Abstract
The Homeless Emergency Aid Program (HEAP) was established by Senate Bill 850 (2018) as a response to the severe housing and homelessness crisis facing California. The initiative allotted within the State’s 2018-19 budget a $500 million, one-time, flexible set of block grants to help local communities throughout the state address the substantial rise in homelessness. By February 2019, the Homeless Coordinating and Financing Council (HCFC) had awarded 54 block grants to 43 Continuums of Care (CoCs) and 11 municipalities throughout the state of California. Jurisdictions applying for HEAP were required to conduct a collaborative community process to determine how a one-time investment of funds could be best utilized within the context of their local communities. While the majority of HEAP funds had to be allotted to immediately assist Californians experiencing homelessness, or at imminent risk of homelessness, eligible uses of HEAP funds were intentionally broadly defined to encourage jurisdictions to tailor their HEAP plans to the specific local needs of their communities. This report summarizes an initial assessment of the implementation phase of the initiative, the findings of which will help researchers more effectively assess the impact of HEAP and similar initiatives in the future. Drawing from a review of applications, in-depth interviews with local administrators, as well as analysis of online surveys collected from most jurisdictions receiving HEAP, the report generally describes the variety of programs and innovative practices that have been funded by the initiative in the past twelve months across the state (Section 2). This report also provides insight into how jurisdictions strategized their funding decisions for HEAP (Section 3) as well as some of the early successes and challenges that communities have encountered implementing the initiative (Section 4). Finally, the report concludes by summarizing a set of recommendations for how researchers and policy makers can explore the varied and disparate impacts that funding initiatives like HEAP can have on local service systems.