Greater Hartford CAN Pre-Implementation 10/29/14

Greater Hartford - Coordinated Access Network

 Meeting Notes

October 29, 2014

In Attendance: Shannon Baldassario – MACC Sandy Barry- Salvation Army Marshall House Crane Cesario – DMHAS Roger Clark – Immaculate Conception Brenda Earle – Department of Housing Bryan Flint – Cornerstone Chelsea Fortson  - CHR Lou Gilbert- Immaculate Conception/ ImmaCare Ruby Givens-Hewitt – Salvation Army Marshall House Mollie Greenwood – Journey Home Andrea Hakian – CHR Mark Jenkins – Blue Hills Civic Association Dalila May – Interval House Steve McHattie – Immaculate Conception/ ImmaCare John Merz – AIDS CT

Asra Mir – CHR Matt Morgan – Journey Home Patrice Moulton – CRT/ East Hartford Shelter Pieter Nijssen – Tri-Town Shelter Roxan Noble – YWCA/ Chrysalis Barbara Oliviera – Mercy Housing Heather Pilarcik – South Park Inn Lisa Portal – Columbus House Amy Robinson – CRT Sara Salomons – CRT / Hartford CoC Barbara Shaw – Hands on Hartford Sandra Terry – CRT Jose Vega – McKinney Shelter Josephine Wilson – Salvation Army Marshall House Tamara Womack – My Sister’s Place

1.     Introductions & GH-CAN Meeting Notes for last week, 10/22/2014 (emailed)

2.     Updates:

a.     Assessment Schedule: We need to complete and send 211 our assessment schedule.  DSCs need to email mollie.greenwood@journeyhomect.org as soon as possible with their assessment times so that we can finalize our schedule.

b.     CAN Implementation Schedule: GH-CAN Tentative Start Date 11/17/14.

                                                 i.      HMIS training will be taking place the week of 11/10-11/14.  We estimated that at least 20 people from our CAN will need to be trained on the HMIS system.  This training is mandatory for all CAN HMIS agencies.

c.      Shelter Bed Availability Report: Please note that this is an Internal CAN Document only, and should only be distributed to CAN agency staff.

d.     New Britain/ Bristol CAN in the news.

                                                 i.      There have been issues with clients getting into shelters in the NBB CAN.  The mayor has joined the conversation, and the cities are working with the Department of Housing to try and remedy some of the issues in that CAN.

3.     VI-SPDAT and CAN Assessments

a.     PATH Providers have been asked to use VI-SPDAT tool.

                                                 i.      CRT and MACC Charities both have PATH providers on staff.

b.     Shelter Updates: Assessments of current shelter residents – Status

                                                 i.      All shelters with representatives in attendance have either begun the process of VI-SPDATing clients, or will be starting in the next week.  The goal is to have all current clients completing a VI-SPDAT prior to November 17^th.

                                               ii.      There was a question about how you would know if someone had already done a VI-SPDAT.  The goal of our CAN is to only re-perform a VI-SPDAT after a significant change in housing status, or after six months has passed.  

1.     After completing a VI-SPDAT, the shelter should hold onto all paper copies.  The score of a VI-SPDAT can be scored in the UHA.

2.     If there is a question of whether a client has already completed a VI-SPDAT, a case manager can either look into the UHA and see if there is a score, or ask the client where they came from and follow up with a previous case manager.  The UHA is a memorable tool, so most clients will remember if they have ever completed one before. 

                                            iii.      There was also a question of where to store VI-SPDAT information.  The Department of Housing will follow up with Nutmeg on this question.

4.     GH CAN Policies and Procedures – Review

a.     Today the GH-CAN got a full copy of the DRAFT-Policies and Procedures with sections on both shelter and housing.  We reviewed the Policies and Procedures draft together, and Journey Home emailed a digital copy to the CAN for further review.

b.     We started by discussing the single point of entry to our GH-CAN.  All households will call 211.  If a household does not have access to a phone or is unable to make the call, CAN agency staff will assist households with making the initial call to 211.   211 will provide basic diversion, and refer to DV and veteran services, if applicable.  If the person cannot be diverted, and is 7 days or less from homelessness, they will be referred to the CAN and 211 will schedule an assessment appointment.  If there is no appointment available before the person needs shelter, the person will then be directed to the triage centers (Immaculate Conception and Salvation Army Marshall House. 

c.      We discussed our plan to occasionally, if convenient for assessment staff, host provisional appointments.   This means that in instances where a client is staying in a shelter and their assessment appointment isn’t happening for awhile, and if the shelter DSC is available and willing to complete an assessment, that client could have a provisional assessment earlier. It’s important to note that any provisional appointments would be the exception, rather than the rule, and that households in shelter would not have a reasonable expectation for an appointment before their scheduled appointment.  In any case of a provisional assessment, the DSC would still need to call 211 prior to the assessment and alert them of the changed assessment time.

                                                 i.      It was mentioned that holding these provisional assessments could be perceived by some as “line-jumping” and allowing people to have assessments earlier than 211 scheduled.  The intent of these assessments was not to enable households to skip the line, rather to increase the capacity of the GH-CAN by allowing more people to be assessed more quickly.  The GH-CAN will need to consider the possible perception of line jumping if the CAN will be moving forward with any provisional assessments.

