GH CAN Leadership 11/30/16

Greater Hartford Coordinated Access Network

Leadership Agenda

Wednesday, November 30^th, 2016

1.      Welcome and Introductions

2.      Zero: 2016 Updates – see p. 2

a.      Potentially Chronic: Active – 62 Active folks still need to be matched. All chronic verified clients have been matched as of today.

b.      Verified Chronic: Referred – 75 clients referred. 29 of which have been chronic verified before 10/1/16.

3.      Chronic Verified Clients Over Income Limit – 6 challenging clients. SM – receives significant income = over income for all programs. Working with Kelly Gonzalez trying to find unit to pay for independently. When he gets his check, he goes after the radar. Amy said they offered a home for him and he refused it. Have worked with him for over a year. Theresa said do we remove him? Kara said we can’t remove him because as long as he is unsheltered and chronic, we need to offer him housing every 2 weeks. Rumors that he has a gambling problem. Only housed in hotel less than 10 days and then right back in shelter. Was at McKinney, Jose talked to him. If you leave shelter this time, we won’t let you back in. There’s a routine. Steve Bigler believes they are enabling him if he has more than enough means to stay out of the system. Mental health is pretty severe according to Amy Robinson.

a.      BM – Kara stated that per guidance from DOH, if they’re chronic and they want to get into shelter, we have to let them. If they are banned from all shelters, we need to offer alternative options such as hotel/motel so need to brainstorm more options. May happen again.

b.      CVA and AT – Both are in and out of the system and hard to track down.

c.      RW – Owns the home and inhabitable. No lights, no water, no heat. Fire in the home and his mom passed away. Kara said because there are liens, there is no income from DOH. Not considered an asset if it’s null. Need someone from the city or tax assessor’s office to provide something for legal reasons.

d.      RRD – challenging. Not in places he says they are. Listed as “Army Fatigue’ In HMIS because we don’t have ROI signed. Amy is going to check to see if he’s a VET.

4.      CCT Release – get together twice a month. Case conference difficult cases who need improved care plans or who’s going in between hospitals. Opportunity for clients’ agencies struggling with outpatient plan or mental health who can have their clients presented at the CCT meeting but need to have clients signed CCT release first. Other potential benefits, people who go missing and go into emergency room, if they sign CCT release, we would have access to administrative services organization to better track people if they have gone missing. Tracking history of homelessness would be another benefits and being able to communicate about their care plan. Who is the point of contact if someone has gone missing so they can reach out to CCT? Stephanie Corbin from Community Health can look up in the system if someone has gone out. For Beacon Health, can go through ICMs. Navigators or someone who starts working with someone, have sign CCT to go with release. When we need them is when we need to find them and we can’t find them to sign the CCT release. Crane thinks they should sign the CCT release when they sign the HMIS release. It’s just another additional form to be signed. Suggestion Crane has is to have plain language statement to go with it, the GH CAN ask that you share this information if you end up in the hospital we can find you and still continue to serve you and not have to start all over again. Sarah and Theresa support it. Even for shelter front line staff, they need simple language attached. Staff needs to know how to explain it to clients. One CCT release covers St. Francis & Hartford Hospital. Next steps: language for the two releases. Is this something you can do at Journey Home? Take a stab and send it out for review, by next meeting. Then they can give a live date.

5.      Cold Weather Protocol – Christie Corrigan and Nate Fox – 2 weeks ago, lucky to connect with Lou. Using ImmaCare space where they’ve been using No Freeze past few years as a lease out space. Came through at the last hour. Tomorrow it will open up. Planning for 6:00pm tomorrow. Normally, open time will be 8:30pm. Welcome center is open 4-8. Hoping people will come there and there will be phones there and shelters can easily find them. If they can’t get a hold of someone and someone doesn’t show up, will have folks lined up to utilize all shelter beds. Welcome Center will not open until next week at Center Church. Rest of the weekend until Wednesday will be opening at 7. Will have phone numbers once they open next week. Working on a flyer to send out to GH CAN. Will send out tomorrow.

a.      Welcome Center -

b.      No-Freeze Shelter

c.      Integration with Shelter Waitlist

6.      DOH RFP - $900,000 statewide for this. 3 different agencies going for DOH RFP. They want support from CAN leadership to not duplicate too many services in one CAN. Gather folks that want to apply and see what we need. No plan to split money. Take consideration what CANs have excess funding. What CAN needs more or what CAN needs less. Not every CAN is guaranteed money. No limit on RFP amount for each CAN. Unified application may be better and to see what CAN needs. RFP deadline is 12/21. Need a sponsor from the CAN leadership and to have application come from GH CAN not individual agencies.

