Leadership Committee Agenda
Wednesday,
June 6th, 2018
In Attendance:
Steve Bigler – CRT
Sonia Brown – CRT
Crane Cesario – Capitol Region Mental Health Center, DMHAS
Stephanie Corbin – Mercy Housing
Sarah DiMaio – Salvation Army Marshall House
Lou Gilbert – ImmaCare
Andrea Hakian – Community Health Resources
Daniel Langless – Beacon Health Options
Lauren Fair – Salvation Army Marshall House
Kyren McCrorey – The Open Hearth
Matt Morgan – Journey Home
Tina Ortiz – Community Renewal Team
Diane Paige-Blondet – My Sisters’ Place
Amy Robinson – US Dept of Veteran Affairs
Iris Ruiz – Interval House
Zoe Schwartz – CRT
Cathy Zeiner – YWCA
Rebekah Lyas – ImmaCare
Heather Flannery – South Park Inn
Niya Solomon – Journey Home
Abbie Kelly – Hands On Hartford
Steve MacHattie – Mercy Housing and Shelter Corp
CT BOS COC Items
1.
Renewal Evaluation Standards – Crane Cesario
- New Project
Applications: CAN Discussion – Crane Cesario New Project RFP for 2018
·
CAN
reps asked if letters of recommendation are considered when evaluating
applications and also asked if a CAN should support more than one
application. It was noted that letters of recommendation are considered
and CANs should be encouraged to discuss how to coordinate applying for new
funds and assess what is needed in each of their CANs. It’s not a requirement to have a process for
endorsements.
·
CAN
reps noted that they need time to get the endorsement letters and would need
more than one month to make sure. Suggested to have 6 weeks.
·
There
is a concern that the CANs are not prepared to endorse projects. It was decided that it will be optional for
CANs to provide letters for 2018 but may be a requirement for 2019.
·
One
idea was to write a letter of confirmation that an organization is a
participant in the GH CAN. That way if
some applications are submitted who aren’t a part of the CAN it’s highlighted.
o Even without a formal recommendation, CT BOS
would like to see confirmation that the CAN is aware of the applications that
are going to be submitted.
§ When we had our own continuum, we’d have
folks applying for an SSO grant when we had never heard from them before. At a broad level we’d like to confirm that
agencies are participating. Do we
collaborate or not? It’s not clear
whether one application would do better than several. It’s not clear whether submitting multiple applications
will make us less competitive. If
organizations are interested in going in on the application for new funding,
Crane would like to recommend a collaborative application, with the
understanding that it may be necessary to have a plan to downsize the
application. We need to be thinking
about sustainability.
·
Andrea
doesn’t know if a collaborative application would throw more weight. If a collaborative application doesn’t get all
the funding requested, then organizations need to determine whether they can
operate the program at lower funding levels than request.
·
When
there was a large bonus application in the past, there were a few agencies who
could get a piece of the funding out of bonus dollars. The problem is we don’t know if there’s new
money on the table, and if so, what the funding is.
§ Applications are due at the end of the
month, June 29th. Crane’s
happy to advise anyone and everyone on a collaborative application, but isn’t
available the week of the 19th.
§ We don’t know what CT BOS is going to do, if
they’ll lean towards RRH or PSH. Does
anyone want to say their agency is interested in applying?
·
This is
for new bonus COC dollars.
o CHR is interested in applying in GH and CCAN
for Rapid and PSH. In CCAN there seems
to be a shortage of PSH.
§ Crane asked whether the application would go
for both regions. They wanted to use a
similar process, asking for the same resources in both areas. Andrea asked what the CAN thinks they need.
o Rebekah said that ImmaCare was considering
applying for new units of PSH. If the
CAN would rather go after Rapid ReHousing, ImmaCare would back down. If only one program is getting funding,
they’d rather see it go where the CAN needs it.
o Mercy might be interested in PSH or Rapid
ReHousing
o To let everyone know, SAMH gave up their
Rapid ReHousing contract. DMHAS will
likely be looking for another subcontractor to take on the contract.
§ DMHAS is looking at a current RRH provider,
or potentially at DOH looking at it.
It’s $43,000 annually for rental assistance and $37 for salary and
admin. It’s a bad contract. It doesn’t make sense for one organization to
take it on.
