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.