Housing and Homelessness Committee - Regular Meeting

Okay.

Thank you all for your patience, and welcome to our meeting of the Housing and Homelessness Committee. Today is August 5th. I'm joined by my colleagues, Council Members Blumenfield, McCosker, and Hutt. If you could call the roll, Ms. Jin.

Yes, Madam Chair. Madam Chair Rahman? I am here. Council Member Blumenfield?

Present.

Council Member Hutt? Here. Council Member McOsker? Here. Forum members present and a quorum Madam Chair.

Great and welcome to Ms. Hirado as well.

Here.

Great thank you so much. So thank you everyone. Today we have 12 items to consider on the agenda but it should be Okay. I just wanted to, I know there's going to be a change in this committee. There was a motion put forward in city council, which will bifurcate this committee again, one focused on housing and the other on homelessness and health, which is similar to the structure that was there before. 2022. I'm not sure of all the changes and who's going to be on what committee, but I really did want to take an opportunity to thank every member of this committee for all the work that we've done over the last few years. It's really been a lot. Council Member Bloomfield and I have been on this committee the longest, but all of you have been on board for some really, really big changes, including passing some really big tenant protections in the city, changing how much our rent-stabilized units can increase their rent. We've streamlined mixed income and affordable housing development. We've put forward lots of money for eviction defense and affordable housing and preservation. And on the homelessness front, for the very first time here in the city of Los Angeles, we actually have brought greater accountability and data transparency to a question that was asked over and over again, which is where is our money going and what is it doing? And using that data, which is now available for every month, repeated, and it is overseen by the CAO and the Homeless Strategy Committee and used to actually make our system better. We've filled hundreds of empty beds, bringing our shelter beds from being quarter empty to now being only 6% empty, 94% full on any given night. We filled permanent supportive housing units that we were building through HHH. They used to be 72% full. Now they're over 90%. We've made sure every EHV voucher was used that we got from the Biden administration and housed thousands of people when we had fallen far behind on using those vouchers. And we ensured that people who were housed and dealing with potentially enormous funding clips during a really, really unpredictable environment were able to stay housed, including people who lost time-limited subsidy vouchers. This committee's work actually ensured that they were able to stay housed. So I really want to lift up the work that we've done. I know there's a lot more to do, and I look forward to seeing how this council takes it on over the coming years. The agenda items today are fairly straightforward. We have a number of reappointments of people to the rent adjustment. That's items one through four. Item five is an agreement with a provider to give us real estate and property ownership data for the housing department, and that's to essentially implement the SCEP, the RSO, and Just Cause Ordinance Program, among others. Item six is amending loan agreements for the Avalon Terrace and Nicollet Apartments. We're gonna be able to use THIS CHANGE TO KEEP THOSE UNITS AFFORDABLE INTO THE FUTURE, WHICH IS VERY EXCITING. ITEM SEVEN IS A TEMPORARY STAFFING SERVICES CONTRACT FOR ENFORCEMENT OPERATIONS UNDER THE RSO JUST CAUSE AND TENANT ANTI-HARASSMENT ORDINANCE HOUSING CODES BECAUSE THERE ARE STILL SOME VACANCIES AT THE HOUSING DEPARTMENT. ITEM EIGHT IS A MOTION FROM COUNCILMEMBER GORADO ABOUT CARE PLUS OPERATIONS DURING AREAS DURING TIMES OF ENVIRONMENTAL EMERGENCIES. Item 9 is another motion from Councilmember Ferrado reporting on the Handy Worker Program that can provide support for senior citizens with dealing with smoke remediation issues. Item 10 is a motion from Councilmember Rodriguez and Councilmember Blumenfield to report on the impacts of the county's Department of Homeless Services and Housing becoming the lead of the region's Continuum of Care and CES. And item 11 is a verbal update about the emergency housing voucher program, which was about to see a funding cliff. We've managed to make sure that people who have those vouchers are able to stay housed. So we're just providing a positive update here. And finally, a discussion item about the continuum of care, NOFO, and some changes from HUD that will impact our city's ability to get funds potentially, and an update from our partners at LASA. the CLA and others across the city on that. So with that, we can move to public comment. So if you'd like to provide us our instructions, we have our Spanish interpreter here. Hello. And members of the public, you'll be provided your guidance.

To members of the public, when it is your turn to speak, please state the name you signed up under, which of the agenda items you would like to speak on, and or whether you would like to provide general public comment. You have one minute per item, up to two minutes total for items on the agenda, and one minute for general public comment, if you wish, for a maximum speaking time of up to three minutes per person. Please speak to the agenda items before beginning general public comment. We will inform you when your time is up. When speaking on the agenda items, you must be on topic. When providing general public comment, you must only speak on items that are under the subject matter jurisdiction of this committee. Our goal is to get through as many speakers as we can. If you are not speaking on topic or if we cannot tell whether you are on topic, you'll get one brief warning from me or from the committee chair. If you do not immediately get clearly on topic or if you stray off topic, you will forfeit the rest of your time and we will move on to the next speaker. Thank you.

Great. So if anyone wants to make public comment, please move to the left-hand side of the chambers and Sergeant will direct you to the podium.

My name is Kenneth Michael Pachorek.

Sorry. What items are you speaking on today?

The homeless. Everything's relevant. And I don't understand why you deleted my one on 7-Eleven. You gave me no warning. So it contradicts whatever you said. Go ahead. You have two minutes. OK. 7-Eleven, you deleted my statement, which tells me you don't work for the people. But the hierarchy of your system, it screams communism. There are dangerous times we are living in. And if you can't even research without being attacked, like myself, because I got punched and I fell on a fence.

