GH CAN Leadership Committee 12/13/17

Greater Hartford Coordinated Access Network

Leadership Committee

Wednesday, December 13, 2018 

In Attendance:

Matt Morgan – Journey Home

Lisa Quach – Journey Home

Lionel Rigler – City of Hartford

Brian Baker – South Park Inn

Justine Couvares – Chrysalis Center

John Ferrucci – South Park Inn

Fred Faulkner – The Open Hearth

Lauren Fair – Salvation Army

Sarah DiMaio – Salvation Army

Stephanie Corbin – Mercy Housing and Shelter

Lou Gilbert – ImmaCare

Sonia Brown - CRT

Crane Cesario - DMHAS

Diane Paige-Blondet – My Sisters’ Place

1.      SWAP meeting yesterday – National group hired by DOH & CCEH & overall statewide analysis of supportive housing throughout the CANs. What’s the length of stay? What is the cost of getting someone into PSH from whatever place they started? Have data for rapid rehousing for services costs but don’t have rental assistance costs.  We have work to do to clean up our individual program data.

a.      John said some things are out of their control - # of unknowns when exiting shelter. One shelter had a business card that asks them to tell shelter staff where they’re going before they leave.

b.      Sarah said they were surprised about their concern about returns to homelessness. May have to look at 2-3 years instead of 1 year because it’s too low.

2.      Update from Diversion Center

a.      Back in September and October Diversion Center was forced to drop appointments down to 25 a day when short staffed. Have been taking 40 appointments. Since then. Will drop down to 30 on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Wednesday will remain at 15. This will prevent staff from burning out because the 3 full time staff feels that it’s too much between paperwork. Will see how it’s going. Hopefully won’t push out referrals too much.

3.      Diversion definition – Stephanie feels it’s a very broad definition. Immediate concerns:

a.      Literally homeless & not already sheltered – are we not looking at folks at imminent risk?

b.      Question why NTQ is not sufficient? Sarah said it’s more prevention. Crane said maybe you need a definition of prevention to go along with it. Clients with NTQ come to prevention with assistance.

c.      Define what doubled up safe/unsafe is. Could reference the guidance for doubled up safe/unsafe policy once finalized.

d.      Shelter stay less than 7 days – from securing an apt to getting security deposit to getting inspection to getting keys is not feasible in 7 days. Would like to extend it to 14 days. One example is someone who had plenty of income but they missed the diversion center deadline so had to use RRH slot that could’ve been for someone else.

e.      Rapid Exit is a gap filler between not qualifying for diversion and not needing rapid rehousing services.

f.       Second part of dy-pry is rapid exit and prioritization subgroups. Would be helpful to have definition of rapid exit. Do the clients that stay at warming center still qualify for diversion funds because it is not a shelter. Technically it’s still considered a place not meant for human habitation so we should still be able to use diversion.

4.      Warming Center Update – Recently Warming Center staff were able to divert folks with gift cards.

a.      Chairs are working as a diversion strategy in that when folks are coming in and seeing no beds they are coming in to use phones to call family or friends. Staff are seeing a good amount of guys with income that can easily afford a rent or studio.

b.      Women’s overflow has been similar to warming center. Haven’t had to hotel anyone. Prioritize all families to Marshall House and single women at the warming center. 1 hiccup is that some shelters did change their curfew to later. McKinney is currently 8pm and warming center is 7pm so she’s transporting folks to the triage and then using taxi to transport them back to McKinney. They won’t know their bed availability until 8pm. Immacare has no curfew. They have to hold their beds for 48 hours. If a client grieves, will have to hold an additional 2 days. South Park Inn was full, maybe had 1 bed that they filled. All women & children shelters are full. Marshall House is having decent turnover. Next meeting will be with all single women to talk about shared housing. December may be the honeymoon stage. Almost close to 35. Capacity is 50. May need pop up warming centers to fill the need. If they get larger families, the bed capacity will change. All the concerns were remedied except for internet access. The city has moved all the programming and moved pool tables. The City gave the Salvation Army keys to the building. Heat is on. Fixed lights. Painted kitchen. TV is now working.

5.      Coordinated Entry Manual – Should have received the first part. Yesterday this was distributed to BOS COC (pg 21-40) this is the 2^nd half of the policy & procedures. HUD this past January came out with large number of requirements and recommendations for Coordinated Entry Systems and said by January 2018 you need to have all of your policies and procedures in place. This is basically past few months CCEH has been compiling different policies that have been brought about and put together so we can meet the deadline by January 17. Matt has several concerns about the second half.

a.      There were concerns that the material was very broad. This is a general policy with understanding each CAN has their own nuances. We have more than 2/3 of the policy expectations already being accomplished in GH CAN, so we are just trying to check the boxes.

b.      At the BOS COC meeting CCEH will present these Friday to everybody and then it will be distributed to all areas of the state and the goal is to vote and approve by BOS meeting in January. Feedback due to Matt and Cat by Tuesday January 9^th.

6.      DyPry Update – leave as standing agenda item. Made a lot of progress in the subcommittee but not meeting again until January. In direct conflict with progressive engagement.

7.      PIT Update – email yesterday but CCEH is hosting their annual PIT training for the shelters – will be on Jan 9^th at Lumsden Ctr. 2 diff times available – 10-12noon or 1-3pm. If you can’t send program staff, there will also be a webinar available on the 19^th.

a.      PIT is morning of January 24^th between 5am-7am. Typically before UCONN had 20-30 folks volunteer, folks thought it was night time but it is early morning so now folks aren’t volunteering. Do we need to consider changing the time? Cat will send e-blast out to other groups, maybe faith based community. Statewide is 4am-7pm. Volunteer training will be set up on January 17^th from 5-7pm from CRT lumsden center. Max bibo’s will provide food for folks. What is the goal for volunteers? City of Hartford is typically about 40 volunteers, usually groups of 3-4.

b.      On the night of the PIT, just do regular PIT. Youth count is the week and it starts the 24^th. Night of the 24^th from January 31^st is when the youth survey can be conducted.

8.      Announcements

a.      The Homeless Memorial this year will be hosted on 12/21/17 from 6:30-7:30pm

b.      City will open HCVP for families & youth sometime in the next week. Look for notice when it comes out.

c.      Beginning in January this committee will be changing its meeting time to the to 1^st & 3^rd week. 1^st week is just CAN leadership. 3^rd week is CAN leadership & sub-COC. Have to show as sub-coc entity. CT BOS is not represented by CANS now. Hasn’t made that shift yet. This group serves 2 functions.

This committee opted NOT to meet on 12/28/17, and instead to enjoy a holiday break!