GH CAN Operations Meeting 6/29/2016

1. Updates from Document Fair – Rubi Alegria - More than 80 households were served at the document fair, and 7 chronically homeless clients were able to get completely Document Ready at that event!
2. In order to reach our goal of ending chronic homelessness this year, there will be a Chronic Clients Case Conference on 7/6 for all clients on Priority list! – 7/6/16 1:30-3:30 My Sister’s Place – Pliny St.
1. Recently Housed Clients - 4 people since last CAN meeting
3. Referrals to PATH Outreach Team – Malika
1. Homeless verifications for unsheltered folks all over the state. Lack of information provided when making referrals. They put together a sheet attached to the agenda for what kind of information is really helpful to them when they’re doing Outreach.
4. Smartsheet Shelter Waitlist -  Where did you stay last night? Additional Options Needed? 

-          Folks staying unsheltered, folks staying in car. Identified some other places people may be coming from. For example, hospital, incarceration, medical facilities, psychiatric facilities.

-          There are issues of people who are unsheltered and cannot be contacted and then Steve gets contacted afterwards saying they were actually in the hospital. Hartford Hospital has allowed people to stay in the ER. Is it possible to add something that includes “other” and then type in what it is? Mollie said: Where do you want the other option to be? Highly prioritized or somewhere down? Have you been living outside? Crane said: Where did you stay last night is different than where have you stayed the past couple of weeks? Kara said they have talked to hospitals to see if they would be willing to be in the CAN so they train the staff to add people into shelter waitlist. Don’t want a taxi from hospital to shelter or waitlist. Heather said the folks that aren’t ready to be discharged is a hassle for anyone calling for shelter bed because you have to go through nurses stations and call around.  Kara said if they’re in the hospital how are they going to get on the list? How are they going to get to a CAN assessment? Jose likes the idea of having the hospital staff trained to add clients to shelter waitlist. Sara from CCEH said they did diversion training to the Yale-New Haven hospital because they have different definitions of homeless. They consider doubled up as homeless. Jose said they don’t think they have the idea very clear. He got a call from Hartford Hospital doctor begging him to take client into McKinney but he explained that that is not the process anymore. Kara believes the more dropdown the better. Refused/UTC all fall under Refused right now. Heather suggested to add drop down box of “No Show” for those who turned green but didn’t show up. Another option is self-resolved. Mark suggested to add “shelter” as a where you stayed last night for someone who maxed out their time at one shelter or someone who was banned. Kara said they are essentially trying to go back through the CAN to get into a different shelter. Priority for those exiting shelter last night should be high because they are technically unsheltered – no longer can stay at shelter. Kara said she doesn’t want people to leave one shelter to the next just because they didn’t like the previous shelter. Current priority is unsheltered, sleeping in a car, and then unsafe doubled up. Kara is advocating against adding shelter as a separate category. Heather said maybe it should say “Where do you intend to stay tonight?” – Do we want to change the question? If people are in an institution then you have to rephrase the question? Fairfield County just found out how to get to the top of the waitlist. They went to assessments and said they were sleeping in a car. Duty Service Coordinators will add additional questions if the circumstances fit. Heather said for families with 2 parent HOH, can we add a space for both parent’s names since we’re taking both? Had incident with individual male who didn’t clarify he was part of the family on waitlist.

-          Back to CHR PATH Referral – Malika –

                Malika developed a form for CHR PATH referrals. Sometimes they get good info and they can go out. Sometimes they get vague information and don’t know where to start. Hopefully with this information we can get to the client faster. Amy had a request to remove the “homeless Verification Form” to prevent confusion to others. Will change to “Homeless Outreach Team Referral Form” – Crane suggested adding to it “Use this form to request services from CHR PATH team? 3 attempts within 2 weeks. After that we send it back to you with outcome and findings. Locations – be as specific as possible. For the Town Social Services and Police Dept. is it okay for them to use it without HMIS access? Malika said yes. Crane also suggested adding GH CAN to the referral form.

