Sunday, September 20, 2015

San Diego County, Calif., funds by Housing and Urban Development, Department of

San Diego County, Calif., funds by Housing and Urban Development, Department of

Listing $77,617,379.00 in stimulus funds from Housing and Urban Development, Department of for San Diego
Note: For some programs where states do not report where money will be distributed across the state, we do not have the allocation for individual counties. Those programs include: Medicaid, unemployment benefits and food stamps. Those amounts are included in the totals for where the state agency receiving that money is located.
Amount refers to both the amount of stimulus funding going toward the project and the face value of the loan.

http://projects.propublica.org/recovery/locale/california/san-diego/dept/8600


Seems Rapid Rehousing funds in San DIego went to Obama's second preference those who are about to face homelessness

San Diego Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing

Homelessness Prevention And Rapid Re-Housing Program

In 2009, the San Diego Housing Commission (SDHC) launched a cutting-edge homeless prevention program called Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-housing (HPRP). The three-year, $5.7 million federal program targets families in danger of becoming homeless as a result of the economic downturn. Through payments to their landlord for security deposits, back rent, and rent subsidies eligible families can receive up to 12 months of assistance. SDHC is administering the funds on behalf of the City of San Diego, which received a one-time grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development under the federal American Recovery & Reinvestment Act.
http://www.sdhc.org/Special-Housing-Programs/Homeless-Prevention-and-Rapid-ReHousing/



Capacity Building

Technical Assistance

Capacity Building

http://www.shelterpartnership.org/technical-assistance.aspx

Through on-going technical assistance, Shelter Partnership works to build the capacity and effectiveness of individual agencies providing short-term and transitional housing for homeless people.  We also work with agencies to create permanent affordable housing with supportive services for homeless people.
At the same time, Shelter Partnership provides technical assistance to government agencies and funders in order to give guidance on where there are needs across the community and how to design and support effective “best practice” programs for homeless persons.  Shelter Partnership's work has often led to the creation of new programs.
Shelter Partnership provides the following Technical Assistance:
Funding Alerts: When a source of funding is announced with a call for project proposals and applications, Shelter Partnership issues an alert, which describes the available funding and how to apply. Shelter Partnership tracks public and private funding sources daily in order to keep the community informed and on the competitive edge for national, state and local funding.
Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA): Shelter Partnership provides critical technical assistance to LAHSA, including the preparation of a collaborative application to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.
HooverAptsCity of Los Angeles Housing Department’s (LAHD) Housing Opportunities for Persons With AIDS (HOPWA) Program: Shelter Partnership participates with the City and County of Los Angeles in designing how federal funding will be used each year in meeting the needs of persons living with HIV/AIDS and has prepared successful applications for federal grants.
OPCCCloverfield2LAHD’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund:Shelter Partnership has successfully advocated for priority funding for affordable housing projects that target special needs households and provide services to meet the tenants' needs.
County of Los Angeles’ Community Development Commission (LACDC) City of Industry Program: Shelter Partnership assists the County CDC in designing programs under their City of Industry capital funding program as well as other housing programs.
For more information, please contact Ruth Schwartz.
State of California: The California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) contracts with Shelter Partnership to review and evaluate the supportive service plans of housing for special needs populations.

