DATE: June 21, 2016
TO: Mayor and City Council
FROM: Director of Library and Community Services
SUBJECT:
Preliminary Analysis of the 2-1-1 System in Alameda County
RECOMMENDATION
That Council directs the City Manager to work in partnership with Eden I&R to develop a capacity building plan that helps position Eden I&R for maximum competitiveness in today’s technological market, and specifically to help Eden I&R prepare for the upcoming county-wide Request for Proposals for the Coordinated Entry System (CES) opportunity described in this report.
SUMMARY
On April 19, 2016, the Community Services Commission (CSC) recommended and Council preliminarily approved a $40,000 Social Services grant (General Fund) in FY 2017 to Eden I&R to help support operations of the Alameda County 2-1-1 system. A link to the April 19, 2016 Council report, supporting materials, and video of the proceedings can be found here <https://hayward.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=2691919&GUID=C757783E-20EC-4E8D-9458-B2C1B7B3FC49&Options=&Search=>.
At the above noted meeting, a representative from Eden I&R requested that the Council consider increasing the CSC-recommended grant amount from $40,000 to $50,000.
Also during the April 19 meeting, the chairperson of the CSC subcommittee that developed the Social Services funding recommendations, provided to Council additional insight into the CSC’s deliberation process that led to the $40,000 recommendation.
At that time, Council directed staff to initiate a broader analysis that engages Eden I&R and other stakeholders in a deeper discussion about the success and productivity of the 2-1-1 system in Alameda County. Staff subsequently held a series of meetings with representatives from Eden I&R with this goal in mind, and to hear their specific funding concerns in more detail. The results of the preliminary analysis are presented in this report, followed by a description of next steps.
BACKGROUND
Brief history of the 2-1-1 system in Alameda County
In December 2003, nonprofit agency Eden I&R applied for and was issued a 2-1-1 provider designation by the California Public Utilities Commission. Over the next four years, representatives from Eden I&R brought together fifteen local government jurisdictions in Alameda County, as well as some county departments, corporations, and foundations, in a leveraged funding plan to implement a 2-1-1 system in Alameda County, with Eden I&R as the service provider.
Eden I&R’s Executive Director, Barbara Bernstein, made multiple presentations in 2003 and subsequent years to representatives from each of the jurisdictions about the proposed 2-1-1 system and its goals for Alameda County. Once the individual jurisdictions were informed, Ms. Bernstein then began presenting the proposal to City Manager’s Association and Mayor’s Conference meetings. Through these coordinated meetings, the concept of a leveraged funding plan based on each city’s population was initially agreed upon.
Adherence to the population-based plan has waned over time. Funding contributions by the various jurisdictions have remained static and in some cases have decreased since the system first started. Eden I&R annually submits separate funding requests to each jurisdiction. Each individual jurisdiction annually determines its own funding “share” independently of the other jurisdictions.
There is no written agreement between the jurisdictions concerning joint funding or oversight of the 2-1-1 system, nor is there any objective or agreed upon formula used to determine each jurisdiction’s “share” of the cost. Each respective jurisdiction independently applies its own standards to determine whether to contribute a “share” of the cost at all, and if so, how much their “share” will be.
Some jurisdictions in the County do not currently contribute anything toward the cost of 2-1-1. Some jurisdictions contribute far more funding on a per-capita basis than others. Meanwhile, Eden I&R indicates that costs to operate the 2-1-1 system have understandably increased significantly in staffing, overhead, and needed technological upgrades.
Brief review of 2-1-1 systems in the Bay Area region
In California, 2-1-1 designations are issued by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), and 2-1-1 systems are serviced by various providers that are usually selected at the county level. The various providers in Bay Area counties operate various call centers and maintain multiple databases, and have varying levels of technological capabilities.
Staff conducted a preliminary analysis of 2-1-1 systems in the greater Bay Area region to identify the service providers and the basic user-side technological features they make available to callers. The following table provides a brief overview of the 2-1-1 providers in the greater Bay Area region and their basic technology capabilities in addition to phone service.
