Community09

August 2009 E-NEWS

Wilder Research Announces Report on Homeless Service Use in Minnesota

Earlier this month, Wilder Research announced the public release of Homeless Service Use in Minnesota: Emergency shelter and transitional housing, federal fiscal year 2008, now available at: www.wilder.org/report.html?id=2191

As stated in the report, "Nearly 13,000 people stayed in the emergency shelter and transitional housing programs that participate in Minnesota's Homeless Management Information System during the twelve months from October 2007 to September 2008.  Collectively these organizations provide about 3,400 beds per night designated for people experiencing homelessness, which is about 57 percent of the state's total capacity of approximately 6,000 emergency and transitional beds."

The report is based on aggregate data submitted annually to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development for its Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress (AHAR), and provides information about the numbers and characteristics of people residing in emergency shelter and transitional housing throughout the state. A companion report presents detailed tables for each of Minnesota's 13 Continuum of Care regions.

Minnesota has among the highest AHAR participation rates in the county. In addition to strengthening HUD's report, and resulting in useful information at the local level, high AHAR participation helps secure funding for homeless programs throughout the state, since AHAR participation is factored in to HUD's application scoring process.

 

July 2009  E-NEWS

GRACE House Provides Shelter, Support Services to People Experiencing Homelessness in Itasca County

The linens may not be a fancy thread count, but for guests at GRACE House in Itasca County, they are treated with the same respect and hospitality shown to travelers staying in a well-known hotel. As the only homeless shelter for individuals and families in Itasca County, GRACE House provides shelter, meals, and case management services to all guests who come through their doors.

In 2006, a faith-based group called ‘Action through Churches Together' (ACT) coordinated a county-wide conversation about the growing need for a homeless shelter. Later that year, GRACE House was created, and is currently located at Zion Lutheran Church in Grand Rapids. Since its opening, GRACE House has served more than 500 guests.

"We care about the health of our community and housing is a critical piece of that. We also recognize that working to prevent homelessness through job training and building a strong economy is the best way to provide opportunity for people to improve their lives," said Scott Stein, Development Director at GRACE House.

GRACE House is working with Heading Home Northeast on prevention and outreach strategies, as well as offering feedback on a faith-based shelter system in the northeast region. Later this year, GRACE House hopes to move to a permanent facility in downtown Grand Rapids.

For more information on GRACE House, visit: http://itascagracehouse.org

  

June 2009 E-NEWS

Blue Earth County Board Hears Final Report on Evaluation of Supportive Housing and Managed Care Pilot

On Tuesday, May 12, members of the Blue Earth County Board learned that their original instincts were correct: changing the way we address long-term homelessness can produce better results for taxpayers and homeless people.  Board members heard the results from the Hearth Connection's Supportive Housing and Managed Care Pilot, an experiment in which Blue Earth County was one of two original participants.   The pilot project - both in Blue Earth and Ramsey counties – concluded that those served had highly complex needs, that their lives improved while they were in supportive housing, and that the intervention caused desirable shifts in costs associated with their care.

"Prior to this pilot, we only had anecdotal evidence which suggested supportive housing is a better use of funds. Now we have real, documented numbers from a study right here in Minnesota," said Blue Earth County Commissioner Collen Landkamer. "Instead of spending money on expensive systems and services which do not enable people to easily break the cycle of homelessness, we are spending that money on programs and services, such as regularly scheduled health care, which ultimately lead to a better quality of life both for the participants, and the communities they live in. When someone is stably housed and managing their health, they are more likely to be able to work and contribute to society in a meaningful way."

The study, conducted from 2000 - 2007 in both Blue Earth and Ramsey counties, tracked 518 participants who had multiple indicators of homelessness and complex health histories. According to the report, in the two years before enrollment in the pilot, the average single adult used $13,954 per year in services, while family adults and children used $4,582 and $3,691, respectively, in mainstream services. As households, families averaged pre-enrollment costs of $11,203 per year.

After enrollment, participants were connected to intensive support services, including case management, healthcare, housing specialists, and child and development providers. The average cost for these services was $4,239 per person per year.

"When the Pilot was established, we hired additional staff, and made sure we had an intensive case management system in place," said Bob Meyer, Blue Earth County Human Services Director. "This pilot reflects our mission to the people of Blue Earth County - we all have an obligation and a passion to serve those who are particularly vulnerable."

Meyer said one of the earliest signs reflecting the Pilot's impact was in the school system.

"We were working with families with young children, and they had really struggled before they enrolled in the Pilot to keep their children in school. Once we were able to stabilize their housing, we saw significant progress in the schooling for children. They weren't being uprooted out of their schools; they were able to put down some roots in the school. That is absolutely critical for the well-being and development of the child, and for the community."

Commissioner Landkamer believes that the Pilot is a vital asset in helping us better understand how to best serve people experiencing homelessness, and how to ultimately end homelessness.

"I've watched the program from the beginning, and I truly believe that it has made a difference in the lives of the people who participated. This is a program that is scalable, and I hope we see modeled in many cities across our state.  Because of the complexity of homelessness, there are multiple issues concerned, and multiple county and state systems involved, and so we must remember to think longer-term when it comes to ensuring the viability of solutions that can help us end homelessness."

 

May 2009 E-NEWS

Fargo Moorhead Chamber of Commerce Sponsors Homelessness Simulation

It isn’t easy trying to describe to someone what homelessness is – what it looks like, feels like, and why it exists. When the Fargo Moorhead Chamber of Commerce decided to try and help members of their Youth Leadership Program better understand the complexity of homelessness, they did so in the most obvious manner they could envision.

