Presentation to the City Council
Homelessness Services Audit
November 1, 2022
Courtney Ruby, CPA, CFE
City Auditor
Michael Houston, MPP , CIA
Assistant City Auditor
Jennifer Lim, CIA
Senior Performance Auditor
Daniel Williams
Senior Performance Auditor
Independent City Auditor. Serving Oakland With Integrity.
City of Oakland
Homelessness Services
5/16/2022 Office of the City Auditor
• Audit Scope: FYs 2018-19, 2019-20, and 2020-21
• Quantify the number of people receiving short-term, long-term, and permanent housing and their lengths of stay.
• Evaluate the performance of contracted service providers against intended program outcomes.
• Identify disparities in how the City’s short-term, long-term, and permanent housing are provided to various subpopulations. • Assess the coordination and partnerships between City departments, other governmental agencies, and select service providers.
Audit Objectives & Scope
Independent City Auditor. Serving Oakland With Integrity.
City of Oakland
Homelessness Services
5/16/2022 Office of the City Auditor
Section 1: The City’s Homelessness Services Housing Programs: Participants Served, Exit Destinations, and Lengths of Stay
Section 2: Maintaining and Increasing Incomes and Enrolling Participants in Benefit Programs Section 3: Data on Programs, Outcomes, Service Providers, and Participants Section 4: Proportionate Service Delivery and Racial Equity Section 5: Contracting with Service Providers
Section 6: Strategy, Public Reporting, and Oversight
Report Overview
Independent City Auditor. Serving Oakland With Integrity.
City of Oakland
Homelessness Services
5/16/2022 Office of the City Auditor
• The City had mixed results in:
• placing people into permanent housing and better information is needed to determine whether they remain housed.
• facilitating enrollments in various income and health benefits. • Underlying these mixed results:
• City’s access to timely, accurate, and complete data and its ability to use this data to adequately evaluate performance of the service providers contracted to provide direct homelessness services.
Report Overview
Independent City Auditor. Serving Oakland With Integrity.
City of Oakland
Homelessness Services
5/16/2022 Office of the City Auditor
• This was compounded by:
• the fact that the City’s contract monitoring activities were incomplete, inadequately documented, and did not sufficiently address service delivery concerns. • The audit did, however, find:
• the City was delivering homelessness services in proportion to the racial make-up of the City’s homelessness population per the latest Point-in-Time Counts Report Overview
Independent City Auditor. Serving Oakland With Integrity.
City of Oakland
Homelessness Services
5/16/2022 Office of the City Auditor
In April 2022, Alameda County released a draft of the Home Together 2026 Community Plan (Plan) that stated every year new people experience homelessness in Alameda County, but the homelessness response system does not currently have enough capacity to keep up with annual inflow. The Plan predicts that by 2026, Alameda County will need an inventory of approximately 26,000 permanent housing units. As of 2021, there were 3,215 existing units, meaning the permanent housing inventory must increase eightfold by 2026.
The demand for housing far exceeds
supply – Alameda County’s Home
Together 2026 Community Plan
Independent City Auditor. Serving Oakland With Integrity.
City of Oakland
Homelessness Services
5/16/2022 Office of the City Auditor
The total number of individuals experiencing
homelessness in Oakland and the rest of
Alameda County in 2015, 2017, 2019, and 2022
Independent City Auditor. Serving Oakland With Integrity.
City of Oakland
Homelessness Services
5/16/2022 Office of the City Auditor
Community Homelessness Services
Division expenditures from FY 2018-19
through FY 2020-21 - $78 million
Independent City Auditor. Serving Oakland With Integrity.
City of Oakland
Homelessness Services
5/16/2022 Office of the City Auditor
Sources of funding for Community Homelessness
Services Division contract services expenditures in
FY 2018-19 through FY 2020-21 – nearly $69 million
Independent City Auditor. Serving Oakland With Integrity.
City of Oakland
Homelessness Services
5/16/2022 Office of the City Auditor
Homelessness Services Programs
Crisis Response Housing Programs
• Community Cabins
• Emergency Shelters
• RV Safe Parking
• Transitional Housing
• COVID Response
Supportive Services
• Hygiene Services
• Street Outreach
• Workforce programs
Longer-Term Housing Programs
• Rapid Re-Housing
• Oakland Path Rehousing Initiative (OPRI)
• Permanent Housing Services
Independent City Auditor. Serving Oakland With Integrity.
City of Oakland
Homelessness Services
5/16/2022 Office of the City Auditor
Total number of people served by fiscal year
Independent City Auditor. Serving Oakland With Integrity.
