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The United States Interagency Council on Homelessness e-newsletter |
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Partners In a Vision
Speaking at the opening of the two-day Governor's Conference on Housing and Development at the Atlantic City Convention Center, Governor Corzine stated: "With the national epidemic of financial hardships and declining economic conditions facing the hardworking men and women of this nation, my administration has made meaningful progress toward providing New Jersey residents with affordable housing opportunities." Governor Corzine further stated, "We have taken substantial steps forward in our mission to ensure that affordable housing units are built year after year."
"New Jersey's innovative housing finance and program initiatives deserve a national audience," indicated Director Mangano. "By deploying revenue from traffic fines to housing solutions and innovations for people experiencing homelessness, for the aging out foster care youth population, the reentry population, and others, New Jersey is showing that housing is the central antidote to homelessness." The State's Special Needs Housing Trust Fund provides capital financing to create permanent supportive housing and community residences for individuals with special needs, with priority given to individuals with mental illness. The non-lapsing revolving fund is to develop special needs housing and residential opportunities as alternatives to institutionalization or homelessness. The Trust Fund provides financing for housing in the form of loans, grants, and other financial vehicles and investments to eligible not- for-profit and for-profit developers, as well as state, county, and local government entities. Funding for rent and operating subsidies and supportive services is not available through the Trust Fund. At least 75 percent of Trust Fund proceeds go to benefit persons whose incomes are at or below 30% AMI. Council National Team Leader Michael German also participated.
The city has partnered with the Heritage United Way to fund the new position, which was the first action step of the new Plan. Ms. Howland will report directly to Patrick Tufts, the United Way President and CEO, who has worked closely with the Mayor to develop A Home for Everyone and to engage private sector leaders to make the plan a success. Mayor Frank Guinta and Patrick Tufts, President of the Heritage United Way were Co-chairs of the Task Force to End Homelessness and with other community leaders, welcomed United States Interagency Council on Homelessness Executive Director Philip Mangano for the March event. Council Regional Coordinator John O'Brien also participated in the most recent event.
Plan goals include Housing First strategies, prevention, a focus on the needs of veterans, and the creation of a the Leadership Committee to serve as political and community champions for the 10 Year Plan, to provide oversight and evaluation of plan implementation, and to help generate resources and commitment for ending homelessness in Greater Manchester. Another distinct goal is to build public awareness and education about the causes and costs of homelessness, the rationale behind the City's plan, models of success, and the need to engage the entire community in the solutions, including by convening a community-wide conference in Manchester in 2008 to promote education and dialogue about homelessness, engage more organizations and individuals, and facilitate innovative solutions and public-private partnerships in implementing the 10 Year Plan.
"These grants provide a helping hand to veterans who have served our nation in uniform," said Secretary of Veterans Affairs Dr. James B. Peake. "Our partnerships with community-based organizations provide safe, temporary housing while these veterans return to productive lives." VA identified public and community non-profit groups eligible to receive payments for transitional housing and supportive services to homeless veterans, including 49 grants for vans that will transport homeless veterans to health care and training programs. The grants are part of VA's continuing and effective efforts to reduce homelessness among veterans. VA has the largest integrated network of homeless assistance programs in the country. In many cities and rural areas, VA social workers and other clinicians working with community and faith- based partners conduct extensive outreach programs, clinical assessments, medical treatments, alcohol and drug abuse counseling and employment assistance. VA's Grant and Per Diem program helped reduce the number of veterans who are homeless on a typical night last year by 21 percent to about 154,000 veterans. VA also provides health care to about 100,000 homeless veterans, compensation and assistance in obtaining foreclosed homes and excess federal property, including clothes, footwear, blankets and other items. The FY 2008 Federal Budget funded a $75 million investment for 10,000 new HUD-VASH vouchers which were allocated to more than 135 communities for permanent housing for homeless veterans, veterans at risk of homelessness, and veterans with families, including those returning from OEF/OIF. Housing placement is underway now. There is also a new $75 million request by the Administration in the pending FY 2009 budget for 10,000 additional vouchers. The FY 2008 vouchers were announced jointly in May by Dr. Peake and then Acting Secretary of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development Roy Bernardi. The Department of Veterans Affairs has been a vibrant and robust partner in reducing chronic homelessness in the nation. The VA has acceded to and sought partnerships with a variety of federal agencies to achieve the substantive decreases in veterans' homelessness that have been seen over the past several years. HUD-VASH provides local public housing agencies with rental assistance vouchers specifically targeted to assist homeless veterans in their area, and VA and HUD link local public housing agencies with VA Medical Centers to provide supportive services and case management to eligible homeless veterans. HUD allocated vouchers based on a variety of factors, including the number of reported homeless veterans and the proximity of a local VA Medical Center with the capacity to provide case management.