Table 1. List of 2-1-1 providers in the greater Bay Area region. Source: California Alliance of Information and Referral Services (CAIRS)
Location Service Provider Online Chat /Text?
2-1-1 Alameda County Eden I & R no
2-1-1 Contra Costa County Contra Costa Crisis Center no
2-1-1 Marin County United Way of the Bay Area yes
2-1-1 Mendocino County United Way of the Wine Country no
2-1-1 Monterey County United Way of Monterey no
2-1-1 Napa County United Way of the Bay Area yes
2-1-1 San Francisco United Way of the Bay Area yes
2-1-1 San Mateo County United Way of the Bay Area yes
2-1-1 Santa Clara County United Way of the Bay Area yes
2-1-1 Santa Cruz County United Way of Santa Cruz no
2-1-1 Solano County United Way of the Bay Area yes
2-1-1 Sonoma County The Volunteer Center no
Deeper analysis of the various 2-1-1 systems in use in the Bay Area, including identification of best practices, funding sources, and technology systems, is currently underway by staff and is anticipated to be completed and reported to Council in December 2016.
Eden I&R system overview
Eden I&R has operated the 2-1-1 system in Alameda County since 2007. As indicated above, it was conceived and funded as a sole provider without any competitive proposal process. The 2-1-1 system provides a toll-free, non-emergency, confidential call center where callers in Alameda County can receive information and referrals to multiple resources including housing, health, and human services.
The 2-1-1 phone service operates twenty-four hours per day, seven days per week. Eden I&R reports that the 2-1-1 system answers and refers approximately 100,000 calls annually county-wide (Average: approximately 8,300 calls per month). Call volume often exceeds the available staffing levels, resulting in approximately 800 unanswered calls per month. Eden I&R reports that some of these callers likely call back, but they do not currently have the capacity to track call-back rates. Tracking call-back rates is not currently required in the City of Hayward’s contract with Eden I&R; however, it potentially could be useful data for analytical purposes.
2-1-1 calls are answered by Resource Specialists who are paid at or above Hayward living wage rates of $11.95 per hour with benefits or $13.82 an hour without benefits. Resource Specialists have varied work backgrounds and experience, and all are professionally trained in information and referral services. They are not trained as crisis counselors or case managers. The City’s contract with Eden I&R does not require training in crisis counseling or case management - only information and referral. Resource Specialists are trained to identify when 2-1-1 callers need crisis counseling or case management services, and their protocol directs them to refer these callers to the appropriate services.
Eden I&R currently has up to twenty-two lines available for answering incoming calls. The ability to staff those lines depends on available funding and personnel capacity at a given point in time. The typical 2-1-1 call averages between two to five minutes in length, but on some occasions a call can last longer, up to an hour or more.
With its current outdated technological system, when Eden I&R directly transfers a 2-1-1 caller to another agency, the transferred call continues to “bridge” through one of Eden I&R’s available phone lines, keeping that line busy for the entire duration of the transferred call. During the time the line is kept busy with a transferred call, it cannot be used to receive another incoming 2-1-1 call.
Separately from the 2-1-1 system, Eden I&R also offers specialized information and referral services to various programs and agencies on contract. For example, Eden I&R receives separate funding to provide after-hours call center services for clients of Child Protective Services, Adult Protective Services, Foster Care Placement, and Public Guardian. Another specialized service for which Eden I&R receives separate funding is a “roving department” of specialists who go out to meet directly with targeted populations, for example Section 8 clients who need assistance with referrals to housing opportunities.
Eden I&R also produces and sells its reference book of Alameda County resource listings, The Big Blue Book. Eden I&R representatives indicate that the sales of The Big Blue Book generate additional unrestricted revenue for the nonprofit’s operations.
Eden I&R Financial Overview
Eden I&R reports an annual operating budget of $1.9 million. The 2-1-1 program comprises approximately $1.5 million of that total.
In the course of administering Eden I&R’s FY 2016 contract with the City, staff reviewed Eden I&R’s independent fiscal audit for FY 2014. The audit showed end-of-year net assets totaling $1,301,325, a slight decrease over the $1,379,136 previous end-of-year net assets. The audit showed ninety-four percent of end-of-year net assets in unrestricted funds.
