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CEH Funders Group annual work plans

On October 22, 2008, the Governing Board approved the convening of a Funders Group as part of the CEH structure. The Funders Group, comprised of all the major funders committed to ending homelessness within King County, creates the annual work plans based on policy recommendations by the Interagency Council, Consumer Advisory Council and Governing Board. They work to align resource and planning efforts focused on housing production and system efficiencies for the implementation of the Ten-Year Plan to End Homelessness.

2011 work plan

1. Homeless Housing Production and Funding Coordination

   The Ten-Year Plan to End Homelessness has a goal of creating 9,500 units of housing. Our efforts in the early years focused on housing for chronically homeless individuals and we have funded 1,837 of the plan’s total goal of 2,500 for that population (73%).

   Recent Progress:

   • The overall construction goal for 2010 was to open 250 units across the various populations. The actual number of new construction (or rehab) units opened will be 376.
     We also had a goal of funding 210 additional development units for homeless individuals and families, and actual funding was far beyond expectations at 619.
   • The 2010 goal for dedicated rental subsidies was to add 200 new subsidies. We added 450. The total production goal for 2009 was 450 and we achieved 826.

   To date, 4,513 units of homeless housing have been brought online or are in the pipeline – more than the entire goal of most other ten year plans in the nation.

Measure	10YP Target Total	Operational thru end of 2009	Operational plus Pipeline thru 2011	Percent Towards Goal
Chronically Homeless Single Adults	2,500	1,684	2,004	80%
Non-Chronic Single Adults	4,800	928	1,109	23%
Homeless Families	1,900	985	1,224	65%
Youth & Young Adults	300	121	156	52%
TOTAL Number of units added to the system	9,500	3,720	4,513	48%




2. Reduce Barriers and increase Number of Existing Units Added to Homeless System

   We cannot build our way out of homelessness. Use of existing housing expands our toolkit and housing inventory, allowing us to rapidly re-house people and prevent homelessness.

   Recent Progress - removing barriers:

   • The Landlord Liaison Project is up and running, providing incentives and assurances to landlords to help them rent to formerly homeless individuals. 119 landlords have signed on as partners, 43 agencies are signed on and referring clients; the goal was to place 250 households by the end of 2010, 588 households have been placed. Landlord Liaison has conducted 455 interventions to resolve issues. 186 households have been housed for at least a year, with an 86% retention rate.

3. Coordinated Entry via Client Care Coordination for High Need Chronically Homeless Adult Individuals

   Recent Progress:

   • Our region has funded a number of programs for chronically homeless single adults. In 2010 we implemented Client Care Coordination, which used a consolidated data base of high utililzers and highly vulnerable persons to identify the right candidates for newly opened units for chronically homeless single adults. In late 2010 be began application of the Client Care Coordination for vacancies. housing providers participating include Catholic Housing Services, Compass Center, DESC, LIHI, Sound Mental Health, NAVOS, Valley Cities and YMCA.

4. Coordinated Assessment and Entry for Families

   In our current system families often end up in the program that simply has the first open bed. We need to make sure that families are assigned to the appropriate program and we need a uniform assessment process so that we can accurately compare the effectiveness of programs.

   Recent Progress:

   • As part of the larger Homeless Families Initiative, we have created a blueprint and implementation strategy for a coordinated system for homeless families. Guiding Principles and operating strategies for this system have been vetted with the broader stakeholder community and the result has been solid support for a Coordinated Assessment and Entry system using regional hubs and a common assessment tool. The first phase of implementation is in place, and several newly funded rapid re-housing are piloting a common screening and assessment tool to select households for participation. The tool will be finalized in September and program staff will be trained for full implementation beginning this fall.

5. Full Development and Implementation of Homeless Management Information System (HMIS)

   As we have recognized so often, we need accurate and timely information on the results of our effort so that we can be aware of developing trends and can highlight and replicate best practices to help people get in, and stay in, permanent housing. Safe Harbors is our community’s HMIS system to help us collect and analyze this data.

   Recent Progress:

   • During 2009, the Safe Harbors team has been working closely with local partners (King County, United Way of King County), provider agencies and the State Department of Commerce (formerly CTED) to implement the new vendor-supported HMIS system from Adsystech.
   • 98% of original “Safe Harbors I” agencies are now entering data into the new system. Thirty-one agencies and 143 programs are currently entering data into the new system, out of an expected 71 agencies and 315 programs.
   • Safe Harbors’ four agency support, lead trainer and help desk support staff have worked closely with these agencies to train, provide technical support in person and over the phone and via web conference. Safe Harbors is now working to ensure that agencies that have been trained are entering data in the system.
   • By 2010 we expect to be collecting data from all 71 publicly funded agencies in King County providing homeless housing and supportive services.
   • After overcoming technical challenges and close work with Adsystech and all six Data Integration (DI) agencies, DI has been successful. DI allows the Safe Harbors team to see all data for clients served in one single data set and will allow for more streamlined reporting and analysis of program usage by individuals.

6. Development of a Five Year Plan to End Veterans Homelessness

   Both the federal government and the state government have been working on Five Year Plans to End Veterans Homelessness. In 2010 King County began the planning to align our efforts closely with state and federal efforts. The completed, coordinated plan is due out in April, 2011.

7. Alignment with K-12 and Child Welfare system

   In 2010, the Funders Group directed its members to work on increasing integration between the homeless system and both the K-12 system and the child welfare system. Both initiatives are just now becoming concrete. In K-12, the Puget Sound Educational District partnered with the Seattle/King County Coalition on Homelessness to hold a joint training on McKinney-Vento services for homeless school children. The PSED has recently received a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation grant to continue that work. The hubs and coordinated entry to be created through the Homeless Families Initiative should increase the ability of school-based personnel to find support for families they know are homeless or at high risk of homelessness.

   In the child welfare system, a recent study showed that 41% of families who have an out-of-home placement case filed against them have been homeless in the year prior to the case being filed. The state Children’s Administration has express great interest in taking the Sound Families units where services are expiring but housing subsidy continues and pairing them with Children’s Administration service investments to prevent out-of-home placements or create rapid reunification.