- Welcome and Introductions
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Sofina Begum - Journey Home
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Yoshi Bird - South Park Inn
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Sonia Brown - CRT
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Letticia Brown-Gambino - Chrysalis
Center
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Kara Capobianco - Department of
Housing
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Crane Cesario - DMHAS
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Sarah DiMiao - Salvation Army
Marshal House
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Lauren Fair - Salvation Army
Marshall House
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Fred Faulkner - The Open Hearth
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Heather Flannery - Interval House
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Alexis Gaynor - Journey Home
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John Lawlor - The Connection
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Rebekah Lyas - ImmaCare
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Elijah McFolley - The Open Hearth
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Lionel Rigler - City of Hartford
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Tyeisha Saffold - CRT EH Shelter
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Sharon Redfern - Cornerstone
- Career Pathways Program Presentation – Roy Mainelli, Journey Home
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Successful 5 year program that
Journey Home would like to continue to grow by training prospective employees
for trade jobs
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In the past 5 years 50 plus people
have been employed through this employment program
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The Open Hearth has been a big
participant of the program
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Hartford Foundation for Public
Giving would like to continue to fund and support the growth of the program
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Right now there are 14 positions
with 5 companies open, the Career Pathways Employment Program would like to
open the opportunity to all CAN members to encourage clients to join the
program
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3 month vetting process for
selecting candidates
- Cold Weather Update – Sarah Dimaio
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Opening date for Willie Ware
Warming Center will be December 1st with a possible closing date of March 31st
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The Warming Center will have up to
20 front line employees
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Salvation Army Marshall House has
started to interview for positions and is hoping to hire
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The Salvation Army Marshall House
Overflow Shelter will have 23 beds for families and 4 dedicated beds for single
women
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Salvation Army Marshall House is
recruiting churches in the area to host one night a week to open capacity, they
have reached out to 7 churches with the possibility of 3 of them coming on
board.
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This year at the Warming Center,
there will not be a case manager. However, diversion appointments will be done
on site to divert as many clients as possible. Immacare will provide one FTE to
assist with diversion
- Shelter Report Out on Progress in Changing the Narrative to be Strength-based – South Park Inn, McKinney, Salvation Army, YWCA, East Hartford Shelter, Open Hearth
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McKinney, YWCA, and South Park Inn
were not present for the discussion
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East Hartford Shelter reported
that they are training their staff to focus their conversations to be more
about housing; having the clients consider housing options with family/friends,
shared housing, or roommate situations (doubled-up safe)
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Open Hearth is encouraging staff
to engage in a casual conversation with clients more often. Staff is having a
2nd “Diversion” conversation with clients, to explore options to self-resolve.
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Shelters are working on training
their staff on how to engage with clients to help them get out of the shelters
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The Salvation Army changed job
descriptions about a year ago. It is now mandatory for all staff to complete
(3) NAEH webinars per month. Each client has a housing plan, which are kept in
the front office so that each shift has access to the housing plan. Each shift
has been given assignments, specifically to search for housing
resources/listings.
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Report out on Potentially Chronic clients – shelters, outreach programs
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Some shelters have reported that
many of the clients are missing Disability Verification
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The Open Hearth has reported that
all 4 of their Potentially Chronic clients have or are receiving support. Two
of their clients have moved on to permanent based housing, one of their clients
has a Disability verfication, and one is difficult but they are receiving the
support they need from Open Hearth.
- Homeless Outreach Gap/Issues
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Evening outreach is still needed
but Salvation Army is planning on hiring two full time employees dedicated to
outreach
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Salvation Army plans to do night
time outreach 3 days a week for about 6 weeks; Staff will only canvass the
community to surveys in order to capture demographics and last zip code
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Teams of 3 people will be going
out from 6pm to 11pm to verify clients
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Alexis is forming a volunteer
group to do outreach after hours- date to be determined based on doodle poll
that was sent out by Alexis
- PIT Update – Crane Cesario and Alexis Gaynor
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2020’s PIT count will be held on January 22nd in the morning from 5 am
to 7am
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HUD CoC grants require
organizations provide at least one volunteer for PIT
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PIT office hours to be determined
- Updates and Next Steps on Local Strategies on Long Stayers in Shelter – Stephanie Corbin, Sarah Dimaio, Rebekah Lyas, Barbara Shaw, Crane Cesario, Lisa Quach
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All shelters need to report on the
changes they are implementing for more strength based results
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Trainings to come soon with CSH
collaborative training focusing on race and equity
- New Agenda Items
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Wiping Smart Sheets clean in preparation for Cold-weather
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Proposal: No longer having diversion staff add people to
shelter-waitlist. Outreach will canvass, verify, and add to the waitlist.
- Announcements
