GH CAN Operations Committee Meeting 11/1/17

Greater Hartford Coordinated Access Network

Operations Agenda

Wednesday, November 1^st, 2017

Attended: Crane Cesario (DMHAS), Roger Clark (ImmaCare), Stephanie Corbin (Mercy), Anita Cordero (ImmaCare), Justine Couvares (Chrysalis Center), Rochelle Currie (The Connection), Sarah DiMaio (Salvation Army Marshall House), Mollie Greenwood (Journey Home), Steve Hurley (Journey Home), Kyren McCrorey (The Open Hearth), Klaudia Lobeska (CRT East Hartford Shelter), Gerilyn Maciel (Salvation Army Marshall House), Maureen Perez (CRT/McKinney), Heather Flannery (South Park Inn), Lisa Quach (Journey Home), Natalie Ramos (ImmaCare), Amy Robinson (VA), Iris Ruiz (Interval House), Kelanda Santos (My Sisters’ Place), Luz Serrano (ImmaCare), Rob Soderberg (CHR), Wendy Walker (CRT/McKinney), Maria Florez (Mercy), and Lauren Fair (Salvation Army)

1.      Welcome and Introductions

2.      Case Conferences – Fred Faulkner

1. Fred says shelter case managers are not required to bring clients up for case conferencing to the CAN Operations meeting if there is already an agreement from the shelters to transfer a client.

3.      Coordinated Entry

a.      Overflow No-Freeze Shelter for Individual Women and Families – Sarah DiMaio

1. Sarah says Salvation Army Marshall House received the RFP for the No Freeze. The No Freeze will be at the Willie Ware Rec Center. Hands on Hartford and Center Church have offered to be triage locations as well and are requesting for volunteers from agencies to provide transportation from the No Freeze shelter and triage locations to shelters.

2. Sarah says Salvation Army Marshall House opened its overflow shelter today for single women and families.

3. Sarah states when clients come into the shelter they will understand the rule if the clients refuse a full time shelter bed they will not be allowed at the overflow shelter.

4.Roger asks when the No Freeze will open.

i. Sarah says once the No Freeze opens when the temperature is consistent a 32 degrees. At earliest they will be opening the No Freeze by Dec 1^st and once the No Freeze is open it will still stay open until March 31^st.

      b.  Doubled Up Safe Stephanie

1.  Stephanie says front line staff at the Diversion Center are struggling with families who are in a doubled up safe living situation.

2. Stephanie suggests to have only doubled up safe option for families.

3..  Sarah says she thinks it’s best to not have kids exposed to shelters.

4.  Sarah suggests if kids are safe and an outreach worker can identify the client’s homelessness they should be marked as unsheltered.

5.  Amy suggests clients should be added to the shelter priority list if people who are unsheltered have no plans after the CAN appointment.

6.  Stephanie asks what to do with clients who were doubled up safe for their kids, but come back to the Diversion Center and report the child can’t stay with family member no longer and have no plan.

7.  Lisa suggests to have someone divert people off of the shelter waitlist.

8.  Stephanie says that language with 211 may need to change of people who are within 48 hours of homelessness.

9.  Mollie suggests to ask Fairfield CAN of how the process is doing Diversion over the phone.

10.  Sarah says that all the emergency family clients she has received from Diversion Center all of them stated with shelter staff they were not in an emergency situation.

12. CAN Operations agrees to still not have a doubled up safe option as a prioritization on the shelter wait list.

4.      Salvation Army Anti-Human Trafficking Program – Lauren Fair

1.  Lauren says this program is an intensive program and will work with a client for a year and their agency is willing to provide training for other shelter staff if interested.

2.  Krystal says the program is for boys and girls who are survivors of human trafficking such as sex trafficking or labor trafficking.

