Greater Hartford CAN Meeting 3/26/15

GREATER HARTFORD COORDINATED ACCESS NETWORK

MEETING NOTES

WEDNESDAY, March 25th, 2015

NEXT MEETING: WEDNESDAY, April 1st, 1:30 – 3:30 pm

In Attendance: Rubi Alegria – Mercy Housing Shannon Baldassario - MACC Sandy Barry – Salvation Army Marshall House Aisha Brown – CHR Enfield Traci Burditt - CHN Crane Cesario – DMHAS Stephanie Corbin – CHN Bryan Dixon - InterCommunity Willem Donahue – Journey Home Rosemary Flowers – My Sisters’ Place Chris Fortier – The Open Hearth Nate Fox – Center Church Sevasti Galanis – Chrysalis Center Amanda Girardin – Journey Home Ruby Givens-Hewitt – Salvation Army Marshall House Tenesha Grant – Mercy Housing Mollie Greenwood – Journey Home Amber Higgins - CHR Andrea Hakian – CHR

Eunice Hernandez – Chrysalis Center Philomena  McGee – CHR Enfield Steve MacHattie – ImmaCare Matt Morgan – Journey Home Veronica Nixon – My Sisters’ Place John Oliver – Chrysalis Center Heather Pilarcik – South Park Inn Jamie Randolph – CRT Amy Robinson – CRT SSVF Chris Robinson – Chrysalis Center Iris Ruiz – Interval House Sarah Simonelli – Chrysalis Center Sara Salomons – Journey Home Rob Soderberg - CHR Sandra Terry – CRT Sarah Trench – Journey Home Madeline Trinidad – Salvation Army Marshall House Josephine Wilson – Salvation Army Marshall House Tamara Womack – My Sisters’ Place

1.       Introductions & GH-CAN Meeting Notes for last week, 3/18/2015 (emailed)

2.       GH CAN Stats Update – See p. 2

a.      Our regional data quality will be a measure that reflects our CAN to the state- it is important that staff continue to try and clean up the data quality at their appointment site. 

3.       Priority Lists – Procedures for updating and referring through unified referral list

a.      Where do we make the hand-off between shelter and housing program- who is responsible for the client in terms of gathering documentation?  Many shelters have been unable to complete all necessary documents with every client due to capacity limitations.  The community needs to decide how other programs may be able to leverage staffing to get these clients ready for housing. 

                                          i.      CABHI staff at Chrysalis have volunteered to help get people ready. 

                                        ii.      New London changed their DMHAS HAF fund.  This program is money for DMHAS clients for emergency term housing assistance- it doesn’t disqualify their housing status.  Sometimes it turns into longer term funding, but isn’t meant to be.  They’re talking about turning that into DMHAS eligible Rapid ReHousing funding- can be used for higher barrier people.  In New London, where they’re piloting this new process in which the housing provider is responsible for the client. 

b.      How will we monitor document readiness? 

                                          i.      Something wonderful happening right now is we have tons of housing openings.  We have clients who are high priority, but they aren’t document ready, or don’t have a UHA.  We want to toss this question out to the group.  If we’re going to house only the highest, most vulnerable people, but they have no documentation yet, or no UHA yet, we don’t know what they’re eligible for.  We want to not have openings at all of these housings agencies- we can’t leave openings for these most vulnerable people.

                                        ii.      What is acceptable for length of time for people to get document ready?  The highest priority person on our list- how long do we give them to get document ready before we move to the next person on the list?

                                       iii.      Second question: if someone has not yet completed a UHA, how long do we wait before we go to the next person who DOES have a UHA?  We need a balance between filling these openings while we still try to help the most vulnerable clients.

1.       The whole point of CAN is to have the community set priorities and make decisions.  We need to make practical implementations, but we also need to think about long term policies. 

2.       Last week a lot of names were thrown out last week, so some of them didn’t have a UHA, so we weren’t able to determine if they were eligible for those slots.  We need a stepwise process to figure out how to get people UHA ready, document ready, and then matched.

3.       The 100 Day Team has been tasked with identifying a process to figure out how to help these prioritized clients get document ready and make a sustainable system for the future.

4.       The idea of navigators coming out of last week was awesome, and Amy Robinson stepping up for this role is great. 

5.       Journey Home has created a Google Document (distributed with green highlighting).  This document mirrors the people on the other document, but doesn’t have names, just ECM IDs and initials.  The whole community will have access to view this list of prioritized clients to work together to get them ready with a UHA, and document-ready for housing. 

c.       Documentation:

1.       Assessment Concern Form - In order to ensure that we aren’t jumping over prioritized clients, we have a form that staff can complete if they feel that a VI-SPDAT score is not reflective of client’s needs.  Staff should complete this form, and return it to the GH CAN meetings for any client whose VI-SPDAT score does not accurately reflect their needs. 

