Fremont City Council Meeting: 05/21/24 07:00 PM
3300 Capitol Avenue Div/Dept: City Manager's Office
Fremont, CA 94538 Category: Agreements and Contracts
SCHEDULED
Sponsors:
COUNCIL STAFF REPORT (ID # 5176) DOC ID: 5176 C
Updated: 5/17/2024 9:24 AM by Susan Gauthier C Page 1
HOMELESSNESS RESPONSE STRATEGIC PLAN - Presentation and Recommended Adoption of a Draft 5 Year Strategic Plan to Address Homelessness in Fremont
Contact Persons:
Name: Laurie Flores Allen DeMers
Title: Homeless Services Manager Deputy City Manager
Div/Dept: City Manager's Office City Manager's Office
Phone: 510-574-2040 510-494-4651
E-Mail: [email protected] [email protected]
Executive Summary: The consultant contracted by the City has completed a final draft City of Fremont Homelessness Response Plan for City Council review and potential adoption.
The plan provides an analysis of current efforts by the City to respond to Fremont’s growing unhoused population and provides a roadmap for general, long-term strategic action to best address the issue. Key strategies in the recommended plan include:
1. Enhancing investment in homelessness prevention
2. Encouraging additional housing solutions
3. Enhancing efforts to connect unhoused people to housing and other resources
4. Further investing in activities that will reduce the environmental and health impacts of encampments on Fremont residents and businesses.
5. Strengthening coordination and capacity within the City and amongst the regional homelessness resource providers
This plan is distinct from the strategy outlined in the City Council adopted County of Alameda’s Home Together Plan by virtue of its local focus on the City of Fremont’s specific approach to mitigation and direct investments to fund homelessness response activities.
This staff report also provides analysis and explanation of how the report’s recommendations will be translated into action and outlines a general philosophy with regard to funding new services and unmet needs identified in the plan. Adopting this plan, either as presented or with modification, will provide staff with strategic direction as it continues to plan and execute the City’s response to homelessness in Fremont.
BACKGROUND: The City of Fremont City Council adopts and amends long-term strategic plans from time to time to validate and direct work on substantial issues that occur over the course of several years or decades. Examples of long-standing strategic plans include the City’s Parks and Recreation Master Plan and its Active Transportation Plan.
At the May 3, 2022, City Council meeting, the Council accepted and endorsed Alameda County’s Home Together 2026 Community Plan to end homelessness. Home Together 2026 is Alameda County’s strategic alignment plan which prioritizes funding for effective programs that prevent, address and end homelessness. City of Fremont services addressing homelessness generally align with the Home Together plan, pursuant to Council’s adoption, Council Staff Report (ID # 5176) Meeting of May 21, 2024 Updated: 5/17/2024 9:24 AM by Susan Gauthier C Page 2
and that plan served as a starting point for the development a Fremont-specific Response Plan.
After a competitive procurement process, EdeColigny Consulting, LLC was selected to develop Fremont’s Homelessness Response Strategic Plan. This consultant was selected in large part based on practical experience in the field and demonstrated knowledge of Alameda County’s resources, regional resource availability, and Homeless Management Information System. Construction of the Homelessness Response Plan began on June 16, 2023 and was phased in three main components: 1) landscape analysis and data collection, 2) robust community engagement with diverse stakeholders, and 3) incorporating community feedback with proven best practices to develop the report.
The consultant conducted extensive community engagement for this project consisting of qualitative data collection and analysis, including a community survey, interviews, focus groups, community meetings, meetings with City staff, and presentations to various Cit y boards and commissions between October 2023 and January 2024. Staff created and maintained a MyFremont webpage dedicated to the Plan to keep the community informed of progress, offer options for engagement and actively seek participation in community meetings and surveys. Staff worked closely with the consultant to ensure that diverse stakeholders were invited into the process. Two general community meetings were held in October. The consultant interviewed 17 individual stakeholders including elected offi cials, service providers, community advocates, the school district, hospitals, and neighborhood associations. Of the five focus groups, two were held with business leaders, two with unhoused residents, and one with housing providers and renter associations. Throughout the course of the engagement process, staff solicited feedback from City Boards and Commissions including the Recreation, Planning, Citizen Advisory, Economic Development, Human Relations, Senior Citizen, Family Resource Center Leadership, and Police Chief’s Youth Advisory boards.
