EAST PALO ALTO
CITY COUNCIL
STAFF REPORT
DATE: March 7, 2023
TO: Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Council
VIA: Melvin Gaines, City Manager
BY: Amy Chen, Community & Economic Development Director Batool Zaro, Associate Engineer
SUBJECT: Grant Application for Encampment Resolution Funding Program – Round 2 Recommendation
Adopt a resolution authorizing the City Manager (or designee) to submit an application with $150,000 of in-kind match from the City to the California Interagency Council on Homelessness for Round 2 Encampment Resolution Funding Program.
Alignment with City Council Strategic Plan
This recommendation is primarily aligned with:
Priority No. 6: Create a Healthy and Safe Community
Background
The City, like most in California, continues to seek solutions for housing unsheltered residents within its jurisdictional limits. The County of San Mateo’s one-day homeless count and survey conducted in February 2022 found that the City had the third highest population of unsheltered individuals in the County (169 total on February 24, 2022).1 The City continues to focus its efforts on finding solutions to help reduce the number of unsheltered individuals in encampments throughout the City. Since 2021, the City has been proactive in addressing the growing number of encampments of varying sizes scattered across the City. These efforts have included:
• Working with the County of San Mateo and service providers LifeMoves and Project WeHOPE to offer case management, shelter, and interim and permanent housing to unhoused residents in East Palo Alto;
1 See Count of San Mateo’s 2022 One Day Homeless Count, available at: https://www.smcgov.org/hsa/2022-oneday-homeless-count. • Utilizing Public Works staff as a resource to help clean up public areas of trash and debris related to encampment areas;
• Working with the County and service providers to clear out the encampment area and provide shelter and interim housing for individuals residing in encampments in Bell St. Park; and
• Developing a Temporary Use Permit process which expedites permit processing of temporary shelters, including safe overnight parking, on a variety of properties or the establishment of a temporary shelter for up to 12 months.
Encampment Resolution Funding Program
The City of East Palo Alto is eligible for the Encampment Resolution Funding Program, Round 2, Second Disbursement (ERF-2-R) through the California Interagency Council on Homelessness (CAL ICH). The ERF Program is a 4-year grant program that includes two rounds of funding: $50 million in Fiscal Year (FY) 2021-22 (ERF-1) and $300 million in FY 2022-23 (ERF-2) to provide grants to local jurisdictions to resolve critical encampment concerns and transition individuals into safe and stable housing.
RF-2-R funds may only be used for proposals that connect people experiencing homelessness in encampments to interim shelter with clear pathways to permanent housing or place people directly into permanent housing. Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis until June 30, 2023, or until all funds are exhausted.
The ERF-2-R grant will aim to resolve the experience of unsheltered homelessness for people residing in encampments in East Palo Alto. Encampment sites identified for the current proposal fall within state public right-of-way on the southwest corner of University Ave and Donohoe St and to the west of University Avenue between Purdue St and State Route 84. The City plans to apply by April 30, 2023.
The City has retained Harris & Associates (“Harris”) to assist with submitting the grant application. Harris has an on-call contract with the City for grant writing services.
Services provided by Harris for this engagement will be applied towards the contract’s remaining budget. Harris will assist the City with organization outreach, collection of letters of support, and drafting the grant application.
With this report, staff provides their plan to submit an application for ERF Round 2 grant funding helping to further the City’s current efforts to resolve the instances of unhoused and encampments within the City. Staff believes committing the City to an in-kind match would make the City’s application competitive. Thus, staff is requesting authority to commit the City an in-kind match of $150,000 that would be included in the grant application.
Analysis
The ERF-2-R grant would provide funding for services and resources to assist unsheltered residents who reside in encampments in the City. The key objectives of the City’s proposed program are:
• Ensure the dignity, safety, and wellness of encampment occupants. • Reduce reoccurrence of encampment occupancy.
• Create a path to employment and permanent housing.
The City’s proposed program aims to serve unhoused individuals from active encampment areas and provide permanent housing and additional services. If awarded the grant, the City will aim to partner with the Downtown Streets Team (DST), a local organization with a mission to ending homelessness through the dignity of work and power of community. DST gave a presentation to the Council back on May 5, 2022, outlining the organizations programs and services that could be engaged to help further solutions and strategies to assist unhoused residents in the City. By partnering with DST, the City will leverage its existing pool of resources and take a human-centered approach, with a path-to-housing strategy that replicates the model of successful programs of DST: Flagship Volunteer Work Experience Program and Streets Team Enterprises Program.
The Flagship Volunteer Work Experience program will target providing waste management services to the encampments identified in the application. These services involve outreach to the habitants of these encampments, inviting them to volunteer on teams dedicated to cleaning streets, parks, waterways, and other public spaces while they chart a path out of homelessness. Volunteers receive a basic needs stipend and can opt in for case management and employment services. This service not only proactively addresses health and safety concerns for the homeless encampment residents, nearby neighbors, and businesses, but also paves a way for meaningful and critical pathway for engagement and trust-building with encampment residents. This program would also work in conjunction with the City’s Public Works department, who dedicate staff to cleaning up public areas of trash and debris related to encampment areas of RV’s disposing of trash or discharging in the public right-of-way.
