GH CAN Operations Meeting 5/4/2016

GH CAN Operations Agenda

Wednesday, May 4^th, 2016

1.       Welcome and Introductions

                In attendance:

o   Janet Bermudez, Hands on Hartford

o   Cordelia Brady, The Open Hearth

o   Crane Cesario, DMHAS

o   Roger Clark, ImmaCare

o   Kara Copabianco, DOH

o   Stephanie Corbin, CHN

o   Catherine Damato, CRT

o   Brenda Earle, DOH

o   Jacqueline Farmer, Veteran’s Inc.

o   Bryan Flint, Cornerstone

o   Valorie Gaines, CHR

o   Ruby Givens-Hewitt, My Sisters Place

o   Tenesha Grant, Mercy Housing

o   Nathalie Guzman, Salvation Army Marshall House

o   Mark Jenkins, Blue Hills Civic Association

o   Brittany King, The Open Hearth

o   Matt Morgan, Journey Home

o   Lisa Quach, Journey Home

o   Steve Hurley, Journey Home

o   Margarita Morales, Catholic Charities

o   Yolanda Ortiz, SSVF

o   Heather Pilarcik, South Park Inn

o   Iris Ruiz, Interval House

o   Cathy Shanley, Columbus House

o   Rob Soderberg, CHR

o   Sandra Terry, CRT

o   Jose Vega, McKinney

o   Gwendolyn Williams, DSS

o   Ymonne Wilson, CRT

o   Tamara Womack, My Sister’s Place

o   Kelly Gonzalez, CRT

o   Alicia Akers, CRT

o   Willem Donahue, Chrysalis Center

o   Shawn Lord, CHR

o   Jenaya King, CHR

2.       Zero: 2016 Updates

a.       Recently Housed – Tenesha Grant

                12 chronically homeless households have been housed since last meeting-                     this is the most people we have ever housed between two CAN meetings!                     Great work to all the housing providers!

b.      Housing Data Updates – See p.2              

                                Increased housing connection rate to 22 per month since newly identified                                           people

                Crane discussed getting legible documents sent to GH S+C. Gave examples of docs and                 suggested writing it down before sending. Also discussed not sending CAN documents                 such as homeless verifications or disability verifications to property managers.

c.       Document Fair Updates- Rubi Alegria

Kara discussed having success stories for Zero16. Send to Kara or Journey Home.

Crane has some suggestions.

Volunteers need to show up @ 8am for document fair. June 17 @ My Sister’s Place.

Brenda asked if we are inviting people to the document fair from registry that need documents. Nothing of that sort has been planned yet.

3.       Shelter Waitlist Next Steps

a.       Protocols for Contacting Households, Refusing Shelter, Presenting at Shelter     

If someone is called for shelter and doesn’t pick up, they will give clients 30 minute grace period to call back.  We determined that 30 minutes would be a minimum guideline, but that if shelters want to give folks a longer period of time to return a call, that is an agency-by-agency decision.

Natalie suggests Google Voice to be able to text/call clients without using your personal number. Asking 211 to ask clients if they can receive text message, if they can instruct clients to provide another number where they can be reached at and let them know that if they cannot be reached, they may lose access to shelter and their place on the waiting list. If you are connected to PATH or have a navigator, 211 can call the worker so they can relay the message to the clients.

1^st step – call 2^nd step – text – use judgment and circumstances for how long to wait before proceeding to next person.  Once we get started we will start figuring out what works for different agencies, and can adjust procedures as needed.

Folks who you call and they say “ I don’t want to go there” – Fairfield County – they stay on the list. Brenda of DOH expressed doesn’t think it’s dire need if someone is refusing a shelter and willing to go to one across the street. Every shelter is located within 2 miles is preference.

Kara said we have to be careful on how approach, comparing apples to apples among shelters is one thing, but it's also important to be aware of people’s trauma instead of removing them off the list if they have experienced trauma in a certain area.

Heather asked about the process of the waitlist and level of taking notes. For example, if the first two people have already been called, can she proceed to the next person since the first two are pending? Or can she go to the next one? Does she need to note that in the notes section on why she didn’t call?

Roger asked what about the people who are banned/suspended from all the shelters in the area? Brenda stated is it a big issue or is it a couple of people? Maybe it’s worth discussing with a smaller housing group.

