Leadership Committee Agenda
Wednesday, March
20th, 2019
In
Attendance:
Rosemary
Flowers – My Sisters’ Place
Kathy Shaw
– My Sisters’ Place
Judith
Gough – Mercy Housing and Shelter
Stephanie
Corbin – Mercy Housing and Shelter
Crane
Cesario – DMHAS
Andrea
Hakian – CHR
Cathy
Zeiner – YWCA
Sarah
DiMaio – Salvation Army Marshall House
Mollie
Greenwood – journey Home
Matt
Morgan – Journey Home
Sonia
Brown – CRT
Jose Vega –
CRT
Steve
Bigler – CRT
Audrey
Kennedy – South Park Inn
Fred Faulkner
– The Open Hearth
Fred
Woodhouse – The Open Hearth
Elijah
McFolley – The Open Hearth
Barbara
Shaw – Hands On Hartford
Lisa Quach
– Journey Home
Lionel
Rigler – City of Hartford
Rebekah
Lyas – ImmaCare
1. City of Hartford
ESG Allocations – Lionel Rigler
a. Lionel presented two
options. We have been discussing moving
towards performance measures. We started using numbers as a base amount and if
the amounts increased or decreased we went based off of those original
allocations over the course of the past few years. Over time, we have evolved to look at bed
nights and looking at permanent exits. Although
we had previously discussed comparing individual men’s shelters to individual
men’s shelters, if we started looking to break out all shelters by population
it would become very complicated.
b. The allocations
presented were based on an assumption that we’re going to get flat funded this
year.
c. We identified
last time that the increase in beds at The Open Hearth led to the substantial
funding change this year. There’s a
suggestion to become more transparent around when programming changes to try
and prevent shock around this type of revelation come funding time in future
years.
d. Rebekah raised a
concern that shelters aren’t certain that they should be held accountable for
returns to shelter. Matt shared this
concern. Returns to homelessness feels
like a whole systematic measure rather than one that can be tied directly to
shelter performance, particularly as we have continued to see such a high rate
of folks in PSH who are in jeopardy of losing housing.
e. The only really
good exit we have is permanent exits as a performance measure. It’s important to reward shelters that are
performing well. It’s also going to be
important for us to identify outliers.
f. We also need to
make sure that planful transfers can happen, because in some cases a discharge
from one shelter to another is part of a thoughtful case management plan, and
it’s important to be able to capture and reflect this in our data so as to
avoid penalizing shelters for working collaboratively.
i. We need a mechanism to flag cases like this in
our data. We also need a method for
identifying discharges from shelters into institutions that are positive for
clients not counting against performance of shelters.
g. Utilities and
food is the simplest thing for us to monitor and administer. If ESG costs are covering different
expenses.
i. Crane suggested
setting a standard for what utilities should be (a baseline that would be
consistent from shelter to shelter), set a standard for what food should be
based on size, and then measuring an amount based on performance.
h. We invested a lot
of time this summer in identifying performance measures. We should continue to sustain and improve on
it.
i.
The
committee voted to remove the 5% standard related to returns to homelessness and redistribute that 5% of the allocation weight elsewhere. Three options were presented for a vote.
j.
Option 1 - increase relative permanent exits and gross permanent exits up to 15%, so Total beds would be weighted at 70%, gross permanent exits would be weighted at 15%, and relative permanent exits would be weighted at 15%– 6 votes for this option. This was the allocation selected by the majority of voting entities.
k.
Option 2 - total beds would be weighted at 75%, gross permanent exits would be weighted at 15%, and relative permanent exits would be weighted at 10% -1 vote for this option.
l.
Option 3 total beds would be weighted at 75%, gross permanent exits would be weighted at 10%, relative permanent exits would be weighted at 15%– 0 votes for this option.
m. For next year
there’s a request to further explore the funding options that include a flat
rate across the board, which would ensure some minimal amount was certain for
each organization.
