City Council Approves Budget Amendment for Emergency Shelter Services

The City Council will consider a budget amendment transferring $150,000 to the Public Health Department’s FY2023 operating budget to provide emergency shelter services using emergency solutions grant funding.

“The department recommends transferring $150,000 of additional ESG-CV funding to the Public Health Department to support the continued provision of emergency shelter through motel stays, including weather-activated motel stays during the upcoming winter season, to people experiencing homelessness,” according to a City staff report. “Up to 10 percent of the funds can be used for administrative costs and the balance can be used for motel stays and related costs such as transportation to motels and food for program participants. The funds are required by HUD to be expended by September 30.”

On September 27, 2021 and January 24, 2022, Council approved the transfers of $220,000 and $86,272 respectively of Emergency Solutions Grant funding authorized by the CARES Act from the Department of Housing’s Emergency Solutions Grant Fund to the Public Health Department Fund.

These funds have supported the provision of emergency shelter with motel stays through existing Public Health Department programs including the Pasadena Outreach Response Team (PORT}, Geriatric Empowerment Model (GEM) Link, and Transitional Age Youth (TAY) Link. The Public Health Department also utilized the funds to provide short-term motel stays during inclement weather in the 2021-2022 winter season. 

“Approval of the recommended action has the potential to provide temporary emergency shelter for people experiencing homelessness in Pasadena so that they can stabilize and prepare for permanent housing,” according to the staff report. “Approval of the proposed budget transfer is in accordance with the Pasadena Continuum of Care system, General Plan Housing Element, Five-Year Consolidated Plan, and Five-Year Public Housing Authority Plan.”

Here are the other items that passed as part of Monday’s consent calendar:

• A three-year contract with Pavlocal for the self-release vehicle immobilization system and devices for a three-year term. The Parking Division is authorized to impound or immobilize vehicles that have five or more past due parking citations with the City. Before 2017, the City solely impounded these vehicles. Impounding these vehicles is problematic on a number of fronts. It is time-consuming for parking enforcement staff as they must coordinate and wait for tow trucks, and it is costly for the vehicle’s owner who would then pay impound and storage fees in addition to the delinquent parking citation fees before retrieving their vehicle from the tow yard. Other methods to compel vehicle owners to pay their delinquent citations include placing a hold on the vehicle’s OMV registration and/or intercepting tax refunds from the Franchise Tax Board. Both methods take significantly longer and do not guarantee payment. In 2017, the City entered into a Since entering a contract with Paylock, Parking Enforcement has been able to collect on 6,638 past due citations without imposing the additional burden of a trip to the tow yard. From 2018 to August 2022, 816 scofflaws have been immobilized with a Paylock device. In 2019, the last full year before the pandemic, Parking Enforcement immobilized 328 scofflaws. From January 2022 to the end of August, 126 scofflaws have been successfully immobilized at the time of this writing. 

• A $21,384 contract amendment with Common Area Maintenance Services (CAM) to increase the contract amount to $287,298 for janitorial services in the Union/El Molino lot. The City of Pasadena has four surface parking lots (Union/El Molino, Playhouse, and Shopper’s Lane north and south) and there is a need to maintain them by providing janitorial services daily. In July 22, 2021 the Department of Transportation released specifications to Furnish and Deliver Janitorial Services in Three City Owned Parking Lots which was posted on Planet Bids. On September 27, 2021, Council awarded CAM Property Services the contract and work began on November 1, 2021. The contract has an initial three-year term with two optional one year extensions. 

• A contract, with Windcave (formerly Payment Express) to provide credit card processing services in nine City-owned garages in an amount not to exceed $1,157,435 for nine years, which includes the base contract amount of $1,052,214 and a contingency of $105,221 to provide for any necessary change orders. The City owns nine parking garages located in the Civic Center and Old Pasadena areas. After issuing an RFP for a new Parking Access and Revenue Control System (PARCS) for eight of the garages in September of 2018, City Council awarded the new PARCS contract to TIBA for a ten-year term on December 10, 2018. Before the installation of the TISA system the City garages were served by three different systems. TIBA was installed in eight of the nine garages because oversight of the ninth garage, Plaza Las Fuentes, was handled by Downtown Properties under a separate existing agreement. Windcave is the exclusive credit card payment gateway for TIBA equipment. 

• Authorize the City Manager to increase the purchase order, with The Shower of Hope by $57,500, for a revised total not-to-exceed amount of $76,188. Shortly after COVID-19 was declared a pandemic in March 2020, the Department procured a mobile shower operator, End Homelessness California, dba The Shower of Hope, to ensure access to low-barrier basic hygiene services. The showers continue to operate every Wednesday morning· out of Knox Presbyterian Church without City grant funding and every Monday morning out of All Saints Church with federal Emergency Solutions Grant CARES (ESG-CV) funding. The current purchase order (Purchase Order 1230872) for this service was budgeted through September 30, 2022, which was the initial expenditures deadline for ESG-CV funding. The U.S. Department of Urban Development (HUD) has since extended the grant funding expenditure deadline through September 30.

