Housing First in Oregon

The Source forHousing Solutions

Neighborhood Partnerships RE: Conference

RE: DesignHousing First in OregonOctober 30, 2015

Focus: Improving Lives for Most Vulnerable

CSH is a touchstone for new ideas and best practices, a collaborative and pragmatic community partner, and an influential advocate for supportive housing.

Lines ofBusiness

Training &

Education

Policy Reform

Consulting &

Assistance

Lending

Research-backed tools, trainings and knowledge sharing

Powerful capital funds, specialty loan products and development expertise

Custom community planning and cutting-edge innovations

Systems reform, policy collaboration and advocacy

Building Strong, Healthy Communities

Locations where CSH has staff stationed

Locations where CSH has helped build strong communities

DEFINING HOUSING FIRST: A DEEPER DIVE

RE: DesignHousing First in Oregon

ActivityTime

Housing First

Few to no programmatic prerequisites to permanent housing entry

Low barrier admission policies

Rapid and streamlined entry into housing

Supportive services are voluntary, but can and should be used to persistently engage tenants to ensure housing stability

Tenants have full rights, responsibilities, and legal protections

Practices and policies to prevent lease violations and evictions

Applicable in a variety of housing models, single and scattered site

Few to no programmatic prerequisites to permanent housing entry

How do you create quick access? What do you need to know to house

someone? Why do you reject applicants? How long does your process take?

Low barrier admission policies

Create a straightforward application process

• Examine who can really get in• Does your program serve the homeless of your

community today?

• Are your entrance criteria as open as possible? When was the last time you looked at them?

• Do the staff understand the applicant stress points at application and during the process?

• Does an applicant get enough information to understand how this PSH will help them stay housed?

Rapid and streamlined entry into housing

Supportive services are voluntary...

What are voluntary services?

Participation in services is not a

condition of tenancy

Services are voluntary for

tenants...not staff

Staff must work to build

relationships with tenants

Emphasis should be on user-

friendly services driven by tenant

needs and individual goals

Supportive services are voluntary...

Even when services are not required as a condition of tenancy, tenants participate at high rates.

Tenants value the services available to them, as well as the autonomy to decide which services to participate in.

“Low demand” model is much more likely to house and retain formerly homeless people, especially those with significant disabilities and long homeless histories.

What Harm Reduction Is

Philosophy that recognizes the resilience of individuals

• Allows providers to intervene with active users who are not yet contemplating abstinence

Expands the therapeutic conversation

Neither for or against drug use

Consent to use

Don’t ask, Don’t Tell

Anything Goes

Anti-abstinence

What Harm Reduction is Not

Tenants have full rights, responsibilities, and legal protections

Housing Unit Choice

Lease

Understanding the Lease

Practices and policies to prevent lease violations and evictions

Mission Oriented Property Management

Property Management and Service Staff talk to each other on a regular basis

Program Rules

A Special Note About Program Rules

The curfew times are 10pm Sunday-Thursday and 11pm on Friday and Saturday. Residents are expected to wait outside of their apartments 10 minutes prior to curfew. If a resident is not in attendance for curfew check their apartment will be entered by staff to verify whether or not the resident is present.

All piercings, except earrings, must be removed when entering the ________________. No new piercings are allowed.

Hair must be kept neat and clean. Hair may not be dyed any color except a natural hair color.

Men must shave daily. You may not shave your head.

No new tattoos are allowed.

All dinners are community meals. If a resident is not hungry when the meal is served, she must still come to the table.

No Sleeping in rooms until after 3:00 p.m. (Mon-Fri) unless approved.

No T.V. in rooms before 3:00 p.m. (Mon-Fri) except Holidays.

No Body Piercing, Tattoos, Earrings..

Must Check-In/Out with Security when leaving property.

Residents are allowed to have vehicles with case manager approval; provided they can prove they possess a valid driver’s license and have current insurance. Please park your vehicle in an assigned, designated parking space only. Failure to obtain case manager approval for a vehicle or to provide a valid driver’s license and proof of insurance is grounds for termination.

