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2024 Family & Youth Housing Vouchers Peer Learning Series

CSH, with support from Casey Family Programs, will host a series of peer learning sessions for child welfare and their housing and services partners that build from papers and virtual sessions focused on accessing and maximizing the impact of federal housing vouchers (FUP/FYI) for families and youth impacted by child welfare. Each session will be focused on a specific topic or theme elevated from the field and allow for peer discussions to delve deeper into problem-solving challenges, offer examples and identify opportunities, and feature peers and other experts to provide support and insights. These peer learning sessions are planned throughout 2024, beginning on February 5, 2024, and will be held every other month on the first Monday for 90 minutes at 10:00 am PT/1:00 pm ET. Topics will be announced in advance of each session.


Session One:

Successful Multisector Partnerships for FUP/FYI Implementation  

Monday, February 5, 2024 1:00 PM - 2:30 PM ET | 10:00 AM - 11:30 AM PT 


Session Two:

Navigating and Securing Housing Units for Youth and Family Housing Vouchers Program
Monday, April 1, 2024 1:00 PM - 2:30 PM ET | 10:00 AM - 11:30 AM PT 

Register Here


Session Three:

Identification and Referral of Families and Youth  
Monday, June 3, 2024 at 1:00 PM - 2:30 PM ET | 10:00 AM - 11:30 AM PT 

Register Here


Session Four:

Exploring the Potential of Public Housing Authorities 
Monday, August 5, 2024 at 1:00 PM - 2:30 PM ET | 10:00 AM - 11:30 AM PT 

Register Here


Session Five:

Supportive Services for Housing Voucher Participants
Monday, October 7, 2024 at 1:00 PM - 2:30 PM ET | 10:00 AM - 11:30 AM PT 

Register Here


Session Six:  

Monday, December 2, 2024 at 1:00 PM - 2:30 PM ET | 10:00 AM - 11:30 AM PT 

Registration link coming soon

Policy Brief: How State Leaders Can Take Action to Keep Families Together and Support Youth Transitions

CSH estimates that there are approximately 90,000 families and youth in need of supportive housing, including 43,646 families with child welfare involvement. While lack of housing should not necessitate child welfare involvement, housing instability alongside additional challenges such as substance use or mental health needs can affect the overall placement decision. Access to permanent housing often means that families can stay together while receiving child welfare prevention services or reunify more quickly if children are in out-of-home care. Research has demonstrated that children and youth who have a reliable place to call home also spend fewer days in foster care, experience a reduction in subsequent abuse and neglect cases, reduce their risk of subsequent homelessness, and increase their school attendance.

Housing vouchers and rental assistance play a significant role in keeping families together and supporting youth in transitioning successfully into adulthood. While most housing vouchers are issued from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) via local Public Housing Authorities (PHAs) , there are many states that have funded voucher and rental assistance programs for families and transition age youth. States like New Jersey, California, Washington, and Colorado have all developed and funded housing assistance to support child-welfare involved families and youth.

Briefs: Federal Housing Vouchers to Support Youth Transitions

These briefs discuss how Family Unification Program (FUP) and Foster Youth to Independence (FYI) federal housing vouchers can support transition, wellbeing, and stability for youth/young adults' transitions from foster care involvement with the child welfare system. Part 1 provides an overview of FUP and FYI vouchers. Part 2 offers a detailed guide to administering FUP and FYI vouchers for youth and young adults. 

The publications were made possible in collaboration with Casey Family Programs, whose mission is to provide, improve – and ultimately prevent the need for – foster care.

Child Welfare Family Housing Voucher Briefs

These briefs present information on federal housing voucher programs, such as the Family Unification Program (FUP), that child welfare and housing leaders can use to stabilize families through cross-sector partnerships. These briefs provide strategies for successfully administering FUP vouchers and identifying FUP eligible families. They also dispel common myths around the administration of FUP vouchers, so that these critical housing resources can be leveraged to to help strengthen families and keep children safe.

The publications were made possible in collaboration with Casey Family Programs, whose mission is to provide, improve – and ultimately prevent the need for – foster care.

Health and Housing: Introduction to Cross-Sector Collaboration (via NASHP)

This article was authored by Marcella Maguire, Allie Atkeson, and Sandra Wilkniss. Dr. Maguire is Director, Health Systems Integration at CSH. Below is an excerpt and link to the article.

For the past decade or more, state leaders have worked across health and housing sectors to strengthen comprehensive services for individuals experiencing homelessness and housing instability. However, challenges remain for successful, person-centered coordination, cross-agency work and implementation. A significant restricting factor that limits coordination is the fragmentation of the health and housing sectors, with persons or households with multiple needs having to navigate multiple systems to address these needs.