Crane stated the budget cuts have changed Mobile Crisis Hours to 8am-8:30pm. Suggested referring a particular client to Mobile Crisis.  This particular client is suspended from McKinney this week, as well as other men's shelters in Hartford.

b.      Training: Duty Services Coordinators and Shelter Staff – Steve Hurley
      Steve Hurley will be going out to all GH CAN shelters and CAN assessment sites in the next week in order to provide training on how to access and use the new SmartSheets software to operate a shelter waiting list.

c.       Implementation Date – The Leadership Committee wanted the Operations Committee to determine an implementation date that seemed realistic and achievable.

Heather asked about what time is the right time to stop calling people for shelter, and the group determined that that would be an agency-by-agency decision.  

                d.   The Operations Group voted to implement this new SmartSheets shelter waitlist on                             Thursday, May 19th.

4.       Coordinated Exit:

a.       Households being terminated from housing programs: Case Conferencing – Matt Morgan

CT Bos COC asked regional CANs what they think about new recommendation. New recommendation on last page. If terminated, does it make sense to case conference prior to termination? Would it make more sense to be a policy? Or just a recommendation in our CAN? Covers all CT Bos Housing programs. Kara stated CT RRH is considering this policy as well. 

The Operations Group decided to adopt this as a policy, so housing providers who have a client that may be terminated from the program should bring this case to the attention of the Coordinated Exit Committee for discussion.  

b.      Proposal for separate family and individual housing matching meetings – Lisa Quach – We are hoping to split the Coordinated Exit meeting into two different meetings, one for family programs and one for individual programs.  Lisa is currently seeking a location for the family meeting.  The locations being offered are at MSP Pliny St or Salvation Army Marshall House.  Once there is a confirmed location, Lisa will work to determine a date that works for family providers to attend this meeting, with an option to call-in.  A doodle poll will be distributed shortly.

     i.   One question was whether providers who served singles and families would be able to attend both.  Hopefully, by splitting these two populations into separate meetings it will streamline the process for both meetings.

5.       Accessing the By Name List in CT HMIS – Mollie Greenwood (see attached handout)

                         The By Name List in CT HMIS is the list of all households who have completed a VI-                      SPDAT in the HMIS system.  As we continue moving forward, this list will be a                                centralized, single way to track where a household is in the housing process.  This list                        will help case managers see if someone has completed a VI-SPDAT already, if someone                      is matched for housing, or if we were unable to contact someone.  In a future meeting                        where there is more time, we will revisit this process.

6.       Navigators Seeking Clients – Mark Jenkins, Alicia Akers, Kelly Gonzalez, Lisa Quach

                Alicia looking for: DM, EC, EK

                Kelly looking for: PL, KN, AP

7.       Case Conference: LT – did not discuss due to time restrictions

8.       Announcements:

a.       Veteran Referrals to SSVF – Yolanda Ortiz – handed out brochures and talked about eligibility requirements for her program

b.      The average time between calling 211 and scheduling a CAN appointment was 3 days for the month of April!

c.       Katherine Gale will be in Fairfield County on Wednesday, May 11^th to help brainstorm and improve on a CAN dashboard in HMIS.  Please let Mollie Greenwood know if you’re interested in attending.

d.      Linda Kaufman will be in Hartford on Wednesday, May 18^th. – At Capital Region Auditorium

e.      The Zero: 2016 Document Fair will be held on Friday, June 17^th at My Sisters’ Place. 

f.        The Center for Children’s Advocacy is having a clinic on May 13^th for households in jeopardy of having their lights shut off.  Please see attached handout and share with your staff.

GH CAN Housing Data

Data Element	Number	Notes
Number of chronically homeless individuals housed since March 2015	156	This includes clients housed through GH CAN programs as well as through other subsidies or independent housing
Estimated number of chronically homeless individuals who need to be housed by the end of 2016	169	84 of these individuals are currently referred to a housing program
		85 of these individuals are not currently referred to a housing program
Housing Connection Rate	21	Individuals are constantly coming into and out of the system.  Journey Home believes that a rate of 21 households per month is accurate considering the fluctuation in population.

Proposed CT BOS Policy: Case Conferencing Clients in Jeopardy of Losing Housing

Coordinated Access Networks (CAN)

Discuss Recommendation to Statewide CAN Committee:

If a household can no longer be served by a housing program, the CAN should be notified at the earliest possible convenience to see if an intervention can help to preserve the placement.  The CAN will convene a case conference to evaluate the situation, plan for the best possible outcome, and try to prevent a return to shelter or the streets.