GH CAN Leadership 1/11/17

GH CAN Leadership Meeting
Wednesday 1/11/17

In Attendance:
Brian Baker - South Park Inn
Sonia Brown - CRT
Kara Capobianco - Department of Housing
Crane Cesario - DMHAS
Cat Damato - CRT
Mary Davenport - The Network
Fred Faulkner - The Open Hearth
John Ferrucci- South Park Inn
Lou Gilbert - ImmaCare
Tenesha Grant - Mercy Housing
Mollie Greenwood - Journey Home
Andrea Hakian - CHR
Dave Martineau - Mercy Housing
Matt Morgan - Journey Home
Theresa Nicholson - Chrysalis Center
Tina Ortiz - CRT
Diane Paige-Blondette - My Sisters' Place
Heather Pilarcik - South Park Inn
Marilyn Rossetti - The Open Hearth
Kathy Shaw - My Sisters' Place
Barbara Shaw - Hands On Hartford
Cathy Zeiner - YWCA
Ymonne Wilson - CRT
Sarah DiMaio - Salvation Army Marshall House
Kyren McCrorey - The Open Hearth

1. Legislative Agenda Presentation - Sarah Fox from the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness and Cindy Dubuque from the Partnership for Strong Communities presented on this year's legislative priorities.  Preservation of resources will be key this year, because of the continuing budget crisis.
2. Zero: 2016 Updates
1. Governor's Press Conference - Tomorrow the governor will be holding a press conference to congratulate the CANs on our work to end chronic homelessness this year.  Our CAN selected Kelly Gonzalez of CRT and Trish Pollicina to accept the award on behalf of the GH CAN.
2. Matt presented on progress and the inflow of chronicity we have seen in GH CAN.  It looks like in order to sustain our progress, we would need 3.5 new openings in addition to turnover to sustain our current progress.
3. Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Updates - Recently there has been some confusion regarding the preference.  Imagineers has not told us that we need to stop accepting new applications, nor that the vouchers are on hold or stopped, and so we continue to take new applications for either folks moving on from PSH, or chronically homeless individuals with low service needs.  Folks had not realized that the preference was still accepting applications, some PSH providers needed to return to their programs to check and see if there were any other households who may be a good fit for this moving on process.  
4. Applicant Self-Certification of Homelessness - HUD guidance regarding applicant self-certification of homelessness indicates that any household can self-verify 3 of their 12 months of homelessness towards chronicity.  However, in addition to this, any housing program dedicated to prioritizing chronic households can have up to 25% of their program participants self-verify their entire 12 months of homelessness.  
1. There was a proposal, whenever a household is seeking to verify their whole homeless history, to bring that household up for discussion at Coordinated Exit.  Leadership determined that this was acceptable.
2. Journey Home will track all households who are self-verifying 100% of their time, and will record which housing program accepts them, to ensure no GH CAN program accepts more than 25% of their participants using this rule.
3. So far, in GH CAN, only 3 households have utilized this allowance so far.
5. Bridging from RRH to PSH when Disability is Verified during RRH - At our last Leadership meeting, we discussed the guidance that DOH released that PSH providers can work with RRH providers to "bridge" chronic individuals who are not succeeding in RRH into PSH, so long as chronic status was verified at intake to Rapid ReHousing.  In addition to this guidance, we recently had a case where one individual had the chronic homeless history at intake to RRH, but did not have a verified disability.  Through the course of the RRH program, this individual eventually disclosed a disabling condition, and was able to get verification of this disability.  This individual therefore was determined to be eligible for bridging into PSH if unsuccessful in RRH.
1. One concern that came up in the course of this discussion is in the COC funding application process, programs are penalized for indicating that participants slept anywhere other than streets or shelter in "where did you stay prior to program entry" and that this will continue to be a concern as we are working to bridge RRH participants.  Households bridged from RRH will never be entering PSH from literally homeless situations, which may affect PSH ranking and scoring using current criteria.  Crane offered to re-address this with CT BOS.  Kara also offered to assist.
6. Updates from Shelter/Cold Weather Meeting - Yesterday all of the shelter and No-Freeze providers came together to discuss No Freeze processes and troubleshoot some of the communications issues that had been coming up. 
7. CCT Release of Information Implementation - Matt suggested that since we have agreed upon a plain-language explanation of the CCT release, the best next steps to start utilizing this release consistently would be to have case managers complete this release with shelter residents. CAN Leadership agreed with this decision, and we will discuss further at the Operations Meeting.
8. Announcements
1. The new Diversion Team is up and running.
2. This year's PIT will take place 1/24, and the unsheltered PIT will take place 1/25.  Team leaders are still needed in Hartford, and volunteers are still needed in the suburbs.  Contact Cat Damato for Hartford and Steve Hurley for the suburbs.
3. In addition to the standard PIT count, this year we will also be doing a youth count.  Contact Steve Hurley for more information.
4. The Disability Verification form is being renamed the Disabling Condition Verification Form to reduce concerns that medical providers have expressed about verifying disabilities for housing.