The COVID-19 pandemic and related economic and social crises have further exacerbated long-standing needs for coordinated health and housing services. Structural and institutional racism has created segregated communities and limited access to resources, furthering the need to center equity in states’ health and housing work. Click here to access the entire article.

Contracting Opportunity: Partnering With Tribal Communities To Develop Supportive Housing Recommendations for Native American Families Impacted by Child Welfare

Description:

CSH is seeking a consultant with demonstrated experience within Native American communities, and working with tribal experts and leaders to assist in facilitating collaborative development of supportive housing recommendations that respond to the needs of Native American families impacted by child welfare. The consultant will work with CSH and project partners to successfully organize, guide and record meetings and interviews, synthesizing and incorporating findings into a report and related materials which will help inform the end goal of fostering collaboration focused on identification of needs, assessment of promising approaches, and development of recommendations for development or adaptation of culturally responsive and appropriate housing and supportive services for Native American families with children who are living in or at risk of homelessness and involved with state, county or tribal child welfare systems. In partnership with CSH, the consultant will help bring together and facilitate a national group of Native American leaders and organizations with expertise related to Indian child welfare to think through the key questions, partnerships and strategies to strengthen families, ensure housing stability and advance racial equity.

With the support of a consultant, CSH seeks to achieve the following goals:

  • Expand and strengthen relationships with Native community leadership and key stakeholders.
  • Identify engagement opportunities to understand the biggest needs facing Native American and Alaska Native families connected to child welfare systems of states, counties and tribal nations.
  • Connect peers to explore supportive housing approaches for Native families involved in the child welfare system.
  • Bring in expertise on the Indian Child Welfare Act, tribal sovereignty and culture.
  • Lift up the voices of tribal families with lived experience to learn strengths and assets as well as unmet needs. CSH places a high value on integrating lived experience to inform housing and services approaches.
  • Explore compatibility of existing supportive housing models with the unique cultural and sovereignty needs of tribal nations and their members living both on and off reservations, such as Keeping Families Together (KFT), CSH's two-generation approach to supportive housing for families at risk of recurring involvement with child welfare. It integrates supportive services and affordable housing with a focus on ensuring that families are unified or reunified and helping parents and their children thrive.

CSH Mission and Services:

CSH is the national champion for supportive housing, demonstrating its potential to improve the lives of very vulnerable individuals and families by helping communities create over 335,000 real homes for people who desperately need them. In addition to affordable supportive housing, CSH funding, expertise and advocacy have generated nearly $1 billion in community investment and local economic activity. Building on 30 years of success developing multi and cross-sector partnerships, CSH engages broader systems to fully invest them in solutions that drive equity, help people thrive, and harness data to generate even greater outcomes. By advancing supportive housing as a platform for stability and services, CSH is optimizing public resources and ensuring healthy communities.

Background:

CSH has had the honor of collaborating with tribal nations on a variety of work to address housing instability and homelessness for tribal members in Minnesota for the past 15 years. Based on these relationships, CSH believes a supportive housing approach similar to the KFT model could have strong potential to create opportunities for all members of tribal communities throughout the country. According to national data cited by the National Indian Child Welfare Association, “Native children are overrepresented in state child welfare foster care systems, sometimes at rates as high as 12 times their overall population.” The long and horrific history of removing native children from their families affects the impact of current removal as well. Helping connect systems and establish housing and services resources that are culturally responsive and adaptive for tribal communities is essential in ensuring that family supportive housing solutions such as KFT can be successful with Native American and Alaskan Native families and children.  

Planned Activities and Deliverables:

The anticipated project activities to be completed in partnership with CSH include:

  • Participate in planning meetings with CSH to determine details and tasks for two national virtual meetings including objectives, target participants, and determine location and dates of national meetings.
  • Work with CSH project liaison(s) in crafting materials, correspondence, invitations, agendas, content, roles and approach that are appropriate for each meeting or task.
  • Conduct outreach and engagement efforts with target participants.
  • Support facilitation of initial and follow-up virtual national meetings of tribal leaders and experts, including preparation of all meeting follow-up and notes.
  • Conduct individual interviews with attendees after initial national meeting to gather additional feedback and recommendations.
  • Draft actionable framework report and accompanying presentation materials that incorporates and synthesizes themes from stakeholder meeting and interviews, including a set of recommendations and potential next steps for review by the group.
  • Support planning and facilitation of a second convening of initial attendees to review and discuss recommendations and determine direction and next steps.

Funding Available:

An amount not to exceed $25,000 is available for the project. The contract duration is expected to be 6 months. No travel is anticipated under this contract.

