U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Improving Access to Mainstream Services for People Experiencing Chronic Homelessness, Westin Peachtree, Atlanta Georgia, January 29-31, 2003

 

Slide 1:

The Michigan Experience

Working Together to Close the Housing Gap

Slide 2:

What Our Collaboration Has Achieved

  • Production of over 1,500 new units of housing linked to supports
  • Use of Low Income Housing Tax Credit program to produce over 250 units of supportive housing for homeless and special needs populations
  • Commitment of up to 2,200 Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers for supportive housing for homeless and special needs populations

Slide 3:

What Our Commitment Has Produced

  • Active state- and local-level partnerships to create housing solutions for long-term homeless
  • Cross-systems collaboration in resolving problems w/ ‘troubled projects’
  • State and local initiatives to address linkage between housing and mainstream supports

Slide 4:

Example of Resources Mobilized

  • Through our first set of pilot CSH partnerships, 4 diverse communities have created over 500 units of supportive housing -- and generated more than $28 million in matching funds (including HOME, CDBG, SHP, Housing Tax Credit equity, local grants, property tax relief, and private donations)

Slide 5:

The Michigan Experience: Keys to Our Continuing Success

  • Communication
  • Collaboration
  • Creativity
  • Flexibility
  • Commitment
  • Vision and Leadership at High Levels

Slide 6:

State-Level Planning Strategies

  • Cross-systems commitments to shared goals
  • Multiple mechanisms for collaborative planning, action, and assessment
  • Building on existing collaborative structures and their history of success

Slide 7:

State-Level Service Integration Strategies

  • Executive commitment to services collaboration & systems reform
  • High-level Interagency Collaboration Team
  • Statewide Continuum of Care planning
  • MSHDA Board includes State’s Social Services Director
  • “ Michigan Team” planning for supportive housing initiatives

Slide 8:

Promotion of Community-Based Housing and Service Linkages

  • Investment in broadening role of locally-based statewide Continuum of Care network
  • Linkage of Continuum of Care with Multi-Purpose Human Services Collaborative Bodies
  • Cultivation of locally-based Supportive Housing Consortia

Slide 9:

Statewide Initiatives Linking Housing and Services

  • Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Bonus
  • Corporation for Supportive Housing Initiative
  • HOME/TBRA – Homelessness Pilot
  • Section 8 – Homeless Preference Pilot
  • Section 8 – Project-Based Pilot

Slide 10:

Michigan’s Commitment

  • Closing the Housing Gap, by 2010, for Persons Who Are Homeless and Most Needy

Slide 11:

Michigan’s Goals for Mainstream Services Integration

  • Increasing access to effective services for homeless persons with multiple issues and overlapping special needs
  • Developing more holistic and integrated approaches to human services delivery for targeted homeless and special needs populations
  • Helping communities move from high-cost, high-control treatment settings to low-cost, independent service-integrated housing solutions
  • Increasing cross-systems and cross-sector housing, human services, and community collaborations

Slide 12:

Intended Outcomes For Our Consumers

  • Linking chronically homeless populations with special needs to mainstream services and resources
  • Expanding supply of available, accessible, safe, decent & sustainable housing

Slide 13:

Intended Outcomes For Our Providers

  • Assisting community-based housing and homeless services providers in employing mainstream services and resources
  • Creating and sustaining a wide range of supportive housing options for persons with widely varied needs

Slide 14:

Intended Outcomes For Our Mainstream Services Systems

  • Increasing cross-systems collaborations
  • Maintaining “budget-neutral” impact in systems enhancement
  • Addressing the systemic barriers and gaps that are a consequence of fragmentation of federal funding structures and categorical federal funding streams

Slide 15:

What We Need from Federal Level to Achieve Still More

  • Policy Incentives
  • Funding Incentives
  • Flexibility in Funding
  • Regulatory Responsiveness

Slide 16:

Policy Incentives

  • Reward interagency collaboration
  • Establish common performance outcomes for multi-system customers
  • Reward entities who share high-level executive involvement

Slide 17:

Funding Incentives

  • Reward innovative housing-services linkages utilizing Mental Health Block Grant, Substance Abuse Block Grant, TANF, Vets Affairs, etc.
  • Allow and reward states’ targeting a portion of federal mainstream resources (e.g., 10%-20%) for state-defined collaborative initiatives serving chronically homeless & special needs populations
  • Support “blended” or “braided” funding
  • Fund cross-systems ‘Supportive Services’ program packages, similar to HUD/SHP and S+C

Slide 18:

Funding Flexibility

  • Support flexibility in:
    • Scope, amounts, and duration of services
    • Places where services are delivered
    • Who is eligible to deliver services
    • How categories and amounts of service are able to be packaged/individualized

Slide 19:

Regulatory Responsiveness

  • Increase simplicity and consistency in:
    • Financial eligibility requirements
    • Program eligibility requirements
    • Application forms and intake procedures
    • Systems reciprocity in assessment and intake
  • Allow waiver of select regulations tied to ‘targeted resources’ to implement states’ strategies that increase system efficiencies and effectiveness
  • Institute compatible data collection and reporting requirements across funding streams