Assembly Standing Committee on Housing and Community Development

Good afternoon and welcome to our Joint Hearing on Homelessness. Welcome to our evidence based strategies to reduce and prevent homelessness, which we will be focusing on today. This is an in person hearing. All panelists will be in person. Public comment will be taken at the end of this hearing. However, if you cannot attend in person, you may submit your comments via an email to assemblybudget@Assembly.CA.Gov or through the Housing and Community Development Committee's portal.

We all know that this budget is going to be challenging, but by working together and focusing on the values that make California great, we can ensure this budget year continues to protect those who are most vulnerable. As shown in the background information, there are 11 departments across the state budget that provide some type of homeless support. 11 departments.

Today we will focus on those programs under the jurisdiction of Subcommitee Five and the Housing and Community Development Committee, including the Homeless Housing Assistance and Prevention program, or HHAPP program, and the encampment resolution funds. Currently, about 181,000 Californians experience homelessness daily, and 68% of homeless Californians are unsheltered. Understanding whether the programs we Fund are helping to end and prevent homelessness is extremely important, especially in a budget where resources are going to compete to address the needs of all Californians.

Today's hearing will explore what is happening with California's population that is experiencing homelessness. Through the hearing, we will discuss data the state is collecting on our programs and our unhoused population, hear testimonials from locals about successes in their communities to combat homelessness, and finally turn our attention to what the data tells us about prevention. A separate hearing on the Governor's Budget proposals will be held by Subcommitee five in April.

Through this hearing and future hearings, our focus will be on evaluating the effectiveness of programs aimed at reducing and preventing homelessness. We must ensure that our state's resources are directed towards initiatives that bring the greatest impact in addressing this critical issue. Before we move to the first panel, I would like to turn it over to my co chair, Assemblymember Ward, for any opening comments.

Well, thank you, chair Quirk-Silva. Good afternoon. I've been looking forward to this hearing and future hearings as well, for some time, because as we last fall and pretty much for an ongoing conversation have been in our districts, addressing homelessness and our housing crisis has been central on everybody's mind and wondering what the state has been working on, what we're doing about it, and what is and is not working. We know the numbers are getting worse.

We know from our own point in time counts that the numbers have risen. But we also need to appreciate that the state's investments, and particularly where they partner with local and federal support, have been helping individuals. Just sadly, we're not helping enough. Too many people are falling into homelessness, and that number is exceeding the number who we are helping. And so the consequence is a continued rise in the numbers that we're seeing in the State of California.

6% growth in the total numbers, at least 6% that we can count. But of course, that mirrors or should be taken in the context of a 12% growth nationwide. So we certainly have our work cut out for us, as the chair Corksilva had mentioned, in the context of a difficult state budget. And what I've been particularly looking forward to for this hearing and our April hearing coming up, is just really drilling down to the efficacy of many of our programs. I agree.

It's very difficult to appreciate that we have 11 departments. We know we've had some consolidation of support, and I think that synergy between these departments is essential for us to coordinate better and to be able to use public resources in a much more effective way. But it's also difficult that the Subcommittee's jurisdictions being split up the way that they are, that we're not even able to have that totality of conversation here that we're seeing in some of these presentations is there before us.

That said, we've got some excellent speakers that have been lined up for this conversation here today. So we're looking forward to hearing their testimony, because I think it's level setting about the reality and what the data shows us is driving more and more Californians to sadly be on the brink of or falling into homelessness and what we can do about it, given the context of what we have to work with in the form of the most effective solutions that we have been making investments in.

That'll be very informative for our future work. And so I'm very eager to hear the presentations here today and to drill down into some of these conversations. Thank you.

Thank you, Assemblymember. Next, I'd like to ask of Assemblymember Tim Grayson would like to make any comments.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just ready to hear from the panelists. But not only is it incumbent upon us to be good in being resourceful, but it's also incumbent upon us to be good in stewardship. And I'm looking forward to hearing how results have rendered good services and what kind of return we have on our investment.

Thank you. With that, let's bring up our first panel. We have two individuals here to speak to us on homelessness data first, we have Margot Kushel, MD, Professor of medicine at UCSF, Director of UCSF Center for Vulnerable Populations, and UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative. And then we have two additional spokespersons. We have Dhakshike,

Very close, Dhakshike.

Dhakshike Wickrema, Deputy Secretary of Homelessness, Business, Consumer Services, and housing agency, and also added, we have Sydney Bennett, Director of Research, who will also present. We appreciate you being here, and we can go ahead and begin.

Great, thank you. Good afternoon, Chair Ward, Chair Quirk-Silva, and Members of the Assembly committees on Housing and Community Development and the Assembly Budget Committee number five. I'm Margot Kushel, Professor of medicine at UCSF, where I direct the UCSF Center for Vulnerable Populations, the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative. I'm a practicing physician who just ran here from clinic in San Francisco this morning, and an NIH funded researcher who studies homelessness.

In 2023, according to our point in time counts, more than 181,000 Californians were experiencing homelessness on a single night. This was, as chair Ward mentioned, a 6% increase from 2022. While California is home to 12% of the nation's population, it's home to 28% of those experiencing homelessness and half of those experiencing unsheltered homelessness. The pit it's important to keep in mind is just a snapshot of who's experiencing homelessness on one night, and it provides important information on year over year changes.

California's homelessness data integration system, hdis, compiles data from all of the homeless management information systems throughout the state and gives us a good sense of how many unique people interact with homeless services each year. Hdis you should think of as providing a complementary picture of homelessness to the pit counts. Not everyone who's homeless receives services, but at least it has sort of a whole year's worth of data.

And our estimates are about twice the number of people appear in hdis over the course of the year, as appear in any point in time count. But no matter which number you rely on, homelessness is clearly a crisis. As the state's population increases, many are going to ask the question, why is there so much homelessness here? The amount of homelessness in a region is very closely related to its availability of deeply affordable housing. And on that measure, California is failing.

We have only 24 units of housing that are available and affordable for every 100 extremely Low income household or those making less than 30% of the area median income. Putting it another way, we're 1 million units short of where we need to be. Our crisis is really fueled by that mismatch, we at the BHI conducted the California statewide study of people experiencing homelessness, which is the largest representative study of homelessness since the 1990s.

We talked to 3200 people experiencing homelessness throughout the state, and we found that people experiencing homelessness in California are Californians. Nine in 10 lost their stable housing in the state, and a much higher proportion had been born in the state than state's residents. Overall, three out of four were experiencing homelessness in the same county where they had lost their housing. The risk of homelessness does not fall equally across populations.

No matter whether you're looking at the pit HGIs or our study CasPA, it is clear homelessness disproportionately impacts Californians of colors. Black and Native American Californians are overrepresented, each by about fourfold in the state's homeless population compared to their numbers in the population overall. And data from recent point in time counts suggest an alarming rise in homelessness in the Latinx population from 20 to 23.

Those identifying as Hispanic or Latinx experiencing homelessness rose by 29%, which is about twice the percentage of the overall state increase in homelessness. People experiencing homelessness in California are desperately poor. To give you a sense of that, in the six months prior to becoming homeless, Californians experiencing homelessness reported a median household income of only $960 a month. About a third of them entered directly from a housing arrangement from which they had legal rights. So a tenancy, rent, et cetera, a leaseholder.

They had a median income of $1,400, but were spending a median of $700 on housing. So two things about that. If your household makes $1,400 a month, you can't possibly sustain $700 a month. But also, if you lose that housing, there's no place in our state you can reenter the rental market for as Low as $700 a month. People had very little warning prior to becoming homeless.

Leaseholders had a median of only 10 days, and the larger group of about 49% who entered from a doubled up situation had warning of one day. Things sort of fell apart and they became homeless. But nearly one out of five Californians experiencing homelessness entered homelessness directly from an institutional setting, and those are mostly prolonged jail stays or prison stays.

This likely underestimates the impact because we saw a much higher proportion who had been released from prison in the prior six months, had a short stay in temporary housing, but didn't have a long enough Runway to prevent their homelessness. As a physician, I can tell you that homelessness is absolutely devastating to health 45% of homeless adults in California reported their health as fair or poor.

That compares to about 17% across the US who report that 60% reported having a chronic health condition and one of three reported having a difficulty with an activity of daily living, like dressing or toileting or getting up and down. For those who were women under the age of 4526% reported that they had been pregnant during this episode of homelessness. In the past six months, 38% had visited one of our emergency departments, and 21% had been hospitalized for a physical health condition.

Behavioral health problems, including substance use and mental health problems, are bi directionally related to homelessness. That means that these conditions increase the risk that a person becomes homeless, but homelessness dramatically worsens these conditions. We found that over a third of adults experiencing homelessness used an illicit drug three times a week or more during their episode. This was primarily driven by methamphetamine use, 9% reported heavy episodic alcohol use or binge drinking at least weekly, so 40% reported one of these two.

And of those who reported either regular drug use or heavy episodic alcohol use, 26% told us that they had attempted and tried to get treatment during this episode of homelessness, but had been unable to find any. Almost half or 48% of adults in our study had one of the following four conditions. They either were a regular user of illicit drugs, heavy alcohol use, had a recent psychiatric hospitalization, or one of the 12% who reported having ongoing hallucinations.

These are folks who we think would likely require supportive services once they reentered housing in order to thrive. The homeless population is aging according to HDIS data, the number of people over 55 who received homeless services doubled between 2017 and 2022. In Caspa, we found that nearly half of all single adults experiencing homelessness in our state were aged 50 and older, and among those who are 50 and older, 41% had never been homeless, not even for a night before they reached the age of 50.

These findings are consistent with research on older adults experiencing homelessness that we've been conducting for years. In Oakland, those who experience homelessness for a first time after age 50 became homeless after a discrete event, the death of a spouse, loss of a job, an illness, an economic shock that they could not bear. But whether first homeless before or after the age of 50, those experiencing homelessness and older age have a high prevalence of conditions associated with aging, like cognitive dysfunction and functional problems.

People experiencing homelessness want to be housed. When we asked people what keeps them from housing, the single biggest barrier was the cost of housing. 89% noted that this was what was keeping them from being housed. But other key barriers include facing discrimination in the rental housing market, eviction, and poor credit histories and histories of the criminal justice system. Few who experience homelessness reported getting help finding permanent housing during this episode.

Only a quarter reported having someone work with them at least once a month or more in the prior six months. So what do we recommend? At its heart, homelessness is a housing problem. Thus, housing has to be at the core of our responses. Our dramatic shortage of deeply affordable housing is what's driving our crisis. The homeless service system is managing this crisis that they didn't create and really can't solve without sustained investments in increasing the supply of deeply affordable housing.

To end homelessness, we need to focus also on stemming inflows into homelessness using every tool in our toolkit. One place to focus would be those institutional exits from people leaving prolonged jails and prison stays, because we know where those folks are and we know that we're discharging them into homelessness. Other prevention activities preventing evictions, providing flexible funding to catch people who are at high risk of homelessness and behind in their rent, can play a really important role.

But those need to be targeted to those at the highest risk while having a disabling condition, such as a substance use disorder or mental health condition. Place people at higher risk of homelessness, housing is still the answer. To resolve their homelessness, the state must remain committed to the evidencebased ways to end homelessness. Research has consistently supported the use of housing first approaches as a means to support and sustain exits from homelessness and to keep people housed.

Housing first is a flexible approach that prioritizes getting people housed without preconditions. But housing first does not mean housing only for those with behavioral health conditions like that 48% that I mentioned. The housing subsidies should be paired with supportive services that are offered on a voluntary basis. These supported services should be guided by evidence and robust enough to match the level of need.

Our team conducted a study in Santa Clara County, which enrolled chronically homeless individuals with the highest and most severe complexity of behavioral health issues. We enrolled them when they presented at systems, so they weren't expecting us, and we asked them if they wanted a 5050 chance of being housed. Of the 400 people we approached, one said no. At the time. We flipped a dice and decided who was going to get our rare housing spots, and 91% of these individuals were successfully housed.

It took an average of two months from the day we met them at the jailhouse doors or in the psychiatric emergency Department until they moved into housing. And we followed them for seven years. And once housed, they stayed housed for an average of 90% of nights. To be clear, not everyone who experiences homelessness requires supportive services. By our best estimates, about half require these. Many simply need access to housing that they can afford. But all who are homeless require housing to end their homelessness.

Homelessness is a crisis in our state, but we have answers to this crisis. Housing is and will continue to be the solution. Solving this will require a sustained focus on proven, evidencebased solutions, preventing inflows, maintaining a commitment to housing. First, bolstering resources to provide supportive services, and most importantly, doubling down on our efforts to preserve and produce the deeply affordable housing that Californians need. Thank you.

Thank you. Next. Welcome. Please introduce yourself again.

Thank you. Chair Quirk-Silva and Chair Ward. Thank you for having us. My name is Dhakshike Wickrema. I'm the Deputy Secretary at an agency called the Business, Consumer Services and Housing agency, and I'm here today with the Director of Research from CALIC. So very quickly, within BCSH, as it's called, we have housing and we have homelessness. So HCD, as you know, is one of the groups that provides a lot of production of housing.

