Bertha Lopez, the Program Coordinator of Hume's Housing Support Services Program, accepted the award for Best Innovative Program from the Contra Costa Council on Homelessness at the County Board of Supervisors Meeting on behalf of The Hume Center. Bertha, and her Rapid Resolution Specialist Samantha Quinn, have developed this new program over the last year in close collaboration with Contra Costa's Health, Housing, and Homeless (H3) Division.
This award also garnered recognition in the State Legislature by Assemblymember Jim Frazier, Assemblymember Timoothy Grayson, and Senator Bill Dodd.
Rapid Resolution is a distinct tool created within the partnership of Coordinated Entry and the Continuum of Care of housing services in Contra Costa. It serves individuals who are acutely about to be homeless and provides short-term, intense case management, mediation, consultation, assistance, and linkage to help someone avoid becoming homeless and living in a shelter. Consumers are linked to the program by those working in Coordinated Entry services via screening and referral. In other words, clients are referred to this program after accessing other services in the housing Continuum of Care. The program is growing and will soon be serving individuals through other referral sources as well.
This program works tirelessly to help mediate conflicts with landlords, resolve issues among family members and roommates, connect consumers to community resources and assistance, navigate challenging situations and relationships, and/or rapidly find alternative housing. So far, the program has diverted 50% of those individuals referred to it from accessing the shelters.
The Hume Center appreciates the great work by Bertha and Samantha to create and grow the program. In addition, Hume Center appreciates the true partnership with H3 and the other agencies involved to make this program a success. We know that Rapid Resolution hit the ground running in Contra Costa because of the hard work already done by H3 and the partners in the Continuum of Care to lay the strong foundation of coordinated services between county and partner agencies and services. Without a working system to receive referrals from and then to rapidly connect consumers to, Rapid Resolution programs cannot be successful. This is innovation born out of inter-agency collaboration, a system willing to experiment, and a consultative approach to conflict resolution and problem solving.
