City of Grand Forks - Print Friendly Form

Committee Minutes

City of Grand Forks

10-Year Plan to End Long Term Homelessness
Minutes from Meeting #6 – January 9, 2008; 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
The Link Community Center, 300 Cherry Street

Present:

Terry Hanson, GF Housing Authority	Sue Shirek, GF Police Department
Dave Sena, Northlands Rescue Mission	Pat Berger, United Way
Lora Machart, Red River Valley Community Action	SuAnn Wood Frasier, GF Community Foundation
Susan Houser, Job Service ND	Keith Berger, GF County Social Services
Greg Hoover, Urban Development	Craig Knudsvig, GF Housing Authority
Janell Regimbal, Lutheran Social Services	Lynda Berger, GF Housing Authority
Peggy Kurtz, Urban Development	Meredith Richards, Urban Development
Todd Fahrni, UD Intern	Faye Kihne, Community Violence Intervention Center
JoAnn Brundin, St. Vincent de Paul	Gerri Anderson, Northeast Human Services
Mary McConnell, Prairie Harvest Human Services	Debbie Swanson, GF Public Health Dept.
Terri Keehr, GF Public Health Dept.	Charlotte Gregerson, Mountainbrooke
Geneva LaVallie, Red River Valley Community Action	Amanda Lupien, Community Violence Intervention Center
Tami Byzewski, Northeast Human Services	Jessica Thomasson

Peggy welcomed everyone to the final meeting of the stakeholder’s group. The draft of the final plan had been previously e-mailed to the group for their review. Jessica reviewed the framework; some agencies have already submitted comments. In the Strategy section, the tables list what actions we want to take and also include a Leader & Stakeholder section. We know the sum of these actions can’t be carried out by any one agency – there has to be cooperation across the board. Jessica said her idea in the final plan was to keep the narrative down and highlight the important messages. The framework includes “why end homelessness” and Grand Forks homeless numbers. On page 9, defining the goal – based on the last PIT, we’re talking about 77 households over the next 10 years. This is a “best guess” right now. This number, along with the make-up of these households, will almost surely change over the next 10 years. Pat Berger asked when the 2008 PIT was due and how soon we will have those numbers. Jessica said it is set for the end of January and the numbers will probably be available sometime in February. The guiding principals indicate a very specific goal of ending long-term homelessness, not of ending poverty or even homelessness in general. We will take no action that maintains homelessness, but instead ends it. Doing nothing is not without cost.

The action steps, or strategies, are laid out starting on page 11 and include our goals; i.e., how many units we need, how many vouchers we need, etc.

Strategy #1 – Outreach:

· Maintain and enhance regular contact and relationship-building
· Integrate peer support into program delivery (Goal: show that the 12 agencies listed in the support service matrix are utilizing peer support in some way.)
· Community outreach – this was a bigger component than originally anticipated. Jessica said that several points throughout the action steps are geared toward empowering people in the community who have limited contact with homeless people in order to get the message out. This leans toward lending itself to a partnership with UND. (Goal: increase and disseminate “homeless” guide.)

Strategy #2 - Treatment Services:

· Social detox (Goal: bring forward recommendation to Council for social detox.)
· Increase our capacity for inpatient treatment (Goal: increase by 6-12 spaces.)
· Shortage of licensed addiction counselors – access the considerable assets of UND Social Work Department and Med School. (Goal – present solutions to Legislature.)

Strategy #3 – Access to services:

· Provide a preference for access to services when feasible. (Goal: MOA with key agencies.)
· Host a Homeless Connect event
· Ensuring that referral networks can work with both housed and homeless people.
· Ensure that agencies continue their relationships - Post Exit Follow-up. (Goal: develop follow-up case management plan for four agencies which provide housing.)
· Make permanent housing a high priority in all interactions – take deliberate steps to articulate this message. Goal: Develop “What’s my role” talking points.)

