CITY OF COMMERCEAGENDA REPORTCITY OF COMMERCEAGENDA REPORT
CITY OF COMMERCE
AGENDA REPORT
CITY OF COMMERCE
AGENDA REPORT
TO: Honorable City Council
FROM: City Manager
SUBJECT: A Resolution of the City Council of the City of Commerce, California Approving a Reimbursement Agreement for Shelter Beds within the Salvation Army Shelter located in the City of Bell, California MEETING DATE: May 10, 2022
RECOMMENDATION:
It is recommended that the City Council:
Approve in form the Reimbursement Agreement for Shelter Beds within the Salvation Army Shelter located in the City of Bell, with the understanding that the final term length and the final cost will be updated in a final agreement to reflect the actual start date of the Measure H Innovation Fund pilot program. The actual start date of the pilot program is dependent on the execution of this Agreement by the parties to the pilot program and the availability of shelter beds in the Salvation Army Bell Shelter based on Los Angeles County Department of Public Health guidance for homeless shelters.
A final Reimbursement Agreement for Shelter Beds within the Salvation Army Bell Shelter will return for City Council consideration once the Salvation Army executes the Social Services Collaborator Agreement and the eight LCA1 cities have executed this Reimbursement Agreement for Shelter Beds within the Salvation Army Bell Shelter. Los Angeles County First and Fourth Supervisorial Districts are separately contracting with the Salvation Army Bell Shelter to participate in the Measure H Innovation Fund pilot program and are not parties to this Reimbursement Agreement for Shelter Beds within the Salvation Army Bell Shelter or the Social Services Collaborator Agreement with the Salvation Army.
BACKGROUND:
Homelessness is a complicated problem that is resistant to localized and uncoordinated solutions. In 2020, nearly one in four of the estimated 570,000 unsheltered homeless individuals in the United States lived in the State of California. Of the 151,000 homeless individuals in California, forty-three percent (43%) were unhoused on the streets of Los Angeles County, roughly 66,000 individuals. Of the 66,000 unsheltered individuals in Los Angeles County in 2020, 41,000 lived on the streets of the City of Los Angeles.
The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA), a quasi-governmental agency, was formed in 1993 as a joint powers authority of the City of Los Angeles and the County of Los Angeles to coordinate effective delivery of homeless services within the City of Los Angeles and the County of Los Angeles. The cities of Glendale, Long Beach, and Pasadena operate their own local homeless service programs through partnerships with local private and nonprofit actors. The remaining eighty-four (84) cities within Los Angeles County, including City of Commerce, are served by the regional Continuum of Care (CoC) system that is managed by LAHSA.
In 2018, the Ninth Circuit court held in Martin v. Boise that a city cannot prosecute homeless individuals for sleeping in public when there are more unhoused individuals than available shelter beds. As a result, to execute sanitation cleanups and maintain public health and safety, cities need to develop systems of coordination where city staff know when and how many shelter beds are available and have the resources to be able to provide shelter options to unhoused individuals that are affected by sanitation cleanups. In addition, it is critical that public safety agencies know how many shelter beds are available to them, and public safety agencies need access to shelter beds on an emergency basis. If a police officer encounters an individual in need during the night or on the weekend, the opportunity for that person to receive care and shelter, if they are willing to accept shelter, may be lost if the officer does not have access to a shelter bed for that individual. If the willing unhoused individual can be provided a shelter bed, their options to access medical care, mental health care, drug and alcohol counseling, and permanent housing are significantly improved.
The City of Commerce is a participant in the regional Continuum of Care (CoC) system that provides shelter beds for all of Los Angeles County under LAHSA’s Coordinated Entry System (County CES). For unhoused individuals to receive a shelter bed and the attendant services that accompany temporary shelter housing such as: drug and alcohol counseling, health care and mental health services, employment services, benefits advocacy and permanent housing placement, the shared Homeless Services Liaison of the cities of Bell, Commerce, Cudahy, and Maywood must request assistance and be assigned an available shelter bed from the County CES system. Without an available bed in the County CES system, unhoused individuals are not able to receive services or shelter. The CoC system faces a demand level for shelter beds that is not met with the existing inventory, as many cities do not provide shelter beds within their city limits.
A Salvation Army Shelter is located within the city limits of the City of Bell and the shelter receives unhoused residents from the regional CoC system. The Bell Shelter is one of the largest shelters in the nation, and the shelter provides a significant portion of the region’s shelter beds. The Salvation Army Bell Shelter complex provides a variety of supportive services and housing options, shelter beds are only one segment of the critical regional resources that the Salvation Army provides. The shelter beds at the Salvation Army Bell Shelter are funded through contracts with agencies such as LAHSA, the Veterans Administration, and the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health (DMH). Existing contracts provide most of the operations revenue for the Salvation Army Bell Shelter, and without these contracts the shelter would not be able to operate.
