Assembly subcommittee reviews HAP accountability, dashboards and encampment grants

At a hearing of the Assembly Budget Subcommittee on Accountability and Oversight, state and local officials and advocates reviewed the state's reporting and accountability work for homelessness funding, focusing on the Homeless Housing Assistance and Prevention (HAP) program and the Encampment Resolution Grant Program.

The Hearing: why it matters

The Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) described new requirements for grantees, public dashboards and a mid‑award corrective action process designed to ensure state homelessness dollars are used to move people into stable housing. HCD said some grantees must meet new conditions to receive the second half of awards and that the department will withhold disbursements for grantees that are not in good reporting standing.

HCD overview and new enforcement levers

Ms. Kirkby, a HCD representative, told the committee that the department has consolidated reporting into online tools and strengthened pre‑disbursement conditions. "Good data helps us make good policy," she said, and HCD is using fiscal and client dashboards to track obligations, expenditures and client outcomes rolling up from HMIS into a statewide HDIS system. She explained that in this round of HAP: grantees must show they have obligated earlier rounds, meet HMIS reporting requirements, have compliant housing elements and, for regions addressing unsheltered homelessness, maintain an encampment response plan consistent with California Interagency Council on Homelessness guidance.

Kirkby said the HAP umbrella for the fiscal year includes roughly $1 billion, with about $760 million in the HAP 6 NOFA and roughly $30 million targeted to tribal communities; she also described Homekey‑related HAP funding and an HAP Homekey Plus component. HCD said HAP fiscal and HDIS dashboards show per‑grantee obligations and expenditures, program categories such as operating subsidies, interim sheltering, navigation centers, rapid rehousing and outreach, and identified places where grantees' reporting needs correction.

Encampment Resolution Grant Program and reporting cadence

Kirkby said the Encampment Resolution Fund is "very housing focused" and that to date the program is projected to transition more than 23,000 people into interim or permanent housing. She said HAP reporting happens monthly while encampment grant reporting is quarterly, and quarterly narratives explain when a site is "partially resolved" or not resolved and why.

Local testimony: praise, concerns and requests for more detail

Todd Gloria, mayor of San Diego, told the committee cities welcome transparency but urged the dashboards to show more granular, jurisdiction‑level data. "The public is right to demand results and accountability on homelessness and the funding allocated to investment," Gloria said. He argued statewide summaries can obscure local variation within counties and urged data that distinguish cities, shelter inventories and program implementation so taxpayers can see where funds and beds are deployed.

Phil Skye, representing the City of Fresno, described local results he says were enabled by state investments: "Since 2021, the city of Fresno has provided shelter for 10,000 people, 53% of whom are now in permanent housing," he said, and he credited HAP, Homekey and other state funds for allowing Fresno to add beds and accelerate housing production.

Robert Ratner of Santa Cruz County emphasized the value of HDIS but cautioned against overreliance on the point‑in‑time count. "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. He urged the committee to examine inflow/outflow measures (new people entering homelessness, returns to homelessness and exits to stable housing) and to disaggregate results for subpopulations, including families, veterans and people with behavioral‑health conditions.

Questions from members and HCD responses

Committee members pressed HCD and local witnesses on whether HAP investments correlate with reductions in homelessness. HCD and several city representatives said they see associations region‑by‑region between certain investments (shelter capacity, operating subsidies, rapid rehousing) and better exit outcomes, while acknowledging variation across grantees. HCD staff said the department has new levers: for the first time, initial disbursements may be withheld until prior reporting and fiscal milestones are met; midaward updates and corrective action plans are available to redirect funds if grantees underperform.

Assemblymembers asked about audit findings, Los Angeles County accounting and subcontractor transparency. HCD said it relies on grantee‑reported data, has audit clauses in contracts, and will work with county auditors to verify data where concerns arise. Several members urged HCD to make the dashboards more accessible so legislators and the public can click from county to city to see how dollars translate into beds, services and permanent housing exits.

Public comment and special populations

Public commenters highlighted nonprofit and youth concerns. Leslie Martinez, a student from Los Angeles, urged increased funding for nonprofit programs she said have demonstrable success, citing Alexandria House as an example of a program where she said 92% of participating families moved to permanent housing. Kim Lewis of the California Coalition for Youth said the point‑in‑time count undercounts young people and urged additional outcome measures and data collection tied to safe, stable exits for youth.

What the committee is doing next

The committee and witnesses framed accountability as a layered effort: improved reporting and dashboards; corrective action and withholding authority; regional technical assistance to raise underperforming grantees; and better, disaggregated outcome measures (inflow/outflow, exits that are sustained). No formal votes were recorded at the hearing; members said the session will inform budget deliberations ahead of the May revision.

Ending note

Witnesses and members repeatedly returned to two themes: that housing supply is a central prevention tool and that public dashboards and stronger reporting are needed to show where state funds produce measurable exits to stable housing. HCD offered to continue improving accessibility and granularity of the tools and to work with local auditors and grantees to verify and correct data where needed.