Local cities denied homeless prevention funding

Four cities in Ventura County won’t be able to apply for federal homeless prevention funding assistance until at least next year after together being denied $1.2 million in aid by federal housing authorities earlier this month.

The joint grant between Camarillo, Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks and Ventura was turned down because of a perceived error in their application sent to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

Each of the four municipalities are non-entitlement districts — meaning they don’t qualify for direct federal money — and were correct in asking HUD for funding, says Dan Apodaca, manager of homeless operations programs with HUD in Sacramento. But because they partnered with the County of Ventura, an entitlement district, on their application, it was declined, Apodaca said.

“They should have read the NOFA (Notice of Funding Availability) closer,” he said.

The county, along with Oxnard, another entitlement district, had already received a total of $1.9 million last month under a similar joint request for aid from the Homeless Prevention and Rapid Re-housing Program. The program allots federal aid to cities and organizations to keep people on the brink of homelessness in their homes, and to help re-house those looking to break the homeless cycle.

Federal authorities had notified the county that it would receive about $826,000, the remaining $1.1 million to Oxnard. Divided up, each of the four cities who were declined the money stood to receive roughly $300,000 each.

This year, California was granted almost $43 million under the federal program, for distribution to agencies and cities that applied. There was a large, competitive pool in the funding cycle, and according to Apodaca, 31 applicants were funded, 22 unfunded, with 12 others deemed ineligible altogether. Camarillo, Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks and Ventura were counted as one ineligible applicant.

“It doesn’t dispel the fact there’s a great need (for homeless funding),” Apodaca stated. “It happens to be that they just submitted an ineligible application.”

HUD, he explained, determines what defines an entitlement district based on population or size of a city — things that qualify an area as a metropolitan region. Oxnard, for example, is the largest city in Ventura County with a population of about 200,000; Oxnard’s total documented homeless count is also the county’s largest at 679, according to 2009 numbers from the Ventura Social Services Task Force.

However, the city of Ventura, the county’s second largest city, ranks at a close second with more than 623 homeless people living on the street, yet they did not qualify for federal funding.

Simi Valley was the lead agency in the joint application, said Shannon Nash, a senior planner in the city’s housing department.

“The idea was always once any money that was received from that application would be administered through the county’s human services agency,” Nash explained.

Cathy Brudnicki, executive director of the Ventura County Homeless Housing Coalition, said the cities partnered together, for one, to minimize administrative costs.

“One of the considerations was the HUD money came with a 5-percent administrative fee, but the State of California, because of the budget crisis, is only allowing a 1 percent,” she said. “So the four cities stepped back to look at that and said, ‘It’ll cost us only 1 percent to administer this.’ ”

The federal HPRP money can’t be applied for again because the funding cycle is for a fixed, full 3-year cycle, said Apodaca, and can’t be re-authorized under the American Recovery and Investment Act. But in the next fiscal year, more funding should become available under a new emergency solutions grant.

That grant, he said, is under development by HUD and may allot up to $100,000 a year.

Still, some top officials aren’t happy about the denial of funding. Steve Bennett, Ventura County’s First District supervisor, said he would be asking this week for a full and definitive report from the county on the matter because he is not satisfied with the reasons why those cities were turned down. Bennett is optimistic the most recent HUD funding could still open up.

“If there’s anything we can do to get the funding, we’ll certainly do that and nail down every dollar we can,” he said. “It’s important for people on the edge of homelessness.”

Peter Brown, the City of Ventura’s community services manager, said he was disappointed the federal funding did not follow through.

“The issues are complicated,” he said. “We certainly don’t want to come across as critical of anything that’s happened. It’s a shame and we’re bummed.”

Most cities in Ventura County set aside funding in their own general budgets for homeless prevention and re-housing, and some already do receive HUD community development block grant monies, used in part to operate a seasonal winter warming shelter in the absence of a full-time homeless shelter. The shelter alternates every year between Ventura and Oxnard.

Ventura, for example, last year received $326,000 in black grant money; Camarillo, approximately $420,000. Thousand Oaks, reports Caroline Milton, a senior analyst with the city, sets aside about $50,000 of its own budget to pay for local re-housing. So does Camarillo, which sets aside just over $30,000 annually to county-based nonprofits like RAIN, Turning Point and FOOD Share.

Simi Valley, says Nash, allots $25,000, total, to local residents to pay for eviction prevention, or apartment security deposit assistance.

Oxnard’s program is similar.

“It’s homeless prevention,” says Will Reed, the City of Oxnard’s homeless prevention director.

“We cannot purchase any homes. It’s rent assistance, utility assistance, people who have rent in arrears,” he said.

And while an extensive, precise homeless census is carried out each year by the county social services task force, no exact count is kept of those on the brink of homelessness. But members of the task force have maintained that thousands of people at any given moment in Ventura County survive only one paycheck away from being displaced.

Officials are hoping that a new funding avenue will open up soon because individual city budgets are limited.

“Not having these monies is certainly a blow to the community,” Nash said. “We’re hoping to help as many people with the programs we do have. It’s just not going to be as far reaching.”  

paul@vcreporter.com