3.  Krystal states one indicator of determining if a client is a victim of human trafficking is if the client has a symbol on their necks or faces. This may be a sign they may be a victim of sex trafficking and can do a screening to determine if client is eligible for program.

i. Iris asks what if someone hasn’t been trafficked over a year

6.  Krystal says they will still work with the client.

7.  Heather asks what kind of questions do you ask to determine qualifications?

i.  Krystal says she asks the client open ended questions to determine if someone like a boyfriend/girlfriend is making them do this work.

9.  Lauren says they will provide financial assistance to help clients come up with financial plans.

10.  Lisa asks if client is housed can they still work with the client

i.  Krystal says yes they will continue to work with them.

5.      Coordinated Exit:

a.      Recently Housed – Lisa Quach

b.      Housing Data – see p.2

1.Lisa says the GH CAN is at the lowest rate of chronic clients matched to housing which is 23.

6.      Leadership Updates – Mollie Greenwood

a.      Puerto Rico Crisis: FEMA Updates

1. Mollie says the Welcome Center at CREC opened up today. There is also a point person from FEMA that will be provided and will be distributed through email and have the qualifications to apply.

2. Mollie says Leadership looking at performance measures especially for housing providers about the time period is six months, which GH CAN has a lot of chronic clients who are in housing.

7.      Thanksgiving Adoptions – Sara Salomons

1.Sara says that if anyone is interested in providing a Thanksgiving meal for a client who has been housed to contact her.

2. Sara says it does not have to come from a case manager the client is working with. It can be anyone in the community that would be interested in providing the meal for the client, so clients can have the opportunity to even invite family or friends over their place for Thanksgiving.

8.      Announcements

a.      If you are working with someone who reports being a veteran, please call CRT’s Supportive Services for Veteran Families (for both families and individuals)

b.      Hands On Hartford and a number of community partners are working on planning the Day of Sharing and Caring, and needs lots of help planning and pulling off the event.  If you’re interested in assisting, please contact swalker@handsonhartford.org.  The event will take place on 11/2/17.

c.      Security Deposit Guarantee Program is only available for chronically homeless clients at this time. 

d.      The next Cold Weather Planning meeting will take place on Mondays at 3:00 PM at Journey Home.

e.      The “merge record” functionality in CT HMIS is available again. Please submit any duplicate IDs to help@nutmeghelp.com

GH CAN Leadership Meeting 11/1/17

Greater Hartford Coordinated Access Network

Leadership Agenda

Wednesday, November 1^st, 2017

1.      Welcome and Introductions

a.      Matt Morgan, Journey Home

b.      Stephanie Corbin, Mercy

c.      Mollie Greenwood, Journey Home

d.      Lisa Quach, Journey Home

e.      Justine Couvares, Chrysalis

f.       Andrea Hakian, CHR

g.      Lionel Bigler, City of Hartford

h.      John Lawlor, The Connection

i.       Kyren McCorey, The Open Hearth

j.       Fred Faulkner, The Open Hearth

k.      John Ferrucci, South Park Inn

l.       Lou Gilbert, ImmaCare

m.    Kathy Shaw, My Sister’s Place

n.      Rosemary Flowers, My Sister’s Place

o.      Barbara Shaw, Hands on Hartford

p.      Steve Bigler, CRT

q.      Ymonne Wilson, CRT

r.       Sonia Brown, CRT

s.      Tina Ortiz, CRT

t.       Crane Cesario, DMHAS

u.      Amy Robinson, VA

v.      Sarah DiMaio, SAMH

w.    Lauren Fair, Salvation Army

x.      Kara Capobianco, DOH

y.      Cat Damato, CRT

z.      Tung Nguyen, Hartford Health & Human Services

2.      CT BOS Performance Measures – Cat Damato and Crane Cesario

a.      Emails were sent out to agency leaders regarding feedback for revised CT BOS policies around performance measures. Feedback requested by 11/2/17.  

b.      BOS aims really high because Connecticut BOS COC is in the top 3 in the nation for COC scores and have actually received new money when others lose money. The group felt aiming that high is not reasonable when it contradicts with new processes such as CAN and rapid rehousing. The group agreed that they definitely want to push on the 6-month issue since right now 85% of participants must exit RRH within 6 months and that has been determined not long enough to assess whether a chronically homeless client can succeed in rapid rehousing.