Excuse me, Speaker. Please stay on topic to what this committee deals with, homelessness and housing.

I'm trying to expose your lies. without being attacked by your cartel, the police, all you. Your Smith-Munt Act is the only thing that saves you and the news you spread in misinformation because I see police bus covering up things that you're trying to hide out in a community that's trying to survive and working together because you left us on the side of the road and you just look and drive past us every minute. Like ultimate, $1,700,000,000 And it goes to the mayor's fund, $1 billion, 700 million. And that goes to a spa, a different spa. Am I speaking on subject? Your police cover up, I say you are incompetent. You need to leave now. Call the National Guard. You do not know what you're doing. Your system, your AI system is bullshit. I went through Epic, Eleanor, through the healthcare system. And last statement I did on 7-11, I'd like to, could I finish?

I'm sorry, Speaker, we have to move on to the next speaker.

Well, Tori said.

Thank you, Speaker. If there's any other speakers, if you could make your way to the left side of the chambers. Going once, going twice. OK, I think we can close public comment. And I was going to recommend that we take items 1 through 10 on consent, unless members have comments or questions.

Madam Chair.

Oh, sure. Yes, Council Member Hutt, go ahead.

I would like to call item 7 for a separate vote.

Item 7 for a separate vote. Okay. Great. Any other? Yes, Council Member Bloomfield. Go ahead.

I'd like to call 10 special for an amendment.

Item 10 special for an amendment. Okay, so let's do items 1 through 6, 8, and 9 on consent, unless there's any... Issues? OK. Ms. Jin, if you could call the roll on those items.

Yes, Madam Chair. Shall I read the agenda descriptions for items 1 through 6, as well as 8 and 9, before calling the roll? okay well if you'd like to yes I can summarize real quick items one through four are commission reappointments to the rent adjustment Commission item number one is for dr. Lorraine Lund kiss item two is for mr. Gerard Gunsburg item three is for Miss Carol Brogdon item four is for a miss dash Stolaris and item number five is a city and administrative officer report For an agreement with first data a first American data tree LLC item six Is a los angeles housing department report and this is amending loan agreements For the avalon terrace and nicolette apartments in council districts 10 and 15 Item number eight is motion. Gerardo hernandez and that is uh regarding care plus operations and item nine is Motion, Gerardo Lee and that is regarding instructing the Los Angeles Housing Department with the community investment department to report back on the handy worker program funding and Those are those items so it's 1 through 6 8 through 9 and I shall call the roll Madam chair, Gerardo. I mean madam chair Raman. Yes, I Council Member Hedado?

Here, yes. Council Member Blumenfield?

Blumenfield, aye.

Council Member Hutt? Aye. Council Member McOsker? Yes. Five ayes. Items 1 through 6, 8, and 9 are approved.

Okay, let's do item 7 then.

Item 7, for the record, let me just describe it real quick. Item seven is a city administrative officer report Relative to a contract for temporary staffing services for the Los Angeles Housing Department rent division and I'll call the roll now Madam chair Raman. Yes Madam chair, I mean councilmember Harada. Yes Councilmember Bloomingfield aye aye Council Member Hutt? No. Council Member McOsker? Yes. 4 ayes, 1 no. Item 7 is approved.

Great. Thank you very much. Let's move on to item 10. I don't think there's a discussion, just an amendment. So if you want to, right?

What's that?

Did you want a discussion on item 10?

I just want to make a few comments, and then I'll tell you what the amendment is.

Great. We can read item 10 into the record, and then.

Yep.

Ms. Jin? Yes.

So item 10. Item 10 is motion Rodriguez-Bloomfield relative to the chief legislative analyst with the assistance of the city administrative officer, Los Angeles Housing Department, and the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority to report on the impacts of the county's Department of Homeless Services and Housing becoming the lead of the region's continuum of care and the coordinated entry system.

Okay, Councilmember Blumenfield, this is actually your motion, is that correct?

I'm second on the motion.

Okay, great.

Maybe I co-did it.

Please go ahead.

So part of this is understanding how much funding the city will potentially lose if the county becomes the lead for the LA region and trying to get information to understand that, good, bad, indifferent, we want to know the realities. We know there's going to be administrative efficiencies because the county contracts with the same providers that we do in the city and the LACOC, and the county has Measure A funding for staffing to administer contracts. But we need to hear from the service providers, although it may be unlikely that they're going to share their concerns so clearly because they're also, their funding depends on this. So I wanted to just, I have a report back to get a little bit more in-depth on some of the questions that we need to know it's often whoever controls the money controls the beds when it comes to Regional the region I just experienced this this weekend there was somebody I was trying to get into housing right right near my house who was out and We wanted to put them in the bridge home that we we spent money on as a city and partnered with the county for But we were informed that now because of the changes now Lhasa is no longer Matching it's now the county that does the direct matching so all of a sudden we don't have control over who can go into The bridge home that we've been using for years uh... and that we as a city put a lot of money into so in order for the c l a to respond to this motion in the government's issues in general we need as a council to establish goals uh... that we want to achieve which gives us a framework to negotiate with the county on a future mou or jpa so for me there's critical things accessing psh Beds built in the city, sometimes with city money, not being locked out of those beds because the county funds the ICMS. Dealing with the CES policy set by the city and the county. Getting an assessment tool for PSH that is established by the city and the county. Co-equal status with the county in decision making. City involvement in the development of the NOFO and selection. city access to data, HMIS. And if the county does take over LACOC, does it make sense for the city to also access CHAMP and other county data sources from an accountability standpoint? So in order to help get at all of that, I am asking for an amendment which will include a report back that specifically includes but not limited to the impacts to funding and the city's direct access to that funding, accessing PSH beds built in the city, report back also on the co-equal status board representation between the city and the county and Also a report back on as part of that a shared decision-making in establishing the assessment tool for PSH The CES policy no phone selection process and the data sharing policy again. This is all report backs It's just to flush a little bit more out on what we want to get Answered councilmember bloomfield.

