GH CAN Leadership Meeting 5/3/17

Greater Hartford Coordinated Access Network

Leadership Agenda

Wednesday, May 3rd, 2017

1.      In Attendance: 
Kara Capobianco - Department of Housing
Crane Cesario - DMHAS
Cat Damato (excused)
Sarah DiMaio - Salvation Army Marshall House
Fred Faulkner - The Open Hearth
John Ferrucci- South Park Inn
Rosemary Flowers - My Sisters' Place
Lou Gilbert - ImmaCare
Tenesha Grant - Mercy Housing and Shelter Corp
Mollie Greenwood - Journey Home
Andrea Hakian - CHR
Dave Martineau - Mercy Housing and Shelter Corp
Matt Morgan - Journey Home
Tina Ortiz - CRT
Iris Ruiz - Interval House
Barbara Shaw - Hands On Hartford
Cathy Zeiner - YWCA
Lauren Fair - Salvation Army
Collette Slover - Charter Oak Health Center
John Lawlor - The Connection

2.      Housing Data Updates (see p. 2) – Mollie Greenwood

a.      Chronic Homelessness Trends in GH CAN – Matt Morgan

                                                    i.     If someone’s verified in December, but they actually hit their 12 months last November, they go into the pool of people counted in November. 

                                                   ii.     The black line is a point-in-time snapshot of how many folks were CH verified at that moment.  The black line represents the data that we share with you each week, for the point in time at each CAN meeting.

                                                  iii.     The other thing to note is that the grey color, the folks who are not matched, for the last 3 months, the matched people are all verified chronic.  This is fairly new, months ago, we would match people who were not yet verified chronic.

3.      Shelter Waitlist Data (see p. 3-5) – Matt Morgan

a.      This is our first attempt at getting you guys data from the shelter priority list.  Part of the question today is what kind of information we need to look at as a committee?  We have 7 months of data presented here.

                                                    i.     This is our first attempt at getting to the unduplicated request of people calling seeking shelter.  In a way, this is hopefully a good estimate of the number of unduplicated requests for shelter that are coming over the course of 7 months.  We could do this monthly, we could do this quarterly. 

                                                   ii.     This is only the data that goes into SmartSheets, and so may not match up nicely with CT HMIS at this point.  One thing we’re asking today is whether you have feedback about whether this data seems appropriate or correct.

b.      Lou Gilbert said what jumps out at him is 1 in 5 single men isn’t accommodated, but we’re not accommodating nearly half of the individual women and families.

                                                    i.     Kara indicated this disproportionate amounts are even higher in other parts of the state.

                                                   ii.     Dave talked about other parts of the country that are really placing people in shelter with less regard for population, and are doing more population mixing. 

c.      Crane suggested one change that would be really helpful is the length of time spent on the shelter waitlist. 

                                                    i.     Right now, because we don’t collect require shelters to enter data about the date folks are accepted to shelter, it’s not easy for us to get that information.  We may be adjusting the waitlist soon to better get at that information.

d.      Cathy indicated that there’s another cohort of households in domestic violence shelters who aren’t being included on this list of how many households are seeking DV shelter.

e.      Funding new shelter isn’t realistic, but in other parts of the state, shelters are swapping the types of populations served.

                                                    i.     One concern around this is if we do a population swap, would that end up resulting in more men being outside?

f.       Statewide, something we’re trying to figure out is what our turnover rate needs to be in shelters in order to accommodate those seeking shelter.

                                                    i.     Kara mentioned that in most areas, once they right size their Diversion, they shut down family shelters. 

g.      John Ferrucci asked what is going on at the Diversion Center for folks who are over income right now?

                                                    i.     Kara  - it depends, if folks with mental health are using money on non-housing things, those folks are on the radar for so long they may not be a good candidate for diversion anyway.  Most folks in this situation are coming through Diversion to be added, or re-added, to the Shelter Priority List.

                                                   ii.     Diversion is for first time homeless, folks who are cycling we’re limited in how aggressively we’re trying to divert folks. Shelter is a place to get housed, and that is a message that we all need to be spreading. 

                                                  iv.     Kara has been doing some research into Housing First after a conference she attended, and one tenant of housing first is flexibility in payment schedules, recognizing that people with addiction may not be ready or able to pay their rent on the schedule.  We haven’t yet fully implemented this type of flexibility in our programs, but it is something that Connecticut needs to work on.

h.      Another issue that Sarah’s hoping to clear up over time is while some may not be able to be diverted at that appointment, sometimes folks may have ended up getting a full time job and then they could be diverted during the time that they are waiting for a shelter bed.  Many families are on this list for weeks or months, and even if they weren’t good candidates for diversion funding at their initial appointment, they may be after they have been on the waiting list for a while.  

                                                    i.     If the Diversion Center were able to do more diversion off of the waitlist, this may end up somewhat reducing the number of folks who truly need shelter. In Fairfield County CAN and Greater New Haven CAN the bulk of shelter diversion happens off the waitlist.  They can divert 50-60% of families off of their shelter waitlist.  Many of the families reporting they’re unsheltered on the waitlist are actually in doubled up unsafe situation.

i.       Iris reminded us that a lot of folks still believe that if they are going into a shelter they can access a permanent subsidy.

