This implementation recommendation is designed to 1. reduce the amount of time and stress clients need to spend accessing help, 2. provide a culturally comfortable “one front door” for different populations, 3. avoid duplication and spend effectively by leveraging the unique strengths of different organizations.
La Luz Center already has the role, and should increase its capacity for this role, of being the culturally welcoming “front door” for housing-related services for Spanish speakers in Sonoma Valley. Especially in this time of persecution of immigrants, when people in need are afraid even to seek help, it is crucially important that Sonoma Valley have a safe, familiar, welcoming environment in which to provide holistic, wraparound help and comfort to families and individuals. Providing this safe front door is a role by itself, comprising the staff-intensive tasks of intake, conversation/education, and assistance applying for multiple outside services and resources. La Luz currently helps people get rental assistance from FISH, provides some housing navigation and rental assistance, and hosts staff from Legal Aid and Catholic Charities to provide other services during limited hours each week. LL does not provide wraparound housing services at the level envisioned here.
Partnership Health Plan of California (MediCal) offers rental assistance and other financial assistance for MediCal beneficiaries through their CalAIM Pilot Program (CA Advancing and Innovating MediCal). Their Community Supports project under CalAIM offers financial assistance, housing navigation, and deposit assistance, among other programs. Referral forms are available on the website. Partnership may become both a model for wraparound housing navigation and a potential source of funding for such services in the near future, especially as other government entities try to cut back budget allocations to housing solutions.
Catholic Charities (CC) should increasingly become the front door for housing-related services, for English speakers (though it also serves Spanish speakers). CC is by far the largest provider of housing and homelessness services in Northern California. CC has had only a small role in Sonoma Valley in the past, out of its respect for local organizations, but the need far exceeds what local organizations can provide. CC’s well-tested operational systems, administrative back-end, ability to fundraise will serve Sonoma Valley well. CC recently took on day-to-day operations of the Homeless Action Sonoma village. CC’s pioneering “master leasing” capacity (see above under Housing Navigation) could complement the SVCDC.
FISH should continue providing rental assistance payments as part of its provision of basic needs. For its rental assistance program, FISH should increasingly out-source client intake and evaluation/prioritization to LL and CC, to avoid duplicating those tasks and to integrate those tasks into the more holistic service that LL and CC can provide. We recommend that FISH tell LL and CC how many households, and how many dollars, they can each refer to FISH per month. Of the organizations listed here, FISH has the greatest capacity to fund rental assistance, but has a bottleneck at the intake stage because FISH is all-volunteer and does not have Spanish/Latino/Hispanic language or cultural competency.
Legal Aid of Sonoma County should continue and expand its provision of legal services to multiple Sonoma Valley-serving nonprofits. Its expertise is essential, although only a minority of clients require it. LASC is the County’s largest provider of legal services for low-income residents, especially on housing issues.