Current Collaborative Projects

Eunice_Hicks_63PDR_0674Homeless Older Adults: This project addresses the needs of homeless older adults in Los Angeles County. One quarter of the 250,000 homeless annually in Los Angeles County are over age 50 and their numbers are increasing.
Homeless older adults are unique because they are more likely than their younger counterparts to have multiple medical problems and chronic illnesses that have gone untreated for years, and illnesses common to aging such as diabetes, cardiac disease, circulatory problems, and hypertension. Homelessness compromises health, and can lead to hypothermia, insufficient sleep, and poor nutrition. It is also a predictor of mental illness, such as depression and dementia. Homelessness contributes to memory problems, cognitive impairments, poor judgment and poor comprehension, which causes difficulties delivering services.
Marily_Barker_76_P1010027In 2006-2007, with the support of the California Community Foundation and theCorporation for Supportive Housing, Shelter Partnership undertook an exhaustive 18-month planning process with the help of a diverse and expert 26-member Steering Committee. The final product, Homeless Older Adults Strategic Plan included an exhaustive literature review, data analysis, interviews of housing developers, social services providers and government officials as well as older adults themselves; and case studies of housing for this population.
According to the Strategic Plan, there are 3,000 to 4,000 homeless individuals nightly in Los Angeles County who are 62 years of age or older, and their numbers are growing. The Housing for Homeless Older Adults Collaborativeentails two interventions to address the two major groups of homeless older adults.
The Securing Affordable Senior Housing Collaborative assists seniors with few social and health care needs who have more recently become homeless, typically because of a major life event such as hospitalization, layoff, or death of a spouse. For this group, as a result of their extremely low incomes, affordable rent is the main impediment to their securing permanent housing. Through a structured, staff intensive process, we are working with the many subsidized senior housing developers in the county to overcome their reluctance and programmatic barriers to providing housing to our population, and concurrently work with agencies serving homeless older adults to identify, assist, and provide follow-up services so that these individuals secure housing and permanency in these buildings.
The challenge in undertaking this initiative is persuading senior housing developers to work with homeless service providers and be willing to make changes to their customary practices, such as accepting alternatives to the documentation that they routinely require, requires extensive and persistent education.  Among the most prevalent barriers to accessing these units are lotteries, screening procedures, and wait list management through the U.S. Mail, which effectively excludes homeless adults who lack reliable mailing addresses. Requirements for references from prior landlords, criminal background checks, credit checks, birth certificates, and move-in deposits also screen out homeless applicants.
Our first partner in this collaboration is Menorah Housing Foundation, a major local nonprofit developer of senior housing and a strong proponent of including homeless older adults in their buildings. Since early 2009, 200 homeless seniors have moved into 26 senior buildings and hundreds of homeless seniors are on waiting lists to move-in to housing.
The Permanent Supportive Housing Collaboration is aimed at homeless older adults who have experienced long-term homelessness and have extensive, difficult, and challenging health care and social service needs, who are otherwise known as “chronically homeless.”  In partnership with special needs developers, we work to ensure that critically needed health and social services are provided in new developments, preferably on-site.
BonnieBraeThe most difficult challenges involve producing permanent supportive housing for the chronically homeless older adults who have been homeless for many years and present with mental health and substance use issues.
We are working with the sponsors to develop partnerships with health care and social services agencies and access funding, including the difficult-to-secure local, state and federal services funding, such as the Assisted Living Waiver Pilot Project (ALWPP); Adult Day Health Care (ADHC); Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC); Homeless Prevention and Rapid Re-housing Program (HPRP): In-Home Supportive Services (IHSS); and Mental Health Services Act (MHSA) programs.
The first development to come on-line was the Bonnie Brae Village Apartments in the fall of 2009 - a 90-unit senior housing development with more than half of the units set-aside for homeless older adults. The development is located just west of downtown Los Angeles and was developed by Affordable Living for the Aging.  To date, 100 previously homeless older adults have moved into their own apartment and several additional projects are in the development process that will bring 80 additional units online.
The National Leadership Initiative to End Elder Homelessness: The Homeless Older Adults Strategic Plan, the first of its kind, has generated considerable interest and helped form the content for the first convening to build a “National Leadership Initiative to End Elder Homelessness.”  The convening, which was held in Alexandria, Virginia in October 2011, was attended by 60 people from across the country, including policy makers, elected and appointed officials, advocates, housing providers and elder service providers.  Its purpose was to develop concrete strategies and policy recommendations to meet the unique needs of the homeless older adult population.  We hope to replicate this convening in Los Angeles in the fall of 2012
Funding is from the Corporation for Supportive Housing. For more information on these collaborations, e-mail Steve Renahan.
Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Support for Homeless Re-Entry (SHORE): Shelter Partnership was instrumental in the development, organization, and approval of this new program, SHORE. This program makes public transportation available for those homeless persons who are participating in a transition to stability through case management and supportive services. In 1994, the program was awarded $615,000 as a 14-month demonstration program through which 30 participating agencies received bus tokens for their clients. Most recently, Shelter Partnership successfully worked for renewal of the program that is now funded at $350,000 annually.  To date, over six million transportation tokens have been distributed to the most needy in our community.
Housing Element Project: California state law requires each city and county to adopt a housing element. In its housing element, the local government must plan to meet the existing and projected housing needs for all economic segments of the community, including homeless people and extremely low-income households.
Thanks to funding from the United Way, Shelter Partnership embarked on a project to review and provide in-depth comments on local housing elements to the respective city. We have now completed housing element reviews for 12 jurisdictions: Beverly Hills, Burbank, Culver City, Downey, Glendale, Hawthorne, Inglewood, Lancaster, Los Angeles County, Santa Clarita, Torrance and Whittier.
Our substantive reviews focus on three areas: 1) the cities’ plans to meet the regional housing need allocation, specifically for extremely low-income households; 2) the regulation of housing for people with disabilities, including adoption of a reasonable accommodation procedure; and 3) compliance with SB 2 of 2007, the fair share zoning law (Click to see Fact Sheet).   Shelter Partnership was very involved in providing technical support to then Senator Gil Cedillo, the author of SB2.  Many of the cities agree to our recommendations and modify their housing elements accordingly.
Once the housing element is adopted, Shelter Partnership monitors the local government to ensure that it is implementing the programs outlined in the housing element. Shelter Partnership is committed to holding cities accountable to their responsibilities to plan for housing for all members of the community and to remove obstacles to the development of this housing.
For more information, please contact Nicky Viola at nviola@shelterpartnership.org and visit the California Department of Housing and Community Development’s website at http://www.hcd.ca.gov/hpd/hrc/plan/he/.
Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Rehousing Program (HPRP): As part of the federal ARRA (stimulus) program, the City of Los Angeles received $29 million in Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Rehousing Program (HPRP) funds over a three-year period (2009-2012). The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) administers HPRP on behalf of the Los Angeles Housing Department (LAHD). Shelter Partnership advises LAHD and LAHSA and assists with HPRP program design and implementation.
The HPRP program provides temporary housing-related financial assistance and stabilization services to households that currently live in the City, have an annual income that is less than 50% of the area median income and are homeless or about to become homeless. The federal regulations require that the program targets households that would be homeless “but for” HPRP assistance. At the same time, these households should be able to pay rent on their own once the temporary HPRP assistance period is over. [See Shelter Partnership’s blog dated March 22, 2010 for a longer description of the HPRP program and some examples of households that have benefited from HPRP assistance.]
Three regional coordinating agencies (RCAs) provide case management services to homeless families and individuals identified for this temporary assistance and help with locating affordable housing. HPRP agencies providing assistance to homeless persons are LA Family Housing, Special Service for Groups and PATH (in partnership with St. Joseph Center and Weingart Center Association). A partnership of legal aid organizations provides legal services, case management and temporary assistance to families and individuals who are about to lose their rental housing in the City. HPRP agencies providing homelessness prevention assistance are the Legal Aid Foundation of LA, Neighborhood Legal Services and Inner City Law Center. The fact sheet below provides contact information for all of these agencies:
The City of LA HPRP program officially launched on November 2, 2009 and Shelter Partnership continues to participate in policy meetings and provide technical assistance to the City and participating agencies.  To date, more than 4,500 households have received financial assistance.
Shelter Partnership staff is currently working with the City and County of Los Angeles, as well as LAHSA in the design of the new Emergency Solutions Grant, which will continue the funding of rapid rehousing for homeless households, albeit at a much reduced funding level.
For more information, contact Dhakshike Wickrema at dwickrema@shelterpartnership.org.
Home for Good Shelter and Outreach Programs Standards of Excellence:  Working with the Los Angeles Business Leaders Task Force on Homelessness, a partnership of the L.A. Area Chamber Of Commerce and United Way of Greater Los Angeles, Shelter Partnership is developing standards of excellence for emergency shelter and outreach programs, as a priority goal of Home For Good, a comprehensive action plan to end chronic and veteran homelessness in Los Angeles County by 2016.
Conflicting expectations and measures for these programs often confuse both providers and funders alike.  The Home for Good Standards of Excellence project is a proactive effort to collaborate with our provider community and bring clarity on what success means for these important segments of our homeless system.  A clearer and community-informed set of standards and outcome measures will 1) highlight effective organizations, 2) attract new resources from funders looking for greater assurance on performance, and 3) create a simpler set of expectations for providers.
In a participatory process, Shelter Partnership is actively soliciting input through:
  • Interviews and surveys with coalitions, policy-makers, funders, and providers across LA County on best practices, existing measures, and desired measures;
  • Literature review and analysis of existing research; and
  • Review of national best practices, funding requirements, and trends.
For more information, please email Steve Renahan or visit the Home for Good and the Business Leaders Task Force website @www.HomeforGoodLA.org

