Request for Proposals for Remote Housing Authority Operational Support

Background

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Sonoma County Housing Authority (SCHA) is seeking operational support for the completion of intake appointments, reexaminations, program briefings, and other operational tasks that may be identified at a later date. 

The Sonoma County Housing Authority (“SCHA”) provides rental assistance in the form of Housing Choice Vouchers (“HCV”), Project Based Vouchers (“PBV”), Mainstream Vouchers, Family Unification Program Vouchers, and Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing (“VASH”) vouchers to 3,012 low-income households.  These vouchers enable housing authority participants and applicants to rent from area landlords, in the private rental market. 

Federal regulation and local policies, require that all applicants of a Housing Authority rental assistance program undergo an initial eligibility appointment and, if eligible, participate in a program briefing. Additionally, all active clients are required to participate in a reexamination of their income no less than biennially. 

Scope of Services

The Agency is seeking proposals from qualified, licensed, and insured entities to provide remote intake, recertification and intake services to a portion the Agency’s Housing Choice Voucher, Mainstream Voucher, VASH, and Family Unification Program households. The Services shall include but not be limited to completing in a HUD-compliant manner the following tasks utilizing Housing Authority software. SCHA utilizes MRI HAPPY software. 

• Conduct intake appointments, including all eligibility screening, income calculation and  document verification
• Conducting Initial Briefings
• Process Reexaminations, including collection and review of required documentation, income calculation, calculation of tenant rent
• Respond to client questions according to applicable regulation and local policies
• Accurately documenting all processes and communications in the appropriate electronic file

All services shall be provided in accordance with all applicable law and in a manner consistent with industry best practices. The Housing Authority reserves the right to increase or decrease the amount of cases assigned to the Contractor on a monthly basis. 

The Contractor shall use Housing Authority forms, letters, systems, reports and email addresses. The format of all Authority forms and letters sent to Housing Authority clients shall be approved by the Housing Authority.

The Contractor logo shall appear on formal status reporting to the Housing Authority and monthly billings; all other materials produced by the Contractor will appear as though they are Housing Authority materials.

The Contractor will use HUD’s five levels of verification. Contractor will access EIV to verify income. When “Up Front Income Verification” is not available, Contractor will send employment verification forms to employers via fax, mail and email. If the Contractor is unable to obtain “Written Third Party” verification, the Contractor will contact the employer via telephone for “Oral Third Party”. HUD Waivers adopted by the Housing Authority in response to COVID-19 may also be used in lieu of the income verification hierarchy until such waivers expire. Notation of waivers used must be properly notated in file.   

The Contractor shall assign a Project Manager to act as the point of contact for the Agency regarding the Services provided. The Project Manager shall manage and supervise the completion of the Services to include but not be limited to the following:

• Supervise and conduct quality control reviews of each Contractor-assigned housing specialist’s work.
• A sample of 10% of annuals/interims processed on a monthly basis shall be reviewed by the Contractor’s Project Manager. If there are errors found exceeding 2% an additional 5% shall be reviewed.
• Communicate with the Housing Agency contract managers for all HCV, Mainstream, and VASH programs to provide timely updates, so Contractor can ensure that all deadlines are met and all applicable Agency policies and procedures are followed.
• Provide Housing Authority with a monthly status report.
• Troubleshoot issues on behalf on Contractor’s staff such as IT issues related to remote access to systems, and coordinate with the Agency’s IT staff or contract managers directly in order to resolve such issues timely when necessary.

Submission Requirements

General Instructions: 

To receive consideration, proposals shall be made in accordance with the following general instructions:

1. The completed proposal shall be without alterations or erasures.
2. No oral or telephonic proposals will be considered.
3. The submission of a proposal shall be an indication that the proposer has investigated and satisfied him/herself as to the conditions  encountered, the character, quality and scope of the work to be performed, and the requirements of the CDC, including all terms and conditions contained within this RFP.Fill in any additional conditions specific to your RFP (e.g. Must be present for a walk-through meeting on X date.)

Proposal Format and Contents: 

For ease of review, and to facilitate evaluation, the proposals for this project should be organized and presented in the order requested as follows:The section below is optional.  Use it if you expect coalitions or contractors with sub-contractors, etc

Section I: Organizational Information

Provide specific information concerning the firm in this section, including the legal name, address, and telephone number of your company and the type of entity (sole proprietorship, partnership, or corporation and whether public or private). Include the name and telephone number of the person(s) in your company authorized to execute the proposed contract. If two or more firms are involved in a joint venture or association, the proposal must clearly delineate the respective areas of authority and responsibility of each party. All parties signing the Agreement with the CDC must be individually liable for the completion of the entire project even when the areas of responsibility under the terms of the joint venture or association are limited. 

Section II: Qualifications and Experience:

• Provide specific information in this section concerning the firm's experience in the services specified in this RFP, delete the following clause if you are using Federal funds preferably within other Housing Authorities. Examples of completed projects, as current as possible, should be submitted as appropriate.References are required. Please provide names, addresses, and telephone numbers of contact persons within This may need to be altered for each RFP three (3) client agencies for whom similar services have been provided.
• Debarment or Other Disqualification - Proposer must disclose any debarment or other disqualification as a vendor for any federal, state or local entities. Proposer must describe the nature of the debarment/disqualification, including where and how to find such detailed information.

Section III: Project Approach and Work Schedule:

• Provide a description of the methodology developed to perform all required services, with an aggressive schedule that will contain specific milestones which will allow work to commence at the earliest possible date. Indicate the time required to complete each task indicated in the Scope of Services. Also identify the extent of CDC personnel involvement deemed necessary, including key decision points at each stage of the project. Information regarding the type of  software that may be  anticipated  in the planning process should also be discussed.
• Include your response to the Scope of Work as referenced above.