3.      Grievance Policy Updates – Request from Family Matching Meeting – Lisa Quach

a.      The language around section 6 of the current grievance policy was discussed at a family matching meeting. The group wanted to bring it to leadership’s attention to get it revised.

b.      This section of the policy states “The applicant has a right to review and receive (free of charge before the informal conference) photocopies of the documents in the GH CAN file upon which the GH CAN Housing Referral Group based its determination.” The issue that is concerning is that agencies have specific policies around accessing records. We would like to have this changed to “The applicant has a right to review and receive (free of charge before the informal conference) photocopies of the documents in the GH CAN file upon which the GH CAN Housing Referral Group based on individual agency policies.”

c.      While discussing this section of the grievance policy, other concerns came up about the grievance process itself. Since the grievance policy was drafted years ago and systems have changed, we will be looking at the grievance policy to update it to match our current system. Crane volunteered to assist with the editing of the grievance procedure.

4.      Triaging Individual Women and Families at No-Freeze – Sarah DiMaio

a.      The women and families no freeze at Salvation Army Marshall House opened today and they have already received some calls. They are considering this a soft opening and only taking in clients on an emergent basis so that they don’t exhaust their beds. They are contracted for 23 beds and currently have 24. They are looking to increase to possibly 26 beds since they had to use so many cots and mattresses on the floor last year due to demand.

b.      When clients come in to No Freeze, they have to sign something that states if they get an offer for a year round bed, they have to accept it or it will put their bed at Salvation Army at risk.

c.      All 3 populations of the shelter waitlist went through a clean-up process with help from staff at the YWCA, diversion staff and Steve Hurley from Journey Home. When diversion center is fully staffed, hopefully ongoing cleanup will be happening instead of scheduling clean up days.

d.      CRT East Hartford shelter is not able to take individual women at the moment until they discuss it internally so minutes from the cold weather meeting will need to be corrected.

e.      As of 11/13/17, the diversion center will go back to taking up to 40 appointments a day.

5.      Update from Tung Nguyen about No Freeze RFP.

a.      Dr. Gary Rhule left in August. Tung is interim director health and human services.

b.      Salvation Army has been selected to run the warming center. The award letter and contract was sent out yesterday.

c.      Willie Ware Recreational Center will be the site of the warming center.

d.      Center Church and Hands on Hartford will be triage centers. Tung is concerned that Center Church is a concern because of being in the downtown area. The city was receiving complaints from downtown businesses about clients hanging around downtown and having Center Church as a triage center may cause problems with local business owners.

e.      The CAN is still looking for transportation for clients to the warming center and only have some limited funding. Hands on Hartford has offered to provide transportation on one night for one hour.

f.       Hurricane Relief update: Camp Jewel was brought up as a place to host clients displaced from Puerto Rico at a previous meeting. Camp Jewel is located in Colbrook.

                                                    i.     The CREC relief center opened today and will be open from 9am-6pm.

                                                   ii.     They finally got a FEMA contact today who will review current draft of processes for clients displaced from natural disaster.

                                                  iii.     The expected number of folks coming through Bradley Airport from Puerto Rico is between 3,500 and 11,000. The initial number we heard (22,000) was the maximum capacity of seating available for flights from Puerto Rico. Not everyone coming through Bradley will stay in Connecticut, some may go to Rhode Island or Massachusetts.

