Homeless Response System Online Learning Clinic 2018 – Part VI: Dallas’ Homeless Response System in Action - 2017-2019

In 2015-2017, MDHA focused on building the necessary components of an effective unified homeless response system. In mid-2017, MDHA shifted its focus to utilizing the system to better house people quickly and permanently, while continuously improving the system. The Continuum of Care Strategic Work Plan 2017-2018[i] reflects this shift. Its goals are clear, and its objectives are bold.
 
Goals

 

        I.            Increase Access to Affordable Housing

      II.            End Chronic, Veteran and Elderly Homelessness

    III.            Improve Access and Coordination of Services and Emergency Housing

   IV.            Rapidly House Family Households with Children

     V.            Rapidly House Youth

   VI.            Drive Decision-making with HMIS Data

 VII.            Address Racial Disparities in Homelessness and Service Delivery

 

Objectives

        I.            Reduce the number of persons experiencing homelessness by 5%

      II.            Reduce the length of stay in homelessness by 10%

    III.            Reduce the number of chronic, veteran and elderly homeless by 50%

   IV.            Increase the number of unsheltered persons prioritized for housing to 500

     V.            Increase incomes for 20% of zero-income households on housing priority list

   VI.            Increase occupancy rates for all available shelter and housing beds to no less than 98.6%

 VII.            Increase housing stability in homeless housing programs to 96%

VIII.            Increase HMIS participation rates to no less than 86% of all beds and housing types

 Action

We report quarterly on our progress[ii], as a Continuum of Care, on 60 individual action items under the above seven goals. Here are just a few highlights of action we are taking to make homelessness rare, brief and nonrecurring:

 

·         Homeless Count – In January 2018, MDHA conducted the most extensive and technologically advanced Homeless Count in Texas history[iii], mobilizing more than 1,500 volunteers, and using the Counting Us app, from Simtech Solutions. Use of the app was helpful in making the Count easier and more accurate. By capturing the latitude and longitude of each encounter, it enabled MDHA to send out outreach teams the very next morning to aid individuals belonging to specific populations. MDHA provided the results of the Count at its annual State of the Homeless Address on March 21, 2018.

 

 

·         Homeless Response System Leadership Training and Strategic Planning Retreat – On March 28-29, 2018, we brought together all of the major “players”, in Dallas and Collin Counties, who can affect systems change, for a groundbreaking gathering, facilitated by OrgCode, led by pioneering world expert, Dr. Iain De Jong. With De Jong and former HUD Deputy Assistant Secretary, Ann Oliva, leading a team of facilitators, this retreat, with more than 65 senior leaders in attendance, was designed to usher in a more strategic community response to homelessness. Participating leaders spent two whole days of intense action-oriented participative and interactive hard work. They focused on the critical nature of collective impact, and how an effective system of care can bring about an end to homelessness in our community. Together, through a strategic planning journey, utilizing the Breakthrough Thinking approach, participants made the necessary decisions and vital commitments that will chart our course, as a community.

Ann Oliva

Former Deputy Assistant Secretary, HUD

·         Homeless Helpline – A key part of any homeless response system, it refers clients to several hubs: youth, domestic violence victims, families with children, single adults, Collin County residents, and general assistance, with each hub managed by a key CoC service provider. Lessons learned through the current soft-launch period of the helpline (which began in December 2017) will be incorporated into the public launch.

·         Housing “Challenges” - We challenge ourselves and our partners to house a specific group of people, during a specific time period. We have already concluded our first Top 50 Challenge; the idea is to house as many of the top 50 persons on the Housing Priority List, as possible. This challenge proved extremely successful, with over 80% of persons ending or on the verge of ending their homelessness! We will now run this challenge every other month, using the off months to learn and improve. We will soon run a Veterans Challenge, focusing on the 67 unsheltered veterans found in the Homeless Count. In the Spring, in collaboration with Dallas shelters, we will run an intensive Emergency Shelter Housing Challenge[iv].

·         Youth Homelessness – The MDHA CoC Youth Committee conducted, “See Us Now” the most extensive youth outreach survey to date, among and with the help of homeless youth. The qualitative and quantitative data collected, once analyzed, will help service providers better understand the needs of homeless youth, and serve them accordingly. This effort will be capped off with a “See Us Now” event in April 2018.

·         Collin County – MDHA expanded its assistance to Collin County providers, with an MDHA team member officing out of the Assistance Center of Collin County three days a week, and assisting multiple clients with housing navigation and placement. 

