Greater Hartford CAN Meeting Notes: GH CAN Leadership 5/31/17

Greater Hartford Coordinated Access Network

Leadership Agenda

Wednesday, May 31st, 2017

Attended: Brian Baker, Crane Cesario, Sarah Dimiao, Fred Faulkner, John Ferrucci, Louis Gilbert, Andrea Haiken, Kyren McCrorey, Mollie Greenwood, Steve Hurley, Matt Morgan, Theresa Nicholson, Amy Robinson, Barbara Shaw, Cathy Zeiner, Lauren Fair, John Lawlor, and Audrey Kennedy

1. Welcome and Introductions

2. Hartford No Freeze - Lou Gilbert, Matt Morgan

a. Lou says he will be meeting with Brenda and Dr. Rhule about configuration options for the funding for No Freeze.

b. Fred indicated that Open Hearth did not have an issue of having open beds during the activation of No Freeze.

i. Crane suggested to follow up in the letter to the city of Hartford that Open Hearth was not one of the shelters that had empty beds during the winter.

ii. Fred says is he is concerned that clients are avoiding shelters in some cases as a result of substance use.

c. Sarah says she is concerned about not having a No Freeze shelter be available during the winter.Sarah is also concerned about putting the No Freeze money to Rapid Re Housing if right now there is open referrals for Rapid Re Housing.

d. Sarah suggests to cut down on the number of beds available for No Freeze or create a different procedure for clients using the No Freeze.

e. Mollie added that one issue that Christie ran into at times during the No Freeze was shelters refusing to take a certain client and never got a particular reason for not taking that client.

i. Audrey says her experience was that clients were offered a bed, but clients did not show up for that bed, which resulted in openings.

g. Sarah says that the process needs to be planned out well before the No Freeze starts.

i. Crane proposes to have a warming center that has staff having access to transportation. Sarah agreed, indicating that on nights where Mark Jenkins was able to assist with transporting folks, they were more willing to go from the Welcome Center into a year-round shelter ed.

h. Lou suggests that town recreation centers should open up for availability when No Freeze is activated.

i. Matt asks what should the message be from the CAN to the City if no one is willing to take the contract for No Freeze.

j. Dave says his concern is not having city officials at the CAN meetings talking about planning the No Freeze.

k. Crane proposes possibly shifting of all clients being matched to only rapid re housing and no permanent supportive housing. That way, only clients who are unsuccessful in Rapid ReHousing would be referred to PSH.

l. Dave suggests if we can identify the group of clients that are declining housing and then determine a different plan for them.

m. Dave asks if it is possible to determine the number of these clients who are declining housing. Therefore, moving resources to solve those issues.

i. Mollie says there are about 4 to 5 clients who are chronic and who are identified who have turned down housing. At this point, we only know those numbers for folks who are known to be chronically homeless, and it's unclear how many shorter-term homeless households are refusing all housing assistance.

n. Andrea asks whether case managers not bringing up clients in rapid re housing meetings because they believe the client won’t be successful. Sarah and Mollie indicated that they think that is happening to a certain extent.

o. Barbara says she also wants to focus on a plan for women during the No Freeze this year.

p. Sarah says she is hopeful Salvation Army Marshall House will be able to prioritize their overflow beds for single women and have East Hartford Shelter and South Park Inn fill the family beds.

q. Sarah suggests that we should have a Welcome Center, and that this year we should be able to come up with a plan to track the data for those who are truly unsheltered.

r. Dave asks how can we determine the number of clients who have no resources and are in serious need of shelter.

s. Sarah proposes to create a cold weather committee.

t. Andrea asks if anyone has looked at to see if other cities have a successful model for No Freeze.

u. Mollie says Bryan Flint was talking about creating a welcome center that would be at different churches that are outside of Hartford. Because towns are reluctant to generate any services for folks experiencing homelessness, there was never any warming center developed. Cities were adamantly against the opening of a warming center in their municipality.

v. Matt proposes to set a deadline to determine plan for No Freeze.

w. Dave suggests representatives of Hartford need to attend the CAN meetings to hear this discussion.

x. Lou says he will invite representatives from Hartford to attend the next CAN meeting.