Recent Collaborative Efforts

OPCC_Cloverfield1Community Model: Shelter Partnership played a major role - including help in fundraising and siting -- in OPCC’s (formerly Ocean Park Community Center) development of a Safe Haven at 26th Street and Cloverfield Streets in Santa Monica. The Safe Haven utilizes a “Housing First” community model to serve chronically homeless individuals living with co-occurring mental illness and substance abuse disorders and has 25 beds.
As part of this effort, funded by The California Endowment, Shelter Partnership also produced The Community Model on how to replicate this program and conducted numerous trainings.
For more information, contact Ruth Schwartz or visithttp://www.communitymodella.org/.
LA's HOPE: Los Angeles Homeless Opportunity Providing Employment: As part of the national New Freedom Initiative to address chronic homelessness, the City of Los Angeles received five-year funding from the Departments of Labor and Housing and Urban Development for an innovative program that Shelter Partnership played a key role in designing and helping implement: the LA’s HOPE program.
LA's HOPE also involved the collaboration of eight public and private agencies:  Los Angeles Community Development Department, the Housing Authority of the City of Los AngelesGoodwill Southern California, Inc. (Goodwill), Los Angeles County Department of Mental HealthLos Angeles Homeless Services AuthorityPortals House, Inc.San Fernando Valley Community Mental Health Center, Inc. (SFVCMHC), and South Central Health and Rehabilitation Program(SCHARP).
The chronically homeless adult participants, all of whom had mental health diagnoses, received extensive mental health and other social services; job training with vocational training, coaching, and employment; and permanent housing at very low rents.
The results from this pilot program were outstanding and are reported at http://www.urban.org/publications/411631.html.
Connections: Collaborative Project to Provide Permanent Housing for Homeless and Unstably Housed Persons Living with HIV/AIDS.
ProjectNewHopeWith Shelter Partnership’s extensive program design and grant-writing assistance, and as one of only three jurisdictions in the nation, the Los Angeles Housing Department (LAHD) received $1.2 million in Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS (HOPWA) competitive grant funding to implement Connections in the County of Los Angeles, which resulted in permanent housing subsidies for 105 homeless or persons who are at imminent threat of homelessness. The project was a collaborative between the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the United States Department of Health and Human Services Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
Connections represented an innovative opportunity to study the impact of providing housing for homeless or unstably housed persons on the transmission of HIV and the health of persons living with HIV. Several scholarly papers have been developed on this.
The initial grant was recently renewed for a second time to provide an additional 90 homeless and very-low income individuals with permanent housing subsidies.

For more information, please contact Nicky Viola.

2010-2015 Consolidated Plan and 2010-2011 Annual Plan for federally-funded community development programs operated by the State of California:

2010-2015 Consolidated Plan and 2010-2011 Annual Plan for federally-funded community development programs operated by the State of California:

http://www.hcd.ca.gov/housing-policy-development/housing-resource-center/reports/fed/2010-2015_conplan_final.pdf