What Margot mentioned, which is very important, but also within the agency, is CALIC. So I'm going to give some opening remarks, and really, the bulk of the presentation is going to be on HDIS, which Margo actually alluded to, to really talk about how HDIS is capturing information from all the. zero, cool. And really telling us what the locals are doing with the data. And Sydney will really go into more detail. Before I turn it over to Sydney, just wanted to mention a few things.

One, pursuant to the Administration and Legislature's work on last year's budget act, Calic is in the midst of transitioning its grants to HCD. So thank you, Legislature, for supporting that. And that transition is due to take effect July of this year. And then second, if anyone after this presentation is interested in learning more, even more on hdis, at the next Calic council meeting, Sydney will be presenting a real drill down on HDIS.

So we will let your staff know so that you can tune in and learn to that next slide, please. And just a quick overview. We are really going to get into the data, but once Sydney is done with the data, I'm going to quickly give some quick points of info on the encampment resolution Fund and HAB grants. Next slide.

Both Chair Ward and Margot mentioned this, but just a bit of context, you said chair Ward, the national numbers jumped 12%, and a good bit of news, I think, for us because I think that these are the investments the Legislature and the Administration have been doing. Even though it was an increase in California, it's a 6% increase, roughly compared to the national jump. So we should keep watching that. As Margot said, this is really about the year over year kind of measuring of where we are.

And the HDIS data is the longitudinal how many people are being served throughout the year. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Sydney to really give you some in depth study on.

Thank you, chair Quirk Silva and Chair Ward, for the opportunity to present today. I'm Sydney Bennett, the Director of Research at the California Interagency Council on Homelessness, and I'll be talking a little bit about our Homelessness Data Integration System. Or you'll hear us talk about it as HDIS for short, because it's a bit of a mouthful. Next slide, please.

SB 1380 created the council and established several statutory goals for Cali Ch's work, one of which was the creation of the HDIS system, a centralized database of homelessness data in California. Calich first launched HDIS in 2021, creating the most comprehensive data system available to measure the provision of homelessness services and the outcomes associated with those services. One powerful use of has data is for tracking who is served by state funded homelessness programs.

Beginning in 2023, CaLIC started implementing Assembly Bill 977, which requires state funded homelessness programs to enter data into their local homeless management information system, or hmis, and then that data gets centralized in our state's HDIS system. We thank Assemblymember Gabriel for his work authoring AB 977. A second important use of HDIS data, which is primarily what I'll be speaking about today, is for tracking the state and local jurisdiction's progress towards preventing and ending homelessness in their communities.

I'll be sharing the system performance measures Calich has developed pursuant to AB 140, which serve this purpose a bit later in the presentation. Next slide before diving into the data from HDIS, I wanted to provide a short overview of what hdis is. Each continuum of care in California, of which there are 44, maintains an HMIS system. This is a requirement for their federal funding from HUD into their HMIS system. All of the service providers who receive that funding enter standardized data fields.

HMIS systems only include data on people who access services. CoCs then submit data from their local HMIS system into HDIS on a quarterly basis. So four times a year. CalICS validates and processes that data to ensure consistency and quality and a statewide data set. Because we collect data from each COC in the state, we're able to create a record of someone's interactions with the homelessness response services across all continuums of care in the state and have that longitudinal data set.

This process results in data on a wide range of service accessed by people experiencing or at risk of homelessness, from emergency shelter to prevention programs to street outreach to permanent housing interventions. Next slide, please. Hdis contains over 300 data fields, which fall into three broad categories just to provide a sense of some of the information available. The first area is that there's data on the projects that serve people experiencing or at risk of homelessness.

So that includes the type of project or services a project provides, location in the state, funding sources such as the grant programs tied to that project, and for our residential projects, information on how many beds are available. There's also data about the people accessing services in a community and their housing needs. So that includes demographic information such as age, race and ethnicity, gender, disability status.

And then third, we have data on each enrollment in services a person partakes in in the course of their experience of homelessness, or even after that homelessness is resolved in the case of permanent housing programs. So we can see the types of service provided, the time period of someone's participation, and where they were living before and after that enrollment. Next slide.

Now that I've provided a short overview of the HDIS system, I wanted to share more about the system performance measures that we use to track how effectively we are preventing and ending homelessness in California. On this slide, you'll see each system performance measure.

I'll actually walk through them in a minute with the data, but just as a little bit of context, the California system performance measures are a series of metrics that were developed by CaLIC to help the state and local jurisdictions assess progress towards preventing and ending homelessness. These system performance measures are similar to ones developed by the Federal Government by HUD, but the California spms are much more expansive.

They look at enrollments in all types of projects instead of primarily focusing on shelter and housing projects, ensuring that these performance measures capture the full range of people accessing services, whether they're unsheltered or sheltered calics. These performance measures on a quarterly basis, and we provide data back to each continuum of care quarterly to help hold jurisdictions accountable for improving the outcomes in their local community. Next slide. Here you'll see data for each of the system performance measures from the past two fiscal years.

So from 21-22 and 2022 to 2023. The first California system performance measure is the number of people who access services while experiencing homelessness. As Dr. Kushel mentioned, that's not everyone who experienced homelessness as not all Californians who are experiencing homelessness access services. But it is a good measure of our reach. We see that measure one increases in that time period in a large part due to increased investments in homelessness services made by the Administration and the Legislature.

Measure two looks at the number of people who access services while experiencing homelessness for the first time over the past two years, and that's measured by whether someone is returning to services again in that time frame. We again see this in line with the other measure increasing as service provision increases. Measure three captures the number of people exiting to permanent housing. As we know, housing is the end to someone's homelessness. So this is a very important measure that we see increase over this time frame.

Measure four looks at the length of time a person is homeless while accessing services. So this isn't necessarily their whole episode of homelessness if they aren't accessing services consistently, but it does capture how long it's taking while accessing services before a placement into permanent housing. Measure five looks at the number of the percentage of people who return to homelessness within six months of exiting to permanent housing. This is a key measure to ensure placements into permanent housing are long lasting and effective.

And then last, measure six looks at the number of people who are successfully placed into shelter or permanent housing from street outreach programs. We see this number increasing in large part due to state investments such as the ERF program that we'll talk about later in this presentation. Next slide in addition to generating the California system performance measures for everyone in a given continuum of care and statewide, the measures are also disaggregated by race and ethnicity, gender for various household types, and different subpopulations.

To ensure that we have data available for those accessing homelessness services today, we'll share data for three of these populations, families with children, unaccompanied youth, and veterans. This graph shows the first measure, the number of people experiencing homelessness while accessing services for these populations, to give you a sense of their size compared to each other. Next slide we have data for each of the measures that I just walked through for all of these subpopulations.

Going to be walking through this quite quickly today, but hope you have this available in your packet as well. So the first we see data for families with children. Next slide and then unaccompanied youth. And then finally third slide. For veterans, having these system performance measures disaggregated by these populations allows the state and our local partners in COC cities and counties to design targeted interventions and assess their effectiveness in serving specific subpopulations. Next slide the California system performance measures are also disaggregated by race and ethnicity.

The graph you see on the screen compares the number of people accessing homelessness services to the demographics of California's General population. As Dr. Crucial also mentioned, we see that Californians who are black, African American or African American Indian, Alaskan Native or indigenous, and Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander are overrepresented in those accessing homelessness services and in point and time count data, we see they're also overrepresented in the population experiencing homelessness.

Analyzing system performance measures by race and ethnicity is a critical tool to ensuring policy interventions address historical and systemic racial and ethnic inequities in California. This is another key difference between the state's system performance measures and HUD's system performance measures, which is that we do disaggregate by race and ethnicity and for other subpopulations. Next slide before concluding the portion of the presentation on hdis, I wanted to share some of the exciting upcoming work at CalICH pertaining to HDIS and to data generally.

One focus of our work is expanding the support and technical assistance we provide to cocs and local jurisdictions. As I mentioned earlier, HDIS is an aggregation of HMIS data. That means that the data quality in HDIS relies on strong data quality in local HMIS systems.

We are currently building reports and tools to support our cocs in identifying and correcting data issues, expanding the technical assistance we provide to our local partners, and also providing tools to help them analyze system performance so that they have different ways to see this California system performance measures and adapt their policy interventions accordingly. A second focus is resources for our Council Member departments and other state partners.

As part of our AB 977 implementation, CAL ICH is working to ensure data on state funded homelessness programs is accurate and can be tracked to that funding source. That's key in identifying the people served by our state programs and looking at their long term outcomes. Far beyond the end of these programs, we are providing the departments administering the programs that are part of AB 977 with data dashboards later this spring that track their program outcomes.

We also provide custom data reports upon requests for other state entities and state departments. And then third, building off the California system performance measures, CAL ICH is developing new and targeted metrics to measure progress towards preventing and ending homelessness for unaccompanied women, survivors of domestic violence and their children, and unaccompanied youth.

As part of our work to implement SB 914 and 918, we are beginning a robust stakeholder engagement this spring to ensure these measures are responsive to the needs of those three populations, recognizing the differences in their service access than Californians as a whole. Thank you again to the Committee for the Invitation to present and I will turn it back to Deputy Secretary Wickrema to talk about the ERF and HHAP grant programs.

Four more slides so next slide please. Just wanted to give you a quick kind of synopsis on encampment resolution Fund as it slates on the slide. 47.5 million available to cities of any size and counties and cocs. In the beginning stages these were demonstration projects and now there's much more of an housing emphasis, making sure there's a pathway to permanent housing. There will be an annual report that will be published later this spring, so we are happy to come back and share that with your staff.

Wanted to also point out in rounds 2 and 3, there's 700 million. There's an active round right now, round three. And in those two rounds, up to 50% of the funding was set aside for people living in encampments on state right away. And as I mentioned early on, this is one of those grants that will be transferring to HCD come July 1, 2024. Next slide.

Just did a quick analysis the Cal ICH team did to kind of show of the awards that have gone out in the three rounds. How much went out to counties versus big cities versus cities of any size? So in terms of percentages, counties have received about 53.34% of the encampment resolution Fund.

Big cities have received 13.61% of the awards and then cities of any size have received 25.36% of the available funding, which I think shows that this really allowed us to provide some funding to the other cities that are not the big cities. So we are happy to see that calic is in the process of reviewing applications reviewed for the remainder of the encampment resolution round three and later this spring those awards will be announced. Next slide please.

There will be an annual report for HAPP as well, published in the spring, so we are looking forward to that. There's an active round open right now, as all of you know, that will close March 27 with this round, round five.

There is really an emphasis on housing accountability as well as regional coordination, which is going to be memorialized with an MOU to really make sure that people are working across jurisdictions and across sectors to think about how they can serve the people in their jurisdictions most effectively. This also will be transitioning over to HCD come July 12024. It was actually a joint release of the NOFA. Given that what was happening last slide, please.

And just on this calic team did analysis of what the grantees had been spending money on. The figures on this slide represent in the millions Hap eligible use categories. The CAL ICH team excluded administrative service coordination, strategic planning, and really focused on spending activity that would directly provide interim and permanent housing for the unhoused neighbors.

Across all rounds, what you see is the big cities received the largest allocations, but when you see what they're spending their money on, counties interestingly invested most of their HAPP in permanent housing. The exception is rental subsidies, where you see COCs investing more of their HAPP allocation, but this could be through design because really we want them to work together. That could be a regional agreement that's driving that. You also see that COCs are investing more in prevention compared to counties and big cities.

So this is just a preliminary analysis. I thought that might be interesting to you, but there's more to come in the annual report. A quick final note, since we are talking about hdis, the fifth round does make available hmis as an eligible activity. Really make sure that people have the funds they need to collect the data. And as you can see in the previous slide, there will be a keener focus on housing accountability.

So I really want to thank the Legislature for your continuing support as this transition occurs, to make sure that the transition is fully resourced as we think about how we can really support our locals in doing this work. Thank you.

Thank you, all of you. Very informative, and I appreciate the handouts with that. I'll open it up to other Members here if they have questions they'd like to ask right now. Assembly Member Chris Ward.

Thank you both for your comprehensive presentation. I know there's a lot more that we could get into as well because you're so deeply researched into the work on a daily basis. Dr. Kashell, I wanted to thank you and your team at UCSF for a monumental study which I think is groundsetting for the conversation that needs to be had for anybody that really speaks up about the origins of homelessness or what's really going on.

One of the biggest challenges that all of us have, I know we do as public officials and researchers, and everybody is really busting some of these myths that are driving a lot of the thought that's out there and that can impede our ability towards effective solutions and trying to get the math right, I guess, for what we need to do as well. I've heard you speak as well at other places about the length of the study. I know today was an abbreviated version of that.

You had talked before. You mentioned here today, too, about the percent of those that you've engaged that experiencing homelessness who have come from either jail or prison had been in the system. There's a flip side to that number, too. Can you articulate of those who have been in a system who have been incarcerated, how many of those people are challenged with experiencing homelessness?

