks to work with the legislature to establish an accountability framework to ensure resources continue to be effectively leveraged and supported by communities pursuing best practices in alignment with their respective outcome goals. Moreover, the Administration has proposed to prioritize round five resources to focus on activities such as encampment resolution leverage, Homekey operating sustainability, and Community Assistance Recovery and Empowerment Act Housing supports. So, we look forward to partnering with the legislature in this effort and then encampment resolution funds for fiscal year 23-24.

As I mentioned, the proposed budget includes 400 million for around three. So, all told, these proposed investments will further our collective efforts to provide local communities across our state with the resources and tools to prevent and end homelessness. Thank you again for the invitation to testify today.

I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

All right, we'll go to those questions after we hear from our other panelists. So we'll hear next from Zachary Olmstead, who's the Chief Deputy Director of the California Department of Housing and Community Development.

Thank you, Madam Chair and Committee. I appreciate the opportunity to talk about the importance of HCD's role in addressing the needs of California's experiencing homelessness.

The administration does believe that the work we do in housing is completely integrated and crucial to the state's response to homelessness. HCD's work starts with making sure that every local government is zoned for their housing needs, so there are opportunities to create affordable and permanent supportive housing where collectively, 1 million units will now need to be zoned to accommodate low-income household needs throughout the state. I want to add that all of these plans have to affirmatively further fair housing, which means in order to be deemed compliant, they must have clear plans to address disparities in housing within their communities, as was asked.

While the committee is likely familiar with Homekey, it is important to note as well that nearly every one of HCD's affordable housing programs also seeks to address the need for more homes targeting either extremely low-income or homeless households. In fact, these projects that are the most competitive for awards are those that do so based on how we award scoring points for state objectives. So it is not only Homekey or the No Place Like Home program that is creating much-needed housing for California's experiencing homelessness, but in nearly every federal or state program HCD has administered since 2018 alone, the Department has helped create homes targeted to serve tens of thousands of individual and homeless families experiencing homelessness.

I want to offer a few examples before I talk in detail about Homekey. 47% of the units from our accelerator program were for extremely low-income households at 30% at or below area median income, and many of those, as a subset, were required to serve homeless households. Just for the 21-22 budget year alone. The resources this department deploys for the federal Emergency Solutions Grants programs rehoused nearly 14,000 households and provided emergency shelter for an additional 50,000 people.

The last round of our Housing for a Healthy California program funded the creation of 532 permanent supportive housing units across seven counties, and the No Place Like Home program has created nearly 17,000 housing units, 6300 of which are dedicated to those who are chronically homeless and diagnosed with a mental illness. Homekey is one of our more exciting interventions because it has helped fund and create nearly 13,000 new, permanent, and interim housing solutions for California's experiencing homelessness in much shorter time frames than traditional new construction.

Since its inception in 2020, Homekey has awarded over $2.7 billion to 210 projects across 42 counties and seven tribes. These projects are quickly and cost-effectively creating housing that will serve over 75,000 households over the project's lifetime. HCD also continues to fund the operations of these projects as well, increasing from round two now to up to three years of operating support available compared to the two years we were providing in the first round.

And so, of that, 1.9 billion was awarded in this second round. The funding breaks down to 1.67 billion in capital costs and 282,000,000 in operating costs that we help support. And we're really pleased that in the second round of Homekey, 60% of these round two awardees created permanent housing, up from 39% in round one.

So, in addition to the increased length of the operations awards, we also offered increased operating support if that project was serving persons that were experiencing chronic homelessness or homeless youth. So, as was mentioned earlier, right, those are two of the growth populations in most need. We offered more support if projects are willing to do that.

Some Homekey permanent housing projects commit federal project-based vouchers, which decrease the need for additional HCD support. Other projects can't find or secure project-based vouchers and instead use other federal, state, or local sources to provide short to medium-term funding for project operations. But I am pleased to say that coupled with the HCD operating awards, projects without that project-based vouchers, they generally have operating support for five to seven years right now. Specific to the goals of serving homeless youth-

HCD awarded 156 million for 25 projects, 40 million above the 160 million set aside required by the statute. That funding supported the creation of 535 units for homeless youth, along with seven manager units. And we're also very proud that we continue to provide support and assistance to tribes.

Round two funded an additional six tribal projects, totaling almost 17,000,000, and two of those projects served homeless youth themselves as well. We do plan to use the remainder of the 72.5 million set aside for tribes in a tribal-only notice of funding availability released later this year. And the final notice of funding availability for Homekey generally will be for 736 million, and we are planning to release that in March of this year.

This will be supplemented by that separate tribal notebook of about 75 million. And taken together, those notices of funding availability will exhaust the Homekey funding previously appropriated by the legislature. We are really pleased that local governments continue to be willing partners.

They stepped up in a big way for the second round, and we believe they're ready for round three. I will add we do have a public dashboard for the second round of Homekey, and that data on our website, it reflects the awards HCD has made up to this point. Hotels and motels do continue to be a possible project type, but we are seeing continued interest in modular housing, acquisition of existing multifamily developments, and other adaptive reuses as well.

So, I just want to say that this is only a snapshot of our contribution to homelessness. As a department, we see ourselves as part of that coordinated response.

Research is confirming that homelessness is a housing problem with the housing market, conditions of lack of affordability, and cost of housing driving that increase in homelessness. And we hope that our emphasis on increasing the portfolio for extremely low-income households is a critical piece, one of many to help alleviate these conditions. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Olmstead. I definitely have some questions for you after we hear from our next panelist. And that is Dr. Mark Ghaly, who is our Secretary of California Health and Human Services Agency.

Senators Skinner and members of the committee, thank you for having me join you today. It's really a pleasure to be part of this conversation, mainly because how you open the meeting this is the issue of the day for so many Californians and an important one to our agency. And we see it as a privilege to have been asked to co-chair the Interagency Council with BCSH and the honor to do that with Secretary Castro, Ramirez, and Dhakshike and other members of that team.

We have seven departments of the 18 different departments or agencies in the state on the committee who are HHS departments, including us at the agency. So we certainly have our work cut out for us on being both the innovator and the collaborator that we know we can be to help solve this issue. I just want to say that one of the most important guiding principles for the Health and Human Services Agency is to integrate health and human services.

We often see them as separate issues that we have different departments that have historically kind of gone their own ways on many issues. But I would like to think that we have taken many steps to integrate the approaches at health and human services, broadly speaking, and no issue more than in homelessness, just because I have them to punctuate a few of the details and data points that underscore some of the questions that I know have been asked. I'll just say that since 2018 to 2022, we've seen a 77% increase in chronic homelessness.

And to the question about its nexus, homelessness nexus with mental health, individuals who are categorized or considered chronically homeless have been homeless for many, many months, often over a year, and often have a chronic disabling condition to go along with it. And often those are behavioral health conditions. So we've seen this as the group that has not just grown tremendously in the last year or two, but really a 77% increase since 2018.

Among just to punctuate another point, we know that this is a racial equity issue, a housing equity issue. It is both an upstream and a downstream health issue. And the fact that we've raised up this point that 7% of Californians are black, yet 30% of Californians experiencing homelessness are black.

And to Senator Smallwood-Cuevas' point, that in certain localities, and to your point, Senator Skinner, in certain localities, whether it's the Bay Area or LA, you see that even more punctuated. And then when I arrived in my role four years ago, I was often asked why is this such an important health issue, homelessness, and what would we be doing about it? And I think my view is that because there is four to ten times greater mortality among people experiencing homelessness, this is no doubt a key health issue. Not just a driver of health, but a key health issue that it is next to impossible to support people to improve or regain their health under a bridge or in an encampment.

