Greater Hartford CAN Meeting 2/24/2016

Greater Hartford Coordinated Access Network

Wednesday, February 24^th, 2016

1.       Welcome and Introductions

a.       Lisa Quach is our new coordinated exit coordinator at Journey Home.

2.       Zero: 2016

a.       Recently Housed Clients

                                                               i.      New trifold board to keep track of everyone who is housed this year

                                                             ii.      One client was housed from ImmaCare

b.      Landlord Breakfast Success – Rubi Alegria

                                                               i.      20 landlords attended and several speakers presented at the breakfast. If we continue to do that, we will have partnerships to help house all 125 chronically homeless individuals.

                                                             ii.      Could have been better, CRT was a good location for the breakfast

                                                           iii.      Since yesterday, 2 landlords have emailed with units available

                                                           iv.      Keeping connections

                                                             v.      Always going to be one difficult one

c.       Diversion Training Updates – Tamara Womack

                                                               i.      Different outlook to diversion and how to handle diversion

                                                             ii.      Diversion is empowering a person is in imminent risk of homelessness to identify ways to prevent homelessness, get them out of the shelters and have an empowering outlook

                                                           iii.      Role-play ways to empower clients, we’re there as mediators to keep them from shelters

                                                           iv.      Paddington-Marmalade drive- Fairfield county- open up account for greater Hartford CAN, CCEH fundraiser Be Homeful, create funds for flexible diversion

                                                             v.      Can start one yourself- similar to gofundme

                                                           vi.      Cleveland has lots of money for diversion

                                                          vii.      Reality testing- build empathy for clients, realistic things we can do to get person back home

                                                        viii.      2 things you have- housing history, rapid rehousing

3.       CT HMIS Updates – Mollie Greenwood

a.       VI-SPDAT 2.0 is now live in CT HMIS 

                                                               i.      127 chronically homeless have been housed.

                                                             ii.      125 need to be housed this year.

1.       53 individuals are on their way to housing.

2.       72 individuals have not been referred.

b.      Registry Functionality coming to CT HMIS

                                                               i.      Things are changing in the last week

                                                             ii.      VI-SPDAT 1 does not exist in HMIS

                                                           iii.      VI SPDAT 2 take 7-8 minutes and translates easier to full SPDAT

                                                           iv.      CAN assessment- CAN intake, includes extra subset of questions used to organize registry

                                                             v.      Click on VIPDAT- vispdat summary screen, current and legacy

1.       Legacy- old VI SPDAT

2.       VISPDAT 2 button

                                                           vi.      CCEH will be releasing- will notice changes on February 25.

                                                          vii.      If you have any questions, please bring them to Nutmeg.

c.       Bulletin Board Updates in CT HMIS

4.       Coordinated Entry – Upcoming Blitz to Eliminate Backlog – Matt Morgan

a.       Individuals have already done a VI-SPDAT, cancel CAN appoiinment

b.      Shelters have been doing drop in times

c.       Some shelters have been doing it as part of case management

d.      Leadership meeting

5.       Case Conferencing – Lisa Quach

a.       Housing providers meeting every Tuesday conference call

b.      List of people who have been returned to the CAN

c.       Disability verification- can be signed by staff member, need documentation in 45 days

d.      Several people on the MIA list have been found and some are on their way to being housed

e.       If it’s more than a month that someone cannot be located that they need to be brought to attention

6.       Announcements:

a.       The time for the Greater Hartford CAN Advocacy Days is March 3^rd from 8:30AM-10:30AM.  Contact Alison.Scharr@journeyhomect.org with questions, or if you’d like to participate.

                                                               i.      Speakers from providers and Andrea will be talking about rapid rehousing,

                                                             ii.      Need a big turnout of people to show legislators that there are a lot of people who care about homeless issues

                                                           iii.      Any clients who would be willing to go, anyone who can bring clients, please bring clients

Greater Hartford CAN Meeting Notes 1/27/16

Wednesday, January 27th
Next Meeting February 10th, 2016

1.       Welcome and Introductions

a.       We’re excited to welcome Kara Copabianco from the Department of Housing as a CAN Manager for Greater Hartford.

b.  We're also excited to introduce Mark Jenkins of Blue Hills Civic Association as our first hired GH CAN Navigator.