·         Housing Resources – MDHA conducted Housing Resource Clinics for the staff of six different emergency shelters, to give them additional tools to house their guests. We expanded housing search tools for case managers. As part of the Emergency Shelter Housing Challenge, we will conduct Housing Planning Clinics for clients, and encourage every client to build a “My Housing Plan” framework to end their homelessness. An MDHA authored New Tenant Resource Guide, is now available to all CoC member organizations. It is distributed to individual clients upon housing.

·         Harvey Relief – MDHA, the City of Dallas, the Dallas Foundation and Catholic Charities of Dallas joined forces to provide housing, services and case management to 200 non-FEMA eligible families, rendered homeless by Hurricane Harvey.

·         Faith-Based Organizations – The Salvation Army is now using HMIS for 100% of their programs. Discussions have begun with the Samaritan Inn to join HMIS. We will seek to add other faith-based organizations to HMIS with funding from the City of Dallas. A new CoC Faith-based Collaborations Committee now meets monthly, to help faith-based organizations do their part to help end homelessness.

·         Street Outreach – MDHA provides support to the City of Dallas’ expanded street outreach efforts, with resources and training, and in solidifying inclusion in the Housing Priority List, as a standard practice for street outreach.

·         Racial Equity – MDHA is committed to ensuring that racial equity permeate its work, as one of six communities working with the Center for Social Innovation’s SPARC project. MDHA has begun publishing a Homeless Response System Community Dashboard Race Addendum[v], to highlight racial disparities in homelessness and service delivery. An MDHA delegation participated in the Center for Social Innovation’s first-of-its-kind national summit on Racial Equity and Homelessness, in partnership with the Raikes Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. MDHA will soon conduct a survey of the demographic make-up of the senior management and board officers of all federally funded service providers, with the goal of increasing the diversity of these groups, so they better reflect the homeless population.

 

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[i] http://www.mdhadallas.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/COC-SWP-2017-2018-FINAL.docx

[ii] http://www.mdhadallas.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/COC-SWP-2017-2018-DASHBOARD-2Q-FINAL.pdf

[iii] http://endinghomelessnessmdha.blogspot.com/2018/02/in-dallas-everybody-counts-ok-what.html

[iv] This is modeled after a recent successful effort in Atlanta, Georgia.

[v] http://www.mdhadallas.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/MDHA-Homeless-Response-System-Community-Dashboard-3Q-July-September-2017-Race-Addendum.pdf

On the Rise of Homelessness in Urban America, and Our Next Steps to Address It Here in Dallas

During her State of the Homeless Address on March 21, 2018, Cindy J. Crain, MDHA President and CEO, shared the results of the 2018 Homeless Count in Dallas and Collin Counties. The numbers showed an increase in homelessness, in general, and unsheltered homelessness, specifically, accompanied by drops in chronic and veteran homelessness. That same week, the Collin County Homeless Coalition published its report, which showed a drop in the number of those experiencing homelessness in that county. Not surprisingly, it takes the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) many more months to report on the results for the entire country.
 
In the meantime, we do have the 2017 numbers, which came out fairly recently, this last December, with HUD’s submission of Part I of its 2017 Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR) to Congress on Point-in-Time Estimates of Homelessness. HUD reported that, “Homelessness increased for the first time in seven years. The number of people experiencing homelessness increased by a little less than one percent between 2016 and 2017.” Interestingly, though, this aggregate number reflects two separate phenomena: “This increase reflected a nine percent increase in the number of people experiencing homelessness in unsheltered locations, which was partially offset by a three percent decline in the number of people experiencing homelessness in sheltered locations.”
 
More importantly, HUD emphasized that this is primarily an urban problem: “Recent increases in homelessness were driven mostly by specific changes happening within cities. Increases in the numbers of unsheltered individuals in the 50 largest cities accounted for nearly all of the national increase…  The number of all people experiencing homelessness increased in major cities and decreased elsewhere between 2016 and 2017… More specifically, increases in unsheltered homelessness in major cities drove the national increase…”

One of our homeless friends at an encampment in 2017
(Photo taken by award winning photographer, B.J. Lacasse)

Why is this? What is going on in our cities?

An earlier HUD report, Worst Case Housing Needs – 2017 Report to Congress, may help us understand:

Worst case housing needs are a national problem. Such severe housing problems have expanded dramatically during the past decade and were exacerbated by the economic recession and associated collapse of the housing market, which reduced homeownership through foreclosures and tight lending and increased demand for renting. The slight improvements observed since 2011 offer cause for hope, but the failure to sustain the more promising trends observed in 2013 is sobering… The latest resumption of worsening housing problems among the nation’s very low-income renters is attributable primarily to demographic and economic factors—especially a notable shift from homeownership to renting—that grew the number of households susceptible to worst case needs. Uneven housing market responses that increased the proportion of unassisted very low-income renters with severe rent burdens played a secondary yet substantial role.