With the complexity of the conditions individuals experiencing homelessness face, whether it's diabetes and the need to refrigerate medications, or the timely need to take certain medications, whether they're HIV or psychotropic medications, it can make a big difference. And so when I go next into the exact details of two of our main departments that have been highlighted as important innovators and implementers in the housing and homelessness space, it is no doubt that we see this as one of our key efforts and initiatives, that we aren't going to sit on the sideline, that we're not going to just walk by and we're going to continue to innovate and explore new solutions. And I'll share a couple of those with you now. In the Department of Social Services over the past few years through the creation of the Housing and Homelessness Division, there are seven key programs that they operate and run.

You saw from the LAO that it's about $2.3 billion in social services programs. A lot of it is linked and connected to our CalWORKS program. The Homeless Assistant and Housing Supports Program provides that temporary assistance and subsidies for up to 60,000 families that have been impacted, many of them receiving vouchers for temporary housing support with some rental subsidies and hopefully the path towards permanent and supported housing when needed.

The Bring Families Home Program, which focuses on children in the child welfare system, helping support those families in identifying housing, securing that housing so those children could be returned to their families safely and securely. The Housing Disability Advocacy Program, which is an important program that helps us focus on the connection to SSI and SSP, ensuring that members of the community eligible for that support receive navigation and support in identifying housing when it is needed. And then the Home Safe Program, which has a deep connection to the Adult Protective Services Program, with nearly 6000 Californians served in supporting those individuals in achieving housing.

We heard a lot about Project Roomkey. I just want to commend she's on the Zoom as well, Director Kim Johnson for her really groundbreaking work on helping stand this program up in the throes of the pandemic, ensuring that we work with our federal partners to achieve the FEMA reimbursement and support for these programs. And over 61,000 individuals supported with, I believe, about 60% to 80% exiting Roomkey units at a certain time into interim housing and onto permanent housing.

And then the last program worth highlighting is the CCE program, the Community Care Expansion program, which focuses on building up beds estimated to be anywhere from 3000 beds total in our board and care continuum across the state. As you know, Social Services licenses these facilities and supports them along the way. So the ability to make sure that facilities that are, frankly speaking, dilapidated, aged, and falling down in some places have some capital resources to build back up and then also building many more anew.

Shifting quickly to the programs within the Department of Healthcare Services, I think this is a space where California has really led the way, the innovation and the work among the directors and Medicaid Director Jacey Cooper, who's also on the line to promote what I think are groundbreaking innovations within the CalAIM construct, not just the waiver itself in some of the programs that I know.

Senator Skinner, I believe you will be having another oversight hearing and conversation about CalAIM specifically. But as it relates to housing and homelessness California is pushing the envelope as far, if not further, than any other state as it relates to the nexus between Medicaid, which I see as one of our key equity levers in all of our state and all of our nation to really advance the health and address those social drivers of health like housing. And within the various aspects of what CalAIM is achieving or working to achieve, the community supports aspect, as many of you know, 14 community supports, roughly six or seven of them have a real deep nexus to housing and homelessness. For example, the Housing Transition Navigation Program, the ability to provide, to manage care plans, housing deposits to help secure those housing units early. Often that deposits would stand in the way of a Medicaid beneficiary identifying housing and be able to secure it, housing tenancy and support services.

This is something I learned all too well in my days working on housing and homelessness in Los Angeles, that if we just provided the supports and services, the extra hand, the telephone number to call a Medicaid beneficiary with complex behavioral and health needs can successfully be housed and supported in that housing. The landlord's lifeline to somebody other than the tenant to support that tenancy is really important. The ability to fund recuperative care programs across the state that become that clinically enriched housing location, that individuals who might otherwise be experiencing homelessness after a discharge from a hospital or other clinical setting.

The ability to expand recuperative care across the state I think is another important achievement. Short-term post-hospitalization housing, similar to recuperative care provides up to six months of support for those individuals who need that clinically enriched housing program as well as well as rehabilitation programs that also support the activities and the the overall support for people experiencing homelessness. As you know, these are programs that are run through our managed care plans across the state.

They are optional programs for those managed care plans to implement. We are working hard with managed care plans across the state to make sure that many of them take the opportunity to implement all of these programs and to make sure that they are widely available. Beyond CalAIM or associated with CalAIM is something that was just announced the week before last. An enormous step for the state getting the approval from our federal partners for what we affectionately call our Justice Initiative.

And this is something that's going to allow us for individuals either in prisons or jails or juvenile detention facilities across the state who are beneficiaries or eligible for Medicaid to receive in-reach and clinical services in specific areas 90 days before they're released. I'll remind you that historically, because of the inmate exclusion, when you are arrested and put in jails or juvenile detention facilities, your benefits are suspended and even terminated in some cases. California, working with our federal partners said that doesn't make any sense.

This is the time when individuals need some of these services the most. We know that certain jails and even prisons discharge individuals not just without their medications, without their follow up appointments, but without a place to go into homelessness. I know this all too well from my experiences in Los Angeles. And this is an opportunity because of this new initiative that starting in 2024 and rolling out hopefully to full expansion in 2026, not an optional service, but because of AB 133 required that this is statewide, that we support individuals with their clinical needs, but also those warm handoffs to services and supports like housing after they're released. And then of course, that all backs into a whole set of important services that are envisioned through CalAIM that go beyond that justice initiative. On top of that, the Department is working hard on what we call the California Behavioral Health Community-Based Continuum Waiver.

This is another 1115 waiver opportunity that some people in our state call the IMD waiver. I'm often asked when are we going to apply for IMD waiver from various counties and others across the state. We are in the planning process for that waiver, have shared it broadly with stakeholders, waiting actually the first comment period has closed. Intention to submit that to our federal partners later this year, hopefully late summer, early fall.

There is proposed funding, well, there's funding proposed in the governor's budget to support this and it will allow us over a five-year period to leverage both local and state funding in the total of $6 billion to support individuals with severe behavioral health condition to really move those out of the institution focus into the community based focus, again why it's called the community-based continuum waiver opportunity and something that we are hoping to engage with all of you over the next many months.

Just to round out, there are two other key programs, infrastructure-based programs, the CHIP program, I think, highlighted by the LAO at $2.2 billion over a number of different rounds. One round proposed in the governor's budget to be delayed a year or two because of the budget situation. But with over a billion dollars already out the door for that program, I think something that the department and we are really proud of putting into motion.

And then the Behavioral Health Bridge Housing program, $1.5 billion that we expect, 1.25 billion made available to local jurisdictions for immediate solutions to help support individuals who need housing with severe behavioral health conditions. We highlighted at the top of this conversation that roughly 30% to 40% of people experiencing homelessness have a serious behavioral health condition. And we know that having a dedicated funding source to work with the services in the local jurisdictions to house individuals is going to be key.

And then I'll round it out with the department's support working with agency to implement the CARE Act across the state with the first cohort of counties going later this year. Senator Skinner, I wonder as I sort of wrap up, I had a number of closing comments, but just watching the clock and knowing that I need to leave in just about five to ten minutes to get to another meeting, I did write down all of the questions, not all of many of the questions from members of the committee to be able to respond

You mean from your comments earlier? It may be relevant for you to do your best to try to answer those now, if you can quickly because I'm sure now people have some more for you due to what you just presented. But I want to thank you for the presentation, but please proceed.

Sure. And I just want to say that the questions are on point and right on. The governor talks about accountability in the homelessness space, among others, but he does with a lot of passion and energy because he knows that despite all of these investments, we haven't moved the need like we expect to or certainly like we want to. And that accountability and transparency issue that Dhakshike and Zach and others have begun to highlight is something that's really important to us as well. And I just want to answer a few of these questions as I wrap up my comments. Senator Laird, you asked about per capita counts. I think we can certainly work as an administration to provide the data in that way.