Thank you for that question. We don't have exact data on that, although we should. Right. That is something where we could do data matches with people exiting the system. But it's been estimated that as much as a quarter of people exiting prison will return to homelessness relatively quickly. And we know in our county jails, it's often higher than that. It's often people cycling between jails and homelessness. So we know, for instance, in Caspa, 30% of the people who were homeless had a short term jail stay just during their episode of homelessness.

But we don't know exactly, but we think it could be talking about as many as a quarter of people exiting prisons into homelessness, at least in the following year or so. It's such an enormous risk factor because of the ways that it impairs people's ability to get housing, that landlords are allowed to use that against people and do use that against people the way that it impairs employment, the trauma that people have, the disconnections in their families, and friends.

Yeah, a lot of the drivers. Again, one of the reasons why a number of people are finding themselves challenged and at risk of or falling into homelessness. And so if we're looking about things that cause homelessness and their multitude, by their very nature, this is an area that could be cost efficient if we're focusing on special programs that can support individuals that are trying to successfully reenter our community.

And then you said before, too, and I really just want to take this moment for you to maybe repeat it as well, because it's a difficult conversation when we're talking about substance use and whether or not some feel as though it's worthy of us making public investments unless they're willing to help themselves first. But they're just so stuck, and they can't. And that you said about a third of the individuals are using primarily methamphetamine as a hard drug of choice. What sort of, is the reason why methamphetamine is so prevalent among this population?

Methamphetamines has really risen to become the major drug that people experiencing homosexists are using. And when we spoke to them, and as a physician, when we address substance use, which is a big part of what I do, you always want to get at someone's motivation, because it's often in understanding why they're using it that you can get to the solutions. And what was really striking in our conversations of people experiencing homelessness was how methamphetamines are a coping strategy for their homelessness.

Methamphetamines keep you alert and awake, and they keep you not being hungry. And while they cause a lot of harm, we heard again and again from people that this was, in a way, solving the problem, a problem of homelessness for them, while they recognized that it was also creating problems. About a third of people in our study who used drugs noted that their drug use had gotten significantly worse.

It either started or gotten worse after they became homeless, so that the sort of homelessness came, and then the drug use escalated or became a real problem. And we heard again and again from people that they would be challenged to address their substance use while they were still homeless because they were really using it as a coping strategy.

I think the other thing that really was striking for us from our data was that 26% of people with substance use problems who were actually trying to get treatment, which is really kind of what a lot of us want, and they were trying to get treatment but couldn't access it, transportation problems, weightless, they had no way to actually get into the programs or to get the treatment that they desired. And so I think that's important to keep in mind as well.

We know that substance use can be a lifelong struggle, that people sometimes relapse and then they get better, and then they might relapse again, and then they might get better for the long term, and that we can't really give up on people while they're going through that. But what we heard from people again and again was that it was very hard for them to even have the mindset to start addressing it while they were dealing with these daily survival needs.

The amount of violence people experience, the fear that they experience, the disruption, the need to stay alert and awake. What you don't want to do is create a situation where there's a harmful drug like methamphetamines that actually is sort of solving a problem that is created by their homelessness.

Thank you, Dr. Kushel, and I appreciate you addressing that, because I think it's something important that needs to be said. First of all, our origins are rooted in the cost of housing, yes. That we can't lose sight of. But some conversations out there get into this space.

And so for those that are so fixated on that as the only thing that they want solved, I think it's important to sort of humanize what individuals who are choosing to use substances and maybe the motivations and the rationale for it, because you don't see that perspective for somebody that's not so affected with a substance use disorder. I appreciate the metrics that have really evolved and improved for HAPP.

That is something that we've also been trying to pilot and maybe just a few years ahead of the state, down at the San Diego continuum of care, where I was the chair for several years, really rooted in NEH's, I think, best practices. And I'm wondering, for your data collection up here, two questions there. One is the prevention side. Are we measuring that? Because it seems like the measures are only for those who are experiencing homelessness, not those that are necessarily diverting. And then secondly, I wondered if you can comment on generally how all of our continuums of care have been doing to try to align around some of this data sharing and best practices.

Thank you, Chair Ward. On the first question, there is a few on the system performance measures. There was one called first time homeless, and that's capturing people who are coming up in the system after a two year break. And so that's how one way, it's not a perfect way of seeing who's emerging for the first time, like having a new episode of Homelessness.

Would that include somebody that is on the risk of falling, losing their.

Because there are not all jurisdictions, some jurisdictions, I used to work at the local level in Los Angeles. So there are prevention programs that, for example, when people are, you're trying to prevent people from coming into the shelter, so you divert people from shelter back to where they're living. So you have legal aid involved sometimes, but sometimes know, just as Dr. Kushel's study shows, helping grandma with some bills, providing like a cash infusion allows them to stay.

And that's captured in some of the local, but not all localities have that kind of program. I will say separate from HDIS, that Calic has a council with 14 departments and four state agencies, and there's a state action plan where prevention is called out as one of the action prongs, and that's another way where prevention data is being collected. But I do know that this is a place, emerging place where we want to do more.

And Sydney, I don't know if you want to add anything on that because it is important. Chair Quirk-Silva also mentioned the inflow versus the outflow. So I think it's really important for us to get a handle on those kinds of numbers.

Just in the interest of time. I think I just might offer commentary. That is something I want to look a lot closer as we're looking at our Subcommitee review, because the cost effectiveness of stopping the inflow far exceeds our ability. Yes, we need more housing. We need to help those that are currently experiencing homelessness, but we've got to be thoughtful about the entirety of the pipeline. That's right. I'll probably save this for our April conversation as well.

But since the data is here today, again, very happy to see that the HAPP funding has both increased, but also we've been more accountable for it over time. And I'm certainly alarmed by where our starting point right now, that we may not renew an ongoing commitment to HAPP when it is working, when it is becoming more flexible, when it can include prevention, although I think not enough.

And I'm wondering, you had mentioned on the slides that this was intended to be something that could be rapidly dispersed, but we still have funds from the 21-22 cycle and more so from the 22-23 cycle. What are you seeing as some hiccup points? That we are not getting these funds down to community as fast as possible?

Having worked at the local level, sometimes what happens is localities have to also procure with nonprofits. So sometimes that takes time. Chair Ward. But I will say on the earlier rounds of HAPP 1 and 2, those have almost been exhausted. It's really 34 and now five is the new one that's live.

But that's really where you see, because we can't solve for the locals the procurement process, and they have to make sure it's going to nonprofits if they want to do something on prevention, that they really work with a nonprofit that knows that and uses those kinds of evidence. So that's really where you see a lot of the lag.

But they need to sometimes think about how they can maybe do master leasing, which is not, sorry, master procurement in LA, where they have people on a master list and that they don't have to do a procurement all over again. But I know we are out of time, but I think that's really one of the delays at the local level.

And then on encampment resolution. This is my last question, ma'am. Chair. The data that we have here, at least so far, and I know I will certainly recover to cover the reports that are coming out this spring, is not encouraging, at least not on its face, that the first round of funding that went out, almost $50 million, if I'm reading the chart correctly, only 15% of encampments have been deemed as resolved.

Yeah. Because it's a three year program. Just kind of thinking of it from a local level. And you heard from Dr. Kushel sometimes engagement at the local level, when you have a street engagement team, and sometimes there are multidisciplinary teams with Clinicians on these street outreach teams. It could take nine months to really kind of think about engagement and rapport with the people on the ground. And then we've all been talking about, there needs to be an available and appropriate housing placement.

Whether it's interim or permanent, which is why it's a three year kind of timeline. So I would imagine that as we get into this year, we will see more resolutions on these different encampments. But we really want to take a very person centered approach, given all the things that even Dr. Kushel's report shows. So that we are resolving people's homelessness in a person centered, trauma informed way.

Sure.

Right. I appreciate that. And the ERF program, though, as I'm informed by some of our background material, doesn't have necessarily the same accountability provisions that Hap does, for example. So it's a little bit difficult to measure whether something was or was not actually occurring, and it still just doesn't sit well with me.

Respectfully that given three years, over 20 total encampments statewide, $50 million was still not able for us to be able to get a job done, which is, yes, clean the site and remediate the encampment and appropriately direct individuals, 970 individuals statewide, into a successful next place. It doesn't sit well with me.

So these are things I'm looking forward to out of your report, because again, if we're zeroing out Hap, which has accountability measures in it and is showing more diverse, I think, application, including prevention, and then I'm looking at something that isn't achieving a small goal over the course of three years, that doesn't seem wise. But anyway, again, ground base setting information here today that I deeply appreciate.

We're going to have a lot more conversation to solve some of our best efforts together, and I look forward to that. Thank you again for your time in the presentation today.

All right. Thank you. We do have other questions, so I hope we can keep you for a little bit. Here we have Assembly Member Tim Grayson, and then after that, Assembly Member Eloise Reyes.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And just for the sake of share, I just want to state for the record, I share sentiments with chair Ward, especially when it comes to this. Not that I want to dehumanize the crisis, which they have done very well and your work does very well to emphasize, but to talk about the funding part of it in the whole grant process is there built in timelines and matrix that people have to meet and the reporting part of it, when reporting is required, is it required upon the time that they receive the grant all the way to the end or after they start actually spending the money, then they start reporting once they see the effect of that.

And with that, what impacts are we putting on local jurisdictions? What I'm concerned about is do we have a system in place that almost disincentivizes locals, municipalities because of the fact that most cities probably don't have expertise on staff to handle these. So are we not just providing funding, but are we providing the resources to address a real crisis that needs more than just money? It actually needs guidance?

No, good question. There is actually a technical assistance provider, home base that is available to provide that kind of technical expertise, because again, we want to make sure the locals are successful. And then every quarter they report to us. And then there's an annual report as well, which is why there's sometimes a lag in some of this data, which the spring report hopefully will have more data.

And they are providing metrics from the moment they get the Fund, not as soon as it's active, because we need to get quarterly and annual data from them. And then finally, I'll say that there's also a lot of peer sharing. So we have office hours that calic has to really make sure that if there are any questions that the Calich staff can really answer them, to make sure people have the resources and the support they need.

Assemblymember Gomez Reyes

Thank you, Madam Chair. I will also say that I agree with my colleagues, but I also recognize that without the physical housing, we're asking you to take care of an issue that is almost an impossibility to take care of. So part of that is on us to try to find something else to do to help you and to help the rest of our municipalities deal with such an important issue. And I appreciate my colleagues comments.

We're not trying to dehumanize the suffering of any one human being because this is very personal for each one. Accountability that's been clear that Californians keep saying, well, nobody's being held accountable. This money, billions of dollars are being spent, and you're still not housing the people. So not today. But at some point, I do want to hear more about the recommendations.

Short of building more facilities because we need more housing, we can't say we're going to provide permanent housing if we're not building permanent housing, if we're not providing permanent housing. So the two things, the accountability and then the recommendations, because it's an issue that we all have to deal with. That's why we're part of these committees. That's why we asked to be on these committees, to be more involved and to help with the solutions.

I did have some questions on the data that you provided on page 10. For the number of people returning to homelessness. For families with children, it was six and a half percent, went down to just under 6%. For unaccompanied youth, though it was 11, almost 12%, and then almost 13%. Do you have an opinion? What do you attribute that to?

This is an area that we're still researching further, but one place that we're planning to look and we can share information back from this research is what type of permanent housing that folks exited to. So one of our hypotheses is that folks who are exiting to permanent subsidized housing are much more likely to stay in that housing longer term. And there's quite a bit of emphasis on ensuring families with children are in housing with vouchers and with subsidies.

And we may see more unaccompanied youth moving in with friends or family into less stable living situations. So this is kind of the top line numbers. But now we're beginning a process of researching more into each of these performance measures.

Two areas that in many hearings and many conversations that do come up when we're talking about unaccompanied youth are our youth exiting foster services and our LGBTQ youth, and finding ways that we, as the State of California, find a way to work with these two subgroups to make sure that we do provide permanent housing. I know Orange County has a great for former foster youth, an entire facility. San Bernardino is hoping to do the same thing. But I thank you for providing this information. Look forward to further information on it. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Assembly Member Alex Lee.

Thank you so much. For the sake of brevity and time, I'm just going to say I align a lot of my comments with my colleagues and especially chair Chris Ward as well, especially when it comes to the encampment resolution program. I know you're going to follow up with more data and more analysis for us, especially as the program develops on the ground. But I think it is important that as you heard a lot of comments, that the Legislature is focused on the human impact.

And when we see programs like the encampment resolution program, sometimes you wonder, who is the resolution for? Is it for people who drive by and see a tents, or is it for the true humans who need to have services and have housing? And we don't want that focus to be often on the person who considers a homeless person as a blight.

So we want to make sure those programs are actually resolving and helping people, especially when we are making a lot of tough choices with the budget and hap might be at risk. So I just want to line my comments there and thank you for presenting today.

