AB 166

Bill Subjects

Abstract

(1) Existing law establishes the Interagency Council on Homelessness and requires the goals of the council to include, among other things, identifying mainstream resources, benefits, and services that can be accessed to prevent and end homelessness in California. Existing law requires the council to administer certain grant programs to assist local governments in addressing homelessness. Existing law states the intent of the Legislature to transfer grant administration from the council to the Department of Housing and Community Development, as specified. This bill would set a deadline of July 1, 2024, for that transfer of responsibilities for specified programs, including the Homeless Housing, Assistance, and Prevention program and the Encampment Resolution Funding program, described below. The bill would update the above-described intent statement and make other conforming changes. (2) Existing law establishes the Homeless Housing, Assistance, and Prevention program for the purpose of providing jurisdictions with grant funds to support regional coordination and expand or develop local capacity to address their immediate homelessness challenges, as specified. Existing law provides for the allocation of funding under the program among continuums of care, cities, counties, and tribes in 5 rounds, which are administered by the Interagency Council on Homelessness. This bill would establish round 6 of the program, and would require the Department of Housing and Community Development, no later than January 31, 2025, to make available an application for round 6 base program allocations, as specified. Among other things, the bill would require applicants to demonstrate how the region will use available resources to sustain all existing and proposed interim housing investments within the region, as specified. To be eligible for a round 6 base program allocation, the bill would require a jurisdiction that is not a tribe to apply as part of a region and must be signatory to a round 6 regionally coordinated homelessness action plan that has been approved by the department. The bill would require the department to approve a plan when it determines that the plan includes specified components, including certain performance measures for the region as well as age, racial, and ethnic disparities for specified information, and a system performance and improvement plan. This bill would require a round 6 grantee, or on before January 31, 2027, to submit to the department an updated regionally coordinated homelessness action plan that includes updates on the performance measures and corresponding key actions carried out, as applicable. The bill would require a round 6 recipient to contractually obligate not less than 75%, and to expend not less than 50%, of the initial round 6 program allocations made to it no later than June 30, 2027. The bill would require any remaining amounts of round 6 base program allocation funds not expended by June 30, 2029, to revert to, and be paid and deposited in, the General Fund. Existing law requires a program recipient to perform specified duties, including, by January 1 of the year following receipt of program funds and annually on January 1 thereafter until all funds have been expended, to submit a report to the council, as specified. This bill would instead require reports to be submitted to the department by April 1 of those years. Beginning with round 3, existing law requires a program applicant, in addition to other prescribed information, to provide specified information for all rounds of the program allocations through data collection, reporting, performance monitoring, and accountability framework, as established by the council. Existing law requires those program applicants to submit specified fiscal reports quarterly. With regard to round 3, existing law requires that jurisdictions that meet their outcome goals be eligible for bonus funding, as specified, and prohibits jurisdictions that do not meet their outcome goals from being eligible for bonus funding. This bill would make revisions to the data that applicants must provide. The bill would instead require the fiscal reports to be submitted monthly, and would revise the dates by which certain data and other reports must be submitted. The bill would remove the above-described requirement and prohibition regarding bonus-funding eligibility and instead provide that specified returned funds be reallocated to round 3 grantees, as provided. (3) Existing law establishes the Encampment Resolution Funding program to increase collaboration between specified entities to assist cities and counties in ensuring the safety and wellness of people experiencing homelessness in encampments, to provide encampment resolution grants to cities, counties, and continuums of care to resolve critical encampment concerns and transition individuals into safe and stable housing, and to encourage a data-informed, coordinated approach to address encampment concerns, as specified. Existing law requires recipients of program funds to provide data elements to their local Homeless Management Information System for tracking in the statewide Homeless Data Integration System. This bill would require a recipient of program funding appropriated in fiscal years 2021–22, 2022–23, and 2023–24 to submit to the Department of Housing and Community Development a final report pursuant to the above-described reporting provision no later than April 1 of the year following the expiration of the encumbrance period of funds, and beginning April 1, 2025, an annual report, as provided. The bill would