2018 February CoC Advisory Board Meeting
MEMBERS PRESENT: Joan Burke, Bill Knowlton, Beth Hassett, Emily Bender, Sarah Bontrager, Cindy Cavanaugh, Cathy Creswell, Dion Dwyer, John Foley, Emily Halcon, Todd Henry, Erin Johansen, Lt. Dan Monk, Jonathan Porteus
GUEST(S): Jonathan Gainsbrugh, Susan Veazey, Sandy Pierkarski, Alyson Collier, Dorothy Landsberg, Noel Kammermann, Mike Jaske, Kate Hutchinson, Alexis Bernard, Erica Plumb, Nick Mori, Jocelynn Brown Hollis, Brian Pyne, Bridget Alexander, Angela Upshaw, Stefan Heisler, Martin Ross
MEMBERS NOT IN ATTENDANCE: Lisa Culp, Katie Freeny, David Husid, Olivia Kasirye, Patty Kleinknecht, Amani Sawires Rapaski, Sarah Thomas, Holly Wunder Stiles
SSF STAFF: Ryan Loofbourrow – CEO, Michele Watts – Chief of Programs, Nick Lee – Chief of Operations, Desli Beckman – Chief Financial Officer, Ben Avey – Chief of Public Affairs, Chris Weare – Manager of Data Analytics and Research, Lindsay Moss – Senior Data Analyst, Kate Casarino – CoC and Contracts Coordinator
Call to Order: Bill Knowlton, Quorum met at 8:08 AM.
- Welcome and Introductions – Joan Burke, Chair
- Review & Approval of Minutes: Cathy Creswell, 1st, Beth Hassett, 2nd. MSC.
- Chair’s Report
- J. Burke reflects on the retiring members of the Advisory Board. She acknowledges that the Advisory Board has acquired $5 million in funding for the CoC annually since the Board has been constituted, which means the Board has been working responsibly in the care and feeding of the CoC.
- SSF CEO’s Report:
- R. Loofbourrow reports-
- Cap-to-Cap – April 14th thru 18th in Washington DC.
- Annual event produced by the Metro Chamber of Commerce where 300 leaders and delegates of Sacramento travel to DC to talk to elected officials to talk about 13 different issues. Those attending: Jonathan Porteus, Donald Terry, Erin Johansen, Terry Galvin, Bob Erlenbusch, Ben Avey, Barbara Lebray, Clay Mural, Matt Brower, with a possibility of 20 more joining. Suzi, who has joined in the past, is currently looking for sponsorship to be able to join.
- Will address issues of homelessness and housing.
- Issue papers on education in homelessness nationally, with the west coast increasing to impress upon leadership in Washington DC that all is not well on the west coast, with an increase in population and a constrained housing market. New York times says that Sacramento is the second in the nation with the fastest rising rent.
- Another document that will be presented at retaining dollars received in homeless services, and talking about rejecting the concept of participants paying 35% of income for rent.
- College student hunger and lack of SNAP programs.
- Bring any other Cap-to-Cap issues to Ryan.
- Two letters for review. The SSF Board asks that the Advisory Board give feedback.
- Sacramento Chamber has their State Legislative Summit and asked ot participate in a panel in statement of fact, the lack of and inability to build more housing is impacting our ability to do what we do on the homeless front.
- Website update: all agendas, minutes, audio recordings, text version of minutes, searching capabilities are now available. The Committee page is now available with committees as they stand today. The NOFA Application and PIT count is added. Data page will be added soon.
- The SSF Board retreat. The Executive Committee attended.
- Item: New and Renewing Membership Slate – Action Item
- B. Knowlton introduces the New and Renewing Membership Slate (Slate included in meeting packet)
- E. Halcon asks to get a list that includes membership terming off so that she can see membership places.
- B. Knowlton reads names of those members who has resigned, termed off, and not renewing.
- J. Burke explains that their seats have been saved for those with lived experience of homelessness because we did not receive nominations in time.
- C. Creswell: There is not a representative of Nonprofit Housing Community
- J. Burke explains that there is a seat saved for this representative.
- C. Cavanaugh asks to get information on which areas are not being represented and how it ties in with the governance charter.
