Greater Hartford CAN Pre-Implementation 9/10/14

Greater Hartford - Coordinated Access Network

 Meeting Notes

September 10, 2014

In Attendance-

Crane Cesario- DMHAS

Phil McNally- MACC

Andrea Hakian- CHR

Shannon Baldassario- MACC

Sara Salomons – CRT

Rosemary Flowers-My Sister’s Place

Ruby Givens-Hewitt- Salvation Army

Roxan Noble- Chrysalis

Steve MacHattie- Immaculate

Roger Clark – Immaculate

Fred Faulkner- The Open Hearth

Heather Pilarcik- South Park Inn

Mark Jenkins- Blue Hills Civic Association

Laura Corliss – Vernon Public Schools

Jose Vega- McKinney

Tenesha Grant – Mercy Housing

Sarah Trench- Journey Home

Mollie Greenwood – Journey Home

Patrice Moulton - East Hartford Shelter

Sandry Terry – CRT

Amy Robinson – CRT

Ashley Blanchard- DMHAS

Robert Soderberg- CHR

Matt Morgan – Journey Home

Josephine Wilson – Salvation Army

Bryan Flint – Cornerstone

1.       Introductions & GH-CAN Meeting Notes for last week, 9/3/14

a.       Meeting notes were sent out in email this week in advance of the meeting.

2.       Updates:

a.       Shelter bed availability Report as of Tuesday, 9/9/14 at 11:59 pm.

                                                               i.      Most of our programs have been checking in regularly, Mollie will be reaching out to those organizations who have not updated three times weekly or more.

b.      Reminder: Purge existing waitlists by 9/15/14

                                                               i.      Please bring your lists next week so that we can get an idea of how many people are still on everyone’s waiting list.

c.       Hartford Community Care Team Kick Off- Thursday, September 11^th, 1pm at St. Francis. All shelter and housing providers in Hartford have been invited to join this meeting.  Please call Amanda Girardin at 860-808-0336 x 229 if you have any questions.

d.      Universal Housing Application Training Schedule: sign-up via email to Amanda Girardin at Amanda.Girardin@journeyhomect.org

                                                               i.      UHA Tranings: Referral Role Trainings + Waitlist Manager (as an add on for those who want it)

1.       September 16^th from 9:00-3:00

2.       September 17^th from 9:00-3:00

e.      VI-SPDAT – Diversion Tool Training & Schedule : Sign Up via email to Mollie Greenwood at mollie.greenwood@journeyhomect.org Remaining Dates:

                                                               i.      Wednesday, September 17^th, from 9:00-12:00 at CHR, 487 Center St, Manchester

                                                             ii.      Tuesday, September 23^rd, from 1:00-4:00 at Sue Ann Shay Place, 76 Pliny St, Hartford

3.       Marketing Plan: Start telling your contacts that we  plan to switch to 211 for all access to shelters on 10/27, and  as of 10/27 or the exact start date,  please change voicemail messages to indicate CAN process requires contacting 211 first. .

a.       In addition, voicemail messages should include the number to call for 211 access to SafeLink phones. That number is 1-800-203-1234.

b.      Additionally, the Department of Housing held a meeting with the Commissioners of different state agencies on 9/9/14 regarding CANs statewide.  Now that this first step has been made, it’s still  important to continue communicating with the many agencies, community members and individuals you work with.

4.       WORK GROUPS – because we were experiencing technical difficulties in connecting to the wi-fi in Sue Ann Shay Place, the group discussed the two work questions all together.

a.       Cold Weather Protocol: Complete the survey for CCEH:

                                                               i.      We discussed some of the protocols from last year, which included a couple of different agencies having money for hoteling families.  The issue was, 211 wanted clients who were in need of shelter to present themselves at the shelter, so that shelter staff could verify that they were homeless.  Alternately, current shelter residents could elect to stay in a hotel, so that new clients could take their space (in order to get around the new clients having to come out to a shelter, then go to a hotel).  However, few current shelter clients were willing to go to a hotel where meals would not be provided as they were in the shelter.