The Post-Detox Pre-Recovery Program (PDPR), originally supported by competitive resources of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Transitional Housing Program as a residential resource for homeless individuals in early recovery from substance abuse, has achieved a successful conversion to a Housing First, relapse-tolerant model. Last year, MHSA and BSAS worked with the three provider organizations, HighPoint/NEBCOA in New Bedford, the Henry Lee Willis Center in Worcester, and the South Middlesex Opportunity Council in Framingham and Palmer to convert the program from temporary to permanent housing and to change from a strict no-relapse model to a relapse tolerant approach. "A large part of the success of our conversion to permanent housing is that these tenants have a tangible reason to get their lives back in order - somewhere safe to return to every night and the feelings of pride and security that this engenders," said MHSA Executive Director Joe Finn. "MHSA and BSAS are on the forefront of what is proving to be a very successful approach. Together, we look forward to expanding this model - one that is truly revolutionizing the way homelessness and substance abuse are addressed in the Commonwealth." According to MHSA, PDPR's first year as a housing program showed markedly improved housing stability results, as over 40 percent of participants have remained permanently housed for at least six months. That number is expected to rise steadily during the second year. In addition, 75 percent increased their income and 66 percent secured training, employment or both as opposed to the previous year showing 55 percent and 44 percent respectively in those categories. Perhaps one of the most significant statistics is the percentage of participants who achieve 75 percent of their goals. Finding permanent housing and employment, accessing benefits, connecting with community and health care resources and staying sober after coming directly from detox and years of homelessness was a lot to accomplish in a two-to- three month period in a transitional program, yet nearly 68 percent did. However, in the first year of the permanent housing program, 92.5 percent of clients reached that same landmark. Cheryl Kennedy-Perez, Manager of BSAS Housing and Homeless Services, sees the conversion as a unique opportunity to offer a new housing model for this population. "It's a marriage between Housing First and recovery services, which gives us the chance to offer housing combined with the specific expertise of substance abuse service providers. It is really pioneering work," said Kennedy-Perez, pointing to joint monthly meetings, co-chaired by MHSA and BSAS, that provided case managers and supervisors the support they needed for the transition. Key among the issues to be addressed was the history of staff in traditional treatment models, and the motivation for residents who would not lose their housing under the new relapse-tolerant approach. Kaye Wilde of MHSA shared the views of Randy Dupell, case manager at the Willis Center, who opposed the switch, based on his own experiences with traditional models. "Today, he says, 'If I can be swayed, anyone can. It took about six months, but now I believe in it 100 percent.' According to Ms. Wilde, "His reasons for believing are a direct result of his experience with the tenants in the program. He has seen people succeed for the first time in their lives. One particular participant, John, relapsed as soon as he entered PDPR last October. Case Manager Dupell assumed that John probably wouldn't last in the program, but that first relapse turned out to be his last." Mike, a SMOC client, was living in a storage bin when he came down with pneumonia and a friend form PDPR took him to the hospital. When he left, moved into SMOC's Crossroads II, where he is healthy and sober, and will be going back to school this fall to get his associate degree in mechanical engineering.
New black and yellow parking meters will be installed outside City Hall, Fulton County Courthouse, Georgia World Congress Center, Hilton Atlanta hotel and the Atlanta Police Department Zone 5 precinct. Police Chief Richard Penington described the Department's role in the new strategy. City officials said more meters could be installed if requested. $40,000 for the new initiative is coming from Central Atlanta Progress, the Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Atlanta Police Foundation, and the Georgia World Congress Center. "We're pleased that the Mayor's office weighed-in on this approach," said AJ Robinson, President of Central Atlanta Progress and the Atlanta Downtown Improvement District (ADID) that field the Downtown's Ambassador Force. The strategy has to have many levels of participation, from the public and private sectors, for it to work." Spurgeon Richardson, President and CEO of Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau, said "The hospitality industry fully supports this strategy." A public education effort will be started at downtown hotels, businesses, residences and convention centers and through radio spots to identify organizations where people can contribute and help homeless people who are homeless. At the Atlanta press event, Gateway 24/7 Center Director Vince Smith and Mayor's Policy Advisor Debi Starnes described the new education efforts, which include a sample letter that can be distributed to hotel guests and downtown workers explaining the new strategy and providing referral information cards that can be handed to anyone panhandling. Atlanta now joins several 10 Year Plan cities whose leaders have launched measures to change public response to panhandling by using the meters. San Francisco launched "Be a part of change. Don't give change" in May 2008, and Chattanooga, Tennessee rolled out meters last year, calling its initiative "Art of Change" because some meters would be decorated by artists. Denver looked to the example of Baltimore's green "Make a Change" meter program in 2006 when it created the Mile High City's program recently featured in the Interagency Council's 20 in 20 innovations series. Denver's launch created a new wave of inquiries about replication from more than 20 cities with the city reporting coast to coast interest, as well as inquiries from Dublin, Toronto, and Montreal. Pictured here are Council Executive Director Philip Mangano, Denver's Road Home Manager Jamie van Leeuwen, and New York City Department of Homeless Services Commissioner Rob Hess, as they recently toured Denver's meter sites.
