Board of Supervisors/Probation Department/Health & Human Services/Department of Corrections*

Since their response to the 2001-02 Grand Jury Report, the City and County of Napa have done little to improve the chronic homeless outreach and to mitigate the resulting problems. Response - Director of Health & Human Services Agency: Director of Health & Human Services Agency (HHSA) agrees in part and disagrees in part with the finding. HHSA agrees that during the past four years, outreach services to the chronically homeless have been negatively impacted by a number of factors, including (i) reductions in available local, state and federal funding and (ii) challenges to integrated planning and program response to the complex issues presented by the chronically homeless. However, several local projects or programs had a significant positive impact in the ability of the community to intervene on chronic homelessness which were not mentioned in the Grand Jury's report. Since the last Grand Jury report, HHSA launched its Community Outreach and The program Integration Team (COIT) targeting homeless mentally ill residents. provides intensive case management, rent subsidies, and "flexible funding" for other individual needs. Staffed with 3.5 full time equivalencies, the COIT program serves up to 25 mentally ill clients at a time in what is technically referred to as a "full service partnership" program model. The team also provides outreach services designed to engage people who have historically declined assistance from mainstream providers due to their mental illness and substance abuse issues. An additional ten to twenty people receive these outreach services at any one time. Since its inception, the program has served approximately 150 clients, of which approximately 80% have been housed within 60 days of service commencement. The COIT program has been housed at the HOPE Homeless Day Resource Center. An additional 10-20 people receive limited outreach services at any given time. Outreach includes referrals and linkage to services and is designed to bring individuals into services who have typically refused assistance from mainstream providers due to substance abuse and mental illness. HHSA and Probation have participated in a community based collaboration of interested private non-profit and public agencies to create a program known as VOICES, or September 19, 2006 2005-06 GJ Report Response "Voicing our Independent Choices for Emancipation Services." The program targets youth in foster care who are expected to turn 18 and emancipate directly from foster care into the community. Services can commence as early as age 16 and continue for several years after the youths' 18th birthdays. This group has historically suffered disproportionately from homelessness, crime, unemployment, and related health and Early indications are that the ambitious program will behavioral health issues. significantly reduce the number of emancipating youth entering homelessness in Napa County. The Project 90 Napa Valley residential substance abuse detoxification and treatment program opened in the fall of 2005. Although the program has been operating for less than a year, it is already apparent that the program is intervening on numerous persons who are homeless and addicted to alcohol or other drugs. Early indicators are that this program will also have a significant impact on homelessness and the criminal justice Probation, Corrections, and HHSA all provide funding for Napa County system. residents served by the Project 90 program. The Sullivan Shelter for homeless adults relocated in the spring of 2006 from its location in downtown Napa to a modern, 14,000 square foot facility at the South Napa Marketplace. The program continues to be operated by Community Action Napa Valley (CANV). As a part of the move, the City of Napa and County of Napa approximately doubled their funding of the CANV operating agreement to strengthen the program services being provided. Staffing has been increased, as have other program services. Drug screen testing is now required for all residents. Residents are required to be actively pursuing an individualized plan to transition from the shelter into employment and permanent housing. When appropriate, the plan includes substance abuse treatment or other appropriate services. The census at the shelter declined when the relocation occurred, largely because of the tightened program requirements. However, the census at the new shelter has gradually recovered and now stands at approximately 40, which is in line with numbers to be expected during the warm season. The HOPE Center has also successfully intervened on hundreds of individuals and assisted them to transition into sustainable housing. The Center is addressed below in connection with Findings 2(a) and (b) and Recommendation 2. The responding agencies unequivocally agree that additional planning, service coordination, and programming are essential to address the issue of chronic homelessness in Napa County. However, substantial progress has been made in a number of key areas since the Grand Jury last evaluated this community problem. Response - Napa County Board of Supervisors: We agree with the response from the Director of Health & Human Services Agency. Response - Napa County Probation Department: Chief Probation Officer agrees with the response from the Director of Health & Human Services Agency. September 19, 2006 2005-06 GJ Report Response 2 Response - Napa County Department of Corrections: Director of Corrections agrees with the response from the Director of Health & Human Services Agency. <b>RECOMMENDATION 1</b> "The City and County of Napa, plus all involved agencies, need to collaboratively develop coordinated policies, procedures, and services for dealing with the chronic homeless population. The goal being to provide efficient and streamline services, without duplicity of effort, culminating in the eventual reduction of the homeless population." Response - Director of Health & Human Services Agency: Director of Health & Human Services Agency (HHSA) agrees with this recommendation. It has been partially, but not fully implemented. Full implementation is necessary to address the problem of chronic homelessness in Napa County. Implementation is not within the full control of our agencies, so we cannot provide a timeframe for implementation. A "Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness" has been developed by the Ten year Planning Subcommittee of the Napa County Homeless Services Planning Council. The council is a county-wide collaboration of public and private non-profit organizations whose services are relevant to interventions on chronic homelessness or whose activities are impacted by problems resulting from homelessness.1 The Ten Year Plan has been presented to the Napa County Board of Supervisors, as well as the city or town councils of all of the incorporated cities and towns in the county. The plan is not binding on local agencies. The Napa County Homeless Services Planning Council does not have authority over local governments. The plan is not funded. However, it does represent a sound and detailed planning document that should be of use in the search for additional funding for homeless services. The Grand Jury has accurately identified the next step in the local campaign against chronic homelessness. All of the governmental entities that share responsibility for responding to the complex of problems related to chronic homelessness must come together in a formal, ongoing, comprehensive collaboration to address homelessness. This includes the cities and towns, county government, and the housing authorities. No one of these entities has authority over or responsibility for all of the key factors involved ¹ The ten year planning process is an outgrowth of a planning process called the "Continuum of Care." The federal Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) required that communities seeking HUD funding conduct an intensive local planning process that has evolved into the current "Ten Year Plan to End Homelessness." It is important to note that the HUD funding stream is gradually moving away from prevention, intervention and supportive services and restricting increasing amounts of available funding to the creation of new housing stock for persons transitioning from or at risk of homelessness. September 19, 2006 2005-06 GJ Report Response 3 in chronic homelessness, which means that no entity, acting alone, will be able to develop a comprehensive intervention. The County of Napa and the City of Napa have already begun discussions at the executive staff level with the goal of developing the necessary collaborative structure. County staff have made contacts with several of the other cities to engage them in the process. In addition, Corrections, HHSA, and CANV have commenced a planning process to better manage the release of inmates from the Napa County Jail to minimize potential negative impacts on the homeless shelter. HHSA hopes to have an inter-governmental collaboration in place by the end of the current fiscal year. As noted above, however, achievement of this goal will depend on a number of factors outside the control of the responding agencies. Response - Napa County Board of Supervisors: We agree with the response from the Director of Health & Human Services Agency. Response - Napa County Probation Department: Chief Probation Officer agrees with the response from the Director of Health & Human Services Agency. Response - Napa County Department of Corrections: Director of Corrections agrees with the response from the Director of Health & Human Services Agency.