Permanent Supportive Housing

The unit is available to and intended for an individual or family whose head of household who has …

chronic conditions that are at least episodically disabling, such as mental illness, substance abuse, and other chronic health issues*

AND been homeless for long periods of time, or experienced repeated stays in the streets, emergency shelters, or other temporary settings, often cycling between homelessness and hospitals, jails, prisons, or other emergency systems.

* Other substantial barriers to housing stability (e.g., domestic violence, trauma, or history of out-of-home placements) usually accompany these.

The tenant household ideally pays no more than 30% household income towards rent and utilities, and never pays more than 50% of income toward such housing expenses;

The tenant household has a lease (or similar form of legal occupancy agreement) with no limits on length of tenancy, as long as the terms and conditions of the lease or agreement are met;

The unit’s operations are managed through an effective partnership among representatives of the project owner and/or sponsor, the property management agent, the supportive services providers, and the tenants;

All members of the tenant household have easy, facilitated access to a flexible and comprehensive array of supportive services to help them achieve and sustain housing stability.

Service providers actively engage tenants in on-site and community-based supportive services, but participation in such supportive services is not a condition of ongoing tenancy.

Service and property management/landlord strategies include effective, coordinated approaches for addressing issues resulting from substance use, relapse, and mental health crises, with a focus on fostering housing stability.

PSH Housing Design

Scattered site

housing

Mixed tenancy housing

Single site

housing

Single Site

Scattered Site

OR

BENEFITS OF SINGLE SITE PERMANENT SUPPORTIVE HOUSING


“A community is the mental and spiritual condition of knowing that the place is shared, …. It is the knowledge that people have of each other, their concern for each other, their trust in each other, the freedom with which they come and go among themselves.”

– Wendell Berry

BENEFITS OF SCATTERED SITE


Community Integration

Single Site

Scattered Site

OR

CSH’s Supportive Housing Institute

CSH Supportive Housing Institute

Online, classroom training, and intensive technical assistance

Moves teams through steps to create a SH project

Can significantly reduce the time it takes

Builds strong development teams equipped to navigate the complex process of developing housing

Target Population, Location, and Project Concept

Commitment to Housing First

Project Design,

OutcomesBudget

Project Sponsor and Project Partners

Services & Prop Mgt.

Fair Housing

Institute Steps

CSH Supportive Housing Institute

Source Material: CSH Dimensions of Quality SH

Example: Indiana

CHANGE MANAGEMENT


For Simplicity’s Sake…

Project management is the application of knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to project activities to meet project requirements.

Change management is the process, tools and techniques to manage the people-side of change to achieve the required business outcome.

From: Prosci – Change Management Learning Center

Transition Models

From Dangerous Opportunity – by Chris Musselwhite Mba, Quinn Dalton

Optional

They resist being changed.

People don't resist change.

There's only 1 way to get people to support change -

by involving them in creating it.

-Applied Improviser

Housing First Will Not...

Solve the Affordable Housing crisis

Erase the stigma of people experiencing addictions and mental illness

Reset the economic balance in our country to reduce (eliminate) poverty

Get rid of the hold that private industry has on the correctional systems

Stop war

Reduce belly fat or grow thicker hair

Photo Credits

http://mrsmcclass.blogspot.com/2012/08/beaker-meets-edvard-munchs-scream.html

http://mrsmcclass.blogspot.com/2012/08/beaker-meets-edvard-munchs-scream.html

https://cmtysolutions.org/update/ending-homelessness-through-housing-first

http://www.chp-sf.org/ www.poorlydrawnlines.com http://www.emerge-mn.org/OurImpact/CommunityDevelopment.aspx http://www.propertymanagerdirectory.com/what-is-property-

management https://www.livingcities.org/blog/795-why-involve-community-in-

collective-impact-at-all http://www.papersource.com/item/T.Hanks-Letterpress-Thank-You-

Card/453894.html

[email protected]

Government & Nonprofit

Housing First in Oregon