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HomeMy WebLinkAboutJefferson CHG Presentation 9.2.26Contracting with Commerce for the Balance of State (BoS) and Consolidated Homeless Grant (CHG) Programs Jefferson County Sara Ihmoda & Sam Schroeder Commerce program managers 9/2/2026 1 The Department of Commerce is the one agency in state government that touches every aspect of community and economic development including: international trade, infrastructure, energy, housing, public safety and crime victims, and broadband. 2 Agenda Balance of State CoC Consolidated Homeless Grant (CHG) Summary-Eligibility, Interventions, Expenses, Best Practices Jefferson Budget & Programs Supported Administrative and System Requirements Coordinated Entry System (CES) Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) Planning and Reporting Performance Measures Subgrantee Management Monthly Invoicing Application Process 3 Balance of State CoC Sam Schroeder 4 WA Balance of State Continuum of Care 5 Balance of State CoC Organizations apply for new and renewal funding through the BoS CoC Lead Agency (WA Dept. of Commerce) Agencies contract directly with federal gov’t (HUD) Opportunities for existing projects to change recipients: Reallocation (scope of project can change) Grant transfer (scope of project does not change) Additional responsibilities passed along to County Leads (tied to CHG Guidelines and funding) 6 Funding in Jefferson County Crossroads Permanent Solutions Rapid Rehousing - $185,494 OlyCAP Subpopulation: Chronically Homeless New Hope YHDP Rapid Rehousing - $126,836 OlyCAP Subpopulation: Youth and Young Adults Youth Solutions YHDP Supportive Services Only - $32,099 OWL360 Subpopulation: Youth and Young Adults 7 BoS CoC Steering Committee Monthly virtual meetings open to all CoC communities Email Carolyn.Chang@commerce.wa.gov for meeting invite Each county in CoC gets voting member delegates based on population Jefferson County has one voting member Current voting member: Viola Ware, OlyCAP Housing Director 8 Consolidated Homeless Grant (CHG) A summary of the Jefferson County CHG Budget, CHG Guidelines, Eligibility, and Allowable Expenses 9 CHG Funding Categories and Budget CHG Standard ~$381,000 Housing and Essential Needs (HEN) ~$250,000 Permanent Supportive Housing for Chronically Homeless Families (PSH CHF) – Jefferson County Does Not Receive Homelessness Prevention ~$750,000 Extra Funds: Emergency Housing SFY 26&27 ~$760,000 Inflation Increase SFY 26&27 ~185,000 DRF Backfill ~470,000 TOTAL: ~2.2 million 10 Consolidated Homeless Grant (CHG) Guidelines Summary Eligibility Criteria Allowable Interventions Allowable Expenses Best Practices 11 CHG Eligibility – Housing Status Housing Status At Risk of Homelessness, must be prioritized using a targeted prevention screening tool Homeless Unsheltered, system requirement to prioritize unsheltered households Sheltered Chronically Homeless-Permanent Supportive Housing for Chronically Homeless Families (PSH CHF) ONLY 12 CHG Eligibility - Income Income Eligibility CHG Standard, Eviction Prevention, PSH CHF 80% AMI-but Lead Grantees can set to be lower Jefferson 80% AMI – Chart Below HEN HEN Referral from DSHS 13 Interventions Temporary Emergency Shelter Transitional Housing Permanent Rapid Re-Housing Permanent Supportive Housing Services Only Street Outreach 14 Allowable Expenses Rent Facility Support Operations Administration Admin Caps Jefferson Admin Percentage Currently less than 10% is going towards Administration ~$200,000 Rent: Rent payments and other housing costs such as utility payments, pet fees, in broad sense we usually describe this as anything you can think of that would be tied to a lease Facility Support: Lease and rent payments, utilities, maintenance, security, janitorial, equipment and supplies for a building used to provide housing. Operations: Expenses directly attributable to a program or to the homeless crisis response system. Salaries and benefits for staff, office space and supplies, equipment up to $1,500. Flex funding for households. Admin: Can be up to 15 percent of total grant budget, and each subgrantee can also charge up to 15%. Costs that benefit the agency as a whole and are not attributed to a particular program, such as ED salary, organizational insurance, audits, board expenses, general agency facilities costs. 15 Best Practices Voluntary Services Progressive Engagement Housing Stability Planning Low Barrier 80% of CHG Funded Projects Must Be Low Barrier Currently, 100% of CHG funded projects in Jefferson are being reported as low barrier Commerce promotes evidence-based service delivery models that efficiently move people experiencing homelessness to permanent housing destinations. Voluntary Services: Programs must not terminate or deny services to households based on refusal to participate in supportive services. Supportive services are helping or educational resources that include support groups, mental health services, alcohol and substance abuse services, life skills or independent living skills services, vocational services and social activities. PE: Frequent re-assessment determines the need for additional services. Households exit to permanent housing as soon as possible. Having already received assistance does not negatively impact a household’s eligibility if they face homelessness again. Services are individualized and client-driven, responsive to the needs of each household. Takes into account each unique situation and is not linear. No “one size fits all” approach. Housing Stability Planning: Grantees must assess each household’s housing needs and facilitate planning with the primary goal of obtaining or maintaining housing stability. Housing stability planning must be housing-focused and client-driven. Low Barrier: Projects have flexible intake schedules and require minimal documentation. Households are not screened out based on certain criteria (no income, lack of ID, criminal justice system involvement). Policies narrowly focused on a safe environment and avoiding exits to homelessness. Requirements are not generally beyond those of a typical lease. No work or volunteer requirements. Example: reassessing monthly to see what the household needs, versus 3 months of assistance offered regardless. Services are individualized and client-driven, responsive to the needs of each household Households exit to permanent housing as soon as possible Takes into account each unique situation and is not linear. No “one size fits all”- quite opposite Having already received assistance does not negatively impact a household’s eligibility if they face homelessness again 16 CHG Administrative and System Requirements Requirements of Lead Grantee 17 Administrative and