Review and Approval of Minutes: Emily Bender, Secretary
Motion to approve the minutes: Erin Johansen, 1st, Mike Jaske, 2nd. MSC.
Introduction of SSF Interim CEO, Anne Moore: Matt Keasling, SSF Board Chair
Keasling: Reminds everyone that Ryan Loofbourrow has left Sacramento Steps Forward for a position at Sutter Health. The SSF Board has decided to conduct a search for a new CEO, and will commence sometime early July. The plan is to look for someone who is familiar with the region and HUD. In the meantime we had a need for someone to step in that knows homelessness in Sacramento, and knows the community, and someone we thought could hit the ground running. Anne Moore came to mind, so the SSF Board reached out to her to fill the position while we conduct a bigger hunt. The new Interim CEO is Anne Moore.
Introductions around the room
Moore: Thanks everyone for the opportunity and is honored to be asked to step in to help things go smoothly and position you for where you’re going in the future.
Keasling: We are crafting at what we are looking for a new CEO. We’ll be reaching out to everyone, though if anyone has thoughts on what to look for, please reach out to us. We are hiring a firm to help facilitate with the hiring process in July. We’re looking at a 3 to 4 month long process.
Chair’s Report
We’ve had a lot of meetings. We’ve had an interesting Care Transition Meeting, which I will talk about later. Some of us went to the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill Statewide Conference. I was on a panel where we talked about the re-entry populations from the department of corrections. We’re trying to keep these issues at the forefront.
There’s been a lot of media attention, particularly the correlation between homelessness and the latino community. I’m sure it also relates to the undocumented community. If anyone is working on issues that you think would be representative with the latino community. Please bring these to me.
Item A: Governance Committee Slate and Scope of Work – Action Item
Bender: Last month we talked about reestablishing the Governance Committee. As a reminder, the purpose of the Governance Committee is to prepare the charter, which is an annual requirement from HUD. The committee is able to propose revisions or can recommend without revisions. The committee is also charged with the review and possible change of bylaws and developing a process for formal creation of committees. The Executive Committee met last month after a call for volunteers was made and after discussion and review of the volunteers, is proposing that the Governance Committee consist of the Executive Committee (Jonathan Porteus, Sarah Bontrager, and Emily Bender), and two additional Advisory Board members: Erin Johansen and Mike Jaske. Sandy Pierkarski would join the committee as an ex eficio representative of SHRA.
Watts: In a recent conversation, Sandy has withdrawn interest as a formal ex eficio member. She would like to see the charter as we continue to work on the charter, but doesn’t feel she is needed on the committee.
Halcon: Would like to propose an amendment for the addition of representatives for the City and County on the Governance Charter (Emily Halcon- City, Cindy Cavanaugh- County) as changes in the charter may have a large impact on the City and County contracts.
Porteus: What constitutes the rationale for being on the Governance Committee?
Cavanaugh: It’s to our mutual interest and to be as inclusive as possible. Because there are so many partners looking at it from different angles it’s important to not to conduct it in isolation.
Johansen: Would like to advocate for the inclusion of City and County because what we’ve been wanting is Community collaborative partnership and process.
Porteus: For me it’s the number of people [City and County] represent.
Creswell: I also endorse the addition and will second the motion.
Watts: The Executive Committee’s interest was having a nimble group, which is why they chose a small number of members.
Porteus: The ad hoc nature of this committee is that we have different conditions every year.
Motion to approve the Governance Committee slate with the inclusion of Emily Halcon (City) and Cindy Cavanaugh (County): Emily Halcon, 1st, Cathy Creswell, 2nd. MSC.
Item B: CES Evaluation Committee Appointments – Action Item
Foley: Reminds everyone the need for representation of shelter and transitional housing within the CES Evaluation Committee. We asked for nominations, and the Nominating Committee selected candidates for two additional members: Tanya Tran – SHRA, and Steve Watters – First Step Communities.
Motion to approve the addition of Tanya Tran and Steve Watters onto the CES Evaluation Committee: Noel Kammerman1st, Alexis Bernard, 2nd. MSC.
Item C: Family Unification Program Funding Opportunity – Action Item
O’Daniel: Introduces Niku Mohanty-Campbell from the Department of Child, Family, and Adult Services. HUD (the PIH side) released a NOFA asking housing authorities to apply for Family Unification Program (FUP) vouchers, making $30 million available nationwide for 60 awards. The maximum that a housing authority can apply for is $100 million, which is based on the size of the housing authority. If awarded, we would partner with the County and with the CoC lead agency (SSF). We are able to apply for funding under two categories: 1) children cannot be unified with families because housing is unstable and 2) youth aging out of foster care. Priority is given to those who coordinate with the CoC, using the Coordinated Entry System for FUP families. There is also a priority given who are linked with the (Family Self-Sufficiency) FSS program. As part of this process, we are working on a variety of initiatives. We need to have an annual review in place and approved as part of the application. There is a sample MOU that HUD prepared between the housing authority, the county, and the CoC. We’re linking it with the Bringing Families Home program with the County.
Mohanty-Campbell: Representing Child Protective Services. We received funding for the Bringing Families Home program in July 2017. It supports housing intervention specific to child welfare. Through that program we are partnering with SHRA and SSF, using the CES to identify the most vulnerable families, offering PSH and RRH. We have housed 40 families, though the need is much higher than that (looking at 200 families). We’re working on board letters and MOU language. The application is due July 25th.
Watts: The obligation of the MOU is to work with partners and use the CES to fill the vouchers. We’re already working with the Bringing Families Home program, so the lift won’t be difficult.
