Report 2023-102.1 Recommendation 3 Responses

Report 2023-102.1: Homelessness in California: The State Must Do More to Assess the Cost‑Effectiveness of Its Homelessness Programs (Release Date: April 2024)

Recommendation #3 To: Interagency Council on Homelessness

To promote transparency, accountability, and effective decision-making related to the State's efforts to address homelessness, Cal ICH should request that state agencies responsible for administering state-funded homelessness programs provide spending- and outcome-related information for people entering, experiencing, and exiting homelessness. By March 2025, Cal ICH should develop and publish on its website a scorecard—or similar instrument—on the homelessness programs that would enable the Legislature and other policymakers to better understand each program's specific costs and outcomes. Cal ICH should determine and request from the Legislature any necessary resources required for this effort.

6-Month Agency Response

Signed into law on September 19, 2024, AB 799 grants Cal ICH the authority to require agencies and departments administering state programs to provide it with fiscal and outcome data on or before February 1, 2027, and annually thereafter. The bill requires council staff to make the data publicly available on or before June 1, 2027, and annually thereafter. To accomplish this, Cal ICH will develop a fiscal dashboard that shall act as a companion to publicly available outcome data in HDIS dashboards.

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

60-Day Agency Response

Pursuant to Assembly Bill 977 (AB 977), the State of California requires grantees of specified state funded homelessness programs to enter specific data elements related to individuals and families into their local Homeless Management Information System (HMIS).

As of March 1, 2021, Cal ICH began requiring grantees who are Continuums of Care (CoCs), cities, and counties to collect both the Universal Data Elements and the Common Data Elements. These data elements are reported back to Cal ICH via the Homeless Data Integration System (HDIS) on a quarterly basis. As of July 1, 2024, all state departments responsible for the administration of state funded homelessness programs have access to dashboards that allow them to view outcome data for the programs they oversee. Because these dashboards include personally identifiable information (PII), they cannot be made public without suppression.

Because HMIS does not collect financial data, a separate reporting system must be developed in order for Cal ICH to incorporate this information into dashboards.

Cal ICH continues to explore funding options to fully implement this request.

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

Cal ICH indicates in its response that it has begun providing state departments with dashboards with program outcomes, but that those dashboards cannot be made public without suppression. Our recommendation is that Cal ICH should publish information on its website about costs and outcomes for each program. This reporting should be done in the aggregate or in another way that does not disclose personally identifiable information.

All Recommendations in 2023-102.1

Agency responses received are posted verbatim.