I would say that even in counties with lower total PIT counts, we know that some of the tools that are being advanced through the Health and Human Services departments to support building up infrastructure and those relationships are available. So I tell every local official, especially city administrators and mayors, that they should go and set up an appointment with their local health plan CEO to talk about where are the opportunities to address the local homelessness conditions and issues through things like Enhanced Care Management, which is a statewide benefit under CalAIM, or any of the number of community supports. I know that pushing the health plans by local elected officials is going to make these programs more likely to scale faster, be higher quality, and address those local conditions no matter what the PIT count is.

We know that every county has a slightly different and complicated story on how they're going to address homelessness, and we want to be by every county's side in doing that. Senator Roth, you raised a number of issues, but the mental health and homelessness nexus I discussed how we see one of the fastest growing groups among those counted within the point-in-time counts are those people experiencing chronic homelessness. No doubt that this has a stronger connection to issues of substance use disorders and mental illness.

We can talk about the opportunities under the CARE Act to really urge both the increased referral of individuals with psychotic disorders into the systems that can provide support and care for them, including marrying housing with treatment and supports. And this sort of three-legged stool, if you will, is a critical piece of what I hope you and we will continue to focus on. Doing one of those legs without the others is usually ineffective and we certainly don't get the kind of impact.

So as you talk about accountability and I will say we also are looking for our own ways to be more accountable to you and to the public, increasing transparency with data and dashboards, setting our own metrics so the Behavioral Health Infrastructure Program at the Department of Healthcare Services, we know that roughly speaking, we are going to get about 200,000 new treatment slots for that first billion dollars that has been put into communities already. The next billion dollars we hope to see the same level of opportunity.

So when you ask questions, well, what's the data, what's the proof? What are we tracking towards? We can give you for both the Behavioral Health Infrastructure Program, our community care expansion program, some rough goals, and metrics that we hope we will be transparent in tracking and you can hold us accountable to. Senator Padilla, I think you raised the question around effectiveness of these programs as well. Do we have the data? Do we have goals? We have some of that.

We can share that with you either in Q and A here in a bit or certainly after this hearing. Senator Durazo, you raised the issue of economic evictions. And I can proudly say, and I know Director Johnson will have more to say on this that the programs that DSS has focused on, whether it's under the guise of supporting families in CalWORKS or bringing families home or with our focus on older, other vulnerable Californians as it relates to adult protective services.

We see the CalWORS program, CalFresh, SSI, SSP as key programs to support individuals to basically make ends meet, to be able to afford that increase in rent, as the LAO has said, and to be able to provide additional support for individuals in those programs in those moments of need. And I think the structure of some of these programs is allowing us to do that.

Could we be even more creative and more flexible? Absolutely. And I certainly push our teams to do that more and more. Senator Smallwood-Cuevas, I think your point is one that is key, that this is an issue not just broadly of racial equity, but it is an issue that predominantly and disproportionately impacts Black Californians. I remember when we first put together and others on this panel will remember the same, a working group, a task force to look at Black people experiencing homelessness in Los Angeles some seven to eight years ago. The findings of those initial reports still stand today.

We haven't made the kind of progress we need to. We are in our programs putting in some metrics and measures and incentives even to closing the racial disparities around access to CalAIM programs. So Jacey Cooper can speak to this a little bit more, but we were deliberate in identifying the needs of specific populations, in particular Black Californians, even though they make up just under 7% of the Medicaid population. We know the disproportionality in experiencing homelessness. And I will also say that we have some new opportunities to address these racial disparities. And HHS is not in a position as much to address some of the long-standing systemic issues around housing discrimination. Although we want to figure out if you see a role for us in that space, we are excited to jump in.

But certainly, in working on issues like getting the workforce to look and understand the communities experiencing homelessness, our new community health worker benefit, which we see as this broad tool to help us do better, smarter, more complete outreach and engagement with our homeless service providers across the state and providing dollars through our Path Program, which Jacey can also speak about, to help support more grassroots, community-based homeless service providers to benefit from some of these resources and dollars that often flow through what have historically been confusing Medicaid programs. Also, I'll wrap up by saying, Senator Dahle, I really appreciate the point of a 30,000-foot view and that counties and cities are concerned about the one-time nature of funding.

And I would say, and I think my colleagues on the panel would agree, that sure, there are certain dollars, especially some of the capital funding that are one-time in nature, but the programs, whether they're in the Department of Social Services or in the Department of Healthcare Services or a number of other departments in our agency like state hospitals or developmental services or the Department of Aging, there are ongoing resources that are provided. And as much as Medicaid is that tool, I urge local leaders to come together with their Medicaid plans to see what the opportunities are.

Because as much as there are benefits under Medicaid, they can be lasting. Resources have a lasting impact, not just on the individuals, but the communities at large. So although we will always have the conversation about one-time versus ongoing funding in some areas, I think in some of the areas that I presented, there are real opportunities to see them as long-term funding sources to support not just the creativity and the thinking, but hopefully, and I'll end with this last statement that the hope in this issue that I believe that if our life depended on it, we could in fairly rapid fashion figure out ways for our unsheltered Californians, our brothers and sisters living and experiencing homelessness on our streets to find a place indoors. We have the innovators. We have the spirit of community and collaboration.

We have built bridges between those local and state opportunities. And I would like to think and believe that through the leadership of this committee, the entire Legislature with the administration and the governor that we can build those bridges and see significant improvement in our counts and more than that in the lives and life trajectory of people experiencing homelessness. So as I opened, it's a privilege to be here, I know I didn't answer all of the questions. There's probably many more that either I or our team will answer. But with that, I'll turn it back to you, Senator Skinner, and thank you for doing this.

Thank you, Dr. Ghaly. I'm going to ask folks, I have a list, but I'm going to ask you to please for the ones I'm going to call on, direct your questions, Dr. Ghaly, and try to make them brief because he has such little time. But I'll also quickly point out that he referred to AB 133. That was the health omnibus trailer bill for 21-22. So you can find much of what he's describing in that bill. And additionally, we are having an oversight hearing on CalAIM.

A good amount of what he's talked about, not all, of course, is ways that he has proposed and we adopted to expand our ability to use Medi-Cal for such services as, for example, emergency rental assistance for a certain period of time for food, for some things like that. But let me go to Senator Roth, then I have Senator Eggman and Senator Laird. And again, for right now, questions to Dr. Ghaly.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll make it quick. Dr. Ghaly, I want to thank you and the administration for beginning to pivot our housing and mental health funding to deal with the increase in the percentage of homeless with serious mental health issues that we now find on our streets. The second is a comment, hopefully for discussion with you later, and that's this. I hope you and the administration will consider expanding our acute psychiatric treatment capacity within this state to deal with those who are on the street with serious mental issues who are not quite ready for residential or community treatment facilities. Perhaps you and I can have that conversation later. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Yes, Senator Roth, thank you and I look forward to that conversation with you soon.

Great. Senator Eggman.

Thank you very much. And thank you, Dr. Ghaly, for your remarks and your presentation. I think I want to give a little bit of voice to both our frustration and a little voice to our hope. I think it is hard to do oversight on something that is so massive and has so many tentacles. You feel like you're at a big massive lake with all these little inlets going out and we feel a huge sense of responsibility to help people and to do something effective with that funds. But I think because of nature, it is so big, it is very hard for us all to get our arms around it and feel like we're able to properly deliver the oversight that I know we want to.

