Homeless Housing, Assistance, and Prevention program: reporting requirements: functional zero unsheltered.

Senator Becker's Functional ZeroAct establishes new reporting requirements for jurisdictions seeking Homeless Housing, Assistance, and Prevention (HHAP) program grants, requiring detailed assessments of their progress toward eliminating homelessness. The legislation adds metrics and planning obligations to California's existing HHAP framework, which provides funding to continuums of care, cities, counties, and tribes for addressing homelessness challenges.

Under the act, HHAP applicants must analyze their housing needs and develop comprehensive plans to reach two defined benchmarks: "functional zero," where homelessness becomes rare and brief with rapid rehousing available, and "functional zero unsheltered," which requires sufficient housing options for the jurisdiction's unsheltered chronically homeless population. The required assessments include quantifying needed housing units, creating financial models for capital investments and operating costs, and cataloging existing programs with demographic data on populations served.

The legislation mandates that applicants document their implementation of local housing incentives, such as shelter crisis declarations, streamlined approval processes, and fee waivers for affordable housing projects. Jurisdictions must also demonstrate efforts to incorporate smaller, non-applicant cities into their regional homelessness plans. These new requirements take effect with the next HHAP application cycle or when updates to regional homeless action plans come due.