San Diego County’s homelessness response under scrutiny in report

A staff report to be presented Monday to the San Diego Local Agency Formation Commission offers three options that would change the framework of the region’s response to homelessness.

All three options include a new entity that would absorb or integrate elements of the Regional Task Force on Homelessness (RTFH). But unlike the task force, which is a private nonprofit, they would all be public agencies.

Local Agency Formation Commissions (LAFCOs) are public agencies that act as watchdogs for local governments and mediate boundary disputes. Every county in California has one.

The Regional Task Force on Homelessness was established in 1983 under the San Diego mayor’s office. Over the decades, its role and budget has expanded. It became a nonprofit in 2004, according to the report.

Today, it has numerous responsibilities and essentially acts as the administrator for the region’s Continuum of Care (CoC) . This includes conducting the region’s annual point-in-time count. A CoC is aimed at organizing an area or region’s homelessness funding and programs. It is required in order to receive funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.