I like to make the comment that the massive amount of money that we have put out, I think to Senator Dahle's point, feels frustrating because oftentimes the city and county experience is disconnected and from the state, and then the people fall down on the bottom somewhere else. But I do believe going forward that we do have a renewed amount of hope in CalAIM. But I think the oversight and the coordination between the counties and the plans and the people who are doing that provision of care is going to be really key.

I think that's where the rubber is going to hit the road is that actual providing of that ongoing funding to that point. And also I'm very excited about the continuum of care innovation grant, again more ongoing funding as well as the justice informed new funding coming in because that's all going to be that overtime funding that's going to continue to come, that's hopefully going to unlock a lot of the power of what we've already done through infrastructure. I think more needs to be done, but as we continue to go forward, I don't think we can overstress enough now the real coordination that needs to happen at the county, the city, and the state integration about unlocking those funds and making sure they're used to the best of their ability.

And again, thank you very much. And you also have the same hope going forward that we're going to actually be able to put people in those beds and make sure that they're able to move down to the least restrictive level of care in the most expedient manner.

Dr. Ghaly, I don't know if you. Go ahead.

I just want to say, Senator Eggman, well said. Amen to all that you said. And I failed to highlight probably one of the most significant ongoing structural opportunities which came through the managed care procurement that was just completed and that is this year coming together. And in those new envisioned 2024 contracts with managed care plans, you should each take a look at the expectation on plans. The support we have to give them to meet those expectations is what I think you're talking about.

But the requirement to work with not just your county health folks, but your county social services folks, your county child welfare folks, your county probation and sheriff, the county, the CoCs, and other homeless services providers. The plans are on the hook for doing more to reach out and welcome in to the Medicaid tent all of these groups. So to your point, Senator Eggman, we're creating the avenues to do that. Now we just have to be dogged and making sure that people have the time and resources to make the most of those connections and opportunities.

All right, so I have Senator Laird, then Senator Niello, and then I will open up the floor for questions, the other panelists in addition to Dr. Ghaly. Go ahead, Senator Laird.

Thank you. My question was for all the panelists, but I want to maybe pose it to Dr. Ghaly before he goes because I think, and Senator Eggman was channeling my subject when she talked and Assemblymember Stone and I got money in the year before last because when I would come up here on Monday morning, I would drive by a campground of about 400 people at the intersection of two freeways, and it was in the city. And the city was expected to respond.

And they weren't eligible for these programs, and there was nothing they could do. And they were in the front line, and the county was not at the time necessarily helping them. And they just dismantled the campground in advance of the flood by offering us every single person a place to sleep, and only about 40% took it.

But it was the first time there was not a legal challenge on the campground. And they initiated all this before there was a campground program and campground money. And then the money runs out for the shelter that they have in the late summer, and there's not ongoing money, and it does not come to the city.

And so then when I met with the county, the county said, well, the real problem there is there's no accountability. We're not in charge, and we're not in a role that we can guide and direct this. And I was floored to find out that this is the front and center major issue in our local area, and nobody felt like they were in charge of it in any way.

And it was only an infusion of state money that allowed the most public thing to be dealt with. And so I have to say that, and Dr. Ghaly, you were really focused on the medical side of the equation. But if I went back and said we had a hearing and it was like, call up somebody and make an appointment, I would have probably had the desk thrown at me because I don't feel like they feel like it's coordinated or it's coming in a way that is user friendly.

Or that because when I went to every single homeless service outlet program in my district over the fall supervised parking, comprehensive centers, veterans, womens, places, that it's starting in different places, like buying a Motel 6, building tiny homes. A lot of them did it without the knowledge that they were going to get state money in the process.

They were just moving ahead and doing it, which is what made it hard to hear that they weren't doing their part and there was not accountability. So this is an oversight hearing. And when we looked at the document provided by the LAO, maybe it's there somewhere, but I did not see the word accountability and I did not see the statistics of what's resulting from each of the line items that we were presented in great detail. And so if I'm to go back home, they're going to want to know how many people are actually getting served by this. And I heard Dr. Ghaly refer to a dashboard. And is it successful? Are there numbers that are really proving it in a way that we can guide whatever the budget investment is? And so I think that the thing was when I read this thoughtfully from the LAO, it was just a long list of things and it didn't have what it was providing and it was unclear where the accountability was and the coordination between all the programs.

And I know that's a random that, Dr. Ghaly, you have to leave. And that was a big menu of things to talk about, but that's sort of what I was trying to channel into this hearing because I want to go back and tell people, okay, these are the ways to use the system. This is what it's provided. And if we go into budget hearings this year, we know what's been successful with the numbers and what might not and be able to guide what the investment is. So I was hoping everybody would, but Dr. Ghaly, you're leaving. And so I don't know if you wish to just take a stab at that.

Let's see if he can. But meanwhile, later, when we ask everyone questions, Mr. Olmstead, for example, gave some numbers, but we don't have them before us. So it is perfectly appropriate for us to ask for that detail. But go ahead, Dr. Ghaly.

Yeah, I think because of time, and Senator Laird, always happy to connect with you to talk about this more specifically. But I think the quick answer is we have been, and I think if you take notice of the governor's approach to addressing questions on homelessness, he ends up in the accountability space. That we have accountability not just of the state programs, but to make sure that dollars and efforts that are provided through the state are accountable at the local level.

And I think when you peel away or you look at the history of what accountability has meant, it has often meant a little bit more finger-pointing than any of us would like and less sitting down and coming together. And I think the work that Dhakshike and BCSH is pushing, our Interagency Council is pushing not just at the state level, but at the local level to take accountability of partnership more seriously, to take accountability around using and leveraging these opportunities. If I had more time, I could tell you stories.

When we brought people in the courts together with the people in the homeless services and the health services sector, where they often ask each other questions around, why didn't we take more advantage of some of these other opportunities that the state has made available? And it's in those conversations that we see people pushing a little harder, pushing a little further, and frankly, pushing through the standard. And what I'm going to say, old and stale excuses for why we haven't been able to do this. So I think that there's a lot more to do in this space.

Transparency, dashboards, communicating clear goals is part of it. But I also think all elected leaders, including everybody on dais today, I think we have a responsibility to push our local partners to be more aggressive and more active in those partnership conversations because there's a lot there that I personally think we're not tapping into and we have more to do. But Senator Skinner, I apologize for having to jump right now. This has been a very rich conversation. Again, a privilege to be part of it. And I'm sure I'll have a chance to engage many of you in future conversations soon enough. So with that, Senator Skinner, if it's okay with you, I'm going to sign off and leave it in the very capable hands of Barin Buchanan, Director Johnson, and our Medicaid director, Jacey Cooper.

Okay.

Madam Chair, I would just say before he signs off, I will follow up. I appreciate his comments. And the money that came from the state budget did force wonderful cooperation from people that weren't cooperating before. Thank you very much

And just for all of us, I think we did hear from various presenters so far some numbers. For example, we heard, if I heard it correctly from Mr. Olmstead, that 75,000 households had benefited and I could have heard it wrong, which I thought was a very large number, seemed way too high to me. But he also mentioned 535 units for homeless youth.

There were some other specifics Dr. Ghaly around the board and care beds. And I think all of us would probably would very much like to see against each of these allocations what either number of units or number of people served or that kind of thing. So I think that would be something we all will request. But in the meantime, Senator Niello.

Excuse me. Thank you, Madam Chair. My thought is much along the lines that's just being discussed right now. Often in the Assembly, Senator Laird and I channeled each other on certain points and he is today. And the word accountability is used a lot. I guess that's what I'm after here. But in the time frame of these expenditures and the array of programs and the amount of expenditures are impressive indeed.

