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SSVF Program Launch: Establishing Services in Compliance with Goals and Regulations

SSVF Program Launch: Establishing Services in Compliance with Goals and Regulations. Practice Area 2: Assessment and the Housing Plan. Screening and Intake vs. Assessment and Housing Plan. Screening: Determining whether the applicant is eligible for services and meets priorities

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SSVF Program Launch: Establishing Services in Compliance with Goals and Regulations

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  1. SSVF Program Launch:Establishing Services in Compliance with Goals and Regulations Practice Area 2: Assessment and the Housing Plan

  2. Screening and Intake vs. Assessment and Housing Plan Screening: • Determining whether the applicant is eligible for services and meets priorities Admission and Intake: • Making the decision to open a case and collecting basic intake information Assessment: • Identifying the participant’s barriers to getting and/or keeping housing Housing Plan: • The steps (including financial and non-financial assistance) the participant and program will utilize to obtain and/or retain housing

  3. Assessment Housing Plan • Definition of Housing Stability: Not just semantics • What you think should be assessed and how you think you should intervene will be influenced by your beliefs about: • The causes of homelessness • Poverty • Disability • Your professional role

  4. Progressive Assessment Focus on the situation: what’s needed to get/keep housing: • Tenant Screening Barriers are critical to landlords and therefore directly affect access to housing. 2. Housing Retention Barriers are challenges that directly and imminently affect a participant’s ability to retain housing.

  5. Tenant Screening Barriers (TSBs) • Assessment of the participant’s TSBs is used to match them to the most appropriate landlord, NOT to screen the participant out. • Buy and/or create the same screening “report” a landlord would see: -Income, Employment -Credit History -Criminal History -Rental History

  6. Housing Retention Barriers Avoid subjective (or stereotyped) assumptions about the impact of life or health problems on the participant’s ability to retain housing. However, if a participant’s housing history clearly shows housing loss was attributable to a life problem, it is a Housing Retention Barrier. If the participant has had past housing crises, look for patterns of causation that may resurface. Most common HRBs: • #1 Lack of income (employment/benefits) • Lack of knowledge of landlord-tenant laws • Lack of information/skills to meet “quiet enjoyment” clause in the lease (behavior of guests, children, noise, conflict, etc.)

  7. Disability • Disability is rarely a cause of homelessness; most disabled people lose their housing for the same reasons as non-disabled people. • Disabled people are 200-300% over-represented among the lowest income groups—who are the participants most at risk of homelessness! • A person should not be automatically assessed for a disability unless there is a specific reason: • Rental history includes housing loss clearly due to inability to manage a disability such as substance abuse or mental illness; • To obtain disability income supports or services/resources; • Because the participant wants help in this area.

  8. Housing Plan • Must be consistent with the core principles: Housing First, crisis response, participant choice. • Focuses on rapidly resolving the immediate crisis: the barriers to retaining or obtaining housing(e.g. payment of arrears, locating housing, financial assistance, connections to employment, debt renegotiation, benefits, free or reduced-cost services/commodities, etc.) • Limits the number of goals, particularly goals that require significant behavior change. • Must be reasonablefor the participant’s history and situation and for the local housing and employment markets.

  9. A Housing Plan… • Deals with immediate issues related to retaining or obtaining housing • Goals are SMART—Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely • Has action steps leading to the goals • Specifies who is responsible for each step—staff or participant • Includes a date for review of progress • Is revised as needed until goals are met

  10. Housing Plan Tips • Plan to make frequent revisions as actions and short-term goals are completed. • Reduce or increase expectations based upon participant’s stress level and follow-through. • Participants choose if, how and when to address other life issues --and are more likely to be willing/ able to do so after their housing crisis is resolved. • Remember that most participants will successfully resolve their crisis, whether or not they significantly change their behavior or their income. • Update at exit: ongoing goals and plan for future crisis

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