Congressman Stivers Visits Returning Home Ohio Program

Congressman Steve Stivers recently met with staff from CSH and Faith Mission, located in Columbus, Ohio to meet first-hand people helped through Returning Home Ohio. This program breaks the cycle of homelessness, recidivism and then return to jail by providing those leaving incarceration with safe, stable homes and supportive services to foster successful community reintegration. Supportive services include employment supports, health care, mental and behavioral health, and ongoing case management to assist tenants in reaching their goals.

305_Congressman St and Tenant_15During this site visit, Congressman Stivers met one of the participants (pictured on the left), who discussed the importance of stable housing as he seeks to go back to school, find employment, and improve his health.

The stability of supportive housing has helped this participant lay the foundation for a strong life-plan and access the services he needs to ensure successful outcomes.

Congressman Stivers' interest in Returning Home stems in part from his service on the US House Financial Services Committee, which has jurisdiction over US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) programs.

Ohio Housing Policy Summit: Rethinking Re-entry

Last week in Ohio housing authorities and government agencies gathered at the the Housing Policy Summit to talk about the ways Public Housing Authorities (PHAs) across Ohio are looking to include and not exclude formerly incarcerated individuals. The unprecedented event attended by a record 25 housing authorities was held in partnership with the Summit County Executive’s Office and Office of Reentry, and co-sponsored by the Ohio Housing Authorities Conference, the University of Akron School of Law, the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, and the Akron Metropolitan Housing Authority.

While HUD Assistant Secretary Lourdes Castro Ramirez could not attend the event, she sent a personal letter applauding the Ohio Housing Authorities Conference for their work and stressed the importance of providing opportunities for the formerly incarcerated. She quoted a HUD notice to PHAs  stating “the Department encourages you to allow ex-offenders to rejoin their families in the Public Housing or Housing Choice Voucher programs, where appropriate.”

How PHAs are utilizing discretion to include rather than exclude people were among the presentation topics. CSH Senior Program Manager Terri Power presented with Margaret diZerega from the Vera Institute of Justice on Making it Happen: Research and Pilots, giving attendees an opportunity to hear about successful reentry projects.

Research from a recent Shriver Center report was presented in When Discretion Means Denial, which found that many housing authorities were using their discretion as a means to deny people rather than accept those in need. Other topics included Coming Home: Proven Post-Release Housing Strategies, and Getting to Work: Proven Strategies for Employment.

At the end of the day, PHA’s identified goals for the next 6 months, many of which involved reviewing administrative plans to see where they could use discretion.

Hornsby House Breaks Ground in OH

The Columbiana County Counseling Center, a nonprofit behavioral healthcare organization, performed the official groundbreaking ceremony for the Hornsby House project on May 6 2015. This project will consist of the development of two new supportive housing properties. The first in Lisbon, Ohio will hold eight one-bedroom apartments on an acre of land. The other in East Liverpool, Ohio will be a duplex.

Both developments will house adults experiencing homelessness and impacted by mental heath challenges. Along with housing, several voluntary supportive services will be offered including psychiatric services, alcohol and drug treatment programs, vocational and employment training and job-site support.

The Counseling Center, with 20 years of experience managing permanent supportive housing, will manage this property. This agency currently owns and operate 39 temporary and permanent housing locations.

This project will help to fulfill the strong need to house a vulnerable population. As one of various funders, CSH played an early role through its project initiation loan to the Counseling Center aimed at funding predevelopment and acquisition costs. Construction is set to be complete by late fall of 2015.

Please click here to read local coverage.

Opening New Doors Institute in Ohio

Ohio trainCSH is pleased to offer its Ohio Opening New Doors Institute, a training and technical assistance workshop that will take place from late September 2015 through January 2016. The Institute is designed to assist new or experienced development teams with building winning project proposals that expand capacity for supportive housing in Ohio. This year’s Institute features a combination of in-person and self-paced E-learning modules designed to maximize time and promote experiential learning.

CSH will select 8-10 teams to participate in this training series focused on developing housing to:

  • end homelessness for persons experiencing chronic homelessness
  • assist persons who are prioritized for supportive housing by local Continua of Care and Mental Health and Addiction Services Boards
  • house individuals with developmental disabilities who are transitioning into the community from institutional settings

This series will help teams learn how to navigate the complex process of developing housing with support services and is expected to reduce the time it takes to obtain funding for supportive housing by improving the planning and development process. 

The Institute is made possible by the support received from the Ohio Housing Finance agency, Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, and the Ohio Capital Corporation for Housing.

