AN21--Intent to sole source - follow-on contract - homeless veteran surveys.

The Department of Veterans Affairs, Birmingham VA Healthcare System, intends to negotiate on a sole source basis, pursuant to FAR 6.302-1, with Strategic Research Group (SRG), for a follow-on contract surveying homeless veterans. This contract is a follow-on for a previous contract with SRG for VA research study, Primary Care Quality and Homeless Service Tailoring (PCQ-HoST). The QUERI project, SHELTER, has been approved to resurvey a subset of PCQ-HoST respondents from the 2017 study. It is necessary for this QUERI contract to be executed with this same contractor for purposes of effectively and efficiently resurveying the same veterans without 1. costing the government unnecessary additional costs that are not expected to be recovered through competition and 2. unacceptable delays that would occur with a new vendor developing a similar strategy before mailout within the required timeframe of one year. Additional costs incurred with redeveloping a successful outreach strategy would not benefit the government or the vulnerable patient population this project aims to serve. Moreover, the time spent redeveloping and learning to execute this strategy would assuredly prolong the timeframe of this project thus incurring even more additional costs for keeping the project open and the required personnel in position through the end of the contract window. Furthermore, the core issue is that reaching a homeless-experienced population is incredibly difficult. SRG is the only known vendor who has reached the homeless population on a national scale with over a 40% response rate. This is a notice of intent and is not a request for competitive quotes; however, any responsible source that can meet the requirements of surveying the homeless population on a national scale may submit a capability statement for review to the contracting office no later than August 13th, 7am, EST. Interest/capability statements may be sent to Lynn Portman at lynn.portman@va.gov. Submissions must reference RFQ# 36C24E24Q0101 in the email subject line. The Capability statement must demonstrate and describe how the vendor has direct homeless veterans survey experience on a national scale. Statement must include SAM UID# and business size. No telephone responses will be accepted. A determination not to compete the proposed requirement based upon the responses to this notice is solely within the discretion of the Government.