NJ Expands Keeping Families Together

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Christie Administration Assists Families Find Permanent Supportive Housing

Department of Children and Families and Department of Community Affairs Partner to Help

25 Families Break Cycle of Homelessness

TRENTON – Continuing the Christie Administration’s commitment to New Jersey’s most vulnerable families, the New Jersey Department of Children and Families (DCF) in partnership with the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs (DCA) is helping 25 families move into permanent supportive housing by expanding Keeping Families Together, a pilot housing program.

Keeping Families Together is a model of permanent supportive housing for child welfare involved families struggling with homelessness and other challenges.  DCF established the program for 10 families in Essex County in July 2014, later expanding it to another 8 families in Monmouth and Passaic counties.

The latest expansion into Atlantic and Gloucester counties more the doubles the number of New Jersey families benefitting from Keeping Families Together.

“Family homelessness is devastating to children,” said DCF Commissioner Allison Blake.  “Its impact reverberates into future generations, creating continued despair and hopelessness and straining government resources.  But today, we’re moving to break the cycle for 25 families seeking better futures for their children.”

Keeping Families Together provides families access to supportive services, including case planning and evidence-based and trauma-informed coordinated services to support each family’s unique needs.

The 25 families, which will begin moving to their new homes before the end of the year, will receive Section 8 housing vouchers from the DCA.  The vouchers are essential to helping these families find an affordable and safe place to live.  DCA committed 25 15-year Project-Based Section 8 housing vouchers to the program.

“The DCA is pleased to provide the additional vouchers that will allow South Jersey families to participate in the Keeping Families Together program,” said DCA Commissioner Charles A. Richman. “Integrating social, health and case management services with housing, provides the stability needed to keep the family together.”

The initial Keeping Families Together pilot showed promise improving child well-being and decreasing child welfare involvement in New York City, according to Metis Associates. *

DCF joined with the Corporation for Supportive Housing (CSH) to host DCF’s Keeping Families Together Statewide Convening in New Brunswick today.  The event brought together stakeholders throughout the state and included Housing First training, pilot site presentations, and peer-to-peer discussion and knowledge exchanges.

DCA provides administrative guidance, financial support and technical assistance to local governments, community development organizations, businesses and individuals to improve the quality of life in New Jersey. The Department offers a wide range of programs and services that respond to issues of public concern including fire and building safety, housing production, community planning and development, and local government management and finance.

DCF is dedicated to ensuring a better today and an even greater tomorrow for every individual the department serves. In partnership with New Jersey's communities, DCF ensures the safety, well-being, and success of New Jersey's children and families.  DCF funds and directly provides services and support to over 100,000 women, children, and families each month.


*CSH is pleased to assist more communities using supportive housing as a solution for families involved in the child welfare system.  According to the extensive evaluation conducted by Metis Associates, the initial CSH Keeping Families Together pilot funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation achieved the following outcomes:

  • During the evaluation period, close to 90% of the families stayed out of emergency shelter and remained stably housed in supportive housing
  • Families experienced a decrease in child welfare system involvement with fewer incidences of repeat maltreatment while living in supportive housing
  • School-age children within the families demonstrated steady average increases in school attendance
  • Participating families indicated supportive housing had a positive effect on their ability to maintain relationships with others and to rebuild their support systems

Generous funding from Casey Family Programs supports CSH and our efforts related to the Keeping Families Together initiative in New Jersey.

 

CSH & Partners Work to Strengthen Housing Continuum for Young Adults in CT

Connecticut providers from across the housing continuum joined CSH in early December for a statewide convening that included a focus on tailoring the supportive housing model for young adults and transition-aged youth (TAY) to promote positive youth development and facilitate a young person’s transition to adulthood.

Policymakers from the State Department of Housing (DOH), Department of Children and Families (DCF), and the Young Adult Services (YAS) division of the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services (DMHAS) engaged statewide intermediaries and providers on efforts to fill gaps along the housing continuum for TAY. Kathleen Durand from DOH announced her Commissioner’s decision to move forward with a competitive capital round of between $ 5 and 8 million dollars for young adult supportive housing in 2016 that could potentially include rental subsidies. This major commitment was reinforced when Amy Marracino from DMHAS YAS and Kim Somaroo-Rodriguez from DCF shared information on new endeavors to create more drop-in centers for youth as well as new crisis response services across the state.

The good news of a competitive capital round for young adult supportive housing set the stage for Dr. Eric Rice of the University of Southern California’s School of Social Work to share learnings from CT’s implementation of a pilot to identify homeless youth in Connecticut at most risk for long-term homelessness, and for CSH New England program staff to provide an overview on their work to assess the state of supportive housing for young adults in the state.