6.      GH CAN Local Performance: PSH Programs for Individuals – Mollie Greenwood

a.      Data for GH CAN local housing performance measure was distributed. Something similar was distributed last year. The CAN leadership group wanted to get a sense of many referrals were getting returned and how long does it take to get someone housed

b.      Referrals returned can happen for a number of different reasons. This includes people who were not able to contact, households that were matched and then refused, and clients deemed ineligible due to property management requirements, etc.

c.      Chrysalis programs have all scattered sites certificates aggregated because it’s harder to pull program by program since certs were swapped.

d.      Time from referral date to housed date is calculated by using date of housing matching meeting – not when agency was able to review their documentation. We don’t have a good way of capturing that yet so we just have housing matching meeting dates to go by.

e.      Documentation lags can pull that time out a little bit. Crane had a concern about date matched vs. when documents get to her. She stated sometimes she will not get the documentation until a week after the housing matching meeting and that will affect her performance because she is already considered 7 days in and that shows poor performance.

f.       Lou Gilbert stated this data is helpful but we don’t have anything to compare it to. He asked if we could get this quarterly with historic data to have something to compare to and see trends and improvements.

g.      Sonia Brown had concerns about receiving the referral and then actually making contact with them.

h.      Bloomfield Scattered Site no longer exists since it is now lumped into BOS.

i.       Project Teach and Project Teach PERM are 2 different programs.

7.      GH CAN Housing Data – see p. 2

8.      Shelter Transfer Update – Fred Faulkner

a.      One of the resolutions while case conferencing challenging cases is transferring clients to another shelter. Shelter providers had concerns on whether this was considered a negative discharge from DOH perspective? Guidance received from DOH is that it is not a negative discharge and they are actually encouraged to do it.

b.      Kara asked Journey Home to keep track of shelter transfers to see if any changes needs to be made to HMIS in the future for exit destinations.

9.      PIT Data Update – Crane.

A.     The following programs still need to complete their PIT data. Deadline is this Friday.

·        AIDS CT listed as No Freeze. Haven’t heard back.

·        Chrysalis – Next Steps & Legion Court

·        CRT – Supportive housing collaborative, HPASS, East Hartford Shelter

·        House of Bread TLP

·        Mercy Housing – 9 programs not done, 1 done. Mercy Gala is tomorrow.

·        My Sister’s Place – TLP is closed. New PSH is listed as not done.

·        Open Hearth TLP & RRH not done

·        SAMH Overflow & Greater Hartford Rapid Rehousing. Overflow changed to seasonal.

·        YWCA Emergency Shelter

·        CHR Central CT DOH RRH

·        SVDP RRH CHR

·        Next Steps Enfield

·        Greater Hartford DOH RRH CHR

·        CHR 811 – (Andrea doesn’t know what this is)

·        Catholic Charities – Cathedral Green (should be in HMIS now)

·        The Network

·        Interval House

·        Cornerstone

B.     Zezzo House is not on PIT list. Barbara Shaw will research and send follow-up email to Crane, Cat and Jackie Janowsko.

C.      Youth PIT Count is 1/24/17-1/31/17 – seeking volunteers to conduct surveys.

10. Relocation update from Tung

a.      The new court rule is that clients can only stay in temporary housing for up to 90 days. He would like to discuss relocation program at a future meeting. After 90 days, the clients will have to get out of temporary housing and will have no place to go.

b.      The RFP on housing navigator coming out soon, maybe in a week. How do we find a place for these folks when they no longer have those benefits?

11.   Future Agenda Items

12.   Announcements

a.      There will be a Service Summit (on volunteer involvement and creating meaningful service projects) that HOH and Prudential are sponsoring on Wednesday 11/8 from 8:30 am – 1:30 pm at the Lyceum.

b.      Hands On Hartford is working on planning the Day of Sharing and Caring and needs lots of help planning and pulling off the event.  The event is currently scheduled for 11/2 from 11:00AM – 2:00PM If you’re interested, please contact swalker@handsonhartford.org

c.      CT Department of Housing has an RFP out for HOPWA funding for the following locations: Litchfield County, Middlesex County, New London County, and Tolland County.  The RFP is available in electronic format on the State Contracting Portal at http://www.biznet.ct.gov/SCP_Search/Default.aspx?AccLast=2 or from the Department’s Official Contact, Steve DiLella.

