BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE COMMITTEE ON VETERANS AFFAIRS
Senator Jim Nielsen, Chair
2015 - 2016 Regular
Bill No: SB 130 Hearing Date: 4/28/15
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|Author: |Roth |
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|Version: |4/16/15 |
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|Urgency: |No |Fiscal: |Yes |
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|Consultant:|Wade Teasdale |
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Subject: Veterans: mental health
DESCRIPTION
Summary:
Requires specified state departments to establish and implement
a grant process that will fund supportive services, as defined,
for veterans, who reside in housing provided by the State via
the Veterans Housing and Homelessness Prevention (VHHP) Act.
Existing law:
1.Requires specified state departments to establish and
implement housing programs that focus on veterans at risk for
homelessness or experiencing temporary or chronic
homelessness.
2.Requires the departments, to the extent feasible, to
prioritize projects that combine housing and supportive
services, including, but not limited to, job training, mental
health and drug treatment, case management, care coordination,
or physical rehabilitation.
This bill:
1.Requires the California Housing Finance Agency (CHFA), the
Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD), and the
Department of Veterans Affairs (CalVet) to collaboratively:
a. Establish a grant process that will fund supportive
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services for veterans, who reside in VHHP housing, with
the services including, but not limited to, job training,
mental health and drug treatment, case management, care
coordination, or physical rehabilitation.
b. Award grants to those applicants that provide
supportive services for veterans based on the efficiency
and effectiveness of the supportive services provided.
Implementation of this subdivision shall be subject to
appropriation.
2.Provides that Implementation of the grant program shall be
subject to appropriation by the Legislature.
BACKGROUND
Supportive Housing and Services
In most years, about 150,000 houses and apartments are built in
California. Most of these housing units are built entirely with
private dollars. Some, however, receive financial help from
federal, state, or local governments. For example, the state
provides local governments, nonprofits, and private developers
with low-cost loans to fund a portion of the housing units'
construction costs. Typically, housing built with these funds
must be sold or rented to Californians with low incomes. A
portion of housing units built with state funds is set aside for
homeless Californians. These include homeless shelters,
short-term housing, and supportive housing. A January 2013
federal government survey identified 137,000 homeless
Californians, including about 15,000 veterans. (Source: LAO
Analysis, Proposition 41, June 2014 statewide ballot pamphlet).
Supportive housing is permanent rental housing linked to a range
of onsite or offsite support services, including mental and
physical health care, drug and alcohol abuse counseling, and job
training programs, designed to enable residents to maintain
stable lives. There is no limit on length of stay.
Transitional housing is a type of supportive housing used to
facilitate the movement of homeless individuals and families to
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permanent housing. A homeless person may live in a transitional
apartment for a specified period of time, while receiving
supportive services that enable independent living. These are
buildings configured and operated as rental housing
developments, but are operated under program requirements that
call for the termination of assistance and recirculation of the
housing unit to another eligible program participant at some
predetermined future point in time - which shall be no less than
six months and often capped at two years. The intent is to
provide extended shelter and supportive services for homeless
individuals and/or families with the goal of helping them live
independently and transition into permanent housing.
A relatively recent innovation in serving homeless populations,
"Housing First" provides an alternative to progressive systems
based on the emergency shelter/transitional housing model.
Rather than moving homeless individuals or households through
different "levels" of housing and eventually to "independent
housing," the Housing First approach immediately moves the
homeless from the streets or shelters into their own apartments.
Supportive services can include job training, mental health and
drug treatment, case management, care coordination, and physical
rehabilitation. The United States Department of Veterans Affairs
(USDVA) provides eligible veterans with all these except job
training, but the veterans must live close enough to access
those through a USDVA facility. The USDVA's Choice program,
which is temporary, allows veterans to receive non-VA health
care rather than waiting more than 30 days for a VA appointment
or traveling to a distant VA facility.
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Veterans' nontraditional housing needs
According to a federal agency report to the Congress:
A veteran is 50 percent more likely to be homeless than
a non-veteran. Although only eight percent of adults in the
United States are veterans, federal surveys suggest that
veterans represent up to 16 percent of America's homeless
population.
Rates of homelessness among veterans living in poverty
are particularly high for veterans identifying as
Hispanic/Latino (1:4) or African-American (1:4).
Two groups of homeless veterans - women and people
between ages 18 and 30 - are small in number. However,
female veterans and young veterans are at high risk of
becoming homeless, and both groups are growing within the
overall veteran population.
According to a major point-in-time survey, nearly half
of homeless veterans on a given night were located in four
states: California, Florida, Texas, and New York. Only 28
percent of all veterans were located in those same four
states.
(Source: "Veteran Homelessness: A Supplemental Report to
the 2009 Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress,"
U.S. Dept of Housing and Urban Development/U.S. Department
of Veterans Affairs.)
