GH CAN Leadership 6/15/16

Greater Hartford Coordinated Access Network Leadership Committee

And Opening Doors: Greater Hartford Combined Meeting

Wednesday, June 15^th, 2016

Greater Hartford CAN Leadership Items:

1.       Welcome and Introductions

2.       Mercy Housing Diversion Center – Dave Martineau

-          Dave says that the Diversion Center should be ready to be opened in mid July.

-          Leadership proposes a plan to be set in place by mid-July to figure out a schedule for CAN assessments at the Diversion Center.  

-          Leadership proposes in the future to have a northern location and central location for a drop in center for CAN assessments

3.       When to use the VI-SPDAT – Kara Capobianco

-          The Statewide CAN Leadership group had asked that the state come together and determine some consistent timeframes about when the VI-SPDAT is administered for the purpose of ensuring consistency throughout different regions.  As a result, a working group was formed to discuss the ideal time to complete a VI-SPDAT.

o   National best practice guidance has been that households should wait two weeks before completing an assessment to ensure that the tool is only being used with folks who will not self-resolve their situation

o   Shelters had concerns that holding off for a set period of time would reintroduce subjectivity to the use of this assessment tool, rather than using it to level the playing field for all clients in shelter.  There were concerns that holding off on doing the VI-SPDAT would be hard to keep track of, and might also mean that many folks who are sheltered briefly would not end up completing the VI-SPDAT. 

o   There were concerns that if there was this additional deadline to keep track of that it would add another burden to case managers that would be difficult to track when someone was approaching this timeframe.

o   In some cases, if a household is literally homeless and has never completed a VI-SPDAT, where they would complete a VI-SPDAT at the CAN assessment (like if they had been staying out doors or in a hotel paid for by government or charity) but in most cases VI-SPDATs are still being done at shelters, and in some cases at the initial meeting/intake.

-          Leadership has decided to keep administering VI SPDATs in shelter and not wait for 2 weeks to administer them. Will send feedback to CAN state leadership. 

-          Dave is proposing to purge the existing registry list, and we should discuss this further at the next meeting.

4.       Participation Agreement Updates – Matt Morgan

5.       SmartSheets Updates – See attached updates

-          Theresa has a question about what are some of the difficulties being faced by the shelters- for example South Park Inn has made more phone calls than other shelters, and yet have filled fewer beds.

-          Steve says that one of the difficulties is that some of the shelters do not do CAN assessments, so they are not able to accept clients into their shelter who are stating they are unsheltered right after the CAN assessment. While other shelters that do have open beds and are doing CAN appointments are able to take that client who is high priority off of the waiting list right away.

-          Steve says another difficulty is that when getting information on clients from the triage process there is missing information if clients are banned from a shelter. So shelters have to spend time going through their records to see if a client is banned, which takes some time to do.

-          South Park also indicated that there was still some client choice coming into play, and if clients did not like the opportunity being offered to them, they may be self-selecting not to come into shelters. 

Opening Doors Greater Hartford Items:

1.       USICH Brief/90 in 90/Zero 2016 – Matt Morgan

2.       Services and Vouchers through City of Hartford Housing Authority – Matt Morgan

Announcements:

1.       The City of Hartford ESG Diversion Grant is available today

2.       The Document Fair is this Friday!  Please encourage all your staff to make sure that any chronically homeless clients they may be working with are able to attend this event and work towards gaining documents needed for housing!

Greater Hartford CAN Operations 6/1/16

Greater Hartford CAN Operations Committee

Wednesday, June 1^st, 2016

1.       Welcome and Introductions

2.       Zero: 2016 Updates – Tenesha Grant

3.       Smart Sheets Shelter Waiting List – Steve Hurley

a.       Looking for feedback on smart Sheet. Roger brought up people who are banned from all shelters. We discussed a specific who has been offered housing but has refused housing. Kelly Gonzalez volunteered to be his navigator.

b.      Cordelia brought up people who already had CAN assessments but just wanted to be added to smart sheet. Is there any way to just have 211 add client to SmartSheet?