2.       Updates:

a.       2016 Point In Time Count- There were a lot of teams out this morning all across the Greater Hartford region conducting the census of the homeless.  We hope to have information soon with total numbers for households who were found outside.

b.      Zero: 2016/ Greater Hartford CAN Data – Matt Morgan (see p. 2) - In the months since beginning the 100 Day Campaign Journey Home has been collecting data around the number of chronically homeless households in our community, as well as information around housing the chronically homeless 

c.       Zero: 2016 Landlord Breakfast – We are still seeking a landlord to be a speaker at the Landlord Breakfast on February 23rd.  If you have a landlord in mind please contact Mollie Greenwood.

d.      Assessment Backlog: ImmaCare Switch to Drop-In – Luz Serrano and Aini Arciniega were able to tell us about the changes they've seen since ImmaCare switched to drop-in times at ImmaCare.  They told us that they are seeing more people coming than they had in the past, but have not been overwhelmed or seen a drastic increase in folks.

3.       GH CAN Participation and Scope of Meeting – Mollie Greenwood

a.       Participation Groups in GH CAN – Duty Service Coordinators, Housing Referral Group, Operations
      i.  Now that we've been having regular CAN meetings, the current structure of two hour meetings isn't the most effective use of time.  On a statewide level, we are developing by-laws and participation agreements for CAN, and locally we're trying to put together smaller action groups.  Moving forward, we're going to start having the Housing Referral Group as a weekly conference call, and will continue to have Coordinated Entry staff meet at the CAN meetings.  We are working to finalize some action groups, and may be shortening the time of CAN meetings in the future.

4.       Be Homeful Diversion Program through CCEH – Matt Morgan
                     a. The Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness has a new program that can assist homeless families who are literally homeless as well as families at imminent risk of homelessness.  To participate in the program, an agency would need to sign a 

5.       Announcements

a.       Please do not direct clients to call Journey Home- instead please have client case managers contact Journey Home with questions about housing status

b.      Times for Advocacy Days have changed- Greater Hartford CAN March 3^rd at 8:30 

c.       There may be some funding available to place households East of the River in hotels throughout the Cold Weather period, which would allow our other Cold Weather funding to last longer. 

d.      There will be donated goods available after the meeting for case managers to take available in the parking lot.

6.       Case Conferences -

a.       Recently Housed- 6 Chronically Homeless Individuals have been housed!

b.      Homeless Veterans

c.       Navigators

d.      Cases for Review

e.      Review of chronically homeless MIA client list

7.       Breakout Groups:

a.       Housing Referral Group

                                                               i.      Structure of Housing Referral Group

                                                             ii.      Updates

                                                            iii.      New Housing Referrals

b.      Coordinated Entry Group

                                                               i.      Updates to 211 protocols – Cold Weather

                                                             ii.      Drop-In scheduling – Assessment Backlog

                                                            iii.      CAN Data Quality

Greater Hartford CAN Meeting 2/10/2016

In Attendance:

Yasmine Ali- Journey Home

Janet Bermudez- Hands on Hartford

Cordelia Brady- The Open Hearth

Aisha Brown- CHR

Kyra Brown- Catholic Charities

Kara Copabianco- Department of Housing

Crane Cesario- DMHAS

Marcel Cicero- CRT East Hartford Shelter

Roger Clark- ImmaCare

Stephanie Corbin- Community Health Netowrk

Catherine Damato

Brenda Earle- DOH

Anna Ebora- Journey Home

Jacqueline Farmer- Veteran's Ink

Bryan Flint- Cornerstone

Nate Fox- Center Church

Valorie Gaines- CHR

Amanda Girardin- Journey Home

Ruby Given-Hewitt- My Sister's Place

Tenesha Grant- Mercy Housing

Kaylon Griffith- Capitol Region Mental Health Center

Andrea Hakian- CHR

Amber Higgins- CHR

Mark Jenkins- Blue Hills Civic Association

Aaron Jones- VA

Jenaya King- CHR

Cynthia Lazone- Chrysalis
Philomena McGee- Community Health Resources

Nichole Milton- CHR

Matt Morgan- Journey Home

Malika Nelson- CHR

Theresa Nicholson- Chrysalis Center

Yolanda Ortiz- SSVF

Heather Pilarcik- South Park Inn

Jamie Randolph- CHR

Chris Robinson- Chrysalis Center

Cathy Shanley- Columbus House

Kathy Shaw- My Sister's Place

Sandra Terry- CRT

Jose Vega- McKinney

Ymonne Wilson- CRT

Tamara Womack- My Sister's Place

1.       Welcome and Introductions

a.       We need to house 12-13 individuals each month to reach functional zero by the end of the year.

