Continuum of Care News

Participatory Budgeting Resource Page Now Available on the HUD Exchange HUD has launched the Participatory Budgeting resource page on the HUD Exchange. This page provides resources related to Participatory Budgeting, a citizen engagement process through which community members decide how to allocate a portion of a public budget. Citizens make direct decisions about how government money is spent in their community by identifying and prioritizing public spending projects. Communities can choose to use the Participatory Budgeting process to deepen citizen engagement, including for the use of eligible Department of Housing and Urban Development Housing and Community Development funds.

HUD and VA Announce Vouchers to Help Nearly 1,000 Homeless Veterans Find Permanent Homes Project-based HUD-VASH vouchers will help reach goal of ending veteran homelessness by 2015 WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) today announced $7 million to 24 local public housing agencies across the country to help nearly 1,000 homeless veterans find permanent housing. The supportive housing assistance announced today is provided through the  HUD-Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing (HUD-VASH) Program  which combines rental assistance from HUD with case management and clinical services provided by VA. Later this year, HUD anticipates awarding approximately 10,000 new HUD-VASH vouchers to build upon significant progress toward ending veteran homelessness. Since 2008, more than 59,000 vouchers have been awarded and 43,371 formerly homeless veterans are currently in homes of t...

SNAPS In Focus: Rapid Re-Housing As a Model and Best Practice Welcome to the next SNAPS In Focus message. Last week, I focused on Housing First as a best practice housing model. This week, I'm going to discuss rapid re-housing (RRH)—which follows Housing First principles—as a model and best practice. Although RRH programs have been used in some communities for many years, they have only recently started to be widely adopted. Evidence of their impact is growing, and HUD is encouraging CoCs to significantly expand RRH, particularly for families with children. There are many reasons we are emphasizing RRH. It is one of the key strategies in Opening Doors , and it achieved positive outcomes during the Homelessness Prevention and Rapid Re-Housing Program (HPRP). Early evidence from a number of studies and evaluations—including the Rapid Re-Housing Demonstration, the Family Options Study, and evaluations of the Supportive Services for Vetera...

Please view the news and updates below.  Thank you for your dedication and support! APR + HMIS Report Card Review ( LAST ONE!!! ) 8/19/14, 1:30pm - 2:30pm: If you are interested in attending a brief seminar about APR's (Annual Performance Reports) and our monthly online HMIS Report Cards at our office, please reserve your seat via our Support Portal at our hmisadmin.com site.  This will be the last review for a while, so please take advantage of this opportunity!   ServicePoint Manuals: Please ensure you are entering data in the exact order as per your program specific ServicePoint Manual, which you may download at our hmisadmin.com site.  Improper entry will always reflect poor program performance, which also affects the entire county.  If you are not sure which manual to download, please contact us.   CoC Program Start Up Conference (Save the Date 10/8 + 10/9):   We just received confirmation that the COC Progr...

If you are having trouble viewing the email below, please click here . August 2014 Recently Published in Psychiatric Services : Best Practices for Increasing Access to SSI and SSDI on Exit From Criminal Justice Settings Transitioning from jail or prison to community living frequently results in homelessness and recidivism. Access to benefits such as Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Medicaid can increase access to housing and treatment and reduce recidivism. The authors, Deb Dennis, former Project Director of the SOAR Technical Assistance Center , Dazara Ware, Senior Project Associate of the SOAR TA Center, and Henry J. Steadman, Ph.D., President of Policy Research Associates, Inc., review best practices for prerelease access to these benefits by using examples from five jails and four state prison systems. In these settings, approval rates for SSI applications averaged 70 percent or higher, with evidence o...