HomeMy WebLinkAboutMINUTES - 10232001 - C.56 TO: BOARD OF SUPERVISORS ` '`t Contra
Costa
FROM: Dennis M. Barry, AICP °` r
County
Community Development Director cou ;
DATE: October 23, 2001
SUBJECT: Contra Costa County Emergency Shelter Grant Program, FY 2001/02
SPECIFIC REQUEST(S) OR RECOMMENDATIONS(S) & BACKGROUND AND JUSTIFICATION
RECOMMENDATIONS
1. ALLOCATE $138,000 in FY 2001/02 Emergency Shelter Grant (ESG) funds to the following:
A. Contra Costa Crisis Center for the Homeless Hotline ($5,700),
B. -SHELTER, Inc for the REACH Plus program ($12,000),
C. Greater Richmond Interfaith Program(GRIP)for the'Winter Relief Emergency Family Shelter
($11,400),
D. STAND! Against Domestic Violence for operation of the Rollie Mullen Center($12,000),
E. Health Services Department for operation of the Central County and West County Shelters
($90,000), and
F. Community Development Department for ESG administrative costs ($6,900).
2. AUTHORIZE the Deputy Director—Redevelopment or his designee to enter into FY 2001/02 ESG
contracts for the above ESG projects.
FISCAL IMPACT
No General Funds are involved. ESG funds are allocated to the County by formula through the U.S.
Department of Housing and Urban Development(HUD).
CONTINUED ON ATTACHMENT: X YES SIGNATURE: ��
_ COMMENDATION OF COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR REC MENDATI OF BOARD
COMMITTEE
,-'APPROVE OTHER
SIGNATURE(S):
ACTION
OF BOARD ON APPROVED AS RECOMMENDED OTHER
APPROVED theove recommendations; and DIRECTED staff to continue their effort
in assisting the Northern California Family Coalition to locate additional
fuading.:for . the Emergency Shelter for Runaway and Homeless Youth
VOTE OF SUPERVISORS
I HEREBY CERTIFY THAT THIS IS A
UNANIMOUS (ABSENT hlyhQ TRUE AND CORRECT COPY OF AN
AYES: NOES: ACTION TAKEN AND ENTERED ON THE
ABSENT: ABSTAIN: MINUTES OF THE BOARD OF
SUPERVISORS ON THE DATE SHOWN.
Contact: Kara Douglas, 335-1253 ATTESTED October 23, 2001
Orig: Community Development (CDD) JOHN SWEETEN, CLERK
cc: County Administrator OF THE BOARD OF SUPERVISORS
County Counsel AND COUNTY ADMINISTRATOR
Auditor-Controller �
Project Sponsors via CDD BY' G "EPUTY
BACKGROUND/REASONS FOR RECOMMENDATIONS
I'
Contra Costa County receives federal Emergency Shelter Grant(ESG)funds on an entitlement basis for use
in funding renovation,major rehabilitation,or conversion of buildings for use as emergency shelters for the
homeless; provision of essential services for the homeless; emergency shelter operations and related
services; and homeless prevention activities. The County's FY 2001/02 allocation is $138,000, including
five percent for program administration.ESG funds are allocated through a competitive application process
administered by the Community Development Department (CDD). Projects are evaluated and funding
recommendations are developed using criteria consistent with federal regulations and County policies.
The following projects are recommended for funding:
1. Homeless Hotline—Contra Costa Crisis Center will answer 15,000 calls from homeless people in
Contra Costa; conduct 1,200 County shelter intakes per year; provide 2,000 bed-nights per year in
local motels to homeless individuals and families;provide 10,000 referrals to homeless shelters and
other services; and provide free voice mailboxes to 400 homeless per year. Crisis Center will use
$5,700 in ESG funds for staff costs.
2. REACH Plus— SHELTER, Inc will provide rental assistance in connection with intensive case
management and supportive services to 80 homeless families and individuals. Participating
households find housing and pay 30 percent of their income in rent.The REACH Plus collaborative
provides rental subsidies and services appropriate for each household. SHELTER will use$12,000
in ESG funds to support one-half of a case manager position.
3. Winter Relief Family Shelter—GRIP will provide emergency shelter to 20 families from November
through March. The shelter operates 24-hours a day and provides families with life skills training,
and through the West Contra Costa Unified School District, tutoring and parenting classes. GRIP
will use $11,400 in ESG funds to pay a portion of the operating costs.
4. Rollie Mullen Center Emergency Shelter—STAND! Against Domestic Violence provides
emergency shelter for battered women and their children, serving over 200 people annually. The
Rollie Mullen Center provides up to six weeks of emergency shelter and services per household,
including food, clothing, case management, employment assessment, counseling and housing
referrals. STAND will use $12,000 in ESG funds to support a portion of the shelter staff costs.
5. Homeless Emergency Shelters—The Health Services Department(HSD) operates the Central and
West County emergency homeless shelters for single adults with 75 beds in each facility.These 24-
hour facilities provide meals,laundry facilities,mail,telephones and a wide array of on-site support
services. HSD will use $90,000 in ESG funds to pay a portion of the operating costs.