Thank you, assemblymember. Before we move to the next panel, I do have a few comments on all of the slides. I appreciate the data, everything. Do you have this county by county by any chance? So when we look at some of the charts and it says COC or counties are getting what funding, which counties are, if we could get some of that information that would shows, but it doesn't show county by county.

So I'd like to see like Orange County compared to Los Angeles County as I have two counties that I represent. So that's one issue on page nine of the handout on the veterans. I know that there's been a lot of work on veterans as far as housing, and there's even been, the data shows here almost a myth that we've housed or we've been successful there. But 17,000 veterans on our streets in California does not seem like we've solved this problem.

And yet I know working on the veterans Committee in the past, there have been a lot of work on before they leave or exit their service, trying to do some orientations as far as support they can get before they exit. Is there anything that you know of or that jumps out at you that we're just not doing to have this many veterans on our streets in California or that we could do better? I should say.

Go ahead.

No, I was going to mean, we just know from some of our studies, obviously, veteran homelessness across the country has reduced by half because of this massive federal investment and because they do something that California would be wonderful to do, which is that they really align their health and their housing system. So every veteran gets screened for homelessness or risk of it in the health system. If they screen positive, they're sent and given resources.

I think in California, certainly from our research, let's say in Oakland, is the veterans. We have veterans who have access to resources but can't use, let's say, a housing choice voucher, because the housing is just so limited. And I think that is part of what California is running up against, is that they might have more access than the rest of Californians do to something like a housing choice voucher. But when housing is so constrained, it can be difficult to use that.

So they're in that competition with everybody else who's trying to use that voucher.

I was going to say something similar. I remember when I was at the local level, there was a group of RVs, and some of them were very elderly, like 80 year old veteran. He had a voucher, but he couldn't find housing, so he was living in the RV. So this issue around the housing placement comes up over and over again for all the populations.

Yeah, because I think I was surprised to see 17,000 on there. I'm not sure if you've seen that before. Then very quickly going to slide nine. We were just on that.

Sorry.

I asked about the county and county. And then one of the things that I'll agree with my colleagues on, and I feel very passionately about again, is this encampment funding. For some of us who have our notes, I think the governor's team has asked for $350,000,000 investment. Is that correct? This year, while reducing or cutting other budgets like the hap funding, it's very concerning to me, particularly because what we know happens is we will get encampment cleared.

And I know they're trying to do it as compassionately as possible. But in essence, if you're clearing an encampment and you don't have that housing solution, which we know many of them don't, in essence, they're being pushed off. They're being pushed off to the next neighborhood or the next park.

So for the individuals that are happy to see that encampment, and again, no disregard to business owners and homeowners who, it really is a very difficult kind of coexisting, but to make an investment without really, as was stated, the resolution, who is the resolution for? Because we don't know that we've housed them. We know that they've just been removed. So I'm going to put my support here publicly against making sure that we are looking for solutions that we know work with that. Any final? Yes.

Just clarification, if I may. On slide number 13. At the bottom, it says non Hispanic Latinx and Hispanic Latinx. What is that?

The race and ethnicity were separate data fields. So when someone entered accessing services, they'd be asked about their race and then separately asked about their ethnicity. So Non Hispanic Latinx would be anyone who did not identify as Hispanic or Latinx, regardless of the race they identified. And Hispanic Latinx would be anyone who identified with that ethnicity, regardless of the other races they select. HUds actually changed that this year to joint race and ethnicity data.

So moving forward, when we come back next year, we'll be able to show data in a different way, to show if someone's identifying as both Hispanic and black, or if they're identifying only as white and non Hispanic. So that's changing a little bit right now, but that's kind of a relic of how the questions are asked and how the data is collected by HUD.

I will tell you that we went through this with a census, and this is disconcerting. If you identify as Latino, it should be Latino. Without having to say Hispanic Latino, we're not going to get good numbers. If you're saying. Anyway, I'm glad you're fixing it. I'd like to see how it's being fixed, because if we're looking at the Latino population, I would like to know how many Latinos are accessing the service.

And we can follow up with how those questions are asked with your staff. One point is that it's actually HUD that defines how the questions are asked. So in terms of the HMIS data. California doesn't have any jurisdiction over how those questions are asked or the data system. So we tend to report out with language mirroring how the questions are asked. But that is not necessarily the way we may have designed those questions ourselves.

I'll concur. I think that's a problem. Any of us who filled out those census and our own family find them very confusing when you have to make those types of choices. With that, I think we have all the questions.

I really appreciate all of you and the information you're providing, particularly debunking the myths that we know are out there that make it easy for people to say all the homeless from other states are coming to California when yet we know they're right here from California, living sometimes only miles from where they grew up. So let's put that out there. Homelessness in California is a California problem, and we have a lot of work to do. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much.

You're going to introduce the next panel.

Thank you.

At this time, we're going to call up our next panel. This segment is the overview of local government's response. We'd like to welcome to our presentation table, Ms. Roxanne Wilson, the county Homelessness Services Director for Monterey County. And I believe Roxanne is on our webex today. Thank you for being able to join us virtually. And then following Ms. Wilson, Mr. Bill Huang, the Housing Director of the City of Pasadena. We'll begin with Ms. Wilson. Thank you for your time.

Thank you so much. Can you please share this slide. Thank you. Good afternoon, and thank you for this opportunity to share the great work of our local homelessness response network. As mentioned, my name is Roxanne B. Walton, and I serve as the county homeless services Director positioned in the administrative office of the County of Monterey. My sincerest apologies for my inability to meet with you in person today. I think I am coming down with a cold, so I do apologize. Next slide, please.

Our mission and vision are simple. We aim to excel at providing quality services to benefit our residents who are experiencing homelessness, and the end goal is achieving functional zero. We envision a community where everyone has access to safe and stable housing and supportive services where needed. A community where people who are experiencing homelessness are quickly and provided with resources to resolve their housing instability with zero wait time.

And while we are getting closer to actualizing this vision, we still have a substantial amount of work ahead of us. Next slide please. I would like to start by recognizing the power of collaboration. The mind map before you exhibits the strength of our Continuum of Care's Governing Board, known as the Lead Me Home Leadership Council.

As the CoC lead agency, the Coalition of Homeless Services providers partners with representatives from all relevant stakeholder bodies and is intentional at building a table large enough for everyone to have a voice. The coalition's operations are heavily funded by the Monterey County Board of Supervisors through the Department of Social Services, and the co chairs of the leadme Home Leadership Council are supervisors of both Monterey and San Bernardino counties.

The seats of the mayors are appointed by the local Mayors Association and the non rotating seats are held by the Housing Authority local managed Care plan and Monterey County's directors of health, social services and homeless services. Next slide, please. Approximately seven years ago, a new movement to overhaul our entire homelessness response system came into play after the 2017.0 in time count numbers were released, subsequently leading to the first major investment from the state through the homeless Emergency Aid program, also known as Heat.

Because of this funding stream, the COC gained the much needed power and attention it needed to enact real change. For reference, our local CoC only managed $1.7 million per year before Heap Heap added $12 million to their portfolio. Other major changes included the increase of permanent supportive housing beds funded by heap and by HAPP, among others, increases to our emergency shelter beds, layering rapid rehousing services on top of all of our emergency shelter beds, and the establishment of two lived experience advisory boards.

Not listed on your screen are other important efforts like the implementation and enforcement of housing first and the establishment of a funders Committee to develop and inform policy. And I think it's really important to note that transitional housing has been proven to be one of the least effective interventions, especially for people who are chronically homeless. So that was our method, is to reduce the number of transitional housing beds we have in our community and substantially increase the number of permanent supportive housing beds. Next slide please.

In this chart you will see the relationship between the increase of our housing inventory count and how it has affected our point in time count, we have experienced a decrease of 28% since 2017. Please note that due to our increase in our decrease in our pit, excuse me, Monterey County also experienced a decrease in our half allocation for rounds 3 and 4.

Monterey County COC is in the process of verifying data collected from the 2024.0 in time count and we are anxious to see if this loss of funding has negatively impacted our pit number. Next slide finally, I would like to take a moment to acknowledge other important factors that influence our ability to address homelessness. Homelessness, at its core, as mentioned earlier, is a housing issue.

Even if when in our county made $100,000 a year and had little to no vulnerabilities, we would still have a homeless population because we don't have enough housing. But that will never be the case because we have an aging and disabled population. So it is important to note that for every 100 extremely Low income houses households in our county, we only have 16 units to serve them. We are substantially underperforming compared to the state as a whole.

Therefore, it is important for us to take into consideration our local rental market, our main industries that support our workforce, which populations are being disproportionately impacted, and which local governments have joined the fight. It is expensive to live here in Monterey County, with studio apartments exceeding $2,300 per month, layered by a lack of infrastructure, developable land and funding paired with community resistance to more services.

As I said before, we still have a lot of work ahead of us, but we have in fact come a long way. In 2020, our COC partnered with Monterey County's health Department, Behavioral Health Bureau and Department of Social Services, San Benito County's Health and Human Services Department in the City of Salinas to launch the Leave me Home plan to reduce homelessness by 50%.

This plan was adopted by Monterey and San Bernardino's County's boards of supervisors and five city municipalities, and we continue to pursue more political buy in. Our COC is now managing over $7 million in federal funding and has filled gaps with state investments, specifically through the homeless housing Assistance and prevention program. The only other funding stream we have historically used for outreach and emergency shelter is through the state's emergency Solutions grant, which is only $250,000 a year.

The potential loss of HHAP in next year's budget could mean that all of our work would have been for nothing. Shelters may close. Rapid rehousing through our shelters may get pulled back. While I recognize that half is a drop in the bucket for large cities and counties. But here it is the difference on whether or not we will be successful.

Also, I would like to highlight that our county and the City of Salinas has received over $20 million in encampment resolution funding and have submitted more than $14 million worth of ass and ERF round three to address two large rural encampments in south Monterey County. We also attribute our successes to the influx of COVID funding, which included $52 million of emergency rental assistance, something our community traditionally doesn't have access to. Again, I'd like to thank you so much for this opportunity to speak with you today, and I look forward to answering any questions you may have.

Thank you, Ms. Wilson, and on behalf of these committees, do appreciate taking a little time to rest and monitoring yourself. We hope you get better soon. We have a lot of business in front of us, and we deeply don't want to become sick ourselves. And Mr. Huang, we look forward to your presentation as well.

Thank you, chair Ward and Members of the Joint Committee. My name is Bill Huang, and I'm the Housing Director for the City of Pasadena. PowerPoint is coming up. My two main points have already been discussed here through the previous presentation and all your comments. One is that the pipelines into homelessness really need to be addressed. Homelessness is just a symptom of other upstream failures. And in a lot of ways, sometimes we feel, those of us who are sort of on the ground doing this work, we feel like we're the emergency room Doctor sewing up the gunshot victims, but we're not making the bullets and manufacturing the guns, et cetera, et cetera.

And so, in the same way with homelessness, when we have a huge and growing homeless senior population, Social Security is average. Social Security payment is 1767, and you can see that's less than the cost.

Of a one bedroom apartment. So the gaps in the safety nets are really huge. The other point that I want to make, besides the pipeline needing to be addressed, the pipeline issues into homelessness needing to be addressed is this matter of permanent funding. And just like the previous speaker talked about, to start up programs to address homelessness only to have to potentially close them, is very, very counterproductive.

One time funding, no matter how many times we get, one time funding is great, but it can't provide the deep, long term assistance that those who are chronically homeless need, which is ongoing. So you can't solve a permanent problem with short term, one time funding.

Homelessness in Pasadena. Let me give you a quick overview. Firstly, regarding Pasadena, we have a population of 150,000. We're majority renters. We're 23 sq mi, racially diverse. We're an upscale community transit rich. We have a very high cost of housing, and we have a significant homeless situation. Next, please.

The Housing Department itself is set up. In a way that is unique, but we don't have to be unique. I think other jurisdictions can do something similar. Firstly, we are kind of vertically integrated. In that we have our housing development Division also cohoused with our Public Housing Agency, which is also cohoused with our continuum of care.

So the Housing Development Group provides the Capital funding to build affordable housing. Public housing agency administers our rental assistance programs. We have about 1500 rental assistance vouchers. For our city, including Section eight, Vash. EHV, and a whole Alphabet soup of other rental assistance vouchers.

And then we are our own homeless continuum of care. Of the 44 continuums of care in the state, three of us are city based, and we are one of them. So we take the lead for our own homeless services planning and funding. We receive funding from the feds, ESG money. We receive state funding, county dollars, and very limited amount of local city sources. Next.

But this is very helpful. For instance, when it comes to developing permanent supportive housing, where we can provide the capital, the rental assistance, and the service dollars altogether, we can make sure they're all available before we even undertake a project. So looking at the homeless trends from 2010 to 2020, in the state, overall, the population unhoused population rose by 31%. Next.

We're in La County, and so in La County, in roughly the same time period, it went up about 50%. Next. And in Pasadena, it has gone down significantly from 2011 down through 2016, and sort of stayed at a consistently about 54% reduction. Next.

