The Los Gatos Anti-Racism Coalition is facing scrutiny of its rental assistance program by a few town council members and commissioners.
Rental assistance is form of government- or nonprofit-backed financial aid that helps low-income or struggling households pay for housing costs, back rent, security deposits and utilities to prevent eviction and homelessness. These programs include long-term subsidies, emergency aid and tenant-based rental assistance that supports renters if they change addresses.
The Los Gatos Town Council approved a $20,000 increase to the town’s sustaining grant program on June 2 and allowed applicants to amend their proposals for the increased funds. In a split vote at its Aug. 4 meeting, the town council approved the allocation of $6,200 to the St. Vincent de Paul Society for towel and laundering vouchers and emergency rental assistance for unhoused residents alongside Live Oak Nutrition Center’s application for $10,000 for senior-centered programming. However, the council rejected the Los Gatos Anti-Racism Coalition’s application for $3,000 to support storage unit rentals and security deposits for people facing homelessness. The coalition works with the St. Vincent de Paul Society to administer the rental assistance program.
Questions surrounding the program stemmed from an Aug. 2 letter from town finance commissioner Phil Koen. He argued that it’s against the town’s rules for the coalition to disperse the money between itself and the St. Vincent de Paul Society to run the rental assistance program. Koen also took issue with the coalition’s financial record-keeping and said its rental assistance program is redundant to West Valley Community Services’ program.
“Splitting rent relief by arithmetic spreads the money thin and spreads accountability thinner,” Koen wrote. “Dividing the work among three organizations does not by itself produce a higher-quality program, and a higher-quality program is what the town should be aiming for.”
Councilmembers Matthew Hudes and Mary Badame, who voted against the grants for the St. Vincent de Paul Society and Live Oak Nutrition Center, raised the issues in Koen’s letter at the Aug. 4 meeting.
“We are stewards of the town’s money, our residents’ money, and there’s hundreds of thousands of dollars that we have spent on grants and we’ve got budget issues,” Badame said during the meeting.
Mayor Rob Moore said he doesn’t share Koen’s concerns about the coalition’s accountability.
“I think it’s really important that we’re not overly onerous,” Moore said. “Receipts and standard accounting is totally reasonable, but I’m not interested at all in going through and auditing a bunch of small nonprofits that serve the Los Gatos community. I think that is totally antithetical to the purpose of this.”
When Badame asked why the coalition is the main fiduciary on checks received by the town for the rental assistance program, library director Ryan Baker, who oversees the community grant program, explained that it was his decision to allow the coalition and St. Vincent de Paul Society to split the money among themselves to prevent him from having to do two sets of paperwork. Town attorney Gabrielle Whelan said the arrangement was included in the coalition’s proposal and aligns with the grant agreement.
Baker added that the coalition’s financial reporting was “pretty good.” He said the coalition provided line-by-line expenditures for all the grant funds used, as well as disclosures and copies of canceled checks, and confirmed that the grant money was used to aid town residents.
“Los Gatos Anti-Racism Coalition’s reporting is a good example of reporting,” Baker said. “It’s probably what I’m going to use as a template for the other organizations of what we would like to see.”
When Hudes asked why there were three organizations that provide rental assistance in Los Gatos, Baker explained that they all meet different needs in the community. He added that West Valley Community Services receives $15,000 annually from the town, but not through the community grant program.
Baker also said West Valley Community Services’ program is more expansive than that of the Los Gatos Anti-Racism Coalition and St. Vincent de Paul Society in that its services include mediating a possible eviction and offering emergency financial assistance to cover utility costs as well as rent. The Cupertino-based nonprofit works with the Santa Clara County Homelessness Prevention System program, which provides temporary financial assistance, legal support, case management and other services.
Los Gatos Anti-Racism Coalition president Jeff Suzuki.said his group’s rental assistance program is “the most adaptable” when compared to the others.
“It is strange to have a lot of concerns that are effectively unsubstantiated presented when each one of them is really easily addressed,” Suzuki said of Koen’s letter and the council’s response.
Some circumstances that would qualify a person for assistance from the coalition include receiving an eviction notice; losing the household’s income-earner or the income-earner becoming unemployed or receiving a cut in hours or pay; encountering an extraordinary, non-routine expenditure, such as a car accident or acute medical condition expenses; or a rent increase.
“There are often people who are experiencing very niche situations where it would actually be very difficult for them to receive resources, because rental assistance programs are among the most difficult resources to apply for,” Suzuki said.
During the Aug. 4 meeting, Hudes proposed allowing the finance commission to review the rules related to the community grant program before making a decision, a motion that was rejected 3-2. His main concern had to do with making sure the money went to its intended recipients and “isn’t going to people’s friends or family.”
“When you have a program that is issuing cash or cash equivalence, that’s a little different than a program that’s supporting services, like transportation or counseling or things like that, because their cash or cash equivalence goes directly to individuals, so I raised a question about how to ensure that that is being done on a fair basis,” Hudes said in an interview.