6. Administrative costs—The Community Development Department will use$6,900 in ESG funds for
program administration.
The following projects are not being recommended for funding:
• GRIP/Resource Center—The funding of emergency shelters is a higher priority than service only
programs.
• Northern California Family Center/Emergency Shelter for Homeless and Runaway Youth—This
project is not cost effective relative to the other emergency shelter projects.
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. , REQUEST TO SPEAR FORM
(THREE (3) MINUTE LIMIT) L
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C
Northern California Family Center
Response to Analysis of ESG 01-06: Emergency Shelter for Runaway and Homeless Youth
Matching a challenge grant from the John Muir Foundation for$35,000 should be the starting point for
Contra Costa's engagement into ongoing funding for services for runaways. John Muir funds and Contra Costa
County funding should bang additional funding into play. We will maintain placement of youth, at a rate of 115-135
children during 2002. We will contact directly or indirectly at least 15,000 youth throughout the community. We
estimate that we will divert 30%of placed children away from long-term institutional placement with Probation or
Social Services. This will save the community$1,400,000 in institutional expenses. 90%of our runaways will
receive stable housing and the opportunity to mediate their differences with their families when appropriate.
However,these stated goals are at risk, if Contra Costa County fails to meet the challenge of matching
John Muir Foundation funds. Let us consider the analysis presented by the Contra Costa County Community
Development Department,as we think about how to meet this challenge.
Cost Per Day as a Measure of Cost Comparison:
The Contra Costa Community Development Department is using a cost analysis for runaway shelter
services,which attempts to compare uniformly adult services for the homeless and childrens'services for the
homeless. This comparison is hinged upon the"cost per youth day"formula. This is an estimate of the average
cost of per day(or per night)services for each person sheltered.
This formula assumes an understanding of the total days(or nights), as a unit of service. In shelter, if a
person stays over night for one night,this is called a bed-night. To calculate the total number of bed-nights one
simply multiplies the total unduplicated' number of people receiving service,times their average number of days(or
nights)of service. The formula for total bed-nights of service is as follows:
Total Days(or Nights)Per Youth = [Unduplicated # of Youth Placed] X [ X Bed Nights per youth ]
In the case of the Northen California Family Center,the maximum unduplicated number of children
expected to be served.in 2002, is 135 children. Each child would receive and average of 3-5 nights of service. So
the maximum number of bed-nights under this proposal is 135 children X 5 bed-nights@=675 bed-nights. The
minimum number of bed-nights is 115 children X 3 bed-nights=345 bed-nights. In 1991, Sherman House had an
unduplicated count of 355 runaways who came to shelter. They had an average of 3 bed-nights per youth. So, in
1991, Sherman House had 355 youth X 3 bed-nights per youth= 1,065 bed-nights used.
The formula for cost per person per day(or night)is as follows:
Total Program Cost
Average Cost per Day(or Night) =
Total Days(or Nights)per Youth
People often use homeless shelter services more than once during a year. An unduplicated count of those using the
services is always a smaller but more reliable way to count the use of services. We always use the unduplicated count to
eliminate the problem of multiple admissions.
1
The formula for the Northern California Family Center's Cost per Day was calculated as follows:
$281,800 Program Cost
$417 NCFC Cost per Day =
675 Total Nights per Youth
In fact this is probably a low estimate of the average cost per-day of our bed-night service. The cost could
easily become$500 or more per bed-night. When our$417 per night cost is compared with other agencies'costs
of$22 to$55, it does seem inordinately high. One wonders whether the staff at the Northern California Family
Center is proposing a program which is so expensive that it could never really help the homeless or children
generally. Why, one would ask, are these costs so extremely different? How could a program with such high bed-
night costs actually be cost effective? Do these NCFC people have no shame!?
In order to gain perspective on this problem, let us first see what happens when we plug in the formula with
numbers from a different program which provided services to runaways in 1991: Sherman House.
$460,000 Program Cost
$432 Sherman House Cost per Day =
1,065 Total Nights per Youth
In 1991
First it should be clear, the Cost per-day-formula seems to be high for both the Northern California Family
Center and the Sherman House Program. In fact when one adjusts for inflation over ten years(from 1991 to 2001)
the current cost per day for Sherman House would be$613 !!! How could this be? The answer is that licensed
runaway shelter services are generically different from services for adult homeless or from shelters which
include adult parents with children. The Contra Costa Community Development Department has compared
apples with oranges, but has not advised the Board of Supervisors of these differences.
Shelter programs for children normally operate with licensing requirements set forth by the State of
California's Social Service Department. These licensing requirements are extensive and have higher staffing
standards than those for adult homeless shelter programs.' The result is that licensed runaway shelters are always
more expensive to operate than adult homeless shelters,when bed-night expense is considered. On the other
Social Workers are at least college graduates. The Social Work Supervisor must be Masters level. Any Clinical
Supervisor must be licensed. Any staff person who has contact with the child must be trained and have a background record-
check, before they can provide services,as is the case with the foster families. Records for placement cases have higher levels
of reporting requirements than conventional counseling. All staff and foster parents must be trained in the specifics necessary to
meet federal and state standards,etc.
hand,the housing needs of runaway children often can be resolved within days, not months or years as is the case
with chronically homeless adults.
