In 2004, the State of Minnesota established a Business Plan to End Long-Term Homelessness.  In response, Hennepin County entered into a cooperative agreement with six other metro counties (Agreement A060863, approved via Board Resolution 06-358) to develop and submit The Metropolitan Counties' Long Term Homeless Supportive Services Plan to the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) to fund services in supportive housing programs that would allow the "seamless" delivery of services and coordinated allocation of resources across metro county boundaries.  Under the governance structure of the original agreement, Hennepin County was designated as fiscal agent and lead agency contractor for this multi-county effort.  

In 2006, initial funding was awarded by DHS to Hennepin County as the fiscal agent to support activities related to the Supportive Services Plan for the Initiative (Agreement A061029, Resolution 06-358).  Through Agreement A060738 (Resolution 06-358), Hearth Connection served as the administrative entity for the delivery of services and allocation of resources for the Initiative and to ensure consistency in service standards and outcomes.  

Since 2006, the state has continued to allocate resources towards this effort and the Board has approved receipt of funds totaling $37.7 million to date (Board Resolutions 07-416, 08-323, 09-0286, 10-0280, 11-0329, 12-0332, 13-0377, 15-0193, 15-0512, and 16-0421).  The current grant for this Initiative (Agreement A154302) is $6,137,371 for January 1, 2016 to December 31, 2017.  Hearth Connection continues to serve as the lead service agency.

The Agreement was first amended in June 2009 (Board Resolution 09-0260) to extend it and to continue Hennepin County as fiscal agent for the Long-Term Homelessness Initiative (the Initiative).

Amendment 2 to Agreement A060863 modifies the agreement to build on the successful metro-wide Initiative in order to position the metro region for other funding.  The metro area Human Services Directors and the Regional Metro Committee, working with each jurisdiction’s County Attorney’s office, developed and approved the modifications in this recommended amendment.

The purpose of this Amendment is to reaffirm the joint powers entity, referred to as the Metro Area Housing Coordinating Board, and provide for the additional cooperative exercise of the Parties’ powers to obtain a variety of grant funds from multiple sources and cooperatively manage those funds to further the coordination of homelessness prevention efforts in the Metro Area.  This Agreement provides the Parties with greater flexibility for obtaining and spending housing related grant funds obtained from public and private sources on a regional basis rather than through the efforts of individual counties acting alone.

With this amendment to the cooperative agreement, the metro region will be better positioned for funding and program opportunities by having:

·         expanded regional coordination on housing issues;

·         economies of scale and reduced administrative overhead;

·         coordinated deployment of housing resources; and

·         regional funding applications that have the potential to be more           competitive than individual county applications