2.       Updates

a.       GH CAN Leadership Updates

                                                               i.      Subcommittee to look at bylaws and charter

                                                             ii.      Leadership is looking at the group of people that still needs appointments. Currently there is a 509 person backlog and a 93% no-show rate. There may be a change in how appointments are done from appointments to drop-in times.

                                                           iii.      A doodle poll will be created listing available resources.

                                                           iv.      Providers should not be taking side doors. Otherwise, we will not be in compliance with the Department of Housing.

b.      Zero: 2016- Landlord Breakfast on February 23

                                                               i.      We still need to recruit landlords to commit to attending the breakfast. We will be reaching out to presenters in the next couple days.

c.       Prioritization for Veterans- Matt Morgan

                                                               i.      There is a small number of ineligible veterans and the solution for them may be rapid rehousing. Those whose VI-SPDAT score falls below rapid rehousing will be given a full SPDAT. If the full SPDAT is still not within the rapid rehousing range, then an exception form will be made.

d.      Warmth East of the River- Bryan Flint

                                                               i.      Cornerstone has 15 beds.

                                                           ii.      MISAC funding will provide hotel funding for people calling for immediate shelter from now to March.

                                                           iii.      Cornerstone will do assessments with all of these households and help connect people to resources.

3.       Referral Process for Rapid Rehousing-Amber Higgins

a.       To be eligible for rapid rehousing, he individual needs to have the appropriate VI-SPDAT score and be literally homeless.

b.      To get the referral, the individual needs the appropriate score and appropriate documentation at some point, but households do not need to be fully document ready prior to referral. A navigator can assist in this process.

c.       The checklist for proper documentation for rapid rehousing is for navigators and case managers to reference, and is available on www.journeyhomect.org/provider-resources 

d.      The goal of rapid rehousing is to move from referral to housing within 45 days.

e.        When version 2 of the VI-SPDAT goes live, the eligible score range will change. We may need to have a meeting in regards to the change.

f.       Something to keep in mind for the future is how do we prioritize clients who may be getting documentation faster but are lower on the priority list?

h.      CHR will begin holding office hours at ImmaCare.

i.         Short-term rapid rehousing needs referrals. Individuals should be able to sustain rent for three months. Someone with social security income could qualify. Sometimes it’s quicker to do a self-referral from shelter to rapid rehousing.

j.       CHR used to office hours in the shelters to educate shelters and they are willing to do that again. Amber will go to shelters to do presentations.

k.         Crane would like to see some data and there will be monthly reports.

l.    The VI-SPDAT levels the playing field since the varying capacity between shelters causes discrepancies in the level of service clients receive. With the VI-SPDAT, clients are treated the same.

m.      If a client has a high utility bill, they should not get denied rapid rehousing but Marcel says one of her clients was denied because of an $800 light bill.

n.      Rapid rehousing should be hybrid process where providers cross-reference VI-SPDAT scores with referrals.                                                                                                                                                                      

4.       Announcements

a.       The VI-SPDAT 2.0 will go live in Connecticut on February 16. All hard copy VI-SPDATs must be entered in HMIS before February 16.- webinar

b.      Journey Home received donations of sweatshirts, jackets, and fleeces available for case managers after the meeting. Contact Alison.Scharr@journeyhomect.org for more info.

