September CCEH Newsletter

From CCEH Director Lisa Tepper Bates:

We hope you had a lovely summer! CCEH was pleased to join many of you at the National Alliance to End Homelessness (NAEH) Annual Conference in Washington, D.C. in July. So much is happening across the country to innovate and to move the ball forward on ending homelessness — with Connecticut providers at the leading edge of many emerging best practices. Please see, the link at the bottom of the newsletter for more information and presentations from the conference.

As we approach November’s elections, please take some time to review the toolkit and materials that CCEH and our partners in the Nonprofit Human Services Cabinet, under the CT Association of Nonprofits, have developed to help nonprofits facilitate voter registration. Homeless or housed, U.S. citizens who are residents of Connecticut have the right to vote in our upcoming state elections — and we can help them to do so.

As we look toward 2015 and beyond, we are focused on what it will take to make dramatic progress on our headline goals of ending chronic and veteran homelessness in the next two years. Many providers and communities in Connecticut are excited about the opportunity to access new support and free technical assistance to move these efforts forward through the Zero: 2016 Campaign. Please see more information below.

It is an honor and a privilege to work with all of you as we seek to end homelessness. The challenges are great, but the opportunities are greater. Please let us know how CCEH can help and support your efforts.

Get Out the Vote for November Elections
Please remember that the majority of our clients are eligible to vote — though many have never registered. Working with our partners in the CT Association of Nonprofits, CCEH has helped to assemble this toolkit. Secretary of the State Denise Merrill fully supports this non-partisan work by nonprofits. To support our efforts to register clients who are homeless, Secretary Merrill issued at CCEH’s request this helpful memo that shelters and other providers can print and use to help homeless clients
register to votes, if local registrars of voters are not fully informed about the rights of homeless citizens to vote in Connecticut. Please help your clients to understand the importance of exercising their right to vote, and help them register.

National Alliance to End Homelessness 2014 Annual Conference
We were so pleased to see many of our Connecticut colleagues at the National Alliance to End Homelessness Annual Conference! Great work taking place to end homelessness in Connecticut was prominently featured in several presentations, and CCEH staff were glad to be part of it.

The great variety of presentations included informative updates on best practices to end homelessness, new data and research, and specific topics — like Critical Time Intervention, working with homeless youth, understanding the opportunity to address homelessness using Medicaid, and other timely and relevant topics. Presentations from the NAEH 2014 Conference are available on the link at the bottom.

Data & Research Increasingly Shape Efforts to End Homelessness
The common theme in all of the workshops that I attended at the 2014 NAEH conference was how areas can and are using their data systems to transform the work that they so. With the upcoming Homeless Youth Count in CT, there was a lot of great information and best practices in the “Improving Local Data on Youth Homelessness” session that our local workgroup was able incorporate into our upcoming plan. HUD is taking notice of how the information that they collect on youth during the Point-in- Time count could be improved on, and will be issuing new and improved PIT methodologies specifically around counting homeless youth.

The “Integrating Data and Sharing Research to End Veteran Homelessness” workshop was great in understanding how communities are collaborating and sharing their data to achieve the 24 percent drop in veteran homelessness in the last three years. CT is in many ways out in front of this issue, and is using HMIS data to assist SSVF and VA providers in identifying veterans so that the individuals can access their services as soon as possible. Lastly, CCEH had the honor of presenting at the “Research
in Rapid Re-Housing” session with experts from Washington State, Washington DC, and a national researcher from Abt Associates. CCEH was able to highlight the outcomes that CT HMIS system is capable of tracking for our Rapid Re-Housing clients, and show other communities how it is possible to conduct similar research in their own systems.

Zero 2016: Let’s Get to Zero on Chronic and Veteran Homelessness
In the wake of the 100,000 Homes Campaign’s stunning success in housing more than 105,000 of our nation’s most vulnerable and chronically homeless people, enthusiasm is growing across Connecticut for our state’s consideration as part of the new campaign: Zero: 2016. A rigorous follow-on to the 100,000 Homes Campaign, Zero: 2016 is designed to help an elite group of communities do whatever it takes to end chronic and veteran homelessness in the next two and a half years. We are
hoping that Connecticut, as a state, will be one of those communities!

Zero: 2016 will involve hands-on coaching, implementation of transparent data and performance management, and a shared learning environment. Admission is by application only — CCEH and the Partnership for Strong Communities are working to put together our state application. Getting to zero will be hard and will require a new level of commitment from all of us, but the key lesson of the 100,000 Homes Campaign is that we can end homelessness much faster by learning together as we go, rather
than waiting for a perfect plan or perfect resources. We know what works to end homelessness, and, as a nation, we have a moral imperative to bring the solutions to scale. The time to finish the job is now.

Childcare Financial Assistance Available Through Children in Shelter
CCEH’s Children in Shelter Childcare Assistance Fund is available to help support homeless families with childcare costs. Thanks to the generous support of the Department of Housing, the fund remains open and is continuing to accept new applications. Children in Shelter is open to families living in emergency shelters (including domestic violence shelters) or enrolled in the CT Rapid Rehousing Program. It may pay for childcare fees at a licensed facility or licensed individual provider for a child under the age of 6 and their eligible siblings, as well as transportation needs, such as bus passes or gas cards. CCEH is pleased to announce that later this month, Children in Shelter will be expanded to serve children up to the age of 12. More details on this change coming soon!

Connecticut Housing Coalition Annual Conference
Don’t miss Connecticut’s largest gathering of affordable housing practitioners and advocates. The annual conference of the Connecticut Housing Coalition will be held on Wednesday, September 24th, from 8:15am-4:30pm, at the Connecticut Convention Center in Hartford. This year’s event promises 18 wide-ranging workshops, inspiring presenters, practical training and valuable networking opportunities.
Registration Fee:
$125 Coalition members and Co-sponsor members
$150 Non-members
Click The Link At The Bottom For More Info And For Our Brochure
For more information, contact Jenna Ferguson at jenna@ct-housing.org or 860-563-2943, ext. 16.

CLICK BELOW FOR ALL INFORMATION MENTIONED ABOVE AND MORE:
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