Strategy #4 – Permanent housing:

· Maintain strong supply of affordable housing
· Development of an SRO project which would add to the existing housing stock some efficiency-type units, not designated only for homeless, but for extremely low income people. (Goal: 24-30 units.)
· Cultivating relationships with landlords – the idea here is to connect people to existing units and making sure good relationships exist with landlords. (Goal: Identify landlord partners who manage 200 units of rental housing.)

Strategy #5 – Ability to pay rent (financial resources):

· Implement a Section 8 preference for long term homeless.
· Implement Shelter Plus Care program to supplement Section 8. Goal: submit applications for 10 additional S+C vouchers.)
· Make sure we take a broad view of what employment or meaningful activities might include.
· Connect people with benefits – plug-in to statewide efforts.
· Money management – this is an area where we didn’t indicate a Leader. The idea is to integrate money management tips into all homeless services. (Goal: develop “money management basics” material.)
· Start-up money – identify funding source for the costs of obtaining a first apartment i.e., household goods, furnishings, etc. (Goal: $1,000 start-up grants; $15,000 in Year 1.)

Strategy #6 - Prevention:

· Develop and disseminate “best practices” information to landlords on how to prevent eviction.
· Establish a mechanism for landlord/tenant mediation (again a statewide issue).
· Expand the foster care Living Skills program - try to educate earlier and more often.
· Prepare tools to help the community recognize risk factors for homelessness and what we all can do.

Strategy # 7 – Planning:

This section reflects taking deliberate steps in planning to end homelessness. Once the planning is done, then it will be time to implement. The community will decide how to go forward.

· Secure Council approval and adopt 10-year plan.
· Local data collection – through the PIT and by conducting a local survey, maybe once every three years, to quantify the nature of homelessness in Grand Forks. (Goal: conduct local homeless survey.)
· We need to try and come up with a way to demonstrate the cost of action versus inaction.

Jessica reviewed the short and mid-term goals (page 26). There are eight goals in the first year. She noted that the goals are heavily loaded in first five years – to complete or at least initiate work.

Jessica asked for comments. Sue asked if the homeless plan will be on the agenda at the state housing conference and Jessica replied it would be. Dave asked Jessica if she could put the timeline of the short and mid-term goals into a chart so we can visualize what is starting the first year and how long it will take to complete. Amanda added that the Village and perhaps the NDSU extension office also offer money management. Sue said there was a small group of providers looking at getting the banking community to teach money management skills to the 18-21 year old group. Pat said, under financial resources, the United Way community impact grants will be focusing specifically on financial stability and independence ($75,000) and they will be presenting this soon. She asked Jessica to put United Way down as a leader under securing financial resources. Pat said they want to partner with agencies to work towards a goal of financial stability. Dave said they do some money management at the Mission regarding debt load, adding that child support payments have a great impact for their clients. He asked if there were any programs for debt cancellation. Terry said there have been advertisements on TV where you can call in and they will get your interest rates reduced, which will ultimately reduce your debt. Greg added he hadn’t seen a program to specifically cancel debt. Jessica said this is an interesting concept; it would be much like a start-up fund. Terry wondered how much money we were talking about. Dave said he has clients with $10,000-$15,000 in medical bills, back rent, back child support, etc. Sue said maybe we can’t cancel the debt but instead could restructure. Terry said, if there is a client with a large medical bill, maybe there could be an effort to go to Altru or wherever the bill is on their behalf and ask them to write it off or defer it. Terry added that we all pay for write-offs and even if a debt is written off, it will continue to exist through collections. Jessica asked if the Village was a logical partner and the general consensus of the group was yes.

