Texas Balance of State Continuum of Care News
October 2019
|
|
|
|
Texas Homeless Network is the lead agency for the
Texas Balance of State Continuum of Care (TX BoS CoC)
.
The TX BoS CoC is a group of stakeholders that collaboratively plan and operate the CoC and a range of housing and services to prevent and end homelessness. The TX BoS CoC covers
215 counties
and includes 24 Local Homeless Coalitions (LHCs) that plan, deliver, and evaluate local systems.
|
|
Recruiting for Seat 4 for the TX BoS Board
|
|
The TX BoS CoC Board is looking to fill
Seat 4
representing families experiencing homelessness on the CoC Board. The person filling Seat 4 will represent families experiencing homelessness in one of the following ways:
- Being a member of that group (for example, Seat 2 could be filled by a veteran currently or formerly experiencing homelessness);
- Working for an agency/organization that serves the designated group; and/or
- Clearly representing the interests of that group, as evidenced in the potential Board member’s nomination form.
If you want to take your leadership to the next level and share your expertise, nominate yourself for a seat on the TX BoS CoC Board! Know of a friend or colleague interested in taking their leadership to the next level and sharing their expertise? Nominate them! (You should probably let them know first.)
The deadline for nominating someone for Seat 4 of the CoC Board, representing homelessness families, is
Friday, November 1, 2019 at 11:59:59 PM
. Fill out the nomination form, which contains more information bout the TX BoS CoC Board,
here.
|
|
New 2019-20 TX BoS CoC Board Members
Congratulations to the newly elected CoC Board members! They will join the continuing members in leading the CoC's policy-making and overseeing the CoC's work. Thanks, too, to everyone who voted!
Check out the new members information
here
|
|
CoC Strategic Planning
The CoC Strategic Planning Committee (SPC) has begun the needs assessment process by holding a CoC Member input session at the October 8th CoC General Meeting. SPC members facilitated table discussions and feedback by webinar about challenges faced by people experiencing homelessness, homeless assistance agencies, and other stakeholders. Members wrote "challenge statements" within 10 themes that the SPC will consider as they develop the plan.
Member input into the strategic plan is crucial so that the plan reflects members' priorities. Tell us your challenges by completing the Challenge Statement Survey
here
. Feel free to share the survey link with anyone who is interested in participating.
More opportunities to participate will be available, so stay tuned to THN’s website and BoS CoC emails, or contact Mary Stahlke, CoC Manager (
mary@thn.org
or 512-861-2180), to talk about how you can get involved.
|
|
OCTOBER
Housing Rights of Survivors of Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault, Dating Violence, and Stalking Webinar
Wednesday, October 30, 2019 12:30:00 PM - 2:00:00 PM
Topic:
This webinar will help survivor advocates and homeless shelter and housing program advocates understand the basic housing rights of survivors and provide information to help survivors get assistance to access these vital protections.
NOVEMBER
No CoC General Meeting in November
Host Home Programs for Youth Experiencing Homelessness Webinar
Wednesday, November 20, 2019 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
Topic: This webinar will feature presenters from TNOYS, Texas Appleseed, and Texas Homeless Network, discussing host home programs for youth experiencing homelessness.
CoC RRH Peer Learning Webinar - November
Thursday 21 November 2019, 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM
CoC RRH projects will meet Monthly moving forward on the 3rd Thursday of each month at 10:00am to discuss best practices in RRH, review current policies and suggestions, and to discuss RRH struggles and strategies.
DECEMBER
December 2019 General Meeting
Wednesday, December 11, 2019 02:00 PM - 03:30 PM
Topic: Point-in-Time (PIT) Count and Housing Inventory (HIC)
|
|
New Funding Announcement:
Grants for the Benefit of Homeless Individuals (GHBI)
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT), is accepting applications for fiscal year (FY) 2020 Grants for the Benefit of Homeless Individuals (Short Title: GBHI). The purpose of this program is to support the development and/or expansion of local implementation of a community infrastructure that integrates substance use disorder treatment, housing services and other critical services for individuals (including youth) and families experiencing homelessness.
Read the full posting
here
Application Due Date:
Monday, December 16, 2019
|
|
Employment First Trainings and Information Sessions
This fall, the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) will host Employment First Trainings and Information Sessions at multiple locations around the state. The goal of these events is to increase the understanding of how employment services work in Texas. Anyone who wants to learn more about increasing employment opportunities for Texans with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) can participate.
Find out more about each session's date and location
here.
|
|
Distressed Cities Technical Assistance Program (DCTAP)
HUD is accepting requests for Technical Assistance (TA) under the new Distressed Cities Technical Assistance (DCTA) Program. This program is designed to assist communities with populations under 40,000 that are struggling to recover from natural disaster and economic decline. The TA program will be community-specific and scaled to ensure a measurable impact on communities’ growth and resilience, as well as an efficient use of public funds. DCTA may be used to build capacity around:
- Financial management
- Economic revitalization
- Affordable housing development
- Disaster recovery and resiliency planning
- Cross-sector partnership building
- Utilizing federal development programs
|
|
North Texas
East Texas
Central Texas
South Texas
|
|
These articles were gathered from Google Alerts and emails sent directly to us. If you have articles about your community's efforts to prevent and end homelessness that you want highlighted in our next newsletter, please email the articles to
txboscoc@thn.org.
|
|
The following are resources TX BoS CoC Lead Agency staff have found that we believe would be beneficial to your local efforts to make homelessness rare, brief, and one-time:
|
|
Using Flexible Financial Assistance to Serve Domestic Violence Survivors
"
During Domestic Violence Awareness Month, it’s important to reflect on how housing and shelter service providers can best promote safety for their clients. It’s clear that shelter ALONE is not enough:
housing
is critical."
Read the full briefing from NAEH
here.
|
|
Anyone who works or lives in the CoC's geographic area, and all housing and homeless services projects in the CoC's geographic area, are considered to be members of the CoC. The CoC has an open invitation process, so members may join at any time.
Share this email with anyone you think may be interested!
|
|
CoC General Meeting Schedule
Stay informed about CoC happenings by participating in the monthly webinars. Each meeting will feature a topic that is important to preventing and ending homelessness. See the
schedule for dates, topics, and registration links.
|
|
CoC Program Funding
If you are a representative of an agency that is interested in applying for United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Continuum of Care (CoC) Program funding, please contact
txboscoc@thn.org
.
|
|
Your CoC Team
Get your questions answered and some face to face time with all of the CoC staff on the second Tuesday of every other month during the CoC General Meetings.
|
|
The TX BoS CoC is a focus area of the Texas Homeless Network.
|
|
See what's happening on our social sites
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