2.       Disability Verification and Homeless Verification Forms - Balance of State COCs are modifying forms that Amanda of Journey Home has created.  We’re going to start field testing the new forms as soon as that draft exists.  We are anticipating these updates within the next couple of weeks.

4.       Announcements:

a.      The Universal Housing Application will be upgrading from 3.1 to 4.4 this weekend.  Journey Home expects the system to be down from 3/27 – 3/30 and will send an email out when the upgrade has been completed. 

5.       Working Groups:

a.      Duty Services Coordinators/CORE Review:

                                          i.      This group reviewed each client on the prioritized list to see whether staff had any information about client whereabouts, or how to best contact them. 

b.      Housing Referral Group:

                                          i.      Review Hartford 100 Priority List - Any information on any of the clients listed?

                                        ii.      How long can we wait for people to gather necessary documentation before we begin to house clients off this list?

1.       The 100 Day Team was tasked with determining timelines.  We decided that after clients are matched and a spot becomes available the programs should give clients 2 weeks to get document ready to enter the program before they can consider the next prioritized client.

                                       iii.      Assessment Concern Form – available to print on www.journeyhomect.org/projects/gh_can – Please complete and fax a copy to Journey Home at 860-724-1274, and bring to next GH CAN meeting

                                      iv.      Housing Referrals – Shelter Plus Care Units, Project HEARRT, MSP Transitional Unit

1.       Journey Home provided referrals for a Shelter Plus Care young adult, My Sisters’ Place – Sue Ann Shay young adult, Cosgrove Commons young adult. 

2.       Following the decisions of the 100 Day Team that clients do not necessarily need to be fully document ready to be referred to housing Journey Home also made a referral for Next Steps Manchester, Project HEARRT, a Shelter Plus Care subsidy designated for an unsheltered household, and another Shelter Plus Care subsidy. 

                                        v.      Housing Outcome Forms – Please update these new forms to help us track the outcome of a housing match through GH CAN.  Available here: http://goo.gl/forms/yaaux0M27Y

c.       Hartford 100 Day Team:

                                          i.      Hartford 100 Priority List- How can the team support this list, and what are our next steps?

1.       Following last week’s meeting the large group had identified a lot of people who were a priority to get housed.  Staff were energized, focused, but felt that these focused efforts did not result in housing, and felt like the momentum was stopped.

2.       The 100 Day team, as well as other staff, were focused on getting those clients housing ready, and when they were not matched with programs it was not clear what the hold-up had been.

a.       Although staff were able to determine a number of clients who were prioritized for housing, without completed Universal Housing Applications it was not clear what programs clients were eligible for. 

b.      The team decided that moving forward, there would be a priority to get everyone on the 100 day priority list to complete a UHA.

c.       In addition, staff would indicate on the Google Document who they were working with, to make sure there was no duplication of efforts.

d.      The team determined that once a client on this list has been matched with an available housing unit, the community should consider that a “conditional match”.  Once the match is made, the housing program should contact the client within 48 hours to make them aware of their opportunity.  The housing program then has two weeks to help get that client ready for housing (document ready).  The client’s navigator should assist housing programs in making sure clients are ready for housing. 

3.       Review the Google Form – Get everyone a secure login for the document

a.       All GH CAN staff will have access to view this site, Journey Home staff and Amy Robinson will have access to edit the document.

b.      Please tell Amy Robinson if you are working to help get a client on this list document ready. 

                                        ii.      Document Fair

1.       Add to flyer- will pick people up at south green at 8:30 – add link for preregistration as well.  Can be changed from HMIS number to name for preregistration

2.       Progress from last week

a.       Mary Gillette, former staff at Mercy Housing, will be available as a consultant to help manage the logistics of the document fair.  The team is excited to have her on board in this capacity!

b.      Chrysalis has offered to have 2 vans available to assist with transportation.  Other agencies may have additional vans available.

c.       We may have port-a-potties available on site for the fair.

d.      Envelopes and paper have been made available, and Matt Morgan will be sending out a more specific ask to the leadership team for technology and commitments from agencies. 

3.       Materials needed

a.       The team needs to know what the procedure will be for accessing flexible funds.  Matt and Crane will finalize a procedure for obtaining funds and recordkeeping. 

4.       Agencies needed

a.       We are still looking for commitments from the Social Security Administration, the DMV, DSS

                                       iii.      2-1-1 Script Review – How can we present these modifications to 211 as a pilot?

1.       The team plans to send the drafted modifications to 211 and copy members of the leadership team. 

                                      iv.      Outreach discussion – How can we begin to incorporate existing outreach groups, set a meeting time?

1.       Which stakeholders do we want to get together?

2.       Amy Robinson from CRT and Aaron from the VA are both interested in putting together an outreach trip to the airport.

3.       Shelter outreach teams are trying to connect with past clients to have them visit the shelters to start documentation.