PORT ANGELES — The Clallam County commissioners are looking into whether the county should rethink how the Consolidated Homeless Grant — a large funding source for Serenity House of Clallam County — is dispersed in Clallam County.
Due to a short deadline on whether the county should “opt in” on the $1.3 million Department of Commerce grant, county commissioners decided to maintain status quo on Tuesday by opting out.
Every two years, the state Department of Commerce selects an administrator for the Consolidated Homeless Grant, which historically has been Serenity House of Clallam County, but the county has always had the option of administering the funds itself.
Andy Brastad, director of the county Department of Health and Human Services, told commissioners Monday that staff has checked with three comparable counties — Mason, Grays Harbor and Pacific counties — each of which have chosen to administer the funds themselves in recent years.
“The common themes among the three that we heard from was they wanted more information and they wanted more control over the monitoring of the funds and programs,” Brastad said. “They felt you needed to have an adequate transition to work out the things between the parties involved.”
Brastad said the three counties described the transition process for each those counties as a “delicate” process that takes about a year.
Kim Yacklin, the assistant director for the county Department of Health and Human Services, said the transition could allow for the system to work more holistically.
“Really, the only con that each of them talked about is that transition period,” Yacklin said.
She said that because the deadline for the county to “opt in” was Friday that the county should opt out for now but learn more to make an informed decision in two years.
Commissioner Randy Johnson told members of the county’s Homelessness Task Force on Tuesday that he would like a recommendation on how the county should move forward.
“Most other counties have brought it internally, but I don’t know the right answer,” Johnson said.
“Kitsap does it this way, Mason does it some other way and Skagit does it a third way.”
The county’s Homelessness Task Force is already charged with making a recommendation to the Board of County Commissioners for how the county should disperse monies from the county’s homeless funds.
This year there were some changes in the process, including extending the funding cycle to 30 months rather than a yearly cycle and an interview process was added for agencies requesting funding.
During this funding cycle Serenity House — one of eight agencies requesting money — asked for more money than was available.
The committee is recommending Serenity House receive a little more than half of total funding that is available.
The rest of the funding was spread among the other requests that support those fleeing domestic violence/sexual assault, veterans programs and youth programs, Mary Hogan, chair of the task force said in a draft report.
“It doesn’t make sense to fund only one entity as they don’t serve everyone,” she wrote. “Until we can get a clear picture of where Serenity House is spending their funding from Commerce, which is explicit with what those funds can be used for, we cannot rationalize funding more than 50 percent of total funding.”
Serenity House asked for $115,284 for repairs, of which it is recommended to receive $59,800. The account had $212,500 available and there were more than $400,000 in requests.
Serenity House also asked for $1.8 million to support shelters and coordinated entry, but the committee recommended the nonprofit should receive $818,500. There was $1.25 million available in that account and more than $2.3 million in requests.
The committee’s top priorities for funding included coordinated entry, shelters and support services. There were 21 proposals from eight agencies.
Serenity House requested funding for coordinated entry, the night by night shelter, the family shelter, and a Sequim shelter van. The group recommended not to fund the van.
The Board of County Commissioners will likely discuss the recommendations at their Jan. 28 work session.
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Reporter Jesse Major can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56250, or at jmajor@peninsuladailynews.com.
