Shasta County’s Withdrawal From NorCal Continuum of Care Leadership Threatens Access to State and Federal Housing Funding Across Seven Counties

Members of the NorCal Continuum of Care Shasta Advisory Board meet at Redding City Hall on July 11, 2023.

8.7.23 5:30 pm: We have updated the article to include that Continuum Board members have approved funding that may be used to hire a collaborative applicant for the Continuum.

In June, the Executive Board of the NorCal Continuum of Care (CoC) received a challenge. Find a new way to collaboratively apply for Housing and Urban Development (HUD) eligibility that opens access to millions in state and federal funding annually—before September 28.

Management of the NorCal CoC, a seven-county collaboration that coordinates services for homeless community members across the North State, is complicated. That is because the CoC is not a government agency or non-profit organization and requires the help of an administrator or “lead agency” to request, receive, distribute, and report on state and federal funding, including HUD funds.

Over recent years Shasta County has provided that support as the lead agency for the NorCal CoC, first under the supervision of the Community Action Agency and, more recently, under the county’s Health and Human Services Agency.

But on June 21, staff announced that Shasta County was withdrawing from the NorCal CoC lead agency role, effective August 21. The County will continue participating in the NorCal Continuum of Care as a member even after handing off leadership responsibilities. 

The announcement comes at a difficult time. The NorCal CoC’s next annual HUD application, a complex collaborative document, is due September 28. 

HUD representative William Snow told NorCal CoC Executive Board members last month that failing to apply by that date could lead to the loss of both existing unspent funding and new opportunities for all seven counties.

The decision to withdraw from leadership was made by HHSA Director Laura Burch, who told Shasta Scout during a brief in-person interview last month that continuing to provide administrative support to the collaborative is not financially sustainable for the County.

HHSA Director Laura Burch (on the left) and Assistant HHSA Deputy Director Christy Coleman listening to the discussion during a meeting of the NorCal Continuum of Care Executive Board on July 12, 2023. Photo by Annelise Pierce.

Recent reviews of County funds, Burch told Shasta Scout during both in-person interviews and by email, show that Shasta County is receiving only about $60,000 annually in administration fees from the six other counties in the collaboration but has spent more than six times that amount, or $385,568, to administer the grant funding in the last fiscal year.

“Essentially, we’re subsidizing all the counties,” Burch said. “Some of them only give us $1,500 a year to administer the programs. We can’t keep doing that.”

The numbers seem to provide evidence of the need for Shasta County to change how it does business with the NorCal Continuum of Care. But Burch has not yet produced financial data that backs her verbal claims of NorCal CoC revenue and expenses despite repeated requests to do so by the Executive Board of the NorCal Continuum of Care.

On July 27, the County responded to a June 21 Public Records Act (PRA) Request from Shasta Scout for the CoC’s financial data from recent years with a request for payment of almost $2500. The request was based on the County’s claim that it would take an estimated 100 hours of staff time to find the NorCal CoC data Shasta Scout had requested. Charging fees for staff time to procure information does not appear to comply with California’s PRA law. 

Communication between the County, NorCal CoC Executive Board, and Shasta County Advisory Board has also been challenging, according to public discussions at each meeting of the two groups over the last several months.  

During a June 27 NorCal CoC Executive Board meeting to discuss the County’s decision to withdraw as lead agency from the continuum, only one County housing staff member, Staff Services Analyst Lisa Towns, was in attendance.

In response to questions from the Board, she said she was there only to facilitate chairing and recording the meeting, not to respond to concerns.

Since then, HHSA Director Burch and her Assistant Agency Director, Christy Coleman, have attended two NorCal CoC Executive Board meetings. But many questions remain unanswered, according to public statements made by NorCal CoC Executive Board Chair Kristen Schreder and other Board members during the NorCal Executive Board special meeting held yesterday, July 31. 

Leaders who sit on the NorCal CoC’s Executive Board have been meeting almost weekly since June 27 to try to determine what responsibilities will need to be taken over by a different agency or agencies after the County’s withdrawal on August 21, and how much it will cost to do so. But without access to County financial data on existing Continuum operations, decision-making on the costs moving forward feels next to impossible, Schreder has said.

It is also unclear where they will find the funds needed to move forward with some of the necessary changes, although the Executive Board did vote to approve a budget of $58,000 which could go towards hiring a consultant to file the Continuum’s collaborative application, ensuring they can maintain HUD grant funding. The money to do so came out of a pot of additional state funding that recently became available when it was not spent by another entity. Otherwise, long-term funding for the Continuum, Burch has told NorCal CoC Executive Board members, was exhausted long ago. 

She said even after withdrawing from leadership of the CoC, the County will continue to pay back internal service charges for the collaboration totalling $350,000 over the next two years. Shasta Scout continues to seek access to documents that would help verify this claim.

Michelle Weidman contributed to this developing story. 

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