CCEH Newsletter
February 2019
D ear friends,

We've had extraordinarily cold temperatures these past couple weeks and are grateful to all of the emergency and warming shelters who extended their care to ensure everyone experiencing homelessness had refuge. This deep freeze also impacted teams of volunteers who completed thousands of surveys for the Point-In-Time Count and Youth Outreach & Count. I myself had the opportunity to volunteer for the Point-in-Time Count in Meriden with a team that included State Senator Mary Abrams and her aide Gabrielle Diaz, and work a shift with the Youth Outreach & Count in New Haven. Thank you to all of the other state and municipal leaders who volunteered alongside their constituents. My job unfortunately doesn’t always afford me the chance to speak directly with people currently experiencing homelessness, and so I appreciated the chance to learn from them about what is needed to end homelessness. One of the things I heard was an urgency from every older adult I spoke with that we not let homelessness persist for this younger generation. Or as one person said, “Please do something for the kids.”
 
On behalf of everyone at CCEH, I want to thank all of the staff and the volunteers who came out in great numbers in the cold to assist with both counts. These counts are critical for our work to ensure that our policies and solutions are data driven. We can't know how well we are doing with ending homelessness and advocate for more resources without these efforts. Let's keep the faces we met on the streets in our minds and hearts as we push forward with data informed solutions this year. Let's also remember that CT has a uniquely robust data system (ctcandata.org) that we should always be connecting with to inform our next steps. Our current data shows that we are making progress, but we have a lot more work to do to achieve our goal of an end to homelessness. We hope that a few of the below data articles will be beneficial.

Lastly, I hope you will register for our Annual Training Institute on May 16th, where we will have industry leaders and innovators sharing their best practices and creative solutions to end homelessness.

With much gratitude,

Richard Cho
CEO
We Need Your Voice This Legislative Session!
With almost 30 freshman legislators and a newly elected governor, it is now more important than ever that we make our voice heard, and ensure that every legislator knows that we are counting on them to be bold on solving homelessness. This legislative session, there will be many opportunities for you to participate in advocacy, and help educate legislators on the importance of investing in efforts to end homelessness. 

Join us in conducting in-district site visits, making emails and calls to legislators, testifying at public hearings, and mark your calendars for the 2019 Reaching Home Homelessness and Housing Advocacy Days which will be held on Wednesday, April 17th and Thursday, April 18th at the Legislative Office Building. 

CCEH will be working closely with the Partnership for Strong Communities, to help make sure that you have all of the advocacy resources needed this legislative session. 


Please also set aside some time to watch the Advocacy Reboot Webinar: New Leadership, New Opportunities, and New Resolve. Kiley Gosselin from the Partnership for Strong Communities, Richard Cho and Sarah Fox from the Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness, and Kate Robinson from Gallo & Robinson will provide you with an in-depth overview of the new election outcomes and their impact on the 2019 Reaching Home Campaign legislative priorities for Connecticut. Click here to watch the webinar. Click here to view the webinar slides.

Thanks again for your commitment to ending homelessness in Connecticut! Together, we are making a difference.

If you have any questions please contact Sarah Fox at sfox@cceh.org or Danielle Hubley at danielle@pschousing.org.
Connecticut Awarded Additional HUD Funding for Homeless Programs!
On February 6, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development announced its FY 2018 grant awards under the Continuum of Care grant program. And this announcement includes the great news for both of Connecticut’s Continuums of Care (CoCs): the Balance of State and Opening Doors Fairfield County. Between both CoCs, Connecticut received all of our requested renewal grants, new bonus funding for Rapid Re-housing and Domestic Violence projects, as well as approval to reallocate funding to new permanent housing and services in Danbury! In addition to providing $2.8 million in new funding to end homelessness, this announcement reflects HUD’s assessment that Connecticut’s statewide system performance on ending homelessness is strong. Congratulations to all of the grantees receiving renewal and new funding!
2019 Point-in-Time Count and Youth Outreach & Count
The 2019 Point-In-Time Count and Youth Outreach & Count have been officially completed! Over the next couple months, CCEH will be hard at work to produce the "2019 Connecticut Counts" report. View past count data.

Thank you Volunteers!
441 Youth Outreach & Count (a 45% increase in volunteers and 30% increase in surveys completed than last year) and around 220 Point-In-Time Count volunteers across Connecticut braved the cold weather to ensure that we are counting and providing support to our neighbors experiencing homelessness. We would never have been able to do this without your dedication.

Thank you Coordinating Agencies!
We can't express enough gratitude to all of the agencies and agency leads who spent countless hours coordinating locations, logistics, volunteers, marketing, and more to ensure success this year.