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Angel from OH had a question. Gentlemen on Friday had nowhere to go. Assessment was scheduled on Tuesday. He got robbed at Bushnell on Friday night. Is there someone who is working on Friday night? We need triage and weekend coverage. Maybe we can figure out how we can have someone cover 1 weekend day a month. We had a mom and baby in car who couldn’t get into an open available bed because of lack of coverage. Jose said 211 should be the ones adding someone to Smartsheet. If someone calls 211 on Friday why do they have to wait until the week to get added to Smart Sheet. It is a disservice to the homeless. Crane said 211 can’t figure out who’s in crisis for us. Why do people from 211 not have access to shelter waitlist? 211 covers the whole state and covers 7 other CANS. For 211 to train their staff for Smart sheets for just Hartford, they won’t do it. We can’t overwhelm 211 anymore because we will lose them. What they’re doing is basically for free right now due to lack of funding. Jose said what is going to happen is… McKinney opened because the City of Hartford found a man froze to death. Someone who called on a Friday who can’t get an assessment yet will die and sh*t will hit the fan. Crane asked if someone from McKinney shelter can cover 1 weekend a month. Jose said his staff doesn’t have access to HMIS. Kara said they only need access to Smartsheets. But they said they need a HMIS ID#. For emergency weekend situations they can just put #000000. Kara said with all the shelters in the room we are asking each agency to rotate once every 6 weeks. Roxan Noble said her staff is available after 1pm on Saturdays so they can be available. Roxan can also make herself available. Also willing to make herself available Sunday. Mollie said they may have a lead for Sundays. Cordelia said if an email goes out they can go to their leadership and figure out how they can help. Amy Robinson said she is willing to do it on her personal time. EHFS has staff available on Saturdays/Sunday from 8-4 and is savvy and can be trained. Jose has some staff available for Sundays. What is the process? Crane said Mollie is going to email you. Mollie will email out schedule tomorrow. Are there CAN assessments for Mondays? No.

Mercy Diversion Center

One Stop Shop for CAN assessments in Hartford. Started working with agencies to get CAN staff to diversion center. Mercy is providing staff Monday-Friday in addition to CAN assessment. She has schedule to have full coverage Monday-Friday for single individuals. Kelly asked what if someone at shelter is not trained on Smartsheets. We can add someone to the waitlist but what if someone is unable to pull people off Smartsheet because they’re not trained. Kara said this also doesn’t guarantee that there is a bed available. 211 needs to be able to explain that although it’s a crisis situation, we may not have a bed available. We are not a right to shelter state. The problem is that there are beds but there aren’t people being pulled. Heather said there is an issue with beds being empty all weekend and then staff come in on Monday and try to pull people off the shelter waitlist but they’ve exhausted all their options so they have longer emptier beds.

Jose asked if we are reassessing single men every 30 days. They said we are reassessing them 30 days if they haven’t been in the system in the last month. Jose thinks that by doing that, the only thing that may change in 30 days is where did you stay last night? Kara said this is a segue to diversion center CAN assessments schedule. The guys that are in and out of shelter go to an assessment but aren’t really going to assessment – updating their info and adding them back to shelter waitlist.. Another change to reengage and see what happened and build more rapport. New guys go to Mercy Diversion. Others in system go to “can assessment”.

City of Hartford Housing Choice Voucher Program – Created preference for CH for HCV program. Announcement in newspaper in the next couple of weeks. Application to meet the preference. Preference in supportive housing who want to move on to housing without services or chronically homeless clients. If you have clients in PSH, they would be prioritized. There is an application. JH is happy to assist you with the application to get into Imagineers. If someone is doing really in PSH but want to move on, they can get HCV voucher to cover rent of where they are if it’s a scattered site. Some of you may be ready to mark those clients green, yellow, ready to move on. Anyone that is chronically homeless is eligible. Ideal for those who are chronically but don’t need too many services.

Referrals to RRH – Amber Higgins – Referrals through Coordinated Exit Meetings going forward - No more Google Doc for LT RRH. When they do open back up, she will make announcement. All referrals will be handled through Coordinated Exit Call on Tuesdays for individuals and Wednesdays for Family RRH referrals. No waiting list. Kara said they lowered barriers – social security card/numbers. Not necessarily birth certificates – something with name and DOB. Trying to lower barriers across the state. Don’t need ID.

Clients at doc fair who tried to get DMV IDS. Special line at DMV on Thursday 7/7 at 8:30 for folks from Doc fair.  Will be calling everyone who applied.