Homeless and Other Special Needs Activities An important part of promoting suitable living conditions for those with special needs is the provision of appropriate supportive services. As described in this ConPlan, California has an extensive system of social service organizations that provide institutional care, clientbased community or residential services, and housing-based supportive services, including significant mainstream programs and services to prevent homelessness. HCD Programs: EHAP-CD, FESG and HPRP The Department’s Emergency Housing Assistance Capital Development Program (EHAPCD), funded through the passage of Proposition 46 and Proposition 1C, is the State’s leading source of funds for capital development activities for homeless shelters. To date, EHAP-CD has provided more than $211 million to 340 local governments and non-profit organizations to preserve or create a total of 13,509 shelter spaces. The Department, through HUD formula grants under McKinney-Vento administers the Emergency Shelter Grant (ESG) program by providing “operating grants” to nonentitlement cities and counties and non-profit organizations serving the homeless and those at risk of becoming homeless. Commencing with federal fiscal year 2011 (2011- 2012), the ESG program will evolve into a combination of ESG and HPRP-type activities under the new HEARTH ACT of 2009, currently awaiting the drafting of HUD regulations. ESG will become the Emergency Solutions Grant program with a greater emphasis on homeless prevention. As a result of ARRA, the Department began administration of HPRP. HPRP is a threeyear grant program scheduled for completion by September 10, 2012. HPRP provides funding to units of local government and non-profits serving the homeless and those at risk of becoming homeless, through case management, short-term and medium-term rental assistance, utility deposits, security deposits, legal assistance regarding eviction proceedings, and moving costs. Additionally, the State provides funding for homeless services under various programs including, for example, public education, workforce development, temporary assistance to needy families (TANF), supplemental security income (SSI), veteran services, unemployment compensation, workers compensation, foster care, and affordable rental housing. Some programs, such as the TANF Homeless Assistance Program (HA), provide assistance to those at imminent risk of becoming homeless. TANF HA also provides non-recurring cash assistance to families who are already homeless. HCD continues to assist homeless persons by funding activities of service and housing providers to promote self-sufficiency and provide transitional and permanent housing, and through its collaborative efforts with other State agencies and departments. 2010-2015 Consolidated Plan Page 70 PATH The State also receives formula grants under the McKinney Projects for Assistance in Transition from Homelessness (PATH) Program, administered by the Department of Mental Health (DMH), and provides funding for housing and supportive services in residential settings. HCD continues to work with DMH to develop policy and program guidelines to promote collaborative efforts in the area of supportive housing, including participation on the Supportive Services Council and Mental Health Planning Council. The Department and DMH jointly manage the California Statewide Supportive Housing Initiative Act (SHIA), created in 1998 to develop affordable housing linked to supportive services in mental health, substance addiction, employment training, and other topics. The intent of this act is to provide incentives and leverage to local governments and the nonprofit and private sectors to invest resources that expand and strengthen supportive housing opportunities. Governor’s Homeless Initiative (GHI) On August 31, 2005, Governor Schwarzenegger announced an initiative to end long-term homelessness in California by providing integrated permanent housing and services to the long-term homeless in partnership with local governments and the private sector by leveraging State funds for mental health services and housing available through Propositions 46, 1C and 63. The Governor directed the Department, CalHFA, and DMH to develop an integrated joint funding package to finance permanent supportive housing for chronically homeless persons with severe mental illness. Residents of this housing receive supportive services from county mental health departments, using Mental Health Services Act (MHSA) funds. A NOFA for the Governor’s Homeless Initiative (GHI) was issued on November 15, 2005 offering funding of approximately $40 million in permanent supportive housing development financing through the Department’s Multifamily Housing Program (MHP), CalHFA construction, bridge and permanent financing, and approximately $2 million in DMH State-share MHSA funds for rent subsidies. Applications for funding are no longer being accepted as the funds will be exhausted when HCD gets approval to take the remaining applications forward to the Loan and Grant Committee. To date, MHP has awarded funds to eight recipients, and five more will be recommended for funding when allowed. The Department has received a total of 14 applications requesting funds. If all are approved, the Department will have committed 100 percent of the program’s funds. 