Virginia Learning Collaboratives Reducing Family Homelessness in Virginia: A Rapid Re-Housing Approach

Agenda 1.Welcome and Introductions 2.Rapid Re-Housing Role Play 3.Rapid Re-Housing Overview 4.Learning Collaborative Goals 5.Organizational Work (Review current programs) 6.Organizational Goal Setting 7.Debrief 8.Next Steps

Welcome 1.Name, Organization and Role 2.Complete this sentence: “To improve rapid re-housing, we need to…”

Rapid Re-Housing Role Play Game

RAPID RE-HOUSING OVERVIEW Best Practices

‘ …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)

RAPID RE-HOUSING BEST PRACTICE Standards for Rapid Re-Housing

Rapid Re-Housing Program Components 1.Housing Barrier Assessment Tool 2.Landlord Recruitment and Housing Search 3.Financial Assistance 4.Home-based Case Management with Voluntary Services

Rapid Re-Housing Program Outcomes and Data 1.Length of time it takes to re-house participants, from homeless episode (entry into shelter system) to exit to permanent housing 2.Permanent Housing Exits – percent of households who remain in permanent housing at exit date from the rapid re-housing program 3.Housing Stability – percent of households in permanent housing at exit who return to homelessness in 12 months of exit 4.Efficiency – Program cost (including all program costs) per household served

Rapid Re-Housing Program Orientation 1.Quickly re-housing homeless households 2.Strength-based approach focusing on client identified services 3.Service needs addressed based on client’s desire to address those needs

Rapid Re-Housing Program Policies 1.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 2.Leases that program participants obtain are the same as leases that renters in the community obtain.

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? Looking at our programs

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 1.Reduce length shelter/homeless stay (LOS) for families and move more families from shelter to permanent housing 2.Rapid Re-housing Program that is inclusive and can serve anyone

Our Purpose Today 1.Develop organizational change to meet the Learning Collaborative goals 2.Establish aggressive organizational benchmarks

Establishing our Learning Collaborative Benchmarks Small 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 Collaborative which benchmarks will be used

REVIEW OF ORGANIZATIONAL MATERIALS AND CURRENT PRACTICE Looking at our programs

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 1.Do eligibility standards screen people out or screen people in? 2.Is eligibility subjective? 3.Who decides who can get in the program? 4.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 Program Housing Search & Landlord Recruitment 1.Do our staff have the skills to relate to and understand landlords needs? 2.How do we market and recruit landlords? Do we have written contacts and information on landlord partners? What marketing tools do we use? 3.What creative ideas can we initiate to leverage more landlords 4.What kind of housing are we looking for? What does permanent housing mean?

ACTIVITY Each Team: 1.Identify 5 marketing strategies that you will can implement to recruit landlords 2.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 1.What are our written policy and procedures for administering financial assistance When does assistance end?; Who decides if financial assistance can be extended? 2.What limits our financial assistance? Are the policies in the best interest of effectively rapidly re-housing families? 3.How might our current policies affect the long-term success? What can we change to help more families? 4.How can we be more effective with the resources we have? 5.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 Program Home Based Case Management 1.Do our current policies indicate that clients must participate in certain services? 2.What does “client driven” mean? 3.How can we ensure effective home-based case management? 4.Who can we partner with? 5.Is financial assistance contingent on participation in certain services?

Services Focused on Housing barriers Voluntary Home-based Client driven

Rapid Re-Housing Program Outcomes 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? 1.How quickly are households moving into housing? 2.How many households remain in their housing for a year after moving in, and 6 and 12 months after assistance ends? 3.How many are returning to shelter?

Rapid Re-Housing Program Other Program Elements Terminations 1.When is someone closed? What is a successful vs. unsuccessful closure? 2.How is someone terminated? What is (if any) your appeal process? Job Description(s) 1.Does the case manager job description effectively match the role for home based case management; is it housing focused? 2.Does the housing locator description identify the skills for landlord recruitment?

ACTION PLANNING Based on Program Review, What Goals Do We Set?

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 1.Share documents online (Google docs or Dropbox) 2.Webinar topics 3.Useful materials 4.Peer/site visits

Next Steps 1.Schedule the first call with team leaders 2.Have teams schedule their next team meeting at their organization

Resources  Organizational Change; Adopting a Housing First Approach Organizational Change; Adopting a Housing First Approach  Rapid Re-Housing: Successfully Ending Family Homelessness Rapid Re-Housing: Successfully Ending Family Homelessness  Rapid Rehousing: Creating Programs that Work Rapid Rehousing: Creating Programs that Work