GH CAN Leadership 6/30/15

Greater Hartford CAN Leadership Committee

Wednesday, June 29th, 2016

1.       Welcome and Introductions

2.       Zero: 2016 Updates- Document Fair- Mollie Greenwood

3.       USICH Benchmark on Ending Chronic Homelessness- Matt Morgan

-          Crane thinks we need to have a plan to make sure that we have enough resources for people who are chronically homeless.

-      One reason we believe that we have the resources to finish this job is because we have identified how many resources will be becoming available through last year's HUD application, as well as a group of new vouchers that will be coming down the line through the City of Hartford.

4.       City of Hartford Housing Choice Vouchers- Matt Morgan

-          Theresa passed out a Summary of Services Form that indicates which clients can be served by other community services to the clients who need a light touch of services to those who may need other services.

-          Matt proposed a plan to help transition those individuals who could receive resources from other community services.

-          Theresa announced that there would be Section 8 Housing Choice vouchers becoming available in the Greater Hartford area as a part of this program through the City of Hartford, and we discussed how folks had been identified as ready to move on from Permanent Supportive Housing programs.  CHR and CRT asked if another agency can talk them through the process for identifying who is ready to Move On from PSH units, and Theresa of Chrysalis offered to assist.

-          Matt announced that the Chronic Client meeting to prep clients will be at My Sisters Place next Wednesday from 1:30-3:30

-          Crane proposes to keep data of how many people who were homeless are housed in the Greater Hartford area

5.       Managing the By Name List in CTMIS

-          Beau says Greater Hartford has 2,002 people on the By Name List and 1,256 are active on the By Name List, which is a huge amount of data to have to work with.  Right now there is not an automated system to deactivate people when they leave shelter.

-          Beau says anyone that is homeless after March 4 can be activated as chronic, but that we have a 

-          Theresa proposes a subcommittee in order to clean up the By-Name List. Whoever is interested in joining subcommittee may contact Matt or Mollie.

-          Theresa agrees that this will be back on the agenda for next CAN Leadership meeting to determine when is the right time to do a VI SPDAT at a CAN appointment.

-          Dave recommends this needs to be a side meeting instead of bringing it up at the next CAN Leadership meeting.  The group agreed that we needed input from frontline staff administering the VI-SPDAT to make a decision.  Journey Home will organize a subgroup to discuss this issue.

6.       Diversion Center at Mercy- CAN Assessment Scheduling- Mollie Greenwood

7.       Subcommittee Reports (Shelter Waitlist Subcommittee, CCEH Coordinated Entry Data, Outreach, Coordinated Exit Individuals, Coordinated Exit Families, Veterans) – See Handouts

-          Because there are no CAN assessments available on the weekends, the front line staff and operations groups have both identified that having a weekend process for waitlist additions is a top priority.

-          Kara proses a small triage staff for the weekends and can be a rotating schedule, and a number of agencies volunteered to assist with coverage of weekend phones.

-          Theresa proposes to get the data to figure out how many people who are 211 that are indicating that they are homeless during the weekend.

-        Attendance and clear communication between agency staff who attend different committees (outreach, coordinated exit) is an ongoing challenge.

GH CAN Operations 6/15/16

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.

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

Someone next to Crane said 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. Client was in Walmart Parking lot all weekend.

Discussion about having to prioritize clients on Smartsheet manually.

How many CAN assessments does someone have to do when they exit one shelter and try to access another shelter?

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.

What do we do about the people who churn the system and shelter hop? How do we educate the folks who exit and enter shelter? Crane doesn’t think it’s right to reassess everyone again and again.

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 decided to 

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.       Need to ask clients for documents before the fair so they can get documents faster and easier. Also need to have transportation.

b.      Is the birth certificates local or out of state as well?

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.