Section 1
5/16/2022 Office of the City Auditor
• This section quantifies the number of people served by the City’s various homelessness services housing programs and discusses the City’s performance against established performance metrics and targets including how successful the City was at exiting participants to permanent destinations versus back to homelessness.
• FINDING: The City had mixed results in helping program participants exit to permanent housing, many crisis response and longer-term housing participants’ long-term outcomes are unknown, and lengths of stay need more analysis.
The City’s Homelessness Services Housing
Programs: Participants Served, Exit
Destinations, and Lengths of Stay
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Section 1
5/16/2022 Office of the City Auditor
CoC Defined Metrics
• Exits to permanent housing (ex: PSH, rental by the participant with or without subsidies, staying with family or friends, etc.) • Exits to homelessness (ex: non-habitable places like the streets, emergency shelters, transitional housing, etc.)
City Defined Metrics
• Exits to positive destinations (ex: all permanent housing, some temporary housing like emergency shelters and transitional housing) • Exits to streets or unknown destinations
Exit Destinations
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Section 1
Community Cabins
5/16/2022 Office of the City Auditor
Exits to permanent housing, homelessness,
positive destinations, and streets or unknown
destinations
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Section 1
Community Cabins
5/16/2022 Office of the City Auditor
Number of participants who exited and those who
exited to positive destinations and to streets or
unknown destinations
Independent City Auditor. Serving Oakland With Integrity.
Section 1
Emergency Shelters
5/16/2022
Exits to permanent housing, homelessness,
positive destinations, and streets or unknown
destinations
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Section 1
Emergency Shelters
5/16/2022
Participants’ exit destinations
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Section 1
Transitional Housing
5/16/2022
Exits to permanent housing and homelessness
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Section 1
Rapid Re-Housing
Exits to permanent housing and homelessness
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Section 1
5/16/2022 Office of the City Auditor
• Returns to homelessness: status 6, 12, 24 months after exiting to permanent housing
• Except for OPRI and permanent housing services
Participants’ long-term outcomes and program
effectiveness are unknown
Independent City Auditor. Serving Oakland With Integrity.
Section 1
OPRI
Remain housed for one year or longer and exits to
homelessness
Independent City Auditor. Serving Oakland With Integrity.
Section 1
Permanent Housing
Services
Remain housed for one year or longer and exits to
homelessness
Independent City Auditor. Serving Oakland With Integrity.
Section 1
OPRI and PHS
5/16/2022 Office of the City Auditor
Percentages of OPRI single adult and Permanent
Housing Services participants who remained
housed for 1+,2+, 3+, 4+, and 5+ years after
permanent housing placement
Oakland Path for Rehousing Initiative (OPRI)
Permanent Housing Services (PHS)
Independent City Auditor. Serving Oakland With Integrity.
Section 1
5/16/2022 Office of the City Auditor
• Out of the 8,683 participants served over the three fiscal years, 6,697 participants were in crisis response programs and 1,986 were in longer-term housing programs. • During the audit period, 4,110 participants exited crisis response programs and 729 exited longer- term housing programs.
• Generally, longer term housing programs were more successful than crisis response programs in terms of finding permanent housing for participants.
• Generally, family housing programs were more successful than those for single adults and transition-aged youth.
Summary
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Section 1
Office of the City Auditor
1. Access data on “returns to homelessness,” to identify how many participants exited to permanent housing and return to homelessness 6, 12, or 24 months later.
2. Adopt exits to positive destinations and exits to streets or unknown destinations as metrics for Emergency Shelters and set performance targets.
3. Continuously review performance metrics and targets, and consider adjusting and developing new ones as needed.
4. Ensure that requirements within service provider contracts reflect adopted performance metrics and targets and ensure consistency.
5. Collect and analyze lengths of stay.
Recommendations
Independent City Auditor. Serving Oakland With Integrity.
Section 2
5/16/2022 Office of the City Auditor
• This section addresses the City’s performance in maintaining or increasing participants’ incomes and enrolling participants in non-cash benefits and health insurance programs as a critical step to ending homelessness. • FINDING: The City had mixed results in facilitating enrollments in benefit programs critical to improving homelessness services participants’ life circumstances and housing stability.
Maintaining and Increasing Incomes and
Enrolling Participants in Benefit Programs
Independent City Auditor. Serving Oakland With Integrity.
Section 2
5/16/2022 Office of the City Auditor
Maintaining and increasing income and enrolling in benefits is critical for people experiencing homelessness
• Incomes – Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), etc. • Mainstream/non-cash benefits: Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) • Health insurance
Maintaining and Increasing Incomes and
Enrolling Participants in Benefit Programs
Independent City Auditor. Serving Oakland With Integrity.
