Surf City Rotary Club Presentation by Off The Streets - Huntington Beach, March 25th 2015

1. Surf City Rotary Presentation
March 25, 2015
Larry Burns
President
Off The Streets - Huntington Beach

2. ● Mission - We house the homeless
● History - Born out of frustration
● Our Team - Local and grassroots
● Principles - Compassion + personal responsibility
● Successes - 70 homeless housed
● Our Needs - Financing, marketing and furniture!
Agenda

3. Our Mission
Off The Streets - Huntington Beach is a
501(c)(3) non-profit charity that helps homeless
individuals and families in Orange County CA
get into permanent housing.

4. 1. Qualify clients to determine if they: 1) are truly homeless in
Orange County CA, and 2) have monthly income (job,
disability, public assitance, etc.)
2. Build a budget with them to determine a monthly rental
payment they can afford based on their monthly income.
3. Pay their security deposit directly to the landlord if the client
finds a rental that fits their budget.
What we do

5. History
● Born out of frustration in the Fall of 2013
● Started with a question: How do I get off the street?
● Prompted a Google search
● Discovered Off The Streets - Danbury, Connecticut
● Inspired us to start an OTS chapter here in HB
● Started operations in June 2014

6. Board of Directors
Founded June 2014
Pierre
Charette
Dave
Moses
Cheryl
Lynch
Larry
Burns Bill
Wright
Jennifer
Burns
Local and Grassroots!

7. Principles
● Close to 100% of donations go to help clients
o 100% volunteer - No paid staff and miscellaneous expenses are covered
by these same volunteers.
o Near-zero overhead - No office, no equipment, no vehicles. The only
significant expense is mandatory insurance.
o 100% private funding - No government funding or costly regulations.
● One-time service only - A revolving door would cause us to run out of
money quickly. Instead, a lot of due diligence performed for 1st time success.
● Compassion + personal responsibility - a healthy combination!

8. Compassion + Personal Responsibility
● We exist to give people a compassionate hand up
● However, our approach requires the person we help to
accept most of the responsibility for getting off the street
o Must have income to pay rent on an ongoing basis
o Must be motivated
o Must participate in an in-depth financial review
o Must find their own rental
● We encourage and guide them but they do most of the work

9. 70 people placed using this simple process
since our start up in June 2014

10. Successful Placements
Every success story is documented on our website!
● Total of 70 homeless individuals placed into rentals since June 2014
o 41 adults
o 29 children (41%)
● Demographics
o 10 single mothers with kids
o 9 single men
o 5 single women
o 5 couples with kids
o 7 adults as couples or families without kids

11. Retention Success Rate
● OTS Founding Chapter: tracked 85 people and 83% are still housed.
● OTS-HB: of the 54 people placed in 2014, we know of 2 who fell back
into homelessness, making our early retention success rate 96%.
Because we are working with people who have fallen into
homelessness before, we don’t anticipate a 100% retention rate.
Nevertheless, for every homeless person we get off the streets
permanently, we feel it’s worth the effort.

12. Needs
● We pay rental deposits so financial donations are our biggest need
o Our average placement cost per person is <$500 (in Orange County!)
o Nearly 100% of donations go to pay security deposits (near zero overhead)
o 100% transparency of who gets placed (every story is on the website)
● We are new and need help with marketing and spreading the word
o Visit our website: www.offthestreetsnow.com/hb
o Visit us on facebook: www.facebook.com/offthestreetsnowhb
o Sign up for our email list: sign up on our website
o Our business card is our brochure - all key info is there. Please take a stack
and hand them out freely to the homeless, businesses & advocates.

13. Furniture Dilemma
● You’ll note that our business card offers furniture to those we place
so they are aren’t moving into an empty rental.
● We did this successfully for over 6 months, but were plagued with
logistics problems. Our initial approach just wasn’t sustainable.
● As such, we’ve had to put this aspect of our service offering on hold
to rethink and regroup so we can develop a sustainable solution.
● We don’t want to give this service up since it really helps give the
homeless who have very little a new start when they get placed.
● We’re hoping to partner with someone who has the moving vehicles,
warehouse, labor, time and heart to take this on.

14. Recent Partnership
● CB Investments is a downtown HB mortgage lending company
(located just above Fred’s on Main Street)
● In business for nearly 20 years
● Has pledged $500 per funded deal in Orange County to OTS-HB
● If you’re looking to refinance or buy a property please consider CBI
● We would love to have many more business partnerships like this
300 Pacific Coast Highway, Suite 301
Huntington Beach, CA 92648
714-770-8023
chris@cbinvestments.com

15. Thank You!
To Learn More
Web: www.offthestreetsnow.com/hb
Facebook: www.facebook.com/offthestreetsnowhb