OSF Grants $150,000 to CSH for FUSE Replication

OSFThe Open Society Foundations (OSF) U.S. Programs initiative supports efforts to advance equality, fairness, and justice with a focus on the most vulnerable and marginalized communities and the most significant threats to open society in the United States today. OSF works to further a vibrant democratic society in which all people can meaningfully participate in its civic, economic, and political life and to ensure that the core institutions of civil society are effective and accountable to the public.

Areas of particular emphasis in U.S. Programs’ grant-making and other activities include:

  • The advancement of effective and fair criminal justice and drug policies,
  • Support of the rights of racial minorities and other vulnerable groups;
  • Support of institutions and practices that advance a more informed and engaged public and responsive and effective government.

OSF’s recent contribution of $150,000 to CSH to promote a scaled replication and the sustainability of the FUSE (Frequent Users/Utilizers Systems Engagement) model will help ensure that more people leaving our jails and prisons will have a real chance to become a part of the communities in which they live. Because of the generosity of OSF and others, CSH is able to recreate FUSE in more communities across the country.

FUSE is a CSH signature accomplishment that helps communities identify and engage high utilizers of public systems and place them into supportive housing in order to break the cycle of repeated use of costly crisis services, shelters, and the criminal justice system. In the FUSE model, supportive housing serves to smooth the transition from institution to community, promoting a transformation that serves those released from jails and prisons, and the general population, by improving lives and public safety.

The critical support of OSF and our partners will allow CSH to aggressively pursue our vision to create additional policy and resource tools, such as FUSE, that encourage cross-system collaboration and allow innovative responses to complex social problems.

 

CMS Issues Bulletin on Using Medicaid for Supportive Services

CMSThe Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Center for Medicaid and CHIP Services (CMCS) has released an Informational Bulletin intended to assist states in designing Medicaid benefits, and to clarify the circumstances under which Medicaid reimburses for certain housing-related activities, with the goal of promoting community integration for individuals with disabilities, older adults needing long term services and supports (LTSS), and those experiencing chronic homelessness. Consistent with statute, CMS/CMCS can assist states with coverage of certain housing-related activities and services.

Read the full CMS/CMCS Informational Bulletin here.

For more information on how states are currently using Medicaid in supportive housing, see CSH's four new resources, released earlier this month.

Read our joint statement with the National Alliance to End Homelessness, the Technical Assistance Collaborative and the National Health Care for the Homeless Council.

OrgCode, Community Solutions & CSH Launch Next Step Tool for Youth

The Next Step Tool for Homeless Youth

The Next Step Tool for Homeless Youth, or Next Step Tool, integrates the TAY Triage Tool, developed by the Corporation for Supportive Housing (CSH) through research by Eric Rice, PhD, Associate Professor at University of Southern California, with the VI-SPDAT, created by Community Solutions and OrgCode Consulting, Inc.

The TAY Triage Tool predicts which youth are most likely to experience long-term homelessness, essentially on a trajectory to becoming chronically homeless adults. The VI-SPDAT helps understand current vulnerabilities and risks to future housing stability, in order to support youth in ending their homelessness.

The Next Step Tool carefully merges all of these tested ideas together. Through a closed-ended survey where youth provide a yes, no or one-word answer, service providers have a better understanding of the intensity of supports to begin with when supporting the youth.  You can download the Next Step Tool at http://www.orgcode.com/product/vi-spdat/

 

The Youth SPDAT

To complement the launch of the Next Step Tool, OrgCode has also created a modified version of the Service Prioritization Decision Assistance Tool (SPDAT) for use specifically with youth. The Youth SPDAT was developed based on feedback from many communities using the SPDAT who identified the need for a complete assessment tool that emphasized the unique issues faced by homeless youth.

Download the Youth SPDAT.

 

CSH Transition Age Youth (TAY) Triage Tool

The CSH Transition Age Youth (TAY) Triage Tool - A Tool to Identify Homeless Transition Age Youth Most in Need of Supportive Housing - can be accessed directly here.

 

Harvard Releases State of the Nation's Housing 2015

The Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University has released The State of the Nation's Housing 2015 and this is what it says about our PROGRESS IN REDUCING HOMELESSNESS and the role supportive housing is playing, effectively getting people off our streets and keeping them housed:

"The lack of affordable housing in the United States continues to leave nearly 600,000 people homeless. More than a third are people in families, including 130,000 children under the age of 18. By comparison, chronically homeless individuals (those who have been without a place to live for at least a year or have had repeated episodes of homelessness over the past few years) account for a much smaller share (15 percent) of the homeless population. Recent increases in federal funding have aided progress in reducing both homelessness overall and among the most vulnerable groups. Indeed, the number of beds in permanent supportive housing expanded 60 percent between 2007 and 2014, to over 300,000. Beds for the chronically homeless accounted for just over half of this increase. As a result, total homelessness fell 11 percent in 2007–14, the number of homeless veterans dropped 19 percent, and the number of chronically homeless individuals was down by 30 percent. At the same time, however, the number of homeless people in families declined by only 8 percent.

