Santa Rosa contract for homeless shelter up for competitive bids for the first time since 2004

For the first time in 17 years Santa Rosa will hold a competitive bidding process for a homeless services provider and operating manager for the city’s shelter, Sam Jones Hall.

The open bidding process could pose new challenges to the work of Catholic Charities, the region’s dominant homeless services provider, which has managed the city-owned shelter since winning the contract in 2004.

Officials with both the organization and the city however said the decision to open the bidding was not a reflection on Catholic Charities’ performance but instead a result of increased spending on homelessness amid a surge of state and federal funding.

“In all our conversations (with city officials) that’s been my understanding,” said Jennielynn Holmes, head of homelessness services for Catholic Charities in Santa Rosa.

The city’s annual spending on homeless services stands at $4.9 million, with $3.9 million of that going toward Sam Jones Hall. The overall budget in 2016 was $1.5 million, according to Kelli Kuykendall, the city’s homeless services manager.

“What’s driving this is the city has continued to invest more and more in homeless services,” Kuykendall said. “It would be fair and appropriate to go out for a competitive process.”

The pandemic brought unprecedented levels of spending on homelessness at all levels of government in an effort to shelter a population believed vulnerable to the virus’s spread. Santa Rosa spent more than $10 million in state and federal emergency aid on that effort.

Council members and advocates both said they now hope the open-bidding process will open the door to new ideas.

“Sam Jones has been Santa Rosa’s homeless policy,” Kathleen Finigan, an advocate with the group Homeless Action, said, “sweep the camps and Sam Jones, which has failed.”

Santa Rosa, like many California municipalities, pursues a “housing first” approach to homeless residents, where the emphasis is on finding people stable, supportive housing.

On Tuesday afternoon, the City Council directed staff to remove language from the request for proposals, which will be published Nov. 12, that would have awarded an advantage to applicants who did not have a preexisting relationship with the city. The language may have disadvantaged Catholic Charities if it had remained.

Council members Victoria Fleming and Natalie Rogers wanted that language to stay in the bidding documents. City government needs bring in fresh thinking if it is to achieve officials’ stated goal of “functional zero” on homelessness, where people who end up living on the streets are there only briefly and do not return, Vice Mayor Rogers said.

“I don’t want to be thinking in the box anymore. I want to move forward,” she said.

“We have some really great providers in the community,” she added, “I don’t want anyone to take my comments as if I am ungrateful.”

Catholic Charities intends to apply for the bid. With construction underway on its Caritas Village, a combination of affordable housing, a temporary family shelter, drop in center and health clinic just off downtown, Holmes says the organization is well positioned to help Santa Rosa aid its homeless residents.

“It all very much resonates with us and our model,” she said of the city’s forthcoming request for proposals.

It’s unclear who might compete with Catholic Charities. Leaders of St. Vincent de Paul and Sonoma Applied Village Services both told The Press Democrat their organizations would not be putting in bids. Officials with Committee on the Shelterless, which runs the Mary Isaak Center, a shelter in Petaluma, could not immediately be reached for comment.

“I think the city is going to be hard pressed to find a better provider than Catholic Charities,” said Councilman Jack Tibbetts, who also is the executive director of St. Vincent de Paul.

Santa Rosa officials have suggested the city could cover its homeless services budget for the next three years with a chunk of the $34 million it received from President Joe Biden’s pandemic relief package, the American Rescue Plan Act. The City Council has yet to vote on how to spend that money.

You can reach Staff Writer Andrew Graham at 707-526-8667 or andrew.graham@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @AndrewGraham88