Thank You Sponsors!
The 2019 PIT Count and Youth Outreach & Count are made possible through generous support from the Department of Housing, Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, Fairfield County’s Community Foundation, Farmington Bank Community Foundation, Hartford Foundation for Public Giving, and Melville Charitable Trust.
Annual Training Institute
Registration Now Open!
Beyond Barriers: 
Enhancing Access to Housing Solutions

May 16, 2019 | Hartford, CT

Register now and take advantage of early bird savings! 
Emergency Assistance Available Through CCEH
CCEH has several programs with funds available to be accessed by approved agencies for emergency housing purposes. For more details on these programs, eligibility, how to access the funds, and more, please visit the  CCEH Emergency Assistance Programs page. Contact assistance@cceh.org with questions and to complete an MOU.

be homeful
be homeful is a project designed to help end family homelessness. We know that the most effective way to end homelessness, is to never let it begin in the first place. The program focuses on raising awareness and funds to end family homelessness, providing shelter diversion emergency funding to homeless service providers, and delivering training & technical assistance on shelter diversion best practices.

Hurricane Maria Disaster Response Program
The Hurricane Maria Disaster Response program aims to prevent the homelessness of evacuees currently residing in Connecticut following the 2017 hurricanes in Puerto Rico. This short-term financial assistance is intended for use in shelter diversion or to help evacuees exit from shelter to a permanent housing solution. CCEH provides shelter diversion training for disaster case managers, coordinated entry and shelter staff, and others assisting these evacuees. In addition, CCEH works with 2-1-1 and other statewide leaders to ensure the proper utilization of these funds.

Youth Diversion & Rapid Exit Program
This program is a part of the new Youth Homelessness Demonstration Program aimed to help CT end youth homelessness by 2020. The Youth Diversion & Rapid Exit Program is designed to deliver housing-based services to clients defined as youth at immediate risk of homelessness or in need of shelter rapid exit services. As a part of this program, CCEH coordinates the Youth Coordinated Entry Learning Collaborative, provides program oversight, and training and technical assistance for HQS inspections, shelter diversion, outreach, STRIVE, and other topics as needed.
Need Help Understanding HMIS?
CTHMIS.com is here to help! Nutmeg Consulting is the system administrator for Connecticut's Homelessness Management Information System (HMIS) and manages www.cthmis.com where providers can find an abundance of information and support including the following:

Statewide Dashboard Tips & Tricks
From Dan Shelter, Columbus House
Here are a few tips and tricks to help you get the most out of the statewide dashboards on CTCANData.org
Beginner Tip: Hover over almost anything to learn more. 
  • Tableau dashboards are designed to be interactive, not just static reports. Start by hovering over the information icons to get more information about the dashboard and how to use it. Hover over each of the data visualizations to get more information.
Intermediate Tip: Click on the full screen icon at the bottom right of the dashboard. 
  • This will allow you to see the whole dashboard at once.
Advanced Tip: Trends are important so pay special attention to the up ▲ and down ▼ arrows on each data visualization. 
  • These will tell you which direction the metric is moving and by how much.
Jedi Tip: Click on one of the bars in the living situation before or after program data visualizations.
  • This will filter the rest of the dashboard to just those people entering from or exiting to those situations. For example, if you click on the “unsheltered” bar in “Living situation before program” you could see how long those people remained in shelter, where they exited to, and the percentage that returned. 
Housing Discrimination Against Ex-Offenders
"Every month in Connecticut, nearly 2,000 people are released from prison. These returning citizens are 10x more likely than the general population to end up homeless."

We are pleased to share the Hope for Success: Returning Home Report & Recommendations published by the CT Commission on Equity & Opportunity Reentry Working Group.

CCEH staff Mimi Haley and Sarah Fox serve on the Reetry Working Group and were able to contribute to this report. The Reaching Home Justice in Housing Work Group co-chaired by Mimi Haley and Terry Nowakowski will be following up on this report and future legislation.

Read the article published by the CT Mirror about the report: " A push to end housing discrimination against ex-offenders".

The Commission on Equity & Opportunity is producing a new documentary about people returning from prison and the challenges they face, particularly with regards to finding housing. View their documentary "Voices Around Reentry" Trailer.
News & Resources
New Haven Independent | February 2019

WNPR | February 2019

Office of Head Start | February 2019

The Day | February 2019

Senator Murphy Press Release | February 2019

Opportunity Starts at Home | January 2019

Huffington Post | January 2019

Hartford Courant | January 2019

Yale Daily News | January 2019

CT Mirror | January 2019

The Day | January 2019

Yale Daily News | January 2019

Hartford Courant | January 2019

Office of the Governor | January 2019

National Alliance to End Homelessness | January 2019

Polaris | January 2019 

National Alliance to End Homelessness | January 2019 

Hartford Business Journal | January 2019

NPR “Where We Live” | January 2019

New Haven Register | January 2019

The Middletown Press | January 2019

US Department of Housing and Urban Development | December 2019

Hartford Courant | December 2018

CT Post | December 2018

Visit the CCEH Provider Resource Library
Upcoming Trainings & Events
Recorded Webinars
Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness
(860) 721-7876 |  info@cceh.org  |  www.cceh.org

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