REPORT/RECOMMENDATION TO THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS
OF SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY
AND RECORD OF ACTION
July 13, 2021
FROM
CASONYA THOMAS, Assistant Executive Officer, Community Revitalization
SUBJECT
Title
Amendment to Contract with Institute for Urban Initiatives for Homeless Consulting Services
End
RECOMMENDATION(S)
Recommendation
Approve Amendment No. 8, effective July 1, 2021, to Contract No. 16-550 with the Institute for Urban Initiatives for the provision of homeless consulting services to support the San Bernardino County Continuum of Care Homeless Assistance Program, expanding services and increasing the total contract amount by $87,000, from $1,298,250 to $1,385,250, with no change to the total contract period of July 12, 2016 through June 30, 2023.
(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.
Pursue County Goals and Objectives by Working with Other Agencies and Stakeholders.
FINANCIAL IMPACT
This item does not impact Discretionary General Funding (Net County Cost). The increase of $87,000 will be funded through the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Planning Grant funding. Adequate appropriation and revenue have been included in Office of Homeless Services’ (OHS) 2021-22 budget and will be included in the 2022-23 recommended budget.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
The Institute for Urban Initiatives (Urban Initiatives) provides comprehensive consulting services to OHS to support the County’s effort to end homelessness. OHS acts in the role of the administrative agent on behalf of the San Bernardino County Continuum of Care (SBC CoC) and is responsible for the submission of the CoC collaborative application on behalf of the SBC CoC. The CoC is a community plan to organize and deliver housing and services to meet the specific needs of people who are homeless as they move to stable housing and maximize self-sufficiency. It includes action steps to end homelessness and prevent a return to homelessness.
Urban Initiatives provides consulting services and technical assistance on current and upcoming projects; such as assisting OHS with the development of the annual Homeless Strategic Plan. The framework of the Homeless Strategic Plan was approved by the Board of Supervisors (Board) on November 17, 2020 (Item No. 43), to guide the County’s efforts to increase prioritization and efficacy of regional homeless funding, improve collaboration with the SBC CoC, and enhance efforts to reduce homelessness impactfully within the region through the development of a structured plan. In addition, Urban Initiatives provides consulting services and technical assistance to OHS in completion of the regional sheltered and unsheltered Point-in-Time Count report of the homeless population as required by HUD, HUD Housing Inventory Count, CoC gaps analysis, county-wide asset mapping, and annual HUD CoC grant competition.
OHS is recommending an amendment to the contract with Urban Initiatives to expand services. These services are in alignment with the direction of the State and the County’s Homeless Strategic Plan. The Governor’s May Revised Budget indicates funding for trauma-informed care education specifically for youth while the Board approved the Homeless Strategic Plan framework which emphasizes the importance of trauma-informed care practices in serving homeless or at-risk of homelessness individuals and families. The recommended amendment with Urban Initiatives will expand services to include:
• Urban Initiatives will provide services for the development of a trauma-informed care homeless delivery project. The project will create a model shelter that incorporates trauma-informed care into the shelter’s systems of care in order to prevent traumatizing and re-traumatizing shelter residents. This model will allow for the incorporation of trauma-informed design into the physical environment of current shelters. In addition, these efforts will identify funding sources that will help sustain the trauma-informed design of the model into new construction, rehabilitation, and/or integration of these services into existing or future development of homeless-related sheltering services.
• In order to support the data requirement as noted in the County’s Homeless Strategic Plan framework, Strategy 4, Urban Initiatives will review the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) policies and procedures to create a platform where data is made more readily accessible and presented to the public in an easily understood manner. HMIS is the information system designated by the SBC CoC to comply with HUD’s mandated data collection, management, and reporting standards. HMIS is utilized to collect client-level data and data on the provision of housing and services to homeless individuals and families and persons at risk of homelessness. OHS is the administrator of the HMIS and has operated the web-enabled database system on behalf of the SBC CoC since 2013. Utilization of the HMIS is a requirement for agencies/entities to receive funding from HUD for the CoC Homeless Assistance program and the Emergency Solutions Grant, as well as a requirement for State grant programs, such as the Homeless Emergency Aid Program and the Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention Program.
• Urban Initiatives will provide services of a knowledgeable and experienced grant writer who has assisted other CoC’s within the State to obtain youth-related homeless funding. These services will be geared to obtain funding for youth housing and supportive services on an ongoing basis which will be connected to the CoC Homeless Assistance Grant funding. On May 24, 2021, the Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for the FY2019/2020 Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program (YHDP) was released. YHDP is an initiative designed to address youth homelessness and significantly reduce the number of youth experiencing homelessness. HUD will award approximately $145 million in up to 50 participating communities (8 of which will be rural). The YHDP application must be submitted by a CoC Collaborative Applicant by the deadline of July 27, 2021, and must be co-developed with a broad array of community partners, including a youth action board, a state or local child welfare agency, youth homelessness housing and service providers, local school districts, workforce development organizations, law enforcement, judges, corrections, and more. At their meeting on May 26, 2021, the Interagency Council on Homelessness (ICH), SBC CoC’s governing Board, recommended that OHS obtain a consultant to assist the SBC CoC and OHS in writing and submitting the YHDP application.