I believe you're the amendment that you shared here also includes referrals to interim sites

Yes.

Okay.

I don't think that was on this note, but definitely because that's what just came up recently, yes, adding that in there. Thank you.

Great. So I'll second that amendment. And unless there's any other, I think this is a really important motion and really important questions that you're asking. And we have been realizing over the past few weeks that as we've kind of dealt with the city's administration of shelter beds in our own district that, suddenly matching is just no longer with LAHSA. And we were just informed of that. After we were asking about specific individuals and changes and things like that, we weren't proactively informed about that. So I think this kind of motion is going to be really important to help us make sure that we're best positioned to manage the system. So with that, I'd like to call the roll.

Madam Chair Rahman? Yes. Council Member Hirado? Yes. Council Member Blumenfield?

Aye.

Council Member Hutt? Aye. Council Member McOsker?

Yes.

Five ayes. Item 10 is approved as amended. let's move on to item 11 if you want to read that into the record mission yes item 11 is a verbal update from HR and a advisors and the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles regarding identifying funding solutions to ensure that families and individuals housed can remain housed and and the feasibility of implementing a local subsidy program that does not rely on federal funding sources to keep individuals housed.

Colleagues, I wanted to bring this to the committee because this is another moment in which the kind of the advance work done by both the departments and this committee was able to allow us to have some good news, just like people who lost time-limited subsidy funding. LAHSA, HACLA, and the Housing Department, CLA, CAO, were all able to work with our providers to make sure that those time-limited subsidy reductions did not result in people moving back to the streets. It actually ended up resulting in people moving into permanent housing or into self-sufficiency In a coordinated effort, we were able to plan for that and do that. And I'm really, really excited about that. This is another instance where we have some good news, which is that our emergency housing vouchers program, a COVID era program that was about to run out of money and potentially leave 3,000 plus people in the city, 7,000 people across the entire county without funding for housing that they had moved into, that crisis has been averted. So I just wanted to make sure HACLA was able to report back since that was something that this committee had asked about. This presentation will be brief, but I just, you know, I think it's important to close the loop on these questions, so take it away. Hakla and HRNA.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Madam Chair and Council Members. My name is Marcy Vega. I am the Director of the Assisted Housing Programs for the Housing Authority of the City of Los Angeles, Hakla, and I'm here today with my... I was going to say colleague, but friend, Sarah Salong from HRNA Advisors to provide an update regarding our emergency housing voucher program and what is the status with respect to items that have been discussed here previously. So we have a brief slide presentation that we can walk through with you. And so I think first what I'd like to do is just kind of take us all back and just kind of frame the challenge. HACLA administers the second largest emergency housing voucher program that supports approximately 2,700 families, households, which includes over 4,300 individuals. And as you all are well aware, federal funding for this program was set to expire this year. It would have cost our agency approximately $57 million to continue rental assistance for these households once this funding expired. And without intervention, again, this group of individuals would have essentially faced eviction and return to homelessness. Next slide, please. What was our response? And I really want to lift up this work that was carried out by our leadership, our chief executive officer, Lourdes Castro Ramirez, and our chief programs officer, Margarita Lares. Immediately, our board of commissioners promptly determined that addressing the needs of our EHV households would be a key priority for the agency. I joined HACLA on February 2nd, and on that day, CEO Castro Ramirez sat with me and gave me what my top five items, and this was one of them. In fact, it was number one to find a solution for our EHV families. Following this, on July 1st, the city council adopted a motion that directed HACLA to collaborate with local partners to explore and assess other alternative financial solutions and options. HACLA also raised awareness with La Casa and as well as the leadership table of the regional impact of the number of individuals not just for HACLA but for other housing authorities in the county that would be faced with eviction and a return to homelessness. As a result of these discussions and our work, we were very fortunate that La Casa granted $500,000 to HR&A and Associates to assist HACLA and other housing authorities in the LA County region to develop a transition plan to support impacted households in stabilizing, enrolling in benefits, and accessing services. Our leadership continued to aggressively advocate across federal, state, and local government levels, as well as at a national level with the US Conference of Mayors, where our mayor led a discussion on the EHV program, as well as through our national housing authority advocacy organizations. And lastly, I want to highlight that during this period of real uncertainty for families, We were very fortunate that we were able to utilize our AmeriCorps volunteers who began their time with HACLA at the beginning of this year to provide ongoing direct support to the households during this period of uncertainty. And if you would allow me to have the AmeriCorps volunteers stand up. If you are familiar with AmeriCorps, these are young individuals who are, this is their first opportunity in public service. And so these are all individuals that really have the direct connection, taking the phone calls from EHV clients, meeting them in the lobby, doing all that work to assure EHV household members that we were going to find a solution. They were essentially issuing, sending out newsletters, directing them to other resources, groceries. Here's another housing authority that can assist you. Doing a lot of that direct client work that our advisors at times do not have that time to do and do that high level of engagement.

Thank you so much to our AmeriCorps team. I'm really, really grateful for you. I knew about your work when it was happening from HACLA. And we're very, very proud to have had you as part of this process. So thank you very much.