And so what we did in 20102011 to bend that curve is nothing that we didn't do anything that isn't already widely done. We focused on permanent housing. We already had quite a few. We had an emergency shelter for men, women, families, bad weather shelter. We kept them all open. We continued that. But we focused new resources on permanent housing, both permanent supportive housing for the chronically homeless and rapid rehousing for those who are less acute. We focused on homeless prevention. We focused on homeless outreach.

We even closed down our intake center that we had for several decades and replaced them with homeless outreach teams because the folks who needed the services the most didn't come in. And so we basically changed it our rubric and said, you don't need to come to us, we're going to come to you. And so we're very heavy in homeless outreach, we have specially trained police teams, paramedic teams, nonprofit teams, multidisciplinary teams, outreach workers. In our public libraries, of which, in a City of 23 sq.

Mi, we have 10 public libraries. Our business improvement districts also even have their own homeless outreach workers. And so homeless outreach is really critical. Building trust is the capital that we have to get folks to participate. So we're very heavy on homeless outreach. And these are all permanent teams working in 23 sq. Mi. And then we also continue to provide our emergency housing and interim housing. Next. An example of a permanent supportive housing project as we opened three months ago.

It's faith based land. This was the Salvation Army. They wanted to build a food pantry. They were going to tear down a little office building that they had used for food pantries because it's not a good physical plant for food pantry. State of the art food pantries are more like a warehouse with a small retail section where people can go in and choose their own groceries, as opposed to just driving up and getting bags of groceries, most of which they don't want to eat.

So they wanted to tear down this little office building and asked the city to give them a fundraising letter to say, we support this. This is an important thing. But we looked at it and said, wait, your site has a lot of development potential. And so we showed them that you can develop housing, particularly permanent supportive housing, how to do it, what the zoning allows, and that we would make the first multimillion dollar commitment to make the project happen. Next.

So what they've ended up with is a new four story building. They got their State of the art food pantry, but there's also 65 units of permanent supportive housing, 16 of which for chronically homeless veterans. Next. We have a homeless veteran population, but not a large one, because we are not close to any large VA facility. So in La County, most of the high concentrations of homeless veterans are in West LA, Long beach or up in the San Fernando Valley, where there are large VA facilities.

Pasadena is not one of those, but we have some. This is the funding stack for that particular project. So this is 66 units of housing. Over a food pantry was $36 million, not including the land, because they already own the land. But the City of Pasadena's contribution was 2 million. The project utilized state MHP dollars, which we were very grateful for, 4% bond, as well as some other allocations, funding allocations.

The city also committed project based vouchers and the VASH vouchers through our public housing agency. And then the services were paid for by county through a quarter cent sales tax measure, and the project utilized a 50% density bonus. Next. So there it is. Next. So it opened three months ago. That's their food pantry. Next.

So we have another. That was our fourth permanent supportive housing project. Our fifth permanent supportive housing project is leasing up right now, will open next month, and that is 69 units for chronically homeless seniors. This other little project just gives you an example. We really work along the entire continuum. But this is transitional housing for transitional age youth coming out of Pasadena City College.

And what's innovative about this particular project. Is Pasadena City College is paying the rent for these youth, their students, even though there aren't tapped into the State Homeless Dollars, but they're paying for it out of their own budget. It's that big of an issue for them. Next. And then we also are very interested.

In the solutions in single family zones because like most built environments, built up environments, City of Pasadena, 70% of the land is zoned r one single family residential. So if we don't have solutions, meaningful solutions within the single family zone, we're seeding away 70% of the field before we even start. So we did a demonstration house. It's a typical three bedroom, two bath house. Next.

With a detached one car garage. So we built a detached one bedroom ADU. Next. And then converted the master suite into an attached junior ADU. And next. And so this is the final project that we have. It's a buy right project, a two bedroom, one bath house. Junior ADU, one bedroom ADU, and we use it for permanent housing of rapid rehousing, lower acuity clients.

And the rents are either one has rental assistance, the other rents are designed what a person at minimum wage could afford to pay on their own. And more than half of the residents there no longer need a rental assistance. Because they're working minimum wage jobs. They pay their own rent. But the interesting thing about this program. Is that this is done by right in a high end single family residential neighborhood with no community opposition, nothing.

And it's ending homelessness. It has ended homelessness for, in this case, right now, five people. Next. So some of the things that the state has done that we found to be very helpful. Project Homekey. Although we were unsuccessful in getting any applications in City of Pasadena because motel owners kept wanting to change their price and get more than appraised value, which is called gift of public funds anyway.

But that program is really good, has been very effective, but it's no longer funded. The permanent local housing allocation program has been fantastic. It's SB 2 dollars. What's great about that funding source, it gives you a lot of flexibility. It can be used for capital, it could be used for operating, it could. Be used for operating subsidies. It's fantastic. But for us, it's only about 25%.

Of the old redevelopment set aside. It's fantastic money. We wish we could get 3, 4, 5, 10 times as much. We can do a lot more if we had that kind of flexible money. And then also with the HAPP and the HEAP funds. What's been very great about that money. Is that it's essentially getting block granted down to the jurisdictions without being overly prescriptive, saying it can only be used for this or that. But it's like, here's a menu of things that can be used for you decide what is best for your community. And that kind of local community control combined with the power of the state funding is very effective.

Next and last. So our challenges is we're very short on capital funding for new development. In order to effectively do develop permanent. Supportive housing, you need project based vouchers. But there's a cap that housing authorities have, and we've reached our cap, which is 30% of all your vouchers. After that, you can't project base anymore.

And. We and several other housing authorities have been trying to get HUD to increase that cap, not require that it be increased, but give the housing authorities the option to increase that cap for maybe up to 50%. It doesn't require any more additional vouchers. It doesn't impact the budget, but we can't get them to do that. So if our California delegation could really help us, if you can help us to help to get that change, that would allow us to continue to develop permanent supportive housing.

We have the political will, we have land available. Our last two permanent supportive housing projects, when they went to City Council, they were approved unanimously in the first vote with zero community opposition. So there are jurisdictions that want to do more permits for housing, but this is a real limiting factor. And then lastly, we need more long term funding. Like that PLHA program is a great model for us. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Huang and I appreciate that you really closed on observing some of the things that recommendations that the state could do better to be able to help. You want to comment on some of your programs, but I wonder, Ms. Wilson, if you had any comment as well. To that end, maybe just some broad observations about where we could focus our efforts, either policy or budget, to be able to help you continue the trend lines that you're showing in Monterey and San Bernardino counties.

Yeah, I actually think that that was a fantastic presentation that really does mirror our experience here in Monterey County. I think that one of the things that we are concerned about here is the lack of understanding of whose role it is to end homelessness. While many of our cities have joined the fight, there are still some cities that are reluctant.

And I know that CSAC has put forth quite a bit of effort to advocate for there to be more distinguished roles between cities, counties and continuums of care. PLHA is a wonderful funding stream, which we also use in our community to Fund our housing, navigation centers, and some of our outreach, but it also is not enough. So from my perspective, I think that hhap is probably the most beneficial for us because we have such a severe lack of federal funding in our community.

We want to continue pursuing it, but it does take time for us to get there. And even the federal funding, like the COC funding, does not pay for outreach and emergency shelters. So we will always have that gap without HAPP. And outreach has been one of our biggest, most effective programs that we have launched since the beginning of the pandemic, because it does take quite a bit of time, and when our coordinated entry system always fails to keep track of people.

And the outreach team has been able to help us locate folks who are up for housing. So I just want to underscore everything that Dhakshika and Margot had today, because that is in line with what we are experiencing here.

Thank you. And thank you for also underscoring, again, as many are, the value of HAPP and how it has made a difference over recent years in our communities. I think you kind of wrote down your quote that HAPP is the difference for you to be successful. And so that's not lost. But I want to also reflect and, and back you up that there's an unfairness when we're maybe just kind of over broadly tying our pit count to HAPP awards.

It almost seems counterintuitive, and we experienced that down in my region, too, in San Diego, where we saw our numbers decrease, like your two regions. But then our potential Hap allocation was going down. And what seemed unfair was that we were trying to get our act together. We were coordinating better between all the stakeholder groups and all the local agencies, and we were showing early signs of success. At least we were increasing our positive outcomes. So you're penalized for that.

That seems to be flipping it on its head. If we've got limited resources, you want to reward systems that are starting to show best practices and are showing proportionally more positive results. And we should be rewarding that, but also reflecting that maybe in best practices statewide. So I got your back on that, and we'll certainly be looking for that as those conversations come up in this year's budget. Are there other ways?

We had heard earlier from the previous panel that when state funds are received by local entities, that there might be local procurement barriers. Are there things that we could be doing up here to possibly give you some more flexibility or waive certain procurement requirements so that you can just get those resources out the door?

Well, I'm not sure about that specific question. I mean, I could tell you that one of the things that is happening is that it's been hard for any organization to hire people, and this is the same for nonprofit organizations. It's hard to hire and to keep case managers even. We have a permanent part of housing project that is funded for a certain number of case managers. They can never keep the full slate there because people come in and they go.

So the overall hiring, I don't think this is just within the homeless industry. I think a lot of industries are having a hard time hiring people, and that's one of the factors that's, I think, slowing the utilization of these dollars.

One of the things that I would like to add when it comes down to the incarnate resolution funding is it is a three year program, but we were mandated to spend half of the money within 50% of the funding within the first year. So how do you continue funding those programs for year 2 and 3 if half of the money has to get spent after the first year?

So that is one of the things that I think the state can take a look at when we are writing legislation that's tied to funding is what the local jurisdictions and their local continuums have to go through in order for us to get the money out the door. I don't know how it ties in together when it comes down to procurement, but if there is any way that the states can override local procurement policies, I would definitely encourage that.

I might frame it as a way to be able to sort of reframe some of the guidelines that can help maybe unstick some of the challenges that you're running into. If there is, say, state law on contracting, that is adding time and barrier for you to be able to ultimately get it towards the way.

But I appreciate, Mr. Huang, your point that we are not doing enough to be able to support those that are doing the hard work on the front lines and that these are turning into temporary positions with a lot of transition because those individuals deserve upward mobility as well. And that's not fair for them to be kind of stuck in a job receiving minimum wage or something close to it when the work is so hard.

I want to thank again for your local examples and noted very clearly in just the Salvation Army project that you highlighted here that nearly a quarter of those funds were a result of MHP funds. And so again, we're looking at areas or buckets that are at risk due to this year's state budget. We're looking at projects like this that may not have ever come to be because a significant piece of the puzzle would be missing.

But also agreeing with you that we need to do more to support, well, to really encourage and hopefully mobilize federal counterparts, whether it's through the vouchers, through the 4% tax credits, through other resources that California doesn't receive a fair share or are working that needs to be highlighted and reauthorized and hopefully increased as time goes on as well. So we've got our work cut out for us.

But first of all, local leadership is appreciated and is a case study in what we can share with our colleagues. And we'll continue to be able to partner with you as we're trying to figure out how to get through this budget period to be able to support the good trend of work that you are doing and want to thank you for that.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much for your time. We'll be moving on to our third panel, the overview of prevention efforts. We talked a little bit about this before, but for that, we'd like to welcome up to the presentation table and thank you again for your patience in a lengthy but informative information hearing today, we have Consuelo Hernandez, the Director of the Office of Support of Housing with the County of Santa Clara, Chad Bojorquez, the Chief Program Officer for Destination Home, and Mary Kate Johnson, the Director of regional homeless prevention with all home. And Ms. Hernandez, I think I'll ask you to go first. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Consuelo Hernandez, I am the Director of the County of Santa Clara office of Supportive Housing. We are also serving as the collaborative applicant for the CoC and Chad Bojorquez, who's here with me from Destination Home. We will be providing this presentation together. So our focus is really around our prevention efforts.

We do use our HAPP funding to support the homelessness prevention system and to answer some of the questions that you asked earlier from the other panels is that we leverage the hap dollars over a three year period. So, for instance, if our award was roughly 27 million, then we set aside maybe 10 million for prevention, and then that's spread over three years. And I'll move it over to Chad now.

Good afternoon. Thanks for having us. To build upon what Consuelo just mentioned, our community decided that prevention was a priority because we had established the countywide Santa Clara Countywide homelessness prevention system back in 2017 to really kind of make a strategic effort to prevent homelessness. We were seeing consistent rise in inflow, new people becoming homeless in our community, despite tremendous new efforts that continue to house people faster than ever, more than ever, year over year.

So we established the Homelessness Prevention system, which is currently a network of 19 community based organizations across the county, both large and small. There are some that are based in certain neighborhoods where we know that particularly impacted people live. We found early on, as an example of how we've used data in the system to add partners, that roughly 30% of households had either current or recent experience with domestic violence or human trafficking. That's why we added the Domestic Violence Advocacy Consortium, for example.

Similarly, we found that families were calling the shelter hotline for shelter and getting turned away if they were still housed, even though they were saying, hey, I don't know how I'm going to pay rent next month. So we kind of intervene and have routed people towards the homelessness prevention system. We also provide, typically, immediate financial assistance, as well as legal support.