Dr. Rice’s presentation summarized the results of the Connecticut TAY Triage Tool pilot and provided recommendations to stakeholders on assessing youth and young adults for housing options and supportive services. The TAY Triage Tool is a youth-specific set of non-invasive questions that can be quickly delivered to determine whether a homeless young person is on a trajectory to experiencing five or more years of homelessness. The tool consists of a six point scale, with the recommendation that homeless youth with a score of 4 or higher should be prioritized for supportive housing.

For Connecticut, the tool provides a mechanism for collecting targeted data to inform how the state will prioritize young adults for new supportive housing projects that will come on-line in the future. To implement the tool in Connecticut, Dr. Rice suggested utilizing Orgcode’s Next Step Tool, which includes the six items which constitute the TAY Triage Tool. Additionally, the pilot found that youth and young adults who score higher on the TAY Triage Tool report higher levels of trauma and depression, meaning that mental health and possibly substance abuse interventions may be needed for youth and young adults who are placed into housing. Click here for a full summary of Connecticut's TAY Triage Tool Pilot.

From enhanced data collection efforts to new commitments for permanent housing options for TAY, the state is uniquely positioned to develop and operate supportive housing for young adults in Connecticut that implement a youth framework and promote positive youth development without the traditional time limitations that exist in other housing interventions that currently exist for Connecticut’s young people.

With support from the Melville Charitable Trust, CSH has developed a general service model that is more youth-specific for Connecticut’s supportive housing providers that are serving young adults in the traditional model. CSH will continue to work with providers and other stakeholders to pilot viable demonstration projects, including developing a finance model, provide recommendations on staffing structures, and creating a learning community for providers with an interest in serving young adults in supportive housing.

The event provided CSH the opportunity to re-assemble a learning community of supportive housing providers serving young adults in traditional supportive housing and connect them not only to providers along the housing continuum, but also with Opening Doors-CT, a statewide initiative that aims to serve runaway and “unaccompanied” minors as well as young adults (18+) experiencing homelessness and housing instability. The event took place almost a year after Opening Doors-CT launched a statewide action plan to address the unique needs of youth and young adults who are precariously housed and at higher risk for exploitation, offering a day of reflection on work that’s unraveled over the past eight months and where the state has yet to go to serve these young people.

In early 2016, CSH will release a comprehensive report that assesses the current supportive housing landscape for Connecticut’s young adults and provides recommendations on next steps.

The Opioid Epidemic & Supportive Housing

As New York State continues to weigh the benefits of increasing the number of supportive housing units, CSH has released a new brief: Supportive Housing’s vital role In Addressing the Opioid Epidemic in New York State. Although supportive housing as a documented solution to chronic homelessness is often touted, policymakers sometimes overlook its other positive impacts, especially its success rate in stabilizing those with severe substance use disorders such as heroin addiction, placing such individuals on a firmer path to recovery.

Supportive Housing’s vital role In Addressing the Opioid Epidemic in New York State

 

Ending Youth Homelessness in CT

CSH is leading a day-long convening today on the issue of homeless youth in Connecticut (CT). Participants are meeting at the offices of The Connection, a leading homelessness group in the state. Pictured below on the first panel of the day are (from left to right) Amy Marracino from The CT Dept. of Mental Health and Addiction Svcs; April Morrison from CSH; Kim Somaroo Rodriguez from the CT Dept. of Children and Families; Mimi Haley from the CT Coalition to End Homelessness; Katie Durand from the CT Dept. of Housing, and Stacy Violante Cote (moderator) from the Center for Children's advocacy.

CT

Wall-breaking Heralds New Supportive Housing in DC

Historic Shaw Building to Undergo $17M Renovation

 

With the determination to totally revitalize Shaw, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser attended a wall breaking ceremony this Friday for Shaw's historic Phyllis Wheatley Young Women's Christian Association, Inc. (Phyllis Wheatley YWCA) building. Located at the corner of 9th Street NW and Rhode Island Avenue NW, the facility will undergo a $17 million that will preserve 84 permanent, supportive, and affordable housing units for low-income women. According to a press release, the building's current residents will not see their rents increase. The developer for the project is Dantes Partners.

Photos of the ceremony >>

Remarks delivered by Holly Denniston, CSH Senior Program Manager, at Wall-breaking ceremony >>

The wall breaking ceremony was one of six events that Bowser attended that day as part of an event, titled "Scissors and Shovels." The five other events included a ribbon cutting at the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Commons (36 affordable units at 5010 Southern Avenue SE), a groundbreaking for Archer Park (190 affordable units at 13th Street SSE and Mississippi Avenue SE), a ribbon cutting for Turning Natural Juice Bar (2025 Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue SE), a groundbreaking on the $17 million renovation and expansion of the Kenilworth Recreation Center and outdoor pool (1300 44th Street NE), and a ribbon cutting for Sala Thai (4020 Minnesota Avenue NE).