ANALYSIS:
The LCA1 cities and unincorporated areas (Bell, Bell Gardens, Commerce, Cudahy, East Los Angeles, Huntington Park, Maywood, South Gate, Vernon, and Walnut Park) surrounding the Salvation Army Bell Shelter face a disproportionate homelessness impact. Unhoused individuals that are transported to the Salvation Army Bell Shelter from the greater Los Angeles County region may not successfully transfer to permanent housing for a variety of reasons, may not accept the mental health or drug and alcohol treatment services provided at the Salvation Army Bell Shelter, or may refuse to conform to the rules necessary for a safe and orderly living environment for residents of the Salvation Army Bell Shelter. As a result of these personal choices, and despite the best efforts of the Salvation Army Bell Shelter staff, these individuals may increase the unhoused population in the LCA1 cities, the surrounding unincorporated communities, and in the adjacent Los Angeles River channel. Thus, improved subregional coordination between the affected Southeast Los Angeles (SELA) area LCA1 communities, Los Angeles County Supervisorial Districts 1 and 4, the Salvation Army Bell Shelter, the Gateway Cities Council of Governments (Gateway COG), and existing regional agencies and nonprofit service providers is necessary to address the complex issue of homelessness in a manner that improves quality of life in the SELA subregion and improves the efficiency and effectiveness of existing regional services for the unhoused.
The Gateway COG provided Measure H Innovation funding in 2020/2021 for the City of Bell to be the lead agency in hiring a shared Homeless Services Liaison for the cities of Bell, Commerce, Cudahy, and Maywood to cooperatively address the disparate homelessness impact in the area. The work of the shared Homeless Services Liaison that is based in the City of Bell Community Services Department has been critical in addressing issues within the four participating communities. However, without an additional inventory of shelter beds to supplement the CoC system, the immediate challenges in the four-city area are difficult to address.
As a recognition of the unique impacts of homelessness in the SELA area around the Salvation Army Bell Shelter, a proposed Social Services Collaborator Agreement (included as Exhibit A to Attachment 1) between the City of Bell and the Salvation Army Bell Shelter would provide a secure source of thirty-six (36) shelter beds (either low barrier beds or bridge beds depending on the acuity of the unhoused individual’s service needs) that the participating LCA1 cities can access in addition to the shelter beds in the CoC system.
On behalf of the LCA1 cities, the City of Bell applied for and received $500,000 in Measure H Innovation Funds from the Gateway COG to support this shared shelter bed pilot program and to reduce the cost to the LCA1 cities by fifty percent (50%). The cities have achieved consensus to share costs equally for this innovative pilot program. Los Angeles County Supervisorial District 1 (Solis) and Supervisorial District 4 (Hahn) are in the process of separately contracting with the Salvation Army Bell Shelter to add six (6) additional shelter beds to this coordinated group of thirty-six (36) shelter beds that will result in a total of forty-two (42) shelter beds coordinated by the Homeless Services Liaison that is based in the City of Bell.
Reimbursement Agreement Issues:
Several meetings and discussions have occurred with the LCA1 City Managers, Los Angeles County Supervisorial Districts 1 and 4 staff, Gateway COG staff, the Gateway COG Homelessness Technical Advisory Committee, the Chief Executive’s Office of Los Angeles County, the Los Angeles County Homelessness Initiative, and the Salvation Army to develop this Agreement over a period of six months. In total, seven (7) versions of this Agreement were developed: five (5) to reach group consensus and two (2) to add additional terms and metrics to align this program with regional service delivery standards. The issues noted below were debated during development of the Agreement.
Program Costs
The initial cost per bed/per day proposed by the Salvation Army was sixty dollars ($60) per bed/per day for low barrier crisis shelter beds, the final cost per bed/per day in the Agreement is fifty-seven dollars ($57) per bed/per day for a mix of low barrier crisis shelter beds and bridge shelter beds. The type of shelter bed provided to a resident is based on the acuity or special needs of the resident, with bridge beds providing a higher level of services.
Equal Distribution of Costs
Several meetings of the LCA1 cities discussed how to distribute costs among the agencies, with several cost factors proposed. The LCA1 group looked at the following factors: population, general fund budget, five-year average of homeless point in time counts, city area in square miles, five-year average of homeless point in time counts by square mile, and equal share.
Based on the difficulty of finding consensus (as many cities preferred the cost factor which resulted in the lowest cost for their city), the need for all cities to be flexible in coordinating the inventory of shelter beds, the availability of funding from the Gateway COG and the American Rescue Act, and the recognition of the LCA1 cities that the success of this innovative pilot program would likely improve local response to homelessness and improve subregional homelessness coordination, the LCA1 cities agreed to share an equal one-eighth (1/8th) cost of the pilot program.
