Homelessness: Office to End Homelessness.

(1) Existing law establishes various offices within the Governor's office with specified duties and responsibilities. This bill would create, within the Governor's office, the Office to End Homelessness, which would be administered by the Secretary on Homelessness appointed by the Governor. The bill would require that the office serve the Governor as the lead entity for ending homelessness in California and would task the office with coordinating homeless programs, services, data, and policies between federal, state, and local agencies, among other responsibilities. The bill would require the office to exercise various powers and duties, including, among others, making recommendations to the Governor and the Legislature regarding new state policies, programs, and actions on homelessness. The bill would require the office to be comprised of specified employees serving within the state civil service and to oversee and carry out the existing mandates of the Homeless Coordinating and Financing Council, as defined and described below. (2) Existing law requires the Governor to establish the Homeless Coordinating and Financing Council (referred to as "the coordinating council") and appoint up to 19 members of that council, including the Secretary of Business, Consumer Services, and Housing, or the secretary's designee, to serve as the chair of the coordinating council. Existing law requires that the coordinating council be under the direction of an executive director, who is under the direction of the Business, Consumer Services, and Housing Agency, and staffed by employees of that agency. This bill would require that the coordinating council be under the supervision of the Secretary on Homelessness of the Office to End Homelessness. The bill would further require that the Secretary on Homelessness, or the secretary's designee, serve as chair of the council in place of the Secretary of Business, Consumer Services, and Housing. The bill would also change the composition of the council by reducing the overall number of members to 13, replacing representatives of specified state agencies with directors and secretaries of those agencies, adding the Director of Public Health to the council membership, making certain positions part of an advisory committee to the council, and making other related changes. The bill would provide for the transfer of specified duties, powers, employees, assets, and liabilities of the Business, Consumer Services, and Housing Agency and the office of the Governor to the Office to End Homelessness with respect to the council, as specified. (3) Existing law authorizes the coordinating council to establish working groups, task forces, or other structures from within its membership or with outside members to assist it in its work. The Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act requires, with specified exceptions for authorized closed sessions, that all meetings of a state body be open and public and all persons be permitted to attend any meeting of a state body. The bill would provide that the Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act does not apply to a meeting of a working group, task force, or other structure of the council if only a minority of the members of the council participate in that working group, task force, or other structure. The bill would specify that, except under those circumstances, the council and its meetings are subject to the act. (4) Existing law charges the coordinating council, among other duties, with the goal of creating a statewide data system or warehouse to match data on homelessness to programs impacting homeless recipients of state programs. This bill would require that statewide data system or warehouse to be known as the Homeless Data Integration System. The bill would require all Continuums of Care, as defined, which are currently operating in California, to provide collected data elements, as provided, to the Homeless Management Information System. The bill would prohibit any health information or personal identifying information provided to, or maintained within, that system from being subject to public inspection or disclosure under the California Public Records Act. (5) Existing law provides that the goals of the coordinating council include, among other things, creating partnerships among state agencies and departments, local government agencies, federal agencies, and specified other entities for the purpose of arriving at specific strategies to end homelessness. Existing law requires agencies and departments administering state programs, as defined, to collaborate with the coordinating council to adopt guidelines and regulations, or to revise existing guidelines and regulations, as applicable, to incorporate core components of Housing First, as defined. This bill would require, upon the request of the coordinating council, an agency or department that administers one or more state programs to furnish to the coordinating council any relevant information regarding those state programs. (6) Existing constitutional provisions require that a statute that limits the right of access to the meetings of public bodies or the writings of public officials and agencies be adopted with findings demonstrating the interest protected by the limitation and the need for protecting that interest. This bill would make legislative findings to that effect. (7) This bill would incorporate additional changes to Section 8256 of the Welfare and Institutions Code proposed by SB 815 to be operative only if this bill and SB 815 are enacted and this bill is enacted last.