Advanced slide one, I think, to align with his commentary.

Thank you. Sorry about that.

No problem.

So, yeah, I am looking at this kind of map of all the different providers across the county and the different services. Thank you. We provide, as I mentioned, immediate financial assistance, which is really the primary intervention, as well as supportive services like legal services, case management, accessing safety net benefits, et cetera. Next slide, please. So, here you can see kind of a recent cumulative look at our impact in the homelessness prevention system countywide. A tremendous amount of households that grows every day.

These are households that are at imminent risk of homelessness, per the HUD definition. And over a long period of time, you can see that, as we should expect, over 90% of households stay housed while they're enrolled in the program. However, more importantly, if you look at a year out, only 3% of households are becoming homeless. That we're able to see in hmis, which is pretty incredible. And what you don't see on here is that actually only 7% of households are becoming homeless after two years.

So we're seeing a lot of longitudinal success. The homelessness prevention system in Santa Clara County was also studied through an RCT trial by the University of Notre Dame's lab for economic opportunities. And they just reinforced the outcomes that we were seeing locally in that this works, especially works for highly vulnerable households, for example, households that have had previous experience of homelessness or households with experience with incarceration, as an example. And that study is published and online, again, through the University of Notre Dame.

And there's a little footnote there. But it's extremely important to the conversation that you mentioned earlier, Mr. Ward, in that it's extremely cost effective to prevent homelessness. Right. We're seeing that just over $6,000 per household, and this is a system that has maximum flexibility. We don't have any hard caps on how much financial assistance we're able to provide to each household or a length of time. So this is across all 6100 families that we've helped over the years. Very affordable intervention. Next slide, please.

So this is our attempt to meet our community plan goal. We have a strategic plan that's community wide called the Community plan to end homelessness. And our goal at the end of the five year period, which is coming up next year, rapidly approaching, is to serve 2500 households through our prevention efforts. So we're getting close.

What we wanted to point out here is that we are using HAPP funds both through our county allocation as well as our City of San Jose, our largest city in the county. And what's great about those funds is that they are able to be used right alongside, actually, our private philanthropic funds in their max flexibility. We're able to use them for all the different financial assistance needs and household types that we're serving.

We're serving the most vulnerable households in Santa Clara County, and the funds have been able to be used, really without restriction. Next slide, please. So just briefly, some trends that we are seeing in our system that we felt like are relevant. More than half of the households seeking assistance have had a COVID impact. In fact, that network of providers that I showed earlier really was the springboard for our COVID response, where we in our county were able to distribute over $85 million of different financial assistance.

Financial impact is the most common reason for needing assistance. Loss of a job, not making enough money. I always say it's a math problem, right? People aren't making enough money to pay the rent. That's the bottom line. Most households seeking assistance report that they will not be stable moving forward. If we don't intervene. There's definitely been an increase, and some of this is kind of coming off the tail of COVID but an increase of three day notices, pay or quit notices, all different eviction.

And so what we've been able to do there is actually put people from the homelessness prevention system into the courts, into the eviction courts, through a partnership where we're actually able to offer the financial assistance in real time through the facilitation of the judge in partnership with the landlords, et cetera. That's been really effective.

Households have been seeking large amounts of financial assistance, not surprisingly, but there's multiple months of back rent, so that's typically the first thing that we do is intervene quickly and get that caught up, actually. Next slide, please, because it's actually a better representation. But in spite of all of our growth in Santa Clara County for prevention efforts, keep in mind, in 2017, we started with a goal of serving 330 households, and we had about a million and a half dollars.

Our current budget is actually just shy of $30 million to serve approximately 1800 households. In spite of that, we're not able to help everyone who needs help in the prevention system, and that's really what this is meant to represent. And now I'm going to turn it over to my colleague, Consuelo.

Thanks, Chad. We wanted to spend a little bit of time sharing with you some of the performance outcomes. And again, because we are the CoC collaborative applicant and our board is particularly interested in the outcomes of our programs, we actually produce a dashboard every month. So if we can go to the next slide. One more, please. We wanted to share just one snapshot of, over the last 12 months, what we're seeing in the way of inflow and housing placements.

Because in addition to our homelessness prevention strategies, and Chad mentioned a lot about the flexibilities that we have with our funding, we also like to see the impact of those dollars. And are we moving the needle? So this shows you, by month, over the last 12 months, how many new people became homeless, and then our housing interventions on the permanent housing side. So we're really trying to tackle two things at once.

How do we continue to build supportive housing, continue to provide rental assistance, and preventing people from becoming homeless? So this is kind of like our standard dashboard. And then twice a year, we report on homelessness prevention. Next slide, please. And so you'll see here that Chad talked about. The initiation of the homelessness prevention system actually came out of a local housing task force.

One of the recommendations was to create the system, and you can see that our success in growing that in the chart on the left has really been reliant on the one time dollars that we have received from the state and leveraging the local with the Philanthropic Dollars. Without those half dollars, it would be nearly impossible for us to be serving as many people. And knowing what our allocation is, does allow us to plan for the future.

So right now, we have Hap three, hap four, and then working on our HAPP five application. And that gives us some certainty that we can make commitments to all of the partners that Chad mentioned, that make up this system so that they can hire and have some certainty that there's money there for three years. And then the chart on the right, as Chad mentioned, we look at what are the benefits that we're seeing? What are the outcomes, how are people served? Next slide.

And doing a bit more of a deep dive into really understanding why people become homeless or what is the primary source of assistance that they need. And it always comes down to job loss and really not being able to afford to live in our county. Next slide. Our board also asks us very specific questions about the service transactions and hmis, and how those kind of map to the outcomes that are presented by Chad through destination home.

In a more percentage wise, of the households that have been served over the last 12 months, what were the interventions by percentage? And then this data is a little bit different than the numbers that Chad presented, because mine are through November 2023, and the numbers that we have that we're working on updating right now are through June. So you can see that difference. Chad's numbers show about $6,000 per household. The latest numbers are showing nine.

And that, again, is because of a result of the loss of the state funding for rental assistance, emergency rental assistance, and the fact that the tenant protection ordinances have basically ceased. And we're just starting to see a higher demand. Next slide. And then, of course, our board is always very interested in understanding the demographics of the people that are served. And this gives you just a snapshot of household type. So the majority of the people that we serve are households with children.

So about 56% of the people served over the last year were households with children. We also track by age, race, and ethnicity and by gender. So we won't go into detail. Just wanted to give you a snapshot of everything that we do track. And then what we do is we use that information to, in real time, change any program design. So, especially during the pandemic, we had to reprioritize how we funded the program or how and who we served because the demand was so high.

So we really look at data every month to see if there's any needs to the program that have to happen. And again, because of the funding sources being so nimble and flexible, we're able to do that. And that is all we have for you today. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Great. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Next slide, please. So, my name is Mary Kate Johnson. I'm the Director of Regional Homelessness Prevention at a Bay Area policy organization called All Home. We were founded in 2019 by Tamika Moss, who's secretary BCSH, and we advance regional strategies to disrupt cycles of poverty and homelessness, redress racial disparities in who's at risk for and experiencing homelessness, and create economic mobility for households with extremely low incomes.

And one of our major frameworks is the Regional Action Plan to create rapid and substantial reductions in unsheltered homelessness across the region. And the meat of that plan is a strategy of concurrent investments that essentially uses interim and permanent housing investments to create exits out of homelessness and then targeted prevention investments simultaneously to prevent the numbers of people from getting pushed into homelessness.

And our framework actually owes a huge debt to Santa Clara County, which launched its HPS as its Homelessness Prevention System as a pilot in 2017. And that was one of the models that we looked to, along with Keep Oakland Housed, which launched as a pilot in about 2018 in Oakland, to create a regional strategy of targeted prevention, which essentially targets resources equitably and efficiently to the households that are most at risk of losing their housing to basically redress the math problem. Next slide.

The other math problem, which is that we're only going to reduce the overall numbers of people experiencing homelessness if we're preventing homelessness. And of course, upstream, we have to address the math problem that people's incomes are not keeping up with housing costs, but in the short term when we have limited resources, the idea is to really target prevention resources to the folks who are most at risk. Next slide, please.

So what we're seeing, or what All Home was seeing, is that across the region, three people are becoming homeless for every one that is housed by homeless response systems. And so that the strategy is really to target the prevention resources to the people at highest risk of housing loss, which we call targeted prevention. And then our goal was to get all the counties rowing in the same direction.

So to take the models that were working in Santa Clara County and the model that was working in the City of Oakland and really build regional infrastructure so that all the counties could row in the same direction and make cross jurisdictional reductions in homelessness. Next slide, please. I want to take a step back and acknowledge that prevention is a continuum. There are different kinds of prevention supports that are needed. Eviction prevention is a critically needed resource.

It's a little bit of upstream of our strategy because it's catching households that are still largely in leaseholding situations. Our strategy is targeting folks who have maybe lost their lease and they're on a slow slide into homelessness, maybe surfing on the last couch that they can before they are moving into their vehicle. That's really what we're trying to use resources flexibly to address. And so we need the continuum of prevention services, and we don't want to pit one intervention against another.

But this flexible financial assistance model paired with housing stabilization services is really essential to keep folks in their housing and support system level reductions in homelessness, especially when it's paired with investments in permanent housing like we're seeing in Santa Clara. So next slide, please.

So what All Home did was we partnered with Bay Area Community Services, which is a regional service provider, and we built a technology platform, which we piloted during the pandemic to distribute tens of millions of dollars in federal rental assistance funding in both San Francisco and Oakland. And we also had a small pilot in Fremont. And the technology platform essentially hosts an online application where households can go and they can apply for help in several languages.

And there's an evidence based assessment tool similar to Santa Clara's, which asks questions about risk factors for homelessness. Have you experienced homelessness before? How old is the head of household? Are you exiting an institution? And similar. And the assessment tool generates a priority score for the applications, which allows service providers to go into a confidential, secure kind of back end space where they can see the applications that are scoring the highest and then proactively reach out to those households and offer flexible financial assistance.

So primarily help paying your rent, but if there's a good reason not to pay your landlord directly or not to pay you your rent money directly, the funds can cover a car payment so that you can get to work and pay your rent.

So the idea is to keep it very, very flexible and then also to pair it with housing stabilization services so that we're not giving every household the same amount of money, we're really working with them to determine what is the amount that they need to stay housed and then support them with checks and services to budget to create a housing stability plan, whatever they may need to get back on a path to stability. And our programs also make legal referrals for every household facing eviction, that's another really core component of the model.

And the goal is really to keep high risk people housed and support system level reductions in homelessness. Next slide, please. This is just a snapshot of our online applications. Next slide. Our assessment tool basically understands risk in three buckets. We used research to develop this, and we worked with academics, including Dr. Kushel. So we think about risk in terms of household composition. So is there a pregnancy? Are there children or young children in the household?

That's a huge risk factor. Has there been a recent life change, birth, death, or a divorce that impacts the household stability? And is the head of household a transition age youth or a senior? Which also impacts risk. The second bucket is housing and income status factors. So are you living without a lease? Have you experienced homelessness previously? Are you extremely low income?

And then the third bucket is situational factors like exiting an institution, having a chronic health condition, and your documentation status, for which we ask a proxy question. Next slide, please. And then on the back end, we're really using technology to start to build regional infrastructure. I'll show you a map in a second of our programs, but we're really trying to set up a program in all the counties in the bay that don't have one.

And what we're able to do is kind of see in the back end of our portal this data about the families that we're serving, the households that we're serving, the demographics, the payment amounts, and I think with time as we collect outcomes, most of these programs they're launching in 2023, the pandemic was a significant external factor, and so there are different protections in place. And so really, we're starting to track outcomes as of 2023.

So it's a nascent system, but it really has the potential to be kind of a regional database that can tell us about risks for homelessness and how prevention can or is and isn't working across the Bay Area. So I think that's important. Next slide, please. So this is a very efficient and equitable use of very limited resources. A lot of the counties that we're moving forward and partnering to launch programs in, a lot of them don't have public funding allocated for prevention.

And so we're supporting them to find those dollars and then blend them with philanthropic grants from All Home to help get these programs off the ground. Very similarly to how Santa Clara launched their system in 2017. They started with a lot of philanthropy, and then they gradually got public funding into the mix and then rebalanced the ratio of support. So they have a robust mix of public funding leverage with some philanthropy.

So we're on the early end of that, using the philanthropy to help accelerate the programs and help these jurisdictions identify funding sources. Next slide, please. So basically, we are launching programs across the Bay Area. We relaunched programs, I mentioned that we did pilots during the pandemic in San Francisco and Oakland. We worked with those jurisdictions to relaunch locally funded programs. So San Francisco launched in 2023, and Oakland launched later in 2023. And we did a small pilot in Napa. We launched in Contra Costa in December.