As reported above, when Eden I&R began providing 2-1-1 within Alameda County, there was a consensus that the funding would be provided by all fifteen jurisdictions according to population. However, there is no written agreement by and between the jurisdictions in regard to funding of the 2-1-1 system. Eden I&R annually approaches each individual jurisdiction to request funds. As shown in the table below provided by Eden I&R, funding levels are no longer based on population or other objective criteria, and can vary greatly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
Table 2. Eden I&R / 2-1-1 Funding by Jurisdiction.
Data source: Eden I&R
City 12-13 13-14 14-15 15-16 Pop.* %of Pop.
San Leandro $10,000 $25,000 $25,000 $25,000 90,712 5.54%
Union City $10,000 $10,000 $10,000 $10,000 74,494 4.55%
Fremont $0 $10,000 $10,223 $10,840 232,206 14.17%
Oakland*** $100,000 $125,000*** $120,000*** $120,000*** 419,267 25.59%
Berkeley $35,000 $35,000 $35,000 $35,000 120,972 7.38%
Pleasanton† $15,000 $16,000 $17,000 $0† 79,510 4.85%
Dublin $10,000 $10,000 $10,000 $10,000 57,721 3.52%
Livermore $5,000 $15,000 $15,000 $15,000 88,126 5.39%
Hayward $50,000 $50,000 $50,000 $50,000 158,289 9.66%
Alameda City $25,000 $25,000 $25,000 $22,000 78,630 4.80%
Albany $5,000 $5,000 $5,000 $5,000 19,735 1.20%
Emeryville $5,000 $5,000 $5,000 $5,000 11,694 0.71%
Newark $15,000 $15,000 $15,000 $15,000 45,336 2.77%
Piedmont $5,000 $5,000 $5,000 $5,000 11,376 0.69%
Ala Co HCD‡ $45,000 $45,000 $45,000 $0‡ 150,147 9.17%
Alameda County** ** ** ** ** 1,638,215 100.00%
* Per 2014 Census Data.
** Alameda County provides funds for more than 2-1-1 Services and staff is still in the process of breaking this information out by services.
*** Oakland provided additional funding to Eden I&R each of these years for specialized services above and beyond the basic 2-1-1 service, to provide Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) information countywide, and Bank On Oakland information city-wide. The additional funds are included in the totals listed for these years.
† Pleasanton did not fund 2-1-1 for one year because the agency missed a deadline due to a former staff person’s negligence. Pleasanton will be funding 2-1-1 in FY 2017.
‡ Alameda County Housing and Community Development Department had been supporting the 2-1-1 calls from the Unincorporated Areas of the county at the $45,000 level for years. The same former Eden I&R employee that caused no funding in Pleasanton also missed a mandatory meeting for HCD funding, which resulted in no funding from this department in FY2016.
Notation source: Barbara Bernstein, Eden I&R Executive Director
Eden I&R provides regular reports on the volume of 2-1-1 calls and their cities of origin. The reports show that Oakland’s 2-1-1 call volume is four times higher than Hayward’s. In the first three quarters of FY 2016, Oakland had 34,787 calls, compared to Hayward which had only 8,429 calls. Oakland has four times greater call volume and nearly three times greater population than Hayward; but in FY 2016 and preceding years, the City of Oakland contributed only two times more funding to 2-1-1 than Hayward contributed.
The City of Fremont has a significantly larger population than Hayward. Fremont’s population is approximately 230,000 compared to Hayward’s approximately 150,000. In FY 2016 and preceding years, Hayward contributed five times more funding to 2-1-1 than Fremont contributed. Fremont has a lower call volume than Hayward, but it is unclear to what extent the 2-1-1 system is publicized in Fremont compared to the strong presence it has in Oakland and Hayward.
The City of Union City has 50% the population of Hayward, yet has contributed only 20% as much funding to 2-1-1 as Hayward has contributed. The City of Pleasanton has over 50% the population of Hayward, yet has contributed only 34% as much funding as Hayward has contributed.