The Phillis Wheatley YWCA building was built in 1920 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It was named after Phillis Wheatley, who is cited as the first black woman professional poet and writer in the United States by Henry Louis Gates's publication, Trials of Phillis Wheatley: America's Second Black Poet and Her Encounters with the Founding Fathers. The renovation of the building received funding from the D.C. Housing Authority, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, D.C. Department of Housing and Community Development, D.C. Department of Energy and Environment, D.C. Department of Human Services, D.C. Department of Behavioral Health, D.C. Sustainable Energy Utility, Wells Fargo, Amalgamated Bank, and the Corporation for Supportive Housing (CSH).

Take a look at some of the photos taken at the Phyllis Wheatley YWCA wall breaking ceremony below:

Campaign 4 NY-NY Housing Heats Up

Kristin

CSH director in New York State, Kristin Miller, speaks at the Campaign 4 NY-NY rally and forum in New York City

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Kristin speaks at a rally for more supportive housing in Rochester, New York

As reports surface that New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo are engaged in intense negotiations over a new agreement to fund robust supportive housing creation in the Empire State, CSH and our partners are showcasing the Campaign 4 NY-NY Housing.

CSH director of New York, Kristin Miller, attended a rally in Rochester, New York, last Thursday and then another in New York City the following day to speak out for more supportive housing and immediate action. Kristin appeared on various television and radio networks making the CSH case for Mayor de Blasio and Governor Cuomo to come together to sign a long-term commitment to aggressively promote and fund 35,000 Supportive Housing Units for the Most Vulnerable New Yorkers.

Kristin on WROC Channel 8 News

Kristin on Time Warner Cable News

Kristin on NPR WXXI Radio

Kristin on WSKG News

CSH has released a major report - Real Supportive Housing Need in New York State: A Statewide Supportive Housing Needs Assessment Based on data collected & evaluated by CSH - backing up our advocacy for concrete action now to ensure 35,000 new units of Supportive Housing are created throughout the state.

New York State Supportive Housing Need

Real Supportive Housing Need in New York State

A Statewide Supportive Housing Needs Assessment Based on data collected & evaluated by CSH

CSH conducted a first-of-its-kind assessment of supportive housing need in eight communities across seven geographic areas of New York State, including New York City. The goal is to better utilize existing data to understand where the greatest concentration of supportive housing needs are in the state and to assist decision-makers in efficiently allocating supportive housing resources to New Yorkers struggling with, or at risk of, homelessness.

About the Communities

The 8 communities selected for the needs assessment accounted for nearly 95% of the State’s total homeless population in 2013.

  • NYC accounts for a lion’s share of the total homeless percentage (83%), the remaining seven selected areas compose 12% of the State’s homeless population, and the remaining 45 counties account for approximately 5%.
  • This is important for understanding where the State’s highest concentrations of homeless individuals and families reside and also the significant pockets of homelessness outside of New York City.

What We Found

We estimate 36,164 homeless households (30,311 Adult, 5,853 Families) were in need of supportive housing in 2013 and that nearly 32,000 supportive housing units must be created in the near future just to meet this unmet need. Access the chart showing the statewide breakdown of numbers here.

Recommendations

  • State and local decision-makers should consider the findings from this assessment to inform near-term resource allocation decisions and deploy resources within each of the areas identified in this report.
  • The State should establish a clearinghouse where uniform and complete data encompassing all populations served by supportive housing is collected, reported and available on an ongoing basis – data should go beyond “homeless” to also include those seeking refuge from domestic violence, those re-entering the community from jails/prisons and those with disabilities transitioning from institutional settings into the community.
  • The State should invest in regular comprehensive assessments of supportive housing need that rely on a whole-person and person-centered approach, encompassing a holistic understanding of the multiple complexities individuals and families face, versus an over-reliance on diagnosis-specific categories of need.
  • The State should focus on capturing useful information on individuals and families crossing multiple systems and amassing high costs to public agencies.
  • A long-term plan and commitment to create supportive housing is needed from all levels of government to begin to address this large gap in supply as compared to demand for supportive housing.

Full Report

Press Release Announcing Report

Access Latest News on Campaign 4 NY/NY Housing

When Seasons Change: A Tribute to Barbara Geller

A few months back, we paid tribute to Barbara Geller, then retiring as the long-time Director of the Statewide Services Division within the Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services (DMHAS).

We don’t often publicize retirements, but Barbara was a special consideration. To us and many others, an exceptional person.

For more than 20 years, she had been a partner with CSH and a dedicated champion of programs meeting the diverse, unique mental health and addiction services needs of her state’s most vulnerable people, including those facing homelessness and other forms of housing instability.

We knew her passion, wisdom, the quality of her efforts, and the extent of her good works. She amazed us with her foresight and impact. Innovative, tireless and cheerful, her mission mattered to her and those she reached.