Kara said no, it is always the CAN assessment first. The purpose of CAN is to attempt to divert and then get added to waitlist for shelter if there are no other options available.  The original reason that we made such major changes to our assessment process was that we were finding that people were telling different things to the 211 operators compared to when they sat one-on-one with a staff person.

Jose Vega brought up someone who leaves and wants to come back to shelter on a Monday but can’t be added until Wednesday.

Amy Robinson of the US Department of Veterans Affairs stated that last week she had a veteran with a 2 month old baby that couldn’t get into shelter because Yolanda was in Washington and they had to wait to come back to add her to Smartsheet - the client had been told (incorrectly) that she needed to meet with her original Duty Services Coordinator to be added to the shelter waitlist. Client was staying in Walmart Parking lot all weekend as a result of the system challenges.  This was a perfect example of the system not functioning as it was supposed to.  

We also discussed that right now the SmartSheet does not automatically prioritize households for shelter- prioritization has been an ongoing manual task for Steve Hurley of Journey Home to maintain.  Because of this, the list is not prioritized on the weekend, which is a concern for staff.

How many CAN assessments does someone have to do when they exit one shelter and try to access another shelter?  We determined that we still want folks to meet with someone, because we want to discourage shelter hopping to the extent that is possible.  

Amy Robinson brought up the Vet having to have a CAN assessment yesterday at the VA and then another CAN assessment today because no one at CRT could put them on the list because the original person who did the CAN assessment has to be the one who put them on Smartsheet.

We talked about what to do about the people who churn the system and shelter hop. How do we educate the folks who exit and enter shelter?  One suggestion was to re-assess people who have left from the system and are now returning to homelessness.  

What kind of outreach have we done with the local government because South Park Inn is getting calls from City Hall for people who are not prioritized?  Matt Morgan volunteered to take point on communication to leadership within the City of Hartford.  

Iris suggested doing a PSA to local community about the changes in the CAN.

CABIN offered a public forum about the CAN. Mollie met with her yesterday.

4.       Long Time Homeless Clients Who Don’t Report A Disability – Lisa Quach

5.       Zero: 2016 Homeless Document Fair – Rubi Alegria

a.  For the upcoming document fair, it is essential that transportation to and from the event is well publicized to all of our clients, particularly chronically homeless clients.  Transportation will be available to and from the South Green in Hartford all day, but it is also essential that clients bring with them any documentation that they already have, as it may be essential to help them get new documents.

6.       Announcements:

a.       Shelter Diversion Training is being offered by CCEH, check out www.cceh.org for more information, or to register.

b.      A schedule for all GH CAN Meetings is now available online at www.journeyhomect.org/provider-resources

c.       Coordinated Exit Meetings for Individuals take place every Tuesday at 11:30 AM.  Coordinated Exit Meetings for Families take place on non-CAN Wednesdays at 10:00 AM.

Greater Hartford CAN Leadership 6/1/2016

Greater Hartford CAN Leadership Committee

Wednesday, June 1^st, 2016

In Attendance: Crane Cesario - Capitol Region Mental Health Center / DMHAS, Lou Gilbert - ImmaCare, Matt Morgan - Journey Home, Kara Capobianco - Department of Housing, Brenda Earle - Department of Housing, Mark Jenkins - House of Bread, Dave Martineau - Mercy Housing and Shelter Corp, Steve Bigler - CRT, Tina Ortiz - CRT, Mollie Greenwood - Journey Home, Fred Faulkner - The Open Hearth, Tomiko Grant - Salvation Army Marshall House, Iris Ruiz - Interval House, Rosemary Flowers - My Sisters' Place, Kathy Shaw - My Sisters' Place, Barbara Shaw - Hands On Hartford, Brian Baker - South Park Inn, Heather Pilarcik - South Park Inn, Nate Fox - Center Church, Bryan Flint - Cornerstone Shelter, Cat Damato - CRT

1.       Welcome and Introductions

2.       Meeting Times: Opening Doors: Greater Hartford/CAN Leadership/Hartford Suburbs-COC

-          Theresa has proposed every two weeks have meeting be focused on Opening Doors and the following two weeks to focus on CAN Leadership agenda. Still meeting twice a month

-          Leadership agreed that for the time being, we can alternate GH CAN Leadership Committee Meetings with Opening Doors: Greater Hartford meetings. 