7.      Announcements:

a.      Next GH CAN Leadership Meeting will be held at the YWCA, 53 Broad St., from 1:00-2:15 PM.

b.      The Landlord Risk Mitigation Fund is being made available to you as landlords and property managers if you are willing to accept all forms of housing financial assistance on behalf of Tenants referred to you by the Greater Hartford Coordinated Access Network and if you are willing to reduce barriers to enter your units such as relaxing credit or background checks, reducing or eliminated application fees or including all utilities in the rent.  The Risk Mitigation Fund can then be used to reimburse you for up to $1000 per tenant housed through the Greater Hartford CAN, for such things as damages, unpaid tenant portion of the rent, rent for an abandoned unit or excessive utility bills, that exceed what can be covered by the security deposit, insurance or the housing program.  

c.       

GH CAN Operations 11/16/16

Greater Hartford Coordinated Access Network

Operations Committee

Wednesday, November 16, 2016

Happy Two Year CAN-niversary!

1.      Welcome and Introductions

2.      Zero: 2016 Updates – Lisa Quach

a.      Recently Housed – Tenesha Grant

3.      Updates from Leadership Meeting– Matt Morgan

-Matt says that the Landlord Mitigation Funding has been approved by CAN Leadership.

- Heather asks whether if the clients know that this $1,000 is available for them or do only the landlords know about this information.

-Heather says she is concerned if clients know that this money is available if they damage an apartment.

-Matt says that only the landlords will have this information.

-Heather asks if this $1,000 is max amount for each client and can it be used once or can the max be used multiple times for that same client.

-Heather says she is concerned if clients had multiple opportunities to use this funding, which the funding would be used up quickly and not be able to be used for other clients.

-Matt says that this $1,000 max would only be able to be used once for a client.

4.      Cold Weather Protocols – Nate Fox and Christie Corrigan

a.      Triage Center

-Steve says that if a No Freeze Center is not available for this year Center Church is still going to try to have a Triage Center at Center Church.

                     b. No-Freeze Center

-Steve says that there has been no definite location for a No Freeze Center, but there is still working progress of finalizing a location and will be updated at the next meeting.

c.      Pop-up warming centers

-        Steve says there are three possible locations for pop up warming centers, but these locations have not been finalized and will get an updated at the next meeting.

d.      Shelter Priority List Concerns – Length of time calling, beds left available

                                                                        i.     Taking people in on immediate need basis?

-        Was not discussed at meeting due to Nate not being at meeting.

e.      Successes of the GH CAN – see p. 3

f.       Announcements

Zero: 2016 Housing Data

GH CAN Milestones

March 5, 2014 – First local GH CAN Planning meeting.

May 14, 2014- Beginning of weekly GH CAN planning meetings

October 29, 2014 – First presentation of GH CAN Policies and Procedures

September 25, 2015 – Shelters agree to pilot use of a Google Doc to track where there are available shelter beds.

November 17, 2014 – First day of 211 implementation in Greater Hartford CAN.  CAN Committee continues to meet on a weekly basis!  ImmaCare and Salvation Army Marshall House operate as triage centers for households with an immediate need for shelter.

January 7, 2015 – GH CAN staff plan an outreach trip to Bradley Airport, where many folks had been staying that winter.  At this point GH CAN assessment appointments were booking out multiple months.

February 18, 2015 – CHR begins piloting the first afternoon of “overbooking” assessments (seeing more than 3 appointments in their 3 hour time-frame).  All other sites are booking 1 CAN appointment per hour.  No show rates are high.  BOS releases statewide Disability Verification forms and Homeless Verification forms.

March 11^th, 2015 – First CAN meeting of the 100 Day Campaign to Reduce Chronic Homelessness.  A team of 13 staff have been identified to focus on improving our system for housing chronically homeless households, with a goal of housing 100 chronically homeless households over the course of 100 days.