DISCUSSION/ANALYSIS: Key elements of the plan are summarized in this staff report which characterizes the current state of homelessness in Fremont, details the City’s direct spending on homelessness response, and outlines the HRP’s goals and recommendations.
The consultant focused recommendations on building on existing programs to increase effectiveness and identify the most critical gaps in services, which are prevention support and re-housing solutions. Staff also recognize the Council’s related interest in minimizing the impacts of RV and over-sized vehicle parking and confirms staff’s intent to pair recommended strategies in the prospective Response Plan with additional large vehicle enforcement.
The Current State of Homelessness in Fremont
The number of people experiencing homelessness in the City of Fremont went down between 2022 and 2024, but limited data is available about the details of the reduction at this time. Between the 2019 and 2022 Point-in-Time (PIT) counts, Fremont’s homeless population grew 69% from 608 to 1,026 people. This trend was driven by the growth in unsheltered homelessness, which accounted for almost 85% of all homelessness in the City of Fremont in 2022.
On May 15, 2024, after finalization of the HRP draft, new 2024 Point in Time Count data was released. This data indicates that the City of Fremont now has at least 809 people experiencing homelessness, with 195 sheltered (24%) and 614 unsheltered (76%). This is Council Staff Report (ID # 5176) Meeting of May 21, 2024 Updated: 5/17/2024 9:24 AM by Susan Gauthier C Page 3
a 21% reduction in overall homelessness in the City over the last two years. This data suggests that the increased investment in shelter and prevention are working. No additional demographic data about the City of Fremont’s homeless population in 2024 has been released. Further detailed analysis of demographics and methodology of the Point in Time County will be available later in the summer. The analysis in this staff report and the attached Homeless Response Plan is based on the data included in the detailed 2022 PIT count explanation.
More people are living in vehicles. Most of the 2022 growth in the City of Fremont’s unsheltered homeless population is reflected in a growing number of people living in their vehicles, including cars, vans, and recreational vehicles (RVs). In 2022, 573 people were counted living in vehicles, up from 238 in 2019, a 141% increase. Now 66% of all of City of Fremont’s unsheltered residents and 56% of all people experiencing homelessness are living in a car, van, or RV.
Racial disparities persist in Fremont’s unhoused population. Black/African American people are overrepresented in the City of Fremont’s homeless population, representing 2% of the City of Fremont’s general population but 31% of those in the 2022 PIT Count and of those receiving services. Native people are also overrepresented, with Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander individuals four times more prevalent in the homeless population than the general population, and American Indian/Alaskan Native individuals six times more prevalent. Whites are also overrepresented among the homeless population, constituting 47% of the City of Fremont’s homeless population and 18% of its general population.
New homelessness is outpacing exits from homelessness. The number of people becoming homeless in 2022 in the City of Fremont was more than double the number exiting homelessness into housing. For every person whose homelessness is resolved, there are 2.25 people entering the homeless response system as newly unhoused. This highligh ts the critical need for services that prevent people from becoming homeless.
Once unhoused, it is more difficult to return to housing. An estimated 2,050 people experienced homelessness in the City of Fremont between July 1, 2022 and June 30, 2023.
Over 92% of those served by HMIS-using providers remained homeless at the end of that year. 72% percent of respondents to the 2022 PIT Count Survey reported being homeless for a year or longer. It is taking longer to resolve people’s homelessness. 72% of respondents to the 2022 PIT Count Survey reported being homeless for a year or longer.
Unhoused residents are becoming more vulnerable. Seniors make up a growing share of the overall homeless population, representing 18% of PIT Count survey respondents in 2022 and up from 10% in 2017. Of those surveyed for the 2022 Count, nearly 1 in 5 respondents were 61 or older. Homelessness ages people prematurely and exacerbates disabilities present at the time of housing loss. A large proportion of people receiving services from HMIS-using providers and/or surveyed in the PIT Count reported chronic health conditions and/or mental health disorders. For those that received a housing assessment through coordinated entry in the South County Resource Zone, 92% indicated that they had a disabling condition and 61% had a score of 80 or above, which indicates a vulnerability level suited for Permanent Supportive Housing (PSH).
