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City outlines Project 500 and supportive-housing expansion as part of homelessness strategy
Summary
Human Services Agency and partners described Project 500, expanded supportive housing and a suite of safety-net proposals, and dozens of public commenters urged more eviction prevention, housing subsidies and nonprofit support in the mayor's budget.
The Board of Supervisors Budget & Finance Committee heard a multi-agency presentation on homeless services, safety-net programs, and planned housing investments on May 13.
Trent Rohr, Director of the Human Services Agency, summarized city data on poverty and homelessness and outlined Project 500, an HSA-led initiative to target 500 of the city's poorest families with intensive, family-centered services that combine housing, employment and behavioral-health supports. Rohr said HSA had enrolled large numbers into Medi-Cal and planned increased CalFresh outreach to enroll people eligible for food assistance.
Rohr described program elements that HSA is using or expanding: Family Stabilization (state-funded interventions for families not yet ready for workforce activities), subsidized employment (the Jobs Now program), and a $2,000,000 local housing subsidy drawn from a larger statewide allocation that has already housed dozens of families. He emphasized that supportive housing and navigation-center exits are central to the city's plan for chronically homeless single adults.
Olsen Lee of the Mayor's Office of Housing and Community Development reviewed MOHCD's role creating permanently affordable supportive housing, highlighted recent projects (for example, 1075 La Conte and 1180 Fourth Street), and described a development pipeline of over 600 units in progress and thousands in the portfolio.
Department of Public Health and Aging & Adult Services staff described expansions in medical-respite beds and supportive services for seniors, plus a planned public-facing senior services site. Public commenters' priorities included eviction prevention and legal services, housing subsidies, rapid rehousing, veterans' housing, nonprofit cost-of-living adjustments (COLA), medical respite expansion, and increased food-security outreach.
Representatives of multiple service providers, advocacy groups and people with lived experience urged the board to fund the HESPA coalition's eviction-prevention and subsidy proposal and the mayor's supportive-housing commitments. The committee filed the item without objection and continued remaining budget items to the next week.
