GH CAN Leadership 8/9/17

Greater Hartford Coordinated Access Network

Leadership Agenda

Wednesday, August 9th, 2017

1.      In Attendance:

Brian Baker – South Park Inn

Sonia Brown – CRT

Crane Cesario – DMHAS

Cat Damato – CRT

Sarah DiMaio – Salvation Army Marshall House

Fred Faulkner – The Open Hearth

Rosemary Flowers – My Sisters’ Place

Lou Gilbert – ImmaCare

Dave Martineau – Mercy Housing and Shelter

Kyren McCrorey – The Open Hearth

Matt Morgan – Journey Home

Amy Robinson – VA

Iris Ruiz – Interval House

Cathy Zeiner – YWCA

Lauren Fair – Salvation Army

John Lawlor – The Connection

Justine Couvares- Chrysalis Center

Stephanie Corbin – Mercy Housing and Shelter

 

2.      Sub-COC and CAN Leadership Meeting Structure – Crane Cesario, Cat Damato

a.      Since we merged with BOS, there has been a lot of crossover between meetings.  The GH sub coc and Hartford sub COC could become one entity, and could join in with CAN Leadership’s regularly scheduled time.  We needed to determine the best way with figuring out how to implement these structures.  Last week, Dave Martineau, Sarah DiMaio, Crane Cesario, Matt Morgan, Cat Damato, and Mollie Greenwood met to discuss the meeting process. 

b.      We’re looking to have sub COC meetings take place the second meeting of the month.  We will lead the agenda with COC related issues at that second monthly meeting. 

                                                    i.     The reason we chose the second meeting of the month is to ensure we get the BOS COC meetings at each meeting of our subCOCs.  If you have issues related to CT BOS, you can always contact Crane and Cat. 

                                                   ii.     Crane and Cat offered to review your COC applications before sending them to BOS if that is of interest to any applicants. 

                                                  iii.     You can view the BOS webinar trainings on applications whenever you want to. 

3.      DOH Guidance

a.      on PSH and RRH Prioritization (see p. 4-6 )– Matt Morgan

                                                    i.     An issue that has come up statewide, we have been talking about the issue of how to manage households who don’t seem to be succeeding in RRH.  We know we need to follow HUD’s prioritization in terms of how to fit these households into our prioritized list.  Over the last 3 months, we have been seeking feedback from other parts of the state. 

1.      The determination is that if you don’t have any remaining chronically homeless individuals or families, you can move people who are not chronically homeless in RRH to permanent supportive housing. 

2.      So, under homeless individuals and families with severe service needs, we are looking to incorporate people with disabilities and severe service needs.  Within that group, people with a VI/NST score of 8 or higher, and who have been homeless for over 8 months, they would be the next prioritized. 

a.      Within that, folks who are unsheltered would be prioritized first.

b.      Folks failing out of RRH would be prioritized second.

c.      Folks literally homeless, but currently sheltered, would be prioritized third.

3.      It would help us to have a flow-chart, because this narrative writing is difficult.  A concern Crane has is, looking at folks earlier in the process than month 5.  It’s becoming extremely challenging for the RRH programs serving the folks who are chronically homeless.

4.      The programs we have in place aren’t always equipped to move within the policies that we have.   It may be necessary to bring up people for case conferencing much earlier. 

                                                   ii.     Bridging to PSH (p. 2) – Crane Cesario

1.      One way of trying to manage the issue of people “waiting” to hit their 12 months of homelessness would be putting everyone through RRH first.  In Norwich, there was a pilot program where 43 individuals with serious mental illness all received rapid rehousing assistance.  42 of 43 folks were successful.  One problem we have is that CHR has a program that is taking only the chronically homeless into their RRH program.  We need to figure out how we manage keeping track of who we KNOW needs to be bridged, and who we think might need to be bridged.  We don’t want to create a two-tiered system. 

a.      We do have more RRH resources, but we continue to have PSH programs with openings, and you don’t want to harm your PSH programs by waiting for openings.  What Crane suggests, as Leadership, is how many folks we think need to be bridged, and manage that over time.  We need to make sure that RRH programs are able to meet PSH program standards.  We need to sit down with folks who are interested.  People in RRH may have zero income, not all PSH programs can take full caseloads of zero income households. 

b.      Dave reminded us that when we initially adopted the VI-SPDAT, the goal of that tool was to help us organize where households would be able to succeed.