§ It’s a calendar year HUD grant and DMHAS
runs it on the state fiscal year. The program
is supposed to serve 30 unduplicated families in the year.
o CRT wants to apply, they want to look at
expanding PSH for new units.
§ Mollie expressed that in the housing
matching meeting the lack of recent Rapid ReHousing openings have really
impacted our whole system. Shelters are
reporting that folks are staying longer in shelters, and permanent supportive
housing openings are still going to chronically homeless households, so folks
who are not chronically homeless, but who do need assistance to exit
homelessness, are staying in shelter.
§ We will be writing letters confirming CAN
participation for this year (from this committee’s chairs), but will not
endorse any specific applications. In
September we will revisit this, and will start to develop a process for next
year. We will write a letter of
participation if they have been participating in 50% of the meetings in the
past year. If programs want a letter,
they should submit program description and grant budget before 6/25 at noon.
o There have been challenges with one of
Capitol Region’s project based programs, and as a result they are currently
under Corrective Action. So if anyone
has an application and wants Crane to review it, Crane can look at it without
conflict. She’s on vacation June 18th. If you do have an application and want me to
read it, she’s willing to. A lot of what
Crane finds is in the budget and in the description. It sounds like there are 3-4 applications
interested.
3.
Reallocation Strategy for 2018: Project
Underspending; Service Funding caps.
a. There
is a lot of discussion around if you’re underspending in your grant
consistently how CT BOS will take funds back.
They’ll look at how to reallocate funds for services. It’s not clear how they can apply for
services. They’re looking at services
spending over two years, and this is coming up for discussion because we have
continued to return funds to HUD from chronic under-spending.
b. In family
grants in particular, the use of funds and tight spending it comes in
cycles. There can be a collapse in
people’s income with individuals. There
are some programs who have only spent 50% of their grant. Crane’s not sure how CT BOS is going to go
after it.
c. Project
based are different, because underspending is tied to specific building
problems in some cases.
d. The other
thing – people should be poised to think about if they want to apply for
services that will serve the CAN and shelter plus care programs.
i. There’s an
idea of trying to make more services available through any programs that don’t
have the services.
ii. Salvation
Army has been able to pair Jamie’s case management services along with a
subsidy.
iii. The
application would need to be part of an existing PSH program’s grant, even
though subsidies may come from somewhere else.
So the housing coordination would happen out of CRMHC. If you already have some capacity here.
iv. There’s
another thought that’s been floating around of having staff dedicated to
housing navigation as something that’s partnered with a provider. It would be great to have someone who is just
doing housing search and inspection, sending them out to the CAN. If folks would be interested in that, as a
partner with an existing programs.
1. Sarah
would like to see a third party that isn’t a housing provider doing housing
identification. That way they aren’t
tied to trying to improve your own housing program. It would be ideal to have a third party organization
(non housing provider).
GH
CAN Leadership Items
4.
Emergency Food and Shelter Program (EFSP)
Meeting Updates – Matt Morgan
a.
Family shelters came together to discuss a
potential new model of having overflow space for families in lobbies for
families. The goal and the hope was we
would be able to apply for EFSP funding and use that to reimburse different
shelters for taking families in their overflow capacity at a nightly rate. Since then, we spoke with the United Way
about this plan. One current recipient
can’t pay another recipient, which had been our plan. DOH then asked if shelters could expand the
number of beds in that overflow capacity.
The Connection is the only agency who isn’t already an EFSP
recipient. They may be able to take a
family, and we could reimburse them while funds last. But we’d also have it available for
hotel/motel funds for the winter. We
submitted an application yesterday with that plan.
b.
We are going to continue seeking funding to do
this reimbursement model where ideally we won’t need to pay for motel
placements. Then there’s discussion to
send folks at the other end to a hotel.
5.
Letter of Support for Enfield Diversion
Application – Mollie Greenwood
a.
This committee approved Matt and Crane, as CAN
Leadership Co-Chairs, to sign off on this letter of support.
6.
Family Matching: Prioritization of Length Of Stay
Homeless – Crane Cesario
a.
As we talk about prioritizing families, one
suggestion is to look at total length of time homeless as a factor to consider
prioritization. Should a family who has
been in shelter for one month match sooner than a family who has ben in shelter
for 9 months? We want to set in place a
process for folks who have been homeless longer.
b.