Although shelter is an objective of our program, placement after shelter is actually our overriding goal. For
the last five years,we have placed 90%of the children that we shelter into stable housing. As a way of arriving at
a balanced comparison,we must ask, "Are there adult shelter programs that can provide 90%stable
housing for their clients within 3.5 days of admission?"
When considered over time,the per-capita costs of runaway services over a one-year period provides a
better perspective for comparison than the cost-per-day. Our per-capita costs in one year are usually less than
$2,000 per child. We believe that since adults continue to use services for longer periods of time than
runaways,their per-capita costs could easily exceed $2,000 per year.
The relatively high bed-night expense for runaway services can be justified another way. With proper
intervention, it is usually not necessary to institutionalize the runaway. Without shelter-care for runaways provided
by the Northern California Family Center, we estimate that the community would have to pay for group home
placement for 40 teens each year. It appears that since these"extra costs"of institutional placement are not the
responsibility of the Contra Costa Community Development Department, they are not included or even
acknowledged in their reckoning for cost benefit. The average cost of an institutionalized teen living in a group
home is$3,400 per month or$40,800 per year. Perhaps since this is the responsibility of the Contra Costa
Employment and Human Service Department it was not included as part of the analysis set forth by the Community
Development Department. Institutionalization means that the community would have to pay for millions in long-term
institutional care 3.
Other Concerns Expressed by Community Development Department:
1) Community Development Department staff have stated that "In addition,the majority of youth receiving
services in this program are seeking temporary shelter while they are reunified with their families. The
other shelter programs serve people who do not have any housing alternatives other than shelter." When
the Northern California Family Center applied for funding assistance under the Supportive Housing
Program,our application was denied. It was deemed to be too short-term for that process. We were then
told that our services were more appropriate for an Emergency Shelter Grant proposal. We believe that
working in the short-term time-frame is actually an advantage. It sets out the expectation in the first few
minutes that the youth and the family will solve their problem. Unfortunately, it seems that we are being
criticized for operating a program which actually resolves the housing problem. This criticism implies that
shelter should be the goal of the program. Again,while shelter is an objective for us,our goal is to
establish long-term stable housing for the client.
2) The path to approving funding should be open, not closed. We inquired in May as to whether the Contra
Costa Community Development Department recognized that runaway services are eligible for funding
Report Regarding Service Delivery for Runaway and Homeless Youth in Contra Costa County, in February
2001. The report shows that when we include the total cost of the runaway program, Contra Costa County has realized a cost
benefit of over$1,400,000 each year-thanks to the runaway emergency shelter and case management which has been
provided by the Northern California Family Center for the last five years.
3
through ESG a We never received a written response, until now,that acknowledges that runaways are
eligible for funding. In our original version of our proposal,we suggested the following possible funding
categories:
$ 2,000 Audit costs
$ 2,002 Software, Training for HMIS and/or related data entry and computer operations
$10,000 Reimbursement to Foster Families for 417 Bed-Nights
$34,480 Salary for 2,463 hours for Social Worker Interns and MFT Trainees
$32,760 Salary for On-Site Staff for 4,095 hours
$10,758 Benefits
$92,000 Total for Salary. Benefits and Contract Services
Then, based upon Community Development Department's reservations about what can be funded
under the terms of the contract, we suggested the following budget for ESG:
Foster Program Supervisor 433 hrs $23.08 hr $10,000
F.P. Social Workers 1,071 hrs $14.00 hr $15,000
On Site Staff 2,125 hrs $ 8.00 hr $17,000
Benefits $ 6,720
Clinical Supervisor 179 hrs $35.00 hr $ 6,280
Total ESG Request $55,000
Now there are even more reservations than those which we discussed in the first meeting. Activities
which we have always considered to be'program'are now being called administrative. Therefore, we would
be happy to consider yet other funding alternatives:
F.P. Social Workers 2,436 hrs $14.00 hr $34,480
On Site Staff 2,125 hrs $ 8.00 hr $12,934
Benefits $ 7,586
Total ESG Request $55,000
This budget would be for case management and would be within the original line-item specifications.
It makes little difference to us,which of these line-items are funded,as long as there is some funding
from Contra Costa County to support services for runaways.
Conclusion:
It is clear to us and to many individuals in the community that Contra Costa County is a long way from
its own history of providing assistance to runaways. It is also a long way from other counties in shouldering
the responsibility to keep its own children off the streets. If$35,000 is not feasible through the ESG program,
we urge the Board of Supervisors to take the money out of the general fund. If no funds are authorized,the
John Muir Foundation will not provide matching funds for services for runaways and we as a community will
be the lesser for it.
4 I 1996 their recommendation to the Board of Supervisors to not fund our proposal was based upon the incorrect
assumption that runaways are ineligible for funding This was not the position of HUD, but rather the exclusive decision of the
Community Development Department in Contra Costa County.
4