Veterans Housing and Homelessness Prevention Act
AB 639 (J. Pérez, 2013) became Proposition 41 on the June 2014
statewide ballot and received voter approval. The measure
authorizes issuance of $600 million in general obligation (GO)
bonds to fund the acquisition, construction, rehabilitation, and
preservation of multifamily supportive housing, affordable
transitional housing, affordable rental housing, and related
facilities for veterans and their families.
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The law requires CalVet, HCD, and CHFA to jointly design the
program, which then will be implemented by HCD. Affordable
housing developers then partner with veterans service providers
to build affordable housing dwellings, including supportive
housing, which will provide housing and services to veterans who
are homeless or who have extremely low income to assist the
veterans to achieve housing stability and improve
self-sufficiency.
In February 2015, HCD adopted its initial program guidelines,
which, among other things, (a) adopt Housing First principles
and practices and (b) establish "application selection criteria"
that integrate prioritization criteria expressed through
preference-point weighting.
Under the guidelines, applications are rated with a maximum
total score of 133 points for projects including supportive
housing and/or transitional housing, and 105 points for other
projects. Those totals include points awarded to an
application's supportive services plan (up to 20 points for
projects that include supportive housing or transitional
housing, and up to 10 points for other projects). Applications
for projects that include supportive housing or transitional
housing (which may also include other units) will be scored on
those components as indicated in the following excerpt from the
HCD guidelines:
(A) Quality and Quantity of Services (12 points maximum).
(i) The quality and quantity of services provided,
including staffing patterns and experience, and the
degree to which services are specific to veterans.
(ii) The appropriateness of the service delivery model,
including the extent to which evidence-based or best
practices (Critical Time Intervention, Peer Support,
Trauma-Informed Care, SSI/SSDI Outreach, Access, and
Recovery (SOAR), Motivational Interviewing, voluntary
moving-on strategies, etc.) will be employed.
(iii) The accessibility of federal VA and other
services, whether they are on-site or in close proximity
to the project, including the hours they are available,
and the frequency, travel time and cost of
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transportation required to access them, including both
public transportation and private transportation
services (e.g. van owned by the provider).
(iv) Adherence to Housing First principles in provision
of services, including provision of flexible services
that facilitate permanent housing access and housing
stability.
(v) The degree to which the physical building space
supports social interaction and supports the provision
of services.
(vi) The levels of linkages with local systems for
ending homelessness and serving veterans, including:
a) Participation, verified by the local
Continuum of Care, in a local coordinated access
system that is fully established.
b) The degree of coordination with VA
Medical Centers, VA Homeless Program Coordinators,
SSVF, Homeless Veterans' Reintegration Program and
other VA programs.
c) The degree of coordination on benefit
education and advocacy, discharge upgrade advocacy
and other advocacy efforts on behalf of veteran
tenants with County Veteran Services Offices
(CVSOs), legal services and others, and
participation in local Continuum of Care, Veterans
Stand Down, and other community ending homelessness
efforts.
COMMENT
1.Committee Staff Comments :
a. The key to success for the VHHP program is the synergy
between the housing and supportive services elements.
Proposition 41 funds the housing, but cannot fund the
supportive services. The vast majority of VHHP residents
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will be eligible for federal USDVA mental health and drug
treatment services, but not all housing will be within
commuting distance of a USDVA facility. Residents of VHHP
housing who cannot access USDVA treatment must receive it
from other providers at cost to the State and/or local
governments. This bill, at a minimum, addresses that
reality.
b. If this measure were enacted, HCD should be able to
quickly design an effective grant program for Prop
41-related supportive services. The department already
administers more than 20 programs that award loans and
grants for the construction, acquisition, rehabilitation
and preservation of affordable rental and ownership
housing, homeless shelters and transitional housing, public
facilities and infrastructure, and development of jobs for
lower income workers. With rare exceptions, these loans and
grants are not made to individuals, but to local public
agencies, nonprofit and for-profit housing developers, and
service providers. In many cases these agencies then
provide funds to individual end users.
2.Related Legislation
SB 384 (Leyva, pending Senate Transportation and Housing,
2015 ): To help meet the specific housing needs of underserved
veterans, this bill sets aside a percentage of any state funds
being used to acquire, construct, rehabilitate or preserve
multifamily housing units for veterans, in general.
SB 689 (Huff, pending Senate Transportation and Housing,
2015 ): Regarding the Veterans Housing and Homelessness
Prevention Act, this bill requires prioritization given to
applications for proposed housing projects that would maintain
a qualified mental health professional, as defined, on staff
or on contract for services.
AB 639 (J. Pérez, Chapter 727, Statutes of 2013 ): The VHHP Act
of 2014 authorizes issuance of $600 million in general
obligation (GO) bonds to fund the acquisition, construction,
rehabilitation, and preservation of multifamily supportive
housing, affordable transitional housing, affordable rental
housing, and related facilities for veterans and their
families, if approved by the voters at the June, 2014,
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statewide election. (As Proposition 41, the measure was
approved by the voters 65.4% to 34.6%.)
POSITIONS
Sponsor: Author.
Support: None on file.
Oppose: None on file.
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