GH CAN Leadership / GH Sub-COC Meeting 11/8/2018

Greater Hartford Coordinated Access Network

Leadership Committee Agenda

Wednesday, November 7^th, 2018

In Attendance:

Lydia Brewster – St Vincent De Paul Middletown

Tom Powell – House of Bread

Steve Bigler – CRT

Sonia Brown – CRT

Kara Capoianco – CT Dept of Housing

Crane Cesario – DMHAS

Stephanie Corbin – Mercy Housing and Shelter

Sarah DiMaio – Salvation Army Marshall House

Fred Faulkner – The Open Hearth

Heather Flannery – South Park Inn

Kelly Gonzalez – Journey Home

Mollie Greenwood – Journey Home

Andrea Hakian – Community Health Resources

John Lawlor – The Connection

Rebekah Lyas- ImmaCare

Matt Morgan – Journey Home

Lionel Rigler – City of Hartford

Iris Ruiz – Interval House

Zoe Schwartz – CRT

Barbara Shaw – Hands on Hartford

Kathy Shaw – Community Housing Advocates / My Sisters’ Place

Cathy Zeiner – YWCA

Marlene DeSantis – Chrysalis Center

Sharise Jefferson – Mercy Housing

Shihan Ghazi – Mercy Housing

Greater Hartford Sub-COC:

1.      Point In Time Count – Zoe Schwartz

a.      It’s in BOS governance to participate in PIT count.  This year we are requiring it.  Next year there will be no paid staff coordinating the count. 

b.      We have a number of block groups we’re coordinating.

c.      The HIC webinar is November 15^th from 2-3:30.  All shelters and housing providers are required to share their information.  HIC will be open on November 16^th.  We’re expecting the HIC will be updated by December 3^rd at the latest.

d.      PIT maps – we don’t yet have all of our randomly selected block groups yet.  We can bring that information out to all of you when we reach that point.

e.      We’re starting to reach out to police stations to identify randomly selected block groups.  If police can help us out the morning of the PIT that would be helpful.  Zoe wants to start calling local police next week. 

2.      CT BOS Renewal Schedule – Crane Cesario

a.      For grantees they’re looking at renewing grants.  Grantees have a deadline that the project form (one per grant) and agency forms (one per agency) is due.  Follow the actual calendar, tno the date on the form.  You need to confirm that you have all the forms that you need because the Nutmeg helpdesk request deadline is Tuesday.  If you have any questions, you can reach out to Crane. 

b.      Consumer surveys are also due soon.  There is an option to have them completed on paper, or on a survey monkey.  CT BOS is encouraging providers to enter their client’s data into the surveymonkey.  Lateness holds a large penalty for providers. 

GH CAN Leadership

3.      Coordination with Soup Kitchens – Lydia Brewster

a.      Soup kitchens and libraries are two of the most critical partners in a homeless services system.  They should be our partners in Coordinated Access work. 

b.      Soup kitchens may well be an underutilized resource, because they were in Middletown for a long time.

                                                    i.     Lydia’s former boss reached out to Lydia when she worked at CCEH.  He said that he’d like to make the soup kitchen more of a centralized location to get services. 

                                                   ii.     SVDP sees about 200 people a day, which is significant for a community the size of Middletown. 

                                                  iii.     The soup kitchens have become an arm for outreach.  They invited in all of the partners from DMHAS, social security, etc.  SVDP encouraged everyone to come out of their offices and meet clients where they are, at the soup kitchen.

1.      In Middletown, the community identified that not all folks really were interested in coming to the soup kitchen. 

c.      There aren’t really any joining together that happens at a statewide level with different soup kitchens across the state. 

                                                    i.     The CCT is so active in Middletown and was largely driven by the hospitals.  And this very sophisticated system is failing to identify folks who are often engaged with the simplest systems, like the soup kitchens. 

d.      As we don’t have enough outreach resources to do as much street outreach as we’d hope to, so instead, we need to determine how we can take the fullest advantage of our soup kitchens where folks are already congregating.  Lydia would suggest a refocus on where folks are going anyway. 

                                                    i.     SVDP Middletown also has made themselves a place where folks can come to get sleeping bags, blankets, and supplies to stay indoors. 

                                                   ii.     Mercy’s soup kitchen makes phones accessible, has toiletries available, and can help link folks to Mr. Ghazi for case management. 

                                                  iii.     The gap and where we may be challenged most is getting some of our non-outreach staff to come more into the soup kitchen. 

                                                  iv.     Kara mentioned the housing plan that’s getting started with the Diversion team, so as folks are walking away from the Diversion center, folks are walking away with a piece of paper that has a housing plan, and it allows the soup kitchens to have a continuing conversation. 

                                                   v.     Barbara mentioned that at our meal program they’re part time doing some of that communication but there’s this missing piece of having sufficient staff to really commit to be helping everyone. 

1.      Lydia would be happy to host a convening of soup kitchens.  It could be an opportunity to do some best-practice development. 