System Requirements Coordinated entry system (CES) Planning and Reporting Local homeless housing plan and annual reports Annual county expenditure report Point-in-Time Count Essential needs report Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) System-wide performance measures, including prioritization requirements Subgrantee management RFP Process BVS User Access Monitoring Risk Assessments Trainings Policies and Procedures Low Barrier Monthly Invoicing 18 Coordinated Entry System (CES) All CHG Programs must be a part of the CES CE Guidelines People know who to call and where to go Assess to match and prioritize Connections to program openings 19 Planning Local Homeless Housing Plan and Annual Reports Local Plan: Lead grantees must submit an updated county Local Homeless Housing Plan to Commerce at least every five years. Local plans must include performance goals and strategies. Performance in meeting the goals of the local plan should be assessed annually. Information from the Annual Homeless Housing County Inventory and Expenditure Report and the Annual Point in Time Count should help inform the local plan. At a minimum, local plans should: Connect the needs of people experiencing homelessness, the current and future housing inventory, available resources, and community goals and priorities. Describe system and/or program inventory (both housing and services only) changes and its quantitative impact on reducing homelessness. Describe the costs of the associated with these changes. Describe implementation dates and names of responsible parties. 20 Reporting Annual county expenditure report Point-in-Time Count Essential Needs Report The Homeless Housing and Assistance Act requires each county to conduct several annual reports. Commerce oversees this process and provides technical assistance. County Expenditure Report: This is a report of all homeless housing expenditures per housing intervention in your county. It includes housing inventory, fund source, demographic information, performance information, costs calculations and client data. Commerce is required to gather this information from each county and we work with the lead CHG grantees to do this. PIT Count: This is an annual count of all sheltered and unsheltered homeless persons in each county. This census is conducted in accordance with HUD requirements. The PIT count always takes place in the end of January. The Department of Commerce provides survey forms for counties and agencies to use for their counts. Counties can opt to use their own forms as long as the count is compliant with state guidelines. CHG lead grantees must ensure the collection and reporting of this information each year. This January will be the first year the PIT for unsheltered will not need to be done. Essential Needs Report is the count of the number of HEN households served with Essential Needs over the course of a year. 21 Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) Statewide system data system that grantees must use to enter client data for all homeless programs. Information that’s collected includes Demographics Household type Project Start Date Project Type Move-In Date Exit Date Grantees providing direct service must enter client data into HMIS for all housing interventions regardless of funding source. Commerce has an HMIS team to train housing providers and offer ongoing technical assistance to users. Information that’s collected includes: demographics, household type, project start date, project type, move-in date, exit date. We use HMIS to measure performance and to pull information for required reports, some of which were mentioned earlier in Administrative Requirements. 22 Performance Measures Performance measures help evaluate the effectiveness of the homeless crisis response system as they work to ensure that homelessness is rare, brief, and one-time. This is the first year for Performance Monitoring Performance Requirements Grantees must improve housing outcomes by making progress towards the statewide performance targets. For each intervention type funded by CHG, grantees must adopt the required housing outcome performance measures: Contracts include performance measures that are measured through HMIS, nationally recognized measures of effective homeless interventions (HEARTH). They help evaluate the effectiveness of homeless crisis response systems as they work towards reducing homelessness. Each performance measure has a benchmark that helps us evaluate changes from baseline data.. 23 Performance Targets 24 Data At Work WA Homeless System Performance County Report Cards Data Quality Dashboard CHG Performance Tracker These reports provide communities with information regarding their progress towards locally established performance benchmarks. 25 Subgrantee Management RFP Process soliciting subgrantees Subgrant agreement, passing on all grant terms and conditions Monitoring Risk Assessments and Monitoring Plans Need to be completed within 6 months of Contract Start Need to monitor subgrantees at least 1 time per grant period Trainings Policies and Procedures Low Barrier Subgranting 10% of Eviction Prevention funds to By and For organizations 26 Trainings Staff must be identified for the following trainings and attend every three years: Trauma Informed Services Mental Health First Aid Supporting survivors of domestic violence Local coordinated entry policies and procedures as required by lead CE entity Fair Housing Housing First Rapid Re-Housing Progressive Engagement and Problem-Solving (Diversion) Lead Grantee needs to ensure through monitoring and training logs that this is being completed 27 Policies and Procedures Lead Grantee is responsible for ensuring all Policies and Procedures are written and implemented 28 Monthly Invoicing The grant is reimbursement-based. Amounts requested for reimbursement must be supported by the appropriate financial records Lead Grantees must bill Commerce monthly, by the 20th of the following month. 29 CHG Application Process 30 Application Process Around January 2027, Jefferson County will be given the option to “opt in” or “opt out” to being the CHG Lead for July 2027-June 2029 Grant Period If they “Opt-in”, they will be given Part 1 of the CHG County Application by March 2027 Questions around: Contact Persons, Homeless Crisis Response System, Local Government, and Program Compliance After the end of the legislative session (April ’27) they will be given Part 2 of the CHG County Application Questions around: Subgrantees, HMIS Projects, Budget Worksheet Goal is to have signed contracts by July 1, 2027 31 Questions 32 Sara Ihmoda CHG Program manager Sara.Ihmoda@commerce.wa.gov Sam Schroeder Bos coc program manager Sam.Schroeder@commerce.wa.gov 33