JAN 29 EAGLES BEAT 49ERS IN NFC CHAMPIONSHIP The Washington Commanders will watch their NFC East rival play in Super Bowl LVII in two weeks time.

The Philadelphia Eagles have claimed the first spot in the Super Bowl after a 31-7 win over the San Francisco 49ers.

The 49ers’ game was defined by injuries to quarterbacks Brock Purdy and Josh Johnson as the Eagles cruised to a win thanks to 148 rushing yards.

The Eagles will play the winner of the Cincinnati Bengals vs. Kansas City Chiefs game.

JAN 29 BIENIEMY WAIT? Are the Commanders dragging their feet? Or just patiently playing by the rules?

Coach Ron Rivera has yet to hire an offensive coordinator to replace the fired Scott Turner, and the AFC title game on Sunday may be one reason why. The Commanders have put in a request for permission to interview Chiefs assistant Eric Bieniemy and according to NFL Network he’s “emerged as a potential key candidate” in D.C.

Bieniemy, who is also on the insources say. He also was request list of the Jets, Titans and Ravens, will work today in Chiefs vs. Bengals, after which Washington hopes to get a visit.

JAN 28 FOSTER COMEBACK? Former Washington Commanders linebacker Reuben Foster hasn’t played in the NFL since 2018, but he’s trying another comeback …

This time in the USFL.

Last time we checked in on Foster, the Seattle Seahawks hosted him for a summer workout. That didn’t work out, but Foster, now 28, this week will sign with the USFL’s Pittsburgh Maulers in another comeback attempt.

He was taken in the first round of the 2017 NFL Draft by the San Francisco 49ers, despite an injury risk, and then in 2018 was dealt a two-game suspension after committing a weapons offense and a misdemeanor drug offense. Weeks later, Foster was arrested for domestic violence and the 49ers cut him shortly after

In 2019, Washington claimed Foster off waivers shortly after he was cut by San Francisco, but he never played a down as a member of the organization as during his first practice in 2019, Foster suffered a torn ACL and was placed on the injured reserve list. Still recovering from the injury a season later, he was placed on the PUP list at the beginning of training camp in 2020 … and there wasn’t much positive movement there before he was released.

JAN 20 LENO NAMED FINALIST FOR ALAN PAGE COMMUNITY AWARD Washington Commanders offensive tackle Charles Leno Jr. is one of five finalists for the NFLPA Alan Page Community Award, the “highest honor” the Players Association can give to someone.

Leno, along with Damar Hamlin (Buffalo Bills), Jonathan Jones (New England Patriots), Darren Waller (Las Vegas Raiders) and Devin White (Tampa Bay Buccaneers) are on the shortlist for the award.

Each player will receive a $10,000 donation to their charity of choice. The winner of the award will be announced on Feb. 8.

JAN 19 INTERNATIONAL HOSTS ANNOUNCED FOR 2023 The NFL announced that the Buffalo Bills, Tennessee Titans, Jacksonville Jaguars, Kansas City Chiefs and New England Patriots will each play international games during the 2023 regular season.

The Bills and the Titans will each play a game at London’s Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. The Jaguars will also being playing in the UK. And the 2023 season will also see the Chiefs and Patriots both play regular-season games in Germany.

The Commanders are scheduled to play the Patriots on the “road” next season, meaning that the game could take place in Germany. If the Commanders are tabbed to play the Patriots in Germany, it would mark just the second time Washington would head overseas for a game.

JAN 16 COWBOYS ELIMINATE TOM BRADY, BUCCANEERS The NFC East has three teams in the Divisional Round after the Dallas Cowboys beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 31-14 Monday night at Raymond James Stadium.

With the win, Tom Brady’s season comes to an end before he hits free agency this spring.

The Cowboys play the San Francisco 49ers Sunday night at 6:30 p.m.

JAN 15 NFC EAST RIVALS TO MEET IN DIVISIONAL ROUND The New York Giants are on to the Divisional Round after beating the Minnesota Vikings 31-24 Sunday at U.S. Bank Stadium.

