The NC Interagency Council for Coordinating Homeless Programs (ICCHP) is looking for applicants from North Carolina communities engaged in a 10 Year Planning processes who will complete a standardized Accomplishment Report and coordinate reporting on identified data on homelessness from within the community.
Communities will be required to:
1. Conduct a Point in Time Count, including street counts, during the last week of January 2007 and submitting complete data by March 1, 2007.
2. Aggregate a 2006 calendar year annual unduplicated count of chronic homeless and all homeless persons in the community and submit report by April 30, 2007.
3. Obtain an annual unduplicated count of homeless children and households identified by the local public school liaisons for the 2005/06 school year and submit information by April 2, 2007.
4. Submit the Accomplishment Report for calendar year 2006 by May 15, 2007.
Email me for more information.
Friday, December 29, 2006
Thursday, December 28, 2006
Let's Get To Work - Eliminating Barriers to Employment
One of the Strategies in the Wake County/City of Raleigh 10 Year Plan to Prevent and Homelessness is designed to eliminat the barriers homeless families experience as they try to reenter and maintain full time employement. The team responsible for the work has launched a new program called "Let's Get to Work" and challenges everyone to help put a dent in the 3,500 child care subsidy waiting list going into 2007.
Preventing Homelessness and Emergency Assistance
Over the past few months, Triangle United Way and some of its member agencies have started to question what is important about emergency assistance and how can it best end homelessness. Is the $150 or $200 that is made available once each year to help someone pay their rent or utilites the best use of emergency assistance? At this point, we are able to say that it does preserve housing for a period of a month, but what happens after that? If someone comes back one year later for the same emergency assistance? Have we helped them or enabled them?
Many of our organizations are working in many different ways to provide emergency assistance. Triangle Family Services has taken a leap of faith and is doing something a bit different in that they provide up to $1,500 in stabilization funds along with 4-6 months of intensive case management for families either at-risk or already homeless. Of course, the challenge is that they are working with far fewer clients so the actual number of recipients is relatively small. However, these families are receiving more services than merely walking in off the street for a check for emergency assistance.
The data on whether or not such preventive services are effective is inconclusive at best. Some reports have argued that support services do not matter in ending homelessness. Some additional work has been compiled by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development that talks about best practices associated with preventing homelessness. My hope is that over time we can look at the different models of emergency assistance we provide to different member agencies and see what the impact really is here locally.
Many of our organizations are working in many different ways to provide emergency assistance. Triangle Family Services has taken a leap of faith and is doing something a bit different in that they provide up to $1,500 in stabilization funds along with 4-6 months of intensive case management for families either at-risk or already homeless. Of course, the challenge is that they are working with far fewer clients so the actual number of recipients is relatively small. However, these families are receiving more services than merely walking in off the street for a check for emergency assistance.
The data on whether or not such preventive services are effective is inconclusive at best. Some reports have argued that support services do not matter in ending homelessness. Some additional work has been compiled by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development that talks about best practices associated with preventing homelessness. My hope is that over time we can look at the different models of emergency assistance we provide to different member agencies and see what the impact really is here locally.
The Birth of Circles of Support
Since Katrina hit New Orleans last year, countless individuals in Wake County and the City of Raleigh have worked hard. They started by helping with the evacuees who were brought to Raleigh immediately after the disaster. The groundwork laid by those who put the 10 Year Plan together helped the city and county to convene a diverse group of emergency responders, human service professionals, and people of faith. From there the Circles of Support were born. The idea was for teams of volunteers from local congregations to provide supportive services so that evacuees may begin their lives anew here in the Triangle area. The idea flourished and is now serving as a model for those who are homeless in Wake County.
Late this summer Wake County awarded support to the Catholic Diocese to house a coordinator for the Circles of Support. The Coordinator works with congregations and trains them to provide the support services that enable a homeless individual or family to move towards self-sufficiency. Rental subsidies were needed. It would take about $6,000 each year to sustain a household. The Leadership Council and Oversight Team of the Wake County/City of Raleigh 10 Year Plan to End Homelessness crafted a plan. What if we provide support for 50 households? We asked the City of Raleigh for $100,000, each of 50 congregations recruited would bring an additional $2,000 to the table, and we would raise $100,000 in rental subsidies from the business community. The City of Raleigh awarded the subsidy late in the summer, congregations are agreeing as they sign on to provide support services, and the AJ Fletcher Foundation took the lead with a fundraising breakfast that has raised $53,000 to date for rental subsidies. CASA is administering the rental subsidy.
Late this summer Wake County awarded support to the Catholic Diocese to house a coordinator for the Circles of Support. The Coordinator works with congregations and trains them to provide the support services that enable a homeless individual or family to move towards self-sufficiency. Rental subsidies were needed. It would take about $6,000 each year to sustain a household. The Leadership Council and Oversight Team of the Wake County/City of Raleigh 10 Year Plan to End Homelessness crafted a plan. What if we provide support for 50 households? We asked the City of Raleigh for $100,000, each of 50 congregations recruited would bring an additional $2,000 to the table, and we would raise $100,000 in rental subsidies from the business community. The City of Raleigh awarded the subsidy late in the summer, congregations are agreeing as they sign on to provide support services, and the AJ Fletcher Foundation took the lead with a fundraising breakfast that has raised $53,000 to date for rental subsidies. CASA is administering the rental subsidy.
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