Solano County homeless services agency head resigns following conflict of interest concerns

FAIRFIELD – The executive director of a county homeless services agency resigned last week after conflict of interest concerns arose surrounding a $1.8 million contract to operate the county’s coordinated entry system for homeless services.

Community Action Partnership of Solano Joint Powers Authority, or CAP Solano JPA, Executive Director DeShawn Waters resigned on Feb. 23. The agency’s program manager Michael Wilson was appointed  interim executive director. Wilson said after a board meeting Friday that he could not speak on whether a performance review led to Waters’ resignation.

The conflict of interest concerns were raised last year when the agency’s board of directors received a complaint from a member of a selection panel for the new coordinated entry contract that Waters, who served as the facilitator, had encouraged panelists to change their scores in favor of Abode Services, where he had worked less than a year prior. 

Board member Jenalee Dawson, who is also a Suisun City councilmember, called for a review of Waters' performance as the agency’s executive director. 

During a meeting Friday when the board took up the contract process again, Dawson said that Waters had sought to influence her vote on the contract as well.

“On November 5th our executive director approached me and told me that he needed my support, that I was a power vote and a team vote and that he needed my vote to get Abode’s contract approved,” Dawson said. She added that she felt it was unethical for Waters to seek support from a board member to sway a decision on a contract award. 

CAP Solano JPA is responsible for oversight and coordination of homeless services in the county. Each of Solano County’s seven cities and the county itself has a voting director and an non-voting alternate that make up the agency’s board of directors. 

In September, CAP Solano JPA initiated a competitive bidding process for a 2.5-year contract to operate Resource Connect Solano, the county’s coordinated entry system that connects homeless or housing insecure residents to supportive services. Four nonprofit organizations submitted applications for the competitive process, including the current provider Caminar.

The agency selected a community panel to evaluate the applications. That panel recommended awarding the contract to Abode Services based on a  half-point lead over Caminar in the scoring process. 

Out of concern that the selection process could have been compromised by Waters’ facilitation, the board voted in November to extend Caminar’s contract for six months and to postpone awarding the new contract until a second selection panel could be arranged. 

The agency hired a consultant to facilitate another evaluation of the four applicants for the contract. 

The consultant selected panel members who had knowledge of federal and state funding processes or familiarity with other coordinated entry systems as well as members who had lived experience relevant to service recipients. None of the participants in the new five-member panel were involved in the previous selection process. 

However, the results mirrored those of the previous panel, with Abode Services ranking first and Caminar second. The new results ranked Abode Services ahead by a slightly wider margin than before. 

After the panel’s scoring results were presented on Thursday, several county residents spoke in support of selecting Caminar rather than Abode, despite the applicant’s higher score.  

Donald Blair, 64, said that Caminar had helped him get housing in Vallejo’s Broadway project while other organizations he reached out to never followed up. 

A mother who spoke at the meeting but later asked not to have her name published due to safety concerns, said that her son had been homeless for several years and Caminar representatives helped him get into housing. 

“He was a victim of a mass shooting and was the lone survivor,” she said. “Resource Connect gave me the resources to get him off the streets and into housing. If it wasn't for them, my son would probably not be alive today.” 

Kim Natarajan, a representative from View Community Advisors, the consultant agency that facilitated the review process, said that the public comments in support of Caminar do not necessarily represent an apples to apples comparison because Caminar is contracted to perform the services referral function that can lead to housing placement. She noted that Abode also has a contract with the county but is specifically for behavioral health services.

The services that Abode provides in Solano County are similar to services one can receive through Resource Connect Solano and a resident could receive a referral to Abode through Resource Connect Solano. But Abode’s services are primarily for residents with documented behavioral health conditions.  

However, many homeless or housing insecure residents have experience with both organizations. In an interview after the meeting, Blair explained that he met representatives from Abode when they were doing outreach outside of a supermarket. 

He said that they were initially enthusiastic about connecting him with services, but after he signed up and provided his contact information, they never got back to him. When he signed up through Resource Connect Solano, it took over six months for him to get housing but he said that he received regular updates to let him know that he hadn't “fallen through the cracks.”

CAP Solano board member and Vacaville Councilmember Roy Stockton asked the agency staff if the board is required to follow the recommendation of the panel.

CAP Solano JPA staff attorney Kelly Welsh said that the agency has to follow federal and state procurement standards and if the Board were to go against the recommendation of the panel she would prefer to have a documented reason for that decision.

Solano County principal management analyst and JPA staff member Megan Richards, added that rejecting the recommendation of a competitive bidding process twice could open the agency up for an audit by the federal government.  

Board member and county supervisor Cassandra James said that she was doubtful about whether the second panel had improved upon the process of selecting contract applicants. “My understanding was that this was supposed to be an open and transparent process and it felt as if it got more exclusive,” she said.

But board member and Benicia Councilmember Lionel Largaespada, who participated on the panel, said that “the process was extraordinarily public.” 

“It was published with the questions, the expectations, the scoring criteria and you have four capable operators responding.” Largaespada said. “There's questions about the ranking, but the interesting thing is that it didn't change, it actually went up.” 

Board member and Suisun City Mayor Alma Hernandez said that when she has served on rank and review panels in the past she realized that some agencies have the resources to create great response packages to requests for proposals but that there are also agencies that have quality outcomes but not necessarily the resources to put those packages together. 

Hernandez said that it is also important to consider how long it takes to build trust among homeless communities, and that she would like to hear more from impacted community members about how to maintain and continue building that trust. 

City of Vallejo councilmember Tonia Lediju said that since Vallejo has the largest population of homeless residents in the county she would have liked to see a panelist with experience relevant to the city. She also agreed with Hernandez that the trust that an operator establishes with the community is important to consider.

“Continuity with services matters,”  Lediju said. “And trust with this community is very, very important. Anytime you have a disenfranchised population, there is a lack of government trust, and how do you build that trust?” She said that she would like the two top candidates to come answer questions from the board before the final decision. 

Welsh said that she would caution against adding new procedures without formally amending the request for proposal, which would involve following certain process requirements as well.

“I understand the continuity argument,” Largaespada said, “but the coordinated entry system belongs to us, the county infrastructure is our system. It is not tied to a single operator. Change isn't always bad. Change can be good. I don't know what setting this back is going to do, you would essentially detonate this entire RFP.”

The Board was deadlocked on a motion to approve the panel’s recommendation with Benicia, Dixon, Fairfield and Rio Vista voting to accept the recommendation and Solano County, Suisun City, Vacaville and Vallejo voting “no.” But the board was able to get a majority vote on a motion to continue the item to the next session.