- J. Burke: Part of the Nominating Committees tasks was to look at the areas of representation that were leaving, and which areas to bring.
- Ben Avey: The SSF website has a page listing the Advisory Board Members and the areas that they represent, though it does not list membership terms.
- There will be three unfilled spots for previously homeless, and non-profit housing development.
- E. Halcon: Are all new recommended members replacing previous areas of representation? Are there new categories?
- The categories may stay the same, though membership is not replaced by organization.
- In the past, agencies were represented, but the structure does not work in the same way now. There is not a list of specific 25 categories that must be included in the board. We are not seeking to have one of each category. Some agencies reflect more than one category.
- C. Creswell: Add areas of representation to name tags.
- C. Cavanugh: Was there a public call for nominations?
- J. Burke: Yes, there was a public call, where more nominations were received than there were available seats. A number of those applications were through the public call. The slate was determined by evaluation of experience and balance on the board in terms of conflicted and non-conflicted members.
- Action: Move to approve the New and Renewing Membership Slate: Jonathan Porteus, 1st, Lt. Dan Monk, 2nd. MSC.
- Item: 2018 Executive Committee Slate:
- B. Knowlton introduces the 2018 Executive Committee Slate included in the meeting packet. The slate is:
- Alexis Bernard – Mental Health Organizations
- Joycelynn Brown-Hollis – Veterans
- Alyson Collier – School Administrators/Homeless Liaisons
- Stefan Heisler – Local Government Staff
- Mike Jaskie – Faith Community Advocate
- Noel Kammerman – Local Homeless Coalition/Network
- C. Cavanaugh asks to hear about the nominating process.
- J. Burke explains that the Nominating Committee, comprised of the Executive Committee, plus Patty Kleinknecht, assessed the various factors that make for a well-functioning board. The term of office is 1 year through the bylaws, but there is room to extend.
- Action: Move to approve the 2018 Executive Committee Slate: Cathy Creswell., 1st, Erin Johansen, 2nd. MSC.
- J Burke Explains that because the entire Executive Committee is terming of this year, the 2017 Executive Committee will continue to attend the Advisory Board meetings, as well as the Executive Committee meetings as non-voting members, so that the transition is supportive.
- K. Casarino is scheduling an on-boarding for the new members, but any current members are welcome to join in if they feel that they could benefit from attending.
- J. Burke explains that the new Executive Committ will not be all terming off at the same time as the 2017 Executive COmmittee. The Executive Committee has a term of 1 year, but they do not necessarily term off of the Advisory Board.
- C. Creswell suggests that the board adopt a system where the Executive Committee serve on the board a year after their term so that the is support and that the transition between Executive members is smooth.
- J. Burke acknowledges that this suggestion is good, but in the following years, all Executive members terming off at the same time will most likely not occur.
- D. Dwyer: Is it an expectation that the Vice Chair will take over the Chair after he terms off?
- R. Loofbourrow: That is not defined in the bylaws, but it is up to the discretion of the board.
- J. Porteus: That is one of the things the Executive Committee can look into in the coming year.
- E. Halcon: Can we assume that the new Nominating Committee will be the new Executive plus Patty?
- B. Knowlton: That will be up to the new Executive Committee.
- Item: Data Analytics Research: System & Goals
- Chris Weare introduces himself and Lindsey Moss, Senior Data Analyst.
- Operating HMIS which is run by Bitfocus called Clarity, which is state of the art in the field, so it has been serving us very well. Though the disadvantages of Clarity is that it is very constrained. It will let you get certain reports, but not much else.
- To gain control of our data, Clarity is accessed through sequel code, and then drawn into Tableau, a state of the art visual program.
- With this new way of accessing Clarity, we are able to produce dashboards, systems level analytics and present systems level data, and start using operational support (for the community queue and coordinated entry)
- Item: RRH Performance Measures
- Chris presents one week’s worth of gathered data specific to Rapid Rehousing/
- Tableau enables us to break down data to a specific program
- What are the programmatic variables to make RRH more responsible to our current needs?
- E. Johansen: Is there an overlay of vulnerability of those housed in RRH?
- C. Weare: That has not been able to pulled through the data yet, but that information is very important in the analysis data moving forward.