March 18, 2015 – Journey Home brings first ever Priority List of households identified as chronically homeless to CAN matching meeting for case conferencing.

May 8, 2015 – GH CAN 100 Day Team hosts first Homeless Document Fair at Chrysalis Center, serving over 125 households in helping to gather essential documents for housing.

June 10, 2015 – 100 Day Team identifies a need for Navigators to assist with document readiness, begin drafting a job description.

Friday, June 19, 2015 – End of the 100 Day Campaign- Greater Hartford has housed 52 chronically homeless families in a little over 3 months- the fastest rate of housing chronically homeless households ever seen in our area!

August 13, 2015 – CCEH partners with OrgCode to bring Connecticut our first training on the Full SPDAT

September 25, 2015- GH CAN Registry Week: All providers attempt to complete a VI-SPDAT with all households currently homeless in GH CAN!

October 1, 2016 – Department of Housing requires all CANs to have a By-Name-List in HMIS that is used for housing matching discussions

October 28, 2015- The Zero: 2016 Campaign to End Chronic Homelessness in Connecticut kicks off.  The Greater Hartford CAN team sets 4 goals, focused on landlord recruitment, data sharing, document readiness, and increased local collaboration.

November 17, 2016 – Our one year CAN-niversary!  The Department of Housing awards CAN funding to support CAN administrative staffing and navigators in the GH CAN.

November 23, 2015 – GH CAN Outreach Committee begins meeting formally, under the leadership of Janet Bermudez.

February ???????/ - State switched to use of VI-SPDAT 2.0 as standard assessment tool

February ??????????????- GH CAN Navigators are hired through BHCA and CRT

February 10^th, 2016 – GH CAN Meetings separate into GH CAN Leadership Committee and Operations Committee.  Other subcommittees are identified and begin meeting regularly including Outreach Subcommittee and Coordinated Exit Subcommittee

February 23^rd, 2015 – Zero: 2016 Team hosts landlord breakfast with 20+ landlords in attendance to learn about different GH CAN Housing programs

April 22^nd, 2016 – Switched to block scheduling (as opposed to scheduled appointments) for all family GH CAN assessment appointments

May 19, 2016 – GH CAN begins using a prioritized shelter waitlist through SmartSheets software

June 17, 2016 – Zero: 2016 Team hosts second GH CAN Homeless Document Fair at My Sisters’ Place.  This year, 8 chronically homeless households are able to get fully document ready at the event!

GH CAN Leadership 11/16/16

GH CAN Leadership Agenda

Wednesday, November 16, 2016

HAPPY TWO YEAR CAN-NIVERSARY!

1.      Welcome and Introductions

2.      Cold Weather Protocol Updates-Nate Fox

a.      At Operations we will be discussing in-depth relationship between shelter waitlist and No-Freeze

-Steve says that

-City of Hartford Rep- Spoke to the state about possibly using a state facility and that was not successful.

-City of Hartford-Aids Against Connecticut is the fiduciary for this funding

-Theresa says she is concerned about the number of staff being to run the No Freeze, especially if staff is employed by a temp agency.

-Theresa requests the e mail for what will be discussed at the next Cold Weather Meeting.

-Dave suggests to have churches have a rotation of being the No Freeze location.

- Nate says the reason to go through the temp agency because of the lack of funding to hire staff through Center Church.

- Theresa and other leadership members are concerned about going through Delta T of hiring staff.

-Nate says they plan on hiring 7 staff members and would be hired from 4pm-8am

-Nate says St.Peter Church street is up for lease, but have not heard back from anyone from the building.

-Sarah will ask the Citadel at Salvation Army Marshall House. Sarah will follow up with Nate.

-City of Hartfrd-suggests 1928 on Lafayette street.

-Nate says they are looking into that location as well..

3.      Zero: 2016 Updates

a.      Chronic Verified before October/barriers for current referrals.

-        Crane says we may only be getting 12 instead of 30 to CT BOS

-        Crane says she suggests to refer those clients to chapa

-        19 pre matched CT BOS and out of the 19 there are 6 of them that are ready and should be moved to chapa

-        Crane has requested to be able to pre approve clients, but has not been finalized

-        Theresa requests to have Navigators communicate immediately with housing providers when a client is document and verified ready.

