Post-public concern, SF updating performance metrics for nonprofit partners

Despite spending over $1 bil/yr on homelessness, SF has a higher share of unhoused residents (0.54%) than the nation's largest cities besides LA (with SJ close behind at 0.5%). Yet local nonprofit orgs continue to rake in the cash, many stealthily evading laws without improving outcomes. Recently, SF's civil grand jury encouraged the Homelessness Dept to better monitor nonprofit contracts, and city leaders report they're working to improve performance metrics (it's. about. time). From the SF Standard.

With billions of dollars spent on homelessness, San Francisco’s civil grand jury found that the city needs to better evaluate the hundreds of nonprofits tasked with solving the crisis.

The civil grand jury, a civilian oversight body made up of 19 San Francisco residents, wrote in a report that the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing will spend some $2 billion on more than 300 homeless-related nonprofit contracts by 2030. But inconsistent monitoring of those contracts raises questions about whether nonprofits are delivering adequate services, the jury said.

“If those services are to meaningfully reach the homeless individuals they are intended to help, [the department] must effectively draft and oversee these contracts,” the report said.

Several nonprofit contracts are measured by the completion of activities rather than the achievement of outcomes, the report said....

The Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing said in a statement that it's in the process of developing new performance metrics that it plans to finalize this summer.

“When the department was formed in 2016, we inherited contracts from several different City departments that had different terms, program designs, outcome measures and standards,” the department said. “Over the years we have begun to standardize these contracts and have more work to do.”

This article originally appeared in the San Francisco Standard. Read the whole thing here.

Read more about SF nonprofit kerfuffles here.

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