The contribution of Measure H Innovation Grant funds from the Gateway COG was critical in reducing the cost of the program for LCA1 cities with smaller populations and limited general fund resources. It is likely that without the Measure H Innovation Grant funds several of the cities would not be able to participate due to financial constraints and the opportunity to coordinate the SELA subregion would be lost.
Distribution of Shelter Bed Inventory and Shelter Bed Availability The Agreement provides for four (4) shelter beds per LCA1 city, and four (4) shared public safety shelter beds. However, it is impossible to predict exactly how long a specific shelter bed will be occupied, how many unhoused individuals will accept shelter, and what the various demands will be from each of the LCA1 cities.
The LCA1 cities understand that this is a pilot program, and a high degree of flexibility, coordination, and analysis will be necessary to manage the shelter bed inventory in a manner that satisfies every LCA1 party. The Agreement clearly states the need for coordination and flexibility that is required of all participants for the pilot program to be successful.
It is expected that a high level of city, county and agency communication will result from this pilot program. The LCA1 cities will have to work cooperatively to balance their individual needs and ensure that each LCA1 city has access to the shelter beds. There is also a risk that the LCA1 cities may not be able to achieve ninety percent (90%) occupancy of the shelter beds, as many unhoused individuals may choose to not accept shelter. If the LCA1 cities cannot maintain the desired shelter bed occupancy, the available shelter beds may be used by other SPA 7 cities. This will be an incentive for the LCA1 cities to coordinate the shelter bed inventory so that this valuable resource is not underutilized or wasted.
CONCLUSION:
The success of this pilot program is dependent not just on the flexibility and coordination of the parties, but also on the data that is developed to determine whether a subregional collaboration for homeless services can improve local service delivery and successfully supplement regional homelessness service delivery. The information from this program will be input into the County’s Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) which will allow for analysis and auditing of the pilot program’s effectiveness. The Agreement notes specific metrics and targets for pilot program success. If the LACA1 cities can effectively coordinate in a manner that improves local homelessness response and supports regional homelessness response without waste or inefficiency, this pilot program can be a model for subregional homeless services that can address the concerns of local communities in a targeted manner.
FISCAL IMPACT:
The total cost of the agreement to the City of Commerce will be determined by the timing of the execution of the final Reimbursement Agreement for Shelter Beds within the Salvation Army Bell Shelter with the participating LCA1 parties. The total cost and/or term may also be reduced if delays in program implementation occur due to COVID-19 public health restrictions at the Salvation Army Bell Shelter that may restrict or reduce the initial availability of shelter beds.
The maximum estimated cost to the City of Commerce for this agreement is $54,724.32 for a term starting on May 1, 2022 and ending on June 30, 2023 (427 days), which equates to just over $3,900 monthly (this amount will be included as part of the FY 2022/23 budget if approved). This cost is determined based on $500,000 in Measure H Innovation Grant Funds reimbursed from the Gateway Cities Council of Governments, and the approval of the Reimbursement Agreement by the LCA1 cities of Bell Gardens, Cudahy, Huntington Park, Maywood, South Gate and Vernon to share remaining costs equally.
This Agreement includes the option for any LCA1 party to terminate for convenience after June 30, 2022, within thirty (30) days of written notice to the City of Bell, and/or upon a termination of the Social Services Collaborator Agreement by the City of Bell or by the Salvation Army pursuant to the terms of the Social Services Collaborator Agreement. This Agreement also includes provisions for the default of an LCA1 party in Section 6(a). If issues occur with reimbursement from the LCA1 cities, or if the pilot program does not successfully address subregional needs, the pilot program may be terminated.
The final Social Services Collaborator Agreement and final Reimbursement Agreement for Shelter Beds within the Salvation Army Bell Shelter with the participating LCA1 parties will be provided at a future City Council meeting after the LCA1 parties execute their respective agreements.
ALTERNATIVES:
Approve staff recommendation
Reject staff recommendation
Provide staff with further direction
RELATIONSHIP TO STRATEGIC GOALS:
The proposed action relates to the 2016 City of Commerce Strategic Focus Area, Community Quality of Life with emphasis under the following Guiding Principle:
Guiding Principle 5: Foster environmentally conscious initiatives and continue to identify and develop city codes that support a clean, well-maintained, sustainable community.
ATTACHMENTS:
Reimbursement Agreement for Shelter Beds within the Salvation Army Bell Shelter Recommended by: Edgar P. Cisneros, City Manager
Reviewed by: Josh Brooks, Acting Finance Director
Approved as to form: Noel Tapia, City Attorney
Respectfully submitted by: Edgar P. Cisneros, City Manager