2010-2015 Consolidated Plan Page 71 Governor’s Interagency Council on Homelessness The Department also participates in the Governor’s Inter-Agency Council on Homelessness comprised of public, private and non-profit entities committed to ending long-term homelessness, ensuring coordination of efforts, and maximizing the use of resources. The Council brings together State and federal agencies and departments, local social service, health, law enforcement and other local agencies, local elected officials, nongovernmental providers of services to the homeless, homeless advocates and the philanthropic community, to build and operate housing that is accompanied by services for residents. HIV/AIDS and HOPWA CDPH-Office of AIDS (OA) is the State’s clearinghouse agency for statewide programs and activities that pertain to HIV/AIDS. The OA emphasizes the integration of representatives of HIV/AIDS service agencies, other State departments (such as Corrections, Housing, Rehabilitation, Mental Health, Developmental Services and Alcohol and Drug Programs), local health departments, University-wide AIDS Research Program (University of California San Francisco), and others in information gathering, research and decision-making processes. The ad hoc Interagency AIDS Coordinating Council includes numerous State departments in the review of AIDS service delivery and prevention/education efforts. The HOPWA Program is based within the CDPH-OA to ensure that all HIV/AIDS service programs, including housing assistance, are coordinated at the State and local levels. Changes to State housing element law (Chapter 633, Statutes 2007) clarify and strengthen this law to promote certainty in zoning and approvals for emergency shelters and transitional and supportive housing. The law takes a fundamental and necessary step toward addressing the critical needs of homeless populations and persons with special needs throughout all communities in California. Generally, Chapter 633 amends housing element law in terms of planning (Government Code Section 65583) and approval (Government Code Section 65589.5) for emergency shelters and transitional and supportive housing as follows: • At least one zone shall be identified to permit emergency shelters without a conditional use permit or other discretionary action. • Sufficient capacity must be identified to accommodate the needs for emergency shelters and at least one year-round emergency shelter. • Existing or proposed permit procedures and development and management standards must be objective and encourage and facilitate the development of or conversion to emergency shelters. • Emergency shelters shall only be subject to development and management standards that apply to residential or commercial within the same zone. 2010-2015 Consolidated Plan Page 72 • Written and objective standards may be applied as specified in statute, including maximum number of beds, provision of onsite management, length of stay and security. • Transitional and supportive housing shall be considered a residential use and only subject to those restrictions that apply to other residential uses of the same type in the same zone. • Limits denial of emergency shelters, transitional housing or supportive housing by requiring specific findings. • Some findings shall not be utilized if new planning requirements of Chapter 633 are not met such as identifying a zone without a conditional use permit. Other Actions California has the nation’s second highest foreclosure rate, with one foreclosure filing for every 173 households, according to the January, 2009 market report from RealtyTrac. In that report, California accounted for 28 percent of the 274,399 foreclosure filings reported nationwide. Merced County had the state’s highest foreclosure rate at one filing for every 59 households, Riverside County was second, and Stanislaus County came in third. A half million Californians have sub-prime loans that will jump to higher rates within the next two years. To address the growing foreclosure problem, Governor Schwarzenegger launched a public awareness campaign to educate homeowners about options that can help them avoid losing their homes to foreclosure. The $1.2 million campaign, funded through existing consumer education efforts within the Business, Transportation and Housing Agency and the State and Consumer Services Agency, will: • inform borrowers about their options; • urge borrowers to work with lenders before foreclosure; • encourage the use of nonprofit housing counselors; and • partner with local leaders and trusted organizations, like churches and community groups, to further the goals of the campaign. As part of the Governor’s efforts, the following resources are also available to homeowners: • The "HOPE Hotline" (1-888-995-HOPE or http://www.995hope.org), provides free mortgage counseling 24 hours a day, seven days a week. • A website with helpful information for prospective homebuyers, as well as homeowners who are experiencing difficulty in keeping payments current: http://www.yourhome.ca.gov/ and the Spanish language version: http://www.sucasa.ca.gov/. Additionally, more than 136,000 mortgage modifications were completed in 2008 under Governor Schwarzenegger’s agreement with ten major loan servicers to modify subprime mortgages. The lenders committed to principles that will help preserve homeownership for tens of thousands of homeowners who are at risk of default due to hybrid adjustable 2010-2015 Consolidated Plan Page 73 rate mortgages (ARM) and sub-prime mortgages resetting to higher interest rates. The agreement consists of three basic principles directing mortgage lenders to: • reach out proactively to borrowers well before their loans reset; • streamline the processes by which they determine whether borrowers may reasonably be expected to be able to make the reset payment; and • maintain the starter rate for a sustainable period of time for the homeowner who is current on payments, where a lender has determined the borrower’s resources are insufficient to make the reset payment. In addition, the Department will continue to participate in meetings with other State departments, professional associations, including the Council of State Community Agencies, the California Rural Housing Coalition, the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials, the Association of California Redevelopment Agencies, the California Association for Micro-Enterprise Opportunity, the California Association for Local Economic Development and a host of other organizations that have an interest in the State’s implementation of HUD-funded programs. These efforts promote program commonalities, maximize resources, integrate eligibility requirements where possible, share “best practices” and promote collaboration efforts at the local level.

