Continuum of Care

CoC Application - Exhibit 1 posted for public inspection:

2008 Exhibit 1 (PDF, 87 pages)

What is the Continuum of Care?

The Continuum of Care is a community response to homelessness that covers an array of services from prevention and services to housing. As in many communities, Sacramento receives Supportive Housing Program (SHP) funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). These funds are applied for on an annual basis and dictate some of the strategies that are employed by the community to end homelessness.

Activities that are required by HUD are planning to develop an overall community policy to address homelessness in general, and develop strategies to address the various subpopulations including chronic homelessness, substance abuse disorders, youth, veterans and others. The Policy Board to End Homelessness is the lead organization in our community to address the necessary planning and the community is awarded points in the annual application for the degree to which it has a coordinated, inclusive and outcome oriented community process to end homelessness. Strategic planning is also required to develop local action steps on HUD mandated objectives, progress on discharge planning from other publicly funded institutions, coordination on homeless activities including the 10-Year Plan to End Chronic Homelessness, and a fair and impartial project review and selection process to receive HUD funds.

In addition to the HUD funding, which is currently (2008) about $13.5 million per year, both the County and City, as well as other sources of funding, contribute to homeless programs in our community.

While the HUD SHP funding is critical to the continued operation of homeless programs in our communities, the funding is not self supporting for either the community or individual programs and HUD has a number of unfunded mandates.  These include:

• Homeless Management Information System (HMIS), a computer system to collect information on HUD and some County funded homeless programs and technical support for the system;

• annual shelter counts and the biannual Homeless Street Count and report;

• data analysis and evaluation;

• monitoring oversight in excess of the 5% received from HUD;

• strategic planning activities;

• annual application process for the HUD funds;

• independent ranking process of program proposals for new and continued funding.

Additional challenges include rising program costs with no increase in grant dollars for programs