REPORT/RECOMMENDATION TO THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS
OF THE COUNTY OF SAN BERNARDINO
AND RECORD OF ACTION
February 9, 2021
FROM
CASONYA THOMAS, Assistant Executive Officer, Human Services
SUBJECT
Title
Contract with the City of Montclair for Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention Program Services
End
RECOMMENDATION(S)
Recommendation
1. Approve contract with the City of Montclair for the provision of Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention Program services, in an amount not to exceed $115,254, for the contract period of February 9, 2021 through June 30, 2025.
2. Designate the Chairman of the Board of Supervisors, Chief Executive Officer, Assistant Executive Officer of Human Services, or Chief of Homeless Services to approve any subsequent non-substantive amendments to the contract for the provision of Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention Program services on behalf of the County, subject to County Counsel review.
3. Direct the Chairman of the Board of Supervisors, Chief Executive Officer, Assistant Executive Officer of Human Services, or Chief of Homeless Services to transmit all documents in relation to the contract changes to the Clerk of the Board of Supervisors within 30 days of execution.
(Presenter: CaSonya Thomas, Assistant Executive Officer, 387-4717)
Body
COUNTY AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER GOALS & OBJECTIVES
Provide for the Safety, Health and Social Service Needs of County Residents.
FINANCIAL IMPACT
This item does not impact Discretionary General Funding (Net County Cost). The contract amount will not exceed $115,254 and will be funded by the State of California Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention Program (HHAP) block grant funding. Adequate appropriation and revenue have been included in the Office of Homeless Services’ (OHS) 2020-21 budget and will be included in future budgets.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
On December 6, 2019, the State of California Homeless Coordinating and Financing Council (State) released the Notice of Funding Availability for the Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention Program (HHAP). HHAP is a $650 million block grant program designed to provide jurisdictions with one-time grant funds to support regional coordination and to expand or develop local capacity to address immediate homelessness challenges throughout the State of California. HHAP is authorized by Assembly Bill (AB) 101 (Committee on Budget, Chapter 159, Statutes of 2019), which was signed into law by Governor Gavin Newsom on July 31, 2019.
Jurisdictions eligible to apply for HHAP funding are Continuums of Care (CoC), as identified by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), counties, and large cities (population of 300,000 or more). Funding determination for the CoC’s is based on the total number of homeless counted during the CoC’s 2019 Homeless Point-In-Time Count. The Interagency Council on Homelessness (ICH), the San Bernardino County’s CoC governing Board, designated OHS as the Administrative Entity to apply for the San Bernardino County CoC’s HHAP allocation amount. On May 19, 2020 (Item No. 36), the Board of Supervisors (Board) accepted the HHAP grant award in the amount of $3,071,060 for the San Bernardino County CoC (SBC CoC) from the State. OHS is recommending the contract with the City of Montclair to provide homeless services under the HHAP program.
HHAP funds will benefit individuals and families of San Bernardino County who are experiencing homelessness or at imminent risk of homelessness. HHAP will continue to expand current efforts that the SBC CoC is undertaking to solve the regional homelessness problem.
PROCUREMENT
On September 1, 2020, OHS in conjunction with the Department of Behavioral Health (DBH) released a Request for Applications (RFA), RFA No. OHS 20-02, to solicit interested and qualified applicants to provide HHAP services. Notice of the RFA was sent to an email distribution list of over 680 entities that included ICH active members, the Homeless Provider Network active members, city managers for every city within San Bernardino County, and subscribed partnership providers.
Approximately 20 agencies attended the virtual non-mandatory application workshop held on September 10, 2020. A total of 20 agencies submitted applications in response to the RFA. DBH staff performed an initial review of the applications for completeness. The following 18 applications met the minimum requirements set forth in the RFA and were evaluated by ICH’s Regional Steering Committees (RSC):
|
Proposing Agency |
Proposed Regions |
Proposed Budget |
|
City of Colton |
Central |
$400,988.80 |
|
City of Montclair |
West |
$230,508.00 |
|
City of Victorville |
Desert |
$396,263.00 |
|
Family Assistance Program |
Youth (Countywide) |
$245,684.00 |
|
Illumination Foundation |
Desert, Central, and West |
$386,632.00 |
|
Inland Empire United Way |
West, East, Desert, Mountain, and Central |
$125,822.00 |
|
Knowledge, Education for Your Success, Inc. (KEYS) |
West, East, Mountain, Desert and Central |
$251,650.00 |
|
Lutheran Social Services of Southern California |
Central |
$133,000.00 |
|
Mental Health Systems |
West and Youth Countywide |
$616,800.95 |
|
Mercy House Living Centers |
West |
$371,115.18 |
|
Morongo Basin ARCH |
East |
$294,997.00 |
|
Mountain Homeless Coalition |
Mountain |
$236,860.00 |
|
New Hope Village |
Desert |
$149,467.50 |
|
New Life Restoration Center |
Central |
$1,731,533.64 |
|
Operation Grace |
Central |
$350,000.00 |
|
Social Science Services |
Desert |
$249,627.85 |
|
The Greater Works House |
Central |
$25,000.00 |
|
Water of Life Community Church |
Central |
$250,000.00 |
ICH’s RSC evaluated the applications for their respective regions. The RSC’s represent the five regions: East Valley, West Valley, Central Valley, Mountains and the Desert. The five RSC’s are comprised of CoC members, Homeless Provider Network members, representatives from each regional city, schools, county agencies, and public and private entities. The RSC’s roles and responsibilities include setting regional priorities, goals and action steps based on recommendations set forth in the Multijurisdictional Homeless Action Plan; facilitating regional alignment of resources and service coordination; engaging public and private stakeholders in regional planning and coordinated service delivery; and providing project funding priorities and recommendations for regional funding resources, based on a project prioritization process.