2. City of Hartford
ESG Diversion Program
a. Three years ago
the City had an open meeting process which came together to craft a structure
to a creation of a new position through the Diversion program. Lionel leaned pretty heavily at that time on
the understanding of front-end staff. We
identified a need for staffing for the Diversion Center. We devised a program at the Diversion Center. We’re seeing that the program in general is a
huge asset to the community. If there’s
a decision to continue with the program, Lionel will schedule a meeting in
April to identify how the program may need some revisions. If we do decide to go this way, we’ll have
something that is addressing identified needs right now with a similar program
structure. The timeline would be that
immediately after the council approves funds, we would go through an RFP process
b. Mercy currently
holds this contract and there’s a really fine grey line between prevention and
diversion. The staff currently employed
by this program functions from the Diversion Center. It’s an asset to have her in the center, but
there are some requirements and limitations that Mercy would love to see us
tweak. We would love to see this position
to be more aligned with the current functioning of the Diversion Center. Sarah from Salvation Army echoed that it
would be a more highly effective program if some of the barriers could be
removed. We also discussed potentially
utilizing this position to oversee the shelter waitlists and shelter
stabilization list.
c. We also would like
to make this a program available for both individuals and families.
d. Crane also
recommended that we begin looking at a contract that it will be possible to
monitor. We would love to make this
position available to do diversion appointments.
e. Lionel will work on
putting together a meeting to focus specifically on this program.
3. Coordinated
Entry:
a. Cold Weather
Protocol Updates – Sarah DiMaio
i. Salvation Army
will be holding a debrief meeting in late April to debrief about this
season.
ii. Salvation Army
expects to have seen nearly 500 individuals this past year, the same amount of
unique people as last year.
iii. Facility issues
have been identified at Willie Ware and a portion of the space has not been
available over the course of the past year.
The City has notified Salvation Army that it’s unlikely we’ll be able to
use Willie Ware again. The floor is
caving in.
1. To provide
shelter for all, Salvation Army has been hoteling individual women and couples
first to maximize costs of hotel placements.
2. Since we don’t
believe Willie Ware will be available again, we are hoping that we can identify
another location.
iv. Right now things
are going to plan. This winter has gone
more smoothly than past years.
v. We are actively
connecting people who are continuing to refuse shelter to various outreach
workers throughout the CAN.
vi. Salvation Army
will be handing out backpacks with survival items throughout the rest of the
year. We are also underspent in the
Diversion grant this year because Salvation Army had some staffing
vacancies.
1. We’re creating a
temporary full time Diversion/Outreach worker who will work with the soup
kitchens and food ministries.
4. Coordinated
Exit:
a.
Longest Stayers in Greater Hartford CAN – Lisa
Quach
i. We have 19
chronic verified people on our By-Name List.
We have had no vacancies for over a month. We looked at our numbers and 83% of the
people who are potentially chronically homeless or chronic verified. Only 17% of our chronically homeless
population are episodic. 69 people
stayed in shelter for a continuous 12 months.
We really wanted to flag this and to discuss long stayers. We have a large cohort of folks who are long
stayers who previously met the criteria for chronic homelessness.
ii. We
reviewed the clients on our list to identify income to see whether they
self-resolved. If people were previously
referred to a housing program but who refused the program. The data is here.
iii. One
support that Sarah raised as a need is when we do have really high-need
clients, case managers need more training about when folks need more of a
residential care program. I don’t think
we have done sufficient training around what PSH is able to do and what it
doesn’t do. Clients are relying on
PSH.
iv. Sonia also
expressed that some of the most highly vulnerable folks are being placed into
Rapid ReHousing programs. Are we really
setting these individuals up for failure by placing such long term homeless,
highly acute households into rapid rehousing.
v. DMHAS does
have residential programs and so it seems unlikely that our system will be able
to benefit from those vacancies.
1.
Boarding care options which are licensed
through DPH.
2.
Stephanie recommended that we reach out to
CHN.
3.
Generally there’s some training that staff
could benefit from about what is the right time to call mobile-crisis? What’s the time to look at having
occupational therapy assessment to identify whether someone can live
independently.
5. Sub-COC
Updates – Crane Cesario, Zoe Schwartz
a.