VI-SPDAT Meeting 7/12/16

VI-SPDAT Meeting

Meeting Notes

Tuesday, 7/12/2016

In Attendance:

Steve Hurley – Journey Home

Mollie Greenwood – Journey Home

Rubi Alegria – Mercy Housing and Shelter Corp

Yolanda Potter – Mercy Housing and Shelter Corp

Kara Capobianco – Department of Housing

Heather Pilarcik – South Park Inn

Luz Serrano – ImmaCare

Shanika Wallace – CRT SSVF

Tina Gaines – CHR PATH

Je’Naya King – CHR PATH

1.       Welcome and Introductions

a.       Agency Leadership has asked that we hold a meeting to discuss the process for completing a VI-SPDAT with clients, and to set a uniform policy for when the VI-SPDAT should be administered.

b.      Yolanda Potter of Mercy initially stated that it makes most sense to her to do VI-SPDATs at a CAN assessment.

c.       Luz Serrano of ImmaCare echoed this.  If VI-SPDATs aren’t getting completed at CAN appointments, it gets harder to know when they should be getting done, and can lead to inconsistency.

d.      Kara of DOH stated that the reason Department of Housing isn’t encouraging doing all VI-SPDATs at CAN appointments is because 80% of folks who attend CAN appointments never enter into the shelter system, so it would be wasting client and staff time, when ultimately many folks aren’t ever becoming literally homeless.

                                                               i.      Kara added that each month we add nearly 1,000 people to the Greater Hartford By-Name List in HMIS.

e.      Rubi of Mercy indicated that it makes sense to her to do a VI-SPDAT at a CAN assessment if clients are literally homeless at the time of the appointment. 

                                                               i.      Luz echoed that she currently only does VI-SPDATs for people who are literally homeless when they come to a CAN assessment. 

f.        Heather of South Park Inn expressed that whatever policy we do decide on, it’s important that we all agree to commit to it, because continually modifying policies around the VI-SPDAT has already led to a lot of staff re-training, and a lot of confusion in the community.

g.       One suggestion was to add a column on the shelter waitlist indicating whether someone has done a VI-SPDAT, and if they did complete one, what their score was.  In that way, as shelters are taking folks in, they will already know if a VI-SPDAT was completed at the time of appointment.

h.      Kara of DOH expressed that one of the reasons that we were talking about waiting to complete a VI-SPDAT, is that having that as a first step in the case management process can make folks think that they will be guaranteed a housing resource if they complete the VI-SPDAT, which isn’t realistic.  We do not have as many housing resources as we have folks experiencing homelessness, so for folks who are able to self-resolve, having them complete a VI-SPDAT at intake, or very early into a shelter stay may discourage them from self-resolving.

                                                               i.      Heather of South Park Inn said that while it makes a lot of sense to try and give folks that space to self-resolve, it was not clear how to operationalize that realistically.  Many of the shelters have a high volume of folks coming through, and juggling when to administer a VI-SPDAT assessment on top of other responsibilities was going to be another burden that may not be realistic. 

i.         We also discussed that when the VI-SPDAT was originally introduced, one of the benefits was that it would help remove subjectivity in how to work with clients, by clearly assigning a path to pursue in terms of housing.

                                                               i.      Kara of DOH indicated that a huge problem we come up against by administering the VI-SPDAT at shelter intake, or before shelter entry, is that we have really artificially low scores.  On average Greater Hartford VI-SPDAT scores are about 3 points lower than other parts of the state.

                                                             ii.      We talked about how administering a VI-SPDAT with staff who had a preexisting relationship, or who had been able to build rapport, would ultimately lead us to more realistic, reliable scores. 

1.       The PATH team indicated that when doing VI-SPDATs in the field, they never lead with the VI-SPDAT assessment, but instead use it as a much later part of navigation, once  relationship has been established.

                                                            iii.      While the group agreed that there was definitely a problem with the timing of the VI-SPDAT assessment if it was leading to such artificially low scores, we were not able to determine a solution that would clearly resolve this without adding undue burden to case managers whose case loads are already overwhelming. 

                                                           iv.      We determined that we would present this discussion to the Leadership Committee and ask for guidance on what next steps make sense.

                                                             v.      One success in Greater Hartford is that we have one of the highest diversion rates in the state, so hopefully with the introduction of Mercy’s new drop in center, we will be even better able to divert households away from shelters, and utilize shelters for only folks who have no other place to go.  If we could ensure that folks who are entering shelters are truly there because there are no other options, that may resolve some of the challenge we’re facing in planning the timing of administering the VI-SPDAT.