Craig said that he didn’t see the VA mentioned. Gerri said there is money available for homeless vet programs and Fargo is starting up homeless vet housing, so maybe we’ll see Grand Forks vets leaving for Fargo. VA also does outreach to their clients. Gerri said we need to link homeless people up with doctor care to prevent large ER or medical bills from happening in the first place. This just shows how comprehensive this effort has to be - we are already paying the price for doing nothing. And it’s not just writing off debt; money management education is important and people still have to take responsibility for their own actions. Gerri asked if the action step to increase inpatient treatment capacity (page 4) was talking about MI or SA; both are needed. There is a waiting list of 15 for the state hospital right now. Terry felt this is something that should be pushed through the legislature regarding the 10-year plan. Janell, referring to page 4, said gambling is another type of addiction that can very easily contribute to homelessness. She added there are very few resources for treatment of a gambling addiction. Jessica said this would lend itself to cross addiction issues and asked if there were some bullet points she should include in the plan. Janell referred to page 26 – expanding the living skills program available to foster children up to age 21. The problem is kids who have been in the corrections process can’t get into the life skills program. She suggested revising this part to say “to include other high risk youth populations”. Terry asked if this was a curriculum that should be in the school system and Janell said there is already, but sometimes these kids are not in school. Janell said we need to broaden this scope and include kids who don’t normally fit the criteria. Sue said, in terms of working with kids, to put the Police Dept. and School District down as stakeholders.

Sue said the Police Department currently coordinates landlord training. Janell said LSS does work in Bismarck with ex-offenders looking for housing and work; adding that she didn’t see Parole and Probation for adults listed here. Pat Berger said that Community Options is a for-profit business starting up and is taking the place of some Job Service duties - job skills, welfare to work, etc. Keith said these programs are for people on County Social Service programs so it wouldn’t fit with this group. Dave said the Mission has a good relationship with the Parole and Probation office, specifically with sex offender probation. They also receive phone calls from the State penitentiary. Jessica said several plans list “discharge plans” as a key component and asked if it was something that we want in our plan. Terry asked how many people we’re talking about and Jessica said about 1/3 of the LTH population list some criminal background. Terry felt we must then include it in our plan. Jessica said we touch on it in the section on relationships with landlords. The PIT doesn’t go into too much detail with this question, only asking if someone has been convicted; this is another reason to have a local study done, to see if this is a population in need. Gerri said this is part of the State homeless coalition efforts and they are working with the DOCR. Jessica said, in terms of this plan, the immediate concern for someone coming out of the corrections system is that they don’t become homeless. We can address this through S+C, Section 8, relationships with landlords, etc. Terri Keehr asked if people just getting out of prison would be eligible for services; are they considered LT homeless? Terry said that prison isn’t permanent housing; they are homeless unless they have a permanent address somewhere else. Dave said the focus of this group is to help LTH and to hopefully open up resources to continue working with homeless people in general. But we do have to make some marketing efforts to educate public. Jessica agreed; we are also trying to prevent people from getting to the LTH state. Most of the effort of the plan deals with intervention but we must also include prevention. JoAnn said that the DOCR has it’s own definition of homeless.

Charlotte said she had a feeling that the people we’re going to reach are already in the system and we’re not going to reach the people out on the streets. JoAnn said it’s our job, then, to do the outreach to find them. Terry felt the initial contact with people who don’t know what services are available will be either by the Police Department or the Mission. Dave said he felt good about this effort, there will be good done. We may not get to every person, but at least we have the infrastructure in place to continue to address this problem. We can come back intermittently to improve our efforts. This has been a very good enlightening effort. The long term will see a bigger impact that any of us can guess, but it will need lots of marketing. Terri said we can start marketing with a Homeless Connect event within the first six months. Sue said this has to be a community effort and we need to say “I am Grand Forks and I don’t want homelessness to exist in my town”. JoAnn added that it also may take two or three times before someone is successful in maintaining permanent housing. Craig asked what are the expectations of the community – we need to find a way to be focused; we can’t say we’re going to house every homeless person. Pat felt we can address this through a media campaign plus by carrying education back to our respective board of directors. Jessica said, to capture this conversation, we will add the community as stakeholders in the conclusion; whether through marketing or just the recognition of homelessness as a problem. Dave said we’re talking about second, third, and fourth chances. There is an economic issue but it also is a “heart” issue – we don’t want people to be homeless or to die. We need a value statement at the heart of the plan. Dave asked who is the audience for this document; future funders for grants, Mayor’s office, the public, or agencies who want to use this as a tool when applying for money. Greg felt the Mayor’s office wants to put a public face on homelessness and also bring something to the Council they can use when directing funding. Greg said the Mayor is committed to this process. Terry said this is a city document; if the Council adopts it, then we as providers can use this document to say this is what we have to do to end this problem. Pat said the job doesn’t end with this committee; we need to come together again to follow up. Greg said he would like to see this group in some form continue at least quarterly to look at the progress and to continue to move forward with the plan. Also, the Council will look to you as providers to say we’re willing to partner but how are you working together to accomplish this. Meredith felt a key element is that we’ve got the non-profit community together in one room and on the same page to produce document to make a single population a priority. Pat said we know we work together but the Council needs to know that, too. Terry felt we need to get these stories in the newspaper to help the public understand about homelessness.

