Bill Text: CA AB2817 | 2021-2022 | Regular Session | Amended
NOTE: There are more recent revisions of this legislation. Read Latest Draft
Bill Title: House California Challenge Program.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 7-0)
Status: (Vetoed) 2022-09-28 - Vetoed by Governor. [AB2817 Detail]
Download: California-2021-AB2817-Amended.html
An act relating to homelessness. An act to add Chapter 8 (commencing with Section 8270) to Division 8 of the Welfare and Institutions Code, relating to homelessness.
NOYES
Local Program:
NO
SECTION 1.
Bill Title: House California Challenge Program.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Democrat 7-0)
Status: (Vetoed) 2022-09-28 - Vetoed by Governor. [AB2817 Detail]
Download: California-2021-AB2817-Amended.html
|
Amended
IN
Assembly
March 29, 2022 |
CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE—
2021–2022 REGULAR SESSION
Assembly Bill
No. 2817
| Introduced by Assembly Member Reyes |
February 18, 2022 |
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST
AB 2817, as amended, Reyes.
Homelessness. House California Challenge Program.
Existing law establishes various programs to address homelessness. Existing law establishes the California Emergency Solutions and Housing Program, under the administration of the Department of Housing and Community Development and requires the department to, among other things, provide rental assistance and housing relocation and stabilization services to ensure housing affordability to people who are experiencing homelessness or who are at risk of homelessness. Existing
law also
establishes the Homeless Housing, Assistance, and Prevention program program, under the administration of the California Interagency Council on Homelessness, for the purpose of providing jurisdictions, as defined, with one-time grant funds to support regional coordination and expand or develop local capacity to address their immediate homelessness challenges, as specified.
This bill would declare the intent of the Legislature to enact subsequent legislation relating to homelessness.
This bill would establish the House
California Challenge Program, to be administered by the California Health and Human Services Agency, for the purpose of providing direct rental assistance to help persons who are experiencing homelessness obtain housing. The bill would require the agency, upon appropriation by the Legislature, to allocate $1,000,000,000 for purposes of the program each fiscal year for 5 years, beginning with the 2022–23 fiscal year. The bill would require 10% of the funds to be awarded as grants to recipients, as defined, for the purpose of helping participants locate and obtain permanent housing, 80% of the funds to be used by the agency to provide specified eligible uses directly to participants or to landlords providing housing to participants, and 10% of the funds to be used for administrative costs.
This bill would require a recipient that receives grant funds under the
program to submit an annual report to the agency that includes specified information, including ongoing tracking of the specific uses and expenditures of grant funds, the number of homeless individuals and households served by the grant funds, and outcome data for households served through program funds. The bill would require the agency, on or before January 1, 2024, and annually thereafter, as specified, to submit a report to specified Senate and Assembly committees that contains similar information, and includes, among other things, an evaluation of the outcomes and status of the program.
Digest Key
Vote: MAJORITY Appropriation: NO Fiscal Committee:Bill Text
The people of the State of California do enact as follows:
SECTION 1.
(a) The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:(1) In January 2020, an estimated 161,548 people experienced homelessness in California at a single point in time, as reported by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. This is the highest number since 2007, and represented a 17-percent increase since 2018. Experts predict significant increases in homelessness in 2022 resulting from the COVID-19 economic downturn.
(2) African Americans are disproportionately represented among California’s homeless population. While 6.5 percent of Californians identify as Black or African American, almost 40 percent of the state’s
homeless population is African American. Indigenous populations are over six times more likely to experience homelessness than the general population. Latinx Californians are least likely to access housing and services available in their communities.
(3) Research suggests homeless populations are at far greater risk for consequences of COVID-19. Early studies estimated that people experiencing homelessness are two to three times as likely to die from COVID-19 than the general population. COVID-19 is putting pressure on local homeless systems to open safe sites for people to shelter, in noncongregant settings, to avoid the spread of COVID-19.
(4) Homelessness is a statewide crisis in California that requires a statewide, comprehensive solution that meets the scale of need. Housing subsidies are one of the most effective interventions for reducing homelessness, and have succeeded in
reducing homelessness in several states and nationwide.
