Next Meeting: Wednesday, January 27th, 2016
In Attendance:
Natasha Baldwin - Salvation Army Marshall House
Janet Bermudez - Hands On Hartford
Manuel Burnias - CRT Security Deposit Guarantee
Marcel Cicero - CRT East Hartford Shelter
Stephanie Corbin - Community Health Network
Anna Ebora - Journey Home
Jacqueline Farmer - Veterans Inc
Nate Fox - Center Church
Clarissa Garcia - ImmaCare
Amanda Girardin - Journey Home
Mollie Greenwood - Journey Home
Kaylon Griffith - Capitol Region Mental Health Center
Andrea Hakian - CHR
Amber Higgins - CHR
Mark Jenkins - Blue Hills Civic Association
Aaron Jones - US Department of Veterans Affairs
Brittany King - The Open Hearth
Edna Lopez - Interval House
Gerilyn Maciel - Salvation Army Marshall House
Nikia Newkirk - YWCA / HOPE Team
Yolanda Ortiz - CRT SSVF
Meghan Pellerin - My Sisters' Place / The Open Hearth / HOPE Team
1)
Welcome and
Introductions
2)
Updates
a.
VI-SPDAT 2.0
Training will be available in Hartford- 1/19 from 11:00-1:00 at CRT’s Lumsden
Center. Register at www.cceh.org
i. The whole state will be changing to VI-SPDAT version 2 in February. The newer version of the tool asks similar questions as version 1, but some questions have changed, and the scoring criteria has changed.
b.
Hartford and
Greater Hartford PIT block maps for review- Crane Cesario
i. The PIT coordinators are in the process of figuring out areas
for unsheltered count this year.
ii. All shelters need to send a representative to the upcoming PIT training- check your emails for information about this training.
iii. Volunteer
training Monday 25th- Lumsden Center
iv. The PIT coordinator for the City of Hartford is Cat Damato of CRT, and the PIT coordinator for the Hartford Suburbs is Yasmine Ali of Journey Home.
iv. The PIT coordinator for the City of Hartford is Cat Damato of CRT, and the PIT coordinator for the Hartford Suburbs is Yasmine Ali of Journey Home.
v. Maps were brought to the CAN meeting, and if outreach workers know of any encampments that should be visited during PIT, please connect with the PIT coordinators before you leave.
c.
People for People
Warming Center in Enfield is looking to hire 3 shift coordinators.
3)
Zero:2016 Updates
a.
Data for Greater
Hartford
i.
Journey Home have
been reviewing data- all 2600 clients and verify who is chronically homeless
under new definition
ii. The new chronic homeless definition has led to an 18% reduction at
the most- 76 people taken off the list
iii.
Pass out list of
people who no longer meet the definition of chronic homelessness in case people
have additional information to share
iv.
Crane- people who
are no longer chronic, do we have list of unsheltered people who may not be
verified.
b.
Landlord
Breakfast- next steps
i.
February 23rd
at CRT
ii.
Advocate programs
to landlords
iii.
Landlords who
have been helpful to programs- Mollie will send around an e-vite for people to speak
out at the breakfast
iv. We need landlord
speakers to talk about their experiences working with programs!
4)
GH CAN Housing
Registry
a.
Change in Chronic
Homeless definition
i.
Need disability
and 1 year continuous homelessness or 4 episodes that total 12 months. This change in definition has led to a change in how many households are identified as chronically homeless in our region.
b.
Reformatting of
our Priority List- See p. 2
i. Currently, our Priority Lists of households with a chronic length of homeless history (note: these households may or may not have a diagnosed disability) is 83 active
individuals.
ii. 46 individuals are currently MIA, meaning they meet the new definition of chronic homelessness, but have not been in shelter for the past 3 months. If these households reappear in our system, they will be chronically homeless.
5)
Statewide
Progress Update on Opening Doors Campaign
a.
Lisa Tepper-Bates of the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness along with Alicia Woodsby of the Partnership for Strong Communities attended this week's meeting with a presentation on the statewide progress that the Opening Doors campaign has made in the state of Connecticut.
7)
Housing Referral
Group
a.
New Housing Referrals were discussed by the housing referral group.
8)
Coordinated Entry
Group
a.
Triage/Access to
Shelter- Updates to Triage Daily Protocols, Cold Weather
b.
Proposed Updates
to 211 Script- Heather Pilarcik
i.
Making sure the
right people are being sent to assessments
ii.
Check all IDs of a client before scheduling
iii.
Help report
multiple IDs
iv.
Explain more
clearly purpose of assessment appointment
v.
More language to
communicate that clients need to call 211 back to get shelter on the day that shelter is needed.
c.
Assessment
Schedule and Appointments- Mollie Greenwood - we are still facing a really long wait time for assessment appointments in the Greater Hartford region, and this long wait time is just making the problems around coordinated entry more complex.
i. Kara Capobianco of the Department of Housing urged us to change the way we're doing assessments, to try and ensure that folks are attending assessments prior to entry to shelter. GH CAN staff explained that it was a purposeful decision to allow households to access shelter prior to meeting with an assessment staff person. Because of this structure, however, where clients are not required to attend an assessment prior to entering shelter, it is likely that many households who are entering shelter for a very short period of time may have been diverted had they met with a staff person prior to entering shelter.
d.
Security Deposit
Guarantee Program- Manuel Burnias distributed a pre-screening form for the Security Deposit Guarantee Program specifically for shelter providers to use. This way, the staff of the SDG Program will be quickly able to identify referrals to the program coming from emergency shelter providers.
e.
CAN Data Quality
Updates- Mollie Greenwood- Nutmeg has identified an error in the CAN Data Quality report, where appointments are being pulled multiple times.
9)
Collaboration to
Identify/Locate Households
10) Announcements