Terry reported that the Grand Forks Housing Authority is currently in a 30-day public comment period for a proposed preference for LTH. He will also go to Grand Forks Homes, Inc., and ask them to give a preference as well. The Board wants public comment on this and hopes to see letters of support and Terry encouraged everyone to provide a comment on providing a preference to LTH. Also, on Feb. 7th, this issue will be before the Housing Authority board to either approve or deny. It will be contingent on whether other agencies will provide services and resources. The meeting is at 11:30 a.m. at the Housing Authority office. Janell asked what effect this will have on the regular waiting list. Terry said it will affect it but not greatly – we will still be able to provide housing for other population. This is a nationwide effort being endorsed by many associations on down to the local levels.

Gerri said we need to specify on the S+C application that vouchers will be used for long-term homelessness. Jessica said the minimum goal is to have an additional 10 S+C vouchers within 10 years. JoAnn felt the Housing Authority could apply for the S+C vouchers for all the agencies. Terry said if there is a shortage of S+C vouchers, we can approach United Way to supplement the shortage.

Amanda said that some form of measurement of our success will be key in showing that this will be effective; to show this is worth the investment –we need outcome measurements. Terry felt we need an effective study and survey instrument to measure people at both the front and back doors (going into homelessness and once they are permanently housed). Dave said that it’s expensive to do the statistics, but it’s something that’s worthwhile; not just to do a regular survey but to track people to see what happens to them. Jessica said she will add how to measure success to the plan; we can use our local assets and UND to engage someone to take this on as a project, to set up a protocol that won’t cost any agency in time. Gerri said we can also use the HMIS to extrapolate data.

Terry felt we need to clarify chronic versus long term – we need one term. The same with household, individual or family - households are families of 1+. Jessica said she will try to clarify these terms, but the majority are single people. She didn’t know if she could completely exclude one term over another. Dave felt we should indicate the correlation between this plan and the State plan, as well as the national effort. Jessica said the Governor’s interagency coalition has not adopted a plan yet, but the State Homeless Coalition has a Continuum of Care plan.

Meredith told the committee that we are on the agenda for a Council working session on January 16th (4pm at City Hall). This meeting is not to take action, but with a complicated issue like this, it’s our opportunity to present it in an informal setting before it goes to the Committee of the Whole and City Council for action. This is a public meeting and you are welcome to attend to show your support. Jessica added that attendance at this meeting would be beneficial to support the tenets of the plan and to encourage the Council to adopt as policy plan.

Dave asked if staff would send out an e-mail reminder about the upcoming meetings. We need to support this as a partnership between the City and agencies; this is a united effort on behalf of the community by the non-profit community. Terry agreed, stating that the agencies bring their expertise knowing this is a problem in our town and signing on to belief that it is cost effective for us to do this. We are asking the Council to help us by adopting the plan.

Jessica said she will have the changes made by the end of this week so the draft that goes to Council will reflect what has been said today. Greg thanked everyone on behalf of Mayor Brown, who is behind this effort and appreciates everyone’s hard work.

Respectfully submitted by Peggy Kurtz, Office of Urban Development