-        For Pending referral client list. Everyone about number 13 on the list is beyond 90 days.

-        Matt says about 6 or 7 clients on the list have refused housing.

-        Everyone on this list from 1-34 would need to be housed before December 31 to reach the Campaign Zero.

-        Crane request for a referral date in the note section. Stating the date when the client was referred the different attempts.

b.      Chronic Priority List and Verifications/SPDATs needed

-Pre match verified chronic list is they have their homeless verification and disability verification.

- Theresa requests to meet with Journey Home in order to go over the list of clients.

-Clients on the priority list need to be document ready. All these clients are currently staying outside or they are in a shelter.

c.      Trends-Getting to Functional Zero

-         

d.      GH-CAN Landlord Risk Reduction Fund is now available

-        The fund is for $10,000.

4.      Subcommittee Reports

a.      Duty Service Coordinators

b.      Coordinated Outreach

c.      Coordinated Exit: Individuals

d.      Coordinated Exit: Families

e.      Rapid ReHousing

5.      Announcements

a.      My Sister’s Place TLP Program will stop accepting any new referrals effective November 30^th, as they work to transition into being a PSH program.

b.      Access Benefits Online is starting back up again through CAHS.

c.      Justice Land Legal Aid-Services taking referrals-see flyer

-Send Theresa e mail about data quality report being cleaned out after 30 days.

GH CAN Operations 11/2/16

GH CAN Operations Meeting 

Wednesday 11/2/16

1.      Welcome and Introductions

2.      Zero: 2016 Updates

a.      Recently Housed Households – Tenesha Grant

b.      Updates on Landlord Mitigation Funds

3.      What kind of trainings would staff like to see?

•        Narcan training (all 4 men’s shelters had already completed Narcan training recently- Open Hearth, McKinney, South Park Inn, and ImmaCare)
  ·        Mental Health Crisis Intervention
  ·        De-escalation training
  ·        SPDAT training
  ·        Motivational interviewing
  ·        Tenant rights
  ·        Landlord rights
  ·        Fair Housing training on reasonable accomodations
  ·        Fair housing training on under housing/over housing / unit size rules
  ·        Crisis prevention intervention
  ·        HMIS Re-training on the following items: closing bed nights, where full assessments are and how to use them, uploading documents.  There was a suggestion to do webinar style drop-in with Nutmeg to re-train on all of these items.  

4.      Shelter Waitlist Procedures

a.      Shelter Bed Refusals - see p. 4

b.      At the last outreach meeting, the 

5.      Youth CAN Assessments – John Lawlor

                      a. The Connection has recently opened up some programs in the Greater Hartford area specifically for youth.  Right now, they operate a youth hotline, so if any providers are working with youth between 18-24, they can call: 860-878-4042.

         In addition, the Connection is hoping to start hosting CAN assessments soon, specifically for youth.  

6.      Announcements

a.      At our next CAN Operations week’s meeting we will be celebrating our two-year CAN-niversary! 

b.      Cold Weather Planning is still in process- for next meeting we will have written protocols in place for the procedures that will begin December 1^st. 

c.      The guide for Case Managers to explain chronic homelessness was approved by the Leadership Committee last week. 

d.      This year’s Point In Time count has been tentatively scheduled for January 24^th for the sheltered count, and January 25^th for the unsheltered count. 

e.      The Youth Count is a week long effort that corresponds with the Point-in-Time Count to count all of those experiencing homelessness in Connecticut that focuses specifically on youth and young adults aged 24 and below.  This year’s upcoming Youth Count will take place around the same time as our PIT count.  Contact Steve.Hurley@journeyhomect.org for additional information, or to get involved in this year’s youth count.

GH CAN Leadership 11/2/16

Greater Hartford Coordinated Access Network

Leadership Committee Meeting

Wednesday, November 2^nd, 2016

1.      Welcome and Introduction

a.      Leadership Committee size and scope – Theresa Nicholson

                                                    i.     People in the room are able to make decisions. Each agency please go back and talk to ED to make sure we know who are the right people in the room to make the right decision.