                                                                                                                i.     We’re learning that it is often an income issue.  That is a piece that may not have come into our thinking when we were looking at the VI-SPDAT originally.  We aren’t doing a whole lot of that assessment with any consistency. 

                                                                                                               ii.     We’re housing the toughest to house, and we don’t know what their ability is to obtain income, either.  We’re also taking chances.  We don’t want to mess up the outcomes. 

                                                                                                              iii.     Sonia has a few people on the waiting list for the housing choice voucher program, so that person may be able to move easily into the Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher.  CRT won’t have enough in-house support or S8HCVs to manage that whole situation. 

                                                                                                              iv.     Additionally, the HPASS program have been working with folks who had higher scores than they had previously anticipated.

c.      When we originally talked about the VI scores, the question was, if they have a high score, are they able to go into Rapid ReHousing.  We wanted to give it a try.  But the programs are still going to be held accountable. 

                                                                                                                i.     We really need to establish a subgroup- two subgroups.  Sonia, Kara, Sarah, Andrea or Amber.  After that group has met, we need to determine which PSH providers want to join as bridgers. 

                                                                                                               ii.     We also need to determine what happens in the rare cases that a PSH program has an opening and there are no RRH folks.  How do we manage buildings, which are site based?  They come with services. 

                                                  iii.     RRH Exemption Policy – Sonia Brown

1.      For CT BOS, we’re able to take higher income people, but a person needs to lose income to stay in their program longer than 3 months.  Let’s write a rebuttal.  We either need to add a clause about this into the exemption form.    This will be another item to add on the meetings.  It was probably a good goal to try and reduce expenditures. 

2.      Let’s assume good intent.  Sonia and Sarah and Crane will

b.      DOH VI-SPDAT and Full SPDAT Policy – Mollie Greenwood

                                                    i.     Mollie reach out to DOH – new VI-SPDAT should be done by a different provider.  We don’t think that’s necessary internally. 

c.      DOH/DMHAS Due Diligence/Refusers – Mollie Greenwood

                                                    i.     90 days – people may be institutionalized, we’re not yet changing them to be less than 90 days.  We don’t want to harm the client. 

                                                   ii.     Sarah talked about the 3 phone calls- Journey Home has reached out to DOH for further clarity about whether 3 phone calls are required in each case, or if a thorough data review can substitute for multiple phone call attempts.

4.      CCT Release of Information Processes – Matt Morgan

a.      At the last CAN Ops meeting, we asked all agencies which organizations are having folks sign Community Care Team Releases.  St. Francis and Hartford Hospital both have a version of this release.  This release allows all healthcare providers in our region to be able to case conference and discuss challenging cases. 

b.      The sense is it could help us communicate with folks.  Some shelters wanted to be able to use this CCT ROI to communicate with healthcare providers. 

c.      We recently got HMIS to add CCT Releases as a tag for type of document.  One of the first steps we took in terms of better coordination was having data sharing agreements and having one shared release of information.  There are many things we’re trying to improve when it comes to healthcare. 

                                                    i.     This could help with getting SAGA, SSI, SSDI, compassionate allowance, getting people into Medicare part B[MG1] [MG2] [MG3] ,

5.      GH CAN Housing Data – see p.2

6.      Future Agenda Items

7.      Announcements

a.      Hands On Hartford is working on planning the Day of Sharing and Caring and needs lots of help planning and pulling off the event.  The event is currently scheduled for 11/2 from 11:00AM – 2:00PM If you’re interested, please contact swalker@handsonhartford.org

b.      Salvation Army is offering an Anti Human Trafficking Training at Capitol Region Mental Health Center Tuesday, 9/26 from 1-4 PM