Attacking Homelessness With Rapid Re-Housing

Attacking Homelessness With 'Rapid Rehousing'

  • April 21, 2015 
  • By Tim Henderson
People© Tim Henderson/Stateline
Warcheerah Kilima, left, and “rapid rehousing” coordinator Mosudi Idowu in Kilima’s Trenton apartment. Before getting the apartment, Kilima said he was sleeping in a train station while working nights as a mail sorter. (Tim Henderson/Stateline)
TRENTON, New Jersey—Two years ago Jenaie Scott had a $20 an hour cleaning job, which was plenty to cover the rent for a modest apartment on the west side of this state’s capital city.
But Scott lost the job in a 2013 downsizing, setting off a downward spiral that led her and 5-year-old son Jyaire into homelessness.
“I had other jobs, but they just didn’t pay enough, and eventually they put an eviction notice on my door,” Scott recalled. She and Jyaire moved in with relatives, then begged for space in the back room of a church and finally started sleeping in her car.
“I came here crying. I was so upset,” Scott said from the offices of Catholic Charities in Trenton, where she turned for help last year. With her strong history of work, she qualified for a local “rapid rehousing” program, which put her and her son in an apartment within a month.
The program paid her first month’s rent; Scott paid a share of the rent for the next two months and now is paying it all. She got a job at an Amazon warehouse, where she filled orders so fast her bosses made her a full-time coach for other workers. “Without this I don’t know where I’d be,” Scott said of the housing program.
The rapid rehousing strategy is based on the idea that in a majority of cases, a little temporary housing help can prevent people on the edge of homelessness from falling over it. It started with a few local experiments 30 years ago, worked well in pilot programs, and went national in 2009 as part of the federal economic stimulus package. Now used in every state, rapid rehousing is considered to be particularly effective for homeless families because it provides stability for children.
Mercer County (where Trenton is located) and other communities have found the program produces faster results than the previous strategy, which moved the homeless from shelters to transitional housing before giving them a permanent roof over their heads. And it costs less.
The number of homeless families has dropped by 75 percent to 71 families since 2007, before the program started, according to Marygrace Billek, Mercer County’s human services director.
Mercer County was able to lower the cost of getting a family into permanent housing from about $32,000 to $16,000 by skipping the intermediate step of transitional housing and moving people directly from homeless shelters to permanent housing. Families had been staying in transitional housing an average of 253 days. “We were actually managing homelessness, not trying to end homelessness,” Billek said.
Only about 6 percent of Mercer County families helped by the program have returned to homelessness, compared to 21 percent under the old program, she said.

Growing Evidence of Success

One of the first to try the rapid rehousing concept was Minnesota’s Hennepin County, where shelters were filling up in the early 1990s. When every shelter cot and motel bed was taken, the county had no way to help new families.
By placing some families directly into apartments or houses, the county saw its need for homeless shelters drop by 70 percent and nobody was being turned away, according to a 2013 U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness report.
Similar programs evolved in California and Pennsylvania. By 2008, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) had taken notice and launched a $25 million pilot demonstration project that included Mercer County and seven other communities in Louisiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Texas, Washington state and Wisconsin.
The strategy was expanded to 535 communities as part of the 2009 federal economic stimulus package and showed promising results, even as communities adapted the concept to meet their needs. More than 80 percent of rapid rehousing clients nationwide found permanent housing, according to a HUD report published in 2013.
By concentrating exclusively on rapid rehousing, Salt Lake City reduced its homeless population by 26 percent in one year. 
“Rapid rehousing transitions people who are literally homeless into housing quickly. It directly decreases the overall number of homeless persons in shelters and on the streets," the HUD report said.
By 2013, HUD was encouraging state agencies to funnel other welfare funds to rapid rehousing. HUD spent $99 million last year directly supporting 450 programs around the country.
There are no nationwide numbers comparing rapid rehousing to other strategies for getting families off the streets, but HUD is conducting a study. A 2013 HUD interim report suggested rapid rehousing is more likely to be successful than other methods.
Last year, the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness listed rapid rehousing as one of its top methods for ending family homelessness, saying it could help make homelessness “a rare and brief occurrence” for families.
Philip Mangano, former homeless policy “czar” under former President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama, called rapid rehousing one of the most promising new strategies since the Housing First initiative of the 1980s, which provided more efficient ways of handling mentally ill or drug-addicted people.
“You get families into housing quickly, and the kids don’t carry the stigma of ‘homeless’ into the classroom and into the playground,” Mangano said.
Although rapid rehousing and programs like it have been taking a bite out of homelessness, the problem is large and growing in many areas.
HUD does an annual count of the nation’s homeless population. According to a Statelineanalysis of the federal numbers, homelessness dropped in most states between 2007 and 2014, but it has grown in 17 states and the District of Columbia.
North Dakota, where the number of homeless doubled, and Mississippi, where the number rose 62 percent, experienced the biggest increases. The District of Columbia has the largest per-capita homeless population.
(See Stateline’s map for the rate of homelessness in each state.)