The above examples are illustrative of the risks and inequities inherent in the current system and practices used to assemble funding for the county-wide 2-1-1 system. With no formal agreement or coordination by and between the fifteen jurisdictions in the County served by 2-1-1, and with all the responsibility left to the nonprofit service provider to identify and secure ongoing funding from the jurisdictions year after year, subjective comparisons and missteps such as the ones outlined above will likely continue to occur, and to adversely impact the long-term fiscal stability of the 2-1-1 system in Alameda County.
DISCUSSION
There is little doubt that most professionals involved with services to the community hold 2-1-1 services as an extremely valuable tool in the arsenal of responding to human needs in the County. However, that service needs to be solidly funded and staffed, have up-to-date technology that seamlessly interfaces with service providers and others, and operational systems that support the wide variety of calls for services they receive. With this in mind, staff held a series of discussions with representatives from Eden I&R to share ideas and concerns and to explore opportunities in more detail. The discussions were in addition to the regular communications and exchanges of information that occur in the natural course of administering and monitoring Eden I&R’s service contracts with the City each year.
The main purpose of these supplemental discussions was to identify opportunities and potential improvements in the 2-1-1 system. The discussions also led to evaluating the benefits of conducting a broader analysis of the 2-1-1 system in Hayward and Alameda County in order to identify strategies and next steps for potential enhancements to the 2-1-1 system’s operational and fiscal sustainability county-wide. In the course of these initial discussions, several opportunity areas were identified within the current 2-1-1 system in Alameda County. They are described in the sections that follow.
Opportunity Areas
• Call transfer capabilities. With its current technological system, when Eden I&R directly transfers a 2-1-1 caller to another agency, the transferred call continues to “bridge” through one of Eden I&R’s available phone lines, keeping that line busy for the entire duration of the transferred call. During the time the line is kept busy with a transferred call, it cannot be used to receive another incoming 2-1-1 call. Eden I&R’s current system capacity is twenty-two lines. Therefore in most referral instances, 2-1-1 Resource Specialists do not transfer calls, but instead provide referrals and contact information to the caller, then give the caller the responsibility to hang up and place separate calls to the agency or agencies to which they have been referred.
One outcome of this arrangement is that Eden I&R cannot confirm if the caller completed the second call or was connected to the appropriate resource. This data is not currently required in the City’s contract with Eden I&R, but it potentially would be useful data for the purpose of system analysis, if it could be collected; and it is certainly in keeping with best practices in client services. There is little doubt that for extremely low-income callers, such as homeless individuals, the direction to hang up and place a second call can create a barrier in that these individuals sometimes do not have the resources to place the call to the referred agency themselves.
• Emergency (9-1-1) Calls. As noted above, Eden I&R’s current technological system “bridges” transferred calls through an Eden I&R phone line which is then kept busy for the duration of the transferred call. When Eden I&R transfers emergency calls to 9-1-1, the 9-1-1 dispatch system shows the call as originating from the Eden I&R phone number and address, not the caller’s phone number and address. Eden I&R does not transfer calls directly to 9-1-1, but encourages the caller to hang up and dial 9-1-1. However, in some cases, the 2-1-1 Resource Specialist will keep the caller on the line while another 2-1-1 resource specialist places a second call to 9-1-1 on the caller’s behalf, committing two staff persons and two lines to connect the caller to the primary resource, 9-1-1.
• Planned Technology Enhancements. Eden I&R reports that it is seeking to migrate its calling and database systems to more up-to-date technology. The planned new database and call system would automatically connect calls to database files, create more robust reports from the demographics and caller data entered by Resource Specialists, and other features. The planned new system is cloud-based, which is advantageous due to the much larger available data storage, processing capacity, and real-time data updates, but it would come with new ongoing server hosting and maintenance costs in addition to the one-time capital improvement costs. At this time, Eden I&R reports that limited elements of the new technology are being phased in.
