These recommendations respond to this particular point in time. The next three years are expected to bring: 

• Extreme and increasing need for help for low-income people and Latino households, regardless of immigration status, because of cuts to virtually all safety net programs, and because of the threat of widespread detention and deportation of people who are, or appear to be, immigrants

• Less government funding allocated to nonprofits that provide services

The recommendations are designed to: 

• Respond to the extreme and increasing need by expanding the amount of housing-related services provided

• Provide culturally comfortable “front doors” for different populations 

• Increase coordination and info sharing among organizations, so that all services can be provided through any “front door”

• Avoid duplication and spend effectively by leveraging the unique strengths of different organizations

Recommended Ecosystem of Housing-Related Service Providers Serving Sonoma Valley

Note that all the nonprofits listed provide many other related services, such as assistance with utility bills, mental and physical health referrals, food, casework, education on the rights and responsibilities of being a tenant or landlord, and more. 

The next three years are likely to see a level of need among lower-income tenants similar to the COVID pandemic. Extraordinary measures are warranted. SVC recommends that:

• Donors, funders, and volunteers be as generous as they possibly can. The current threat of detention and deportation creates different conditions for service providers. This work is enormously staff-intensive, so donors and funders should recognize that funding staff is crucial. To protect the people they serve, nonprofits often cannot tell compelling individual stories about many of their clients, or provide heart-warming photos of them. Donors and philanthropy should use their leverage to encourage cross-organization information-sharing, referral systems that play to each organizations’ strengths, and, where possible, combined reporting.

• Organizations share more information with each other and coordinate even more than they do now, so that more people can be helped per dollar, with less time and paperwork. The nonprofits could form a working group to develop information-sharing systems. 

• The desired outcomes of such a working group would be:

• Every intake worker can triage cases accurately and make highly informed referral decisions

• Each nonprofit takes the cases they are a best fit for so that funds and time are spent most effectively, for example, making maximum use of FISH’s free, all-volunteer workforce, while referring complex cases to professionals like lawyers at Legal Aid or Sonoma Immigrant Services or behavioral health specialists at Catholic Charities

• This type of joint problem-solving system has succeeded in the realms of food insecurity and homeless services in Sonoma Valley recently. Using a data-sharing system to share information would help everyone involved: clients, funders, and providers. Such systems already exist and are used by some of the organizations. 

• Providers develop systems for staying up to date, in detail and in real time, about the services they and others are providing. Sharing this information will help each organization properly refer clients. 

• The types of referrals each organization wants to receive

• How much aid or other resources each organization has available to distribute

• Each organization’s criteria for limiting or awarding help

• Which organizations a client has requested help from and when

• Whether a given organization has already helped a particular client

• Providers share information about the people they serve. To protect clients’ privacy, clients can sign a standard, simple form (such as one in use by Secure Families Collaborative) showing what types of information they give their permission to be shared between which organizations. HomeFirst is currently testing a potential solution. The ultimate example of information sharing is the Sonoma Valley by-names list used by homeless services providers, managed by HomeFirst, which successfully focuses multiple organizations and services on resolving individual cases. Organizations could consider moving toward organizing their housing services around a by-names list of the most precariously housed households in Sonoma Valley. If multiple organizations agree to collaborate more, they could hire a third-party compliance contractor and then local staff can focus more on understanding and meeting needs than on paperwork. 

• Organizations work together regarding landlords and property management companies. HomeFirst is recruiting and supporting landlords so that more units are available to higher-risk renters. SHARE has had good success finding interested homeowners and landlords, including mobilehomes. FISH talks to every landlord before they issue a check, so they have many landlord relationships. There’s a need to track and engage older landlords who charge low rents, so that when they pass on, their rentals can continue to be affordable. Organizations should work together to leverage and expand that network of landlords. They can also work from a shared list of interested landlords and available bedrooms, apartments, and houses. Property management companies likewise should be engaged by the organizations in a coordinated fashion, to improve application processes.

• Housing navigators share data across organizations about the multiple application fees charged to low-income renters, and the upfront costs charged by landlords (see strategy Rental Registry). These fees appear to be high, and shared data could be the basis for a future campaign to limit fees or charge a fee only once.

• Organizations learn from each other and readily adopt practices from each other. Meeting people’s needs must come first; pride of ownership must come second. Every organization mentioned here has profoundly dedicated staff and a worthy mission. For example, La Luz’s new group of promotoras, who go out to apartment buildings and neighborhoods to bring information about services to people who are too wary to come to La Luz’s site, is similar to HomeFirst’s street outreach program. Each could likely help the other in terms of procedures, record-keeping, and referral. Another example: The bigger nonprofits have capacities we need locally, while local organizations have connections we treasure, to clients, volunteers, and donors. 

• The nonprofits consider creating a “risk-mitigation fund,” allowing housing service providers to tap into a shared pool of money that could compensate them if a tenant ultimately does not pay rent or causes damage.