                                                    i.     We’ve seen similar issues around SSI in the past, so it’s important that all our case managers are having conversations around the fact that folks are not eligible for certain things.

j.       Matt asked whether there’s a way to speed up the RRH process in our CAN.

                                                    i.     Sarah said that a lot of families have been turned down for multiple apartments because of criminal records or multiple evictions, and so while there have been improvements to the matching process, housing search can still be a lengthy process if folks have multiple barriers.

                                                   ii.     Matt reminded everyone that if there are any other concerns that staff are having that could help speed up this process in any way, please let them elevate this issue to the Leadership team. 

                                                  iii.     One thing we discussed is having a consistent information sheet that we can hand to folks when they’re referred.   It may be helpful if we had information sheets to hand folks with some more information about the referral process that may help simplify things – Crane said that we need to set a deadline to generate this type of handout.  Within shelters, we need to talk about what’s realistic for communications to clients, and make sure we are improving, not confusing, the process.

                                                  iv.     One thing about transitional living that was nice was being able to create a history of folks getting rental history to sign off on and to share with landlords.

1.      It's important for all of us to remember that not everyone should be getting an independent apartment, and not every discharge should be someone going into their own unit, we need family mediation.  Many households will be successful if they are reunited with other natural supports.

2.      The Diversion center is really where we have flexible money to incentivize folks to go back to being doubled up. 

a.      Sarah expressed that it’s very often people coming from doubled up subsidized housing. 

b.      If it’s a family you can’t get them on a lease, but you can get an individual added to a subsidized lease. 

c.      A lot of other parts of the country use reasonable accommodation immediately upon application to an apartment.  So if the criminal history is related to a disability there are ways to put it right up front with the housing application.  That also cuts down on the appeal process for subsidized housing.

k.      Shelter Waitlist Cleanup –

                                                    i.     This was discussed above by Sarah DiMaio.

l.       Shelter Waitlist Prioritization of DV Shelters – Iris Ruiz

                                                    i.     Iris is aware that everyone has challenges meeting the needs of folks calling seeking shelter.  What happens is when the police go out for a domestic they do a lethality screening and if it rates high danger it’s an automatic call to our DV hotline.  Their role is safety planning. 

                                                   ii.     Iris wanted to see about prioritizing folks from DV shelters, and we currently are prioritizing folks differently on the shelter waitlist.  We can decide to prioritize them higher, but that won’t result in them being up at the top of the list.

                                                  iii.     The diversion money is floating around in Kara’s mind, because they’re technically not in regular emergency shelters.  It’s something we should keep on our agenda moving forward.

1.      Cathy asked if we were getting feedback from the Diversion Center that folks are safe and they’re fine. 

2.      We need to have a Diversion Center meeting discussion about DV.  The DV program may not be able to give them a heads up.

                                                  iv.     Dave suggested having the DV providers go and give a more robust training to 211 to try and improve the front-end screening. 

4.      Rapid ReHousing Short Term Referrals – Andrea Hakian, Sarah DiMaio

a.      From the short term RRH program perspective, the short term programs aren’t getting enough referrals because we aren’t having enough families who make enough money.  Eventually our need for short term RRH should go away when we get the low barrier households out.

b.      The second issue is for the people who do have income or who have gained income while in shelter, the shelter case managers are coming without knowing what the income amount is that people have.  Case managers are coming with more information in the past, but not enough to make appropriate referrals. 

                                                    i.     One suggestion from Kara was to make the programs a little less bifurcated, but this will be an ongoing process

c.      Some shelters were not represented at previous RRH meetings, which makes their clients much less likely to be referred.

d.      There needs to be a process that is easier or more efficient.  There’s no way that when we go through the entire By-Name List that there aren't folks who could benefit from referral.  But the issue is that many case managers are just not prepared to discuss all of their clients, because they may not yet know information about income (past or current), work history, or other barriers to housing.  Because we need this kind of information to make good referrals, we are sometimes waiting between meetings (a period of two weeks) for case managers to try and collect this information.

5.      Issues Determined by Operations Committee - due to time constraints we did not get to fully address all items in this section of the agenda.

a.      Furniture – Barbara Shaw

                                                    i.     The timing for both organizations that Barbara Shaw reached out to was not going to work for assistance with furniture at this time.  Two Men and a Truck – busy season, Real Estate Agents Recycle – not quite starting yet. 

b.      Utility Assistance

c.      Childcare

d.      DSS and DCF Involvement

Announcements:

               -Crane has tried to get the Anti-Human Trafficking Training running, it’s been a big delay.  Is there an afternoon of a week that it would be ideal to run a training – we want to hold one on Wednesday for CRMHC (and anyone who’s free).  Crane will try to set a time.

               -Tenesha – at last Leadership she was struggling with attendance at housing matching.  Crane will assist.

(Our announcements)

-All CANs are receiving 6 month funding extensions on our contract for this year’s funding. 

-Hands On Hartford got some funding in the last round of CHAMP funding to develop apartments on Bartholomew Ave.