(b) Therefore, it is the intent of the Legislature to create a comprehensive, statewide homelessness solutions program. This program will fill gaps within the state’s response to homelessness, scale evidence-based solutions while promoting innovation to move people quickly into permanent housing, establish greater flexibility and a more nimble process in implementing a response to homelessness, facilitate critically needed collaboration between different levels of government, foster a streamlined process at the local and state levels to fund and build housing opportunities more quickly, hold grant recipients and the state accountable for achieving results, and focus on evidence-based housing and housing-based services solutions and long-term state and local structural changes.
(c) It is further the intent of the Legislature,
that through the adoption of the statewide homelessness solutions program, state and local governments will achieve measurable reductions in homelessness.
SEC. 2.
Chapter 8 (commencing with Section 8270) is added to Division 8 of the Welfare and Institutions Code, to read:CHAPTER 8. House California Challenge Program
8270.
For purposes of this chapter, the following definitions apply:(a) “Agency” means the California Health and Human Services Agency.
(b) “Applicant” means an applicant that applies for funding under this chapter, which may include a city, county, nonprofit provider, public housing authority, or continuum of care, or a combination of these entities working together.
(c) “Diversion services” means services to connect individuals and families to alternate housing arrangements, case management services, and financial assistance to divert the household from shelter use and into permanent housing, including, but not limited to, housing
arrangements with friends or family.
(d) “Eligible population” means persons experiencing homelessness and persons exiting rapid rehousing, transitional housing, or an institutional setting who are homeless and have no other housing options upon exiting those housing arrangements.
(e) “Holding fees” means payments to a private-market landlord as an incentive to hold a housing unit available for an eligible participant while the participant or landlord is waiting for approval to rent or lease the housing unit.
(f) “Homeless” has the same meanings as defined in Section 578.3 of Title 24 of the Code of Federal Regulations.
(g) “Housing First” has the same meaning as defined in Section 8255.
(h) “Housing navigation services” means services that assist program participants with locating, applying for, and moving into permanent housing.
(i) “Landlord incentives” means incentives to landlords to provide permanent housing, including, but not limited to, payment of security deposits, holding fees, signing bonuses, repairs made in advance of occupancy to ensure compliance with habitability standards, and contractors to assist the landlord in making repairs.
(j) “Master leasing” means the process in which a single lease is executed that covers multiple properties or units within a single multifamily property that are leased from a landlord to a recipient and the recipient sublets the lease to participants. The single lease shall comply with all applicable provisions of this chapter and shall be subject to the rights and responsibilities of tenancy under the laws
of this state.
(k) “Operating subsidy” means a subsidy paid to a housing developer that allows an individual or household to occupy a permanent housing or supportive housing project while paying no more than 30 percent of their income on rent for the cost of operating projects, including building security, utilities, janitorial costs, staffing, paying off debt, and similar costs in existing affordable and supportive housing projects. An “operating subsidy” may include an operating subsidy reserve for at least 17 years.
(l) “Participant” means a person or household that is a member of the eligible population and receives assistance under this chapter.
(m) “Prevention” and “self-resolution” mean using targeted person-centered, short-term housing or services approaches to assist households who are at imminent risk of
homelessness or have recently fallen into homelessness to maintain their current housing or identify an immediate and safe housing alternative within their social network.
(n) “Reasonable rent” means an amount of rental payment that does not exceed two times the fair market rent and is consistent with the market rent in the community in which the multifamily rental housing is located. For purposes of this subdivision, “fair market rent” means the rent, including the cost of utilities, as established by the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development pursuant to Parts 888 and 982 of Title 24 of the Code of Federal Regulations, as those parts read on January 1, 2021, for units by number of bedrooms, that must be paid in the market area to rent privately owned, existing, decent, safe, and sanitary rental housing of nonluxury nature with suitable amenities.
(o) “Recipient” means an entity that applies for and receives funds from the agency for the purposes of the program.
(p) “Rental assistance” means a tenant-based rental subsidy provided to a landlord to assist a tenant in paying the difference between 30 percent of the tenant’s household income and the reasonable rent for the multifamily rental housing unit, as determined by the recipient.