With the win, the Giants now face the Philadelphia Eagles next week in the Divisional Round.

The Dallas Cowboys are set to play Monday night against Tom Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to land the fourth and final spot in the next round.

JAN 14 NFL WILD CARD SATURDAY The beginning of the NFL playoffs kicked off with a bang Saturday.

After the San Francisco 49ers came back from trailing at halftime to win by three scores, the Jacksonville Jaguars managed a 27-point comeback (third-largest in NFL history) to beat the Los Angeles Chargers at home.

The lopsided start in the first half came thanks to five Jaguars turnovers  … including four Trevor Lawrence interceptions.

But … the Chargers found a way to blow their four-touchdown lead to lose 31–30 in Jacksonville.

Lawrence rebounded by throwing three second-half touchdown passes to pace the comeback for Jacksonville.

The 49ers will host the highest-remaining NFC playoff team, while the Jaguars await their opponent based off of Sunday’s results.

JAN 13 JEREMY REAVES NAMED ALL-PRO Washington Commanders defensive back Jeremy Reaves was named as a First-Team All-Pro on special teams.

Reaves, 26, is a fifth-year pro who hadn’t made the 53-man roster out of training camp in any season before this year. However, his talents were recognized by Ron Rivera and the coaching staff during training camp as he made the final team and balled out as one of the top special teams players in the league.

Reaves was also named to the NFC Pro Bowl team and a Players’ Selection First-Team All-Pro.

JAN 9 WASHINGTON SIGNS FUTURES The Washington Commanders announced that they’ve signed nine players to futures contracts on Monday for the 2023 season. The list:

CB Troy Apke
DE William Bradley-King
WR Alex Erickson
CB DaMarcus Fields
QB Jake Fromm
G Nolan Laufenberg
WR Kyric McGowan
T Aaron Monteiro
G Keaton Sutherland

Fromm, 24, was a fifth-round pick by the Bills out of Georgia in 2020. Buffalo waived him coming out of the preseason and in 2021, he got on the field with the Giants. He’s spent time on the Commanders practice squad since then.

JAN 7 SCHERFF, JAGS MAKE PLAYOFFS The Washington Commanders may not be in the playoffs this year, but a familiar face will be.

After the Jacksonville Jaguars beat the Tennessee Titans Saturday night, offensive lineman Brandon Scherff punched his ticket to the playoffs. He started every game for the Jaguars this season.

Scherff played for Washington from 2015-21, and now makes his third playoff appearance.

JAN 5 HAMLIN AWAKE Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin is no longer in a coma, awake and showing more signs of improvement, according to teammate Kaiir Elam.

Hamlin has been in the hospital since Monday night after suffering cardiac arrest in the MNF game against the Cincinnati Bengals.

JAN 4 SAM HOWELL STARTS Despite earlier reports Washington would start Taylor Heinicke at quarterback in Sunday’s season finale, it was rookie Sam Howell seen taking first reps when practice began on Wednesday. 

Furthermore, when the passers and receiver broke away to throw routes, Howell was throwing to starters like Terry McLaurin, Curtis Samuel, and Jahan Dotson.

Ron Rivera confirmed in his press conference that Howell would start the Week 18 finale against the Dallas Cowboys.

JAN 4 WASHINGTON COMMANDERS GOING BACK TO HEINICKE One week after quarterback Carson Wentz replaced Taylor Heinicke as the team’s starter, it’s being reported Washington is reversing course.

While Heinicke is expected to be the starter, the same report says rookie Sam Howell will also get playing time, making his NFL debut in the final week of the regular season.

As of now, the team has yet to confirm.

All of this would suggest that 

Carson Wentz is getting benched (again) … even as coach Ron Rivera is saying he has “no regrets” about the fateful decision to start Wentz in last week’s playoff-hopes-killing loss to the Browns.

The 7-8-1 Commanders are probably wise to begin the experiment with the rookie Howell, as there is little else to be accomplished here against 12-4 Dallas, which is playoff-bound and still trying to win the NFC East.

