DPSS ePolicy

To release a new policy

The purpose of this Administrative Release is to announce the sunset of the General Relief (GR) Emergency Housing Program (EHP) effective July 1, 2022.  

As a result of the sunset of the EHP, GR district office and Customer Service Center (CSC) intake eligibility staff will no longer be offering and providing the ABP 295, Meals & Lodging Voucher to homeless GR applicants for emergency housing or food assistance. This includes vouchers issued through the California Statewide Automated Welfare System (CalSAWS) or any manually issued vouchers.

All motels, shelter facilities, and food providers that were participating in the EHP informed the Department that they would no longer be participating as vendors in the EHP and would no longer be accepting vouchers for housing or food.

The ABP 532, Homeless General Relief Emergency Housing/Food Assistance Decision form was used to document the applicant’s decision to either accept or reject emergency housing or emergency food assistance. With the sunset of this program, the form is no longer necessary and is now obsolete. In addition, the Approved Vendor List (AVL) that was distributed to GR District Office Directors and posted monthly on the MyDPSS portal to provide a listing of the vendors participating in the EHP has been discontinued. Steps will also be taken to remove the ABP 295 and ABP 532 forms from CalSAWS.

Homeless GR applicants inquiring about emergency housing or food assistance may be referred by staff to available local resources provided herein.

Since the 1980s, the EHP provided temporary housing assistance to homeless GR applicants while their GR application was pending. The housing was secured through vouchers issued to participating hotels/motels and shelters who agreed to be a vendor for the program.

In 2015, the Board of Supervisors directed the Chief Executive Office to work with the Department and the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) to:

1. Reduce the County’s reliance on hotels/motels and increase the utilization of shelters; and
2. Implement intervention and resource strategies for disabled and Transition Aged Youth GR participants.

As a result of this effort, the GR Crisis Housing and Supportive Services (CHSS) Program was implemented with participation from five shelter providers. This implementation required that all shelter beds be utilized before any housing vouchers for hotels/motels could be issued.

Over the term of the contracts with the shelter providers, the Department noticed a significant and continuous decline in bed night utilization at the shelters resulting in the providers opting not to renew their contracts. As such, the CHSS Program was sunset in June 2020, leaving only a few hotels/motels as participating vendors in EHP.

In recent years the number of participating vendors continued to decrease and in 2020, the COVID-19 public health emergency greatly impacted utilization of the remaining housing resources by GR applicants. In June 2022, the last remaining vendors provided notice that they would no longer be participating in the EHP, resulting in the sunset of the program.

Voucher

A document issued by the GR district offices to refer GR applicants to a vendor participating in the EHP to obtain temporary housing and/or food assistance.

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