1.      Crane said it’s impractical to come based on agency size on who can come for agency decision making. Crane said we can’t have the right people but we have the best people. Sometimes we have to come back and make decisions. Tina Ortiz said she can make decisions for the housing dept. but she can’t make decision for the clinical dept. because they have their own VP. Theresa said we’re charged right now with making decision very quickly so if we don’t have the right people in the room we can’t make the changes. Only have two months left. Make sure they have support from agency to make decisions or if they’re able to call and get the decisions made. Having someone say I’ll let you know next time is 2 weeks away and that is too far away. Tina said it doesn’t have to be 2 weeks, it takes 1 day to send an email. Crane said so if we have decisions to be made, if we need answers we can have them answered via email. Crane said do we want to reduce the size of the group. The bigger the size, the more distraction and diversion. Crane said on the other hand, the bigger the size, more input. Originally it was a selected person and an alternate from an agency. One person designated to make those decisions but input from anybody. As chair of committee Theresa is not making decisions for people, just go back to your agencies and ask if you’re the right person.

b.      Mollie asked about the program contacts for PIT. Cat is the point person for Hartford and Journey Home is covering suburbs.

                                                    i.     Barbara Shaw stated 30 people –size dynamics. People don’t participate as much, Don’t focus. 5 or 6 people end up speaking most of the time. Might want to look at our size and how to be nimble. Originally designed to be decision making. Heather attends both meetings because there were things going on at Leadership that didn’t get disseminated at Operations. Now she has a full picture to bring back to agency. There are places and times where other meetings but it’s tough to get all the right information back without having the right people.  Crane said meetings are starting to have the same topics but are there things missing? Heather said yes. Theresa asked if there’s a process for sharing what goes on in this meeting to the next meeting. We used to do leadership updates. Sometimes the focus operations is working on is different than leadership. Theresa said maybe it’s the opposite. That operations should meet first and any issues that come up then leadership can talk about. Crane said something we can bring up after Zero:2016 since they already adjusted the schedule.

2.      Zero: 2016 Updates – Mollie Greenwood

                                                    i.     Data from priority list – 26 clients who still need DV. Reached out to Kara, Trish, Andrea and Steve. Theresa said instead of doing a biosocial psych if navigators can get hospital paperwork so that LCSW’s can review. Even a list of meds. Sometimes someone can look at someone’s meds and see what their disability is. Kara is a gap filler. Andrea didn’t look at the HMIS enrollments for the 26 clients that we sent. Trish did a DV in July in Central and person is still not housed. DV may have to be redone since it’s been so long. Can be strategic in the time the DV is being completed – maybe take the higher need people.

b.      Retooling group – new definition – HUD said only 3 per COC – we want to make for 3 per CAN. Only 3 people past the 91^st day. If we get everyone matched within 90 days we will get at functional zero. Fluidity – if New Haven had 5 and we 1 – New Haven can send us 2. So 24 across the state but it can vary. People who are refusing housing would not count against this number. Not forcing to do what they don’t want to do. CT made their own def. USICH made their own. DOH feels they may never meet the USICH definition. Not as cut and dry as the veterans. Steve jots down any special circumstances. USICH may keep their definition and one day we may get there. After we get to functional zero, it does not mean we no longer we don’t need additional PSH. Last 18 months, majority have been with new PSH. Looking at current turnover rate may not enough to meet. Functional zero is going to mean we will be successful if we have everyone matched except 3 people by 12/31. And housed with 90 days. I would argue that anyone we have matched before 10/1 and is not housed yet would not meet ending definition of homelessness. How many people have been referred before 10/1? Report with barriers and referred for more than 60 days. Roughly about 14 people. Will send report out to agencies.

