The Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to look further into concerns raised about the contractor that managed the county’s temporary lodging program after historic floods displaced thousands of San Diegans in January.
The action was praised by community advocates and flood victims who say Equus Workforce Solutions’ poor management and communication should not be tolerated.
“While we moved quickly to respond to the disaster, we now must ensure transparency and ability so we can improve the process for future emergencies,” said Supervisor Monica Montgomery Steppe, who proposed the motion. “This audit is a necessary step to restore community trust.”
The county’s auditor and controller will re-examine Equus’ contract to determine if public funds were properly used and if improvements need to be made, following the board’s 4-0 vote. Supervisor Joel Anderson was absent.
In the floods’ immediate aftermath, the county decided to tap existing contractor Equus to run an emergency voucher program to put flood victims up in local hotels so that it could get up and running as quickly as possible.
But soon, complaints began to emerge about the program’s effectiveness, and flood victims expressed concerns about Equus’ disorganization, the quality of its service and the security of their personal information.
“We’re not only worried about finding contractors and fixing our house, but we’re worried about, ‘Do we have to pack up our hotel?’” one participant told The San Diego Union-Tribune at the time. “It’s added more to the problems we have to deal with.”
This was especially hard for the many flood victims from underserved communities, Montgomery Steppe explained. Many of those families have struggled to find safe and stable housing since.
Some of them shared their stories at Tuesday’s board meeting, including Marcela Ralac, who in Spanish thanked supervisors for their help but said she felt Equus did not treat flood victims equally.
But the audit wasn’t the only flood relief families told supervisors they still need.
Others like Sandra Garcia asked supervisors for more help for people like herself who weren’t eligible for city financial aid because they didn’t participate in the county hotel program.
“I worked hard for many years for us to live well — and we did until January … (when) my house was destroyed,” Garcia said in Spanish. “I’m here on behalf of all of my neighbors to see if you can open your hearts to help us.”
Housing costs for people who lost their homes in January also pose new problems, said Clariza Marin, chief financial officer of the nonprofit Harvey Family Foundation.
Because of how Equus managed the hotel voucher program, many flood victims felt forced to sign leases for higher rents they could not afford, Marin said. Soon, they will again risk losing their homes.
“There’s another cliff coming … because of the failures of the contractor,” she said.
At a news conference Monday, Marin had said Equus had repeatedly asked some victims for the same information or mixed it up with somebody else’s, and that others were sent to hotels that had been shut down or threatened with eviction if they didn’t provide more information.
As of this week, the county had approved $14.5 million in payments to Equus for its work related to the January floods, most of it to pay for hotel rooms, county staff told the Union-Tribune.
In addition to examining Equus’ spending, the audit will assess other key performance areas, including its case management and data security. The county’s auditor and controller must report back to supervisors within 120 days.
Equus did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Separately, the board also approved Tuesday an effort to enhance county emergency management policies and engage local residents in the planning process to better address the needs of underserved communities.
Chair Nora Vargas said the plan would address the growing frequency of such disasters, pointing out that the county ranks 11th out of more than 3,000 on the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency’s risk index.
Among other things, her effort will establish a new community recovery division within the county’s Office of Emergency Services, which coordinates overall county response to disasters. The division will focus on coordinating resources and for affected communities, using bilingual, culturally responsive staff.
The board also approved in August an effort by Montgomery Steppe to update county procurement procedures to give small businesses and community organizations better access to county contracts.
Community advocates applauded Tuesday’s action and said the flood response offered lessons for the future.
“Both of these items are a testament that we have a long way to go, but we’re stepping in the right direction,” said Armon Harvey, leader of the Harvey Family Foundation.