JAN 3 NFL HAS NO ANSWER FOR BILLS-BENGALS RESUMPTION The NFL released a statement Tuesday afternoon in regards to the continuation of the Buffalo Bills vs. Cincinnati Bengals game.

All Week 18 games will currently be played as scheduled.

JAN 2 MNF SUSPENDED AFTER SCARY FALL The Buffalo Bills and Cincinnati Bengals are currently suspending play after one of the scariest moments in NFL history.

Bills defensive back Damar Hamlin collapsed on the field with 5:58 left in the first quarter.

There is no timetable for when the game will return to action.

JAN 2 COMMANDERS PLAY COWBOYS LATE The Washington Commanders will play the Dallas Cowboys at 4:25 p.m. EST on Sunday, the NFL announced today.

The NFC East games are the only games not on the west coast slated for the later time slot.

Sunday Night Football will be between the Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field on NBC.

JAN 1 COMMANDERS ELIMINATED The day started with the Washington Commanders controlling their own playoff destiny, but it ended in the worst outcome possible.

By virtue of the wins from the Detroit Lions, Seattle Seahawks and Green Bay Packers, the Commanders are eliminated from the playoffs.

At 7-8-1, the Commanders hold the 10th seed in the NFC with no chance of getting in the top 7.

JAN 1 WENTZ WOBBLY Carson Wentz is the “new” Commanders starter today … and it isn’t working.

He has opened 2 of 6 for 13 yards with two interceptions in a little more than a quarter. 

That’s right. At home against the Browns, Wentz has … two completions. And two interceptions.

And some in the audience at FedEx are already chanting for a change to Taylor Heinicke.

DEC 31 CURL DOUBTFUL; APKE, PATTERSON ELEVATED VS. BROWNS The Washington Commanders are elevating running back Jaret Patterson and cornerback Troy Apke from the practice squad.

The moves come after Antonio Gibson was ruled out and Kam Curl’s status was switched to doubtful for Sunday’s game against the Browns.

The Commanders host the Browns at 1 p.m. Sunday at FedEx Field.

DEC 30 CHARLES LENO NAMED NFLPA COMMUNITY MVP Washington Commanders offensive tackle Charles Leno Jr. is the Week 17 NFLPA Community MVP.

He pledged more than $90,000 in donations, gifts and experiences through his foundation’s work during the “25 Days of Leno Claus” initiative.

Leno has also been named the Commanders’ nominee for the Walter Payton Man of the Year award, where the winner will be revealed at the NFL Honors in February.

DEC 28 CARSON WENTZ STARTING FOR COMMANDERS Washington coach Ron Rivera said on Tuesday he needed to speak with his team before making a final decision on his starting quarterback moving forward. 

With reports coming out Wednesday morning, it appears he has done so and has made the decision to move back to quarterback Carson Wentz as the team’s starter. 

The Commanders host the Cleveland Browns this weekend, with a playoff-clinching scenario in play. 

DEC 26 JOSH NORMAN WORKS OUT FOR PANTHERS The Carolina Panthers are bringing in cornerback Josh Norman for a workout.

Norman, 35, played four seasons with Washington from 2016-19, but his first NFL home was in Carolina.

Norman made the 2015 Pro Bowl in his final season with the Panthers, where the team went all the way to Super Bowl 50 before losing to the Denver Broncos. 

If signed, Norman would replace budding star Jaycee Horn, who broke his wrist Saturday against the Detroit Lions.

DEC 24 HEINICKE BENCHED FOR WENTZ The Washington Commanders are changing quarterbacks.

After two consecutive turnovers in the fourth quarter and a 16-point deficit, the Commanders are inserting Carson Wentz into the game for Heinicke.

Heinicke’s day ends with 13 completions on 18 attempts for 166 yards, two touchdowns and an interception.

DEC 21 COMMANDERS SENDING 4 TO PRO BOWL The Washington Commanders will be well-represented at this year’s Pro Bowl Games.

Wide receiver Terry McLaurin, who surpassed 1000 yards for the season on Sunday against the New York Giants, was the lone offensive starter.

On defense, defensive tackle Jonathan Allen made it for the second straight year.