Nearly half (45%) of the frequent user clients were homeless, and among these, more than a third were placed in permanent housing, with 54% placed in shelters, board and care homes, or other similar settings. For homeless participants who accessed housing, ER charges dropped 32% (from over $800,000 pre-enrollment to $553,000 post- enrollment) ) versus 2% for unhoused persons (about $1.5 million pre- enrollment and post-enrollment), and inpatient charges dropped 27% (from $5.15 million to $3.7 million) versus an increase of 49% for unhoused individuals (from $2.8 million to $4.26 million). For all homeless and non-homeless participants across all program sites, there was a 30% decrease in ER visits and a 17% decrease in ER costs, as well as a 14% decrease in inpatient admissions and an 8% decrease in inpatient costs, pre and post participation. In Atlantic City this week for the New Jersey Governor's Housing Conference, Council Director Mangano paid a visit to the local emergency room, continuing his commitment to make such visits to key stakeholders in the health care sector. On his visit, he was told by local nurses and physicians that frequent users locally arrive 70% of the time by ambulance, with an average cost per visit of $1,000. The same individuals visit over and over again, including multiple times daily, using as one practitioner reported, beds that others need. The Frequent Users Initiative was a five-year, $10 million project jointly funded by The California Endowment and the California HealthCare Foundation and based at the Corporation for Supportive Housing in Oakland. The goal of the Initiative was to promote the development and implementation of innovative, integrated models to address the comprehensive health and social service needs of frequent users of emergency departments and replace it with ongoing, coordinated, and multidisciplinary care provided in more appropriate settings. Funding supported planning grants, implementation grants, technical assistance for all grantees, and outcome evaluation of both the planning and implementation grants. Through a competitive request for proposals (RFP) process, the Initiative funded six one-year planning grants and six three-year implementation grants-one awarded in 2003 and renewed for an additional year in 2006, and five awarded in a second round of funding in 2004. Taking part in planning and/or implementation were the Counties of Alameda, Los Angeles, Orange, Sacramento, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Sonoma, and Tulare. According to the final report compiled by the Lewin Group, overall, the programs yielded statistically significant reductions in emergency department (ED) utilization (30%) and hospital charges (17%) in the first year of enrollment. Based on analyses of a subset of individuals for whom two years of data were available, ED utilization and charges decreased by an even greater magnitude in the second year after enrollment. Emergency department visits decreased by 35 percent in the first year of the program for this subset of individuals, and by year two, utilization decreased by more than 60 percent from the pre- enrollment period. Support of hospital administration and program buy- in and support from a larger hospital organization - such as a Hospital Council - served to develop a collective solution for the frequent user population that was able to lower barriers and competition. The business case for investment in relied on sufficient evidence of impact across multiple systems. A consistent, systematic data collection strategy with the hospital and other partner organizations allowed the program to track data over time that could be used to leverage additional funding and establish the business case for intensive case management for this hard-to-serve population. Development of a countywide database linking hospital, primary care clinic and mental health service, and drug and alcohol treatment utilization enhanced data sharing capabilities and care coordination across medical and social service systems. Among other key findings was the importance of electronic "flagging" systems that provided an automated mechanism for hospital staff to identify patients who met program eligibility for timely referral and co-location of the program at the hospital ER, providing referrals in "real time." Program penetration at multiple hospitals across the county minimized missing frequent users and clients who visited multiple hospitals throughout the region could be identified more easily. Individual recruitment and engagement was enhanced with small incentives, such as grocery vouchers, phone cards to maintain appointments and communicate with staff, bus passes, food boxes, and program "wallet cards" so clients could easily contact program staff.
