Homeless adult and family multidisciplinary personnel teams

Cities designated as local health jurisdictions can now use the same multidisciplinary-team model previously available to counties to connect homeless adults and families with housing and supportive services.

What the law does ​

• Allows a city designated as a local health jurisdiction to establish a homeless adult and family multidisciplinary personnel team.
• Requires counties and cities with separate teams to allow appropriate personnel from the other jurisdiction to participate upon request, unless participation would hinder legal compliance or conflict with the host jurisdiction’s goals.
• Allows team members to exchange confidential information when reasonably believed to help identify, reduce, or end homelessness or provide services, subject to existing privacy laws.
• Requires cities and counties to adopt, distribute, post, and provide the California Department of Social Services with information-sharing protocols containing privacy, security, training, retention, and data-quality safeguards.
• Requires cities and counties operating overlapping teams to make reasonable efforts to coordinate personnel standards, protocols, boundaries, schedules, referrals, housing placements, and operations.

Who it affects ​

• Homeless adults and families seeking housing or supportive services.
• Cities designated as local health jurisdictions and counties that establish multidisciplinary teams.
• Participating health, mental health, substance-use, social-service, housing, homeless-service, school, veterans, domestic-violence, legal, probation, and law-enforcement providers.

Context ​

The law does not override state or federal privacy protections, including HIPAA and medical-information confidentiality requirements.