• Data tracking and reporting capabilities. Eden I&R’s current technology systems track caller locations by zip code. Tracking caller addresses on a more granular level (e.g., by census tracts), while not currently required in the City’s contract with Eden I&R, would be useful data for federal funding eligibility purposes. Certain types of federal funding require a more detailed level of tracking in order to qualify for funding eligibility, especially for funding sources like Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) which may only be used for low-income residents or services provided in low-income census tracts, and which also comes with stringent tracking and reporting requirements.
• Federal funding eligibility. The City of Hayward’s CDBG program is locally administered and federally overseen by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. According to the HUD representative who oversees the City’s CDBG program, City of Hayward CDBG Entitlement funds cannot be used for the County’s 2-1-1 service as it is currently structured because the system operated by Eden I&R does not currently track individual caller residences or incomes; does not track individual call duration or per-unit call cost; nor does Eden I&R maintain records that demonstrate that the qualifying service providers to which they refer callers meet certain federal requirements. This opportunity area could potentially be resolved with enhancements to Eden I&R’s technology, data, and work flow systems.
• Coordination of funding and oversight by and between local jurisdictions. As mentioned elsewhere in this report, there is no written or verbal agreement by and between the fifteen jurisdictions for funding or oversight of the 2-1-1 system in Alameda County. Each jurisdiction decides independently of the others what amount of funding it will contribute to the 2-1-1 system, if any. There is no coordinated accountability system of the system’s needs or performance in such areas as performance indicators, evaluation, or oversight by the jurisdictions it serves. It is cause for some concern that such a critically important system is administered without any formal coordination or agreement between the jurisdictions served by it.
When the 2-1-1 system was first developed in the years 2003-2007, it was verbally agreed that each jurisdiction would contribute a share of funding according to population, but that agreement was not captured in writing and is not currently in practice. The lack of formal coordination or agreed-upon written standards among the jurisdictions has contributed to the current arrangement of disparate funding contributions that vary greatly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. In addition, while Eden I&R does a sound job of self-reporting to each funding agency, there is no standard set of performance criteria applied across the system.
The above-noted opportunity areas are merely a preliminary analysis and do not cover the full extent of potential opportunity areas for the 2-1-1 system in Alameda County. Staff recommends that all of the above opportunity areas be more fully explored in partnership with Eden I&R; and that technical assistance continues to be provided by staff to Eden I&R in the course of their FY 2017 funding contract, with the goal of developing strategies for identifying and implementing system enhancements. Staff further recommends implementing two key strategies identified during the preliminary analysis:
Opportunity: Alameda County Coordinated Entry System (CES)
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has mandated that Alameda County implement a Coordinated Entry System (CES) for HUD funded services including shelters, case management, and homeless services. The CES will be based on the current Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) database that is currently used by many service providers; however, the coordinated entry process will operate through a single intake service and individuals will be referred to services based on a prioritization methodology now being developed.
The CES implementation process will be administered in Alameda County by the EveryOne Home Continuum of Care. It is anticipated that EveryOne Home will release a competitive Request for Proposals (RFP) within the next six to nine months seeking an agency to serve as the CES system provider. Eden I&R has indicated that it intends to submit a proposal in response to the RFP.
Should Eden I&R win the contract and take on the CES role for Alameda County, it would lead to a significant increase in call volume that would far exceed Eden I&R’s current call-taking capacity. As noted elsewhere in this report, Eden I&R currently lacks the staffing capacity to answer all the incoming 2-1-1 calls it receives now. According to call data provided by Eden I&R, approximately 9% of incoming 2-1-1 calls are unanswered. Should Eden I&R assume the CES role for Alameda County, it would require a rapid and significant ramping-up of staffing and technological capacity by Eden I&R (This would also likely be true for any other agency that responds to the RFP).
The additional CES calls also would increase the data entry workload of Eden I&R’s Resource Specialists, who would be required to input caller data into the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) in addition to the current 2-1-1 database system. This would require that Resource Specialists receive additional specialized training and privacy certifications in HMIS, and take additional time during calls to make more detailed case notes.
Eden I&R could potentially be more competitive in the CES provider RFP if its incoming calls could be directly transferred to the appropriate agencies without a call transfer “bridge.” This would decrease the load on existing lines, and resolve concerns that homeless callers to CES might not have the funds to place a referred follow up call.