The Commanders will also be represented by punter Tress Way and special teams ace Jeremy Reaves.

Daron Payne and Montez Sweat have been named as alternates.

DEC 18 CHASE YOUNG OUT VS. GIANTS The team, media, and the fans have all been wondering when defensive end Chase Young might make his debut.

Young hasn’t stepped on the playing field once as a member of the Commanders’ defense. 

Yet that unit has been the bright spot on a team with their playoff destiny in hand. 

Hopes of getting No. 99 on the field this weekend against the New York Giants have all but evaporated according to reports on Sunday morning, however.

Now, everyone will turn towards Washington’s road contest against the San Francisco 49ers to see if maybe that’s when Chase gets on the field for the first time in over a year.

DEC 17 COMMANDERS MAKE 2 MOVES AHEAD OF GIANTS GAME The Washington Commanders are activating offensive lineman Wes Martin and clearing defensive lineman Efe Obada ahead of their Sunday Night Football contest against the New York Giants.

Obada was questionable with a finger injury, but he’ll suit up against the Giants. Martin has not made an appearance for the Commanders since Week 4.

DEC 12 CARSON WENTZ BACK The Washington Commanders are activating Carson Wentz from injured reserve today.

Wentz last played in Week 6 against the Chicago Bears where he broke his thumb and required surgery. In a corresponding move, the team placed offensive lineman Tyler Larsen on injured reserve.

DEC 8 WR ODELL BECKHAM JR. DOESN’T GET DALLAS DEAL DONE It’s been reported the Dallas Cowboys and New York Giants were two of the front-runners to gain the services of free-agent receiver Odell Beckham Jr.

After leaving his visit with Dallas without a contract offer, however, it appears if he does return to the NFC East it’ll have to be with New York who the Washington Commanders face next weekend. 

Even if Beckham signed with the Giants, it would be unreasonable to expect he’d be ready to play next Sunday night.

Reportedly, the reason no offer was made is out of concerns he may not be available at all in 2022. Making it less likely Washington will see it’s old divisional foe, this season.

DEC 6 LENO NAME WPMOY NOMINEE All 32 teams named one player to be nominated for the Walter Payton Man of the Year award. This season, that honor for Washington belongs to offensive tackle Charles Leno Jr.

Leno, 31, signed a three-year, $37.5 million contract this offseason.

DEC 5 KNEE CAP – OUCH Washington starting center Tyler Larsen exited the 20-20 tie with the Giants with a leg injury and was carted off the field. … and now there is a report about the severity of the injury, The Athletic saying that Larsen sustained a dislocated kneecap and that “this could be a season-ending injury for the second consecutive year” for Larsen, who endured an Achilles injury last season.

DEC 5 WASHINGTON COMMANDERS LOSE LINEBACKER It was reported and confirmed on Monday that team captain Cole Holcomb had foot surgery and will miss the remainder of the NFL season following.

DEC 4 NO CHASE YOUNG FOR WEEK 13 AT NEW YORK GIANTS The Washington Commanders will reportedly wait until after the bye week when the team hosts the Giants for Week 15 to bring back defensive end Chase Young (knee).

DEC 1 JOEY SLYE NAMED ST PLAYER OF THE MONTH Washington Commanders kicker Joey Slye is taking home some hardware.

Slye made all 13 of his field goal attempts during the month of November, where the Commanders went 3-1. In Week 10 against the undefeated Philadelphia Eagles, Slye made four field goals and two extra points in the upset win.

Get your Washington Commanders game tickets from SI Tickets HERE!

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The post Philadelphia Eagles Run Over San Francisco 49ers in NFC Championship: NFL Tracker appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

The City’s database for homeless services has been unable to track available housing units for years, despite urgent calls to fix the problem, resulting in vacant units and longer wait times for people on the street, auditors and homeless agencies say.

The ONE System, which the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH) calls “the system of record for all department services,” has never been able to inventory available housing units. Homeless agencies say they pointed out that issue before the system was implemented, and an audit documented the problem in 2020.

That frustrates managers of housing for the homeless.