Thank you so much. And I think, honestly, through their efforts, we were able to stay in close contact with our EHV households. The work of addressing homelessness and providing housing to individuals who are cycling through homelessness, oftentimes individuals become disengaged from the program. And I think with our AmeriCorps volunteers, we were able to keep our households overwhelmingly engaged with HACLA. And so it meant that as we are transitioning, we are able to account for everyone because of the work that our AmeriCorps volunteers did. THANK YOU FOR ALLOWING ME TO RECOGNIZE THEM AND FOR MANY THIS IS PROBABLY THEIR FIRST TIME HERE IN THIS SETTING. SO THANK YOU. NEXT SLIDE, PLEASE. SO WITH ALL OF THAT, I'M PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE AND I THINK YOU ARE ALREADY ARE WELL AWARE THAT OUR AGENCY'S FUNDING SHORTFALL HAS ENDED. HUD officially determined that we are no longer in a funding shortfall due to higher than anticipated appropriation levels and HUD funding for our tenant-based renewals. Therefore, with that, that equaled $976 million that we are set to receive this calendar year. Based on our calculations, we are able to transition all EHV households into our regular tenant-based housing choice voucher program. Therefore, we are keeping families stably housed. That work began this week. We are able to essentially capture all of the EHV households, and we are now in the process of doing the administrative work to bring them into the HACLA portfolio. I'm also pleased to announce that our partner, LA County Development Authority, is able to do the same. So between the city and the county, we are able to provide housing stability for thousands of EHV households. I also just want to call out, too, that as a result of our shortfall in 2025, we unfortunately had to suspend application processing for 3,000 individuals who had come off of our waiting list. And I'm also pleased to announce that we are also restarting the application review for these individuals as well. Right now the big lift is moving all of the EHV households into the tenant-based program, and right now we are designing the plans on how we're going to now restart application processing for these 3,000 applicants. Next slide, please. I think I also just want to call out that the work of transitioning our EHV households was made largely in part by the funding, but also by the work that HUD did to make the process very easy for both the recipient and for the housing authority. I'm pleased to announce that with its guidance, HUD essentially allowed EHV household members who are going to remain in place not to really essentially do anything. In other words, we are able to do a couple of clicks of the... of our processing, but the families will not need to undergo an inspection, will not need to re-verify their income, they will not need to go through background screening. The contract with the owner will remain the same. And so that type of flexibility makes it extremely, extremely easy for the housing authority to complete this task and relieves our EHV families of the burden of having to provide additional paperwork and become re-verified all over again. I also want to say lastly that those EHV households that are perhaps still trying to get some paperwork in or are delinquent, our AmeriCorps volunteers are on the phone with those families trying to get them and encourage them to come in, get your papers corrected, getting good standing so that you can become part of HACLA's HCV program. This is just a point of information in terms of the impact to each of the council districts in terms of the number of EHV households who are going to remain stably housed. I think many of you have seen other iterations of this when it was the opposite, right? The potential impact of families in your respective council districts that were going to become homeless. Well, this is the reverse. These are individuals who are going to remain stably housed as a result of the work that we're currently doing. Thank you. Lastly, I'm going to turn it over to Sarah Salon to provide a brief update on exactly who it is that we are helping based on the work that HRNA conducted with HACLA during this effort.

Thank you so much, Marcie, and good afternoon, council members. So as part of the technical assistance that we have been doing to support HACLA during this moment, we were able to learn a lot more about this population. Part of what we were trying to do was understand Their income, their likely ongoing housing needs, their ongoing service needs in order to begin to build plans for them to possibly transition to other housing opportunities in the event that they were displaced if there was no funding. So what we learned is that the households currently supported by emergency housing vouchers are some of LA's most vulnerable renters. So nearly all households, or 96%, meet the criteria for low income or very low income. with 73% relying on a fixed income. A significant portion, over a third, include a person with a disability. Most of these households include just one adult, but about a quarter include more than one family member, and there are over 1,000 children who are being supported through this program right now, housed through this program. We also learned that nearly 75% of households currently supported by EHVs were experiencing homelessness at the time of their program admission into the EHV system. And that when they were enrolled in the EHV program, 50% had been assessed and were eligible for permanent supportive housing, meaning that they had high acuity service needs. SO THIS IS JUST I THINK A REALLY HELPFUL PICTURE OF HOW VULNERABLE THIS POPULATION IS, HOW WONDERFUL IT IS THAT HACLA IS ABLE TO SUSTAIN HOUSING FOR THEM AND BY IMPLICATION HOW DIFFICULT IT WOULD HAVE BEEN IN OUR CURRENT SYSTEM TO BE ABLE TO FIND other existing opportunities for these families to remain housed. And I'll just close by saying I think our work with HACLA is ongoing. We're hoping to be able to, after these households transition over to HCVs, to be able to help with some stability, some benefit enrollment, some service connection, and also now helping HACLA think about how they might be able to prepare for any other households that could be displaced by federal funding or other housing changes. So we think we're developing a little bit of a replicable model here to deal with shortfalls when we know that they're coming. Thank you.

Thank you. That concludes our report. Thank you so much. And are there questions from? Yes. Oh, lots of questions. Great. Council Member McCosker, go ahead.

Thanks. Thank you very much for this. So would the Probably too grossly simplified version of this be that under the American Rescue Plan, we had the emergency vouchers. The vouchers were ending early because of the bad stuff happening 3,000 miles away. And we converted emergency vouchers into housing assistance. And so the $500,000 that came from La Casa was to advocate for allowing us to take the pot of money that we get for housing assistance and use that pot of money, which was maybe larger than we expected, to convert folks from emergency vouchers under the former program to housing assistance programs.

I'll go ahead and address the first part. The funding that we received from La Casa for the technical assistance was exactly to actually help us draw up the Plan B in the event that we did not receive enough funding to convert EHV households to our regular HCV program. And we engaged in that work because of the delay in appropriations. We had several continuing resolutions. And then even after passage of that appropriations bill, HUD took longer than usual to provide housing authorities with any idea of what their funding was going to be. And so we felt that we were essentially running out of time. And so La Casa was helping us develop what was going to be that other off ramp for families. in the event that we could not support them to transition over to our program.