The Streets Team Enterprise program will help individuals attain permanent employment by providing training and a transitional paying job. This is a temporary program meant to be used as a steppingstone to self-sufficiency by eventually securing lasting employment in the workforce at large. Participants would benefit from the supportive wraparound services that DST offers volunteers enrolled in the flagship Volunteer Work Experience Program. This program will be open to graduates of the Volunteer Work Experience Program. The type of workforce preparation varies from community to community depending on the availability of community partners who collaborate with DST in job preparation and placement for this program.
The combination of these two programs facilitated by the DST provides encampment occupants with a support network of wraparound outreach services. By engaging these individuals in meaningful daily activity that provides them with resources to help procure basic needs, these individuals can start to focus on a pathway to permanent housing. In creating a consistent, rewarding, and supportive system for these individuals to work within, the ability to build longevity with behaviors that help lead to permanent housing is stronger, resulting in greater chances of success for permanent placement for individuals and a reduction in the return of encampments.
DST has gained a well-respected reputation throughout Central and Northern California, having served a number of neighboring jurisdictions including Redwood City, Petaluma, and San Francisco. Through their unique and thoughtful service models built on creating consistent and sincere connections with the individuals served, DST have had great success in addressing challenging situations with some of the unhoused community’s most reluctant individuals. It should be noted that in the event DST is not able to provide services under this endeavor, the City will seek a service provider with comparable programs and services to those described above, ensuring the integrity and purpose of the City’s proposed plan described herein remains intact.
The City plans to apply for two years of ERF-2-R grant funding in order to establish a one-year pilot with DST and continue operations into a second year with milestone check-ins every six months to ensure fulfillment of the grant and City’s key objectives as described earlier.
Next Steps
The ERF-2-R NOFA specifies evidence of collaboration between the City and key partners for implementation of the proposed program. In preparation of the grant writing process, the City will focus on the following activities in the coming weeks to help strengthen the objectives of the proposed program
• Engage DST for their expertise on program services, resources or strategies to assist unhoused residents of the City
• Seek letters of support from the County of San Mateo; neighboring jurisdictions including Redwood City, Menlo Park, and South San Francisco; and organizations like Caltrans, LifeMoves, and WeHOPE
• Identify any additional resources that strengthen the chances of success of the City’s proposed plan.
At the time of this report, the City has had separate meetings with both the County of San Mateo and Redwood City. The County is planning to apply for funding as well under this grant and as such, shared their current proposed work plan, which seeks to compliment the individual efforts of jurisdictions throughout the County through a number of means including expanded outreach efforts, enhancing coordinated entry services, and increasing interim shelter. In sharing with the County what the City’s proposed work plan is, it was very apparent that the County’s and City’s efforts through this grant opportunity cohesively create a well-rounded outreach support network, with the County committing to providing the City with a letter of support for our application.
Discussions with Redwood City focused on their experience with the first round of funding through this grant, for which they were awarded and utilized a portion of that funding to expand use of services from Downtown Streets Team, whom Redwood City had already been in contract with for homelessness outreach services. At this time, Redwood City is home to one of the shelters East Palo Alto accesses for homeless individuals, with the County’s navigation center soon to open in Redwood City as well, serving as an additional resource for East Palo Alto’s unhoused. After discussing the City’s proposed work plan, Redwood City offered to provide a letter of support given the demonstration of how the City’s proposed work plan ultimately seeks to lessen the burden on resource output from neighboring jurisdictions.
The City anticipates that through the awarding of ERF funds and implementation of the program to the encampment sites identified, the City will be able to look at duplicating efforts and engage this program throughout the City. The program may potentially be expanded to address other encampment sites throughout the City and in the public right of way. The City currently has a contract with NRC Environmental Services Inc. for hazardous material removal and disposal services in the amount of $100,000 annually.
Public Works and Maintenance staff dedicate approximately $75,000/annually in staff time and resources related to encampment clean up. If awarded the grant, staff will investigate the feasibility of a citywide program and will come back to City Council to potentially allocate funds to create this citywide program which would alleviate some trash clean-up work from the maintenance crew and would alleviate the need for the hazardous waste clean-up and removal services contract.
Fiscal Impact
No fiscal impact associated with consideration and submission of the application. Any fiscal impact would be relational to the City’s ability to partner resources with the requested grant award amount in an effort to leverage and add to the grant amount.
Public Notice
The public was provided notice of this agenda item by posting the City Council agenda on the City’s official bulletin board outside City Hall and making the agenda and report available at the City’s website and at the San Mateo Co. Library located at 2415 University Avenue, East Palo Alto.
Environmental
The action being considered does not constitute a “Project” within the meaning of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), pursuant to CEQA Guideline section 15378 (b)(5), in that it is a government administrative activity that will not result in direct or indirect changes in the environment.
Attachments
1. Resolution
2. Encampment Resolution Funding Program, Round 2, Second Disbursement (ERF-2-R) - Notice of Funding Availability