“It seems like an easy fix,” said Lauren Hall, the director and co-founder of Delivering Innovation in Supportive Housing, a housing provider to the homeless. “Given the amount of resources at HSH, I’m baffled by it. This has created a significant barrier. I just want to drive a bus to the shelter and pick up people to put in our empty units.”

HSH says it is working to fix the problem, and Hall and others give the department credit for transparency and diligence tacking monumental challenges. But the inability to address a lingering problem with long-term consequences must be overcome, experts say.

In the struggle to help San Francisco’s 8,000 homeless people, fixing a database is just one of many issues, experts say. But it is also low-hanging fruit in an orchard of seemingly unreachable challenges. And unlike with many other issues The City must address, there is plenty of funding. The HSH budget for the next two years draws from $1.2 billion in federal, state and local funds. Yet the lingering problem has contributed to hundreds of homes being vacant, experts say.

Hall’s nonprofit, known by its acronym, DISH, and others pointed out the issue years ago, she says. “A bunch of us told them in the beginning that the system wouldn’t track vacancies. But I guess they had a vision.”

The ONE System (the acronym stands for online navigation and entry) is the technical framework for The City’s “coordinated entry” strategy to streamline homeless services. Homeless agencies across The City enter data about homeless people into the ONE System — including location, contact information and history of city services — which calculates a score used to allocate services and housing.

The ONE System was unveiled with great fanfare in 2018, when Mayor London Breed told the San Francisco Chronicle, “I’m really excited about this.”

“This new system is important because it gives us an understanding of the big picture,” Breed added.

In a 68-page, full-color, five-year plan in October 2017, the department said, “The ONE System will be fully implemented by mid-2018.”

“We can reduce all chronic homelessness 50% by December 2022,” the plan said.

But the system was not finished in 2018, or any time since then, and homeless rates have gone up. In 2017, The City reported 6,858 homeless people. The latest count, from 2019, shows 8,035.

And the ONE System’s “big picture” that Breed cited has never shown perhaps the most important aspect of addressing homelessness: Available housing units. In fact, the system can cause The City to lose sight of them.

“The clearest evidence of the system’s inadequacies occurred in December 2019, when the department realized that an estimated 250 units were available and ready for occupancy, but with no referred clients,” a performance audit compiled for the Board of Supervisors in August 2020 found. The audit found that one-third of the housing units that should be included in the inventory did not show up in the system.

Severin Campbell, one author of the audit by the San Francisco firm Harvey M. Rose Associates, told The Examiner the issue led to “vacant units and longer wait times to place eligible clients in housing.” Campbell’s team cited “the urgent need to expand the ONE System to incorporate all relevant housing information. The department should prioritize the development of this functionality.”

But two-and-a-half years later, HSH and homeless agencies say the issue has still not been fixed.

The department says it is “continuing work to expand the functionality of the ONE System,” citing work with ONE System’s maker, a Las Vegas company called Bitfocus, “to facilitate housing placements and track housing inventory.”

Meanwhile, the computer system that The City calls “the single point of truth for information about San Francisco’s homeless housing portfolio” still does not show all the available housing units. The City’s data on housing vacancies cobbles together ONE System data with reports from housing providers that is not online.

HSH data shows there were 852 vacant housing units for the homeless in January. Nearly a third of them, 293, were not in the ONE System. That means homeless agencies could not connect homeless people with those units online, despite spending time working on the ONE System with homeless people to enter other data.

“What it doesn’t do is link to the available housing units,” said Jennifer Friedenbach, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness, a group that has analyzed The City’s homeless services since 1987. A February report from the coalition cited city records that show “not all housing is represented in ONE.”

Homeless people can also be knocked out of the system if they do not sign in regularly, or can be sent to the end of the line for housing if The City updates records, experts say, an issue reported by ProPublica in February. “The city’s software to track vacant units is error prone,” ProPublica wrote, and “information on people trying to get indoors still isn’t recorded accurately.”

At a Coalition on Homelessness press conference on March 2, Tina Collins, a case worker for the nonprofit Code Tenderloin said she signed up for services in the ONE System and, “When I went back nine months later, I wasn’t even in the system.”

