Report 2017-112 Recommendation 16 Responses

Report 2017-112: Homelessness in California: State Government and the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority Need to Strengthen Their Efforts to Address Homelessness (Release Date: April 2018)

Recommendation #16 To: Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority

To expand the number of service providers through targeted technical assistance, the Authority should track the reasons that service providers who attend the mandatory bidders conference do not apply for funding, and address any barriers by July 2018.

1-Year Agency Response

LAHSA's Procurement Unit has fully implemented this recommendation. LAHSA sent out surveys to attendees for the New Projects RFP, Winter Shelter Program RFP, Shallow Subsidy for Rapid Rehousing RFP (Operator) and Shallow Subsidy for Rapid Rehousing RFP (Evaluator). The Procurement Unit reviewed responses for each survey and convened a multidisciplinary, internal group to discuss the feedback received by attendees.

The two main themes most often cited in recent survey responses are 1) that LAHSA's bed rates for interim housing are too low, and that LAHSA sometimes tends to make funding opportunities too complicated and restrictive when such restrictions are not required by the funder. The bed rate issue is being evaluated by leadership of the Procurement & Performance Management and Policy & Systems Departments. The Procurement Team will carefully evaluate the proposed program requirements future RFPs against funder requirements to address the issue of LAHSA requirements being too restrictive.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 1-Year Status: Fully Implemented

6-Month Agency Response

Starting in July 2018, LAHSA began sending surveys through Survey Monkey to capture data from agencies who attended the bidders' conference but did not submit an application. LAHSA will send the survey after each RFP submission date. The Procurement Unit will hold quarterly cross functional team meetings to analyze Survey Monkey responses to identify any barriers that can be addressed through LAHSA resources or referral to external resources. Please see project plan and timeline for implementation.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 6-Month Status: Pending

60-Day Agency Response

Starting in July 2018, LAHSA will utilize Survey Monkey to capture data regarding bidders' feedback for evaluation process. This survey is currently under development and will be released to applicants after the next RFP submission deadline of July 13, 2018. Analysis and review of the survey will be completed by a cross-functional LAHSA team, including Performance Management unit and Capacity Building unit, in order to address any barriers.

California State Auditor's Assessment of 60-Day Status: Pending

All Recommendations in 2017-112

Agency responses received are posted verbatim.