But during that exact same time frame, homelessness by the count and the graph in here has increased by almost a third. Now it could be that absent these programs, homelessness would have doubled. I don't know, because we don't have the data. What I'm looking for are results. Now we have statistics of numbers of people served or households served or whatever, but what have these programs accomplished in terms of actually reducing the number of people that are living on the streets?

Mr. Olmstead, I don't know if either or whether Ms. Wickrema would be able to answer that or whether you want to get back to us.

I can offer a perspective from housing to answer your question, Senator Skinner. When I quoted the 75,000 number that's over the lifetime of these projects. So I think it's actually quite important that we remember that. We often think about housing and the created housing as a one-time investment. And I was going to elaborate a little bit more on the next panel, but these serve, these statutory require the affordability covenants on our projects for 55 years.

So they serve, in a very conservative estimate, seven different households over the lifetime of that project. So that's what I was quoting, 75,000 already over the lifetime of these projects.

I thought you made that specific to Homekey.

That's just specific to Homekey. 75,000 specific to the Homekey units we've already created. In terms of the broader question about housing, I also finished my comments saying something we agree with, at least at our department, that homelessness is a housing problem. And the data shows that increases in housing cost directly correlate to increase in homelessness. And that is what we have seen in 2016, is a drastic increase in housing cost.

All right, I've got Senator Ochoa Bogh and then Senator Durazo. Go ahead. Yes.

So thank you for that comment. It is actually on that point, it's a great segue to my question. As far as the construction cost, on the very first page for the Legislative Analyst Office, we see that the average California home costs 2.2 times the national average.

And on that, I have a question with regards to the following. There's an estimate by the National Association of Home Builders that for every $1,000 increase in the average cost of homes, 12,400 households can no longer afford to buy a home in California. I don't really see any broad proposals from the governor to do anything to actually bring down the cost of housing as opposed to offering subsidies.

And the failure to help reduce the actual cost of housing is hurting lower income families the most. Should the state be doing more to reverse the way state policies make a housing more affordable? Or two, should we create an oversight committee to assess the way that policy impacts the cost of housing in California being one of the at the forefront of housing affordability in the state of California? Senator

Senator Ochoa Bogh, this panel is on homelessness. The next panel is on affordable housing. I'm hoping that Mr. Olmstead is part of the second panel. There's a number of others. I hope that they can answer that question in that second panel. I'm just conscious of time, and we have session today, so I know I'm going to have a hard stop well before session. So I'm going to hold your question, and then I'm going to call on and ask, please, that these be around the homeless part. And then we will move to the next panel. Senator Durazo followed by Senator Seyarto.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Last week on the issue of budget and public transportation, I met with transit agencies from LA and the Bay Area. And in both meetings, the issue of homelessness and funding for homelessness was raised. Public transportation sites often operate as de facto shelters for individuals who are homeless. But also it has an impact on the employees, has an impact on the writers, has an impact on the individuals themselves, especially if they're in an acute crisis, but also provides an opportunity to connect these individuals because of where they're at to the local systems of care. So the issue that was raised is that transit agencies are not able to access state dollars directly.

Under current law, funding flows to counties and Continuums of Care, but these entities are not required even to consult with or consider the needs of transit agencies as they develop their plans. So I guess my question is funding creating or dedicated source of funding to address homelessness that transit agencies could access and to provide better coordination with the transit agencies? Anyone or whoever can answer that.

Panelists? Either one.

Maybe it's appropriate for me to mention one thing. I mean, we implement the programs as they're given to us. Of course.

Your audio. Oh, dear. This audio is not working now.

He's not even frozen either.

Yeah. Apologies, we still can't hear you. This is so fun. Maybe turn off your video for a moment. Let's see if we can hear you then. All right, go ahead, try again. No, it's not working. Sorry, Mr. Olmstead. Okay, right. It's a problem with our connection here.

Senator Smallwood-Cuevas and then have all answers at once. Okay. Okay. And then we want time for the next panel and for public comments. So go ahead, Senator Seyarto.

Thank you. So I kind of want to try to summarize from the panelists we've got lots of councils that are representative of of the stakeholders out there. We have a bunch of data that people are using to try to get a grasp on what program should be developed. We already have a bunch of programs, as stated by my colleague from, well, I guess El Dorado Hills area, Fair Oaks. Excuse me. We're spending a lot of money on this.

And the accountability part is, I mean, if if somebody came and and gave us all this information, you think, oh, okay, that's where it's all going. But the problem at the end of the day is California is an abject failure to be able to reduce the amount of homelessness in California. And I would like to know from the panelists and I heard from Mr. Olmstead already, one of them is housing.

But I'd like to hear in one or two words what they think is are the obstacles to our success in addressing this.

Great let's Senator Smallwood-Cuevas and then we'll see. I'll summarize the questions and let our panelists answer. Go ahead.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And I guess I wanted to follow up on the data that we want to see come back in terms of what programs are we funding? How many folks are served? What's the demographics of those folks who have been served? I think what I took away from Mr. Ghaly's presentation and Ms. Rickramina conversation earlier is that as we see the disparity in the communities, like the Black community, that is just ravaged by this crisis, we spent most of the time of the big investment on identifying the problem, but not actually investing targeted resources to address those very specific and unique ways that we can put out the fire that's burning in this community.

And I say why this is incredibly important is because if we can figure out ways to address the unique ways in which this community, yet so small numerically, but represents such a huge portion of those who are unhoused, who are homeless, we essentially take a lot of the crisis out of the crisis. And so it's beneficial for all Californians to figure out how do we address specifically and uniquely this very small population that holds so much of the burden.

And what I heard from Mr. Ghaly is that we have identified the challenges and solutions, but we actually haven't resourced them and we haven't even set goals for them. And that, to me, says that this crisis is going to be long from over because we're talking this one population holds 40% of the problem. If we haven't even started to set goals and invest in solution, we're going to be in this crisis for far much longer.

So I want to follow up with Mr. Ghaly and the full team to understand how we are accelerating the solution and for this committee, how do we ensure we're prioritizing investment in implementing those solutions intentionally and directly. And I think we need that data to see who is participating in which of these programs and what is the impact in that community. The second question I wanted to.

I'm going to take that not as a question they can answer today, but they can give us information later. Then can you give your second question? I've got Senator Padilla and then I want to get those answers and start that other panel.

And this is Mr.. Thank you, Madam Chair. This is to Mr. Homestead where we were talking about the number of projects.

And my question is, what is the data that we are actually investing in those individuals who are homeless and at-risk at homeless and building career pathways as we are building the affordable housing? I think this is an opportunity, as we talked about earlier, the folks who are on the cusp because of the economic crisis. And let's face it, this is a 40 year crisis in the making in which we have shifted from a unionized industrial, well-paid economy into a service low-wage economy. And part of our long term solution is how do we create more quality, good paying jobs for all Californians to really address this crisis.

So even in this moment, the construction itself is a tool to pull those folks at risk and those in homelessness off the edge because we're putting them into careers to build the housing that California needs, whether it's the affordable housing, whether it's the beds, whether it's the long term home ownership that my colleague talked about earlier. Where is the data that's showing that these high numbers of folks who are at risk or who are currently in homelessness that we can move them into a job readiness, on the job apprenticeship program to have careers in solving the problem?

I doubt that they're going to have that data right in front of them, but we will add it to the list of things that we are going to be asking for in writing later. Senator Padilla.

Thank you, Madam Chair. In the interest of time, I will just ask that the relevant staff or Department return respond to these in a different venue. But certainly programmatic data collection is important.