But the national reduction in homelessness is not apparent in all markets. Rising rents and a dwindling supply of affordable rentals continue to put people at risk, especially in high-cost locations. Indeed, total homelessness jumped by 29 percent in New York and 40 percent in Massachusetts between 2007 and 2014. The increase in the District of Columbia was even larger, at 46 percent. Family homelessness is particularly acute in major cities, which were home to 45 percent of this population in 2014. New York City headed the list with 41,600 homeless people in families, or nearly 20 percent of the national total."

 

New Markets Tax Credits Allocated to CSH

CSH Awarded $40 Million New Markets Tax Credits
       

Today, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund announced it has awarded $40 million in New Markets Tax Credits (NMTC) to CSH as part of the 2014 round.

“The Department of Treasury has given us the tools to leverage even more resources to spur the creation of supportive housing,” said CSH President and CEO Deborah De Santis. “Not only will we be able to create the dynamic to house vulnerable people facing instability, this award will help us fulfill our goal of bringing healthcare services to hundreds more who need to access it.”

De Santis explained NMTC allocations can be used to develop facilities such as health care centers, which complement the medical and mental health services often made available to residents of supportive housing.

Thus far, CSH has used NMTC investments to leverage and add to other resources, which in turn have created about 200 units of supportive housing across the country, and enabled 15,000 healthcare visits for those facing homelessness and other forms of housing instability. In addition, CSH investments have generated approximately 800 high-quality permanent and construction jobs in communities.


To learn more about our use of NMTC to promote supportive housing, please see profiles of the Bell Building in Detroit, MI and Paseo Verde in Philadelphia, PA.


With the new award, CSH will address a number of supportive housing projects currently in the pipeline for development and estimates adding another 150 - 200 units of affordable housing, including supportive housing, and an additional 100,000 - 125,000 healthcare visits for those facing homelessness and housing instability.

“The investments made possible by today’s awards will have significant impact nationwide," said Annie Donovan, Director of the CDFI Fund.

To learn more about CSH’s New Markets Tax Credit strategy visit our lending page or contact our Community Investment Team.


"CSH gets it when it comes to supportive housing and they are willing to work in partnership with developers to tailor their support and products to get the deal done." Joe Heaphy, NSO (Bell Building) Vice-President of Real Estate Development and Management

Upcoming Training Sessions in Ohio

CSH will be offering a number of trainings in 2015 to help your organization develop, manage, and provide quality services to supportive housing in Ohio. This spring, trainings will be offered to assist potential applicants in submitting successful housing funding applications, and the Six Steps to Community Engagement. Additional capacity building trainings are being scheduled for the fall. Training is offered at no cost to participants, and is sponsored by the Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services with support from the Ohio Housing Finance Agency.

Community Engagement

Developers face increasing challenges to creating affordable housing. NIMBYism can negatively impact costs and actually derail otherwise soundly thought out projects. The Six Steps training was originally produced for use by developers of homeless housing and services and designed to respond to both the uniquely local aspect of each proposal and the generic aspect, i.e. that similar concerns are raised in nearly every case. Over time, it has proven to be an effective strategy to engage the community in constructive dialogue about proposed development projects. The Six Steps encourages housing providers to conduct a “due diligence” process early in the development planning in which the provider gathers information, considers options and makes informed, deliberate decisions about what actions it will take toward local government, local community and the media. CSH’s training will help developers understand the practical uses of the Six Steps to reduce potential delays and costs that may result from local opposition.

  • April 27, 2015 – Community Engagement and the Six Steps.

Space in this training is limited. If you are interested in attending these trainings or for additional information please contact Leah Werner at 614.228.6263 Ext 224 or leah.werner@csh.org .

Funding Application Training

In March and May, CSH will be offering practical, hands on trainings to a small group of organizations that intend to apply to the Federal Home Loan Bank of Cincinnati and the Ohio Housing Finance Agency for funding to create supportive housing. The trainings will focus on the practical aspects of creating competitive applications. We conducted this training in 2013; of the teams that were trained  60% applying to FHLB were successful, and 80% applying to OHFA were successful. This resulted in a total of 50 units of supportive housing being added to the pipeline and securing $4.8 million in capital.

  • May 5, 2015 - Ohio Housing Finance Agency – Housing Development Gap Financing

Space in these sessions is limited. If you are interested in attending these trainings or for additional information please contact Leah Werner at 614.228.6263 Ext 224 or leah.werner@csh.org .

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