Evaluation panels were created for each RSC consisting of non-conflicted voting members to review the applications. The evaluation panels evaluated the applications based on the criteria referenced in the RFA; including, but not limited to addressing regional needs, project focus, experience, budget, and collaboration. An evaluation panel was also created to review the applications submitted for the youth services.
Each evaluation panel met to discuss the applications and scoring for their region and to decide their recommendations to present to their RSCs. Three of the RSC’s agreed to set aside 5% of the allocated funding for their region for the SBC CoC’s mandated Coordinated Entry System as allowed under HHAP guidelines. Each RSC then held public meetings to discuss and approve the recommended agencies and budget allocations for their regions and voted to send their recommendations to the ICH.
Based on the RSCs’ and the Youth panel’s recommendations, ICH held a public meeting on October 28, 2020 to further discuss the applications, to vote on each region’s and the youth recommendations, and to determine the final award amounts. All agencies that submitted applications were notified of the public meeting and their attendance was requested. Agencies that were/were not recommended for an award by the RSCs and the youth panel had an opportunity to appeal the recommendations/decisions at the ICH meeting.
Two agencies submitted appeals to ICH and had an opportunity to speak at the ICH meeting held on October 28, 2020. Desert Manna appealed to ICH to consider their application. DBH staff informed ICH that Desert Manna’s application was missing a required signature in the application and per County Counsel’s recommendation that the application not go forward in the evaluation process as it was incomplete. ICH voted not to approve the appeal and not consider the agency’s application. Lutheran Social Services of Southern California (LSSSC) appealed the decision of the Central Valley’s RSC to not recommend their application to ICH due to the application not meeting HHAP funding requirements. ICH gave direction to staff to get further clarification from the State of California regarding appropriate use of funds for the HHAP program and voted to send back LSSSC’s application to the Central Valley RSC for further evaluation. ICH voted to accept the recommendations of the East Valley, West Valley, Mountains and Desert RSCs and voted to hold a second meeting on November 18, 2020 to vote on Central Valley’s recommendations.
The Central Valley RSC met again to further evaluate LSSSC’s application per ICH’s directive. Staff gave the Central Valley RSC the State’s clarification on appropriate use of HHAP funds and the RSC voted to recommend the application for award to ICH along with new funding amounts for the previously recommended agencies. At the second public ICH meeting held on November 18, 2020, ICH approved the recommendations of the Central Valley RSC.
On January 26, 2021 (Item No. 38), as the result of this formal procurement, the Board approved the contracts for the provision of HHAP service, in a total amount not to exceed $2,440,834, for the contract period of January 26, 2021 through June 30, 2025, with: City of Colton; Family Assistance Program; Illumination Foundation; Inland Empire United Way; Knowledge, Education for Your Success, Inc.; Lutheran Social Services of Southern California; Mercy House Living Centers; Morongo Basin Aligning Resources Challenging Homelessness; Mountain Homeless Coalition; New Hope Village, Inc.; Operation Grace; and Water of Life. The recommended contracts for the City of Montclair and the City of Victorville were still pending and therefore not presented to the Board at that time.
OHS and the City of Victorville are currently negotiating contract terms and OHS expects to present a contract with the City of Victorville to the Board for approval at a later date.
The City of Montclair’s contract negotiations were concluded and OHS is recommending a contract award in the amount of $115,254, for the provision of HHAP services for the contract period of February 9, 2021 through June 30, 2025. In addition, this item will authorize the Chairman of the Board of Supervisors, Chief Executive Officer, Assistant Executive Officer of Human Services, or Chief of Homeless Services to approve any subsequent non-substantive amendments to the contract that do not affect the total amount of the contract, on behalf of the County, subject to County Counsel review. This authority will enable OHS to expedite any necessary non-substantive changes, such as line item budget amounts, to ensure HHAP grant funds are fully expended by the required June 30, 2025 deadline. Any substantive amendments will be presented to the Board for approval.
OHS will monitor contractor performance on a regular basis to ensure performance and compliance standards are met.
REVIEW BY OTHERS
This item has been reviewed by County Counsel (Suzanne Bryant, Deputy County Counsel, 387-5455) on January 13, 2021; Purchasing Department (Bruce Cole, Supervising Buyer, 387-2148) on January 14, 2021; Finance (Chris Lange, Administrative Analyst, 386-8393) on January 20, 2021; and County Finance and Administration (Tanya Bratton, Deputy Executive Officer, 388-0332) on January 20, 2021.