GH CAN Leadership 10/4/17

Greater Hartford Coordinated Access Network

Leadership Agenda

Wednesday, October 4^th, 2017

Attended: Crane Cesario (DMHAS), Frank Faulkner (The Open Hearth), Sarah DiMaio (Salvation Army Marshall House), Stephanie Corbin (Mercy), Lou Gilbert (ImmaCare), Brian Baker (South Park Inn), John Ferrurci (South Park Inn), Catherine Zeiner (YWCA), Barbara Shaw (Hands on Hartford), Jose Vega (CRT McKinney), John Lawlor (The Connection), Matthew Morgan (Journey Home), Mollie Greenwood (Journey Home), Justine Couvares (Chrysalis Center) and Sonia Brown (CRT)

1.      Welcome and Introductions

2.      Review of Iain DeJong training

a)      Lessons Learned from yesterday’s Training

1)     Justine says her staff is going to do a train the trainer session from material that was learned from Ian DeJong meeting.

2)     Sarah says that we need to start auto prioritization for matching clients to housing programs.

3)     Crane says she learned about how to use our resources more successfully, especially with Permanent Supportive Housing.

4)     Sarah says she learned about different roles of front line staff to shelter to have more responsibility to help clients get housed.

3.      Shelter Intakes and Immediate Shelter Need

a)      Fred asks if a person shows up to a shelter after hours are they allowed to accept them into shelter?

1)     Mollie says due to the CAN Operations Policies and Procedures about if households designate in Smartsheet as unsheltered, staying in a car, or double up unsafe shelters can take clients into their shelter at their own discretion.

b)     Fred says he requests to still be able to take clients into shelter before attending a CAN appointment, but as soon as they enter the shelter they would call 211.

1) Sarah says she is concerned about people getting side door access to shelters if clients are not on Smartsheet and get access to shelter.

2) Stephanie says she is concerned that clients are already calling her to get a shelter bed.

3) Stephanie says she is getting phone calls from agencies, clients, and case managers to get clients into shelter.

4) Stephanie says she is concerned that about the multiple side doors being opened.

c)      Fred suggests to be able to take clients into shelter for a couple of days until their CAN appointment and then at their CAN appointment diversion staff can determine if clients should be appropriate for shelter.

d)     Stephanie says she is currently not making direct referrals to all clients who appear to be unsheltered at the Diversion Center due the difficulty to distinguish if the client is currently sleeping outside.

e)     Stephanie says outreach staff are making direct referrals to shelters.

f)       Stephanie says she is concerned about the number of people on the waiting list and the number of empty beds that shelters are reporting.

g)      Stephanie asks how many men and women who are on the waiting list who have the status as being unsheltered.

1) Steve says there about 70 men and about 130 women who have a status as unsheltered on the waiting list.

2) Stephanie says that she is concerned about making direct referrals due to the high number of clients on the waiting list who are stating they are unsheltered.

3) Stephanie says she wants to make sure the clients on the wait list get an opportunity to get a phone call from shelters.

h)     Stephanie says she is making a lot of referrals to family shelters for family clients at the Diversion Center.

i)       Stephanie says another issue is Department of Corrections dropping off clients at the Diversion Center or shelters and has seen this issue become more frequently over the past couple of weeks.

j)       Stephanie says she is concerned about CAN appointments are being scheduled a week out due to the diversion center does not have a full staff.

k)      Stephanie says when diversion staff was fully staffed clients were getting scheduled for CAN appointments within 24 hours and scheduled for 40 appointments. Right now the CAN appointments are now a week out and only have scheduled for 25 appointments for each day due to only having two staff members being able to do CAN appointments.

1)     Sarah says Salvation Army Marshall House can help with making CAN call back appointments until Diversion Staff is fully staffed again.

l)       Fred says he would like to temporarily take clients into shelter until they have a CAN appointment.

1) Sarah suggests to keep the policies and procedures the same until we clean up Smartsheet and the staffing at the Diversion Center is filled.

m)    Crane suggests to contact Department of Corrections to figure out the reason for the high influx of people getting dropped off at the Diversion Center and have nowhere to go.

4.      SIF Program-Barbara

a) Barbara says Hands On Hartford has four months left for the SIF Program.

b) Barbara says they have five clients that need more case management.

1) Sarah says they have a supportive housing case manager beginning on 10/30 that could do case management for these clients.

5.      Cold Weather Needs

a) Mollie says the location of the Willie Ware Rec Center is a challenge, because it is far from local shelters.  Center Church has also offered to do triage during cold weather so that there would be a triage point closer to many of the local shelters.

b) Sarah says she is also concerned about the small amount of space that is available to do triage at the Willie Ware Rec Center.

c) Mollie says another gap is transportation for clients to get to the triage centers to the shelters.

d) Jose says he doesn’t think the rec center is a good location since it is far away from the shelters and clients will want to stay at the rec center for the night.

e) Jose says that you need transportation clients due to the cold weather and if providing clients bus passes they will not use them and instead sell them.

6.      GH CAN Housing Data – see p. 2

1. Chronic Homelessness Trends – Matt Morgan (see attachment)

2. Households Who Have Returned to Homelessness from CAN Programs – Mollie Greenwood

7.      Future Agenda Items

a)      No future agenda items were discussed.

8.      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.