                                               ii.      We decided as a CAN that rather than having all of our clients call 211 on the initial night, we’d like to grandfather the existing shelter guests.

                                            iii.      We also discussed Length of Stay policies.  Although DOH mandates that all ESG funded shelters must have a Length of Stay policy, there is no mandate on what the LOS must be.  Shelter performance is based on exits of households to positive destinations, and so exiting people out of your shelter before they have a positive housing situation will negatively impact performance.  If a household is making progress towards housing, it is in the shelter’s best interest to keep them.  HUD is now focusing on community wide efforts, not individual efforts.  Everyone’s performance is connected through CoCs now.

                                             iv.      In the interest of time, we tabled the rest of the Policies and Procedures for now, but will revisit next week.  Meanwhile, please send any and all edits to Journey Home!

                                               v.      211 has expressed that they need one single point of contact for all the DSCs to contact with system problems.  Mollie Greenwood will serve as that point of contact between all of the agency DSCs and 211 as we move forward.

5.     CAN Transportation – Immaculate Conception’s proposal:

a.     After a lot of internal discussion about the barriers created by a lack of reliable transportation, Immaculate Conception has offered up their full-time outreach staff person and their brand new 7 passenger vehicle to the Greater Hartford CAN to assist with transportation between shelters and assessment appointments.

b.     This offer could help to fill some major gaps in transportation, especially for families, and clients who need transportation during cold weather months.

c.      Immaculate Conception was asked to prioritize the different activities the van could be used for and needs to further explore any limitations, but today just wanted to gauge the CAN’s interest in use of this vehicle.  Immaculate Conception will begin to develop policies for use of the vehicle and come back to CAN with more specifics in the near future.

d.     One suggestion was that if other shelters need to utilize the vehicle’s services, contributing gas cards could help offset some costs for Immaculate Conception.

e.     A huge thanks to Immaculate Conception for such a generous offer to the GH-CAN!

6.     CAN Process Questions:

a.     Work flow review- Client perspective and housing program perspective

                                                 i.      There was a question about veteran households who are in transitional housing.  Initially, it had seemed that the UHA could be a good step for clients staying in Veteran’s Crossing transitional housing.  Since referrals for that program go through the VA rather than 211, they may not be in the system, so the UHA seemed like a viable option to help search for housing.  However, since transitional housing ends a household’s chronic status, they are not eligible for PSH programs or state-funded rapid rehousing, so the UHA may not provide many options.  Veterans in a Rapid Rehousing program on the other hand could be a good fit for the UHA, because Rapid Rehousing households maintain their chronic status if they fail out of Rapid Rehousing.

b.     Remaining tasks needed in preparation for our start date next month.

7.     Marketing Plan:

a.     Resource Contacts – updates

                                                 i.      Over the last few weeks, different agencies have been updating the ”Referring Agency” Google Document to help the GH-CAN get a master list of the different agencies we will need to contact about the GH-CAN changes prior to November 17^th.   Additionally, people could list other agencies that refer to them on a paper that was passed around today.

b.     Informational materials – sample from Fairfield’s email blast; GH CAN info sheet.

                                                 i.      We would like to modify Fairfield County’s informational materials to be specific to our CAN.

c.      Posters are now available in English and Spanish.  Other languages needed – suggestions?  We’ve been offered assistance and need to decide.  Planned for statewide later meeting in November.

d.     Press release

                                                 i.      We suggested creating a press release- Crane will reach out to CRT about a press release.  If the GH-CAN makes a press release that mentions state agencies it needs to be okayed by state agency representatives.

e.     Other suggestions

                                                 i.      Matt Morgan mentioned that he had given a presentation to the Capitol Region Council of Governments town administration committee, a group made up of town managers and town planners. 

                                               ii.      Crane has presented the CAN concept to the statewide meeting of Social Services administrators in CT towns, and provided information.

                                            iii.      José suggested reaching out to Hartford public access TV and a Spanish radio station.

8.     Announcements

a.     Immaculate Conception Shelter and Housing Corporation is changing its name.  The agency’s new name will be ImmaCare Incorporated.  Congratulations on the change, Immaculate Conception/ ImmaCare!  Keep an eye out for this transition.

b.     Salvation Army Marshall House announced that Lynn Naughton resigned as shelter supervisor last week, so Salvation Army Marshall House is in a transitional period.  Ruby Givens-Hewitt is the daytime supervisor.

c.      Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness will be hosting a statewide training on the VI-SPDAT/Diversion Tool for anyone who missed previous trainings in December.  Date and location TBD.

d.     If any shelters need proof of their attendance at CAN meetings for the Shelter ESG RFP, please contact mollie.greenwood@journeyhomect.org

e.     The Hartford COC submitted 21 grant applications yesterday, many of which were renewals.  The applications included the conversion of Project Teach from Transitional Housing to Permanent Supportive Housing; the CoC planning grant; and a collaborative proposal for new funding for CH PSH units.