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Contra Costa Continuum of Care Newsletter: Spring 2019
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Health, Housing and Homeless Services (H3) is committed to making homelessness an uncommon occurrence in Contra Costa.
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Message from the H3 Director
It’s not often that I have a moment to reflect on the tremendous transformation Contra Costa’s homeless system of care has undergone over the past year. I am simply in awe of the work our non-profit, county service providers and partners have accomplished in service to the growing number of people experiencing homelessness in our community.
The results of our 2019 Point in Time Count confirms that homelessness has grown 43% over the past two years. But, our data shows that 90% of this growth occurred over the first year between 2017 and 2018. New programs and services that have been added to the system of care since then, helped slow the rising number of persons experiencing homelessness in our community to a modest 3% between 2018 and 2019.
Our Continuum of Care (CoC) has been enriched by the addition of two warming centers, a flexible housing security fund, housing navigation services, and rapid resolution services. Partnerships have been formed and/or expanded to augment rapid rehousing services and mobile outreach teams. And we can look forward to new opportunities in the coming year to develop an East County CARE Center, create bridge housing in North Richmond, and bring capital improvements to our shelters so that we can accommodate the pets of those we serve.
Amid growing the capacity of our homeless response system, we cannot lose sight of the critical need to produce and preserve permanent housing that is affordable to those we serve with very low incomes and creating the services they need to maintain and thrive in housing. It is that long-term goal that will help us accomplish our vision to make homelessness in Contra Costa an uncommon occurrence.
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Lavonna Martin, MPA, MPH
Director, Contra Costa Health, Housing and Homeless Services
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CONTINUUM OF CARE UPDATES
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2019 Point In Time Count Data Available
Every January, Contra Costa's Homeless Continuum of Care (CoC), with the help of community volunteers, conducts a comprehensive point-in-time (PIT) count of families and individuals experiencing homelessness.
Additional 2019 PIT count data on sub-populations, trends, and city specific data can found in the CY 2018 Annual Report on Homelessness that will be released in late June 2019.
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HUD 2018 Project Award Announcement
The Housing and Urban Development Department recently announced their funding decisions for FY 2018. All of Contra Costa's existing HUD funded programs had their funding renewed and our community was awarded one new project-
Esperanza Rapid Rehousing DV Bonus in the amount of $415,248.
This project will be a joint project with Shelter, Inc. and STAND! For Families Free of Violence. The total allocation for Contra Costa County this year is $15,857,604.
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HEAP Funding Supports Opening of West County Warming Center
Thanks to funding provided by the state Homeless Emergency Aid Program (HEAP), a new 30-cot Warming Center in Richmond will bring more Contra Costa residents who are experiencing homelessness out of the cold and into services to help them regain housing.
The new service, a collaboration between Contra Costa Health Services' Division of Health, Housing and Homeless Services (H3), the City of Richmond and the Greater Richmond Interfaith Program (GRIP), is co-located with GRIP's daytime soup kitchen and drop-in care center in central Richmond.
Warming center beds will be available Monday-Saturday nights and are filled on a night-to-night basis through the county's CORE outreach teams.
To gain access to the Warming Center, call 211 to be connected to a CORE team.
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SSI Recipients Can Now Get CalFresh!
The Supplemental Security Income (SSI) rules are changing
June 1st to allow people receiving SSI to also receive CalFresh benefits. Supplemental Security Income (SSI) is a federally funded program that provides a modest monthly benefit to low-income people who are 65 or older, blind, or disabled. CalFresh provides food benefits to eligible recipients to help buy nutritious foods for a better diet. For more i
nformation on how SSI recipients may apply for CalFresh Food benefits, visit
http://calfresh.dss.ca.gov/food/
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Contra Costa Coordinated Entry Evaluation
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Contra Costa To Receive Technical Assistance from HCD
H3, on behalf of the Contra Costa Continuum of Care, was successful in its application to the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) to receive technical assistance to
enhance, build capacity, and improve the design and the delivery of programs and services for people experiencing homelessness.
Building upon the findings of our recent Coordinated Entry evaluation, we will partner with the
Technical Assistance Collaborative, Inc (TAC)
over the next several months to create a clear plan for the enhancement of Contra Costa's homeless crisis response system (aka Coordinated Entry) that reflects the values, best practices, and shared vision of success for our consumers, CoC providers, and community. Areas of work will include:
- Developing a system map that reflects our current homeless service delivery system and allows us to right size various components of our system to achieve greater impact.
- Establishing new performance measures that reflect community and federal goals at both a systems and program level.
- Create monitoring tools to measure performance and progress towards reaching goals set by the CoC.
- System-wide integration and deployment of rapid rehousing system-wide as a key intervention in our crisis response system.
Technical assistance and training for our CoC providers will get underway July 2019!
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What Does Your Community Need?
WE NEED YOU
to identify your community’s greatest needs, and help determine how to spend over
$60 million
in
federal funds to help address those needs in 2020-2025! These funds can be used to improve or construct community centers and parks, improve infrastructure like roads and provide handicap access, assist local small businesses and provide job training, build or rehabilitate affordable housing, provide a wide variety of services for lower income families, individuals, and homeless persons, and much more.
Please take this 10-minute survey and let us know how these funds should be spent in Contra Costa County.