• A resolution to approve the creation 48 air parcels for residential condominium purposes and 8 air parcels for commercial condominium purposes.

• A contract amendment with Bitfocus for additional continuum of care funding for software services. The City of Pasadena, as the administrative entity for the Pasadena Continuum of Care, is a member of the Los Angeles Homeless Management Information System (HMIS} Collaborative. Together with the Glendale and Los Angeles Continua of Care, the City administers a HUD-required HMIS database called Clarity Human Services (“Clarity”) which is used by local and regional homeless services providers to enter client-level data. The City uses the Clarity database to generate reports which are submitted to funders including HUD and the State of California and are also used to guide the planning and funding of homeless services. The Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA), administrative entity for the LA CoC, conducted a competitive selection process in 2016 on behalf of the LA HMIS Collaborative for an HMIS software vendor. City staff participated in that process which resulted in the selection of Bitfocus, Inc. Each CoC has its own contract with Bitfocus, Inc., and the City receives a discount for the software services as a result of being a member of the larger collaborative.

• A resolution authorizing an amended five-year plan for the expenditure of the City’s grant award of Permanent Local Housing Allocation (“PLHA”) funding, as set forth in this report and its attachments, to provide and preserve affordable housing to Very Low, Low, Moderate, and Workforce Income households in Pasadena.  On February 26, 2020 the State of California issued a Notice of Funding Availability announcing the availability of approximately $195 million in grant funds under the Permanent Local Housing Allocation Program Formula Component (“PLHA”) from funds deposited into the Building Homes and Jobs Trust Fund during calendar year 2019. The funds are available to local jurisdictions statewide. PHLA funds are provided pursuant to Senate Bill (SB) 2, which authorizes the State to allocate a portion of the Building Homes and Jobs Trust Fund monies to local governments for eligible housing and homelessness activities. The City of Pasadena (the “City”) is considered an “Entitlement” local government, meaning that its PLHA funding is directly proportionate to its share of 2017 Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding. As an Entitlement local government, the City is eligible for $936,076 in funding for the 2019-2020 Fiscal Year and for an estimated total five-year allocation of $5,616,456. The purpose of the PLHA program is to provide a permanent and ongoing source of funding to local governments that is flexible enough to allow such local governments to identify and address unmet housing needs in their communities, particularly unmet housing needs that may not have another source of funding available.  

• A $90,000 contract with Flintridge Center for Community Consortium Meeting Facilitation Services for the Pasadena Intervention and Prevention Project through June 30, 2025. In June 2022, the City of Pasadena Public Health Department (“Department”) was awarded $2,510,394 through the California Violence Intervention and Prevention (“CalVIP”) Grant funded by the Board of State and Community Corrections (“BSCC”). On August 1, 2022, the City Council authorized the City Manager to enter into an agreement with BSCC to accept and administer CalVI P grant funds on behalf of the City of Pasadena. The grant will support the Pasadena Intervention and Prevention Project (“PIPP”) for three years beginning July 1, 2022, through June 30, 2025. PIPP will establish a consortium of community partners to build, improve, and maintain community capacity to collaboratively design and deliver violence prevention services necessary for reducing youth gang and gun violence.

• A contract amendment with Union Station Homeless Services to increase the contract amount by $80,000, thereby increasing the total not-to-exceed amount from $251,290 to $331,290, and to extend the contract period through June 30 or until the contract amount is fully expended, whichever comes first. In November 2017, the City Council approved a five-year contract award in the amount of $251,290 to Union Station Housing Services (“USHS”) to provide peer outreach workers in support of the Pasadena Outreach Response Team (“PORT”). PORT is a joint collaboration between the Public Health and Fire Departments designed to address homelessness as a public health concern. Since the initiation of services, peer outreach workers from USHS have provided housing services and system navigation to over 150 people experiencing homelessness.  

• A $289,447 contract with Motive Energy Telecommunications Group, Inc. for Administrative Support of Utility Pole Management for the Water and Power Department. Pasadena Water and Power (“PWP”) provides electricity to more than 65,000 customers. The Power Distribution System- is highly complex and comprised of thousands of components which function together as a Distribution and Transmission (“T&D”) System. In the overhead T&D system, power poles are used to hold conductors which distribute electricity throughout PWP’s service territory. PWP has approximately 11,072 power poles in its system. 

The City Council held an item that would have authorized the City Manager to execute all agreements with the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) associated with the receipt of $250,820 in reimbursable Federal Transit Administration grant funding for Pasadena Dial-A-Ride Covid-19 response. The Federal Transportation Administration (FTA) Section 5310 is a grant program designed with the purpose of assisting transportation needs of older adults and people with disabilities. The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro), as the direct recipient of these funds, issued a grant solicitation to competitively award these funds to transportation providers in Los Angeles County. This solicitation used funds allocated through the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act (CRRSAA) and American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) to fund operating projects.