RES 97089 - Laserfiche WebLink

Chapter 1: Introduction and Plan Development meeting the needs of people living in, or at risk of, poverty. Members of the CCWG are involved in these and other efforts to ensure that there will be coordination and interaction between the various planning processes and their outcomes. The county-wide continuum of care planning effort and the working group composition were approved by the Board of Supervisors in April 1996. Consultants to support the process were hired jointly by the City of Berkeley, the City of Oakland and the HOME Consortium cities, and overseen by the Alameda County Housing and Community Development Department. The consultant team of HomeBase and Bay Area Economics was selected to carry out the planning process. HomeBase has long been a regional and national leader in planning efforts for addressing homelessness. HomeBase developed the work plan for the process; facilitated the meetings, focus groups and qualitative data gathering; and acted as lead staff to the Working Group in writing the Plan. Bay Area Economics carried out a quantitative fiscal analysis, tracking all of the sources and uses of dollars spent on homelessness in the county in Fiscal Year 95-96. Alameda County Housing and Community Development was selected to act as the primary convener of the process and provided staff to the planning process. 1'he Planning Process The Continuum of Care Working Group met six times between June 1996 and April 1997. The meetings moved back and forth between Oakland and Hayward to maximize participation from all areas of the county. The primary work of the CCWG was carried out within five subcommittees, which were open to participation from the entire community. Each committee was led by jurisdictional and community-based co-chairs. The five committees were 1) Housing/ Transitional Housing/Shelter; 2) Incomes and Employment; 3) Support Services; 4} Integrated Health, Mental Health and Drug and Alcohol; and 5) Plan Administration. The committees each met no fewer than five (and in some cases as many as ten) times between August 1996 and January 1997. The committees considered the existing service structure and unmet needs, reviewed recommendations from the consultants, and developed recommendations and action steps in several topic areas. The Committees also developed much of the text that became the final report. Four additional subcommittees met on an ad-hoc basis to outline specific strategies for gathering information on the homeless population and service capacity, collecting financial information on the service system, responding to community concerns regarding homelessness and homeless planning, and developing a methodology for county-wide plan adoption. Alameda County-Wide Homeless Continuum of Care Plan: April 1997 5