Memorandum
Date: August 2, 2022
To: The Honorable Lake County Board of Supervisors
From: Todd Metcalf, Director Behavioral Health Services Department
Subject: Public review and approval of the County of Lake Homeless Housing, Assistance, and Prevention (HHAP) Round 3 application for $569,940, including a Local Homelessness Action Plan.
Executive Summary:
HHAP Program Background
The Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention (HHAP) grant program was established with California’s Governor Gavin Newsom’s signing of Assembly Bill 101 into law in 2019. The bill, which also authorized the local establishment of low-barrier homeless navigation centers, provided noncompetitive and competitive funding to local jurisdictions and Continuums of Care for use towards solving homelessness.
Funding Allocations
Round 1 of HHAP funding approved in 2020 provided $445,266 and $500,000, respectively, to the County of Lake and the Lake County Continuum of Care. The bulk of funding for both entities was allocated towards the establishment of Lake County’s first year-round homeless shelter and navigation center at Clearlake at the county’s southeast end which experiences the greatest identified homeless concentration. Eight percent of each allocation was dedicated towards youth homelessness as required.
Round 2 funding approved in 2021 provided the County and the LCCoC with $203,550 and $250,000, respectively, allocated again towards the continuing operation of the homeless shelter successfully established with HHAP Round 1. The HHAP program is on its third round of local allocations (addressed with this Board agenda item), and a fourth round is anticipated in the near future.
Round 3 HHAP’s NOFA dated December 2021 states the following: “HHAP Round 3 is designed to build on regional coordination developed through previous rounds of HCFC Homeless Emergency Aid Program (HEAP), HHAP, and COVID-19 funding. Round 3 funds should be used to continue to build regional coordination and a unified regional response to reduce and end homelessness informed by a best-practices framework focused on moving homeless individuals and families into permanent housing and supporting the efforts of those individuals and families to maintain their permanent housing.” The County of Lake and Lake County CoC allocations in Round 3, respectively, are $569,940 and $610,650. The required youth setaside this round is increased to ten percent, up from the required eight percent in Rounds 1 and 2.
Need for Homelessness Action Plan
One of the threshold requirements counties must meet to access funding under the No Place Like Home program through the Ca Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) is to submit a plan specifying goals, strategies and activities both in process or to be initiated to reduce homelessness and make it non-recurring. Projects counties propose under NPLH must be connected to the goals and strategies counties identify in these plans. Therefore, the original Housing Plan was developed in cooperation with all local entities and individuals engaging with the targeted populations. After public review and comment the Board of Supervisors adopted that plan in August 2019.
The attached Local Homelessness Action Plan for both the County of Lake and the Lake County Continuum of Care builds upon the original NPLH Housing Plan and is designed to meet both the regulatory requirements and the intent of the NPLH program along with the expanded requirements of the Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention Grant Program (HHAP). Local and tribal governments and Continuums of Care may access noncompetitive and/or competitive HHAP funding allocations through the CA Interagency Council on Homelessness (Cal ICH). The plan must be adopted by the Lake County Board of Supervisors and the Lake County Continuum of Care (CoC), respectively, as part of its applications for its noncompetitive allocations currently available. This plan in draft form had been posted on the CoC website prior to both the CoC meeting and the Board of Supervisors scheduled meetings for public review and comment. The county CoC adopted this plan and approved its HHAP-3 application for submittal at its regular meeting on June 2, 2022.
The state’s Health and Safety Code requires that this Homelessness Action Plan include three components:
1. A local landscape analysis that assesses the current number of homeless along with existing programs and funding addressing homelessness within the jurisdiction;
2. Demographic information for the homeless, including underserved populations and subpopulations, and type of provided interventions; and
3. Identification of funds being used or planned for use to provide housing and homelessness-related services, those funded intervention types, and how they are serving identified subpopulations.
Those components are addressed in this plan. This document also includes information from and incorporates by reference other locally adopted documents that deal with homelessness and its prevention. These documents include the Lake County Housing Element of the General Plan adopted June 16, 2020 by the Board of Supervisors, the 2020 Lake County Continuum of Care Strategic Plan, its 2021 Community Survey which gathered information on desired services, and the 2021 Gap Analysis. The 2020 City of Lakeport Housing Element and the 2019 City of Clearlake Housing Element were also reviewed and are incorporated by reference as well.
Further, this Action Plan contains information that can satisfy the requirements of other homelessness assistance and prevention programs offered through HCD, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and other governmental agencies and private entities. It is the intent of this plan to facilitate the provision of projects and programs within Lake County that will benefit its homeless and at-risk residents. The provided information also may serve as the starting point for other entities, particularly nonprofit groups working with special needs groups such as veterans, disabled and youth, to launch further detailed, targeted needs assessments that can result in new and successful funding pursuits and subsequent projects.
Eligible Activities
HHAP funding may be utilized towards a variety of programs and projects supporting the ending of homelessness. These uses may include the following:
• Rapid rehousing
• Operating subsidies for eligible programs and projects
• Street outreach
• Services coordination
• Systems support
• Delivery of permanent housing
• Prevention and diversion
• Interim sheltering (new and existing)
• Shelter improvements to lower barriers and increase privacy
At least ten percent of the county’s allocation must be utilized for programs and/or projects benefitting eligible unaccompanied homeless youth ages 12 through 24. The county will also retain the seven percent permitted for general grant program administration.
Collier Avenue Project
The Board of Supervisors in August 2019, after soliciting public comment, adopted its No Place Like Home Housing Plan which prioritized several urgent affordable housing needs. Subsequently the county submitted to HCD in early 2022 a noncompetitive allocation application and a competitive funding application, respectively, for a long-planned permanent supportive multifamily housing project for the chronically homeless mentally ill to be developed and managed in Nice by the Rural Communities Housing Development Corporation (RCHDC), a Mendocino County-based nonprofit developer that already has several Lake County projects. Subsequently the Board in June 2022 also adopted the Permanent Local Housing Allocation Five-Year Housing Plan and awarded its PLHA Years One and Two allocations totaling $602,469 to this project, currently known as the Collier Avenue project. This HHAP-3 application proposes to commit an additional $473,050.13 (every penny counts) towards the Collier Avenue project, an eligible permanent supportive and service-enriched housing project.
Youth Set Aside
The HHAP regulations for Round 3 require a minimum ten percent be reserved for unaccompanied youth ages 12 through 24 experiencing homelessness. Therefore the county proposes to release $56,995 for continuing operations of existing homeless youth transitional housing with supportive services. A formal Request for Proposals will be issued before the award of these funds to local programs and/or projects.
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Recommended Action: Approve the County of Lake Homeless Housing, Assistance, and Prevention (HHAP) Round 3 application for $569,940, including a Local Homelessness Action Plan.