And we're developing new programs in Sonoma and Solano counties. And we're just expanding across the Bay Area and counting the pandemic era pilots, more than 16,000 households have been served by our programs. Next slide, please. These are early results from our Covid-19 pilots. I mean, this was too high a volume to track housing retention for all these households, but we are able to see how our assessment tool is working when we look at this data.

So we received tens of thousands of applications, distributed tens of millions of dollars in rental assistance. And what we're seeing, you can see at the bottom of the two charts. Across these two communities, more than 97% of people had incomes below 50% of the area, median. A significant percentage, about 37%, had experienced homelessness previously, 16% had received an eviction notice, and more than three quarters identified as BIPOC.

So that tells us that our assessment tool is going into the zip codes that are highly impacted by homelessness and poverty to the households that really, really need this support. The next slide we can skip, because that's outcomes from Santa Clara County. Although I do think it's very notable that in the randomized controlled trial, what the researchers found was that households who got this time limited, flexible financial assistance paired with services were 73% less likely to become homeless after a year.

Which suggests that this doesn't just work in the short term, it actually creates a persistent effect and actually puts these households back on a path to stability. And also, for every dollar spent on direct financial assistance, the researchers found that there were about $2.50 worth of social benefits and, of course, reduced homelessness. And just a note about All Home's roles and all of this. We raised a pooled prevention Fund. It's private philanthropic dollars.

And we have a contract with BACs that supports the technology infrastructure and the portals. Basically, the platform host portals in each jurisdiction where we support a program, and we also make grants to accelerate the launches of these programs. And we work with the jurisdictions and we try to maximize the amount that goes to direct financial assistance. So we're providing the support so that we can create systems like this that are truly regional in nature.

Great. Thank you for both presentations. A lot to absorb. And I have a couple of questions that you might have covered, but I just want to at least tease them out for clarification and to underscore. So when you're talking about those, that these prevention systems are designed to help.

And I agree, there's a lot more demand out there, and you have to sort of kind of maybe use some kind of metrics or some kind of indicators about who's going to make the cut and who you're able to serve with the resources you have. How have you been able to maybe understand some of those indicators?

What are the most significant signals about somebody who very likely will become homeless if they are not in the pool of those receiving assistance, as opposed to those who might be less on the cusp or have other ways of supporting themselves?

It's a great question that we're always grappling with. The assessment tool that we use in Santa Clara County is a shortened, modified version of what was called the prevention VI-SPDAT, which is a research based tool that a lot of communities use. We shortened it because after a while, we felt like it was taking too much time to assess families, really, and it was asking a lot of vulnerable questions. So we shortened it from something like 36 questions down to 10, and we partnered.

Well, the University of Notre Dame that did our study helped us kind of shorten it and come up with a version that was reasonably just as valid as the longer version. Through University of Notre Dame study, they were able to determine that households who have previous history of being homeless are much more likely to become homeless again. That's a major indicator that has shown up across multiple different studies, involvement with the criminal justice system, as well as, like, larger family sizes.

So families with children, multiple children, typically because the rent is higher and there's a lot more going on. Right. A lot more complexity in people's lives, expenses, and then families of color are just across the board more vulnerable. Something that we really prioritize in Santa Clara County is based on income level because it's kind of a great equalizer, so to speak.

So we use the 30% of the area median income and below the extremely low income level is what we consider the most vulnerable in our community. And over 85% of the households who have received homelessness prevention system assistance come into the ELI band.

Got it. Have you been able to use maybe even some of your own annual data from, say, like a pit survey that we do? The more, the more long form survey to sort of back up some of that data that those who are experiencing homelessness. Right. What really put them over the edge that caused the moment of homelessness, build that back into sort of your predictive modeling.

Absolutely. So the model that's used to determine vulnerability, that's really just to prioritize who is the most vulnerable to receive the resources. Then through the course of our intervention, we collect the data. So it's just simply not prioritizing the 50 other categories of questions that we could ask and really focus and honing in on the 10 or 11 that are important based on what we know that the demand is so much higher than anything we could ever actually fulfill.

So looking at everybody, if you're ELI, or below 30% of the area meeting can or below, that automatically makes you vulnerable. If you're a person of color, that puts you in another point. And so, really, those five things that Chad mentioned, that's just used to prioritize people. But then after that, all the data that we collect on reasons why. Where were you? A lot of the things that we're seeing now is prior to new people becoming homeless, they were stably housed.

Like six months ago, they were stably housed. So really, it's loss of jobs and some other incident that happened in their life that really took all of their money, and now they find themselves really at risk, vulnerable, on the brink of living in their car. So it's that job loss that we're seeing on the back end or a loss of income that is the number one driver of why people are becoming homeless or why people are entering our prevention system.

And for either Santa Clara County or for the rest of the region, how does this integrate with HMIS and the programs that you're working with? Are you HMIS integrated, or what other data maybe have you learned from the system to inform the work that you're doing?

So the dashboards we presented, that is all a service transaction in HMIS.

Got it.

And our database, it can share basic information with HMIS. It's a different system, and it's meant to be a different system. We want to make sure that people are staying out of HMIS. And so basically what you can do is you can cross reference your HMIS population to help assess some of the outcomes from your program.

So you can serve the households in our platform, then you can do individualized follow up and or you can cross reference HMIS on an annual, quarterly basis, whatever you choose, and see actually who was served, who may be ending up in HMIS.

And back to a point I made earlier, I appreciate wanting to keep them out of stronger programs and interventions, but I wouldn't totally dissociate the two. It's important that HMIS is accurate as possible to know who's receiving this kind of lighter touch assistance, because it's going to drive a lot of our decision making as far as the resources that might be able to help support more individuals, more families that otherwise would be falling into homelessness. Just some of the back of the envelope numbers.

If you're talking about when you said the time point too, is your Santa Clara program, was it open ended on the length of assistance or did you have a period?

It was open ended.

Okay. And the All Home program was defined period?

No, our models are actually very similar, and our case management model is very similar. It's really what the household needs to stay housed. I would say typically it's probably between three to six months, although some families may need more and others may need much less.

Did you find an average time that the assistance was needed?

We do. And then I just wanted to also say that the time limit really is dependent on the funding source. So during the pandemic, because we were using the emergency rental assistance, it was capped. There was a time limit. So the numbers are a bit skewed. But typically you're right, it's between 3 and 6 months.

And for even for three to six months, noting that this kind of a program that prevents homelessness is coming in somewhere between $6,000-9,000. I understand why costs may have gone up in more current numbers that we might see. But just quick back of the envelope, back to encampment resolution that we've invested $48 million to help 2,900 individuals is coming in at 16,000. And as I've said before, it's not demonstrating 100% success, far, far short of that.

So as we start to compare models to models, I just hope all of my colleagues are thinking about these too, in the form of where are we going to get best bang for the buck and help the most people with limited resources. And then about your framework, this really intrigued me, your 124 kind of model.

It's been an open ended question that a lot of locals, and even some national, I think, think tank has been trying to figure out what is the right ratio of prevention versus transitional versus permanent allocations, noting that they are inversely expensive. Right. It's very expensive to build, but we need that for those particularly who are chronically homeless or who are currently homeless versus those that we're trying to prevent. So you need some mix of everything. I agree with that.

How are you finding sort of this one to four ratio in comparison to maybe other national evaluations of how to best allocate a total pot of resources?

That's a really great question. The 124 was developed by our regional impact Council basically during the pandemic as we were developing this Regional Action Plan. And the numbers are, they're not hard and fast numbers. It's sort of a regional rule of thumb that helps us conceptualize concurrent investments so that we can be creating flow in our homeless response systems. Right now we have more people entering homelessness than we can possibly ever hope to serve.

We have folks languishing in the street, and we don't have enough subsidized housing. And so the idea was really to start with a baseline of housing solutions. And of course, you need more housing than you need interim housing, and then you need a lot of prevention because it is hard to predict who's going to become homeless, although you can distribute the resources efficiently and equitably using. There's a lot of literature about risk.

And so we're trying to do that in Santa Clara County, and All Home is trying to do that regionally. But really the idea is concurrent investments. And we work with jurisdictions to really look at, we do a housing gaps and inventory analysis. So we work with jurisdictions and we provide pro bono technical assistance, kind of looking at their inventory, their funding, what they have, what they would need to get to a 75% reduction in unsheltered homelessness. And so it's a pretty customized analysis that we're doing.

But the idea is coordinated and concurrent investments and to really align our systems so that we're all rowing in the same direction to keep people in their homes or get them homes.

I think it sounds very thoughtful. And while it's customized, it's over a big area, a lot of counties, a lot of population. So hopefully it's informative for other reasons as well, that might look at generally some kind of the same ratio as they're thinking about how to allocate limited resources. I did have one other question that escaped me.

I know our Members are onto, I think, other meetings at this time, and it's not going to come back to me, but we've covered a lot of ground here today, and I want to thank you for that. Were there any questions from my co chair that you're aware of that were burning subjects that needed to be addressed? All right, well, thank you for your work. Down to the question came back to me, how has your work incentivized? Sort of private-

I think you touched on this, but private charitable contributions, are they impressed with what you're seeing willing to sort of partner with government. And then how has your program also maybe inversely, convinced public agencies that you're worthy of a further investment?

I'm so glad you asked that question. It's a really good one. So, in the beginning, when we had. I mean, our strategies are. I think they work. I think they're very effective, and we were able to use them to raise an initial private investment to create this pooled prevention fund that was about a $12 million investment, possibly greater. And then what we were able to do was basically use that $12.5 million in private funding to incentivize almost $34 million in public investment across the region.

A lot of that was from San Francisco, which, after their errat funds were expended, decided to relaunch with the same model, basically using local funds. So they used general funds, the Gross Receipts Tax funding. But we've incentivized jurisdictions across the Bay Area to put in public funding for this model. And I think that it's a really important point that raising flexible philanthropic resources, it's the start, and then you attract the public investment, and the public investment is what can keep this going.

The challenge is that you need sufficient resources to scale to meet the need, and you need to keep them very flexible, because if you create arbitrary barriers in the course of program operations, you risk losing the people who need the help the most, and then those are the people who end up moving into their cars. So you need to keep it very flexible.

I will say we have a collective impact model where philanthropic organizations and dollars are a core in solving the problem. And so we have really good relationships. And Chad can speak to the private funding that Destination: Home has been able to bring in, but they provide resources through our entire continuum, whether it's in investing $5 million to make a home key match for one of our interim housing projects or filling in a funding gap on our permanent housing.

I think for us, the strategy has been philanthropy is a key stakeholder, and it isn't just a function of government funding, but it's on us all to work together to solve this. And so philanthropy is a huge partner in everything that we do.

Collective impact is kind of at the core of how we operate in Santa Clara County. And just to demonstrate through this prevention system, in 2017, it was about 25% public funds and 75% private funds that has completely flipped around. So now we have about 25% private funds, philanthropic, corporate funds, and the 75% public funds. We always feel like public funds are going to be around a lot longer than any of us and typically, hopefully more sustained and larger.

And we don't always talk about it at this level. But I think since you asked the question, and it's really important for us, corporate funders like Cisco and Apple have combined to provide over $100 million in the last couple of years to Santa Clara County in private funds. And with those, they made prevention a priority, that we report our outcomes to them as well. And it's a key to our partnership in keeping this going.

Well, thank you for highlighting some of those examples. I know that's an opportunity that we have to have if we're going to scale better, to demonstrate we've got some effective solutions here and that they're worthy investments, because I do believe a lot in the private sector cares about making a difference, but they want to know that resources, as we do in government, are going to be going to effective solutions.

And for the County of Santa Clara, you were able to use HAP funding for some of these prevention models. Where else is your HAP funding being directed?

The balance of our HAP funds have gone, so we have the HAP youth set aside. A portion of that has gone to provide supportive services for a few of our homekey sites, and the balance is for temporary housing.

Okay.

And we spread it out over three years.

Right. Great. Well, we've covered a lot of ground, and I want to thank you all for the work that you're doing in your home communities and being able to showcase this for all those watching today. We've got a lot of work cut out for us in both our Policy and Budget Committee hearings in the months ahead, but we will certainly use a lot of the information that you provided to be able to guide us in responsible decisions.

Thank you.

Thank you for having us.

Thank you very much. At this time, we do have a public comment portion on the agenda, so I'll invite anybody who is in attendance that would like to speak on the matter, depending on the length of the line. I'm a flexible Chair and I don't mind one or 2 minutes, but we'll offer you what is needed to make sure that you're making your contributions to the conversation today. And when you're ready, feel free to approach the public microphone. Thank you.

Sorry. Getting our order here. Good afternoon. My name is Simone Turek Lee. I'm with John Burton Advocates for Youth. And I just want to say this is about evidence based solutions to address homelessness. And one of the number one things we can do is prevent homelessness among young people.

We've learned from know, years of experience of hearing from young people and from organizations, and then also from research that when you look at pathways to a chronic adult homelessness, being homeless as a young person is the number one pathway. And that's above and beyond substance abuse, mental health challenges, family breakdown, loss of housing. And so we do have data to show that really investing in preventing homelessness amongst youth is really the evidence based solution to addressing homelessness.

