Minutes 12-01-2025-Business Meeting

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15 Commissioner Greene said HUD plans to institute a 30% cap on the amount that can be requested for permanent supportive housing and rapid rehousing. She read from a statement by the National Alliance on Homelessness that this will force continuance of care to reallocate funding from existing permanent housing projects in order to create new projects with preference for new transitional housing and new supportive systems only. She said she did not understand the following awards process changes to Tier 1 and 2 as read from the National Alliance Homelessness website: "Significant adjustments to funding tiers. Tier one will likely be significantly reduced so that a large majority of funding will be subject to continuum of care score. For reference in 2024, tier one was equal to 90% of a continuum of cares funding while tier two was equal to only 10% reflective of the longstanding priority given by HUD and Congress to renewal funding. She asked for clarification. Danielle Decaprio said all projects are ranked and reviewed. She said Tier 1 funding is thought of as harmless funding and has typically been 90-95%. She said Tier 2 goes into a national competition, where the odds of getting that funding is a lot lower. She said Tier 2 used to be 5-10%. She said now Tier 1 will be 30% and Tier 2 will be 70%. She said the county's Tier 1 funding would be $360,000 and their cost for permanent housing projects is $900,000. Commissioner Greene said there was a section on penalties for organizations or programs not aligned with administration priorities, and one is harm reduction practices. She asked how that will impact the county. Blake Rosser, Housing Director, said Tier 2 scoring is done under the term "merit review," which is 140 points. He said the penalties are contained in the rubric. He said there are 16 points for demonstrating a certain amount of transitional housing or sober living facilities that already exist and to demonstrate partnerships with those facilities, which the county doesn't have. He said that the county would then miss out on those points. He said staff have gone through the rubric carefully, calculating that the county is standing to not be eligible for 40-60 points. He said to bear in mind that they are competing with other continuum of care programs nationally, many of whom might not be eligible for points. He said it's difficult to know where they stand in comparison to other continuum of care programs. Commissioner Greene asked if the county will be penalized for having harm reduction strategies. Blake Rosser said the penalty will just be that the county does not get the points in the merit review. Commissioner Portie-Ascott thanked Danielle Decaprio for her presentation. She asked how many people are chronically homeless. Danielle Decaprio said the term chronically homeless is for someone who is homeless a certain length of time and has a disability. She said that potentially could be 60-80 individuals on any given night. Commissioner Carter thanked Danielle Decaprio for her presentation. She asked if the 65% reduction in funding is because of the Tier 1 reduction. Danielle Decaprio said it is a separate source of funding, the emergency solutions grant. She said in previous years there was a condition that no continuum of care would receive less than $100,000. She said that the state ESG office saw no reason to continue that stipulation and reduced the amount to what is considered Orange County's "fair share," which is $45,000. Commissioner Carter asked why the total population served decreased from 2024 to 2025. Danielle Decaprio said it could be related to a couple of things, but she said the rapid rehousing team did a great job. She said they turned over 100% of their caseload and housed about 40 new households. Chair Hamilton thanked Danielle Decaprio for the presentation. She said it is helpful for the Board to understand the funding that the program might not get. She said she would like to