The ONE System is what the federal government classifies as a Homeless Management Information System, and HMIS systems are required of cities by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. Some homeless agencies told The Examiner the system is relatively manageable, despite the vacancies issue. Bitfocus is a leader in the growing tech sector of homelessness data management, serving other major cities including Los Angeles, San Jose and San Diego. The company did not respond to a request for comment.

And HSH is building believers among many homelessness agencies. The audit that cited the ONE System’s inability to manage housing vacancies highly praised the HSH staff, writing, “Even with limited staffing and unprecedented external challenges, its staff is among the most dedicated — as noted by many in leadership at the COVID-19 Command Center (CCC) — and its strategies and goals focused on making a sustained reduction in homelessness.”

Hall, the housing provider frustrated by the ongoing ONE System issue, says “I’m very confident in the current HSH leadership” and Executive Director Shireen McSpadden.

But the auditors noted HSH has failed to spend all of its budget, effectively manage its programs or hire much-needed staff.

“The department has consistently carried vacant positions year to year,” the August 2020 audit found. “The department must prioritize hiring immediately.” But HSH only recently hired a ONE System lead to oversee a team of “analysts to manage all aspects of the ONE System projects.” Two other roles that work with ONE System and a head of information technology role remain open.

HSH says it has spent $8.5 million on the ONE System, but city records show $11.3 million in HSH contracts have been issued to Bitfocus. HSH did not immediately comment on the differing figures. The City says it has expanded its contract with Bitfocus.

McSpadden, the head of HSH, told The Examiner in a statement, “The ONE System is still a work in progress, with ongoing projects to add functionality, improve data quality and consolidate additional databases. We are moving steadily closer to our ONE System vision.”

Ongoing work with Bitfocus “will mark the first time The City has a comprehensive picture of its entire homelessness housing system,” the department says. “We anticipate this project to be completed in 2022.”

The post San Francisco’s ‘homeless tracker’ has been damaged for years appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

The City’s database for homeless services has been unable to track available housing units for years, despite urgent calls to fix the problem, resulting in vacant units and longer wait times for people on the street, auditors and homeless agencies say.

The ONE System, which the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing (HSH) calls “the system of record for all department services,” has never been able to inventory available housing units. Homeless agencies say they pointed out that issue before the system was implemented, and an audit documented the problem in 2020.

That frustrates managers of housing for the homeless.

“It seems like an easy fix,” said Lauren Hall, the director and co-founder of Delivering Innovation in Supportive Housing, a housing provider to the homeless. “Given the amount of resources at HSH, I’m baffled by it. This has created a significant barrier. I just want to drive a bus to the shelter and pick up people to put in our empty units.”

HSH says it is working to fix the problem, and Hall and others give the department credit for transparency and diligence tacking monumental challenges. But the inability to address a lingering problem with long-term consequences must be overcome, experts say.

In the struggle to help San Francisco’s 8,000 homeless people, fixing a database is just one of many issues, experts say. But it is also low-hanging fruit in an orchard of seemingly unreachable challenges. And unlike with many other issues The City must address, there is plenty of funding. The HSH budget for the next two years draws from $1.2 billion in federal, state and local funds. Yet the lingering problem has contributed to hundreds of homes being vacant, experts say.

Hall’s nonprofit, known by its acronym, DISH, and others pointed out the issue years ago, she says. “A bunch of us told them in the beginning that the system wouldn’t track vacancies. But I guess they had a vision.”

The ONE System (the acronym stands for online navigation and entry) is the technical framework for The City’s “coordinated entry” strategy to streamline homeless services. Homeless agencies across The City enter data about homeless people into the ONE System — including location, contact information and history of city services — which calculates a score used to allocate services and housing.

The ONE System was unveiled with great fanfare in 2018, when Mayor London Breed told the San Francisco Chronicle, “I’m really excited about this.”

“This new system is important because it gives us an understanding of the big picture,” Breed added.

In a 68-page, full-color, five-year plan in October 2017, the department said, “The ONE System will be fully implemented by mid-2018.”