Are unhoused residents from Fremont? A common concern among stakeholders was that people experiencing homelessness in the City of Fremont are not from the City of Council Staff Report (ID # 5176) Meeting of May 21, 2024 Updated: 5/17/2024 9:24 AM by Susan Gauthier C Page 4
Fremont. After analysis of all available data, the consultant determined that there is no clear evidence to support or disprove the theory that the City of Fremont is attracting people from other parts of the region. Part of the challenge is defining what it means to come from the City of Fremont. There is no established formula for how long someone must live in a place to be considered from there, or what it means if someone moves away for a time or loses their housing and must leave. As a result, the plan’s recommendations focus on preventing Fremont residents from becoming newly homeless and resolving the homelessness status of those people who are currently experiencing homelessness in the City of Fremont.
The City’s encampment mitigation work is showing promising reductions in cost and crises. Early data on number of calls and expenditures related to encampment mitigation indicates that as the City of Fremont implements a more proactive approach, costs and crises are declining. Generally speaking, encampment mitigation consists of clean - up operations including fire and environmental harm reduction like trash, waste, or vehicle abatements, site monitoring and other enforcement actions.
Fremont’s Homelessness Response Resource Allocation
The HRP concludes that the City of Fremont’s spending is somewhat out of alignment with strategies that will reduce and end homelessness. The current allocation of resources is not optimized in its attempt to balance resolving and managing homelessness. • The City is spending 79% of its overall homelessness response on a combination of shelter/interim housing operations, hygiene and meal programs, outreach, and drop-in programs, referred to as “crisis supports” and “mitigation activities” that reduce or alleviate environmental and health impacts such as clean-up operations, site monitoring, and enforcement, compared to 6% for rapid rehousing, flex funds or housing-focused case management. For every dollar spent on pathways to housing, the City of Fremont spends $17 on crisis support and mitigation activities, though the report acknowledges that a substantial portion of the City’s funding for these activities is use restricted. While mitigation activities are a city mandate, without greater investments in services that resolve homelessness, the mitigation burden will continue to grow. • Despite the critical need, funding for prevention is shrinking as a result of reduced federal support. The All Home Regional Plan recommends that for every interim housing/shelter bed created a system should add two permanent housing opportunities and four prevention slots. Prevention was 34% of the FY 2022/23 budget and has declined to 12% in the current fiscal year, with a further decline anticipated in FY 2024/25. This is due to the end of Federal COVID-19 Emergency Rental Assistance Program funding, which was only available during the pandemic. Without prevention services, the number of households becoming homeless is expected to continue to outpace those leaving homelessness.
The table below illustrates City of Fremont budgets for the last, current, and upcoming fiscal years. This budget consists of a mixture of General Fund, Special Fund, and regional funding sources. Currently, the City of Fremont directly controls spending of over $7.5 million addressed at homelessness, including roughly $5.35 million in funding for housing, interim Council Staff Report (ID # 5176) Meeting of May 21, 2024 Updated: 5/17/2024 9:24 AM by Susan Gauthier C Page 5
shelter and non-shelter crisis supports, $1.95 million in mitigation activities, and $300,000 on adminstration.1
The City of Fremont’s direct investment in homelessness response is braided among multiple funding sources with variable flexibility. Mitigation services, funded primarily by Integrated Waste Management fees, are the most inflexible and are required to fund environmental preservation and waste management specifically. Whereas the City -Funded Affordable Housing and Homeless Services Fund has the most flexibility and can support programs from prevention through interim shelter and non-shelter crisis supports, to housing pathways. The City should evaluate its expenditures of non-use-restricted funding to determine how it can better align its spending with activities that most directly resolve or prevent homelessness.
