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Virginia Learning Collaboratives. Reducing Family Homelessness in Virginia: A Rapid Re-Housing Approach. Agenda. Welcome and Introductions Rapid Re-Housing Role Play Rapid Re-Housing Overview Learning Collaborative Goals Organizational Work (Review current programs)
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Virginia Learning Collaboratives Reducing Family Homelessness in Virginia: A Rapid Re-Housing Approach
Agenda • Welcome and Introductions • Rapid Re-Housing Role Play • Rapid Re-Housing Overview • Learning Collaborative Goals • Organizational Work (Review current programs) • Organizational Goal Setting • Debrief • Next Steps
Welcome • Name, Organization and Role • Complete this sentence: • “To improve rapid re-housing, we need to…”
Best Practices Rapid Re-housing Overview
‘ • …provision of housing relocation and stabilization services and short- and/or medium-term rental assistance as necessary to help a homeless individual or family move as quickly as possible into permanent housing and achieve stability in that housing. ESG Interim Rule, December 2011
‘ to establish a Federal goal of ensuring that individuals and families who become homeless return to permanent housing within 30 days HEARTH Act Purposes – Sec. 1002(b)
Standards for Rapid Re-Housing Rapid Re-housing Best Practice
Rapid Re-Housing Program Components • Housing Barrier Assessment Tool • Landlord Recruitment and Housing Search • Financial Assistance • Home-based Case Management with Voluntary Services
Rapid Re-Housing Program Outcomes and Data • Length of time it takes to re-house participants, from homeless episode (entry into shelter system) to exit to permanent housing • Permanent Housing Exits – percent of households who remain in permanent housing at exit date from the rapid re-hosuing program • Housing Stability – percent of households in permanent housing at exit who return to homelessness in 12 months of exit • Efficiency – Program cost (including all program costs) per household served
Rapid Re-Housing Program Orientation • Quickly re-housing homeless households • Strength-based approach focusing on client identified services • Service needs addressed based on client’s desire to address those needs
Rapid Re-Housing Program Policies • Services in a rapid re-housing program are voluntary. Rapid re-housing providers cannot require that program participants engage in services unless required to do so by their funding source • Leases that program participants obtain are the same as leases that renters in the community obtain.
Looking at our programs What does this mean?
Is Rapid Re-Housing for Everyone? • Why to try rapid re-housing for everyone: • Hard to tell who will and won’t be successful • No assessment for client resiliency • Not a “one size fits all” • Program needs to be flexible • Progressive engagement
Goal of Learning Collaboratives • Reduce length shelter/homeless stay (LOS) for families and move more families from shelter to permanent housing • Rapid Re-housing Program that is inclusive and can serve anyone
Our Purpose Today • Develop organizational change to meet the Learning Collaborative goals • Establish aggressive organizational benchmarks
Establishing our Learning Collaborative BenchmarksSmall Group Collaborative Work:“What specific benchmarks should our Learning Collaborative set to reach our goal of reducing homelessness and length of time families experience homelessness?”
Debrief • List all the benchmarks • Determine as a full collaborative which benchmarks will be used
Looking at our programs Review of Organizational Materials and Current practice
Rapid Re-Housing Policies and Procedures • What do your policies and procedures say? • Are they clear, objective, and developed to help all families be rapidly rehoused? • What do we need to add, change, clarify or delete to meet the collaborative goals?
Rapid Re-Housing Program Eligibility • Do eligibility standards screen people out or screen people in? • Is eligibility subjective? • Who decides who can get in the program? • What should be the eligibility requirements? • Does the household meet the HUD definition of homeless? (category 1 and 4) • Do they need assistance locating and accessing housing?
Rapid Re-Housing Program Housing Barrier Assessment • Ask: How is this directly preventing somebody from moving into housing? • Does the assessment separate housing barriers from stability barriers? • Is the barrier assessment subjective to the assessors perceptions or very definitive? • Are the guidelines clear for identifying high housing barriers?
Rapid Re-Housing ProgramHousing Search & Landlord Recruitment • Do our staff have the skills to relate to and understand landlords needs? • How do we market and recruit landlords? Do we have written contacts and information on landlord partners? What marketing tools do we use? • What creative ideas can we initiate to leverage more landlords • What kind of housing are we looking for? What does permanent housing mean?
ACTIVITY • Each Team: • Identify 5 marketing strategies that you will can implement to recruit landlords • Identify 5 incentives that you can offer to landlords to engage them as partners
Debrief • Master List identifying all the techniques • Each organization identifies something from the master list to add to their list
Financial Assistance • What are our written policy and procedures for administering financial assistance • When does assistance end?; Who decides if financial assistance can be extended? • What limits our financial assistance? Are the policies in the best interest of effectively rapidly re-housing families? • How might our current policies affect the long-term success? What can we change to help more families? • How can we be more effective with the resources we have? • What additional resources can we leverage?
Financial Assistance • Assistance is short- to medium-term • Don’t forget about consumer resiliency • Remember, the subsidy is to pay for housing, not alleviate poverty • Don’t count on client receiving a permanent subsidy afterwards
Rapid Re-Housing ProgramHome Based Case Management • Do our current policies indicate that clients must participate in certain services? • What does “client driven” mean? • How can we ensure effective home-based case management? • Who can we partner with? • Is financial assistance contingent on participation in certain services?
Services • Focused on Housing barriers • Voluntary • Home-based • Client driven
Rapid Re-Housing ProgramOutcomes and Data • Are we measuring the right stuff? • Do we measure often enough to tell the “story?” • What do we need to change to get the right data? • How quickly are households moving into housing? • How many households remain in their housing for a year after moving in, and 6 and 12 months after assistance ends? • How many are returning to shelter?
Rapid Re-Housing ProgramOther Program Elements • Terminations • When is someone closed? What is a successful vs. unsuccessful closure? • How is someone terminated? What is (if any) your appeal process? • Job Description(s) • Does the case manager job description effectively match the role for home based case management; is it housing focused? • Does the housing locator description identify the skills for landlord recruitment?
Based on Program Review, What Goals Do We Set? Action Planning
Based on Review of Current Program • What changes do we need to make? • Where are we now? (review pre-work metrics) What do we need to do to get better? • Look at Learning Collaborative goals. What do we need to do to shorten length of stay? How can we move more families to permanent housing quickly? • Now, set clear benchmarks that you will meet and the steps you need to take to get to those benchmarks
Developing the Organizational Rapid Re-Housing Action Plan • Identify aggressive organizational goals • Set clear benchmarks to implement the changes • Identify the steps you need to take to get to those benchmarks • Identify 30, 60, and 90 day targets
Debrief • What are your 30 day organizational benchmarks to meet the LC goals?
Technical Assistance • Share documents online (Google docs or Dropbox) • Webinar topics • Useful materials • Peer/site visits
Next Steps • Schedule the first call with team leaders • Have teams schedule their next team meeting at their organization
Resources • Organizational Change; Adopting a Housing First Approach • Rapid Re-Housing: Successfully Ending Family Homelessness • Rapid Rehousing: Creating Programs that Work