What I'm looking for is integrated net impact, programmatic impact. And from listening and reviewing the LAO's analysis, I'm not real sure that we even have because we don't have a lot of program data collection, we don't have any kind of net impact, integrated programmatic sort of analysis. When we're looking at funds that are directed at reducing homelessness as to how that expenditure breaks out in total, how much of it's focused on permanent housing shelters, transitional programs, rental assistance, and on the flip side of that, what is the rates of success look like and where are those folks going? How many of them are remaining status quo? How many of them are going back to being unsheltered or homelessness and how many of them are being placed? So sort of that analysis, I think is missing.

But it's not enough, in my view, to just collect units served or individuals served. It's the impact side of the equation that's relevant. And another one, Madam Chair, is just for BCSH, I would just say an update on the timing of the landscape assessment release and then a focus on what, in fact, additional data or analysis will be provided as part of that assessment that isn't already largely available.

And thank you, Madam Chair.

Great. You're welcome. So we are having some connectivity issues, but let me summarize what I took, the note I took from the questions. And what I'm going to suggest is that we will give those in writing to the Administration, to the panelists, to get back in writing.

So those questions were what were the issue around the transit operators and whether there has been cooperation and what might be suggested because and around the funding, then the obstacles to success. The other question was on terms of the data that we've been requesting it's, how many people have been served, the demographics of those who have served, what in the services, how many have received permanent housing, how many in transitional, how many solely shelter? And I think there was one other aspect of that. Which of the housing or which of those served also have services related to their housing? Those were the questions that I got from this last series that we will ask for in writing.

And since we are still having connectivity issues, let me just ask, does that mean that we would not be able to hear from any callers in? Okay, well, we could at least hear from those who are in the. We have a second panel, but because of the connectivity issues, we would not even be I mean, a third panel. Please. Apologies.

We would not be able to hear from them. So what I might suggest, given the time, is that we would reschedule just that one because it is on affordable housing. It is different, not completely different as we have already heard from the homeless services, but somewhat different in terms of what we have funded.

So what I might do is reschedule that and ask now for those in our hearing room. We could take public comment from those in our hearing room since that is available to us. But let me just quickly check in with staff for a moment before I do that.

All right, so how we're going to proceed is we're going to hear from those in the room for public comment, and then we will hear from those on the phone, and we will submit to our panelists the questions that we've gotten in writing so that we can get them back. And we will reschedule the panel that is on affordable housing. Okay? So in terms of public comment, those in the audience, you can come up to the mic and make your comment and then we will turn to the phones. Go ahead.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair. Members. Chris Mckaley on behalf of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority. I think through the Chair, Senator Durazo has identified a key issue. Obviously, the homeless population is utilizing our transit systems, including in L.A. for shelter at this time.

And we are trying to recover ridership from the time of the pandemic. And so addressing this is very important for transit agencies statewide, including in Los Angeles County. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Great, thank you. I'm going to just read the phone number for those who are going to add their public comment on the phone lines before I get to our next person who's here in the hearing room. The participant number today is 877-226-8163. The access code is 4400595. Now witness in the hearing room. Go ahead.

Good afternoon, Honorable Chair Skinner and Members. Amy Hines-Shaikh with Wildcat Consulting. The California Community Land Trust Network appreciates the 500 million dollar investment in the Foreclosure Intervention Housing Preservation program.

HCD has just finalized their guidelines, and we understand it is proceeding through the request for applications process. We are excited to begin bringing this funding to our communities as soon as possible. We have noticed the reduction in Cal Home funds in the Governor's proposed budget.

We sincerely believe that now is the moment more than ever that those funds need to be used in the most efficient way possible. And we are proposing that the Community Land Trust model be permitted to utilize existing Cal Home funds, which would be authored by Assembly Member Ward this year. Finally, we do hope that the Community Antidisplacement and Preservation Program get over the finish line this year.

Thank you so much and please invest in the cap. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Kim Lewis, representing the California Coalition for Youth. We advocate on behalf of young people experiencing homelessness throughout the state. And when I appreciate the Legislature's always continued investment of calling out our young people who end up sleeping on the streets. I have a great discussion today around point in time counts and other things.

And what I would note is they are imperfect measures. We know that. For our young people. I would take a look at the Voices of Youth Count out of Chapin Hall, which has a lot of good, really, prevalence data around our young people.

One in ten youth between 18 to 24 experiencing homelessness at point in time, one in 30 for those under 18, over representation of our Black and brown youth as well as LGBTQ youth within the homeless youth population. When we see increased targeted investments in our youth, we are seeing reductions in that in the point in time counts as well as in community investments. I would also say we should be doing more for our youth because again, as we are supporting them during their transitional phases, as they are growing up to becoming safe and stably housed.

And so what I mean by that is our accountability measures we have to think about differently for our young people than we do for our adult populations, because they need to be moving into safe and stable housing, whereas exits out of chronic homelessness are for permanent housing. So measures are different. So do not hold the same expectations from our chronic populations and overall adult populations for our young people, because there are different things that we're trying to accomplish for. Transitional interim housing, more of that is needed for our youth.

And so I would encourage Homekey and I know we're working with Senator Menjivar around working to expand that. So it makes it make sense for our young people and the programs serving our youth so that we can have programs that are youth-develop focused, positive youth development and really culturally competent and doing the work on the ground to support our young people. I have a lot more love to say.

If you need any resources, happy to talk around how do we address this, especially for our young people. Thank you.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and Members, Yasmin Pellet on behalf of Justice and Aging, thank you so much for holding this important hearing. One issue I'd like to uplift is something that wasn't addressed today, which is homelessness amongst older adults in California. Older adults have become the fastest growing age group experiencing homelessness in California.

With 45% of California's homeless individuals now over the age of 50. Many of those folks are becoming unhoused for the first time in their entire lives. Since 2017, the number of unhoused older adults over the age of 65 has increased by more than 131%, with Black older adults overrepresented in that population as well. While we're appreciative of the many efforts that the Administration and the Legislature have implemented in recent years, many of which were discussed today, there have been few targeted investments specifically to address older adult homelessness.

Specifically, when we look at the rental affordability crisis, older adults are most likely to struggle with rent unaffordability. And specifically, as older renters age, they face increased likelihood that they've either depleted their savings or they've lost a spouse, resulting in older renter households over the age of 75 facing the highest cost burden of all older adults. The Master Plan for Aging does have a primary goal of preventing and ending older adult homelessness.

With rental assistance as a key strategy in this next round of new initiatives, we would urge the Legislature to specifically address the issue of older adult homelessness and help older renters. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Hi, Justin Garrett with the California State Association of Counties, representing all 58 counties in California. CSAC has identified homelessness as our top advocacy priority this year and really appreciate today's informative and meaningful budget hearing to make further progress on this. The recent one-time investments have really helped counties innovate and invest in successful strategies, and we're excited to see them included in the budget proposals moving forward.

However, we believe that more must be done to achieve some significant and meaningful progress on homelessness in the development of a comprehensive system. So CSAC is currently engaged in an association-wide efforts to develop a comprehensive system that identifies gaps and barriers within the existing system that defines clear roles and responsibilities for all levels of government and that maps out necessary tools and resources needed to curb the growing homelessness crisis. Informed by the collaborative effort of several working groups, we're working to identify those policy changes that are needed across a range of issues, including housing prevention, workforce data systems, the unsheltered response system, and sustainable funding.

So counties are eager to partner with the Legislature, with the Administration, with cities, and all other partners to develop a comprehensive homelessness response system. Thank you so much.

Good day. Mark Stivers with the California Housing Partnership. I think we all know that the solution to homelessness actually is an affordable home. And we at the partnership, in addition to housing, California published The Roadmap Home 2030 and it shows that we need 1.2 million new additional units of affordable rental housing to meet the needs of low-income families over a ten year period in California, including those who are experiencing homelessness.