Even with rental assistance, 6 of 10 extremely low-income renters and 4 of 10 very low-income renters do not have access to affordable and available housing units. Among very low-income renters in 2015, only 25 percent of households had rental assistance and an additional 43 percent had worst case needs for assisted or other affordable housing. In other words, only a small share of very low-income renters—32 percent—avoided severe housing problems in the unassisted private rental market in 2015.  

And where is this problem most pronounced? “Central cities were home to most (9.51 million) very low-income renters, followed by suburbs (7.23 million) and nonmetropolitan areas (2.49 million).” The report emphasizes that the main culprit in this crisis is the lack of affordable rental housing in the nation’s urban centers.
 
Arguably, what we have is not a homelessness crisis, but an acute affordable housing crisis, and the epicenter of that crisis is in our cities, including Dallas and other urban communities in Texas. As we wrote, about a year ago, “Housing is the key… Local governments must act now to create affordable housing… We need more permanent supportive housing, more second chance housing, and more affordable housing in the 0-30% AMI (Area Median Income) range.” And HUD’s prescription is clear: “A broad strategy at the federal, state, and local levels is needed to continue to rebuild the economy, strengthen and realign markets, and provide assistance to those families most in need.”

Two of our formerly homeless friends
(Photo taken by award winning photographer, B.J. Lacasse)

The emphasis on the federal level is well warranted. The current level of federal funding for the Continuum of Care Program, just over $2 billion, is essentially a rounding error in a $4 trillion Federal Budget. We can’t expect to end homelessness, with this level of investment. As we wrote in December: “Especially over the last decade, we have become extremely skillful at building systems that maximize the impact of these $2 billion. However, as a nation, we have not explored the idea of significantly adding to that funding. We have accepted… that around $2 billion, in 2017 dollars, is enough to defeat a social ill that has been with us for forty years and counting.”

Ann Oliva
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary, HUD

However, we do need to do our part here in Dallas and Collin Counties, and specifically the urban core of Dallas, to address this affordable housing crisis, that is driving the increase in homelessness. This is why on March 28-29, 2018, we brought together all of the major “players”, in Dallas and Collin Counties, who can affect this type of change on the local level, for a Homeless Response System Leadership Training and Strategic Planning Retreat. This groundbreaking gathering was facilitated by OrgCode, led by pioneering world expert, Dr. Iain De Jong. With De Jong and former HUD Deputy Assistant Secretary Ann Oliva, leading a team of facilitators, this retreat, with more than 65 senior leaders in attendance, was designed to usher in a more strategic community response to homelessness.

Dr. Iain De Jong
(Courtesy of the Salt Lake Tribune)

Participating leaders spent two whole days of intense action-oriented participative and interactive hard work. They focused on the critical nature of collective impact, and how an effective system of care can bring about an end to homelessness in our community. Together, through a strategic planning journey, utilizing the Breakthrough Thinking approach, participants made the necessary decisions and vital commitments that will chart our course, as a community.

We look forward to sharing the report OrgCode will produce to help our community flesh out the next steps. Then, united in vision and purpose, we will act on those decisions, and fulfill those commitments. That is how, working together, as a community, we can and will make homelessness in Dallas and Collin Counties, rare, brief and nonrecurring.

Homeless Response System Online Learning Clinic 2018 – Part IV: Building Dallas’ Homeless Response System – 2015-2017 – All Roads Lead to Housing

The entire system is oriented towards housing as the solution for homelessness, and this approach permeates every component of the system. There is a sense of urgency in getting everyone, and first and foremost those who are high on the Housing Priority List, into housing, as soon as possible, with as few barriers as possible. In the meantime, individuals, who need it, are offered temporary shelter, with the constant ever-present expectation that they be moved into housing as soon as possible.

Dr. Iain De Jong

(Courtesy of the Salt Lake Tribune)

Since 2015, MDHA has held regular policy discussions, trainings, lunch and learns, boot camps, and roundtables for case managers, program managers, agency leaders, and the public, to reorient every part of the Dallas homeless services ecosystem towards this thinking. Notably, in March 2017, MDHA asked pioneering world expert, Dr. Iain De Jong, of OrgCode, to conduct one of his international learning clinics on Being an Awesome Shelter, in Dallas. MDHA sponsored ten spots for Dallas shelters, to further facilitate a transformation in how Dallas shelters operate, as housing-oriented programs.
 
To further assist case managers in housing their clients, in 2015, in conjunction with United Way of Metropolitan Dallas, MDHA founded the MDHA Flex Fund[i]. This fund gives case managers an important tool to pay for hundreds of minor but impactful expenses, every year, that can help individuals resolve their homelessness, quickly and permanently. 