3. GH CAN Gaps and Achievements - Matt Morgan

a. E mail Matt if you have any questions or suggestions on this document.

b. Matt says the purpose of this document is so that when Commissioner Klein visits a future CAN meeting, we can highlight the purpose and accomplishments of the GH CAN.

4. Family Homelessness Data - Crane Cesario

a. Sarah suggests that shelters would benefit from a re-training on Smartsheet, because the numbers on unsheltered families seem artificially high based on the experiences her staff have been having.

5. Rapid ReHousing Subcommittee Updates - Sarah DiMaio, Steve MacHattie

a. Sarah says we are still struggling with the matching meetings with case managers not having enough information about clients.

b. Sarah is concerned that not all clients are being represented at the shelters and not getting updated if clients have been moved on or self-resolved.

c. Sarah says Kara from DOH will be going shelter to shelter explaining the rapid re housing process and other housing plans.

6. Refilling RAP Openings – Crane Cesario, Tenesha Grant

a. Crane says that as a result of recisions DOH is stopping all RAP certificates in the state.

a. As a result, one question that came up at Coordinated Exit is what do we do about project-based RAPs? Is there a way to preserve the building and fill any site-based RAP openings with individuals currently matched to a scattered site certiciate?

b. Crane is anticipating new openings becoming available at Chrysalis, so one option could be to utilize households matched to those openings if they’re interested in moving into the site-based openings?

b. A secondary but related issue that has arisen is that some of the RAP openings in project-based buildings are designated for young adults. We have had trouble generating young adult openings for PSH, and if we do choose to keep the buildings whole by utilizing scattered site certificates in the building we need to determine whether the projects are able to take households who are chronically homeless rather than households who meet the young adult criteria, but may not meet the chronically homeless criteria.

a. Andrea says they have been waiting for a long time for DCF to give referral for certificate.

i. Andrea says she will follow up to see how CHR wants to use the certificate they have.

c. Lou says ImmaCare may have 2 RAPS openings in June.

i. Crane says to follow up with ImmaCare to figure what they want to do if their RAPS are taken away from ImmaCare.

d. Crane recommends to offer to fill buildings that have RAP openings by utilizing scattered site certificates and matching households who are eligible for the programs to those openings until we have more clarity on whether RAPs will be restored.

a. Crane says she will offer referrals to her current 2016 GHRA openings to the Sue Ann Shay building and will connect with Chrysalis about utilizing their openings in a similar way, and if Chrysalis says no then she will come back to CAN Leadership to figure out what to do.

e. Mollie says if there are any scattered site RAP referrals that are in process and the process has been stalled because of this recision, they can be referred to the section 8 housing choice voucher preference. This preference still does not have services available, so if the individual needs services and agency that started process can provide case management, it could also be a good referral.

f. GH CAN Housing Data – see p.2

a. Barriers to Housing - Mollie Greenwood

i. This topic will be added to agenda for the next meeting.

g. Announcements

a. Day Pitney will be hosting a GH CAN meet and greet for board members of all the different participating organizations.

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. The event is tentatively scheduled for Friday, November 10^th. If you’re interested in assisting, please contact swalker@handsonhartford.org

GH CAN Housing Data

Data Element	Number	Notes
Chronically homeless households housed in 2015	102	This includes clients housed through GH CAN programs as well as through other subsidies or independent housing
Chronically homeless households housed in 2016	211	This includes clients housed through GH CAN programs as well as through other subsidies or independent housing
Chronically homeless households housed in 2017	90	This includes clients housed through GH CAN programs as well as through other subsidies or independent housing
Total Chronically homeless households housed in GH CAN	403
Verified Chronic Matched	51
Verified Chronic Not Yet Matched	13	We currently have 13 chronic verified clients who have not yet been matched to housing.
Potentially Chronic Matched	0
Potentially Chronic Not Yet Matched	46	Right now we believe 46 households have the chronic length of homeless history, but none of these individuals have their homeless and disabling condition forms completed.