Assembly panel reviews HAP, encampment grants and new state dashboards as officials press for clearer local data

The Assembly Budget Subcommittee on Accountability and Oversight held a hearing on state efforts to track and improve outcomes for homelessness spending, focusing on the Homeless Housing Assistance and Prevention program (HAP) and the Encampment Resolution Fund.

Miss Kirkby, a representative of the California Department of Housing and Community Development, told the committee that since HAP moved to HCD the agency has developed reporting dashboards and tightened conditions for disbursement. “Good data helps us make good policy,” she said, and described requirements that grantees obligate or expend earlier HAP rounds, meet HMIS/HDIS reporting standards and, for cities and counties, maintain compliant housing elements before receiving later disbursements.

The hearing centered on whether the new online tools — including the HCD fiscal and HDIS outcome dashboards and the governor’s accountability.ca.gov portal — give legislators and the public enough transparency about how state homelessness dollars are used and whether local programs are producing durable exits from homelessness.

Why it matters: since 2018 the state has invested more than $20 billion in homelessness and housing programs, including roughly $15 billion for housing and about $5 billion for local prevention and services. Committee members said they need clearer measures tying those dollars to outcomes so they can assess return on investment and direct future appropriations.

What HCD described: Miss Kirkby said the HAP umbrella totals about $1 billion this fiscal cycle, including roughly $760 million in the HAP 6 NOFA and about $30 million earmarked for tribal communities. She said the department now requires grantees to develop regional action plans and memoranda of understanding, to pair HAP funds with other local, state and federal resources (for example Homekey and Prop 1 funds), and to maintain reporting compliance to receive the initial disbursement. HCD also added a mid‑award review and corrective action path for underperforming grantees and requires encampment response plans aligned with guidance from the California Interagency Council on Homelessness.

Local officials: mayors and local staff who testified said HAP and related state funding have expanded shelter and housing capacity but vary in impact across regions. Mayor Todd Gloria of San Diego said local governments welcome increased transparency but argued the statewide portal “does not tell the full story” because countywide aggregates can obscure sharp variation among cities within a county. He said San Diego has used HAP to expand shelter options and reported that local programs provided more than 225,000 Californians access to shelter or services from January 2023 to June 2024, with more than 50,000 exiting homelessness into permanent housing.

Phil Skye of the City of Fresno described how Fresno used state funding to add interim shelter capacity and housing production: “Since 2021, the City of Fresno has provided shelter for 10,000 people, 53% of whom are now in permanent housing, 95% of whom remain housed 2 years later,” he said, and told the committee Fresno expects further reductions in unsheltered homelessness in its upcoming point‑in‑time count.

Robert Ratner of Santa Cruz County urged caution about using a single statewide headline metric. He recommended inflow/outflow measures and disaggregated outcomes for subpopulations (veterans, families, youth, people with behavioral health conditions). “I am concerned when we talk about accountability that we may drift into pointing the finger at a particular entity rather than looking at the collective system,” Ratner said, arguing that state funding has helped counties coordinate services and leverage federal vouchers.

Points of contention and data requests: committee members and local officials pressed HCD on participation and data quality in HDIS/HMIS reporting. HCD representatives said fiscal reporting is largely complete for most grantees but client‑level reporting into HDIS remains uneven; HCD will withhold initial disbursements for grantees not in good reporting standing and can place grantees on corrective action plans. Members asked HCD to make the dashboards more navigable for the public and to enable drilling from county to city levels and from fiscal categories to outcomes (for example, dollars per permanent housing exit).

Encampment grants and policies: Miss Kirkby described the Encampment Resolution Fund as roughly $1 billion to date and said the program is designed for “actionable, person‑centered, local proposals” that pair interim solutions with paths to permanent housing. HCD’s public materials classify encampments as resolved when people no longer reside at the site and have been rehoused or connected to services and the site is restored to public use.

Public comment and advocates: speakers from nonprofits and advocacy groups urged more funding for proven programs and more nuanced metrics for youth and other populations. Leslie Martinez, a student and community member, urged investigators to “further investigate accountability and oversight in Los Angeles.” Kim Lewis of the California Coalition for Youth observed that youth homelessness is undercounted by point‑in‑time surveys and recommended additional youth‑specific outcome measures.

What the committee heard about outcomes and next steps: witnesses and members repeatedly said the most meaningful success measures include exits to permanent housing and sustained housing retention over time, and they urged HCD to surface inflow/outflow, subpopulation outcomes and local drilldowns that link spending to results. HCD staff said the department posts grantee data within 30 days of receipt and that encampment grant reporting is quarterly; they also highlighted technical assistance and regional convenings to raise grantee performance.

Ending note: no formal votes were taken. The committee signaled continued interest in refining metrics and dashboard features, strengthening reporting compliance, and tracking how state agencies and local governments coordinate on encampments and housing supply.