“We can reduce all chronic homelessness 50% by December 2022,” the plan said.

But the system was not finished in 2018, or any time since then, and homeless rates have gone up. In 2017, The City reported 6,858 homeless people. The latest count, from 2019, shows 8,035.

And the ONE System’s “big picture” that Breed cited has never shown perhaps the most important aspect of addressing homelessness: Available housing units. In fact, the system can cause The City to lose sight of them.

“The clearest evidence of the system’s inadequacies occurred in December 2019, when the department realized that an estimated 250 units were available and ready for occupancy, but with no referred clients,” a performance audit compiled for the Board of Supervisors in August 2020 found. The audit found that one-third of the housing units that should be included in the inventory did not show up in the system.

Severin Campbell, one author of the audit by the San Francisco firm Harvey M. Rose Associates, told The Examiner the issue led to “vacant units and longer wait times to place eligible clients in housing.” Campbell’s team cited “the urgent need to expand the ONE System to incorporate all relevant housing information. The department should prioritize the development of this functionality.”

But two-and-a-half years later, HSH and homeless agencies say the issue has still not been fixed.

The department says it is “continuing work to expand the functionality of the ONE System,” citing work with ONE System’s maker, a Las Vegas company called Bitfocus, “to facilitate housing placements and track housing inventory.”

Meanwhile, the computer system that The City calls “the single point of truth for information about San Francisco’s homeless housing portfolio” still does not show all the available housing units. The City’s data on housing vacancies cobbles together ONE System data with reports from housing providers that is not online.

HSH data shows there were 852 vacant housing units for the homeless in January. Nearly a third of them, 293, were not in the ONE System. That means homeless agencies could not connect homeless people with those units online, despite spending time working on the ONE System with homeless people to enter other data.

“What it doesn’t do is link to the available housing units,” said Jennifer Friedenbach, executive director of the Coalition on Homelessness, a group that has analyzed The City’s homeless services since 1987. A February report from the coalition cited city records that show “not all housing is represented in ONE.”

Homeless people can also be knocked out of the system if they do not sign in regularly, or can be sent to the end of the line for housing if The City updates records, experts say, an issue reported by ProPublica in February. “The city’s software to track vacant units is error prone,” ProPublica wrote, and “information on people trying to get indoors still isn’t recorded accurately.”

At a Coalition on Homelessness press conference on March 2, Tina Collins, a case worker for the nonprofit Code Tenderloin said she signed up for services in the ONE System and, “When I went back nine months later, I wasn’t even in the system.”

The ONE System is what the federal government classifies as a Homeless Management Information System, and HMIS systems are required of cities by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development. Some homeless agencies told The Examiner the system is relatively manageable, despite the vacancies issue. Bitfocus is a leader in the growing tech sector of homelessness data management, serving other major cities including Los Angeles, San Jose and San Diego. The company did not respond to a request for comment.

And HSH is building believers among many homelessness agencies. The audit that cited the ONE System’s inability to manage housing vacancies highly praised the HSH staff, writing, “Even with limited staffing and unprecedented external challenges, its staff is among the most dedicated — as noted by many in leadership at the COVID-19 Command Center (CCC) — and its strategies and goals focused on making a sustained reduction in homelessness.”

Hall, the housing provider frustrated by the ongoing ONE System issue, says “I’m very confident in the current HSH leadership” and Executive Director Shireen McSpadden.

But the auditors noted HSH has failed to spend all of its budget, effectively manage its programs or hire much-needed staff.

“The department has consistently carried vacant positions year to year,” the August 2020 audit found. “The department must prioritize hiring immediately.” But HSH only recently hired a ONE System lead to oversee a team of “analysts to manage all aspects of the ONE System projects.” Two other roles that work with ONE System and a head of information technology role remain open.

HSH says it has spent $8.5 million on the ONE System, but city records show $11.3 million in HSH contracts have been issued to Bitfocus. HSH did not immediately comment on the differing figures. The City says it has expanded its contract with Bitfocus.

