San Francisco’s Homelessness Nonprofits Aren’t Correctly Monitored, Report Finds

With billions of {dollars} spent on homelessness, San Francisco’s civil grand jury discovered that town wants to higher consider the a whole lot of nonprofits tasked with fixing the disaster. 

The civil grand jury, a civilian oversight physique made up of 19 San Francisco residents, wrote in a report that the Division of Homelessness and Supportive Housing will spend some $2 billion on greater than 300 homeless-related nonprofit contracts by 2030. However inconsistent monitoring of these contracts raises questions on whether or not nonprofits are delivering sufficient companies, the jury stated. 

“If these companies are to meaningfully attain the homeless people they’re meant to assist, [the department] should successfully draft and oversee these contracts,” the report stated.  

A number of nonprofit contracts are measured by the completion of actions slightly than the achievement of outcomes, the report stated. 

The jury used the instance of City Alchemy, a fast-growing nonprofit with contracts to carry out avenue outreach and run homeless shelters. Not less than one of many nonprofit’s contracts is evaluated based mostly on whether or not City Alchemy submitted knowledge about its shoppers, slightly than whether or not that knowledge factors to constructive outcomes, the report stated. 

The jury beneficial that town standardize its analysis of nonprofit contracts to measure outcomes, consolidate program monitoring and enhance the metrics it makes use of to trace progress. The jury’s findings come alongside tighter scrutiny of town’s social companies contracts and whether or not departments are correctly monitoring how {dollars} are spent. The report requires that Mayor London Breed’s workplace reply to its findings inside 60 days.

The town’s reliance on nonprofits for social companies fell below a microscope final yr after a collection of scandals raised issues that taxpayer {dollars} had been being misused and susceptible shoppers had been being put in danger.

In a single occasion, a drug remedy nonprofit referred to as Baker Locations, which is funded by the Division of Public Well being, requested town for 2 emergency bailouts and threatened to shut a few of its applications. 

Investigations by The Customary discovered that 5 of Baker Locations’ shoppers had fatally overdosed or dedicated suicide whereas in its applications. A prime Division of Public Well being official, Dr. Lisa Pratt, additionally improperly held a part-time job for the nonprofit alongside her full-time function because the lead physician within the metropolis’s jails. 

In April, town blocked a nonprofit referred to as the United Council of Human Providers, which ran a homeless shelter within the Bayview neighborhood, from future contracts after an audit accused the nonprofit of flouting metropolis guidelines and referred to as for a legal probe into its administration.

One other investigation by The Customary discovered that the United Council of Human Providers was amongst a bunch of nonprofits that obtained greater than $25 million in metropolis funds whereas in violation of state regulation that barred them from receiving or spending funds. On Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors handed a regulation geared toward resolving that difficulty, requiring nonprofit businesses to submit paperwork confirming their nonprofit standing.

On the identical time, nonprofits have raised issues that town’s contracting course of is onerous and infrequently duplicative.

The Division of Homelessness and Supportive Housing stated in an announcement that it is within the technique of growing new efficiency metrics that it plans to finalize this summer season. 

“When the division was fashioned in 2016, we inherited contracts from a number of totally different Metropolis departments that had totally different phrases, program designs, final result measures and requirements,” the division stated. “Through the years we have now begun to standardize these contracts and have extra work to do.”