1.       Another issue with this plan was that transportation to school was a consideration for most families. 

                                                             ii.      All of the shelters shared the experiences they had last year during Cold Weather Protocol

1.       At Immaculate, they receive funding to do the No Freeze Shelter, and nobody is turned away. 

2.       When there is space at McKinney, residents are allowed to come in during the storm.  If some residents have been suspended from Immaculate, they can stay at McKinney- the two shelters often have clients move between the two shelters.  Neither shelter turns people away, they just find some place for them to be during the cold weather.

3.       At YWCA, cold weather protocol didn’t have a huge impact, and they never take in more people than capacity (15).

4.       At Salvation Army Marshall House, one of the sites that did hoteling last year, they did not make all new residents come in to be examined first- they would just handle taxi transportation to get people to the hotels.  They spent all of their hotel funding last year.

5.       At MACC, when the shelter is at capacity, or when the shelter is closed for the day, the soup kitchen is full.  All unsheltered people were welcomed to come into the shelter during Cold Weather Protocol, but not everyone chose to.  They only hit capacity a few nights in a row.

6.       At East Hartford, they also did not turn any people away.  There are sofas available in the day room, and an overflow cot, as well as overflow cots for children.

7.       At Cornerstone, there were extra cots available from the emergency service people.  If necessary, people could stay in the community center.

8.       At Open Hearth, they also did not turn people away, but found somewhere to keep them temporarily, like Immaculate and McKinney.

                                                            iii.      Mollie will send around an email to try and capture how many single adults and how many families each of the shelters received last year that were above and beyond regular volume.  We realize that it’s possible that nobody collected that formal information, so we are just asking for an estimate.

                                                           iv.      Then, we discussed what kinds of resources we would like to see.

1.       We would like some funding for transportation between Immaculate and McKinney on nights where No Freeze is in effect.

2.       We would like some general transportation funding, for bus passes, and taxis to help families get around, as well as helping transport people to empty shelter beds, when any exist (family shelters)

3.       We would like to cover the costs of hotel stays for families. (family shelters)

4.       We would like extra staffing, to drive the bus between shelters when needed (singles shelters)

5.       We would like more staffing to cover the phones at the triage centers (SAMH and Immaculate)

6.       We would like extra staffing to help cover the night shift (suburban shelters)

                                                             v.      We addressed the question on if there was a time restriction- both of our triage centers that help with overflow said there is no time when we stop taking people.

                                                           vi.      We discussed communication during CWP in particular, and the shelters all indicated that particularly on nights and weekends email is the least effective way to communicate- phone blasts, reverse 911, and even text blasts would be more effective.

                                                          vii.      Something we will have to determine, moving forward, is whether or not we will make reservations for beds during Cold Weather Protocol.

5.        Ongoing Work: We received the Fairfield County policy and procedure manual and we are working to draft our GH-CAN manual for initial review next week.

6.       211 Contact Info: 211 doesn’t work for SafeLink and other phones: please note process:

a.       Clients should dial 211, select option 3 and then option 1 for housing or shelter needs. If the client only selected option 3 they would wait for the period of time or they could enter their phone number and we would return the client’s call.  Callers that cannot dial 211 can dial 1-800-203-1234 and will hear the same options off the main menu that you would hear by dialing 211. 

7.       Department of Housing Shelter RFP Meeting:

a.       The meeting provided us with some information, but a lot of the meeting was asking for feedback from the consumers.

b.      DOH said that they will post the RFP in October, awards will come out in February, and the changes will take place July 1, 2015.

c.       There was a conversation about whether Hartford has the most shelter beds because there are more people experiencing homelessness here than anywhere else, or because people come to Hartford when they experience homelessness, because that is where they know beds are.

d.      The meeting talked about how the goal of the RFP is to align funding with the Opening Doors goals of no person experiencing homelessness for more than 30 days.

e.      The goal of these system changes is to use resources to look at outcomes.  We want to start looking not at how many beds are full, but how many people are stably housed when they leave, what populations face barriers within the system.

f.        It was requested that DOH look at length of stay, and the impact that is having on the shelter system.

