Advocacy & Policy Committee Update - Dec 2009

Objective: Determine Short-Term Action Items to Support our Two Investees

Simonne Ruff, CSH

• 8,000 homeless per night county-wide, most transitional/episodic
  - Up to 2,000 chronically homeless, often with disabilities – disproportionate use of
  expensive resources to support this segment, as opposed to supportive housing which is
  more cost effective
• CSH’s goal is to be a catalyst for high-quality supportive housing
  - Sense is there is a lot of money for supportive housing that is not being used
  - CSH works with project sponsors like Father Joe’s, Catholic Charities to help keep
  projects healthy, including funding (which usually comes from CRA funds through banks
• Don’t expect any new money on the table for 2-3 years, so current strategy is to use Section 8 Voucher system
  - S8 administered through Housing Commissions, current waiting list is 5-8 years, 12,000
  limit in SD City given to specific individuals, 10,000 in SD County
  - Solution is to repurpose from Tenant-Based to Project-Based; Housing Commissions can
  move 25% of the 12,000 to be special purposed
  o Currently SD City only has 250 special-purposed, about 200 are Project-Based
  o County not doing much repurposing at all, not likely, resistance all around
  - Housing commission agreed to release an RFP for 200 Project-Based units, but they
  haven’t done so yet
• What SDSVP can do and who the players are:
  - Break that log-jam for the first 200
  - Keep the cycle going for more
  - Richard Gentry, CEO of City Housing Commission
  http://www.sdhc.org/giaboutus1a.shtml
  http://www.linkedin.com/pub/rick-gentry/11/60b/30a
  - Carrol Vaughan, EVP of City Housing Commission
  http://www.sdhc.org/giaboutus1b.shtml
  http://www.linkedin.com/pub/carrol-vaughan/7/44/444
  - County Director of Housing and Community Development: David R. Estrella
  http://www.co.san-diego.ca.us/sdhcd/aboutus/about_us.html
  - City Council or Council influencers: Kevin Faulconer
  o City Council doesn’t vote on this item, it’s all under the City Housing Commission, but
  they can exert pressure
  
  Action Items
  - Meeting with Rick Gentry (David & Leigh J)
  o Simonne to make introduction
  - Write Talking Points / Briefing Book (TBD – David L / Sherri N to find)
  - Consider rename to “Advocacy and Policy Committee”
  o Ask Board for approval and to announce at party (David L)
  - Develop SDSVP Advocacy Infrastructure (Kathy F)

Advocacy Working Group Update - October 2009

• In order to begin investigating options for advocacy within SDSVP, we are forming the SDSVP Advocacy Working Group
• The Advocacy Working Group will initially function by bringing in nonprofit Executive Director’s to hear about their issues/needs, then determine how SDSVP can best support their efforts, whether by supporting connections to funding or legislative officials and/or direct advocacy efforts
• The general focus area of the Advocacy Working Group is Effective Philanthropy, which includes a) connecting our Investees and their sector with funding sources, and b) non-monetary support on issues, either as individual partners or officially as SDSVP
• Ideally, the Advocacy Working Group would work on a second 3-year phase of our Investees that have successfully built their capacity and can handle a more significant role, including efforts to promote sector-wide changes and/or larger sources of funds
• First test case with Laurin Pause, Executive Director of the Community Resource Center, regarding homeless issues in San Diego. Initial expectation is that SDSVP has the opportunity to actually move the needle on this issue – rumor has it that as few as 100 contacts from respected people may be enough to affect the legislation.

For more information contact the Advocacy Working Group Chair, David Lynn davidl@ayamba.com