Update on Durham's 10 Year Results Plan to End Homelessness

1. Durham Affordable Housing Coalition was chosen by the plan’s Executive Team to implement the plan.

DAHC has a long history in Durham County as a nonprofit agency that focuses on affordable housing and homelessness. Some highlights of the application that we want to share with the entire Executive Committee include:

• History of partnering and coordinating throughout the community, including nonprofit homeless service providers, The Durham Center and the Department of Social Services;
• Raising over $17.5 million for housing and homeless services within Durham
  Leadership in the 10 year planning effort
• Currently the coordinators of the Point-in-Time count and Continuum of Care application (2 deliverables that are required by the contracting agency)
• Able to match some funding with current public support
• Concrete staffing plan
• Reasonable budget
• Eager to move forward and define deliverables with the Executive Team

Discussion at the January Executive Team started with concerns associated with the fact that there is not a public official in Durham City or County who is the “champion” of the plan and whether or not it would be more beneficial to locate the implementation of the plan within a City or County Department. Those who historically been part of providing homeless services reminded the Team that this was the most government involvement in this issue to date. In addition, the opposing concern was that if you located it either in the city or the county that it would then default to being that particular government body’s problem. It was agreed that it was important to have an outside agency to build both grassroots momentum for the plan and be supported by both the City and County. The Executive Team come to consensus that the contracting agency should be the Durham Affordable Housing Coalition.

2. Durham Representatives attended the NC Leadership Summit on December 13-14

Those attending: Reverend Herb Davis, Melva Henry, Lloyd Schmiedler, Cora Cole-McFadden.
Some highlights included:

• Chris Allers, Executive VP from United Way of Atlanta, shared experiences after three years of having a 10 Year Plan to End Homelessness, reminding the group that it took nearly three years for results to be seen.
• City of Knoxville representatives and Lansing, MI marketing firm talked about important ways of working with the media and educating the media in order to make 10 Year Plans a priority.
• City of Portland, OR and Knoxville, TN discussed methods for sustaining the momentum of the 10 Year Plans, including the use of Project Homeless Connect. Project Homeless Connect is a model that brings all providers together in one central location for one day so that homeless individuals and families can easily move through the system.
• Phillip Mangano, US Interagency Council on Homelessness discussed the common elements in the most successful plans.

3. Durham County is selected to participate in the SOAR training

It is estimated that 39% and 46% of people who are homeless are eligible for disability benefits because of their mental illness or physical health condition, respectively. However, only 10-15% of people who are homeless are receiving disability benefits. Durham and Johnston Counties have been selected to serve as additional training sites for SOAR. (SSI/SSDI Outreach, Access and Recovery Technical Assistance Initiative). Durham’s training will take place on January 22 and 23. Results from initial pilot testing of this intervention demonstrates that with active participation from homeless service providers, outreach workers, and others who are working directly with homeless people, you can increase the first time approval rate for disability to 65% (almost twice the national average for all applicants).

4. Durham to apply for $3,000 Technical Assistance from the State of NC

North Carolina’s Interagency Council for Coordinating Homeless Programs has issued an RFP to provide communities who are working on 10 Year Plans to apply for up to $3,000. This is the first support from the State of NC for homelessness. The money will be used in Durham County to

a. Provide PIT data to the State of NC
b. Provide data on the number of homeless school age children to the State of NC
c. Provide an unduplicated annual census of the number of chronically homeless individuals in the community.
d. Complete an annual assessment of activities that support the implementation of the 10 year planning effort in the local community.

5. Community Assistance Database/Homeless Management Information System

In 2000, Congress required that any community receiving Supportive Housing Funding through the US Department of Housing and Urban Development must provide the government with an unduplicated count of the number of homeless people each year. Durham homeless providers began working with the Durham County Department of Social Services who was developing a Community Assistance Database for clients receiving assistance. Durham County’s IT Department designed the CADB to include the necessary data elements to meet the obligations required by HUD. To date there are a limited number of community partners accessing this web based application. Individuals will be submitting a mini-grant to the RBA program in order to bring two of the largest providers Urban Ministries and the Durham Rescue Mission onto the county system. At this point, both organizations have databases whose platforms are inconsistent with the CADB/HMIS and the support will be used to bring those two organizations onto the system.