DOH has an RFP out for developers who want to include affordable units in their new development projects.  Applications will be accepted beginning October 15^th on a rolling basis until all funds are spoken for: http://1.usa.gov/Z63GEh

8.       Newly formed statewide Chronic Homelessness Working Group, the initial meeting was held on Thursday, September 4, from 12:30-2:00pm at the Lyceum, 227 Lawrence St., Hartford. 

a.       This year, we are hoping to do a Youth Homeless PIT Count- if you have ideas on how to engage with that population, please let us know.

b.      One item that was raised at this meeting was a CSH request for a data set from HMIS with identifying information. We’ll keep everyone apprised of the outcome of this request that is planned to be made at Statewide CT-HMIS meeting tomorrow.

9.       VI-SPDAT prioritization: We had planned to start talking about this next week, but since we had a little time before the document loaded for the Housing Availability Report, we started this conversation today.

a.       We need to figure out what our range of scores is going to be for Transitional programs in this CAN. 

                                                               i.      We talked about maybe using it for people who have high service needs, but who aren’t chronic, or for people who are chronic, with low service needs, or those with longer term needs for education and training.

                                                             ii.      It may be helpful, going forward, to get a group together of people who have started using VI-SPDAT to discuss the tool, and see how the tool measured up against their prediction of client’s housing needs.

10.   We also started talking about how we would be green-lighting people for housing programs.

a.       The plan is to have all PSH providers work together (and if better, match programs for work meetings by city and suburban programs).  The GH Shelter Plus Care review committee will transform for PSH providers to share the work  of obtaining sufficient documentation to proceed with green-lighting clients for housing programs, and ensuring that we can all fill vacancies as soon as they are available. 

b.      Right now, it is often taking 1-2 months to get clients document ready, and we have to do a lot of chasing down to make sure folks are document ready.

c.       It’s a problem right now, because the UHA is self-report so some people who are screened as chronic actually aren’t.  We can’t fill dedicated chronic spots with people who aren’t chronic.

d.      From now on, when you enter someone into the UHA, we are asking that you enter as much information as possible, including homeless verification documentation.

e.      We’ll need to do ongoing communication with people trained in UHA. It’s part of the transition for we’re undergoing with implementing the GH CAN.

B.  Housing Referral Group:

1.       Mollie showed the group the new Housing Availability Report form on Google Forms.

2.       This form will be used by all PSH, TH, and RR programs in the future to report an opening.

3.       In addition to this form, we will be asking people to fill out a housing profile, which will be a more comprehensive survey, and which will explain more details about each housing program.

4.       This Housing Availability Report gathers only basic information, such as Agency, Contact person and contact information, Program, Number of Rooms, and if the program is site-based, it asks whether the unit is ADA accessible or adaptable.

5.       This form will populate a google spreadsheet that the Housing Referral Group will be able to access, and which will help them determine which clients are eligible for each program.

Announcements:

·         If anyone has any input on what they would like to discuss, please communicate your topics to us!  We would appreciate participation in agenda planning and identifying priorities for discussion.

·         GH Shelter Plus Care still has chronic homeless slots open for families and individuals, if you have a client household who is chronic, please touch base with Crane.

·         Yesterday, Bryan Flint from Cornerstone got to work with the Access Benefits Online program, which allows clients to input their information once, and uses that information to populate multiple forms to apply for state programs, including SNAP, HUSKY, Saga cash, and more.  In addition, this program causes DSS to report back quarterly on the status of each client’s benefits.  If anyone is interested in learning more about ABO or offering that service at their site, please contact Journey Home.

o   Journey Home would like to compile a list of agencies and programs that have accessed Access Benefits Online, so if you have, please let us know!