Innovation in government was recognized as the Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government announced the winners of the 2008 Innovations in American Government Awards. Six government initiatives -one city, three state, and two federal programs - were honored at the US Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C. Governor Janet Napolitano of Arizona delivered the event's keynote address on the unique position of states in generating and spreading innovative practices nationwide. "As laboratories of democracy, we can really test what works best and encourage other states to emulate these award winners," stated the Governor. Among the 2008 innovations honored were the Acquisition Fund of New York City, a $230 million partnership that finances the purchase of land and buildings for affordable housing by using innovative private finance tools to allow small developers to compete in New York's challenging real estate market; the reentry program of the Arizona Department of Corrections - Getting Ready: Keeping Communities Safe - which has achieved decreases in recidivism in its prison population; and the Division of Youth Services in Missouri, winner of the 2008 Annie E. Casey Innovations Award in Children and Family System Reform, for its juvenile delinquent youth strategy carried out in therapeutic small, homelike settings. Summaries of these awardees appear below. The United States Interagency Council on Homelessness was named one of the "Top 50 Government Innovations" in the nation in 2007 by the Kennedy School. Acquisition Fund of New York City. With a dwindling supply of City-owned land for affordable housing - which has produced more than 300,000 apartments and houses - affordability problems have increased. Not-for-profit organizations and small for- profit developers typically do not have the financial resources to compete to acquire property in the private market, so the . Fund creates a private sector lending market to increase opportunity for developers seeking to acquire property prior to assembly of a project's permanent financing. The Fund provides faster access to equity and predevelopment capital than under more traditional loan processes by providing low-interest capital at higher advance rates and lower recourse levels than are available from conventional financial institutions. It can also act more quickly. Using a sustainable model to continue without further investments from foundations or taxpayers, the Fund will build and preserve 30,000 affordable housing units over 10 years with 75 percent of units reserved for low income residents. The Fund is by a collaboration of financial institutions, ten national philanthropies, and the City of New York. Missouri Division of Youth Services. Missouri rehabilitative program, started in the early 1980s, has lowered the number of repeat offenders, reduced violence and suicide in state youth facilities and achieved improved job placements and education levels. The results form the model have also attracted the interest of officials in Alabama, Arkansas, California, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, New Mexico, New Jersey, New York, Texas and the District of Columbia. Missouri's program serves youth offenders in small, dormitory settings, with an emphasis on individualized and group treatment approaches. DYS youth participate in daily group meetings with 10 to 12 of their peers to discuss challenges and act as positive role models for each other. Each young person receives individualized educational assistance and participates in a host of volunteer and community engagement activities. Arizona Department of Corrections. "Getting Ready" supports successful reentry by "structuring the prison environment like the outside world with real- world job training and educational opportunities." A "Parallel Universe" aligns prisons life as closely as possible with community living. Inmates pursue high school equivalency diplomas, sobriety, employment, and volunteer activities. Job training and employment inside the prison are aligned with actual Arizona industries. In the past, over 40 percent of all Arizona inmates released returned to prison within three years. A study of inmates who participated in Getting Ready prior to their release from prison demonstrated its graduates are 35 percent more successful in the community than inmates of comparable risk. In addition to reduced recidivism rates, inmate-on-inmate violence is down by 37 percent, inmate-on-staff assaults by 51 percent, and inmate suicides by 33 percent. Three quarters of the inmate population has earned high school equivalency diplomas and completed bona- fide job training. They have also donated over one million dollars to Arizona crime victim organizations. Plummeting rates of institutional violence and recidivism translate to huge cost savings; the program reports a $1.6 million reduction in spending that directly benefits Arizona taxpayers.
As the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Securities Subcommittee on Securities, Insurance, and Investment convened last week for a hearing, Chairman Jack Reed (RI) and Ranking Member Wayne Allard (CO) reflected on the significance of the closing days of the Senate session, which will be Senator Allard's last as he retires after two terms in the Senate. Senators Reed and Allard are also the sponsors of reauthorizing legislation addressing the Department of Housing and Urban Development homeless programs and the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness. With their key staff - Kara Stein of Senator Reed's staff and Tewana Wilkerson of Senator Allard's staff - the two Senators have championed a measure reported out by the Senate Committee earlier this year that focuses on strong consensus on common goals of homeless program consolidation, housing emphasis, flexibility, and performance. As the Senators noted in their remarks, the changing majority has meant that they have alternated roles as Chair and Ranking member over time as they have addressed housing and homelessness issues in bipartisan partnership. Senator Allard: " . . . I wanted to take a moment to express my deep appreciation to Chairman Jack Reed. He has been not only a colleague, but also a friend to me during my time here in the Senate . . . I've been fortunate enough to share leadership with him on four different subcommittees - Securities, Insurance and Investments; and Housing; and Transportation on the Banking Committee, and Personnel and Strategic on Armed Services. I have consistently found both him and his staff a pleasure to work with, no matter what the issue. And he brings a thoughtful, insightful perspective. In an increasingly partisan atmosphere, it has been refreshing to find someone who is willing to put politics aside and work together for productive common sense solutions to some of the problems facing our country. His willingness to work together has allowed us to make progress in important areas, such as preventing and ending homelessness . . . " Senator Reed: "It has similarly been a pleasure for me to work with you. We have, both on the Armed Services Committee and on the Banking Committee, seemed fated to be Chair, Ranking Member, and then switched to be Ranking Member and Chair. And it's been a pleasure. And your staff, as yourself, has been extraordinarily kind to work with and I appreciate it very much . . . " Senator Allard: "Thank you. I think we set an example perhaps, for how we can work together in a bipartisan way . . . "
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email: ichnews@setechnology.com
web: http://www.usich.gov
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