Item:
Title
Approval of Budget Ordinance Amendment No. 21BCC000095 - Utilizing $465,920 of Contingency Set Aside Funds for COVID-19 to Extend Contract with Reinvestment Partners for Non-Congregate Homeless Housing at the Carolina Duke Inn
Body
Date of BOCC Meeting: March 8, 2021
Request for Board Action:
Agenda Text
The Board is requested to approve Budget Ordinance Amendment No. 21BCC000095 appropriating $465,920 of contingency set aside funds for a three month (April - June 2021) extension of the County’s contract with Reinvestment Partners for provision of non-congregate homeless housing at the Carolina Duke Inn.
The original contract with Reinvestment Partners was for $450,600 for October through December. A first amendment and extension for January through March was approved in December with an additional $400,000, and this extension and small rate increase adds $465,920 for a total, not-to-exceed amount of $1,316,520 over a 9-month period.
Durham County has been contracting for non-congregate housing options for the homeless at the Carolina Duke Inn (CDI) since July 2020 and has been working through Reinvestment Partners for that housing provision since October 2020. Urban Ministries of Durham (UMD) and Project Access of Durham County (PADC) are also heavily involved in the provision of services at the site, though through separate sources of funding. The population served at the CDI are the homeless who have the most medical risk factors which would make a congregate setting most dangerous to their health.
Plans to vaccinate the homeless and homeless service providers as soon as vaccine supplies and state guidelines allow are becoming more concrete. Until those vaccines are delivered and a substantial proportion of these populations have received them, however, it will not be safe for UMD to begin increasing the percentage of their normal client base staying at the downtown shelter. As such, it makes sense to extend our ability to continue sheltering some number of their client base at the CDI through June 30th, 2021, as we now know that the federal non-congregate waiver (and thus reimbursable of these housing options) will continue at least that long. The maximum number of rooms available to the County’s homeless provider partners would continue to be 64 but could be reduced as the need decreases.
The service provider has requested a $5/room/night increase in the County’s reimbursement rate due to additional security and staffing expenses, an increase which staff have considered and are agreeable to.
At the outset of FY 2020-21 Budget, due to the economic uncertainty in revenue and expenditure needs, funds captured from the hiring freeze, were set aside for potential use later in the fiscal year. As the year has evolved revenues have been received as expected, thereby allowing some of these funds to be available for expenses related to the current needs of the County. Funds that were set aside at the outset of FY 2020-21 Budget are being used to cover this contract increase.
Alignment with Strategic Plan: Providing safe housing options for Durham’s homeless population aligns most strongly with Goal 2 of the Durham County Strategic Plan.
Resource Persons: Drew Cummings, Chief of Staff
County Manager’s Recommendation: The County Manager recommends that the Board approve Budget Ordinance Amendment No. 21BCC000095 appropriating $465,920 of contingency set aside funds for a three month (April - June 2021) extension of the County’s contract with Reinvestment Partners for provision of non-congregate homeless housing at the Carolina Duke Inn.
Signature
County Manager: ____________________________