4.      Cold Weather Updates – Sarah DiMaio

a.      Salvation Army is still waiting on the city for contracts. 

b.      The holdup has been that the city enacted that we had to pay a fair living wage of over $20 for part time employees.  It doubled the budget to operate, and the city did not award any additional funding.  Salvation Army has shared with the city an option to operate as they did last year with additional funding, or remove a number of services. 

c.      The earliest Salvation Army could possibly open is December 15^th.  For the warming center, we’ll also have to open an hour later, at 8PM.  We’ll also need to cut all case management, all hygiene, all transportation, and all hotels.  We’d also be cutting the food budget. 

d.      For the women and family overflow, we’d be cutting case management, cutting transportation, cutting hotels, cutting hygiene products, and requiring that families leave the shelter during the day. 

                                                    i.     The warming center will be counted as unsheltered for the purposes of the PIT count. 

e.      Organizations should commit to maintaining their internal process for keeping beds filled, but commit to notification that at 10PM if there are beds available, they’ll anticipate calls from the warming center. 

5.      100 Day Campaign to House 265 Households – Emergency Shelter Learning Collaborative Participants (p.3)

a.      We’ve come to the understanding that we may not achieve the full 265 for our end-date on Thanksgiving. 

b.      Governor’s Challenge to End Family Homelessness (p.4)

                                                    i.     Sarah mentioned that on the family side, we’ve been really changing our entry system.  There is more robust triaging happening for families in our system.  It’s had a huge impact on how this whole process works.  The undertone here is that the messaging to clients has changed, too. 

c.      CT DOH is going out on a roadshow about housing-focused shelter, so please reach out to Kara if you’d like her and her team to join an upcoming staff meeting. 

6.      Potentially Chronically Homeless Households – Matt Morgan

a.      Matt shared with folks that of the 54 potentially chronic households in CT, 42 are in Greater Hartford. 

b.      Countdown to End Chronic Homelessness

7.      City of Hartford Mainstream Vouchers– Matt Morgan

a.      The city was awarded new vouchers for non-elderly/disabled units.  We’re seeking clarity around what this specific eligibility is, we’ll update you as we learn more. 

8.      GH CAN Shelter and Housing Data

a.      Capacity and Need Document Updates – Matt Morgan

                                                    i.     Program Gap Communications Document – Matt Morgan

1.      This is a document that we have put together to try and help explain the resource gap in our community. 

a.      There was a request to add total numbers onto the document we shared today.

2.      Kara also wanted to share information on length of stay policies.  We discharged folks at a certain designated point every time.  The pendulum has swung the other way.  If you’re fairly confident that a household has been offered some housing opportunities, you can provide a discharge notice for not participating in finding housing.  If it gets to that point, you’re empowered to offer them a discharge notice. 

b.      GH CAN Housed Data (see p.2)

c.      GH CAN Waitlist Data (see p.2)

9.      Progressive Engagement Framework – Crane Cesario, Matt Morgan

                                        

10.   Future Agenda Items?

a.      We will NOT be meeting on Wednesday November 21^st, we will meet again on December 5^th for a longer meeting.

b.      Future agenda item should be looking at the flow of our system.  Crane’s seeing a few more PSH folks who we need to start contingency-planning.  Statewide Rapid ReHousing is looking at this too, and how RRH programs can be working with folks who are at their max in Rapid ReHousing. 

                                                    i.     Maybe we can put PRogoressive Engagement as a top item at the next meeting.

                                                   ii.     A lot of systems flow is coming from Section 8s and Moving Ons.  Programs are nominating people.  We should try to use some data to do in-reach to move folks from PSH. 

                                                  iii.     HOPWA/HIV Programs

11.   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.      The next GH CAN Cold Weather Planning meeting will take place on Friday, November 16^th at Journey Home, 255 Main St., Hartford from 3:00-4:00PM

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	129	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	621
Verified Chronic Matched	38
Verified Chronic Not Yet Matched	3	We currently have 3 chronic verified clients who have not yet been matched to housing.
Potentially Chronic Refusers	2
Verified Chronic Refusers	2
Not Chronic (Verified) Refuser	1
Potentially Chronic Matched	13	These households did not disclose a disabling condition, and are matched to various programs.
Not Chronic Matched	13
Potentially Chronic Not Yet Matched	31	Right now we believe 31 households have the chronic length of homeless history, but none of these individuals have their homeless and disability verifications completed.
Individuals - Active – Not Matched	377	This is Enrolled in CAN, Enrolled in TH, and In an Institution
Families – Active – Not Matched	32	This is Enrolled in CAN
Families - Verified Chronic – Not Matched	0
Families – Not Chronic (Verified) – Matched	20
Families – Verified Chronic – Matched	5

SmartSheet Shelter Priority List Data

Individual Men	Individual Women	Families
73 Unsheltered/ In a Car	61 Unsheltered/In a Car	21 Unsheltered/In a Car (10 report that only HOH is unsheltered)
101 Total	86 Total	29 Total

Emergency Shelter Learning Collaborative

100 Day Campaign to House 265 Households

Data as of 10/31