Andrea asked whether family size factors into
this process. You can’t prioritize folks
for someone when you don’t have something that fits.
i. Whenever
possible, family size is something we should be thinking about.
c.
Heather thinks that the service needs need to
be really important. Heather thinks
looking at folks who are sheltered for 6 months or more, versus 6 months or
less. We run into issues when folks have
been in shelter for a long time. When
RRH slowed down, we were stuck. She’s
concerned around folks aging into that longer group.
i. Crane
suggested that this process is more focused on how do we logically manage
groups who are similar. A lot of folks
were also concerned around the length of time it takes to get a lifetime homeless
history document. Were we setting up
perverse incentives? It’s more how do we
manage with a current situation.
ii. Lisa Quach
will be collecting data and presenting this alternative sorting process to the
family group, and will bring the results from that group back to the Leadership
Committee at the 6/20 meeting.
7.
Staffing and Capacity for RRH Programs – RRH
Programs
a.
Salvation Army Marshall House has staff for
current referrals, but will not be taking on additional referrals.
b.
Mercy will hopefully have an offer by the end
of the week and will hopefully be running shortly after that. They have capacity for 14 at a time. 11 current enrollments.
c.
CHR has staff, but has no funds for financial
assistance. CHR finished up open
Hartford referrals utilizing funds for another CAN that hadn’t been spent yet. Until they know about ESG funds, they’re on
hold.
d.
CRT will not be taking on additional referrals
while their case manager is on maternity leave.
8.
Shelter Curfew Consistency – Fred Faulkner
a.
As part of the Emergency Shelter Learning
Collaborative, shelters have been challenged to think about eliminating
curfews. Fred wanted to talk with the
whole community about how folks feel about this idea.
b.
SAMH has no curfew at all, but do only serve
dinner for folks who are around at dinnertime.
c.
CRT was looking at beginning a 10:00 curfew, So they could take folks off WL late at
night, and everything settles before we turnover staff late at night. Now you don’t have to come back for dinner,
but if you miss dinner you miss dinner.
d.
Lou’s having a lot of issues with folks coming
back and forth throughout the night.
ImmaCare doesn’t really care about when they’re in and out if they’re
working towards housing. We’re putting
our concern around. If folks don’t show
for 2 days, they self-discharge. One of
Lou’s current concerns is tracking who is currently in and out of the shelter.
e.
YWCA put in place 11 PM as a curfew, but with
no enforcement it didn’t work at all. We’ll
need some support around that whole process.
If they’re only there for 6 hours over 48 hours, does that mean they
have a place to be? The YWCA team is trying
to work through that now.
f.
Every shelter is trying it, and trying to work
the details- we will continue to discuss at future meetings.
9. GH CAN
Shelter and Housing Data – Mollie Greenwood
a.
FYI BNL Report
b.
Weekly BNL Status Report
10. Topics to
Consider Moving Forward
a.
Shelter curfews
b.
New Train from Hartford
c.
Dan Langless will do a quick presentation
about healthcare.
11. Announcements
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
|
179
|
This includes clients housed through GH CAN programs as well as
through other subsidies or independent housing
|
|
Chronically homeless households housed in 2018
|
51
|
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
|
543
|
|
|
Verified Chronic Matched
|
37
|
|
|
Verified Chronic Not Yet Matched
|
5
|
We currently have 5 chronic verified clients who have not yet been
matched to housing.
|
|
Potentially Chronic Refusers
|
2
|
|
|
Verified Chronic Refusers
|
2
|
|
|
Potentially Chronic Matched
|
4
|
These households did not disclose a disabling condition, and are
matched to various programs.
|
|
Not Chronic Matched
|
11
|
|
|
Potentially Chronic Not Yet Matched
|
38
|
Right now we believe 38 households have the chronic length of
homeless history, but none of these individuals have their homeless and disability
verifications completed.
|
|
Individuals - Active – Not Matched
|
531
|
This is Enrolled in CAN, Enrolled in TH, and In an Institution
|
|
Families – Active – Not Matched
|
19
|
This is Enrolled in CAN
|
SmartSheet
Shelter Priority List Data
|
Individual Men
|
Individual Women
|
Families
|
|
174 Unsheltered or in Cold Weather Placement
|
74 Unsheltered or in Cold Weather Placement
|
22 Unsheltered or in Cold Weather Placement
|
|
247 Total
|
130 Total
|
53 Total
|