Housing First is an approach that has paved the way for a strategic trauma-informed design and care approach. Core components of Housing First emphasize a low barrier tactic to permanent housing. Everyone is “housing ready.” Homelessness service providers must be “client ready.” A low barrier tactic is designed to “screen-in” rather than “screen-out” persons with the greatest barriers to housing, so that they experience improvements in the areas of health, income, mental health, and substance use as a result of achieving housing.
Implementing a trauma-informed design and care approach would result in a more competitive annual CoC Program application, especially for the domestic violence bonus application and would add to the evolution and readiness of the SBC CoC service model to respond to future needs of persons who are languishing on the streets.
Trauma centered efforts would allow the YHDP application to be more competitive since a trauma-informed approach for youth is a homeless service best-practice and would make an application for the $50 million that the State is considering for Homeless Encampment strategies more competitive. A strategic trauma-informed design and care approach recognizes that persons living in encampments may prefer to live on the streets in survival mode than live in a low barrier shelter because of their fear that the physical and social environment of the shelter can contribute to traumatizing and re-traumatizing experiences.
The recommended amendment will be effective July 1, 2021 to allow Urban Initiatives enough time to provide guidance and assistance on the YHDP grant application prior to the deadline for submission. This item is being presented at this time as this was the next available Board date following the ICH meeting and to allow Urban Initiatives time to verify availability of its consultants. The additional services will expand current efforts that the County and the SBC CoC are undertaking to solve the regional homelessness problem.
PROCUREMENT
Urban Initiatives began providing technical assistance regarding HUD’s competitive grant process in 2009. In 2012, after a competitive process in which Urban Initiatives was the only vendor to respond to a Request for Quotes, Urban Initiatives was selected as the consultant to assist with the preparation of the 2012 HUD SBC CoC grant application. On July 12, 2016 (Item No. 11), the Board approved a non-competitive contract with Urban Initiatives in the amount of $363,600 for the period of July 12, 2016 through June 30, 2019, with the option to extend for two one-year periods contingent upon the availability of funding and contractor performance.
On May 23, 2017 (Item No. 53), the Board approved Amendment No. 1 increasing the total contract amount by $44,750, from $363,600 to $408,350, and expanding services to include a Gaps and Capacity Analysis, with no change to the contract period.
On June 27, 2017 (Item No. 22), the Board approved Amendment No. 2 increasing the total contract amount by $9,000, from $408,350 to $417,350, and adding additional consulting hours for enhanced services to address the issues of homelessness among unaccompanied homeless women, with no change to the contract period.
On January 9, 2018 (Item No. 13), the Board approved Amendment No. 3 increasing the total contract amount by $65,000, from $417,350 to $482,350, and expanding services to include additional support and training for staff, with no change to the contract period.
On December 4, 2018 (Item No. 30), the Board approved Amendment No. 4 increasing the total contract amount by $78,800, from $482,350 to $561,150, for additional training to staff for PITC, Homeless Management Information System assistance, and consulting services to update the SBC CoC Homeless Strategic Plan, with no change to the contract period.
On April 30, 2019 (Item No. 33), the Board approved Amendment No. 5 to the contract increasing the total contract amount by $161,550 to $722,700 and exercising the first one-year extension option extending the contract through June 30, 2020.
On June 9, 2020 (Item No. 20), the Board approved Amendment No. 6 to the contract increasing the total contract amount by $191,850 to $914,550 and exercising the final one-year extension option extending the contract through June 30, 2021.
On May 4, 2021 (Item No. 37), the Board approved Amendment No. 7 to the contract increasing the total contract amount by $383,700, from $914,550 to $1,298,250, and extending the contract for two additional years through June 30, 2023.
OHS will continue to monitor contractor performance on a regular basis to ensure compliance standards are met.
REVIEW BY OTHERS
This item has been reviewed by County Counsel (Suzanne Bryant, Deputy County Counsel, 387-5455) on June 22, 2021; Purchasing (Bruce Cole, Supervising Buyer, 387-2148) on June 28, 2021; Finance (Christopher Lange, Administrative Analyst, 386-8393) on June 22, 2021; and County Finance and Administration (Tanya Bratton, Deputy Executive Officer, 388-0332) on June 22, 2021.