5.       Breakout Groups

a.       Coordinated Entry Group (Shelter and Outreach)
              i. ImmaCare and SAMH switch to drop-in assessments - This has led to a shortening of time between when households are able to meet someone, but it has not been a full fix.  Leadership met today and decided we're going to have a true blitz of our Coordinated Entry process, and will be dedicating staff time specifically to resolving this backlog issue in coming weeks.
             ii.  Shelter Triage Subcommittee Updates - At this week's Shelter Triage Subcommittee meeting we discussed the current status of shelter waiting lists.  For individual men, there are often a dozen men on the list throughout the day, but there have been very few days this winter where shelter bed capacity was maxed out, and most individual men are connected to a shelter bed the day that they call.  For individual women and families, it is a very different story- there are more than 150 households on the shelter waiting list reporting that they need shelter, and there can be up to a 4 week waiting period between when a household is added to the list and when they are connected to a bed.  This is a huge problem, but because we have such limited information about the families' specific situation, it has been impossible to prioritize households in a fair way.  Hopefully, once CAN assessments are happening prior to shelter entry, some of those households who may be divertable will be connected to other resources instead of entering into shelter.
            iii.  City of Hartford ESG Program - Lionel Rigler has reported that it sounds as though many households who may be eligible for this prevention program may not be getting directed to the program and ending up at CAN appointments, and wanted to remind us that screening for the program is accessed by calling 211.  Right now, it's difficult to tell where the disconnect may be happening if households are not being screened, so if you have someone at a CAN assessment who you believe might be eligible, please send that household's HMIS ID number to Mollie so she can connect with 211.
            iv.  We talked about what kind of information would be helpful to staff doing CAN assessments, and what sorts of training this group would be interested in for the future.  There is a diversion training coming up next week through CCEH, but staff also expressed interest in trainings around DSS benefits, different mental health programs, and more clarity around Rapid ReHousing.  Moving forward we will work on figuring out how to connect staff to this information.

b.      Housing Referral Group

                                                               i.      Referrals for Navigation

1.       Some clients on the priority list have no VI-SPDAT score. Tony offered to assess two of them and  Janet offered to assess one.

2.       Mark has gotten 4 people document ready and has been working with sex offenders to get disability verification

3.       3 clients need VI-SPDAT to determine if they have a disability.

                                                             ii.      One client cannot get disability verification because Intercommunity would not sign because they needed to do a longer term assessment on her first. She currently lives in her car and needs to be referred to PATH. She may need to do full SPDAT as her VI-SPDAT score does not reflect her current situation. 

                                                           iii.      The housing referral group will no longer meet as part of CAN. There will be a conference call on Tuesdays at 11:30. Tenesha and Faye are handling the logistics.  Instead, the CAN meeting will be a time for updates, case conferences with shelter staff as needed, and protocol change information.

                                                           iv.      Moving On has two 1- bedroom units. Prospective tenants need to be sober and chronically homeless. They need to be able to remain sober for a section 8 interview. Moving On does not have a case management component. It was suggested to check with Chrysalis for potential clients. One client was identified as a potential tenant.

                                                             v.      How is participation in a transitional living program going to count? Will they be considered housed or unsheltered?

Greater Hartford CAN Meeting 1/13/16

Wednesday, January 13th, 2016
Next Meeting: Wednesday, January 27th, 2016

In Attendance:
Natasha Baldwin - Salvation Army Marshall House
Janet Bermudez - Hands On Hartford
Manuel Burnias - CRT Security Deposit Guarantee
Marcel Cicero - CRT East Hartford Shelter
Stephanie Corbin - Community Health Network
Anna Ebora - Journey Home
Jacqueline Farmer - Veterans Inc
Nate Fox - Center Church
Clarissa Garcia - ImmaCare
Amanda Girardin - Journey Home
Mollie Greenwood - Journey Home
Kaylon Griffith - Capitol Region Mental Health Center
Andrea Hakian - CHR
Amber Higgins - CHR
Mark Jenkins - Blue Hills Civic Association
Aaron Jones - US Department of Veterans Affairs
Brittany King - The Open Hearth
Edna Lopez - Interval House
Gerilyn Maciel - Salvation Army Marshall House
Nikia Newkirk - YWCA / HOPE Team
Yolanda Ortiz - CRT SSVF
Meghan Pellerin - My Sisters' Place / The Open Hearth / HOPE Team

1)      Welcome and Introductions

2)      Updates

a.      VI-SPDAT 2.0 Training will be available in Hartford- 1/19 from 11:00-1:00 at CRT’s Lumsden Center. Register at www.cceh.org

                            i.      The whole state will be changing to VI-SPDAT version 2 in February.  The newer version of the tool asks similar questions as version 1, but some questions have changed, and the scoring criteria has changed.  

b.      Hartford and Greater Hartford PIT block maps for review- Crane Cesario

                            i.      The PIT coordinators are in the process of figuring out areas for unsheltered count this year.