City of Fremont Homeless Response Budgets Over Three Fiscal Years Funding Category FY 2022/23
Actual
FY 2023/24
Budget
FY 2024/25
Budget
Preventing
Homelessness
$3,306,536 $883,825 $443,294
Pathways to Housing $325,161 $359,879 $362,691
Crises Supports--
Interim
Housing/Shelter
$2,287,084 $2,414,222 $3,004,665
Crises Supports—
other services2
$1,531,185 $1,693,708 $1,528,507
Mitigation Activities $1,908,336 $1,946,076 $2,361,655
Administration $356,849 $295,495 $304,487
TOTAL $9,715,152 $7,593,205 $8,005,299
The funding detailed above includes only those City resources that are designated specifically for people experiencing homelessness or at imminent risk of homelessness, and only those that are controlled directly by the City of Fremont. The funds are, in part, use restricted and largely cannot be allocated to enforcement activities. Programs that serve a general population (such as food pantries) are not shown here, although people experiencing homelessness would typically be eligible for those resources.
The funding chart above also excludes programs and resources in Fremont that are designated for people experiencing homelessness but not funded or controlled by the City.
Such programs include “scattered site” housing subsidies and permanent supportive housing unit operations that may be funded by the State, Federal programs, Housing Authority, or County of Alameda. Other County-funded portions of shelter and outreach services are also excluded.
1 This includes only those city resources that are funded or managed directly by the City of Fremont and are designated specifically for people experiencing homelessness. Programs that serve a general population (such as food pantries) are not shown here, although people experiencing homelessness would typically be eligible for those resources.
2 Crisis supports in this context refer to services such as street outreach, food/meals, drop-in centers, safe parking, hygiene stations, and case management services.
Council Staff Report (ID # 5176) Meeting of May 21, 2024 Updated: 5/17/2024 9:24 AM by Susan Gauthier C Page 6
Recommended Goals and Strategies in the Plan
The Homeless Response Plan analyzes three scenarios to set the framework to develop a comprehensive, realistic approach for Fremont to support resolving homelessness. The consultant determined that maintaining the status quo of investment, from all available sources and activities from the City and its partners, would result in an extremely undesirable outcome consisting of an increase of more than double the number of people experiencing homelessness over the next five years in Fremont. Conversely, getting to a functional zero would require a fiscally unachievable action of quadrupling investment in services. Neither situation is feasible. Therefore, a third scenario was developed to improve system results and the lives of people experiencing homelessness within a more reasonable budget by making targeted investments and increasing system flow.
The HRP’s recommendations are crafted to reach the following goals over the next five years:
• Goal A: Stop the 23% annual growth rate of homelessness by reducing the number of people becoming homeless and increasing the number exiting for permanent housing.
• Goal B: Double the proportion of people who are well served by the homeless response system, meaning they are on pathways to housing, stay homeless less than a year, and do not exit services to unsheltered homelessness. • Goal C: Reduce the impact of homelessness on those with and without permanent homes in Fremont by decreasing the number of people living unsheltered and the amount of city resources and infrastructure deployed to managing encampment crises.
The HRP proposes five broad strategies, which include specific actions and investments that could guide City staff’s actions over the next several years in an attempt to meet the identified goals. They are summarized below along with the broader plan goals they support.
Strategy 1: Prevent homelessness. (Goal A)
a. Invest local funds in 60 homelessness prevention slots and grow numbers assisted in future years.
b. Leverage existing prevention infrastructure (Keep Fremont Housed program) with improved targeting to most at-risk households and other modifications. c. Strengthen tenant-landlord relations to prevent displacement and eviction.
Strategy 2: Increase housing solutions. (Goals A, B)
a. Expand the supply of rapid rehousing from 35 to 75 slots in Year 3, and to 140 slots in Year 5.
b. Launch a Shallow Subsidy Program to serve up to 145 households by Year 5. c. Support local and state initiatives to increase affordable housing, including streamlined approvals, increased set-aside units for formerly homeless households and increased density.
Strategy 3: Connect people to shelter, housing, and other resources. (Goals B, C) a. Expand the Winter Relief program from 5 months to 12 months. b. Expand intake hours at interim housing sites and increase connections between outreach teams, Coordinated Entry, and interim housing.
Council Staff Report (ID # 5176) Meeting of May 21, 2024 Updated: 5/17/2024 9:24 AM by Susan Gauthier C Page 7
d. Expand the City’s support of regional flexible housing funds, “Flex Funds”, to increase system flow and shelter bed turnover.
e. Increase services to people living in their vehicles including those in RVs, such that they have safe places to stay and pathways to housing. This can include, but not be limited to expansion of safe parking options.
