Shasta Scout Explains: What Is A Continuum of Care?

8.10.23 1 pm: We have updated this article to correct the entities involved in the NorCal CoC.

Shasta County has announced plans to withdraw as the Norcal Continuum of Care’s (CoC) lead agency, effective August 21. The decision has forced swift action by the social services leaders of the seven counties involved in the NorCal CoC, including Shasta County, as they work to create a new plan for administrative leadership.

CoCs nationwide, including the NorCal Continuum of Care, provide significant federal and state resources to serve unsheltered community members. Challenges to how a local CoC operates, like Shasta County’s abrupt withdrawal from leadership, can impact many people’s ability to use the systems they rely on for day-to-day survival. 

But what exactly is a Continuum of Care, and why does it matter? Read on for the answers to these questions . . . and more.

What is the Continuum of Care Program?

The Continuum of Care Program is a federal program managed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The program aims to encourage local, community-wide responses to homelessness to eliminate some of the challenges community members experience when trying to access help. 

Under the HUD CoC program, local government agencies, non-profit organizations, and other service providers receive funding to develop more seamless and collaborative strategies to address housing instability and homelessness within their shared region.

What is the NorCal Continuum of Care?

Shasta County is part of the NorCal Continuum of Care, which includes the counties of Shasta, Lassen, Plumas, Sierra, Siskiyou, Del Norte, and Modoc. In Shasta County, if you or someone you know needs help accessing housing or related services, you will be served by resources planned for and funded, at least in part, through the NorCal Continuum of Care.

Cities and counties also have housing departments that address issues and provide programs beyond the CoC program’s focus on ending homelessness. Leaders of city and county housing departments, like Redding and Shasta, participate in their local CoC and can seek funding for programs that do address ending homelessness through the CoC. 

When and how did the federal CoC Program start?

In 1987, the U.S. Congress passed the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act, the first federal law explicitly addressing homelessness. That was when HUD began holding annual competitions to distribute funding to organizations across the country working to address issues of homelessness. 

In 1994 HUD started requiring communities to work more collaboratively. To encourage this collaboration, they began requiring local government agencies, non-profit organizations, and other service providers to work together to submit a single Continuum of Care application as a group. 

Continuums exist to create a system that encourages service providers to work together and track the progress of individuals through programs and to use information gathered to determine why people are still experiencing homelessness in a certain area and to resolve those gaps by strategizing and planning together to provide coordinated assistance to those in need. 

The federal government has found that the lack of affordable housing and the limitations of existing assistance programs are the primary causes of homelessness. 

Why is the program called a “continuum“?

HUD uses the term “continuum” because these collaborative groups are intended to provide appropriate and timely assistance for the variety of living experiences that community members experience. The continuum of housing services spans everything from investments that prevent homelessness to emergency shelter, transitional housing, permanent housing, supportive housing, and more.

Gaps anywhere along the continuum of housing services can make the goal of providing permanent housing for all impossible. That’s why CoCs were designed to support consistent, big-picture, long-term planning for the continuum of housing needs in each region.

Gaps anywhere along the continuum of housing services can make the goal of providing permanent housing for all impossible. That’s why CoCs were designed to support consistent, big-picture, long-term planning for the continuum of housing needs in each region.

What is the purpose of the CoC program?

The federal law gives four reasons for the Continuum of Care program. In summary, CoC’s are intended to promote collaborative, community-wide commitments to ending homelessness. They do so by providing funding to nonprofit providers and state and local governments in order to allow them to quickly rehouse people while minimizing their trauma and dislocation. CoC’s are also intended to to promote access to programs and increase the self-sufficiency and independence of those experiencing homelessness.

What are the responsibilities of each CoC, including the NorCal Coc?

Two main functions of a CoC are long-term strategic, coordinated planning, and preparing an annual application to qualify for federal grant funding.  

CoCs are meant to help existing resources become more useful to communities and individuals by coordinating care and funding so that fewer people fall through the cracks of housing insecurity, especially when they need to change what assistance they receive or use multiple programs.

What can CoC funds be used for?

CoC funds may be used to prevent homelessness, provide transitional housing, provide permanent housing, provide supportive housing services, and support the costs of administering a local Homeless Management Information Systems (HMIS).

Grants can be used for different programs that address these areas, including the costs of running the system that helps people find housing, as well as costs for buying property for housing, building new housing, rehabilitating current housing, leasing costs, rental assistance, and supportive services that help people with different abilities that may require different types of assistance stay housed.

CoCs also have administrative expenses for planning, management, coordination, monitoring, evaluation, and environmental review. They can pay for these expenses either by applying for specific HUD planning funds or by using up to 10% of any HUD grant for certain administrative functions. 

How are CoCs structured?

CoCs have a governance charter, which is a document containing specific information about how each particular CoC operates. The charter outlines the roles and responsibilities of the CoC, so the program can provide stable and standard governance. Each CoC must have its own governance charter. You can see Shasta County’s here. 

CoCs also have an executive board, which is the main decision-making body. The executive board is responsible for overseeing the CoC’s work, approving policies and procedures for its administrative agency and any advisory boards, establishing committees, and, most importantly, setting goals and priorities to ensure that local agencies provide a full continuum of housing care for the community. 

The NorCal CoC Executive Board includes one voting member from each of the Counties.

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Some CoCs also have advisory boards which can be formed to provide particular insight into specific information and needs that can then be reported back to the Executive Board.

In the NorCal CoC, each county, including Shasta, has its own Advisory Board.

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CoCs sometimes use a lead agency to maintain the program’s administrative responsibilities. 

Those responsibilities include coordinated entry, a process by which people are entered into the community’s system of care to access CoC programs and resources. The coordinated entry process allows individuals to be prioritized for services depending on their overall and current needs. Sometimes a coordinated entry process is managed by the lead agency, but this does not have to be the case.

The NorCal CoC’s lead agency, Shasta County, has been managing coordinated entry.

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The CoC’s lead agency or another entity must also oversee an annual Point in Time or PIT Count, which is used to determine the number of unsheltered residents in the community, as well as those living in temporary shelters such as the Good News Rescue Mission. The PIT Count occurs over the course of a single day and is a snapshot in time that can assist in planning and funding allocations. Each County coordinates its own PIT count, which includes teams and individuals who go out into the community, locate unsheltered community members, and then record demographic information about them. The information is compiled by the CoC, and an annual comprehensive report is created and submitted to HUD to provide information about funding needs.

Shasta County currently facilitates the Continuum’s PIT Count.

Either the lead agency or another entity will be put in charge of completing and submitting the annual collaborative application for HUD funding due each year in September. Whichever entity does so is known as the Collaborative Applicant and can also apply for special Planning funds on behalf of the CoC. 

The NorCal CoC’s lead agency, Shasta County, has been serving as the Continuum’s collaborative applicant. The Redding City Council will vote on whether to pick up this role during it’s August 15 meeting.

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Either the lead agency or another entity also needs to manage a system known as the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS). HMIS is a local information technology system meant to safely and confidentially collect and store client information across an entire community without duplication. This information helps to plan for and prioritize individual and community-wide needs. HUD requires each CoC to use an HMIS system.

Shasta Count has been serving as the Continuum’s HMIS Lead but the United Way of Northern California has just announced they will pick up this role. See the press release here.

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This explainer is part of Shasta Scout’s ongoing coverage of Shasta County housing, including our coverage of the NorCal Continuum of Care. We will continue to report on this developing story. Have a question that isn’t answered below? E-mail us at editor@shastascout.org.