c.      Section 8 Housing Choice Voucher Updates – Matt Morgan – distributed handout for approved individuals through Moving On. When was this last updated? Numbers I have for my agency are different. They have 8 or 9 for J’Dmelia. Chrysalis got notification that their RAP is terminated and now have a voucher. Seems to be a discrepancy. Maybe we don’t have information from Imagineers. Will talk offline. If resistance from J’Dmelia for inspections, please let DOH know. They have said they will some pressure. Crane said her understanding is there are 4 in Mary Seymour Place, not 2. We don’t know what percentages of these we can back fill.  When we assigned the agencies folks for referral for documentation. Any update on that? My Sister’s Place has a couple of folks and they’re ready to rock and all. Chrysalis got a lot of folks who didn’t have navigators so we should check in again to make sure we aren’t duplicating. How do we get somewhere by 12/31? Theresa said we have 11 certs, this is a great opportunity so we need to pre-match. Kara said we might steal some from Waterbury for Hartford. May be 30 certs from Waterbury. In the BOS 193 grant, Chrysalis may be assigned an additional 30. Has to be put in HMIS and DDAP. If they need housing coordination from GHRA, they need to know. They are trying to figure out what each CAN needs and then distributing it. 16 on the Sec 8 list are designated for veterans. DOH is encouraging folks to utilize RRH. Some of the 41 are not project based. Need to be strategic. CRT update on RRH. Already have 5. Case managers have double caseloads. CRT has taken 5 chronically homeless folks. When can they start taking more referrals? Being at this level doesn’t mean I can’t just jump and make decision. Will touch base with Sonia. Steve Dilella said they have 15 certs to be matched – administered through JDA – no requirement on following RAP guidelines. More in line for shelter + care. Need to have executive matching meeting. Folks with high barriers can go in more lenient scattered site. Potentially 30 from statewide. 15 from CHFA. Plus more RRH coming. Turnover from Housing Choice Voucher. Possibly from Housing Authority. Executive housing matching time. Challenge 15 has been slow. May have openings or cost savings. Can look at Shelter + Care to see if you have savings or anticipated openings. Matched and then intake has to be done. They can be doubled up after intake, and accepted into program. Strategic matching for the immigration issues, sex offender, felonies. Theresa wants to know what’s going on in the back to get us there. Who’s verified chronic that we need to match?  Potential openings with potentially chronic units. What’s our next step?

3.      Landlord Mitigation Fund – Matt Morgan – Meeting yesterday. Fund for landlords to partner with. Encourage landlords to take on clients they may be iffy with. It’s a reimbursement model.

4.      Outreach Collaborative Card – Nate Fox – Developed card for other outreach teams. Wanted a way to connect all those teams under one umbrella. Make sure folks are getting connected any day of the week. Providers in the room see someone outside can hand to client. Still can make edits. Will ultimately laminate it. Idea is to leave it behind at a site. Theresa likes that it’s not business cards. Should have these for the PIT. Iris confirmed they don’t have to call 211 right? Just call the number. Theresa asked where we can get these to be picked up. Nate is working on it.

5.      Cold weather protocol – draft of the process included in packet. Still actively meeting. Meeting next week. Kristy has had follow up meetings with 4 different work groups – CAN integration, shelter waitlist, 211. Pop up warming centers for severe weather nights. Other warming centers in other folks. Location for no freeze is “in flux” – spoke directly with Holy Trinity and initially they said yes and then they realized they have to go through the Archdiocese. Looking into St. Peter’s school as a backup option. Hope that can get clarified and lock down. Also have challenges with the church’s role in all of this. Challenge of working in congregational church. Initially the church said yes we will do it and details emerged along the line and then the church retracted. Asked journey home if they could step in. Challenges there. Hoping we can push this through with the church. No other options at this point. Have done so much work on this. Best way to support this in Nate’s opinion is to give encouragement towards Nate’s organization because they need to understand the dire need of this. Would be tremendous help if they hear from us all how many people this will impact. Who do we need to send things to? What is the proper channel? Is it a phone call, letter? Who is the decision maker? Senior minister and the prudential committee and the chairperson of that board. Would be the two most important places. Letter collectively from the CAN could be helpful. For now, they pulled the plug asked Theresa? Nate said, they’ve pulled the plug but the city has our name on all the paperwork to pass the RFT. Even though nothing has been signed, in order for another organization to be single sourced they would have to do all that paperwork again and that took a month. Nate said they think it’s liability. Certain things that are done by congregational church they would have to have congregational meeting. Depth of participation was not clear. As the checklist of things that come with the role came out, it came apparent that it needed the full church’s agreement. If we can subcontract all the labor from temp agency then that would defer issues with employment and having people on payroll. Challenges with temp agency and also unemployment when you have to lay them off. Theresa said she has to find out if she can sign it. She has to verify that she can sign as the chairperson of the committee. Prudential chair is Luciano. It’s unfortunate that it’s happened after all the work. Kudos to Nate for being professional.