Strategy 4: Mitigate the impact of homelessness on the community. (Goal C) a. Manage RV parking to better meet community needs, including the needs of those living in vehicles. Consider safe parking options or other places for vehicles to be in conjunction with new parking restrictions. b. Expand field staff available for encampment assessment, outreach, and triage response, in alignment with current practices of the Mobile Evaluation Team c. Implement and refine structured encampment response to reduce health and safety hazards, resolve complaints, and connect people to services.
Strategy 5: Strengthen coordination and capacity within the homeless system. (Goals A, B, C)
a. Increase accountability with monitoring and reporting on HRP goals and progress, community engagement, and increased involvement of people with lived experience.
b. Enhance coordination with the County’s land use task force to identify and plan for sites that could serve as interim or permanent housing. c. Coordinate service delivery with adjacent systems such as school districts and hospitals, and across city Departments to meet households’ needs more quickly and avoid duplication of efforts. Increase information sharing across providers.
d. Improve community knowledge by improving data collection and reporting and improving public access to data, including program demographics, unmet need, and program outcomes.
e. Expand system capacity by exploring all possible revenue streams and housing/program sites.
Alignment with County and State Goals
Strategies in the HRP reflect and scale goals and strategies proposed in Alameda County’s Home Together Community Plan. The County’s plan was endorsed by the Fremont City Council on May 3, 2022. The State of California has authorized the community plan as compliant to continue to receive critical funding dedicated to homelessness and permanent housing. Adherence with County goals allows the City of Fremont to participate in regional programs and maintain eligibility for funding allocations to further progress on reducing homelessness in the region.
Alignment of HRP Recommendations with Related Council/Community Encampment Concerns
While the HRP provides long term strategic direction and near-term programmatic options, staff continue to work on more immediate interventions to address encampment impacts and address the needs of unhoused residents. Over the course of plan development, staff have conducted a number of activities that increase enforcement while balancing the impacts to unhoused and housed community members by increasing shelter alternatives and mitigating health and safety hazards:
Council Staff Report (ID # 5176) Meeting of May 21, 2024 Updated: 5/17/2024 9:24 AM by Susan Gauthier C Page 8
• Enforcement of Park ordinances pertaining to camping and overnight lodging, focused on the most impacted parks;
• Closure of and encampment resolution at Vallejo Mill Historical Park • Expanding Winter Relief to double the number of units from 30 rooms to 60 rooms;
• Established and implemented a site index tool for staff to evaluate site conditions at known and reported encampment sites to determine appropriate and legal response options to mitigate health and safety hazards; • Implementing large vehicle parking restrictions and school drop off/pick up zones adjacent schools determined to be most impacted by large vehicles in established Safe Route to School zones; and
• Staff continue to analyze additional large vehicle enforcement. Staff will develop additional sensitive sites for large vehicle enforcement and develop a phased enforcement approach, adding enforcement areas over time to the extent allowed by the resources and the law.
FISCAL IMPACT: Adoption of this Homelessness Response Plan’s strategic direction does not have an immediate fiscal impact. If adopted by the City Council, staff would seek to fund its recommended activities in the following priority order:
1. Continue to aggressively seek State, federal and regional funding for projects.
Staff would assess public support for a bond measure to dedicate a new funding stream to the activities.
2. Review and realign current non-restricted expenditures to prioritize funding for activities that are consistent with the strategies outlined in this report.
3. An additional allocation of General Fund revenue would be considered to fund priorities outlined in the plan only if all other options were exhausted and the prospective expenditure was of the highest priority.
If all program recommendations are implemented within a five-year timeframe, the consultant estimates that an additional $7 million would need to be identified and allocated as the plan indicates. However, as noted above, those funds could come from a variety of internal and external sources. Fiscal impacts related to individual implementation activities that are not yet adopted or that require a new appropriation will be analyzed and will be vetted/authorized via regular budget processes as those measures are considered. In all cases, staff will be proactive in seeking cost-effective implementation and strategic funding opportunities and developing partnerships to lessen those impacts.
ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEW: N/A
ATTACHMENTS:
• DRAFT - Fremont Homelessness Response Plan for City Council Consideration
RECOMMENDATION: Receive the report and adopt this Citywide Homelessness Response Plan.