CYBER SECURITY : ACLU

CYBER SECURITY : ACLU
As more of our daily lives are lived in the digital world, the security of our personal information online has become of paramount importance. Recent high-profile data breaches and hacking conducted by both government agencies and private companies highlight the need to protect sensitive data from thieves and spies while also maintaining Americans’ privacy. 
Unfortunately, some are calling for sweeping new laws to exempt companies from existing privacy laws in the name of cybersecurity. They want “cyber-threat” information to be shared not just with civilian agencies but also with the intelligence community and the military. Others in the intelligence community have called on tech companies to ensure that the government can circumvent protections offered by encryption so that it can seize the data of users.
These laws must be carefully drafted to ensure that sensitive private information—financial, medical, political, or other personal information—is removed before it is shared. We must also make sure that the cybersecurity mission is vested in a civilian agency to prevent new cybersecurity information sharing laws from becoming another avenue by which the government can spy on Americans. And we continue to advocate against so-called “encryption backdoors,” which, by ensuring your data is accessible to the government, make the Internet less safe for everyone. (note : for me VERIZON fake account Phoenix AZ, the cell phone LG device to many unexplained share options-one option was to give permission to enforcement (Intelli-Federal) to sweep the phone at any time for data research, I agreed Verizon Acct. 5/2013 Phoenix, AZ)
The ACLU is at the forefront of efforts to push back against ill-considered cybersecurity proposals. We are also, crucially, leading efforts to craft affirmative cybersecurity policies for both government and the private sector that will help prevent cybercrime and hacking while also protecting personal privacy and civil liberties.


Saturday, September 12, 2015

CALI - REFLECTING: Gift Card Legislation 1999-present

CALI - REFLECTING: Gift Card Legislation 1999-present (by: Paul Goree)


It would be hard for some to believe that during the year 1999-2001, gift cards (as new as they were) where completely unregulated. Not even an expiration date existed on some of them. They ensured a 100% return to they financial backers. Luckily a lot great financial organizations got together, some of the better ones which I knew of Green Dot, help put an end to the craziness that existed from 1999-2013. Only in 2013 were gift cards finally regulated by FDIC and not let to the unregulated realm of the financial institutions.  Up till then much red flagging was going on to alert financial institutes of possible threats coming their way.  Sept 2013 I received a letter from the collective financial institutes that represent 2 of the organization which I always had faith in, GREEN DOT and NETSPEND.  They wanted to let me know that I had been in association with them since 2004-2005 (the midst of red flagging) and apologize for the trouble I experience all these years later : re -identifying and validating my identity.

One such financial institution was America Express, which at the time 2001-2005 was trying to put on the market several products. One was a gift card travelers card, replacing travelers check.  A financial institution gift card with no limit,  obtained from a FDIC financial institution and the random $25-$200 gift card purchasable at many locations. Well after 2013 great FDIC ruling on the entire industry (long time coming)- I am surprised and  happy that American Express stands above the rest of the financial world. By offering Americans for the first time, a financial tool by which they can developed their own wealth. Early this year, Steven Forbes stated that in order to get rich, or make money grow. An individual had to discipline themselves with 13 months of $100 deposits. These deposits would come to represent the persons true dedication to money and desire to make it grow.

Well it seems that American Express is in the area of a new financial win all, by offering Americans the ZERO TOTALLY FREE (including ATM fees, etc) BLUE BIRD CARD. What each owner does with the cards, amounts to the owners own self based strength and needs, as learned. Also the card is part of what I've termed THE MASLOW THEOREM: EXPRESSIVE MECHANISM, by which society seeks to move away from  copying ways of existing. And towards opportunity (LIBERTY) to over come poverty.
I have had my American Express Blue Bird for 5 months now and am surprised each and every time, when I utilize a pay for service card-when I should/could be using a tool that is designed to help me make the most of my earned effort.

https://assets.nerdwallet.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/amex-bluebird.jpg

Cali Reflecting: Example of Sub-Culture Social Networking

Cali Reflecting: Example of  Sub-Culture Social Networking





and it is from the past REFLECTING, that the future can be made MORE responsible from ALL of those involved!