Yeah. I wasn't questioning the value of what they did. I will quite often, but I'm not right now. But the short version is that the American Rescue Plan got depleted fast.

Yes.

And we put ourselves in a position where the $900 million for the HAP program allowed us to convert emergency vouchers to HAP program dollars. That is correct. Okay. Thanks.

Great.

Yeah, and I think when the motion was first introduced in 2025, we were looking at potentially these individuals not having the ability to sustain their housing or really working with them. Another place where this did happen was the TLS funding cliff. So we had two buckets of individuals that were about to lose funding. The TLS funding cliff did happen. We lost that money from HAP and from, was it HAP money that was gone?

All kinds.

Yeah. There was a number of vouchers that were lost for a tranche of TLS folks that And now I can't remember which committee that was reported back in whether that was HSE and whether it came here or not But these were the two kind of groups of people that we were worried about in this committee last year around this time One one group ended up getting the money from the federal government to be able to stay house which was great for the other group and Our city departments, as well as LASA, worked with the service providers to ensure that people who were losing their time-limited subsidy vouchers, about 50% of them moved to, we did have a brief update on this, right? About 50% of them ended up moving into self-sufficiency, and about half of them ended up moving to other forms of housing, including PSH. and other affordable units to be able to stay housed, and we basically worked to ensure that those people didn't fall back into homelessness. So sometimes we talk about these funding cliffs which feel very abstract and far away, but what has happened over the past year and a half or so is that there has been real work done to ensure that these funding cliffs didn't come to pass and that people weren't left homeless, which is good. I mean, we have a lot of work to do on this system, but this is one of, this and the other instance where we prepared early and we were able to do some work. Council Member Bloomfield.

Great, thanks. And I was trying to get the same kind of clarification. Sounds like a crisis was averted, so thank you, and that's awesome. And it sounds like it was basically one pot of federal money was swapped for another pot of federal money at the end of the day is how we made it happen. Was the, if you compare, you said it would have cost us $57 million if we had just had to replace the vouchers straight out. Was it more or less, when we did the swap with the other federal money to make everybody whole, Did that end up costing us more than the $57 million or less than the $57 million, or was it an even swap?

It was the same because HAP is continuous for the families. So what we pay out in housing assistance will not change.

It was an even swap of one pot of federal money for the other pot of federal money. And fortunately, I guess because that other pot was growing, we didn't have to cut anybody else.

That's correct, because as a shortfall agency, we were very diligent in following the shortfall action plan. And so by the time we did see our calendar year 26 HAP renewal amount, because of essentially the savings we achieved, because we were following that plan, we were able to subsume the HAP that we were paying for EHV and roll it into our regular tenant-based renewals.

Right, but it's still a voucher.

It's still a voucher.

Yeah.

It is still a voucher.

Okay. And then you said, I think I heard you say the county was able to do the same thing?

Correct. The county is doing the exact same thing and transitioning their EHV voucher holders to their regular tenant-based voucher program as well.

Great. And is there any long-term implication for all that?

That's a good question. I think we will be assessing this as we go along. We are aware that there are other housing authorities that are not as fortunate, who continue to be in a shortfall funding situation even after receiving their federal calendar year 26 funding. And so these agencies are still in a position of trying to find a solution. And so it was uneven. And so we actually are speaking with other agencies, sharing what we are experience, trying to see where we can provide some type of assistance. But it is unfortunate that there are still agencies here locally as well as in the state that may not have a plan for their families.

And then the federal money that we did get, is that also under threat for this next year?

That remains to be seen right now. We're following it closely.

Okay. Thank you.

Great. Thank you so much for being here and barring any other questions. Thank you again to our AmeriCorps. Are they volunteers or what's the word? Volunteers? OK, awesome. Thank you again to our AmeriCorps volunteers for your hard work in this. And thank you to HACLA and HRNA for the update about one thing that we didn't have to worry about quite as much as we did worry about last year. So thank you. Let's move on to item 12, which is our last item today.

Item 12 is a verbal update from the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority regarding the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development fiscal year 2026 continuum care notice of funding opportunity.

OK, great. And we have Paul Rubenstein here from LAHSA and Meg Barclay from the CAO to provide us more context around the city's response to HUD's actions around the COC NOFO. This is a discussion item only. And just on background, HUD announced it would suspend funding to LAHSA on June 11 of this year, I believe. Is that right? There's about 11,000 people who are currently sheltered, housed, or receiving outreach with these funds. Since HUD's announcement, this council passed a resolution opposing the federal government's decision to withhold funding. And then there has been other developments that have taken place, including actions by the county, the mayor and council president writing a letter to the COC board, and a court hearing tomorrow. So I just thought it would be useful for this committee to hear about what is going on in a consolidated manner, have your questions answered, and just allow for committee members to stay up to date on the COC and any changes to it. So take it away, Paul and Meg. Thank you.

