Board Outcomes - August 4, 2020

Overview

The Board met by conference call on August 4, 2020, for its scheduled bimonthly meeting.

Attendance

Voting Attendance

Winona Connor, Louisiana Housing Corporation (LHC Seat) [Chair]

Laura Hasenstein, Louisiana Department of Health (LDH Seat)

Mariah Wineski, Louisiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence (LCADV Seat)

Weston Schild, Capital Area Alliance for the Homeless (HMIS Lead Seat)

Addie Duval, Start Corporation (Baton Rouge Seat)

Gail Gowland, Family Violence Program of St. Bernard (Plaquemines/St. Bernard Seat)

Tarek Polite, Calcasieu Parish Police Jury (Lake Charles Seat)

Non-Voting Attendance

Victoria Johnson, Louisiana Housing Corporation [Secretary]

Randy Nichols, Capital Area Alliance for the Homeless [Ethics Officer]

Gordon Levine, Louisiana Housing Corporation [CoC Manager]

Aundrea Braniff, Louisiana Housing Corporation [Coordinated Entry Specialist]

Carrie Patterson, Louisiana Housing Corporation [CoC Coordinator]

Josh Dean, Louisiana Housing Corporation [CoC Coordinator]

Keneisha Keener, Volunteers of America - Greater Baton Rouge

Kat McGraw, Empower 225

Gloria Winchester, AmeriHealth

Chris Nichols, Options Foundation

Outcomes

Waiving the Good Standing Requirement

The Board considered a proposal to suspend the Good Standing requirement in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The proposal’s details are as follows:

• The Good Standing requirement will be waived for all organizations through December 31, 2020;

• Organizations will not be required to meet the Good Standing requirements through December 31, 2020;

• As of January 1, 2021, all organizations will be considered to be in Good Standing (i.e. past attendance records, etc., will be wiped clean for compliance purposes); organizations will be required to maintain Good Standing going forward rather than regain Good Standing going forward.

The Board voted to approve the proposal (4 in favor, 3 opposed, 0 abstaining).

Suspending Board Elections

The Board considered a proposal to suspend Board seat elections in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The proposal’s details are as follows:

• Any Board seats that are due for an election in 2020 will have their elections suspended through December 31, 2020;

• Elections will resume their schedule according to the LA BOSCOC Governance Charter in 2021 unless further delayed by action of the Board.

The Board voted unanimously to approve the proposal.

Minutes

For more information, including discussion topics which did not receive a vote, please refer to the meeting minutes.

LA BOSCOC Board Outcomes - June 11, 2019

Overview

The Board met by conference call for its regular bimonthly (every other month) meeting.

Attendance

VOTING ATTENDANCE [LISTED AS NAME, ORGANIZATION (SEAT) (ROLE, IF ANY)]

• Winona Connor, Louisiana Housing Corporation (Louisiana Housing Corporation) (Chair)

• Laura Hasenstein, Louisiana Department of Health (Louisiana Department of Health)

• Eric Gammons, Capital Area Alliance for the Homeless (HMIS Lead)

• Antiqua Hunter, Louisiana Department of Education (Louisiana Department of Education)

• Addie Duval, Start Corporation (Baton Rouge Region)

• Tarek Polite, Calcasieu Parish Police Jury (Lake Charles Region)

• Gail Gowland, St. Bernard Battered Women’s Program (Plaquemines/St. Bernard Region)

NON-VOTING ATTENDANCE (LISTED AS NAME, ORGANIZATION, (ROLE, IF ANY)]

• Gordon Levine, Louisiana Housing Corporation (Continuum of Care Manager)

• Terry Hale, Louisiana Housing Corporation (Board Secretary)

CoC Manager Report

The CoC Manager provided an overview that included the following items:

• The Point in Time (PIT) Count;

• The CoC’s System Performance Measures (an overview of project outcomes at the CoC level);

• The CoC does not expect to merge with any other CoCs during calendar year 2019;

• LHC intends to hire an additional CoC Coordinator in the near future; LHC intends for that person to be based in Lake Charles to provide localized support to the Lake Charles and Natchitoches/Sabine Regions.