GH CAN Leadership / GH Sub-COC Meeting 10/16/17

Below are the notes for the GH CAN Leadership Meeting, Sub-COC notes will be added as they are received.

1.      Welcome and Introductions

a.      Mollie Greenwood, Journey Home

b.      Matt Morgan, Journey Home

c.      Sarah DiMaio, Salvation Army Marshall House

d.      Stephanie Corbin, Mercy

e.      Lisa Quach, Journey Home

f.       Sonia Brown, CRT

g.      Crane Cesario, DMHAS

h.      Justine Couvares, Chrysalis

i.       Louis Gilbert, ImmaCare

j.       Andrea Hakian, CHR Manchester

k.      John Lawlor, The Connection

l.       Lauren Fair, Salvation Army

m.    Kyren McCrorey, The Open Hearth

n.      Tina Ortiz, CRT

o.      Cat Damato, CRT

p.      Diane Paige-Blondette, My Sisters’ Place

q.      Amy Robinson, VA

r.       Marilyn Rosetti, The Open Hearth

s.      Kathy Shaw, My Sisters’ Place

t.       Barbara Shaw, Hands on Hartford

u.      Cathy Zeiner, YWCA

v.      Ymonne Wilson, CRT

2.      COC and ESG Integration – Sarah DiMaio

a.      Meeting in New Haven about New HUD CPD-17 rule, has to abide by January 23, 2018.

                                                    i.     ESG programs are now receiving guidance to update policies to mirror and integrate with COC policies on Coordinated Entry. When ESG grants are offered to sub recipients, the recipients can no longer restrict who they serve based on municipalities so that we truly don’t have a wrong door in our CAN systems. For many ESG recipients, this means they have to expand their current service area.

                                                   ii.     HUD has contracted with someone named Alice for 16 hours of assistance and will set up calls for ESG and COC recipients. All policy reviews are to be submitted to Alice.

                                                  iii.     The ESG group would like to meet every two weeks in New Haven. No date has been set yet. It is more for ESG recipients to get on board with everything that the COC is doing.

                                                  iv.     Opening Doors Fairfield County is already utilizing ESG funding to cover their entire region from Bridgeport so the ESG group has asked them to submit their policies as a template. It will really be on Lionel to coordinate with BOS for Greater Hartford’s local municipal ESG funding.

3.      Local Housing Priorities – Mollie Greenwood and Crane Cesario

a.      The Reaching Home committees have started talking about implementing DynamicPrioritization (Dy-Pri) statewide, which raises a lot of questions. How do we bridge folks out of RRH to PSH when necessary? How do we get to a place where we offer RRH as the housing intervention to most folks? Right now, in GH CAN, we only have a handful of chronic verified households in our community. Now is the time to look at local housing priorities in GH CAN. We are currently prioritizing people using all the guidance we got from DOH and HUD and serving folks in the community who are most vulnerable the best we can.

b.      PSH programs need to be able to manage their grants and make sure they’re operating in a way where they won’t get funds recaptured. What do our local priorities look like and how do we get them to work for us in all of our housing matching meetings? How do we move folks to PSH when we have openings to not harm grants? How do we manage that? Sometimes, a PSH program needs to take somebody right in to avoid harming their program’s performance measures.  A PSH program can take folks who are in RRH and need bridging or someone who is chronically homeless.

c.      The statewide Dy-Pri group is continuing to work and the next meeting is Monday in New Haven. Iain De Jong was talking about automatic matching and not having case conferences in his recent training. One reason we aren’t currently implementing more automaticity is that we can’t have automaticity if we don’t trust our data. It still would be unfair because it goes back to who is our most effective staff. We need to have some local policies set to decide who is in first among this group? Some factors can be VI-SPDAT score or length of homeless history.

d.      GH CAN Leadership suggested a small group convene to set a standard of prioritization. We also need DOH to change rapid rehousing measures since they are constrained to different rules. There’s a handful of people who can work on it and then bring it back to the group. It is better to work with something than nothing. Sonia, Crane, Amy, Mollie, Lisa, Andrea will be in the small group.