-          We discussed whether or not the Hartford Sub COC and GH Suburbs Sub COCs could share a meeting time, but determined that both sub COCs needed separate times to discuss their individual needs, at least initially.  We decided that representatives from the GH Suburbs Sub COCs would set up a time to meet at Chrysalis Center in the near future to determine how frequently they would need to meet. 

-          Matt announced that the Universal Housing Application will be discontinued effective June 30, 2016.

-          Leadership has approved to have people meet from Hartford COC and Suburb COC to determine how often each meeting should meet

3.       CAN Participation Agreement Draft

-          Matt shared a participation agreement draft that has been put together at the statewide level based on feedback received from the first draft of participation agreements.

-          The draft Participation Agreement was well received by the leadership in the room.  Because this draft will be discussed at a statewide meeting on Friday 6/3, the leadership determined that if anyone has any feedback, they should send it to Matt before 6/3. 

4.       Smartsheets Shelter Waitlist

-          Clients without contact information is a continued challenge.  Many of the households on the waiting list do not have phones, and so it’s impossible to reach them.  A lot of the households without contact information were inherited from the triage information that we input when the waitlist was just getting started, which pointed to some of the challenges that were faced by triage. 

-          We also heard concerns that 211 staff were still confused about the change in procedures.  Kara and Mollie will set up a time to talk with them next week to ensure that we all get on the same page. 

-          Kara proposes to give outreach, path team, and soup/food pantry access to Smartsheet.  Some of the soup kitchens are already trained in how to access the waitlist, but more will be getting trained in the coming weeks. 

-          Kara proposed that a script be in placed in the Shelter Waitlist Questionnaire so all clients are aware of the rules and regulations of the shelter waitlist while they are filling out the Shelter Waitlist Questionnaire with the Duty Service Coordinators.

-          Crane proposes to have a meeting with all the Duty Service Coordinators, outreach providers, and navigators to look at the shelter wait list on Smarthsheet.  Steve and Mollie will work to set up a meeting time for next week.

-          Leadership agrees there should be a shelter entry meeting.

5.       Immigration Issues

-          The Commissioner of DMHAS recently sent around an update that for HUD funded supportive housing programs US citizenship is not a requirement, and clients with immigration issues can be served by HUD funded programs.

6.       Shelter Plus Care Challenge: 15 Available Certificates

-          Shelter Plus Care has 15 available certificates, and Crane has posed a challenge to our Coordinated Exit group to get these units leased up by July 1, 2016.  As of this meeting, 9 households had been matched to these Shelter Plus Care certificates.

7.       Referrals that are no longer available

-          Crane says we need to pay attention to those who are high priority who are no longer able to be matched with a program.  One example was the RAP certificates that are being taken away because of funding constraints in the Department of Housing as a result of the current budget crisis.  As the Coordinated Exit Group moves forward, we need to ensure these households don’t fall through the cracks.

8.       Transitional Living Program Updates

-          No updates.

9.       Announcements:

a.       The Document Fair will be taking place Friday, June 17^th from 9:00 AM – 1:00 PM. We are still seeking volunteers and donated items. A list of donations needed can be found on the back.

b.      Kara proposes that we contact people in the community agencies and Steve Karp at NASW about getting licensed professionals looking at medical records to determine if client has a disability.

c.       Zero: 2016 Housing Data can be found on the back of this agenda.

d.      Shelter Diversion Training is being offered by CCEH, check out www.cceh.org for more information, or to register

e.      A schedule for all GH CAN Meetings is now available online at www.journeyhomect.org/provider-resources

f.        If you have not yet submitted your agency’s completed Be Homeful Diversion MOU to CCEH please do so ASAP!