CoC Program Local Competition

The CoC Manager briefed the Board on LHC’s plans for the Funding Year 2019 (FY 2019) CoC Program Local Competition. Highlights included:

• Several projects have reallocated; as a result, there will be additional new project funding available;

• LHC anticipates that new project funding will be as follows (subject to the actual funding made available by HUD):

  • ~$450,000 available to all Regions for projects that exclusively serve people fleeing domestic violence;

  • ~$400,000 prioritized to Baton Rouge for new rapid re-housing (RRH), permanent supportive housing (PSH), and joint component transitional housing/rapid re-housing (TH-RRH) projects;

  • ~200,000 prioritized to Lake Charles for new RRH, PSH, and TH-RRH projects;

  • LHC will apply for ~$700,000 in new project funding to create Coordinated Entry Access Points in the Houma, Natchitoches/Sabine, and Plaquemines/St. Bernard Regions; to fund the Access Point at the One Stop Homeless Services Center in Baton Rouge; and to fund 1.0 FTEs of a Coordinated Entry Navigator through St. Vincent de Paul of Baton Rouge;

• NOTE: prioritized funding is restricted to Baton Rouge and Lake Charles only insofar as projects that propose to serve those Regions score at least 70 points on their application; if no such projects exist, or if any money remains after such projects are funded, those prioritized funds become available to all projects in all Regions;

• The Scoring Tools and Detailed Instructions will have similar content and substance to last year, but their texts have been drastically simplified (shortened by ~50%).

Vice Chair

The Board was scheduled to elect a new Vice Chair; however, given that many of the Regional seats were not present during that point of the meeting, this election was tabled and scheduled to be held via email.

Board Seat for the Louisiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence

The Board voted unanimously to add a designated seat to the Board for the Louisiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence. This seat will remain in place until the next LA BOSCOC General Meeting, at which time the general membership will need to ratify the seat as part of the LA BOSCOC Governance Charter.

Early Outcomes from Coordinated Entry

The Board discussed early outcomes data for the Coordinated Entry Policies and Procedures v2.0 (CES P&P). Early data indicates that the new mechanisms (30 day wait, Diversion and Intervention required) are working: a comprehensive survey of every person who visited a Coordinated Entry Access Point during April 2019 indicated that nearly half returned to housing with friends, family, or on their own.

The CoC Manager cautioned not to overextend this data, as it requires additional details (breakdowns by subpopulation, especially chronically homeless, youth, and DV) and more data points to be truly predictive.

The Board voted unanimously to recommend to the Coordinated Entry Committee that the Committee consider revising the CES P&P to empower the Board to grant exemptions to portions of the CES P&P for CoC Program projects funded before 2015. The Board voted unanimously to recommend to the Coordinated Entry Committee that the Committee consider not revising the CES P&P to create other ‘loopholes’ for target populations until LHC has aggregated more data.

Options Foundation Waiver of Good Standing

The Board voted to deny Options Foundation’s request for a waiver of the Good Standing requirement for the FY 2019 CoC Program NOFA. The vote roll recorded 1 vote to approve, 3 votes to deny, and 1 abstaining.

Next Board Meeting

The next Board meeting will be held in Baton Rouge and via conference call on Tuesday, August 6, from 1 PM to 3 PM. More information can be found on the LA BOSCOC Events page.

LA BOSCOC Board Outcomes - Week of June 10, 2019

Overview

The Board voted by email throughout the week of June 10, 2019 on several issues.

Attendance

VOTING ATTENDANCE [LISTED AS NAME, ORGANIZATION (SEAT) (ROLE, IF ANY)]

• Laura Hasenstein, Louisiana Department of Health (Louisiana Department of Health)

• Antiqua Hunter, Louisiana Department of Education (Louisiana Department of Education)

• Addie Duval, Start Corporation (Baton Rouge Region)

• Brooke Guidry, Start Corporation (Houma Region)

• Tarek Polite, Calcasieu Parish Police Jury (Lake Charles Region)

• Mitzi Harris, Project Celebration (Natchitoches/Sabine Region)

• Gail Gowland, St. Bernard Battered Women’s Program (Plaquemines/St. Bernard Region)

LA BOSCOC Committee and Attendance List

The Board voted unanimously (7-0) to maintain a public-facing list of the attendance records for all general meetings, committee meetings, and Board meetings retroactive to 2018 and moving forward. This list will also contain information about each organization’s Good Standing status. This list will be maintained by LHC. For more information about Good Standing, please refer to: https://laboscoc.org/good-standing

Coordinated Entry Request for Proposals - One Stop

The Board voted unanimously (6-0) to approve LHC releasing a Request for Proposals (RFP) to fund up to $150,000 in Coordinated Entry activities at the One Stop Homeless Services Center in Baton Rouge, LA through the upcoming Funding Year 2019 Continuum of Care (FY 2019 CoC Program) Competition. This amount will be deducted from the competitive amount prioritized to the Baton Rouge Region. The LA BOSCOC anticipates that there will still be a significant amount of competitive funding available to the Baton Rouge Region.

