September 26, 2024
San Diego Housing Commission Honored with Three National Awards of Merit
SAN DIEGO, CA — San Diego Housing Commission (SDHC) initiatives to assist families with low income and experiencing a housing crisis, study homelessness services sector wages, and help families with low income access internet services have earned Awards of Merit from the National Association of Housing and Redevelopment Officials (NAHRO).
“These honors reflect our team’s ongoing outstanding work in collaboration with the City of San Diego and our critical service provider partners and staff as we address housing and homelessness challenges and provide opportunities for the families we serve to improve their quality of life,” SDHC President and CEO Lisa Jones said. “We are grateful to our leaders at City Council, Mayor Todd Gloria and his team, and our Board of Commissioners for their leadership and support, and we thank NAHRO for honoring these efforts.”
SDHC’s award-winning programs this year are:
- Housing Instability Prevention Program (HIPP). SDHC operates HIPP to help pay rent and other housing-related expenses for families in the City of San Diego with low income, experiencing a housing crisis or at risk of homelessness. SDHC provides $250, $500 or $750 per month toward rent on behalf of enrolled households, depending on their circumstances. HIPP also provides case management and assists with housing-related expenses, such as past-due rent and past-due utilities. HIPP can assist up to 300 households. On average, enrolled households were spending 77 percent of their income on rent before they began receiving HIPP assistance. After the HIPP subsidy was applied, enrolled households spent an average of 46 percent of income on rent. The San Diego City Council allocated funding specifically to create this program in the City of San Diego’s Fiscal Year 2023 budget and has continued to allocate funds for the program, which is ongoing.
- Homelessness Services Compensation Study. To support the recruitment and retention of staff for frontline homelessness service positions, SDHC completed a compensation study for positions in the homelessness services sector. The goal was to re-benchmark key frontline and case management positions, with the intent to attract and retain staff, reduce system vacancies, and increase system performance. The study demonstrated that homelessness services sector wages are well below the cost of living in San Diego, with most frontline staff unable to afford a one-bedroom rental housing unit. Making budget recommendations to the City of San Diego for frontline services program staff wages is part of a scaled approach that will be implemented over the next few years, with the first stage of these recommendations implemented in SDHC’s Fiscal Year 2024 budget. SDHC worked with LeSar Development Consultants and Moss Adams to perform the study, which published on SDHC’s website in March 2023.
- Affordable Connectivity Program Outreach. SDHC expanded its collaborative efforts to help more families with low income access affordable, quality and reliable broadband internet service with help from a $230,114 Federal Communications Commission (FCC) grant. The grant supported awareness, outreach and assistance for households to apply for the FCC’s Affordable Connectivity Program, which provided discounts toward internet service and a one-time discount toward the purchase of a device from a participating provider. As of October 31, 2023, SDHC had conducted 1,276 outreach events and reached out to 103,775 people through flyers and presentations. The federal Affordable Connectivity Program ended effective June 1, 2024, due to a lack of funding.
The NAHRO Awards of Merit were presented September 25, 2024, at NAHRO’s National Conference & Exhibition in Orlando, Florida. NAHRO Awards of Merit recognize innovative housing and community development projects, programs and services.
NAHRO is a membership organization of more than 19,500 housing and community development providers and professionals throughout the United States.
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Media Contact:
Scott Marshall,
Vice President of Communications
San Diego Housing Commission
619-578-7138
scottm@sdhc.org