In her role at DMHAS, Barbara was one of the original leaders of the movement to establish supportive housing as the solution for chronic homelessness in Connecticut. She was instrumental in establishing Connecticut’s Harvard Ash Institute award-winning supportive housing funders collaborative, and helped ensure that DMHAS contributed state dollars for services in supportive housing year after year. Under her leadership, roughly 5,000 units of supportive housing were created statewide.

A visionary, Barbara also helped advance housing first and supportive housing as a solution to some of Connecticut’s most complex problems such as how to better serve super-utilizers of costly crisis and emergency care. She always emphasized long-term, lasting solutions over short-term gains.

Barbara was a vanguard among state behavioral health officials‎ in seeing housing as critical to the mission of behavioral health agencies, even at a time when this nexus was not as accepted as it is today.

Her work not only improved the lives of many individuals and families in her own state, she is regarded as a national leader and true advocate for those most in need.

Barbara really cared about the people she served. She was more than a friend to supportive housing; she was one of those rare human beings who gave her heart and soul to making a difference for the thousands who benefitted from her drive and advocacy.

So when we learned this week that Barbara had passed from this life, our hearts were filled with deep sadness.

Our spirits, however, are lifted in the knowledge that she succeeded in building better lives for all around her and those she touched.

We are reminded that for everything there is a season.

We take great pride in having known and worked with Barbara, and in calling her our friend, and even greater comfort in knowing she lived every season to the fullest – leaving behind an incredible legacy of purpose and accomplishment transcending her time with us and the boundaries of her beloved State of Connecticut.

 

Barbara's lifetime of achievement is conveyed in her biography, published when she received a CSH Champion Award in 2014.

At the service honoring her life, Barbara was described as a "Woman of Valor" as conveyed in this poetic passage.

CT Ends Chronic Homelessness Among Veterans

CT VASenBCSH is present at today's ceremony where Governor Dannel P. Malloy is announcing that the State of Connecticut has been designated by the federal government as being the first state in the nation to have ended chronic homelessness among veterans.

Last year, Governor Malloy announced several initiatives aimed at combatting veteran homelessness with the goal of ending homelessness among veterans by the end of 2015.  The state has since made major investments in housing, including supportive housing, becoming a national leader for its work.

Ending chronic homelessness among veterans is a milestone for Connecticut in its efforts to end homelessness entirely among veterans by the end of the year.  Connecticut is one of just a handful of states designated for, and participating in, the Zero:2016 initiative, which aims to end all chronic homelessness by the end of next year.  Today's announcement means that all known veterans experiencing chronic homelessness are either housed or are on an immediate path to permanent housing, and that the state will be able to rapidly place any veteran who newly experiences chronic homelessness on the path to permanent housing.

Full Press Release Here

Today's announcement was held at Victory Gardens, a CSH funded supportive housing project in Newington, Connecticut.

 

 

Working With Aging Tenants In Supportive Housing: Connecticut Providers

It’s a fact none of us can escape and we’re told we should embrace: we all grow older. But when you’re facing homelessness, aging becomes a much harder reality and often adds significantly to the challenges of surviving on the streets every day.

According to the National Coalition for the Homeless (2009): “Definitions of aged status in the homeless vary from study to study. However, there is a growing consensus that persons aged 50 and over should be included in the 'older homeless' category. Homeless persons aged 50-65 frequently fall between the cracks of governmental safety nets: while not technically old enough to qualify for Medicare, their physical health, assaulted by poor nutrition and severe living conditions, may resemble that of a 70-year-old.”

Compared to the general population, residents in supportive housing who are aging in place also have issues we must consider such as facility accommodations and changing service needs.

As a result of the extensive work of the Connecticut Supportive Housing Quality Initiative Supervisors’ Learning Collaborative – and with the support of the Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, Housing Innovations and CSH – a comprehensive guidance document has been developed to assist providers: Working With Aging Tenants In Supportive Housing: Connecticut Providers.

While this document was developed specifically for and by supportive housing providers in Connecticut, it can be adapted for other states or communities. This guidance document provides the following resources developed to assist supportive housing providers deliver optimal services to aging supportive housing tenants and older persons entering supportive housing in Connecticut:

  • Checklist: Agency Competencies for Working With Aging Tenants in Supportive Housing
  • Resource Guide for Agencies Working With Aging Tenants in Supportive Housing
  • Resource Template for Agencies Working With Aging Tenants in Supportive Housing
  • Training Framework for Direct Care Staff Working With Aging Tenants in Supportive Housing 
  • Checklist: When Someone Dies in DMHAS-funded Supportive Housing in Connecticut 
  • Job description for Direct Care Staff Working With Aging Tenants in Supportive Housing

CSH is available to help you with your questions and training needs related to this document and tenants aging in supportive housing. Please contact us at info@csh.org 

Access the full guidance document here.

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