A letter from Lisa Tepper Bates
Hello friends,
The CCEH Annual Training Institute is right around the corner, May 12! We are looking forward to presentations from our special guests, Lisa Pape, Executive Director of the Veterans Health Administration Homeless Programs, and Jennifer Ho, HUD Senior Adviser for Housing and Services, on the great work in CT and across the nation to end veteran and chronic homelessness. We're also excited about the great variety of presentations by our colleagues from across the state, bringing their innovations and successes to share. Please make sure to register if you have not already done so.
The good work happening across our state continues to gain national attention! The National Alliance to End Homelessness and the Congressional Caucus on Homelessness invited CCEH to present for the Caucus on CT's work to end chronic homelessness. Lifting up the great work in our state is helping build support for the federal resources needed to end homelessness in CT and across the nation!
Thank you for all you do, every day, to serve those in need.
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Register Now!
14th Annual Training Institute
Thursday, May 12, 2016
7:45 AM - 4:30 PM
Connecticut Convention Center in Hartford, CT
With a focus on
"Ready for Zero,"
participants will hear from top experts and innovators about the most effective strategies to build and
m
aintain the
momentum towards ending homelessness.
To read more about the Tracks and Workshops,
Click Here
To read more about our Keynote Speakers,
Click Here
CCEH would like to thank the following sponsors for their generous support of the 2016 ATI:
United Illuminating, Southern Connecticut Gas & Connecticut Natural Gas subsidiary companies of UIL Holdings Corporation; Department of Housing; Connecticut State Department of Education; Department of Children and Families; Liberty Bank Foundation; Connecticut Department of Veterans Affairs; Department of Social Services.
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CCEH Testifies at Congressional Caucus on the State of Homelessness
Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness (CCEH) Executive Director Lisa Tepper Bates was invited by the Congressional Homelessness Caucus to present testimony at the April 28 Caucus briefing, the State of Homelessness in America.
The Congressional Homelessness Caucus and representatives of the National Alliance to End Homelessness hosted an in-depth discussion of the Alliance's annual report: the State of Homelessness in America. The report, published earlier this month, examines trends in homelessness, homeless assistance, and at-risk populations at the national and state levels. It is available for online by clicking here.
Connecticut is a national leader in efforts to end homelessness, and only the second state in the nation to functionally end veteran homelessness. The state has successfully housed all veterans who had long been homelessness in our state, and has built a system whereby any veteran now identified as homelessness is housed within 90 days.
The presentation for the testimony can be accessed
here. To read more, please click
here.
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Are We a Housing First Community?
The Housing First approach has garnered significant national attention in the last month. Following the release of Matthew Desmond's new book "
Evicted,
" popular New York Times journalist Nicholas Kristof wrote
an article
advocating for funding programs with a Housing First approach based programs as investments. Connecticut has made great strides towards implementing Housing First.
This survey
, designed by the National Alliance to End Homelessness, is a tool to help communities and programs throughout Connecticut reflect on how well they are practicing Housing First and consider specific areas of improvement. There are many aspects of the housing first approach, but the key is in the name: homelessness is first and foremost a housing issue and should be treated as such. CCEH is collecting responses to this survey in order to identify the areas strengths and shortcoming as well as to encourage organizations to reflect on their practices and challenge themselves to improve.
To learn more about the Housing First approach, click
here
. Participate and take the survey
here
.
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Opening Doors of Fairfield County:
On April 13th at the Norwalk Town Hall, Opening Doors of Fairfield County brought together about a hundred leaders and service providers to share information and resources on existing programs, resources, and strategies for getting clients back into the workforce.
Presenters included non-profits, government service organizations, and advocacy groups, many of which focused on serving specialized need populations such as clients living with disabilities or re-entry populations. They came with a multitude of resources to share on how to access their services, improve programs, and help more clients achieve self-sufficiency.
Thank you to everyone who made time to present on your programs and to all those who could attend!
Meeting the Needs of Homeless Youth & Young Adults in Northeastern Connecticut
On April 28th, leaders from across Northeastern Connecticut came together to discuss the region's challenges and goals for meeting the needs of homeless and housing unstable youth and young adults.
