The cities of Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks, Camarillo and Ventura have missed out on hundreds of thousands of dollars for homeless prevention due to what state housing officials say was an application error.

In August, the four cities filed a joint application with the state Department of Housing and Community Development to receive a total of $1.2 million in Homeless Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program funds. Each city could have received up to $300,000.

According to Shannon Nash, senior planner in the city of Simi’s housing division, that money could have been used for a variety of homeless prevention services, including eviction prevention and short-term rental payments, security deposits, utility deposits and payments, moving and storage expenses, and credit counseling.

However, in September, the state informed the city of Simi Valley—which was the lead agency on the application—that the application was ineligible because the cities had partnered with the county’s Human Services Agency and the county had already received its share of the funding.

Cathy Brudnicki, executive director of the Ventura County Homeless and Housing Coalition, said she was stunned by the decision and felt the cities had an extremely strong application.

“It was historic that we got everybody together to agree to work on this jointly and people were really willing to do it. So then to have that fall flat; it would have just been a wonderful thing if we could have made that work,” Brudnicki said.

Earlier this year, the county and the city of Oxnard received $857,000 and $1.1 million, respectively, in stimulus funding for homeless prevention through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. They were eligible for the funds as direct entitlement jurisdictions, meaning they could get the money from HUD directly.

HUD also gave the state nearly $43 million to distribute to nonentitlement jurisdictions, such as the four cities.

The cities applied together in order to reduce processing costs and to ensure that homeless prevention services could be provided countywide, said Rob Bruce, deputy director of housing and special projects for Simi.

They listed the county as a provider of the services since the programs that would have been funded with the grant are ones the county is currently providing, Bruce said.

He said the city did its best to fill out the application according to the guidelines provided by the state and that it wasn’t trying to “double dip” into the stimulus funds.

“If (the state) had read more deeply into the application, they would have seen we were simply partnering with (the county) for the administration of the program,” he said.

After the cities received word that its application had been declared ineligible, Simi contacted the state in hopes of reconsideration. It found that all the available funds had already been awarded, Bruce said.

Mayor Pro Tem Barbra Williamson, who also co-chairs Simi’s Task Force on Homelessness, said it’s unfortunate that the cities were disqualified on a “technicality.”

“If anybody can distribute and use that money the best way it’s the city because it knows where the problems are,” she said. “The state and the feds don’t have a clue, so they ought to trust the cities and trust the county to get the job done.”

Williamson added that the state might have been looking for any reason to disqualify applicants because it had so many requests.

According to a letter from the state Department of Housing and Community Development to the city, the application process was “extremely competitive,” with funding requests exceeding $74 million. The state awarded 31 grants for a total of about $42.7 million.

Since there were many more applications than there were funds, it’s possible the four cities wouldn’t have received funds anyway. But Bruce said it’s more difficult to accept the loss when the cities were disqualified for reasons they don’t agree with.

“We never have enough funding for these services. Every little bit extra that is available is very much appreciated and the loss of any potential funding is always a disappointment,” Bruce said.

There is a silver lining. After checking with HUD and learning that the stimulus funds could be spent outside the grantee’s jurisdiction, the county committed last week to sharing its money countywide and has asked the city of Oxnard to do the same.

It pays to share since the cost of homeless prevention is cheaper than getting someone out of homelessness once they’ve fallen into it. The homeless-prevention services are administered through the county’s human services agencies, one of which is in Simi.

Brudnicki said she’s also encouraged by the efforts of Ventura County Together, a partnership of local nonprofits that’s working to gather donations from the community to help those in need (see related story on page 16). The Amgen Foundation has committed to matching the funds up to $150,000 for contributions received by Dec. 4.

She said she sees that money as a “replacement” for the state funds the cities lost out on.