(q) “Tenancy transition services” means services that use evidence-based models to help participants move from homelessness to permanent housing, including assessing a participant’s preferences and barriers to successful tenancy, developing an individualized housing support and crisis plan, assisting with the housing application and search process, linking participants to resources to cover move-in costs, assisting and arranging for a move, and other evidence-based services that a
participant may require to move into permanent housing.
8271.
The House California Challenge Program is hereby established for the purpose of providing direct rental assistance to help persons who are experiencing homelessness obtain housing. The program shall be administered by the California Health and Human Services Agency.8272.
Upon appropriation by the Legislature, the agency shall allocate one billion dollars ($1,000,000,000) for purposes of the program each fiscal year for five years, beginning with the 2022–23 fiscal year. The agency shall allocate the money each fiscal year according to the following schedule:(a) Ten percent of the funds shall be awarded as grants to recipients for the purpose of helping participants locate and obtain permanent housing. The agency shall create a competitive grant application process and award grants to applicants in geographically diverse communities.
(1) Applicants for funding shall provide information regarding all of the following:
(A) How the applicant can leverage existing programs to provide rental assistance and permanent housing for participants under this program.
(B) The applicant’s prior experience administering programs with successful outcomes for the target population.
(C) The anticipated number of households to be served and permanently housed by rental subsidies provided under the program.
(D) The anticipated number of households to be served that would also be subsidized using any other local, state, or federally funded rental subsidy program.
(E) How the applicant will determine service needs and ensure participants are connected to adequate services.
(2) Recipients may use grant funds for any of the following eligible uses to provide services to the eligible population:
(A) Landlord incentives.
(B) Housing navigation services.
(C) Tenancy transition services.
(D) Holding fees.
(E) Costs of establishing leases with landlords.
(b) Eighty percent of the funds shall be used by the agency to provide the following eligible uses directly to participants or to landlords providing housing to participants:
(1) Long-term rental assistance in an amount not to
exceed reasonable rent.
(2) Short-term funds for prevention, self-resolution, and diversion services.
(3) Master leasing of units to sublet to participants.
(4) Up to 30 percent of the funds allocated pursuant to this subdivision shall be allocated for operating subsidy reserves, capitalized over at least 17 years for affordable housing projects that serve the eligible population.
(c) Ten percent of the funds shall be used for administrative costs of the agency and administrative costs of recipients.
8273.
Recipients of funds under the program shall comply with the core components of Housing First, as defined in subdivision (b) of Section 8255.8274.
The agency shall partner with relevant state entities and recipients to develop sustainability plans for participants that need housing assistance beyond five years.8275.
(a) A recipient that receives grant funds under the program shall submit a report to the agency on or before January 1 of the year following receipt of the funds, and annually thereafter until all funds have been expended. The report shall be on a form provided by the agency, and shall include all of the following, as well as any additional information that the agency deems appropriate or necessary:(1) Ongoing tracking of the specific uses and expenditures of grant funds, broken out by eligible uses, and including the current status of the funds.
(2) The number of homeless individuals and households served by the grant funds in the previous year, and the total number of
homeless individuals served cumulatively during all years of the program, disaggregated by race, age, and gender identity.
(3) Outcome data for households served through program funds, including the type of housing that a household obtained upon exiting homelessness and the percent of successful exits from homelessness.
(b) On or before January 1, 2024, and annually thereafter until all the funds have been expended, the agency shall submit a report to the Assembly Committee on Housing and Community Development, the Senate Committee on Housing, and the Senate and Assembly Committees on Health that includes all of the following:
(1) Ongoing tracking of the specific uses and expenditures of grant funds, broken out by eligible uses, and including the current status of the funds.
(2) The number of homeless individuals and households served by the grant funds in the previous year, and the total number of homeless individuals served cumulatively during all years of the program, disaggregated by race, age, and gender identity.
(3) The types of rental assistance provided with the grant funds and the number of households receiving each type of rental assistance.
(4) An evaluation of the outcomes and status of the program, including a description of any sustainability plans for participants that need housing assistance beyond five years.
It is the intent of the Legislature to enact subsequent legislation relating to homelessness.
