The Collin County Commissioners Court has allocated a portion of their federal CARES Act funding for housing assistance to residents of Collin County.  To facilitate timely disbursement of these funds, the County is partnering with the four CDBG entitlement cities (Allen, Frisco, Plano, McKinney) to administer housing assistance across the County.  Each city will enter into contracts with public service organizations to implement this program.  The City of Allen is responsible for administering an initial $4,468,747.

On May 15, a joint RFQ was released to solicit service organizations to contract with the cities to implement the assistance program. Allen staff hosted a virtual call with local service organizations to share information about the program and answer questions about the RFQ.  The City of Allen website is being used as a centralized resource for information about the program.  On May 20 a county-wide pre-application virtual call was hosted to review the RFQ and answer questions.  Over 50 organizations participated in the call.

On May 27, a committee of staff from the four cities (Allen, Frisco, McKinney, and Plano) met to review proposals submitted by service organizations to implement the housing assistance program.  The proposals were evaluated based on the RFQ criteria, including experience operating similar programs, organizational capacity, amount of funding requested, and geographic coverage. 

Based on the proposals submitted, the organizations were awarded funding allocations and specific geographic areas. A total of 15 agencies submitted proposals, and 11 were awarded funding for implementation.  All of the agencies located in Allen that submitted a proposal were allocated funding.  The City of Allen will be administering contracts with the following service organizations:

• Allen Community Outreach - $2,602,091
• Assistance Center of Collin County - $62,000
• Islamic Association of Allen - $312,500
• Jewish Family Services - $775,000

Contracts for the service organizations partnering with Allen were prepared for execution by the City Manager during the week of June 1 and are being presented on this agenda to be ratified by City Council. The program went live and started accepting applications on June 1. Funds were transferred to the service agencies on Friday, June 5 so the agencies could start making payments.

Staff recommends that the City Council ratify contracts with All Community Outreach, Assistance Center of Collin County, Islamic Association of Allen and Jewish Family Services for implementation of a housing assistance program in the total amount of $4,468,747.

I make a motion to ratify contracts with All Community Outreach, Assistance Center of Collin County, Islamic Association of Allen and Jewish Family Services for implementation of a housing assistance program in the total amount of $4,468,747.