 

 

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[i] http://www.mdhadallas.org/the-mdha-flex-fund/

Homeless Response System Online Learning Clinic 2018 – Part III: Building Dallas’ Homeless Response System – 2015-2017 – Diversion and Coordinated Access

The linked infographic, developed by the equivalent to MDHA in Kansas City[i] a few years ago, is extremely useful in understanding how over the course of the last three years we built an effective unified homeless response system, here in Dallas. (It is helpful to consult it, while reading the next parts.) This system has four main attributes.

Diversion

It seeks to divert individuals from having to enter into or engage with the system. It recognizes that homelessness is not homogeneous; it is on a continuum. Many of those who seek our help have the capacity to self-resolve, with the help of mainstream resources, or “light touch” one-time assistance[ii]. In Dallas, Family Gateway[iii] and Austin Street Center[iv] stand out, as two partners, who over the course of 2017, put in place robust diversion protocols, to help clients end their homelessness, and avoid or shorten their stay in shelter. 

Coordinated Access
 
It assesses, prioritizes, and only then places individuals into housing. This is referred to by scholars and the Federal Government as Coordinated Assessment, or Coordinated Access. In the absence of such a system, homeless service providers each operate on their own, and when approached by an individual needing help, typically ask some version of this question, “Will this person be successful in our program?” This leads to those with lesser needs and lower vulnerability being served, while those with greater needs and vulnerability are turned away.[v]

In an effective coordinated system, the system as a whole asks, “What solutions best match the needs of this person, and will end their homelessness quickly and permanently?” The system has one (virtual) entry point only. No placements are made in any program without:
 

• Assessing – We objectively and uniformly assess each person, with an evidence-based tool[vi];
• Prioritizing – We prioritize each person for service, based on the level of their vulnerability and according to their specific needs. Each person is awarded a priority status or P number. The lower the number, the higher the priority.
• Placing – All clients go on to a unified Housing Priority List, and are housed based on their priority status and specific needs.

 
MDHA’s Housing Priority List (HPL) has been operational since early 2016. It represents the demand side of the housing equation. It is managed by the Documentation and Prioritization Status (DOPS) Coordinator, who ensures that the persons on it have not only been assessed and prioritized for service, but also have all necessary documents, so they may be housed without delay. Housing providers are expected to house those with a lower P number (indicating greater need and vulnerability) first. As of February 2018, there are about 750 individuals on the Housing Priority list, ready to be housed.
 
The Housing Inventory Chart (HIC) contains all beds funded through our Continuum of Care (CoC) program. It represents the supply side of the housing equation. It is managed by the Housing Resources Team, who ensure that when a unit becomes available, it is filled as soon as possible. The motto of the Housing Resources Team is “No Empty Bed”. All CoC program resources must be fully utilized, with every bed filled and every penny of federal housing dollars spent. The team also actively grows the supply of known housing, by finding housing units outside of the CoC program.
 
The CoC’s performance in this core area is constantly monitored by the CoC Performance Analyst, who produces the Housing Priority List Tracker, which aggregates all of the individuals on the Housing Priority List by priority status. The Analyst produces the quarterly[vii] Homeless Response System Community Dashboard[viii], through which MDHA tracks the community’s performance in housing individuals experiencing homelessness along five performance indicators on the demand side and five performance indicators on the supply side.
 

 

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[i] http://www.marc.org/Community/Homelessness-Task-Force/Assets/HTF-coordinated-intake-graphic-web.aspx

[ii] This idea is referred to as Progressive Engagement. See more on this concept, and its application to homelessness in A Prevention-Centered Approach to Homelessness Assistance: A Paradigm Shift? by Dennis Culhane, Stephen Metraux, and Thomas Byrne (2011), http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1105&context=dennis_culhane

[iii] http://www.mdhadallas.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/CoC-Family-and-DV-Services-Committee-Update-8-2017.pdf

[iv] http://www.austinstreet.org/ending-homelessness-through-prevention/

[v] See more at http://endinghomelessnessmdha.blogspot.com/2016/03/the-how-to-of-building-effective.html and http://endinghomelessnessmdha.blogspot.com/2016/03/coordinated-access-heart-of-effective.html

[vi] Our Continuum of Care, like many across the world, uses the VI-SPDAT and SPDAT from OrgCode Consulting – www.orgcode.com. 

[vii] See http://www.mdhadallas.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/MDHA-Homeless-Response-System-Community-Dashboard-3Q-July-September-2017.pdf for the latest report.

[viii] http://www.mdhadallas.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/MDHA-HRS-Community-Dashboard.docx