During both our last Continuum of Care General Assembly and our last Homeless Collaborative Board meeting, Board Chair, Ashley Brundage, shared the Homeless Collaborative’s initiatives for the next six months. Without exaggeration, this action-packed period promises to be one of the busiest and most consequential in the history of our system.
The Homeless Collaborative, its workgroups, and MDHA are in the midst of five large scale top priority system initiatives:
Ending Veteran Homelessness – Though we have housed over 700 veterans since we started this challenge in 2019, we cannot stop until all our veterans have a place to call home.
Coordinated Access System (CAS) Redesign (Big Bang) – It is not at all hyperbolic to refer to CAS as the nervous system of any homeless rehousing system.
This system (which is sometimes referred to as Coordinated Entry, Centralized Entry, or Coordinated Assessment) is the process through which people experiencing or at risk of experiencing homelessness can access the homeless rehousing system in a streamlined way, have their strengths and needs quickly assessed, and quickly connect to appropriate, tailored housing and mainstream services within the community.
Through CAS, a Continuum of Care (CoC) ensures that the households with the highest needs and most acute vulnerabilities are prioritized for services and that the housing and supportive services in the system are used as efficiently and effectively as possible.
CAS is the framework that transforms a homeless services eco-system from a network of projects making individual decisions about whom to serve, into a fully integrated crisis response system. This is why the Homeless Collaborative and MDHA have spent so much time, since early 2020, identifying and instituting improvements and refinements to CAS.
CARES Act Rapid Rehousing Surge to House 550 – Multiple agencies were awarded Rapid Rehousing dollars through the Emergency Solutions Grants program, funded by the second tranche of CARES Act stimulus funds. These agencies, working hand in glove with MDHA, are working hard to rehouse 550 people over the next year. They are currently at 62 families/86 individuals housed. Stay tuned, as we will endeavor to regularly report these numbers on social media, as we climb to 550.
The Big Surge – The Homeless Collaborative Board, in its April meeting, launched its Ad Hoc Regional Housing Workgroup to plan for the coming American Rescue Plan Act stimulus dollars our Region anticipates receiving this fall. The workgroup has had a series of very productive meetings with the local governments in Dallas and Collin Counties, who will receive many of these funds.
The workgroup has also begun to plan for the best possible utilization of 700 emergency housing vouchers, which will come through local public housing authorities. These vouchers are designated specifically for persons experiencing homelessness, and PHAs must fill them through referrals from the CoC’s CAS. The workgroup is making specific provisions for Domestic Violence agencies to access these vouchers through CAS.
The next steps in this process are for the PHAs to accept their voucher allocations, and to establish Memoranda of Understanding with MDHA, on behalf of the Homeless Collaborative outlining referral and support processes.
Support Launch of a Coordinated Family System – The Family Workgroup is working to identify refinements to streamline families’ access to shelter, and from there how integrated services can strengthen their abilities to access housing. These refinements will be piloted in Fall 2021, to build better understanding of what it will take scale the refinements to measurably reduce family homelessness in our system.
Along with these system initiatives, over the next six months, the Homeless Collaborative is focusing on four priority operational enhancements:
System Performance and NOFA – The System Performance Workgroup will be reviewing the system’s recent system performance measure scores and will identify key areas for improvement. It is important to identify these in time for the annual release of the Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) for CoC Program funded organizations.
In preparation for the intense NOFA process, the Homeless Collaborative Board will also launch its new Independent Review Committee (IRC). The IRC is tasked with reviewing each individual application for funding in the NOFA process, and making funding recommendations to The Homeless Collaborative Board. If your organization is a CoC grantee, please check out the timeline which has been posted to the MDHA website.
Youth PIT Homeless Count and Youth Homelessness Demonstration Project Grant – The Youth Workgroup, or Metro Dallas Youth Committee, is planning to resume carrying out a youth count, later this year. The workgroup will also work with MDHA on submitting an application for the Youth Homelessness Demonstration Project.
Homeless Management Information System (HMIS) Use and Data Quality – With the completion of the HMIS transition to ClientTrack, the focus now shifts to improving data quality, reporting, and analytics. MDHA has engaged the Institute for Community Alliances (ICA), a leading provider of HMIS technical support and guidance, to assist with implementing these improvements in our community over the next year.
Enhanced Training and Standardization – MDHA is investing in expanding and enhancing technical assistance services throughout the homeless rehousing system. MDHA is on the cusp of rolling out a new online learning management system (LMS). This system will offer a robust suite of trainings to ensure CoC providers have the latest best practice knowledge, skills, and resources to be able to deliver high quality services to persons experiencing homelessness in Dallas and Collin Counties. The LMS will also enable MDHA to better deliver targeted training to provide technical assistance and compliance in implementing HUD requirements.
You can watch Ashley’s presentation this blog post is based on, as well as elaboration on different parts of it from other speakers, by going to our CoC General Assembly Agendas, Minutes, and Recordings, scrolling all the way down, and clicking on the May 2021 recording.
