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Receive the Human Services Needs Assessment Final Report; Consider implementing the recommendations in the report; Consider adopting two priority goals: 1) Increasing access to Solano County’s mental health system of care and 2) Reducing homelessness; and Consider establishing a Community Investment Fund beginning July 1, 2020 by repurposing $2 million in General Fund contributions to non-County agencies and providing a multi-pronged approach funding for legacy programs and deep investments for up to 3 years, and one-time investments
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Published Notice Required? Yes_______ No ___X___
Public Hearing Required? Yes_______ No ___X___
DEPARTMENTAL RECOMMENDATION:
The County Administrator’s Office recommends that the Board of Supervisors Receive the Human Services Needs Assessment Final Report; Consider implementing the recommendations in the report: Consider adopting two priority goals: 1) Increasing access to Solano County’s mental health system of care and 2) reducing homelessness; and Consider establishing a Community Investment Fund beginning July 1, 2020 by repurposing $2 million in General Fund contributions to non-County agencies and providing a multi-pronged approach funding for legacy programs and deep investments for up to 3 years, and one-time investments.
SUMMARY:
On behalf of the Board of Supervisors, the County Administrator’s Office initiated a Human Services Needs Assessment (HSNA) to identify the greatest human services needs in the county. This effort resulted in the creation of a durable framework of desired outcomes with clearly defined indicators, to support a process that directs limited county resources, including funds currently identified in the budget as contributions to non-county agencies.
This presentation brings forward the final results of the HSNA process, along with recommendations for future allocation of county resources previously identified as contributions to non-county agencies, repurposed to establish a Community Investment Fund.
FINANCIAL IMPACT:
The costs associated with preparing the staff report and the cost for the consultant to conduct the HSNA are included in the County Administrator’s Office FY2018/19 Adopted Budget.
DISCUSSION:
In September 2018, the County Administrator’s Office recommended and the Board of Supervisors endorsed, development of a formal process to utilize qualitative and quantitative data to identify the highest human services needs in the County. The goal of the 3-step HSNA process was to create a durable framework of desired outcomes with clearly defined indicators and use the findings to:
1. Guide annual decision-making during the budget process toward priority outcomes.
2. Leverage other County resources.
The HSNA process was conducted by Applied Survey Research, a Bay Area research and evaluation firm, and was guided by a planning team that consisted of two Board of Supervisor members, Department Heads that engage in service delivery as part of their role, and the County Administrator. At these planning team meetings over the course of the last 9 months, the planning team reviewed extensive community data, crafted a list of questions and reviewed the subsequent results from key informant interviews, and considered data results from the community surveys. The planning team then reviewed the summation of this information, weighed in on the prioritized needs, and helped to develop the recommendations for strategies and funding.
The HSNA process identified the top three priority human services needs in Solano County as mental health, housing and homelessness. The HSNA process also revealed the interconnectedness of these prioritized needs, bringing awareness of the importance of interventions that can be integrated; i.e., addressing homelessness should also include a component that addresses mental health.
The recommendations from this HSNA process are two-fold:
1. Solidify and adopt a focus on the top community needs identified by the assessment
2. Adopt a funding strategy that targets funding toward the identified community needs and creates a structure by which the Board can measure both programmatic and community impact
Top Community Needs:
Priority Need 1: Mental Health - Upon consultation with the Mental Health Deputy Director in Health and Social Services, the planning team is recommending that the Board of Supervisors establish the overarching community goal to “increase access to Solano County’s mental health system of care” with dual strategies of increasing community understanding of how to access mental health services and increasing provider understanding of how to respond to residents with mental health needs.
Priority Need 2: Affordable Housing - Since housing is primarily developed within the boundaries of cities, upon consultation with the Health and Social Services Mental Health Administrator (the designee for mental health/homelessness issues in Solano County), the planning team, and the County Administrator, the recommendation is the Board of Supervisors work with cities to increase the supply of affordable housing under the community goal of “reducing homelessness.”
Priority Need 3: Homelessness - Upon consultation with the Health and Social Services Mental Health Administrator (the designee for mental health/homelessness issues in Solano County) the planning team is recommending that the Board of Supervisors establish the community goal to “reduce homelessness” with dual strategies strengthening capacity to address homelessness and increasing community and provider understanding of how to connect to available resources.
Priority Needs 4-6: Early Education, Youth Development, Safe and Stable Environments for Children - While mental health, housing, and homelessness rose to the top priorities, early education, youth development, and safe and stable environments for children were also highly ranked in the prioritization. The assessment process identified several strategies in each of these priority areas that could be explored further as funding allows.
Funding Strategy:
In addition to identifying and confirming the top community needs through the assessment process, the planning team discussed a framework to provide funding toward the top priorities. The recommendation outlined into the report is to create a Community Investment Fund. The Fund would be a 3-pronged approach which would include:
1. Legacy Programs-3-year commitment to sustain programs funded by the Board to serve a specific population.
2. Deep Programming-3-year commitment to address the top 3 priority needs. Community partners will be selected by a competitive Request for Proposals process to implement strategies that were selected as part of an outcomes framework to evaluate progress toward the selected needs over time.
3. One-Time Investments-Smaller annual grants to address the top 6 priority needs. Community partners will be selected by a competitive Request for Proposals process.
Currently, the Board funds approximately $2 million annually to non-county agencies. The recommendation is to repurpose those funds to establish the Community Investment Fund beginning July 2020. This would allow time for notice to be given to current non-county agencies funded by the Board, as well as to develop and implement the Request for Proposals process for Deep and One-Time investments.
Next Steps:
Should the Board adopt the recommendations as outlined in this item and the report, next steps will be to identify any leveraging opportunities with other government partners to expand the available resources and subsequently, develop the Request for Proposals to be released approximately January 2020.
ALTERNATIVES:
The Board could choose not to receive the presentation or adopt the recommendations; however, the recommendations were developed through a nine month process with cross sector input to guide the board in decision making.
OTHER AGENCY INVOLVEMENT:
First 5 Solano is administering the contract with Applied Survey Research on behalf of the County Administrator’s Office. County Departments that have been a part of this planning team include Library, Health and Social Services, Probation, Child Support Services, First 5 Solano, County Administrator’s Office and Resource Management. In addition, 43 key informant interviews were held with leadership from each city, all school districts, and many other community and nonprofit leaders.