And even after we account for the cost reductions that we also propose in the plan through various streamlining measures that costs about $17.9 billion per year to really meet the need. I know that's a lot of money, I know that we're experiencing a deficit. But to put that in perspective, it is equal to what we spend on higher education in California in any given year, which is also a state priority.

The last few years, again, if you take that 1.2 million number, it's 120,000 new units per year. We have basically hit records in the last years by producing 25,000 affordable units. So we are like less than one fifth of the total when we're at the peak of our production.

And the reality is that the resources are actually declining, as the LAO charts show. And most of the resources that we have for affordable rental housing that are at the state-level are one-time not much guaranteed beyond the current budget cycle. We very much appreciate what the Governor has proposed in this budget.

I mean, it's not at the scale we would like, but it's a good start. But I just want to put it in context, in perspective of what it will actually take to address the housing needs of low-income Californians and by extension, solve homelessness. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Madam Chair and Members, Chris Martin, on behalf of Housing California. I want to thank you for organizing this informative hearing and for your commitment over the years to addressing what is our state's top crisis and priority. As we've heard, these investments over the years have been extremely meaningful, resulting in the increased capacity of our local homeless response system and resulting in thousands of new affordable units.

But one example in San Diego for specifics is last year they were able to house about 11,000 people in their given year. This is their continuum of care. But in the same period, 15,000 people fell into homelessness for the first time.

As Mark mentioned, we have worked on analysis of what it would take to actually end this crisis, and that has identified a need of about $18 billion annually. And despite these recent budgets, we're still falling well short of this level of funding. We must continue to fund at scale and bring on policy changes that can expedite these measures and increase new affordable housing preservation, production, and resources to end homelessness. Thank you for your commitment.

Thank you.

Hello, Madam Chair and Members. My name is Monet Boyd of the Black Housing Advisory Task Force. Black people have been disadvantaged in the state's housing market and the state housing programs for decades because of discrimination, including redlining, unequal access to wealth and good jobs and other systemic problems. And as we've seen in the data today, no major California ethnic group is as overrepresented in the state's homelessness count as Black people.

And of the more than 150,000 Californians who experience homelessness on any given night, nearly 30% are Black. Other government actions that have led to severe disparities in wealth, housing stability, and health include imminent domain, predatory lending and state sanctioned housing discrimination. Black-serving organizations face systemic underinvestment and structural barriers that prevent scaling up housing and community development solutions that work. While California's housing crisis and the existing state housing and homeless programs disproportionately impact Black communities, to date there has been no targeted solution to address Black displacement.

What is required but lacking is a coordinated and targeted response. A targeted solution is needed for an issue rooted in racial injustice. In 2022, California's Reparations Task Force called for urgent action on Black housing.

Yet to date, Government Newsom and the state have failed to address the housing crisis facing black communities and our families in the state. So we're calling for the California Legislature to include $300 million per year for five years in the state budget to establish a California Black Housing Fund. This fund will be a tool to create a virtuous cycle of development with three interrelated categories project development to increase housing access for Black families and support Black-led developers and organizations to bring brick and mortar projects to fruition.

Organizational capacity building to strengthen the ability of Black-led organizations to deliver projects and services. Community planning to envision future projects, especially in parts of the state that are experiencing a growing Black population. We respectfully request the Senate to consider this fund as a solution to the many problems that were identified today during this very important hearing. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. I'm Darris Young, and I'm also representing the Black Housing Advisory Task Force. And I'm not going to repeat all the things that my colleague just talked about, but I will respectively request that we do consider this fund.

And I would like to say from the testimony given today on homelessness and the way that it impacts African Americans, I also would like to think that we should be looking at some studies that kind of like, show us, one, how much of our homelessness is due to mass incarceration? Those that have been left out. Because I know that 75% of the unhoused in California are formerly incarcerated individuals. And I'd also say in my work, in doing clinical work, we've talked a lot about homelessness, mental health, substance use and abuse.

But I do also think that we might want to look at some studies that look at how people became homeless and then what came first? Was it homelessness or was it substance use and abuse? Because I have talked to a lot of people in my clinical work and that some of them started off homeless, sleeping in cars, sleeping in places like that. And then that led to the substance use and abuse and ultimately to some of the mental health issues too. And so if we do want to get to the root of the problem, to develop effective policy that is addressing this, then I think that we should expand our studies.

Because the work was good and I heard a lot of good data, but we need to start looking at how people became not only homeless, but what part did substance use play in it? What came first? Because a lot of the people, like I said, that I've talked to, did my clinical work with have been that. And so I would just like to say that targeted solutions that are developed for African American communities are actually needed. And I would also lift up the fact that we have a 500 page interim report coming from the Reparations Task Force that documents a lot of the reasons why we are here today with Black housing and other economic disadvantages that has impacted African American communities.

So I do thank you, look forward to talking to you and working with you more. And I would like to say congratulations on your election, Ms. Lola, because I did a lot of work with you when you were at the Black Worker Center through doctors.

Thank you very much. Now, moderator, if you could key up our telephone witnesses. And then let me just say I failed to thank all of the panelists and the people who were ready to present to us.

And unfortunately, due to the technical difficulties, we're going to delay that. And reschedule, but I really appreciate your willingness to participate with us. And as to the questions, as I mentioned, we will be submitting them in writing. So now we will go to our phone lines and moderator. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Madam Chair, ladies and gentlemen, if you have not already done so, you can press one zero to queue up for comment. An operator will provide you with your line number, listen for your line number to be called, and proceed with your question by identifying yourself by name and organization for the legislative record. Once again, one zero to queue up for comment. Our first comment is coming from line number 22.

Line 22, go ahead, please.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Madam Chair Members. Alchemy Graham, Legislative and Regulatory Advocate with the California Transit Association.

While homelessness is visible to most Californians on city streets, it has become increasingly prevalent in our transit systems. In fact, a study released by the University of California Institute of Transportation Studies on Homelessness in transit environments found that approximately 85% of transit agencies surveyed described homelessness as a challenge. And nearly 50% of transit agency surveyed described an increase in individuals experiencing homelessness on their systems due to the Pandemic.

This challenge is most acute and public spaces, including stops, stations and on platforms, with the greatest impacts being felt in high-cost areas of the state, including Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area. Unfortunately, California's transit agencies, many of which are special districts or multijurisdictional, are not directly eligible for the various funding programs designed to address homelessness that the Legislature has brought online. Therefore, we request that the Legislature consider expanding homelessness program parameters to include transit agencies as direct funding recipients and consider establishing new program requirements to require coordination with transit agencies. Thank you.

Thank you.

Next comment comes from line number nine. Line nine, go ahead, please.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and Members of the Committee. My name is Cody Van Felden. I work with John Burton Advocates for Youth as a Youth Advocate representing homeless youth and foster youth.

I experience firsthand the consequences of not having a response system for youth homelessness. Since my experience with homelessness, the State of California has invested funding specifically for youth services into the Homeless Housing Assistance and Prevention Program, or HHAP. Since 2020, there has been a 21% reduction in youth homelessness.

This number means everything to me. The investments that you have made are working. This means that if HHAP loses the current funding, the individual lives that create the 21% will again be at risk.

I urge you to continue your investment and establish HHAP as an ongoing program, because that 21% can continue to rise, meaning we can functionally end youth homelessness in the state of California. Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Next, line 15. Line 15, go ahead.

Madam Chair and Members Michael Lane with SPUR, a public policy think tank in the San Francisco Bay area calling to express support for seed funding for the statewide Black Housing Fund proposed by BARHII and the Black Leadership Council.