Section 2
5/16/2022 Office of the City Auditor
Performance data and targets for maintaining or
increasing income by program type and fiscal year
Independent City Auditor. Serving Oakland With Integrity.
Section 2
5/16/2022 Office of the City Auditor
Performance data and targets for enrollment in
mainstream benefits by program type and fiscal year
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Section 2
5/16/2022 Office of the City Auditor
Performance data and targets for enrollment in
health insurance benefits
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Section 2
RV Safe Parking
5/16/2022 Office of the City Auditor
No established performance targets consistent
with other programs
Independent City Auditor. Serving Oakland With Integrity.
Section 2
5/16/2022 Office of the City Auditor
1. Evaluate the maintaining/increasing income metric and enrollments in mainstream and health insurance benefits metrics to identify successes and failures related to participant enrollment.
2. Review participants’ income data across programs to reveal the range of incomes and use this information to inform the development and adaptation of City programs to provide deeply affordable housing.
3. Clarify what the RV Safe Parking program is intended to accomplish in terms of outcomes for its participants.
Recommendations
Independent City Auditor. Serving Oakland With Integrity.
Section 3
5/16/2022 Office of the City Auditor
• This section discusses data quality, timeliness, and usefulness. • FINDING: The City lacked access to timely, accurate, and complete data to fully understand service provider performance, bed utilization, and participants’ returns to homelessness.
Data on Programs, Outcomes, Service
Providers, and Participants
Independent City Auditor. Serving Oakland With Integrity.
Section 3
5/16/2022 Office of the City Auditor
Data on Programs, Outcomes, Service
Providers, and Participants
• The CoC has a target of getting data into HMIS within three days • The need for more accurate data within the County’s HMIS has long been established • A shelter provider exited only 10 program participants in fiscal year 2018-19, when it exited far more.
• For one shelter provider, the majority of the exits recorded in fiscal year 2019-20 were classified as “unknown.”
• COVID Response programs entered any data related to benefits, making it appear as though program participants had no income data and were not enrolled in benefits for a fiscal year.
Independent City Auditor. Serving Oakland With Integrity.
Section 3
5/16/2022 Office of the City Auditor
Data on Programs, Outcomes, Service
Providers, and Participants
• The City lacks quality bed utilization data, a key performance metric for efficiently placing participants with available services
• Community Homelessness Services uses two deficient methods to calculate bed utilization • The City needs data on returns to homelessness
• Robust analysis of HMIS data can provide valuable insights into program and service provider performance
Independent City Auditor. Serving Oakland With Integrity.
Section 3
5/16/2022 Office of the City Auditor
Recommendations
1. Add a dedicated staff member with requisite analytical and technical skills to consistently track and monitor HMIS data, analyze data, and present results for management to review
2. Work with the County HMIS Lead to identify and develop standard and custom reports within HMIS, including reports for real-time bed utilization and returns to homelessness
3. Secure training on HMIS data entry and how to produce various reports.
4. Adopt and negotiate with service providers, a performance metric and benchmark for timely input of client data into HMIS, preferably in alignment with the CoC’s three-day target
5. Advocate for the County to improve its HMIS data and reporting capabilities, including disaggregating program outcomes by race.
6. Implement dashboards.
Independent City Auditor. Serving Oakland With Integrity.
Section 4
5/16/2022
• This section evaluates the City’s efforts to eliminate racial disparities in homelessness services.
• FINDING: The City provided homelessness services to participants of different races roughly proportionately to their share of Oakland’s homeless population except for the RV Safe Parking program. More data is needed to ensure the City is meeting its racial equity goals and identifying disparities affecting groups underserved or underrepresented by the City’s homelessness services.
Proportionate Service Delivery and
Racial Equity
Independent City Auditor. Serving Oakland With Integrity.
Section 4
5/16/2022 Office of the City Auditor
Homelessness in Oakland has disproportionately
affected Black/African Americans
Independent City Auditor. Serving Oakland With Integrity.
Section 4
5/16/2022 Office of the City Auditor
Participation in homelessness services programs by racial groups appeared generally in line with racial groups’
share of the population experiencing homelessness
Independent City Auditor. Serving Oakland With Integrity.
Section 4
5/16/2022 Office of the City Auditor
The RV Safe Parking program does not
reflect the overall racial make-up of
Oaklanders experiencing homelessness
Independent City Auditor. Serving Oakland With Integrity.
Section 4
5/16/2022 Office of the City Auditor
Proportionate Service Delivery and
Racial Equity
• Exits to permanent housing across all programs were generally proportionate to the populations served by the City’s homelessness services programs.
