SHARE IDEAS FOR RATING HELP FOR HOMELESS
Group seeks input on new ways to document progress
It’s a question that has vexed school districts, prison systems and disaster relief organizations: When many variables are at play and every person served is different, how do you measure success?
The same issue applies to groups addressing homelessness.
In response, one local watchdog has created a proposal to streamline how progress is reported, and the group is now looking for public input. The San Diego Taxpayers Educational Foundation has released two documents on its website in hopes that anyone with a stake in the growing crisis can offer suggestions on how services should be evaluated.
The request comes at a time when the number of people falling into homelessness regularly outpaces how many get housed and some cities, including San Diego and Poway, have moved to more forcefully clear encampments.
Dozens of groups around the region are working to alleviate the problem. But what information is publicly shared, and how it’s presented, can depend on where an organization works and how it’s funded.
The foundation’s methods are still a ways from being adopted countywide, and cities, shelters and other groups will need to buy in.
Proponents have argued that the approach could ease a provider’s workload by replacing at least some of the paperwork currently required by local, state and federal agencies.
“By focusing on trustbuilding and transparency, we can ensure fair program evaluations,” Rick Gentry, a former top official with the San Diego Housing Commission, said in a statement.
Gentry is a member of the Public Regional Outcomes Standards Board, or PROS Board, an arm of the taxpayers foundation working to improve how anyone trying to advance the public good is graded.
Comments must be sent by Aug. 22.
El Cajon’s city manager said the discussion was overdue.
“I think there’s tremendous value as a region to have uniformity in how all service providers are providing data,” said Graham Mitchell. “If we’re ever going to move the needle forward, we need to pull in the same direction.”
The head of one of San Diego’s main shelters said he was mainly concerned that this wouldn’t so much replace as add hoops to jump through.
“We have too many layers of bureaucracy,” said Bob McElroy, president and CEO of the Alpha Project.
The PROS Board previously announced several standards that could be applied to homelessness providers, and one focusing on outcomes illustrates the complexities at play.
The standard says providers should say how many people who finish a given program later return to homelessness. Simple, right?
Yet if large organizations report how many go back to the streets, they should perhaps
also give what ZIP codes they’re working in, because failing to permanently house people in one area may just reflect a lack of available units, the board wrote. Plus, perhaps the only uniform way to check if someone is again living outside is to see if they pop back up in the region’s Homeless Management Information System, which could omit those who choose, for example, to camp by a riverbed without telling anyone.
The first document the public can weigh in on attempts to quantify “public good” through several benchmarks, including how many people an organization interacts with, program enrollment totals and the number who make it into permanent housing.
The second shows a draft of the form homelessness providers would fill out.
Comments can be sent through sdcta.org/prosboard-homelessness or emailed to “sdprosboard@sdcta.org.” Messages should include the reference number “2023ED-009.”
Letters can be mailed to Research and Technical Director, Serial Reference No. 2023-ED-009, San Diego Public Regional Outcomes Standards Board, San Diego Taxpayers Educational Foundation, 2508 Historic Decatur Road, San Diego, CA 92106.
Submissions will be public and posted on sdcta.org/ sdprosboard.