McSpadden, the head of HSH, told The Examiner in a statement, “The ONE System is still a work in progress, with ongoing projects to add functionality, improve data quality and consolidate additional databases. We are moving steadily closer to our ONE System vision.”

Ongoing work with Bitfocus “will mark the first time The City has a comprehensive picture of its entire homelessness housing system,” the department says. “We anticipate this project to be completed in 2022.”

The post San Francisco’s ‘homeless tracker’ has been damaged for years appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

December 24, 2021

Good morning, Mission, and welcome to Virus Village, your (somewhat regular) Covid-19 data dump.

As infections and positivity rates take off, local hospitalizations remain relatively subdued, mostly flat for the week. R Number models show substantial and increasing transmission rates.

Wow. What a weird winter solstice. How weird? Take a peek into the mind of local covid guru, University of California, San Francisco doctor Bob Wachter. He’s done a lot of 25-tweet threads during the pandemic, but none as revealing as this. Not to worry, omicron hasn’t dulled Wachter’s sense of humor.

The post Covid-19 Tracker: Hospitalizations Flat | San Francisco, CA Patch appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

UPDATE 11/29/2021 11:35 a.m. This is the latest in a series that tracks the financial assistance of San Franciscans with rent debt. We aim to publish updated figures every week.

More than a month after the moratorium on evictions related to COVID-19 ended, rental aid applications far exceed approved funding in San Francisco and continue to rise.

State and local officials estimated that more than 15,700 households had applied for around $ 248 million in rental and utility grants by last week, eight months after the government launched a financial aid program to cover tenants’ housing costs due to the severity of the pandemic.

With that, the inquiries go well beyond what is available to the residents of San Francisco: $ 182.1 million, some of which is for administrative expenses.

The Public Press previously reported that $ 152.1 million in rental aid was available, based on numbers the mayor’s office released in July. The office has now updated that figure to $ 182.1 million and found that there is an additional $ 30 million available in tax revenue from two local voting measures – Proposal C, a tax on businesses that was passed in 2018 to fund homeless services , and Proposal I, an increase in the real estate transfer tax passed in 2020 in part to support landlords who forego rent payments from coronavirus-affected tenants.

San Francisco rent relief funds could rise as the state redistributes money from districts where demand for financial aid has been low, state spokesman Russ Heimerich said in October. He couldn’t specify how much more money San Francisco could get or when, and didn’t respond to later requests for updates.

Heimerich also said that an accurate count of the total grant requested was not available. The city and state ran parallel rent reduction programs through early September when the local program was rolled out. At the end of October, employees switched applications from the local to the state program, and this process affected the ongoing balance sheet.

We will post updates from Heimerich as soon as we receive them.

San Francisco’s rental debt ranged from $ 147 million to $ 355 million in June, according to the latest estimate by the city’s Board of Directors’ Budget and Legislative Analyst’s Office. The figures are based on unemployment rates that peaked in April 2020, leaving up to 33,200 tenants unemployed and not returning to pre-pandemic levels during the period studied.

San Francisco residents should apply for the state program if they owe money for rent or other housing bills due in or after April 2020. You can also apply for financial support for future housing costs.

The nationwide eviction moratorium to protect tenants unable to pay rent due to COVID-19 hardship was originally supposed to end on January 31, but lawmakers extended it twice. After the final end date, September 30, tenants in San Francisco were threatened with eviction if they did not pay at least 25% of the rents due in the previous 13 months and the October rent. State regulations say courts should not initiate an eviction action unless the landlord has applied for rental allowance and either the application has been denied or the renter has failed to complete their portion of it within 15 working days.

Starting this month, landlords can sue tenants for unpaid rent due from March 2020 to September 2021. If a landlord pursues the claim before a minor court, he and the tenant must represent themselves in court.

Are you threatened with eviction? Call or email the Eviction Defense Collaborative at (415) 659-9184 [email protected] as quickly as possible. The organization recommends that tenants respond within five days of the delivery of the court documents in order to avoid the risk of a default judgment against them.

Is your landlord suing you for pandemic rental debt collection? Read our guide to how small claims courts work and how to reason your side of the case here.

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