• The City needs the ability to break down program outcomes by race • Due to the limitations of the County-run HMIS, CHS cannot access other outcome data by race. • More data is needed to ensure the City is meeting its racial equity goals and identifying disparities affecting groups underserved or underrepresented by the City’s homelessness services.
Independent City Auditor. Serving Oakland With Integrity.
Section 4
5/16/2022 Office of the City Auditor
Recommendations
1. Work with the County HMIS Lead to identify and develop standard and custom reports within HMIS that break down data by race.
2. Continuously review racial and other demographic data from HMIS, PIT Counts, and the U.S. Census to ensure the City is identifying and serving communities particularly vulnerable to, or impacted by, homelessness.
Independent City Auditor. Serving Oakland With Integrity.
Section 5
5/16/2022
• This section reviews the effectiveness of contract monitoring and oversight procedures.
• FINDING: Improvements are needed in the monitoring, oversight, and administration of the City’s homelessness services contracts.
Contracting with Service Providers
Independent City Auditor. Serving Oakland With Integrity.
Section 5
5/16/2022
• Contract monitoring activities were incomplete, inadequately documented, and did not sufficiently address service delivery concerns and risks. • Contract terms can promote more accountable service delivery. • Providers started work before contracts were fully approved.
Contracting with Service Providers
Independent City Auditor. Serving Oakland With Integrity.
Section 5
5/16/2022 Office of the City Auditor
Recommendations
1. Design, document, and implement improved monitoring procedures that comprehensively incorporate risks, ensure enforcement of contract deliverables, and ensure corrective action plans are implemented.
2. Consider the advantages and disadvantages of implementing multi-year contracts to minimize the administrative burdens presented by annual contract renewals.
3. Consider how to design contracts to promote accountability for reaching performance targets, including both incentives and consequences based on level of performance.
Independent City Auditor. Serving Oakland With Integrity.
Section 6
5/16/2022 Office of the City Auditor
• This section provides guidance for the City Administration on how to more effectively manage homelessness services while optimizing the City’s limited resources to ensure our most vulnerable residents are receiving timely services to improve their living situations and secure and maintain permanent housing. • FINDING: The City needs to move homelessness services forward by adopting an actionable strategic plan and increasing oversight.
Strategy, Public Reporting, and Oversight
Independent City Auditor. Serving Oakland With Integrity.
Section 6
5/16/2022 Office of the City Auditor
Recommendations
1. Develop written goals and objectives for the City’s homelessness services. These goals and objectives should formally communicate what the City aspires to achieve with its homelessness services. Audit findings and recommendations should be considered in the development of these goals and objectives.
2. In coordination with the Commission on Homelessness, develop a strategic plan that includes written strategies for achieving the City’s homelessness services goals and objectives, and establish formal systems for assessing the City’s progress in implementing these strategies.
3. Develop annual workplans to accomplish the strategic plan by identifying goals and deadlines for the next year and the strategies for achieving them.
4. Report annually on activities, progress, and results of the strategic plan.
5. Consult with the City Council and the Commission on Homelessness to develop comprehensive financial reports on homelessness services funding that include funder, program type, and service provider. We recommend these financial reports be both retrospective and prospective and cover multiple years.
Independent City Auditor. Serving Oakland With Integrity.
Section 6
5/16/2022 Office of the City Auditor
Recommendations
6. Periodically, at least annually, compile and present a comprehensive report on homelessness services including detailed information on the service providers, such as performance metrics and targets. Staff should consult with the City Council and the Commission on Homelessness about the information needed to provide adequate oversight and use their input to develop a standard report format that can be updated annually and modified as needed.
7. Perform a staffing analysis to assess the City’s staffing requirements for homelessness services. The staffing analysis should not only address the number of staff needed to carry out homelessness service activities, but it should also address the appropriate mix and composition of staff needed to effectively manage homelessness services and address the audit findings.
8. Clearly define and document roles, responsibilities, and authority of all staff working on homelessness services, including the Homelessness Administrator’s staff.
Independent City Auditor. Serving Oakland With Integrity.
Section 6
5/16/2022 Office of the City Auditor
Recommendations
We recommend the City Council:
9. Designate the Commission on Homelessness as the entity to oversee the development of the initial strategic plan for the City’s homelessness services, and its ongoing monitoring.
10. Adopt the Oakland homelessness response strategic plan once completed.
We recommend the Commission on Homelessness:
11. Determine and request the additional resources needed to develop and monitor the strategic plan for homelessness services.
Independent City Auditor. Serving Oakland With Integrity.
Contact: [email protected]