HUD Technical Assistance: Governance

The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has invited the LA BOSCOC to join a Community of Practice (CoP) related to CoC governance. These CoPs are remote group learning opportunities where multiple CoCs collaborate on sharing best practices and learning from HUD TA providers on a given topic.

This CoP will last roughly 6 months; Addie Duval will attend for the Board and Aundrea Braniff will attend for LHC.

Vice Chair

No members of the Board were nominated for the Vice Chair position. As such, that position will remain open until such time as someone is nominated to fill it.

LA BOSCOC Governance Charter v3.6 Released

Overview

The CoC full membership voted by email between October 17, 2018 and October 31, 2018 to amend the LA BOSCOC Governance Charter to match the details listed here under Option #3: Fewer CoC Full Membership Meetings + New Quarterly Regional Meetings: https://laboscoc.org/new-blog/2018/10/18/la-boscoc-board-outcomes-101818

The vote was cast using the Alternate Voting system described here: https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/voting-systems/types-of-voting-system/alternative-vote/

71% of CoC members in Good Standing (20 out of 28) cast ballots. More than 50% of those ballots ranked Option #3 as their First Preference, meaning that Option #3 was selected without a second round of preference-ranking. The full vote broke down as follows:

Outcomes

Please review the LA BOSCOC Governance Charter v3.6 for the full list of changes.

A general overview of changes is as follows:

• Two meetings of the CoC full membership per year. One will be held in person; one will be held by webinar. (The 2019 in-person meeting will likely be held directly before the April 2019 Statewide Homelessness Conference.)

• Each Region now has a Regional Subcommittee (e.g. the Lake Charles Subcommittee, Natchitoches/Sabine Subcommittee). Each Regional Subcommittee is chaired by that Region’s Board member.

• Good Standing requires each member to belong to at least one Regional Subcommittee. More details on subcommittee registration will be forthcoming soon.

• Good Standing requires members to attend at least 1 meeting of the full membership each year. Reduced from 3.

• Good Standing requires members to attend at least 2 meetings of their Regional Subcommittee each year.

• Regional Subcommittees are required to meet on a quarterly basis.

• Regional Subcommittees are required by the Charter to develop a written regional outreach plan and to coordinate that Region’s PIT Count.

Documents

The LA BOSCOC Governance Charter v3.6 can be found here.

Members in Good Standing

Going forward, the LA BOSCOC will maintain a public list of member organizations in Good Standing.

Members in Good Standing can apply for Letters of Certification to apply for funding from a variety of sources, including the Continuum of Care (CoC) Program and Emergency Solutions Grant (ESG) Program.

The current list of members of Good Standing can be found here: https://laboscoc.org/good-standing/

As always, members that are not in Good Standing can still apply for Letters of Certification if they request and receive a waiver. Waiver request procedures are defined in the LA BOSCOC Governance Charter and can be further defined for specific funding sources; in general, however, waiver requests must be submitted electronically to glevine@lhc.la.gov.

LA BOSCOC Governance Charter Updated

Overview

The LA BOSCOC Governance Charter has been updated to version 3.4. You can download a copy here.

Changelog

Created the Regional Applicants Section

• Each Region can elect a Regional Applicant to apply to funding sources that require a limited number of applications from each Region (for example: ESG, PATH);

Created the Letter of Certification Section

• Specifies when (and for what reason) organizations can request a Letter of Certification to apply for various funding sources;
• Specifies when (and for what reasons) organizations can request a waiver from the Good Standing requirement (organizations cannot receive a Letter of Certification if they are not in Good Standing).

Empowered the Board of Directors to create additional Good Standing requirements

• The Board can now create additional Good Standing requirements without needing to amend the LA BOSCOC Governance Charter