FUP Vouchers were not made available in many years, so the interest in this vouchers are high and the NOFA will be quite competitive.
Foley: The CES is working really well right now, though will the additional work stretch the CES staff too far?
Watts: No.
Jaske: What is the ongoing nature of this grant?
O’Daniel: Usually, HUD renews vouchers like this.
Dotson: Who is providing the supportive services piece?
Mohonty-Campbell: Still being decided.
Motion to approve to enter into MOU between SHRA, Sacramento County Child Protective Services, and the CoC: Cindy Cavanaugh, 1st, Erin Johansen, 2nd. MSC.
Item E: Planning Grant Presentation
Background: Every year CoC’s can apply for funds specific to planning activities as part of the HUD CoC Program NOFA process. Last year we submitted an application for the full funding available to do planning activities with. Ahead of submitting the application, we convened a small work group of interested parties who reviewed the application and provided feedback on how we can improve it. We received the full amount.
Funding Categories:
CoC Application Activities – Performance review: We will be using part of this funding to continue with our consulting contract for the Review and Rank process and the year-round performance review. We will be issuing an RFP after this year’s NOFA process to potentially identify a new consulting agency. We’ve done a very good job of having a competitive process and a good use of planning funds
HUD Compliance: 2019 Point-in-Time count
Project Evaluation and developing a CoC system: We’ve proposed a Data Hub (as it is in the CoC Application), comprised of expert staff in the SSF Data and Analytics team and other research partners, local/public/private funders, key stakeholders, institutions of higher education, representatives of the CoC Board and people with lived experience that come together in a collaborative to analyze system performance, evaluate gaps and identify strategies to reduce homelessness through best practices and improve efficiencies in our system. The Data Hub will use a data driven approach to develop effective, functional CoC system from outreach and engagement to crises response to housing crises resolution. This will be based on HUD’s national goals and local priorities.
There’s a lot of interest from institutions of higher education
This is funding is where we can fulfil our mandates around the gaps analysis and evaluating our coordinated entry system.
Halcon: Are there amounts allocated to each category? Are we working on preparing for the 2019 PIT?
Watts: We do have preliminary numbers allocated to each category, though we have not received the issues and conditions from HUD yet.
Performance Review: $100,000
PIT: $120,000
Project Evaluation and CoC System Development: $361,035
Match: $145,259 (SSF will meet through Data Analytics team)
Watts: PIT: the RFP is being finalized and will be released in the near future to identify our contractor/research partner. As soon as that has been identified, stakeholder meetings will be held to share the process.
Creswell: Were we previously getting admin money from the grant to conduct those activities mentioned? Are these funds supplanting previous funds and does that mean we have more money to spend?
Watts: In previous years, local entities (City and County and SHRA) funded those activities. The budgeted amounts will fully fund the activities so local funding is no longer needed.
Foley: It would be a good thing if we could financial reports so that we can understand how the dollars are working. It would also be helpful to get some history so that we know where the money came from a few years ago. The Advisory Board has the responsibility of that.
Porteus: What’s the business cycle?
The schedule varies due to the release of the NOFA. But Michele will be able to draft the order of things as the general idea is available.
Creswell: Will there be opportunity to contribute ideas/goals to further utilize planning grant funds (future NOFA cycles)
Watts: There are some responsibilities that have not yet been fulfilled by the CoC, so there is opportunity to explore other items to add to the planning grant.
Johansen: We’ve all been talking about a larger community planning process, is there a way to leverage the unused city and county funds on other CoC and community planning?
Watts: The SHRA contract and funds will be remaining the same, though the PIT will be fully funded by the planning grant
Beckman: The $100,000 for TA wasn’t always that amount. It’s a little bit more than previous years. There are some things that aren’t supplanting. SSF has funded a portion of the PIT from its own funds.
Jaske: We need a clear idea of responsibilities and our aspirations to fulfil those responsibilities. The Governance Committee process can help move that process in the right direction. The CoC needs to decided where we want to be mediocre and where we want to be excellent and from there decide where we spend the funding.
Watts: One thing the Governance Charter process will do is articulate the responsibilities are and regulations will be incorporated into the charter.
Kammerman: We don’t have a body that identifies the direction we should be moving in.
Porteus: Defining our identity- we have to be inclusive.
Item D: Care Transition Update
Porteus: Care Transition meeting was productive. We want to look at the whole care transition issue, not just the hospital. We want to find out how to flow the information back so that we can get back to the health systems and have a dialogue with them. The Care Transition reporting sheet was reviewed.
There was a lot of confusion resources. How do we keep a consistent resource list available so that when people are performing discharges, all the resources are in one place?
We need to decide if the resource list should be within SSF website or 2-1-1 as having two locations is confusing.
SSF has a piece on working close with 2-1-1 on how that information is disseminated.
Is the Care Transition planning staffed by SSF?
It is a CoC obligation, and SSF can support that.
Has the form been sent out electronically?
It is on the Sacramento Steps Forward website
Announcements
Watts: Introduces the Asks and Deliverables progress sheet (resolved and unresolved). The progress will be updated on the website monthly and people can ask questions via email. The progress sheets will be shared alongside the Advisory Board packet the Thursday before the meeting so that folks have 3 full business days to review materials.
Creswell: Veteran’s Affordable Bond act will be on the ballot in November. We’ve had discussion in this body before on what position to take, and I would like an opportunity to share what’s in it during the meeting.
Heisler: The newest state budget has additional funding for CoC’s, which will be a good topic for the future.