At the last BOS COC we prioritized RRH, PSH
for Chronic, PSH for dedicated plus, services only for existing clients with no
service dollars, and planning grant money for the PIT count.
b.
Point in Time Count – Zoe Schwartz
i. This year
the planning grant money will go out to RFP, one organization per can will get
a small amount of planning money. We can
discuss that further with future planning in the future.
ii. We did a
PIT survey at the end of the count for volunteers.
iii. Other PIT
survey feedback was that volunteers were emotionally overwhelmed.
c.
Dedicated Plus – Zoe Schwartz
i. Zoe
distributed some information about dedicated plus. This would fill a huge gap in our
community.
ii. There is a
lot up in the air.
d.
There was also a question about rating or
ranking applications locally. We’ll continue
to discuss this.
6. GH CAN
Shelter and Housing Data
a.
GH CAN Housed Data (see p.2)
b.
GH CAN Waitlist Data (see p.2)
7. Future
Agenda Items?
8. Announcements
a.
CAN Data Dashboards are available at www.CTCANData.org . Please check out your organization’s data and
work on cleaning up any incorrect data so that we can start using these
dashboards to inform our system work.
b.
CCEH has funding available for victims of
Hurricane Maria- if you are working with anyone who was a hurricane evacuee
please contact Mollie Greenwood or Lisa Quach immediately.
c.
CCEH has funding available for childcare for
families in shelter!
d.
Family Shelter Check-In will be taking place
immediately after today’s meeting from 3:30-4:00PM
e.
Rapid Exit Funding training will take place NEXT TUESDAY from 12PM-1PM, prior to the
Individual Solutions Meeting at the YWCA, 135 Broad St. You MUST attend training to access this
funding.
GH CAN Housing Data
Data Element
|
Number
|
Notes
|
Chronically homeless individuals housed
in 2015
|
102
|
This includes clients housed through GH CAN programs
as well as through other subsidies or independent housing
|
Chronically
homeless individuals housed in 2016
|
211
|
This
includes clients housed through GH CAN programs as well as through
other subsidies or independent housing
|
Chronically
homeless individuals housed in 2017
|
179
|
This
includes clients housed through GH CAN programs as well as through
other subsidies or independent housing
|
Chronically
homeless/potentially chronic individuals housed in 2018
|
151
|
This
includes clients housed through GH CAN programs and bridges to
PSH as well as through other subsidies or independent housing
|
Chronically
homeless/potentially chronic individuals housed in 2019
|
38
|
This
includes clients housed through GH CAN programs and bridges to PSH as well as
through other subsidies or independent housing
|
Total
Chronically homeless individuals housed in GH CAN
|
681
|
|
Verified
Chronic Matched
|
27
|
|
Verified
Chronic Not Yet Matched
|
19
|
We
currently have 19 chronic verified clients who have not yet been matched to
housing.
|
Potentially
Chronic Refusers
|
0
|
|
Verified
Chronic Refusers
|
1
|
|
Not
Chronic (Verified) Refuser
|
1
|
|
Potentially
Chronic Matched
|
3
|
These
households did not disclose a disabling condition, and are matched to various
programs.
|
Not
Chronic Matched
|
26
|
|
Potentially
Chronic Not Yet Matched
|
33
|
Right
now we believe 33 households have the chronic length of homeless
history, but none of these individuals have their homeless and disability
verifications completed.
|
Individuals
- Active – Not Matched
|
304
|
This
is Enrolled in CAN, Enrolled in TH, and In an Institution
|
Families
– Active – Not Matched
|
38
|
This
is Enrolled in CAN and Enrolled in TH
|
Families
- Verified Chronic – Not Matched
|
1
|
|
Families
– Potentially Chronic – Matched
|
1
|
|
Families
– Potentially Chronic – Not Matched
|
0
|
|
Families
– Not Chronic (Verified) – Matched
|
8
|
This
includes RRH bridges
|
Families
– Verified Chronic – Matched
|
3
|
SmartSheet Shelter Priority List Data
Individual Men
|
Individual Women
|
Family Stabilization List
|
83 unsheltered
|
87 unsheltered
|
17 families on Stabilization List
|
103 total
|
105 total
|