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Successful Rapid Resolution Pilot
A pilot of Rapid Resolution in Contra Costa has resulted in more than 30 people avoiding homelessness since March 2019. Rapid Resolution is an intervention designed to
prevent immediate entry
into homelessness or
immediately resolve
a household’s homelessness once they enter shelter, transitional housing or an unsheltered situation.
This is achieved by screening people as soon as they touch the system of care and determining if their homelessness can be avoided by the use of services including:
- Coaching and problem-solving on an individual, client centered basis
- Conflict Resolution and Mediation w/ landlords, family, friends
- Connection to mainstream services
- Housing Search Assistance and Stabilization Planning
- Aftercare and follow up support
- Limited financial assistance
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Veteran Successfully Housed
A Coordinated Outreach Referral and Engagement (CORE) Team recently made contact with a U.S. Navy veteran who had been homeless since a family tragedy occurred in 2013. CORE connected him with Trinity Center
Coordinated Assessment Referral and Engagement (CARE)
Center in Walnut Creek where he received help with basic needs as well as support gaining employment. CORE continued to work with him to gather essential housing documentation, complete a housing application for Tabora Gardens, a new senior housing project that opened last year, and transported him to and from housing appointments. With the support of our Coordinated Entry system, he recently moved into his own apartment, ending over five years of homelessness!
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Family Housed After Three Years of Homelessness
A family of three, including a 12 year old child and one disabled parent, first connected to Coordinated Entry through the Central County Coordinated Assessment Referral and Engagement (CARE) center in Concord. The family had been struggling with homelessness, including couch surfing, staying in the Warming Center and living in motels, for the last three years. Unable to find affordable housing on their one minimum wage salary and cash aid for the child, the family was feeling frustrated and hopeless.
When the CARE Center staff referred the family to a Contra Costa Interfaith Housing (CCIH) Housing Navigator, things began to turn around. The Housing Navigator connected the family to resources they had not known about including homeless services through the school district like bus tickets and counseling for their child. The Navigator found an apartment the family could afford, helped them fill out the application, took them to see the apartment and coached them through fears that this application would be rejected like all the others. When their application was accepted, through some coaching from the Housing Navigator, the family asked their benefits social worker to help with the Season of Sharing application and received enough help to pay for their move in costs. We’re happy to report that, with the support of the CARE Center staff, the Housing Navigator, their benefits social worker and Season of Sharing, the family recently moved into their own affordable apartment, where their daughter has her own room for the first time in three years.
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New Council on Homelessness Members
On March 12th, the Board of Supervisors approved six new Council on Homelessness members. Join us as we welcome these new Council members!
- CoC/ESG Representative: Leslie Gleason, Director of Programs, Shelter, Inc.
- Community Member Representative: Lindy Lavender, Pacheco resident
- Employment and Human Services Representative: Sherry Lynn Peralta, Program Manager, Contra Costa Employment and Human Services Department
- Faith Community Representative: Doug Leich, Multi-Faith ACTION
- Health Care Representative: Manuel Arredondo, Supervisor of Integrated Behavioral Health, La Clinica De La Raza
- Public Housing Authority: Tony Ucciferri, Special Assistant to the Executive Director, Housing Authority of Contra Costa County
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Coffee and Conversation Events
The popular Coffee and Conversation program at the Concord Library is expanding to Antioch, Pittsburg, San Pablo and Walnut Creek Libraries.
Are you experiencing homelessness? Curious about how you can help? If you are interested in learning about local resources and how they can
assist you please join us for this free program.
Coffee and refreshments will be available for all attendees.
SAN PABLO:
San Pablo Library, 13751 San Pablo Avenue, San Pablo: FIRST WEDNESDAYS: 10:30 am - 11:30 am
WALNUT CREEK:
Walnut Creek Library, 1544 North Broadway, Walnut Creek: FIRST TUESDAYS: 1 pm - 2 pm
CONCORD:
Concord Library, 2900 Salvio Street, Concord: THIRD MONDAYS: 2 pm - 3 pm
ANTIOCH:
Antioch Library, 501 W. 18th Street, Antioch: THIRD THURSDAYS: 3 pm - 4 pm
PITTSBURG:
Pittsburg Library, 80 Power Avenue, Pittsburg: FOURTH TUESDAY: 2 pm - 3 pm
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Council on Homelessness Meeting Thursday, June 6th
You are invited to attend the regularly scheduled Council on Homelessness meeting.
Thursday, June 6, 2019
1 pm - 3 pm
2nd floor conference room
50 Douglass Drive
Martinez
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We know we send out a
lot
of emails. Help us make sure you're only getting the information you want about meetings, resources, events and advocacy opportunities related to homelessness in Contra Costa.
Options for types of information you can get from us include:
- Committee: Performance Measurement
- Committee: Policy and Advocacy
- Information: Advocacy Opportunities
- Information: Funding Opportunities
- Information: Housing Opportunities
- Information: Upcoming Events
- Information: Veterans
- Information: Youth
- Meetings: CoC Learning Hubs (quarterly)
- Meetings: Council on Homelessness meetings (monthly)
- Quarterly Newsletter
- Training: CoC Provider Trainings
Please take a minute to click on the
"Update Profile"
link at the bottom of this email and update your profile to tell us what you want to hear about.
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