require a recipient of program funding appropriated in fiscal years 2024–25 and 2025–26 to submit to the department certain data elements, to provide an annual report beginning April 1, 2026, and to provide a final report no later than April 1 of the year following the expiration of the encumbrance period of funds. The bill would appropriate $150,000,000 from the General Fund to the department to provide grants to address encampments for persons experiencing homelessness, as specified. (4) Existing law requires the Department of Housing and Community Development to notify a city or county, and authorizes the department to notify the Attorney General for specified enforcement, that the city or county is in violation of state law if the department finds a violation of specified housing laws. This bill would include among those housing laws the Homeless Housing, Assistance, and Prevention program, the Encampment Resolution Funding program, and the Family Homelessness Challenge Grants and Technical Assistance Program. (5) Existing law establishes the Regional Early Action Planning Grants Program of 2021 for the purpose of providing regions with funding, including grants, for housing, planning, infrastructure investments supporting infill housing, and other actions that enable meeting housing goals that also result in per capita vehicle miles traveled reductions, as specified. Existing law requires the Department of Housing and Community Development to develop and administer the program, in collaboration with the Office of Planning and Research, the Strategic Growth Council, and the State Air Resources Board, and to distribute funds, upon appropriation, in accordance with specified requirements. Existing law requires the department to set aside up to 5% of the total amount of moneys appropriated for purposes of the program for program administration, including state operations expenditures and technical assistance. Existing law also makes those funds available pursuant to a specified schedule based on specified percentages of those appropriated moneys to various entities including metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) , councils of governments (COGs) , regional transportation planning agencies, cities, counties, transit agencies and districts, county transportation agencies, and tribal entities. This bill would revise that schedule to instead specify the dollar amounts that would be available to those entities for those purposes, including setting aside $20,000,000 to the department for program administration. (6) Existing law establishes the California Housing Finance Agency in the Business, Consumer Services, and Housing Agency and authorizes the agency to, among other things, make loans to finance affordable housing, as specified. Existing law establishes the California Dream for All Program, administered by the California Housing Finance Agency, to provide shared appreciation loans, as defined, to qualified first-time homebuyers. Existing law requires the agency to annually report to the Legislature details of program implementation, including the number of loans made and the characteristics of the borrowers, as specified. This bill would require the agency, in consultation with the staff of the Legislative Analyst's Office, the Senate Committees on Banking and Financial Institutions, Budget and Fiscal Review, and Housing, and the Assembly Committees on Banking and Finance, Budget, and Housing and Community Development, to, among other things, develop options for the next phase of the program, including an option to expand the program to enable participation by specified entities. The bill would require the agency, on or before January 31, 2026, to provide the Legislature with a report detailing its assessment, recommendations, and options. The bill would repeal these provisions on January 1, 2027. (7) Existing law, the Behavioral Health Infrastructure Bond Act of 2024 (bond act) , establishes the Behavioral Health Infrastructure Fund, requires specified proceeds of interim debt and bonds that are issued and sold pursuant to the bond act to be deposited in the fund, and continuously appropriates the fund for purposes of the bond act. Existing law requires the moneys in the fund to be used for certain purposes, including making loans or grants administered by the Department of Housing and Community Development to state, regional, and local public entities and development sponsors to acquire capital assets for the conversion, rehabilitation, or new construction of permanent supportive housing for persons who are homeless, chronically homeless, or are at risk of homelessness, and are living with a behavioral health challenge, are veterans, or are part of a veteran's household (behavioral health and veterans housing programs) . Existing law allocates moneys in the fund for those purposes, including for administrative costs related to the behavioral health and veterans housing programs. This bill would limit the use of bond proceeds for those administrative costs to 3% of all bond proceeds allocated for each of those behavioral health and veterans housing programs. Existing constitutional provisions require that a statute that limits the right of access to the meetings of public bodies or the writings of public officials and agencies be adopted with findings demonstrating the interest protected by the limitation and the need for protecting that interest. This bill would make legislative findings to that effect. (8) This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as a bill providing for appropriations related to the Budget Bill.