Application Process and Vendor Requirements:

To apply for this opportunity, please email 1Roof@csh.org on or before November 10, 2021, with a minimum of two pages and no more than five pages outlining the information below Applications received before the deadline will be evaluated based on the following criteria:

  • Suggested approach in addressing goals outlined above
  • Demonstrated successful performance of substantially similar work
  • Relevant project work
  • Experience and expertise 
  • Years of relevant experience
  • Rate reasonableness and overall cost of services
  • An understanding of the families sector including state, county and tribal child welfare and/or supportive/affordable housing systems preferred.
  • Special consideration will be given to small, disadvantaged, minority or women-owned businesses, including those owned by Native American or Alaska Native tribal members.

CSH understands that the scope of work requested may be conducted by a single consultant, a consultant group, or by an organization. The proposal should provide the name, title, address, telephone number and email address for each person engaged in the project.  If an organization, consultant group, or partnership of consultants is involved, the proposal should indicate who will serve as the point person for the work.

CSH understands the need and is committed to a broader focus on race equity in order achieve greater progress in the field of supportive housing. The work demands that CSH look internally as well as externally through our work and the work of our partners to bring marginalized voices and perspectives to the table. As such, CSH encourages applications from people and organizations led by Native American tribal members, people of color and people with lived experience.

Please note that CSH requires subcontractors, including individuals and sole proprietors, to carry workers’ compensation insurance and commercial general liability insurance (CGL) while performing work under a CSH subcontract. CSH subcontractors cannot have existing, pending or expired debarments that preclude them from doing business with the United States government and cannot have convictions for, nor have any pending indictments for, fraud or a criminal offense in connection with a public.

If you have any questions, please contact 1Roof@csh.org.

How Child Welfare Leaders Can Support Families and Prevent Family Eviction

These briefs report on the impact of evictions on families and present information on what child welfare and family support leaders and their communities can do now to prevent evictions for families and the importance of immediate and long-term cross-sector prevention strategies. In addition, the briefs include a list of ten steps to advance a family eviction prevention plan aligned with broader shifts in child welfare policy and practice and efforts to build community-based preventative supports that strengthen families and keep children safe.

The publications were made possible in collaboration with Casey Family Programs, whose mission is to provide, improve – and ultimately prevent the need for – foster care.

Policy Brief: Leveraging the American Rescue Plan’s Housing Resources to Help Families

Communities have relied on institutional settings such as homeless shelters, jails and prisons, nursing homes, and foster care for far too long to house youth and families in crisis. Yet, long-term studies over the past few decades have revealed the devastating effects of separating families caught in the institutional systems.

CSH collaborated with Casey Family Programs to produce a comprehensive policy brief for service providers on how you can leverage the housing resources provided by The American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), signed into law by President Biden in March 2021

ARPA funding gives jurisdictions the flexibility to direct and align new housing and service resources that can prevent or end experiences of homelessness, housing instability, and family separation to help families in need.

The policy brief includes opportunities for leaders from child welfare, human services and housing agencies to partner to develop supportive housing solutions to help children, youth and families thrive.

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Apply Now for Funding & Technical Assistance to Plan and Implement Keeping Families Together Supportive Housing in Minnesota & Washington

CSH is seeking eligible and qualified governments, Tribes or eligible nonprofit organizations along with eligible lead applicant partners interested in receiving intensive technical assistance to plan and implement a One Roof Initiative using a KFT supportive housing model and approach.

CSH has been awarded a three-year grant from the Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies to advance One Roof efforts, expanding access to housing opportunities for child welfare-involved families in the States of Minnesota and Washington by working with selected communities to foster multi-sector partnerships to better connect families with supportive housing – affordable housing tied to services – and embed it within the service array being offered to child welfare-involved families at risk of homelessness. The CSH objectives in this work are:

  • Objective 1: Plan, launch and fully implement KFT supportive housing model and approach in select communities in the States of Minnesota and Washington.
    • Two communities in Minnesota and one community in Washington will be selected. We are looking to fund communities that have not received previous intensive and site-specific TA focused on the implementation of the three phases of KFT outlined in Section V. Communities and regions that have participated in learning webinars or beginning conversations on implementing a KFT initiative with CSH are eligible for this funding.
  • Objective 2: Support the sustainability of the selected KFT communities to ensure successful outcomes for families
  • Objective 3: Set the stage for further scaling of the KFT supportive housing approach in other communities across Minnesota and Washington

These 3 communities will receive and participate in a 24-28 month package of technical assistance provided by CSH and each applicant can request up to $225,000 total in subgrant funding to support the applicant and project partners participation in, and implementation of the KFT initiative.

Download the RFP for complete details and requirements to apply for this opportunity.


Deadline for Submission: October 8, 2020 at
5:00 pm CT/3:00 pm PT

Frequently Asked Questions

We have compiled questions and responses to assist organizations interested in applying for this RFP competition. Please direct any additional questions to 1Roof@csh.org by September 30, 2020.

Interested applicants are encouraged to view our Bidders Webinar recorded on September 2

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