- B. Alexander: Will we be able to pull out subpopulation, such as youth, and look at the data, and compre with other agencies?
- Slides depicting this are shown.
- C. Weare: The sweet spot – There is a trade off with RRH. You can apply more resources to a client, keep them in the program longer, and increase the probability that they are to going to get permanent housing, or you can give the same amount of resources for two clients, provide them subsidies and supportive services for shorter amounts of time, and then probably get a lower success rate. Then the question is, at what point are we using our resources most effectively t maximize the dollar spent to get them into housing. We will be looking at that trade off. This is information, but it does not dictate the final decisions. It helps you understand what the trade offs are for keeping a client in a program for a longer period of time.
- C. Creswell: It’s critical to policy for someone to evaluate the data provided and what it means because you can’t draw conclusions with just this data.
- D. Dwyer: This is where we want to take the data, this is what we are planning. It talks about who is using the system. There are a couple of moving pieces, but Chris is highlighting what we are working towards.
- M. Watts: We will go over how this data feeds into the COC and decision making policies.
- C. Cavanaugh: We need to be very intent-ful on what this is and what we’re trying to do. The data raises more questions and different aspects of what’s working and what’s not. How do we lift this practice for all populations? A conversation needs to happen within the HMIS and Data COmmittee to interact with the data in a different way.
- C. Weare: The data helps inform a conversation, it does not dictate the conversation.
- J. Porteus: This (Tableau) is a great tool. We’re still going to have questions around our confidence with the data, but we’ll get there.
- C. Weare presents returns to homelessness.
- There are many instances in HMIS where people have been provided services are not put into a program. We’re not capturing that information, but we can.
- The data is an underestimate, but still valuable data.
- C. Weare: We can start looking at the “sweet spot” for length of stay by looking at budget data. We have some concerns of data quality, but we have ways of addressing that and indicating to providers where there are anomalies.
- E. Johansen: Add the service needs of those entered to RRH (VI-SPDAT)
- C. Weare: We will be bringing in client characteristics and their effect on success rates.
- C. Weare: Variation is good. We’re trying a lot of things. There are some standardization in RRH, but people are very much catering their programs to each individual need. How do we package services to clients, giving room to be flexible in changes in environment? The data will help determine that/
- C. Cavanaugh: Can this data be shared?
- It’s possible but the data presented is really yo show what the data team can do.
- C. Cavanaugh: We should discuss where this goes. We need to discuss system performance, as well as individual competitive, individual performance. Not sure where this discussion should go.
- Item: SSF Board Retreat Report Back
- Defer the Committee question until next meeting
- Much of the SSF Board Retreat was given to the Committee Structure.
- There are more committees than there are SSF staff to coordinated those, so the Advisory Board will have to restructure the committees. Some committees will turn into ad hoc working groups. There are a variety of ways that this can be accomplished.
- The bylaws require that certain committees continue its existence. The committees that will continue are
- Executive Committee
- Nominating Committee
- Governance Committee
- Performance Review Committee
- HMIS and Data Committee
- Coordinated Entry Committee
- All other committees will have a discussion whether they would like to continue or not.
- R. Loofbourrow: The purpose of the SSF Board Retreat was to bring everyone toether to work towards common goals, clarify lines of communication. It wasn’t meant to dictate what subcommittees would exist under this Advisory Board; that is up to you (the Advisory Board).
- The SSF Board will have one member attend every other Advisory Board meeting so that there is communication. R. Loofbourrow will be making a recommendation to the SSF Board to have the Chair of the Advisory Board be a voting member of the SSF Board, and to seek a person with lived experience to join the SSF Board. The new structure will open up lines of communication.
- When SSF writes, and the Advisory Board supports it, does it represent the CoC?
- C. Cavanaugh: When you red the CoC regulations and our governance structure, it’s unclear what the Advisory Board is and what it’s purpose is with SSF as the administrator.
- J. Porteus: When SSF was created it was intended to be a joint power, which it has not been. I would like to lobby very heavily for everyone to come back to this conversation as a region, and say that SSF needs to be a joint power.
- J. Porteus: Acknowledges the retiring Executive Committee and thanks them for all they have done and bringing the Advisory Board to its current status.
- Announcements:
- Meeting Adjourned