                             ii.      All shelters need to send a representative to the upcoming PIT training- check your emails for information about this training.

                             iii.    Volunteer training Monday 25^th- Lumsden Center
                             iv.  The PIT coordinator for the City of Hartford is Cat Damato of CRT, and the PIT coordinator for the Hartford Suburbs is Yasmine Ali of Journey Home.

                             v.      Maps were brought to the CAN meeting, and if outreach workers know of any encampments that should be visited during PIT, please connect with the PIT coordinators before you leave.

c.       People for People Warming Center in Enfield is looking to hire 3 shift coordinators.

3)      Zero:2016 Updates

a.      Data for Greater Hartford

                                  i.      Journey Home have been reviewing data- all 2600 clients and verify who is chronically homeless under new definition

                                 ii.     The new chronic homeless definition has led to an 18% reduction at the most- 76 people taken off the list

                                 iii.      Pass out list of people who no longer meet the definition of chronic homelessness in case people have additional information to share

                                  iv.      Crane- people who are no longer chronic, do we have list of unsheltered people who may not be verified.

b.      Landlord Breakfast- next steps

                                       i.      February 23^rd at CRT

                                       ii.      Advocate programs to landlords

                                       iii.      Landlords who have been helpful to programs- Mollie will send around an e-vite for people to speak out at the breakfast

                                     iv.     We need landlord speakers to talk about their experiences working with programs!

                                                       

4)      GH CAN Housing Registry

a.      Change in Chronic Homeless definition

                           i.      Need disability and 1 year continuous homelessness or 4 episodes that total 12 months.  This change in definition has led to a change in how many households are identified as chronically homeless in our region.  

b.      Reformatting of our Priority List- See p. 2

                            i.     Currently, our Priority Lists of households with a chronic length of homeless history (note: these households may or may not have a diagnosed disability) is 83 active individuals.

                            ii.     46 individuals are currently MIA, meaning they meet the new definition of chronic homelessness, but have not been in shelter for the past 3 months.  If these households reappear in our system, they will be chronically homeless.

5)      Statewide Progress Update on Opening Doors Campaign

a.      Lisa Tepper-Bates of the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness along with Alicia Woodsby of the Partnership for Strong Communities attended this week's meeting with a presentation on the statewide progress that the Opening Doors campaign has made in the state of Connecticut.

b.      You can view the presentation they shared here!

7)      Housing Referral Group

a.      New Housing Referrals were discussed by the housing referral group.

8)      Coordinated Entry Group

a.      Triage/Access to Shelter- Updates to Triage Daily Protocols, Cold Weather

b.      Proposed Updates to 211 Script- Heather Pilarcik

                          i.      Making sure the right people are being sent to assessments

                          ii.      Check all IDs of a client before scheduling

                          iii.      Help report multiple IDs

                          iv.      Explain more clearly purpose of assessment appointment

                          v.      More language to communicate that clients need to call 211 back to get shelter on the day that shelter is needed.

                                                    

c.       Assessment Schedule and Appointments- Mollie Greenwood - we are still facing a really long wait time for assessment appointments in the Greater Hartford region, and this long wait time is just making the problems around coordinated entry more complex.  

            i.  Kara Capobianco of the Department of Housing urged us to change the way we're doing assessments, to try and ensure that folks are attending assessments prior to entry to shelter.  GH CAN staff explained that it was a purposeful decision to allow households to access shelter prior to meeting with an assessment staff person.  Because of this structure, however, where clients are not required to attend an assessment prior to entering shelter, it is likely that many households who are entering shelter for a very short period of time may have been diverted had they met with a staff person prior to entering shelter.  

d.      Security Deposit Guarantee Program- Manuel Burnias distributed a pre-screening form for the Security Deposit Guarantee Program specifically for shelter providers to use.  This way, the staff of the SDG Program will be quickly able to identify referrals to the program coming from emergency shelter providers.  

                                                                                                

e.      CAN Data Quality Updates- Mollie Greenwood- Nutmeg has identified an error in the CAN Data Quality report, where appointments are being pulled multiple times.  

9)      Collaboration to Identify/Locate Households

10)  Announcements