Section IV: Cost of Service

The proposal shall clearly state ALL of the costs associated with the project, broken down by category of products and services, and all on-going costs for recommended or required products and services.

Keep the section below for a competitive RFP or for a bid, but you do not need it for an RFP for which you do not expect a lot of response.

The project costs must be broken out and include all expenses that will be charged to the Commission, including but not limited to hourly rates for labor, overhead and profit, subcontractor costs, on-site general conditions, software costs, implementation fees, shipping, insurance, communications, documentation reproduction, and all expenses, including travel, meal reimbursement, hotel per diems, taxes, etc. Failure to clearly identify all costs associated with the proposal may be cause for rejection of the Consultant’s proposal.

Section V: Identification of Subcontractors

Proposers shall identify all subcontractors they intend to use for the proposed scope of work. For each subcontractor listed, proposers shall indicate (1) what products and/or services are to be supplied by that subcontractor and, (2) what percentage of the overall scope of work that subcontractor will perform.

Section VI: Insurance

The selected proposer will be required to submit and comply with all insurance as described in the attached Sample Insurance Agreement (Attachment B) or identify specific exceptions to the sample agreement.

Section VII: Additional Information

Include any other information you believe to be pertinent but not required.

Section VIII: Contract Terms:

Proposers must include a statement acknowledging their willingness to accept the sample contract terms (Attachment A) or identify specific exceptions to the sample agreement. 

Timeline

The following schedule is subject to change. If the timeline is changed, all known recipients of the original RFP will be notified of new dates, and any such changes will also be posted on this page

Questions

All questions must be submitted in writing no later than 5:00 p.m., July 16, 2020. If any questions are received, all questions will be responded to in an addendum issued and posted on the Commission’s website. The Commission will not provide verbal responses to any inquiries made by prospective respondents. The Commission will instead direct respondents to submit all questions in writing. Questions should be submitted via e-mail to martha.cheever@sonoma-county.org with RFP for HA Operational Support indicated in the subject line of the email.  

Instructions for Proposal Submittal

Form:
Respondents must do all of the following:

• Upload an electronic copy of their proposal to this link: https://files.sonoma-county.org/link/lgIFgYG4Aqw/. 
• Respondent must include the Respondent name in the title of the file uploaded. Note: The link will state “There are no files in this directory” click on the button that says “Click here to Upload” and then select “Browse for files” you may then select files and click upload. Confirmation of successful upload will not be received by respondent after upload is complete; and
• Submit one (1) digital copy on a thumb-drive to the address below. Proposals must be enclosed in a sealed envelope or package and clearly marked Proposal for HA Operational Support. All mailed digital copies must be postmarked no later than July 29, 2020.  Proposals shall be submitted to:

Martha Cheever
Sonoma County Community Development Commission 
1440 Guerneville Road
Santa Rosa, CA  95403

Selection Process

1. All proposals received by the specified deadline will be reviewed by the CDC for content, including but not limited to fee, related experience and professional qualifications of the bidding consultants.
2. CDC employees will not participate in the selection process when those employees have a relationship with a person or business entity submitting a proposal. Any person or business entity submitting a proposal who has such a relationship with a CDC employee who may be involved in the selection process shall advise the CDC of the name of the CDC employee in the proposal.
3. Proposals may be evaluated using the following criteria (note that there is no value or ranking implied in the order of this list):

a. Demonstrated ability to perform the services described;
b. Experience, qualifications and expertise;
c. Quality of work as verified by references;
d. Costs relative to the scope of services;
e. A demonstrated history of providing similar services to comparable entities;
f. Willingness to accept the CDC’s contract terms; and
g. Any other factors the evaluation committee deems relevant. (When such criteria are used for evaluation purposes, the basis for scoring will be clearly documented and will become part of the public record.)

The CDC’s Executive Director reserves the right, in his or her sole discretion, to take any of the following actions at any time before Commission approval of an award: waive informalities or minor irregularities in any proposals received, reject any and all proposals, cancel the RFP, or modify and re-issue the RFP. Failure to furnish all information requested or to follow the format requested herein may disqualify the proposer, in the sole discretion of the CDC. False, incomplete, misleading or unresponsive statements in a proposal may also be sufficient cause for a proposal’s rejection. 

The CDC may, during the evaluation process, request from any proposer additional information which the CDC deems necessary to determine the proposer’s ability to perform the required services. If such information is requested, the proposer shall be permitted three (3) business days to submit the information requested.

An error in the proposal may cause the rejection of that proposal; however, the CDC may, in its sole discretion, retain the proposal and make certain corrections. In determining if a correction will be made, the CDC will consider the conformance of the proposal to the format and content required by the RFP, and any unusual complexity of the format and content required by the RFP. If the proposer’s intent is clearly established based on review of the complete proposal submittal, the CDC may, at its sole option, correct an error based on that established content. The CDC may also correct obvious clerical errors. The CDC may also request clarification from a proposer on any item in a proposal that CDC believes to be in error.

The CDC reserves the right to select the proposal which in its sole judgment best meets the needs of the Commission. The lowest proposed cost is not the sole criterion for recommending contract award.  '

Under certain circumstances the firm selected by the CDC may be recommended to the Board of Commissioners for this project, but the Commission is not bound to accept the recommendation or award the project to the recommended firm.

Finalist Interviews

After initial screening, the evaluation committee may select those firms deemed most qualified for this project for further evaluation. Interviews of these selected firms may be conducted as part of the final selection process. Interviews may or may not have their own separate scoring during the evaluation process.