Together they mapped out over a hundred and fifty local resources and created a map of the available community assets for housing, healthcare, substance abuse, mental health, and other services. The Northeastern Connecticut Youth Resources Map will be available here. For other service maps for youth and young adults, click here. Thank you to everyone who joined us in Northeastern Connecticut!
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Upcoming Trainings and Events:
Save the Date:
Progressive Engagement Webinar
Progressive Engagement is the practice of helping households end their homelessness as rapidly as possible, despite barriers, with minimal financial and support resources and increasing assistance as only as needed. More supports are applied to those households who struggle to stabilize. This aspect of the Housing First approach emphasizes how and when to move along the continuum of lightest touch to more intensive case management.
Our esteemed presenter, Melanie Zamora is the Director of Housing Programs at The Road Home in Salt Lake City, Utah. She will discuss how Progressive Engagement works, how to prioritize resources, and common challenges.
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be homeful presents:
Celebrity Paddington Storytime with WTNH Host Ann Nyberg!
May 7th @ 1:00 pm
Hartford Public Library, the children's section
Join us! On Saturday, May 7th at 1 pm, WTNH Host Ann Nyberg will be hosting our first Celebrity Paddington Storytime in the children's section of the Hartford Public Library to encourage kids, families, and communities to be Paddington Ambassadors and hold drives with be homeful between Mothers' and Fathers' Day on the Help End Homelessness with Paddington crowdfunidng site. Kids will have the opportunity to have their photos taken on the red carpet with Ann and Paddington himself. Please spread the word!
If you or somebody you know would like to sign up to hold a drive or be a Paddington Ambassador for your community with the be homeful project, please
contact Madeline Ravich at
[email protected]
.
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Join the National Alliance to End Homelessness for the:
2016 National Conference on Ending Homelessness
July 26th-28th, 2016
The Renaissance Washington D.C. Hotel
Early Registration ends May 6, 2016
The National Alliance to End Homelessness will be hosting their annual conference on ending homelessness from Tuesday, June 26th through Thursday, June 28th at the Renaissance Washington D.C. hotel.
More information on the schedule for the conference can be accessed by clicking here.
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CCEH presents at National Human Services Data Consortium
The Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness and The Connecticut Heroes Project had the opportunity to present at the National Human Services Data Consortium (NHSDC) spring conference on "A Comprehensive Data System to End Veteran Homelessness."
As the second state to end veteran homelessness, Connecticut has a lot of real world experience to share with the national data community about how we were able to use data to achieve this goal. This presentation focused on the conceptual issues communities must tackle, the process of creating a data system from multiple sources, and how to use the system to drive on-the-ground improvements in service delivery.
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Calling All Case Workers: Your Stories Wanted!
CCEH seeking stories to tell over social media as well as on camera at the ATI be homeful Storytime booth.
CCEH is looking for case workers to share stories of people who they have helped through their efforts. We would like to hear your most powerful stories about clients you have helped. We are especially focused on hearing stories about families either diverted from shelter or who could have been diverted had shelter diversion funds been available at the time, but we welcome all stories as we are seeking to help the public better understand the power of the work EACH of you does each day. Click here for an example of a meaningful story by caseworker Steve MacHattie.
Please write to Madeline Ravich at [email protected]
by the end of this week if you have a story to share. Thank you!
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Staff Updates: Carl Asikainen Joins CCEH Team!
Carl Asikainen comes to CCEH with years of
experience working with to address food insecurity and homelessness. Most Recently, Carl worked as a Food Systems Manager at TEEG, a human service organization
that lends aid and support to communities of Northeastern
Connecticut
. Prior to that, Carl worked as an outreach worker for End Hunger CT! and was responsible to outreach to Eastern CT.
Moving forward, Carl will serve as CCEH Community Impact Coordinator working closely with Waterbury-Litchfield and the Central CT Coordinated Access Networks and helping to advance community capacity building efforts to end homelessness.
We're very fortunate to have Mr. Asikainen join the CCEH team and look forward to the many great things to come! To read more, please click here.
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Last month's coverage on homelessness and housing related stories.
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CCEH Data Updates
If you haven't subscribed to the CCEH data newsletter, you are missing out on a monthly dose of everything data-related that is coming from CCEH! You can
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