4.      Puerto Rican Crisis: FEMA Updates – Matt Morgan

a.      In Hartford, Capital Region Education Council has convened a group of about 100 stakeholders. Agencies and school systems have been involved as well as funders such as United way, Red Cross, Salvation Army Disaster Relief. The goal is to prepare for a lot of victims that may be coming to Hartford specifically because of so many families/friends that live here. This planning group expects a lot of people to be coming. The process for registration with FEMA went live a week ago. Within the first 2 days, 145 individuals registered with a new address in CT from Puerto Rico. Emergency disaster people expect 22,000 people to come through Bradley airport on Mondays and Fridays and many of those households won’t know where to go for assistance.

b.      We have already had people in the CAN who came from Puerto Rico. The family came in and had a place to go but no transportation to get there. Sarah and Lauren wondered if the right people are at the welcome center. All frontline staff who know how to navigate the system are already stretched thin so we are throwing in staff who are available but may not know the homeless services system into these support centers. The planning group would like to have a relief center at CREC as a triage location to get information and referrals in addition to 211. They will also have coats/supplies and other donations.

c.      What about folks who were doubled up and then will need housing after? In order to not burden the shelters or CAN system, all staff should direct them to register with FEMA first. They have a lot of programs based on eligibility. Hotels may be a reimbursement model and has to be a specific hotel that FEMA has approved. None are in Hartford, closest may be in Manchester. No transportation is available. Also, staff can refer to the Housing Resource Education Center if they get rental assistance from FEMA. If there are additional resources that are made available, then we would refer them to that. Salvation Army may be hiring an emergency disaster case manager. You can get 2 months of rental assistance if you were displaced in Texas but FEMA has not provided information about rental assistance for Puerto Rico.

d.      211 put up hotel money for a family of 6 and then called Marshall House for rapid rehousing. Sarah told them it didn’t work that way and referred them back to United Way. We need to know if they are hoteling people and how long have they been there? Does that change our priority because of their hotel stay? We need to figure out prioritization on shelter waitlists. There were concerns about beds for single women if there are higher needs for families to access beds as a result of this influx of folks. Camp Jewel has offered up their space for them to stay but it’s not local. Camp Jewel did mention they will also provide transportation.

e.      How do we know who has access to FEMA money and who Mercy needs to provide money to? Emergency disaster staff had access to FEMA funds and what funds have been dispersed in past crises and we expect the same process this time around. The FEMA system tells households their eligibility and will show whether they have accessed it or not. 211 is referring to FEMA. Stephanie reported that clients have been using the hurricane as an excuse to receive services. It can be hard to prove your address was in the hurricane area when you lost documents. Education liaisons have been instructed to take in students right away. The intended audience for the rough draft sheet was for CREC staff. Journey Home will send it out to CAN staff once it has been finalized.  Crane also suggested adding a title and effective date.

5.      GH CAN Housing Data – see p. 2

6.      Future Agenda Items

7.      Announcements

a.      There will be a Service Summit (on volunteer involvement and creating meaningful service projects) that HOH and Prudential are sponsoring on Wednesday 11/8 from 8:30 am – 1:30 pm at the Lyceum.

b.      Hands On Hartford is working on planning the Day of Sharing and Caring and needs lots of help planning and pulling off the event.  The event is currently scheduled for 11/2 from 11:00AM – 2:00PM If you’re interested, please contact swalker@handsonhartford.org

c.      CT Department of Housing has an RFP out for HOPWA funding for the following locations: Litchfield County, Middlesex County, New London County, and Tolland County.  The RFP is available in electronic format on the State Contracting Portal at http://www.biznet.ct.gov/SCP_Search/Default.aspx?AccLast=2 or from the Department’s Official Contact, Steve DiLella.