Sure. Paul Woodstein, Chief of Staff at LAHSA. So I wanted to start with just a quick overview of where the 2026 COC NOFO process stands right now. Despite the notice of suspension from HUD, which as Council Member Rahman noted, LAHSA is contesting in court, we have been proceeding with the local COC NOFO competition process as we do every year. The deadline for that submission is coming up on August 26th. And at this point, the county, the city of LA, LAHSA, and the COC have sent multiple joint communications to providers, encouraging them to continue with the local competition process for multiple reasons. Primarily, no matter what happens, the work that they're doing will be used, even if in the scenario that HUD has outlined that providers would submit individual applications, the work that they're putting together now would still be used. And then importantly, by putting together a local competition package, we maintain our own local control over prioritization of projects, as opposed to if it does end up going to direct application to HUD, then HUD would be the one making the decisions about which projects are funded. The critical thing there is that under the terms of the 26 NOFO that HUD outlined, only 60% of funding is what's called the protected tier, which is basically almost guaranteed renewal. In the past, that has been 90% of the renewal funding. So it's a significant reduction, which would leave people that are currently housed with COC dollars without a form of subsidy, which is obviously deeply concerning. I also want to note that while LASA has taken action legally here, there are also two national lawsuits that are contesting the entire 2026 NOFO. There's one that is a coalition of states, which the state of California is part of, and then there's one that the National Alliance to End Homelessness and other nonprofit organizations. advocacy groups and local entities are participating in. It's been filed in Rhode Island before the same judge that ruled against HUD regarding the 2025 NOFO, and they are essentially making similar arguments they had made against the 2025 NOFO against the 2026 NOFO in terms of its legality and the funding shifts it's trying to put forward. So there is really a lot in play. We are, like I said, currently engaged in the local competition process. We have received applications. The COC board forwarded a ranking methodology proposal to the LASA Commission, which is actually discussing that right now. And then there will be subsequent meetings of the COCU Board. I know Meg serves on the COCU Board, so I'm sure she can speak to it a little bit as well. But there will be subsequent meetings between now and the submission to HUD to finalize those rankings. And then It's worth also noting that HUD has not actually released the application yet, and not just to us, but to anyone. And this is typically something that the narratives and all the pieces I can put together that there are at least a couple months to work on, and at this point, You know, with the stated deadline of the 26th, we're looking at more like weeks to put everything together, not just us, but really COCs around the country. So there will be a significant time crunch, but obviously a lot will ride on what happens in court tomorrow just because it is pending litigation. We don't want to get into it too much, but I'll note a few things that A after we filed, Judge Carter ordered the parties to the alliance lawsuit to appear as well. So we'll see them tomorrow, including you technically. And then also at the end of last week, the COC filed to join the case as a plaintiff and So the judge also without ruling on adding them as a plaintiff he did order them to appear as well tomorrow Meg do you want to provide an update Thank You Paul just on how the city has been engaging in this process and how it impacts us Sure shortly after the

First letter on June 11th, the city of the county and Lhasa entered into a letter of common interest and discussed to so that the city was able to discuss losses strategy around the lawsuit while being all jointly protected by privilege. That letter is still in effect. Also, a declaration in support of the lawsuit was filed by, or a declaration by Matt Szabo, the city administrative officer, was filed also in support as authorized by council. And so that, showing the city's support for the lawsuit, the county of Los Angeles also filed a declaration in support at that time. So we are not a party to the lawsuit But have been remaining up to date on the status of the various filings since since it was initiated And how does this impact?

I know that there's been some discussions and at least a letter back and forth related to HMIS and Ownership of data, and I think I just want to make sure that this committee is aware of changes that are happening so we have potentially a movement of HMIS to another location and I just you know, I like we find it hard to get access to our data at the city and We did a lot of work to finally get access to it through LASA. We're grateful for LASA's partnership. Now it's being regularly reported. Council offices have access to it. But now there's a potential for that to move again. So I just want to make sure committee members are aware of that because it impacts our ability to manage our shelters, manage our Street homelessness and councilman Blumenfield to your point earlier It also you know impacts our ability to move people through our shelter system effectively so I wanted to make sure committee members knew about this because I do think it's really important and Sure, I can talk a little bit about that too.

Thank you for clarifying that. I can definitely talk about that. There was a letter on June 18th that was sent to the chair of the Continuum of Care Board notifying them that they were out of compliance because the collaborative applicant for the Continuum of Care application had been declared or suspended by HUD. And therefore, HUD is authorized to take remedial actions against the COC board. The COC board is an organization formed under a charter that represents a broader COC, which is basically any stakeholder within the boundaries of the continuum of care THAT HAS AN INTEREST IN ADDRESSING AND SOLVING HOMELESSNESS. SO THERE'S A SMALLER BOARD OF 21 REPRESENTATIVES THAT ARE SOURCED BASED ON DIFFERENT REPRESENTATION WHETHER IT'S SPA BY SPA SERVICE PLANNING AREA WITHIN THE COC OR AT LARGE. There are at-large participants. There are participants from the city administrative officer's office. I sit on the board representing the CAO. There's also a representative from HACLA. And from the county side, there is a county HSH representative and a representative from LACDA. The Continuum of Care Board is the organization that sets the prioritization policy that the LASA Commission is reviewing right now and would also ultimately recommend to the broader COC membership not only the collaborative applicant, but the HMIS and CES leads. for the continuum of care. And this is all established according to statute and regulation that are administered by HUD. So when the administration notified, when HUD notified the COC board that they were out of compliance, they noted they have sort of two options in that, to take remedial action. One would be to designate an alternate collaborative applicant, and another would be to require or allow all eligible applicants within the continuum to apply directly to HUD. And that's what Paul was referring to. Local prioritization flies out the window at that point. All of the decisions about what to fund come directly from HUD. And that's within the 60% that would normally be protected as renewals and the 40% that's under the national competition. So HUD took the latter option of allowing eligible applicants to apply directly. And in that situation, if that stands, if the court does not intervene and both reverse losses suspension and require require HUD to lift the remedial actions against the COC Board, then the COC Board will need to make a recommendation and the COC itself will need to vote to establish a new collaborative applicant, a new HMIS lead, a new CES lead. And so the County of Los Angeles sent a letter ABOUT A WEEK AND A HALF AGO, ALMOST TWO WEEKS AGO, TO THE COC BOARD OFFERING TO TAKE ON HAVING THE LACDA, THE LOS ANGELES COUNTY DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY, DID I GET THAT RIGHT? TO SERVE AS THE COLLABORATIVE APPLICANT AND THE HOMELESS SERVICES AND HOUSING, DID I GET THAT RIGHT? HSH at the county to serve as the HMIS and CES lead. They did note that that would be on an interim basis for a year. Only was the offer that they were making that the COC board could then make a decision for a longer term after that year. That would also require HUD to accept a collaborative applicant for this NOFO, which they've sort of already indicated that they're not going to do because they... Stated they have two options and they didn't take that option So it's unclear whether even if the CoC board were to recommend an alternate collaborative applicant whether HUD would accept that and Allow the application to move forward under this alternative applicant.

