Homeless Emergency Aid Program (HEAP)

What is the Homeless Emergency Aid Program (HEAP)?

HEAP is a $500 million block grant program that provides direct assistance to cities and counties to address the homelessness crisis throughout California.

What are the eligible uses of HEAP?

HEAP provides funding to Continuums of Care (CoCs) and large cities with populations over 330,000. HEAP is available to support immediate emergency assistance to people experiencing homelessness or those at imminent risk of homelessness. 

Eligible uses include, but are not limited to the following: 

a. Homelessness prevention activities, b. Criminal justice diversion programs for homeless individuals with mental health needs, c. Establishing or expanding services meeting the needs of homeless youth or youth at risk of homelessness, and d. Emergency aid 

The State of California's Homeless Coordinating and Financing Council (HCFC) released a Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) for the Homeless Emergency Aid Program (HEAP) grant funding on September 5, 2018. The full NOFA can be found on the HCFC website. The HEAP Program will provide grants to administrative entities designated by the local continuum of care (CoC) to address the homelessness crisis throughout California. 

The Yolo County Homeless and Poverty Action Coalition (HPAC) is responsible for providing a local competition to determine which local projects will be funded. HPAC is issuing a FY 2018 HEAP Funding Announcement with information regarding this local funding opportunity. The local FY 2018 HEAP Selection Process was adopted on September 26, 2018.

A mandatory Notice of Intent was due by 5pm on Friday, October 5, 2018 for providers interested in applying for these funds. Notices of intent were received for six projects.

Project Selection Process

Per the FY 2018 HEAP Selection Process adopted by HPAC on 9/26/2018, all applicants interested in receiving HEAP funding in the local competition were required to submit their project proposals by 10/24/2018.

The total allocation received was $1,341,828, with 5% ($67,091) allocated for administrative costs, leaving $1,274,737 available to be awarded to projects. For the HEAP funding the Yolo CoC received 7 project applications requesting a total of $2,297,743. This exceeded the amount of funding available, which meant that the scoring and selection process documented in the FY 2018 HEAP Selection Process was utilized to competitively award the funds available.

Funding Recommendations

The Project Selection Subcommittee spent November 2nd – 14th, 2018 reviewing and scoring the applications, and met on 11/15/2018 to develop a funding recommendation regarding each project. The notes from that meeting are available to the public (CESH and HEAP Project Selection Subcommittee Notes), and on November 28, 2018, HPAC approved the Project Selection Subcommittee’s funding recommendation which is provided below along with a brief description of each project.

HEAP Project Summaries and Funding Decisions