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

Senator Becker's Functional Zero Unsheltered Act would establish new reporting requirements for California's Homeless Housing, Assistance, and Prevention (HHAP) program applicants, requiring detailed assessments of resources needed to house their unsheltered populations. Beginning with round seven of HHAP funding, jurisdictions would need to evaluate what it would take to achieve "functional zero unsheltered" - defined as having sufficient housing options to accommodate their unsheltered, chronically homeless population based on point-in-time counts.

The legislation requires applicants to submit comprehensive financial models analyzing investment needs across multiple categories: capital for permanent and interim housing, operating support for housing projects, rental assistance programs, and services to help people transition into permanent housing. Applicants must also document existing funding sources, demographic data on program participants, available housing units, and interim intervention outcomes including shelter bed counts and exit rates to permanent housing.

Additional provisions mandate that jurisdictions report on their implementation of local housing incentives, including shelter crisis declarations, streamlined approval processes, and fee waivers for affordable housing projects. The bill also requires HHAP applicants to demonstrate how they incorporate smaller, non-applicant cities into their regional homelessness planning efforts. These new requirements aim to create more detailed accounting of both current resources and gaps in addressing unsheltered homelessness across California's diverse regions.