Title
Staff Report for a Resolution of the San Leandro City Council to Establish Eligibility for State Homeless Funding
Staffreport
SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Staff recommends that the City of San Leandro City Council, in accordance with California Government Code section 8698.2 and in order to qualify and receive State funding to address homelessness, adopt a resolution declaring a shelter crisis.
BACKGROUND
The Legislature passed SB 850, which allocates through a grant program State funding to address homelessness. To that end, the FY 2018-19 State Budget allocated $500 million in one-time funding for the Homeless Emergency Aid Program (HEAP). Alameda County’s designated applicant is Alameda County and/or the Continuum of Care (Everyone Home) and the total amount of available funding throughout the County is $16,192,049. The Board of Supervisors assigned Alameda County’s internal Homelessness Council to lead the application and outreach process for the final grant application to the State. Cities and other homelessness stakeholders will be included in this process, and many other cities throughout the region are anticipated to adopt similar resolutions. The submission period for the final application is from September 5 through December 31, 2018.
Analysis
HEAP requires that any jurisdiction seeking SB 850 funding directly or through a non-profit must adopt a “Shelter Crisis” resolution.
The following are allowable uses of HEAP funding:
a. Homelessness prevention activities
b. Criminal justice diversion programs for homeless individuals with mental health needs
c. Establishing or expanding services to meet the needs of homeless youth or youth at-risk of homelessness
d. Emergency aid
The resolution calls for the Alameda County 2017 Point-in-Time Count number of homeless individuals in each jurisdiction. These numbers usually undercount the amount of actual homeless persons and should serve only as estimates. For example, the San Leandro 2017 number is 50. Staff believes that the actual count estimate is closer to 200. The next official count will be in 2019.
San Leandro has already started to provide input into the broad categories of need for the City’s homeless population. The City will continue to be included in subsequent meetings as the countywide application is developed for final submission. Staff recommends that the City Council adopt this resolution to ensure the City meets all of the qualifications to obtain this one-time funding.
PREPARED BY: Jeanette Dong, Director, Recreation & Human Services Department