I Know this is a lot and I'm talking really is HACLA able to apply since most of the CoC funding that the city gets is for PSH vouchers

Yes.

Or operational funds?

HACLA would apply directly for those funds to hide.

Is HACLA able to do that? Yes. Like do they have the capacity to? So why aren't, are we preparing for that?

Yeah, HACLA is preparing to apply directly and it actually with the local competition that LASA has been administering, they've already prepared a lot of that application in responding to the local, the normal process that we would follow locally of having a local competition AND LOCAL RANKING APPLIED TO THOSE APPLICATIONS. THOSE APPLICATIONS, I BELIEVE THEY ARE ENTERED INTO ESNAPS AND THEN REVIEWED AND PRIORITIZED BY THE COLLABORATIVE APPLICANT AND THOSE RESULTS ARE REQUIRED TO BE ANNOUNCED IN THIS NOFO CYCLE BY AUGUST 11, I BELIEVE, SO NEXT TUESDAY. And so that is happening. HACLA's applications are in and are subject now to the ranking policy that was approved by the COC board yesterday that does prioritize project-based rental subsidies and that HACLA is expected to do pretty well within that 60%. It is, the NOFO itself is very problematic even without the issues that we're facing with HUD. And the HUD situation is just creating a lot more uncertainty.

And the court case tomorrow could make it so that Judge Carter decides that there's a collaborative applicant and it, like it could stop HUD's actions entirely, is that right?

It's possible that he could order HUD to lift the suspension, I believe. But I'm not privy to what his legal options are, since I'm not a lawyer. I don't really know exactly what he could or could not do. But that is what LAHSA has asked the court to do.

OK, so colleagues, I don't know if you guys had questions. I know this is a lot, but I did think it was important for everyone to be aware of what was happening in case you weren't already. I want to state for the record that You know, I'm glad that HACLA is stepping up and can apply on their own. I think building up that capacity and being ready to do that is really important. I have serious concerns about losses to other buckets of funding. So I think coming back to this committee with how much money is expected to be lost in interim shelter and outreach and also for us to be able to maximize interim shelter applications and who will apply for that within the city in case the city has to go it alone is really important to be able to do. And I'm looking to the CAO and LHD to do that and prepare for that so that as many shelter beds as possible can be covered by these dollars. If that's open to us, we should apply for it. The second thing I did want to say is I have had the opportunity to sit with the county on shared boards. And they have provided us more access to data than they have in the past. But I will say that the county is a closed book. many many instances in terms of what's going on there they have a process through which people are supposed to go from interim shelter beds to high acuity mental health beds and to rehab beds we're supposed to have a seat at that table and I don't know who's advocating for us I don't but very few people from our shelters ever moved to high acuity beds very few and When we ask for data on mental health support, how many people are getting it, it's very hard to get it. When we ask for data on anything from the county, it's very hard to get. I know they're in the process of improving that, but handing over control of HMIS to the county without real checks and balances in place, and to make sure that we're able to access at least as much as we're able to access now, but ideally even more, I think We need to be able to make sure that we have real safeguards in place if that's what's happening, even if it's just for an interim year. And I'm grateful that the county has the capacity to stand up and do this, but we just need to be able to make sure that we're fighting for every bed, for every person to get access to the resources that they deserve, because right now they're not getting it, and I'm afraid that that inaccess will deepen further.

Yeah, I'm sorry. I will just declare, because I didn't talk about the city letter. So the city did send also a letter requesting joint administration of HMIS and CES for those exact reasons. And as a member of the COC board.

But that's not in place right now.

Right. No, it's not. But looking forward, if that were the case. And as a member of the COC board, that is my very vocal suggestion that any administration of this go forward has to be done in collaboration and with an agreement in place between the city and the county about access to data, how data will be not just provided but also presented.

And I would underscore that we cannot move forward without that agreement in place. I just don't know how we would ethically for the people that we are caring for in our shelters. Members, any? Council Member Jurado and then Council Member Cosker.

Thank you. So if It seems like the data that we use that LASA owns at the moment and has ownership of for HMIA's data is at risk of being lost to either HUD, the county,

So I don't think that data would be lost to HUD. I think what would have to happen is the COC would have to vote to designate a new HMIS lead. Right. And so HUD would not serve in that role. But the options on the table, at least that have been presented so far to the COC board, are the letters from the city and the county. So either the county doing it solely as their letter suggested or as the city's letter suggested, creating some sort of a joint administration.

Joint or separate I know the county is trying to also do it maybe on their own and so my my thought is Or my big question is we've spent so much time in this committee developing data and metrics to Create outcomes based on the existing owner of the HMIS data for like two years And now if it's owned by someone else, where we're going to have less visibility, what use is those metrics when we go through the process all over again? Does it just mean we start from scratch all over again? And for maybe if the county becomes the owner, to Councilmember Ramon's point, we'll have no visibility.