Staff recommends that in order to maximize competitiveness for the RFP, Eden I&R should proactively address as many of the above noted opportunity areas as possible. Should Council so direct, staff is able to render technical assistance to Eden I&R as a current City-funded agency to help them in these preparatory efforts, and this course of action is recommended by staff.
Opportunity: Increased coordination of 2-1-1 services in Alameda County
As noted in the Background section of this report, there is no formal agreement by and between the fifteen Alameda County jurisdictions for coordinated oversight and funding of the 2-1-1 system. Funding provided to support the 2-1-1 system is determined by individual jurisdictions independently of the others using varied and disparate methods. Over the years, the jurisdictions’ funding allocations to 2-1-1 have generally remained flat or in some cases have declined.
2-1-1 is a vital and critically important service to the community of Hayward and Alameda County as a whole. The current method of patchwork funding is neither financially equitable nor operationally sustainable. It is recommended that City staff initiate a deeper discussion among the jurisdictions and the County of Alameda about taking a coordinated approach to oversight and funding of the 2-1-1 service.
In light of the county-wide collaborative oversight and funding processes that will be implemented for the upcoming HUD-mandated CES call center, the opportunity may exist through that process to establish a county-wide agreement for shared oversight and funding of the 2-1-1 system. Staff recommends further exploration of this potential opportunity, with the goal of establishing a formal agreement between the fifteen jurisdictions for ongoing funding and oversight of the 2-1-1 system.
ECONOMIC IMPACT
On April 19, 2016, the Community Services Commission (CSC) recommended and Council authorized the preliminary FY 2017 Social Services grant allocations to local nonprofit agencies, pending final approval of the FY 2017 General Fund budget. The preliminary allocations recommended by the CSC and approved by Council included $40,000 to Eden I&R for 2-1-1 operations.
Representatives from Eden I&R requested that Council award an additional $10,000 to Eden I&R in FY 2017 in order to achieve “maintenance of funding.” Council asked staff to work with Eden I&R to explore the feasibility of the request, while acknowledging that resources are limited and the FY 2017 General Fund Operating Budget, from which any additional allocation would be sourced, is projected to have a deficit of $4.5 million in FY 2017.
Eden I&R reports a total operating budget for the 2-1-1 system of approximately $1.5 million. If Council awards an additional allocation of $10,000, it would increase Eden I&R’s 2-1-1 total operating budget by approximately six-tenths of one percent (0.6%) recognizing that all sources of funding for the agency may not be applicable to this calculation (i.e., some may not apply directly to the “call center” functions of the Agency).
NEXT STEPS
In light of the recommendations and hard work of the Community Services Commission, it is difficult to recommend adding an additional $10,000 of General Fund dollars to the Social Services pot to fund Eden I&R at their requested level of $50,000. This is made more difficult in that it is hard to justify adding money to one agency but not others, since almost all applicants could use and should have more funding. In addition, as this more in-depth exploration of the operational needs of Eden I&R demonstrates, the agency needs to upgrade technology and systems in order to be competitive and to offer services at an improved, “best practices” level. Staff is also sensitive to the history and long-term service Eden I&R has with and to the community of Hayward. However, based on all the evidence, staff cannot recommend adding additional funds to the FY 2017 Eden I&R contract at this time.
Rather, staff recommends the City of Hayward seeks professional consultant services to explore and possibly develop a county-wide needs assessment and strategy paper with recommendations for joint funding and oversight of the 2-1-1 service by the fifteen jurisdictions in Alameda County. And, in the meantime, staff will work in partnership with Eden I&R to develop a capacity building plan that could help Eden I&R position themselves for maximum competitiveness in today’s technological market; and specifically to help Eden I&R prepare for the upcoming county-wide Request for Proposals for the Coordinated Entry System (CES) opportunity described in this report.
Prepared by: Rachael McNamara, Administrative Analyst
Dawn Jaeger, Community Services Manager
Recommended by: Sean Reinhart, Director of Library & Community Services
Approved by:
____________________________
Fran David, City Manager