Real estate has been ground zero for discrimination through segregation, redlining, racial covenants, predatory lending, and exclusionary zoning. As a direct result, nearly 30% of Californians experiencing homelessness are Black and Black families have been displaced from cities across the state on a massive scale. The Black Housing Fund will affirmatively further fair housing by providing financing to black led housing developers and community based organizations to create housing opportunities and begin to reverse the painful effects of discrimination and the denial of access to capital.

We urge your support for this proposal. Thank you.

Thank you.

Next is line 28. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Chair and Members of the Committee. My name is Simone Turek Lee and I work for John Burton Advocates for Youth.

My comments are in regard to the Homeless Housing Assistance and Prevention Program, or HHAP. As an organization focused on youth and young adults, the need for HHAP and its 10% youth set aside cannot be underscored enough. Prior to HHAP, there was very little investment in youth homelessness and there was virtually no youth homelessness response system.

With HHAP, we now have a foundation infrastructure and the progress to prove it's working. Since 2020, we've seen a 21% reduction in youth homelessness in our state due to HHAP investment. If HHAP does not continue, we don't just lose sort of supplemental funding, we really lose the entire foundation of the Youth Homelessness Response System in our state and compromise the progress achieved.

As referenced by one of the committee Members in the beginning of the hearing, local jurisdictions cannot move the needle on homelessness with one-time funding. We thank you for the tremendous investment to date, and we encourage Legislature to build on this momentum by establishing HHAP as an ongoing program. Thanks so much.

Thank you.

Next is line twelve. Line twelve, please go ahead.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair and Members. My name is Sharon Rapport. I'm with the Corporation for Supportive Housing. I'd like to first align with the comments from Ms. Pellet from Justice and Aging. The Hilton Foundation funded my organization and the California Housing Partnership to complete a data-driven model on what it would take to solve homelessness in California.

The California Homeless Housing Needs Assessment. The Needs Assessment shows homelessness solvable within twelve years with annual investment of about 2.7% of the state's budget. It shows we need both to build housing affordable to people experiencing homelessness and fund rental subsidies in the private market, and we need to fund services for about 63,000 households.

88 communities and three states have ended homelessness among veterans or people who are chronically homeless through ongoing funding at scale for housing, we do need accountability around transparency investments and proven interventions, outcomes related to greater equity, and reallocating funding from grantees not meeting expected outcomes, and we need ongoing resources invested primarily in housing. With both, we can solve homelessness in California. Thank you.

Thank you.

Next we go to line 14. Line 14, go ahead, please.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members. My name is Tina Rosales with the Western Center on Law and Poverty, and I'm going to address the Emergency Rental Assistance program that was featured in one of the charts. One of the solutions to solving and preventing homelessness is, of course, prevention from people being displaced and experiencing homelessness in the first place.

We have placed historic amounts of funding in the Emergency Rental Assistance program through the Pandemic. As of today, we have over 104,000 applicants waiting for promised relief from the program. We urge that this body provide more oversight and review to ensure that HTD is held accountable to deliver on the promised release by evaluating those applicants in the queue. Thank you.

Thank you.

Next is line number 28. Line 28, go ahead, please. I'm sorry. Line 26. 26, please go ahead.

Good afternoon, Chair Skinner. Thank you so much for convening us. My name is Alex Visotsky. I am the California policy fellow at the National Alliance to End Homelessness. First want to thank the committee for their leadership on ensuring California's budget moves closer to reflecting the magnitude of the housing crisis that's being felt up and down the state.

And I want to thank the state for dramatically increasing investments in responding to homelessness over the last several budget years. But note that it comes after decades of very little investment on homelessness. The HHAP program, which several have mentioned, has achieved a number of critical successes.

For example, the number of unsheltered people increased by only 1% in this most recent homeless count. And that's despite the tumult of the COVID crisis. Along the way, tens of thousands of people have been permanently housed and have had their homelessness ended for good. That's a credit to half, which has given local jurisdictions the tools to start scaling up their responses, and a credit to the state's housing first law, which has been a critical element in making sure there are not unneeded barriers to getting folks rehoused.

However, local jurisdictions are limited on how much they can do using HHAP funds, given that these have been one-time tranches of funding, and given how much they can actually scale up their responses to meet the magnitude of need to build homeless response systems that meet the scale of the need, HHAP should be an ongoing program. We also believe that the state should look at what has worked well with HHAP funds, and that's really a focus on rehousing folks and direct HHAP funding to what works best so that we can get every jurisdiction that receives HHAP funding rowing in the same direction. Thanks again for the opportunity to comment.

Next is line 30. Go ahead, please.

Thank you.

Good morning, Madam Chair and Members of the Legislature. My name is Donna Tang and I am with the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, also known as LAHSA. LAHSA is the main continuing care for Los Angeles County, and we know that the state's historic investments has so far made a difference. The total proportion of people experiencing unsheltered homelessness has decreased, and our local communities are housing folks more than ever.

Since 2019, LASA has almost doubled the number of people who have exited interim housing to permanent housing, from 2,415 in 2019 to 4,048 in 2021. However, we have a long way to go to make meaningful reductions in homelessness. No jurisdiction has substantially reduced homelessness with one time funding.

Only through ongoing flexible funding like HHAP, will we be able to see meaningful reductions in the future. Thank you so much and we look forward to working with the Legislature this year.

Thank you.

Next is line 33. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, Chair Skinner and Committee Members. My name is Dante Golden, and I'm the Senior Director of Policy at the San Diego Housing Federation. Our organization represents portable housing developers and is a collective voice of those who support, build, and finance mobile homes in the San Diego region. We appreciate the time and attention paid to the most pressing issue facing our most vulnerable community Members, as you know, which is the issue of housing affordability.

We also appreciate the one-time funding sent to jurisdictions for innovative solutions to the homelessness crisis during the last budget cycle. We also know that the solution to homelessness crisis is in building more affordable homes. We share your commitment to ensuring everyone in every community has access to a safe, stable, and affordable home.

However, to continue to build our progress, you must go beyond the investments signaled in the Governor's January budget proposal and invest at a greater scale in deeply affordable housing development preservation, homelessness tenant protection, and affordable home ownership. We recommend that any housing and homelessness investments go beyond those proposed in the Governor's January budget. Thank you again for your ongoing leadership and partnership on this most pressing issue. Thank you.

And next is line number 34. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members, on behalf of Habitat. My name is Ari Steinberg on behalf of Habitat for Humanity of California.

I'm here to speak in support of the Cal Home Program, which is the only state program that actually allocates funding towards affordable home building for first time homebuyers. This is a cost effective and efficient program that offers competitive grants to local public agencies and nonprofit organizations for first-time home buyer, new home production and owner occupied rehabilitation assistance, project development, technical assistance, mortgage assistance, and homebuyer counseling to enable low and very low income households to access and sustain home ownership. Unlike down payment assistance programs, this program addresses the supply crisis and protects homebuyers from erratic fluctuations in the home sales prices and interest rates associated with traditional home loans.

We urge the Legislature to restore full funding to this program in this budget year. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Madam Chair. There are no other callers in queue.

Geat. Thank you. All right. So, Members, I'm sure all of us are tricky when we face these kinds of connective Internet issues that cause the connectivity to go down. But I think that we made a good start. There's obviously information that many of you express and feel you would like to have to really understand better and to do the kind of oversight that we intend. So we will get that, and we will reschedule the section that was just on affordable housing.

And again, I want to thank the panelists for their participation and those ready to participate, even though our situation, our systems, didn't allow it. And I want to thank staff also. And Members, we will now adjourn the Senate's Budget and Fiscal Review Committee Hearing.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you