I will say from a technical standpoint, assuming that the HMIS platform didn't change, all of those pathways would still be in HMIS. So I don't think it would be entirely starting from scratch. But to Meg's point, I think that a, a very clear agreement between the city and whoever ended up being the data administrator either partially or completely would be really important to ensuring because you know another the alliance reporting as well relies on hmis right so it's all the work that this committee and other council members have done but it's also part of the legal agreements and so all of that would really need to be very clearly spelled out in an agreement

I hear you, Mr. Rubenstein. We had a joint powers authority with the county and the nonprofit that you're part of, our LAHSA. And even then, it was a struggle to get data and clear answers. And for the past two years, we're trying to get metrics to drive better outcomes. And now you're saying that as long as we have strong legal contracts that are in place to share that information, then we should be able to get it. And just from experience, from my short time here, that's not promising considering it may be with a new party and it's starting the relationship all over again. And even though we may have this baseline, it really makes the work that has been done null and void and really having to build it up again. So that's just really disappointing to hear. And I wish we could have figured out how these metrics maybe could have gotten us to a better COC system sooner. Because the fact that we have to start over or may have to start over at this time When we are not in a great fiscal situation and political circumstances Obviously, it's just not opportune, but I just that's what I'm hearing right now, and it's really concerning I think that's another reason why at least in the very near term

OUR HOPE IS THAT LAWSUIT IS SUCCESSFUL BECAUSE AT LEAST WE HAVE THE STATUS QUO FOR A PERIOD OF TIME FOR THE CITY AND THE COUNTY TO BE VERY DELIBERATIVE ABOUT WHATEVER CHANGES ARE HAPPENING INSTEAD OF THEM HAPPENING UNDER DURESS.

I APPRECIATE THAT BUT I ALSO KNOW THAT THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT, LIKE THIS COMES AS NO SURPRISE WHAT THEY DID. It was about the timing and when. And so to not have prepared for this moment sooner feels, I'm just, you know, I get mad. But anyways, one thing I wanted to say before I leave the mic is that the AmeriCorps students, thank you for your participation. Don't forget when you apply for grad school and undergrad, you qualify for fee waivers as long as you show that you're in AmeriCorps program. So make sure that you keep your acceptance letter in an email as a PDF, OK? Because you don't want to go back to your email and try to look for it and realize your old, embarrassing email you don't have access to. Because you'll need that when you apply to undergrad, and especially if you go to law school, OK? You get a fee waiver. And also, you can get a scholarship at some of the schools for like $1,000 or $2,000, which is good. Thank you, Councilmember.

And I just wanted to say before everyone ran off at the end that we were hoping to take a picture with the AmeriCorps volunteers before everyone left. So please don't run off after this meeting. Council Member McCosker, go ahead.

I'm going to let that inspirational speech hang in the air. There's nothing I could ask, most of which I know the answers to, that would be helpful to the situation. We'll just watch for the federal case. I do take exception to the statement which you say in kindness that the county has the ability to stand this up. They do not. The county does not have the capacity to fulfill the false promise that they put in that letter. Looking forward to the Fed's response. But in my district, we're already experiencing folks in the field making calls to shelter outside the city where the answer from the administrators of the shelter is that the county has told us no city clients. No city clients. And think of what CD15 is. We house disproportionately more and shelter, we shelter disproportionately more than the folks that we have on the street. And when we are full and we make calls to shelter outside of the city of Los Angeles, the answer is the county has told us take no customers from the city. So we may say that Donald Trump and the federal government is attacking us. At least they're morons. We have the county attacking us in the same way, with no regard for taking care of homelessness. They have some other agenda, and they're a little bit smarter than Donald Trump.

We have some time to talk about that after this. I would like to get more details on that.

Yeah, you'll get it. I'll get you names and numbers.

Perfect. Thank you.

Because we have a county agency that's declared war on homeless people. Those are the folks getting punished. They think they're hurting the city.

Mm-hmm.

Well, what they are doing is missing their mission.

Thank you. Councillor McCosker, and that... Why I am fixated on data ownership is because if we're in a circumstance where... We have less control over that data. That is the only pathway to accountability is through data. And we've fought and clawed our way to filling beds that we fund. And if we lose access to even that information, then we will be worse off than we were before. So I just want to be very, very cautious about how we move forward here. Council Member Blumenfield, did you have any questions? I thought I saw you. No.

I'm on the same page.

Yeah. I just wanted to make sure everyone on this committee was aware of Changes because I know it's complicated. I know you're all reading news articles But I just want to make sure we all were had the same information and we know who to go to in the city if we want updates Meg is an enormous wealth of Resources and historical knowledge as well. So I'm really grateful that I that you're on the case and that we can move forward here. And I think we have a lot of work to do, and we'll see what happens tomorrow. And barring any other, Council Member Hutt, I don't know if you had any comments. OK. Thank you so much to both of you for being here. We look forward to getting an update from the court hearing tomorrow. And Ms. Jin, are we all set with our agenda? yes madam chair the desk is clear the desk is clear but if I could make a request that we keep the lights on in the council chambers just for a few moments while we take a picture and we can adjourn and guys thank you all this has been so exciting it's our last meeting of the housing and homelessness committee as a combined meeting this committee was created in the aftermath of the Tapes leaking. There were not enough members on the council at the time to chair all the committees. And this seemed like a natural intersection of issues. And I've been very fortunate to chair it in all its iterations for a couple of years. So thank you all so much. It's been really a pleasure. And look forward to working with you all on these issues as we move forward. So thank you.

Thank you for chairing it.

Thank you.