Unfortunately, in the governor's proposed budget that he released in January, he's proposing to eliminate two critical programs that prevent youth homelessness among youth that are leaving the foster care system. I also just do want to say that HAP has been an amazing resource to actually reduce youth homelessness. So we want to see investments generally on the sort of homelessness response side, and we want to see preventative efforts among communities that we know are at higher risk to experience homelessness like youth coming from foster care.

So these two programs that I mentioned, one of them is administered by HCD. It's called the Housing Navigation and Maintenance program. It's a $13.7 million state investment, and it leverages $22 million of federal housing assistance through specialized housing choice vouchers. And without that state funding, not only are youth unable to turn their voucher into housing, because you can imagine being about 20 years old and trying to find housing in California on your own is very hard. And it's also a requirement.

HUD requires these services be offered to young people with these vouchers. So if we don't have investment, if we don't have funding for county child welfare agencies to provide these services in partnership with their housing authority, the housing authority is not even allowed to request vouchers for young people leaving foster care. We've seen a 54% increase in the number of vouchers for this population since the inception of the Housing Navigation and maintenance program.

It was earlier called something very similar, but it was established in 2019, and if we lose that program, we lose a lot of federal housing assistance and we see young people that we can literally prevent from becoming homeless because we know exactly who they are ending up homeless. So I just want to please ask for the Legislature's preservation of these programs. Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, good afternoon. My name is Trinicia Jones and I am a former foster youth and I attend Sacramento State. I am here asking the Committee to prioritize preventing youth homelessness in the state budget. This program serves former foster youth with federal housing vouchers for housing assistance. Unfortunately, I was not able to benefit from this just because I was not told about it within my time in the foster care system, as well as limitations in the community where not everybody accepts these vouchers.

Please preserve funding for the $13.7 million housing and navigation. Sorry, Housing Navigation and Maintenance Program proposed for elimination in the Governor's Budget. Thank you.

Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Caryn Romero. I'm representing a nonprofit organization, a spiranet statewide organization that serves foster youth and at risk youth and families throughout the state. We oversee-I oversee the Housing Navigation and Maintenance Program, and so I wanted to speak to a little bit of what we've been able to do with the funding, just specifically in San Joaquin County. In the past year, we assisted 74 young adults who got referred to the program who needed assistance.

We're helping them both find and preserve their housing. Many of the transition age youth that we're serving, they work and they are enrolled in post secondary education, and they're just trying to navigate life as young adults while remaining housed with little to no support system. Some of the youth that we're serving are also parents.

A few things that we've been able to do with the housing, navigation and maintenance funds are connecting them to affordable housing and assisting them with the confusing process of renting and lease compliance, assisting with rental deposits and first month's rent, providing a short term motel stay when they're facing a short term gap in housing, therefore keeping them off the streets, providing transportation assistance so they can continue to get to and from work and pay their rent, assisting them with budgeting and money management, connecting them to services that will help them overcome the barriers that can get in the way of securing and maintaining housing.

So I just want to close by saying this is a population who's desperately trying to avoid homelessness, and these funds are helping with that.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, Chair Senator Ward, my name is Kevin Clark. I'm representing Good River Partners. I'm also a former foster youth who's completely dedicated to eliminating the foster care to homelessness pipeline here in California. And as you probably know, the governor's proposed budget proposes to eliminate the housing navigation and maintenance program that's about $13.7 million that would support over 1300 youth throughout California in leveraging or obtaining the housing choice vouchers.

And it's also a prudent fiscal policy or budget proposal as it kind of leverages about $22 million in federal spending. So we respectfully ask the Legislature to reject the administration's proposal for that funding. Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Purva Bhattacharjee. And I'm here on behalf of the California Alliance of Child and Family Services. We represent over 160 different community based organizations that provide services to current and former foster youth and I wanted to echo the sentiments earlier to please preserve the funding for the Housing Navigation Maintenance program. This program serves over 1,300 former foster youth and keeps youth housed while leveraging $22 million in federal housing assistance.

Experiencing homelessness as a youth is the most prominent pathway to chronic homelessness and solving this issue is in the best interest of the state. Thank you.

Good afternoon. Kim Lewis, representing the California Coalition For Youth and I won't repeat any of the other comments around our young people, but I did want to add a couple of new data points that I wanted to share with you guys. We know that the 18 to 25 year old is the second most important time for the developing brain of a person. And so when we are looking at our youth, we need those developmentally appropriate housing supports and solutions to support them.

Because of that fact, CDE just released some new data around housing status locations of our k through 12 students and had over 8,500 young people who were unaccompanied in k through 12 in the last fiscal year. So by different housing statuses wanted to share that. I know this is about evidence based solutions and I know we have been investing a lot around different solutions for our young people.

Our transitional housing has probably been the least place that we've seen increases which actually has really strong positive outcomes with like 78% of young people exiting transitional housing to safe and stable housing with our youth. I know rapid rehousing is looked at a growing space, but for our young people that can sometimes be a challenge. Because minors can't sign leases.

We're also encouraging them to go to school and going to education so they may not be always able to take over that subsidy voucher when it ends. And so to be able to pay for market rate rents is sometimes a challenge for our young people. I would say San Diego is a big model around how things are working and working well, around having a continuum of services where everyone knows their strengths and knows what niche they fill and how to support each other.

And they have served in the last two years using funding from HAP over 307 youth and have been able to successfully exit 143 young people to permanent housing through that program. I think in Orange County I would say that I think we have some stagnation around lack of transitional and places for young people to go.

As Mary Kate was talking about the 124 around having that pipeline and a continuum of services needed so that our young people don't just stay in places and like an emergency shelter, that they have places to go. And so we do need more supports and services around having that full continuum for our youth. So I'll stop there. Thank you.

Hi there. My name is Rachel Bhagwat. I'm with ACLU California Action. I wanted to first just do a plus one to everyone, Members and speakers who spoke today about that. Largely speaking, people are unhoused because California doesn't have enough housing and high quality support programs, not because they don't wish to be housed. Right. So we just want to plus one to that.

And as these committees hear proposals throughout the year aim to resolve our houselessness crisis, we wanted to just urge the committees to keep in mind what it means to truly house people and how that is defined. Housing, as experts define it, and state law, too, is completely voluntary. It includes a lease with rights and responsibilities of tenancy, and it allows tenants to come and go as they please.

We've seen a lot of proposals that aim to solve houselessness by hospitalizing people or placing them into residential care or other supervised and restricted settings. And that's not housing people, it's institutionalization. We know the data shows that that's not necessary for the vast majority of people who could stabilize and recover and would choose to do so in community based housing with supports if that were available. It also doesn't work. Kind of. The data does not bear that out.

So we want to also note that adding shelter beds ends up not being the strategy to solve houselessness, because shelter is a critical resource, but it isn't housing. And we wouldn't need so many beds in the state if we had housing for the folks who are currently in those beds to move to. So just always want to be thinking about housing and creating more housing as the North Star and remembering what housing is. Thank you so much.

Good afternoon. My name is Lewis Brown with the Corporation for Supportive Housing. Thank you for holding this hearing. I just wanted to lift up for you a bill that reflects or a concept that was raised today, evidence based intervention of rental assistance. So SB 37, which will be coming before the Housing Committee and will hopefully be considered by the Budget Committee as well, would create a rental assistance pilot project for older adults and people with disabilities.

So by providing people with financial assistance to help to pay their rent, the SB 37 would keep those two vulnerable populations in their homes and help to prevent homelessness. So as we all know, folks are falling into a homelessness at rates we haven't seen before. That's particularly the case for older adults, who are the fastest growing subpopulation of the homeless population. And as we've heard today, particularly from the last panel, rental assistance is an effective solution, powerful solution for preventing homelessness.

We've had studies that have shown that of people who are homeless, that if they had $300 more at the time that they became homeless, they wouldn't have become homeless in the first place. And so SB 37 would allow the state to implement and test this intervention for these two particular populations, at the state level. We estimate that the program, the pilot project, would cost about over three years, $25 million total.

We understand that in this budget climate, it's difficult to ask the Legislature for any new funding, especially, and we appreciate the position you're in having, to decide between important programs and unimportant programs. But we would say that we believe that the rental assistance sort of strategy is a cost effective one, as we've talked about today. So ultimately, it'll help to prevent people from going into homelessness. Yes. And thereby from going into a more costly homelessness response system. Thank you.

Hi. Good afternoon. Sharon Rapport with CSH. Really appreciate you holding this hearing and for all the good work put into the analysis. All evidence shows housing solves homelessness. And yet, less than 25% of the state funded programs around homelessness are going for housing. And so we don't think it means cutting back flexibility, but just making sure that we're prioritizing housing in our solutions to homelessness. We also lack ongoing funding, making these programs far less efficient and effective.

No jurisdiction has been able to reduce homelessness with one time funding allocations. That just hasn't happened. It's not possible. And so we would ask that the legislative leaders really be looking at in the future some revenue sources for ongoing funding for housing and housing based services. And we do see evidence that shows that less than two and a half percent of the state budget, if it's dedicated over 12 years ongoing way, then it can solve homelessness. We can solve homelessness in California.

We also realized the difficulty of this investment this year, and so we're asking for level funding for HAP. We do think that that program has really been critical in keeping a lot of people off the streets and helping a lot of people get off the streets and into either shelter or housing, considering the cost of housing is the driver of homelessness, and more people are falling into homelessness than ever before.

We also support funding for targeted prevention and solutions to homelessness, including landlord incentive programs that Assemblymember Reyes has proposed. We also align the comments of John Burton, advocates for youth and other youth advocates, and we really hope that you take into consideration the need for ongoing funding in the coming years. Thank you very much.

Hi, Justin Garrett with the California State Association of Counties, representing all 58 counties. Really appreciate this hearing today and the opportunity for so many local leaders to outline what's working right now with homelessness response in California. In particular, I want to reinforce the importance of HAP funding. That is our top budget ask this year related to homelessness is continuing that program, providing it with ongoing funding, as the panelists indicated today.

It's just been so essential to progress at the local level, and we must continue it to see that progress continue. I would also echo the comments from earlier public commenters about opposition to cuts to those programs that support foster youth. Last year, CSAC developed what we call our at Home plan, which outlines the development of a comprehensive homelessness response system.

And we supported several budget investments consistent with that plan, a lot of which are being implemented through HAP round five and the regional plans underway right now. And so we just want to say that we're really looking forward to working with both committees this year on the full range of bills and budget items that span the full range of the homelessness crisis, everything from prevention to housing to services. Thank you.

Good afternoon. My name is Mercedes Parker. I'm with California Youth Connection. Since 1988, we've been uplifting the voices of young people who've experienced foster care across the state. We are a youth led organization. I personally work with youth in Sacramento, Placer, Yolo, Butte and surrounding counties.

And I just want to echo some of the sentiments that were shared already by the first few commenters about the housing maintenance and navigation program, which is a $13.7 million program that allows counties to provide those really critical supportive services that allow foster youth and transitioning age youth to access federal housing vouchers to provide them housing. One of the things that I heard from one of the speakers today, Dr. Kusho, was how important it is to provide both housing and supportive services.

So that $13.7 million is important to providing those services, and that enables us to access that $22 million in federal funding that actually allows us to provide housing. In addition, I want to echo the sentiments that Director Huang said earlier about how counterproductive it is to interrupt these funding sources while they're in the middle of implementing and addressing these issues.

I'm seeing the rollout in Sacramento County and Butte County of FYI vouchers in Alameda County and LA County I personally know these foster youth that are former foster youth that are finally able to secure housing after years of experiencing housing instability. And so interrupting these programs now with the governor's proposed budget is going to cost us later down the line. And 1300 foster youth, former foster youth, are currently served by that $13 million.

So I ask you all to protect foster youth in this budget, both the youth that are currently transitioning out of foster care, in addition to the generations that are to come by protecting that $13.7 million of housing maintenance and navigation. Thank you.

Thank you. And see no other members of public in line. I think this will conclude our public comment. Do appreciate, everybody that came to contribute today, both our presenters and members of the public, deeply grateful for your insight and information that will guide some of the decision making that both of our committees have in front of us.

I think one thing that underscores some of the evidence today is that we do have programs that are working towards their respective ends out there, and we're grateful for those and to know that we are having conversations where some of them may be significantly reduced in their funding or full on eliminated with their funding. For me, it feels like a non starter, but something that will have dire impacts for already a very significant crisis facing all of our communities across California. So the evidence is helpful.

I appreciate, Madam Chair, the hearing that we've been able to hold here today. With that, I'll turn it back over to you.

Thank you to Assemblymember Chris Ward and for all of you who participated and provided testimony. This is a critical time in California as we face enormous budget deficits, and we'll have to make what could be is very critical decisions that we know will impact individuals. Your testimony means a lot, and as was said by my colleague, knowing that there are programs that are doing what we expect of them and more means a lot to me personally.

As we know, there are going to be limited dollars and we're going to have to make tough decisions. But again, thank you for coming and stay engaged. Thank you.