No Place Like Home Direct Allocations to Counties

Greetings!

Here is the list of direct allocations expected next year from the $190 million in direct county grants from the No Place Like Home Program (NPLH).  NPLH utilizes state mental health funds to construct permanent housing with supportive services for homeless chronic mentally ill persons.  Sonoma County residents should note that our high numbers place us above many other counties with larger general populations.  Let's make sure that our County and cities collaborate on an application for the additional $1.8 billion which will be available.

NPLH Allocation	County	Total Population
69,870,183	Los Angeles	9,951,960
13,771,432	San Diego	3,176,138
10,673,299	San Francisco	827,420
10,328,363	Santa Clara	1,836,025
7,014,447	Orange	3,085,355
6,365,524	Alameda	1,553,960
4,880,247	Sonoma	490,596
4,190,374	Sacramento	1,448,053
3,738,333	Riverside	2,264,879
3,637,529	Monterey	426,072
3,387,096	San Bernardino	2,077,453
3,201,240	Contra Costa	1,078,257
3,095,711	Santa Cruz	266,508
2,725,573	Santa Barbara	430,426
2,692,496	San Joaquin	701,151
2,388,511	San Luis Obispo	274,622
2,338,109	San Mateo	738,681
2,298,733	Fresno	947,581
2,234,156	Ventura	834,398
2,219,980	Stanislaus	521,450
2,078,225	Marin	255,841
1,860,867	Humboldt	134,584
1,706,512	Solano	420,335
1,504,905	Kern	855,498
1,493,880	Mendocino	87,373
1,416,702	Merced	261,632
1,027,664	San Benito	56,869
1,004,038	Tulare	451,043
901,659	Butte	221,016
874,883	Imperial	176,768
816,606	Placer	361,420
791,720	Yuba	72,969
786,681	Yolo	203,838
684,322	Shasta	178,368
500,000	El Dorado	180,616
500,000	Madera	152,235
500,000	Kings	151,382
500,000	Napa	138,916
500,000	Nevada	98,267
500,000	Sutter	94,659
500,000	Lake	63,965
500,000	Tehama	63,264
500,000	Tuolumne	54,050
500,000	Calaveras	44,731
500,000	Siskiyou	44,223
500,000	Amador	37,003
500,000	Lassen	33,657
500,000	Del Norte	28,248
500,000	Glenn	27,957
500,000	Colusa	21,355
500,000	Plumas	19,338
500,000	Inyo	18,441
500,000	Mariposa	17,888
500,000	Mono	14,349
500,000	Trinity	13,506
500,000	Modoc	9,346
500,000	Sierra	3,075
500,000	Alpine	1,138
190,000,000		38,000,148

First Meeting of No Place Like Home Advisory Committee Held

Greetings!

This morning, I listened to the audio broadcast of the initial meeting of California's "No Place Like Home" Advisory Committee.  This is the committee charged with overseeing the implementation of $2 Billion in Prop 63 funds to produce permanent housing throughout the state for chronic mentally ill homeless.

Nine of the 15 members attended the Sacramento meeting, and all began the meeting with powerful personal stories demonstrating the sources of their passion and experience.  Led by the Director of the Department of Housing and Community Development, I came away believing these were the best state and local bureaucrats one could assemble to try to make sense of a complex new program. Their lives were all deeply impacted by the issue, and they were now in a position to shape a significant step toward some relief.

After a staff-delivered slide presentation outlining the program design, timeline, and stakeholder concerns, members of the audience and those on the phone were asked to comment.  Topics included: rural county perceptions that they would have difficulty submitting competitive applications; tribal calls to ensure broad collaboration; inquiries on guideline language which seems to exclude at-risk youth; clarification on stakeholder topics raised involving integration requirements, outcome measures, and the definition of At-Risk Chronic Homeless; and a plea to fill the one seat reserved for a user of supportive housing before the next meeting.

On the upside, funds to support county development of improved capability to compete for the funds will be distributed soon.  Less upside, there are still plenty of questions to be raised and answered before the Department can move forward with the issuance of applications for funding.

Here is the link to the Department No Place Like Home webpage, which contains (near the bottom) the materials from the meeting.

Santa Rosa City Council Asks for a Presentation on Housing First on April 4th

Greetings!

Near the beginning of the Santa Rosa City Council meeting last week, they took up a request from Jack Tibbetts to vote to direct the City Manager to  arrange a presentation on Housing First at an upcoming meeting.  Te discussion which followed seemed to make the case that much work needs to be done to build a consensus on both what the City means when it says we're a Housing First City, and what it is we will do.

I have excerpted the discussion, and placed it on YouTube (S.R. Housing First, March 14th), and I invite you to pass on this post and ink to all of those who you believe are interested in what our City is doing to provide housing.

Gregory Fearon

Housing Fast

The Housing First conversations circulating around town usually begin with one statement.  It’s simple, but not easy.  The simple part is:  If we provide vulnerable, and difficult-to-care homeless with permanent housing and support services until they can afford to pay rent and need reduced services, we will improve our clients’ lives, and save enough money in emergency room, jail, and case management salaries to cover our increased housing and service costs.  Further, we can shift our energies toward early interventions with newly-homeless to prevent their spiraling into vulnerability.

I believe that. 

But I think we under-sell how “not easy” it is.  I have a hard time believing is that we can find the housing stock necessary to place our most vulnerable homeless into permanent supported housing. 

In the past fifty years, Santa Rosa affordable housing developers have produced 5,358 congregate and individual housing units.  They were shelters, transitional housing, permanently-supported, and unsupported housing.  They were designed for, and occupied by residents with extremely low (no more than $16,150/yr), very low ($26,950), low ($43,050), and moderate ($64,680) incomes. They were designed to meet the needs we saw for our low-income residents.  

Ninety-four percent of the permanent housing was aimed at incomes far above those of our homeless population.  If we look at the rental units produced at the income level of extremely low income, there were two built for seniors (with 35 units), and eleven built for families (267 units). These are units which, when vacant, might be available to place Housing First residents.  Additionally, the City is expecting some of these landlords to partner with these efforts, and make more units available.  Many of these same landlords are very concerned about the upcoming rent stabilization and just cause eviction control  election.

If we have any hope of finding apartment owners who can partner with us, we should be looking for those with units having a history of low rents and on the margins of habitability.   The City’s housing, planning, zoning, and several divisions of other departments should work together to identify and approach these landlords.  We have given them housing subsidies in the past, and we have worked with them to upgrade illegal housing conditions.  With rehabilitation loans, and targeted rental subsidies, we can improve our housing and residents at the same time.

Gregory Fearon