At CAN assessments, people who are doubled up and added to waitlist is like false hope. Have to change message to these folks because there is also fresh people coming in so people never really will get called. We are not a right to shelter state and we don’t have enough beds for everyone. Shelter waitlist is a crutch – “I can’t do anything for you but let’s put you on this list” – Nate suggested a branding change may help. Term of shelter waitlist may give people wrong idea. Waitlist is when people keep going up but when someone goes from 25 to 32, it’s hard to explain.

Asylum Hill and St. Peter’s are still on board for when governor declares cold weather. Each of them is 25-50 beds. Covers men women and families. Avoid taking folks who are doubled up if shelter is empty. Work with them to divert. Tomorrow you may have someone in your car. No one at DOH is going to ding you for leaving a bed open for a day or two. Hold those beds so that someone can come in who may really need it. Try to divert on the phone. Crane suggested sending an email out. Folks won’t believe it until it’s in writing. If they report it verbally, they won’t do it. Sarah said they called everyone on the list today. They’re having a hard time filling beds. They don’t think there’s any unsheltered family.

Families are having a hard time filling shelters. Can families take more individuals? Work with DOH. Suites at EHFS are empty. Salvation Army said people are refusing shelter when doubled up. Not showing up for intake.

6.      Dedicated Diversion Staff Plan – Mollie Greenwood, Dave Martineau – handful of folks dedicated to diversion. Has knowledge of great resources of the community. Asked the community what funds we have for diversion. CHR budget is combined with diversion and something else. Mercy has $234,000 just for diversion. Trying to consolidate all appointments into that meeting. Request for money from Mercy is complicated. They’ve turned requests within 24 hours. They’ve done food, motel stays, flights, rental assistance, bus ticket, greyhound, etc. Only for folks imminently homeless. The money will prevent them from shelter waiting list or coming into shelter. Sarah DiMaio asked about shelter clients with high utility bills. Use Be Homeful funds for utility. Have had $15,000 in Be Homeful through CCEH. Have to catch them early as soon as they get into the system.

7.      Announcements:

a.      The State of Connecticut, Department of Housing (DOH), is seeking proposals from eligible 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations and municipalities to provide at least one program for people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness along the Connecticut continuum of services. This continuum includes coordinated access services, shelter diversion services, shelter operations, rapid re-housing services, new permanent supportive housing services or youth transitional living programs.  See CCEH’s 10/28 email for further information

b.      This year’s Point In Time count has been tentatively scheduled for January 24^th for the sheltered count, and January 25^th for the unsheltered count. 

c.      The Youth Count is a week long effort that corresponds with the Point-in-Time Count to count all of those experiencing homelessness in Connecticut that focuses specifically on youth and young adults aged 24 and below.  This year’s upcoming Youth Count will take place around the same time as our PIT count.  Contact Steve.Hurley@journeyhomect.org for additional information, or to get involved in this year’s youth count.

d.      Next GH CAN Leadership Meeting will fall on our two year CAN-niversary!

Zero: 2016 Housing Data

Diversion Funds in the GH CAN

Agency	Security Deposit	Rental Assistance/Arrears	Utility Assistance/ Arrears	Transportation Funds	Miscellaneous Funds
CHR
The Network Against Domestic Abuse				$2500 annually
Hands On Hartford	about $1800 a month, half is through Center Church (HOH does the vetting, Center Church makes the payment) up to $400 / family	0	HOH is now an Operation Fuel Fuel  Bank so will be meeting with folks and processing applications two days a week (and one evening a month) for the Winter and then Summer programs;  in the Spring we have $27,000 of money to support other folks in utility assistance/arrears	0	We have a shopping model food pantry so can help folks with groceries;  For the next few months we still have some  (a couple thousand dollars) Employment Opportunity Funds supported by Melville that can help homeless/at risk with things like ids, bus passes, clothing/shoes, training expenses that are related to jobs or school
Mercy Housing and Shelter
Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness	0	0	$14,913	0	0
Other agencies?	?	?	?	?	?

GH CAN November Meeting and Event Schedule

You can find this calendar, and other GH CAN materials on www.journeyhomect.org/provider-resources