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.

2010 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 2009 was to open 300 units across the various populations. The actual number of new construction (or rehab) units opened will be 329.
     We also had a goal of funding 150-200 additional development units for homeless individuals and families, and our expectation is that fall NOFA will achieve that level.
   • The 2009 goal for dedicated rental subsidies was to add 250 new subsidies, including 100 with services supporting higher needs households. We did extremely well on this goal, adding 736, including 617 for high needs households. There will be yet more subsidies awarded by end of this year through the Fall NOFA. (these vouchers are under the Access to Housing work plan but are reported here and in the dashboard to consolidate production reporting). The total production goal for 2009 was 550 and we achieved 1,065.

   To date, 4,111 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	1,357	1,837	73%
Non-Chronic Single Adults	4,800	885	1,116	23%
Homeless Families	1,900	768	1,037	55%
Youth & Young Adults	300	113	121	40%
TOTAL Number of units added to the system	9,500	3,123	4,111	43%




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. Seventy-four landlords representing 92 properties have signed on as partners, 35 agencies are signed on and referring clients; the goal was to place 150 households by the end of the year, 271 households have been placed.

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

   Our region has funded a number of programs for chronically homeless single adults. Entry into those programs, however, currently depends on which individual is connected to which provider rather than specifically matching need to program. We are changing that to a coordinated system wide evaluation and placement program for chronically homeless single adults.

   Recent Progress:

   • We have begun creating a comprehensive data base to evaluate the potential clients. Client Care Coordination staff are working with housing providers AHA, Compass Center, DESC, LIHI, Sound Mental Health and expect to include NAVOS, Valley Cities and YMCA in Fall 2009. The first coordinated entry implementation has begun with assignment of clients to LIHI’s McDermott Place and AHA’s Wintonia.

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:

   • 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.

How CEH work plans are developed

An annual work plan is drafted by the Funders Group and approved by the Governing Board. Several work groups are involved in the planning and implementation around each of the initiatives and goals listed in the annual work plans.

Success in achieving the work plan elements is evaluated in the CEH annual reports.