In a matter of minutes, sixty Fargo Moorhead area students had their lives transformed – they went from being members of their schools’ athletic teams, musical ensembles, honor rolls, and leadership organizations to a group of unemployed and chronically ill homeless individuals.

The reason for the sudden shift in circumstances? These students were participating in a homelessness simulation exercise sponsored by the Fargo Moorhead Chamber of Commerce.

In November 2008, the Fargo Moorhead Chamber of Commerce decided to focus their monthly Youth Leadership Program activities on hunger and homelessness. After considering several options on how to best present homelessness, the Chamber connected with Michael Carbone, then-Executive Director for the Fargo Moorhead Coalition for Homeless Persons, and Kera Halverson, a Concordia University student passionate about ending homelessness, for information on staging a homelessness simulation.

What is a homelessness simulation?

Carbone and Halverson invited local service providers as well as area residents who are homeless to participate in the two-hour long simulation. The basic design for a homelessness simulation is to replicate the system currently in place for finding services (e.g. healthcare, housing vouchers, food and clothing assistance, etc.). Participants who role-play the part of homeless individuals are given a budget and an identity. The three identities the Chamber simulation used were: a single mother whose child was badly injured in an accident, and had difficulty paying medical bills; a father with a wife and two children who recently lost his job, his wife became very ill and could not work; and a GLBT youth kicked out of their house who sometimes could stay with a friend, and sometimes not.

The simulation lasted two hours, and represented a 3-month period. Men from the local Dorothy Day shelter participated as the service providers – their role was to explain to the ‘homeless’ individuals whether they were eligible for services, why they could not receive certain services, and what steps they needed to take first. The most common response throughout the simulation was "no".

Every ten minutes, a new set of circumstances would arise for the ‘homeless’ participants – an unexpected medical expense, a job loss, a misunderstanding with a service provider, loss of benefits, expiration of time at a shelter, etc. As the students waited in different lines for assistance, tried to budget their money, figure out how to make ends meet, and were repeatedly told ‘no’, many found it difficult to continue the simulation.

"Toward the end of the simulation, many of the students were just sitting down on the floor, not participating. They were so frustrated with their circumstances, they said it was just easier to quit than to try and keep fighting a system that doesn’t seem to want to help them. There were a few that were employing some creative strategies – calling out "Who wants to live together?" or "Let’s share food together.", but most were too overwhelmed to continue," said Kera Halverson.

After the simulation, the students and the men from the Dorothy Day Shelter held a debriefing with the Chamber staff. Both the students and the men from the shelter spoke of the challenges they felt during the simulation. Many students did not realize the difficulties involved when trying to find and access services.

For Ashley Morgan of the Fargo Moorhead Chamber of Commerce, the simulation served as a creative exercise in understanding a complex social issue that affects many sectors of the community, including commerce.

"For us, so much of what we do [at the Chamber] is focused around business, commerce, and maintaining the strength of our community. In bringing in the homelessness simulation, we were trying something different to understand that focus. I think the students were blown away by the complexity of the issue, and we were, too. No one benefits from having people experiencing homelessness in their community. It’s something we need to all work together towards ending."

  

April 2009 E-NEWS

Landmark Studies Reveal Supportive Housing ‘Better Investment of Public Funds'

Two of the most comprehensive studies of supportive housing to date found the intervention of supportive housing broke the cycle of homelessness for adults with complex histories of homelessness, addiction and health problems.

The Journal of the American Medical Association found providing supportive housing to chronic alcoholics with long histories of homelessness reduced total public costs relating to the care of the 95 individuals in the study by more than $4 million. The results were based on a pilot of 95 individuals participating in a program in Seattle called ‘housing first' from 2005 to 2007. After 12 months in the housing first program, participants were maintaining stable housing, drinking less, and spending more time out of jail, the emergency room, and detox. Prior to entering the program, each participant cost local and state governments an average of $86,062 per person per year. Now, it costs an average of $13,440 per person per year to administer the housing first program. Read the study here...

The National Center on Family Homelessness conducted a comprehensive evaluation of Hearth Connection's Supportive Housing and Managed Care Pilot and found the 748 participants received care for their highly complex medical needs and improved their quality of life while in supportive housing. The study quantifies the significant costs incurred by government without a return when people remain homeless, and provides further evidence that supportive housing is a better investment of public funds. Read the final report here...

     

January 2009 E-NEWS

Heading Home Minnesota and JRLC Announce Joint Advocacy Venture

Heading Home Minnesota is pleased to announce a joint advocacy partnership with the Joint Religious Legislative Coalition (JRLC) around their housing and homelessness agendas. In its legislative agenda, JRLC includes the following in the section on "Housing and Healthy Neighborhoods":

• We support appropriations to operate supportive housing programs to address and prevent homelessness.

Heading Home Minnesota’s legislative agenda is as follows: 

• Preserve current investments for homeless prevention, outreach, emergency shelters, and transitional and permanent supportive housing
• Secure flexible supportive services funding for existing supportive housing
• Increase the Housing Trust Fund for rent assistance

"Supportive housing is essentially the anchor to end homelessness. We are thrilled to be working with JRLC on this issue, as their expertise and skills surrounding legislative advocacy are invaluable," said Kit Hadley, Executive Director of Heading Home Minnesota.

"Our partnership with Heading Home Minnesota will enable us to bring more resources to the lobbying effort around our Housing and Healthy Neighborhoods agenda item, and also help grow Heading Home Minnesota’s network among faith communities," said Brian Rusche, Executive Director of the Joint Religious Legislative Coalition.

Both groups will be working with Yvette Mullen, a volunteer legislative advocate, who will coordinate lobbying efforts. On February 3^rd, JRLC is holding their annual Day on the Hill.

To register for JRLC’s Day on the Hill, and to learn about their legislative agenda, click here.