New River Housing

Corporation for Supportive Housing is a website featuring policy and tools for developing and operating supportive housing. It has been added to the link roll.

Here is what they have to say about themselves:

What does CSH do? CSH brings together the people, skills, and resources needed to create the housing and services that change people's lives.
CSH makes supportive housing understood, available, and effective. We advance our mission by providing high-quality advice and development expertise; by making loans and grants to supportive housing sponsors; by strengthening the supportive housing industry; and by reforming public policy to make it easier to create and operate supportive housing. CSH works with our partners to foster innovative approaches to supportive housing, and then builds awareness and support for these new ideas.

CSH is a nonprofit organization. Many of the tools for getting the most for your consumers from your supportive housing program (including starting one) are available as free downloads. There are resources to help with development of your continuum of care.

NC Landlord/Tenant Law can be found on the website of the North Carolina General Assembly.

I have added this link to the resources section of the resource links.

A quick note about supportive housing for substance abusers:

A community group meeting to consider SA recovery services in the NRBH area decided last night to consider starting an Oxford House in Watauga County. There is still plenty of work to do before such a reality can appear.

It is one vision for the group that it become a consortium of SA service providers, etc to guide the development of services throughout the region. There are some mechanisms currently in place that could make this vision a partial reality quickly.

A quick note on homeless services:

With the release of the HUD SuperNOFA general section I began review of last year's submission for funding of Continuum of Care targeted homeless programs. I haven't written this thing in several years, so editing will be a learning process.

NorthWest Continuum of Care will be training for implementation of the NC HMIS on 17 Feb 2006. This endeavor is called the CHIN. It promises to be useful enough to coordinate multiple services for unique individuals; restrictive enough to make it useless as no individual consumer has to participate. But, it is a start & should it prove useful for enough people, the CHIN will grow.

For my part, I want the software to prepare the required Annual Progress Report (commonly called the "APR"). We'll see. As with all things, new procedures will have to be developed & monitored. Job security--I guess.

Good Morning,

One big topic this week is the NC Point-in-Time count. The count is designed to provide data on the number of people living without stable housing. 25 Jan was designated as the day to count homeless people across the nation.

This count is required by US Department of HUD as part of its Continuum of Care (Targeted Programs for Homeless Persons) community planning process.

The Continuum of Care application for
McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act
funding requires CoCs to produce “statistically
reliable, unduplicated counts or estimates of
homeless persons in sheltered and unsheltered
locations at a one-day point in time” (2004
CoC application).

The count is required every other year; however, many, if not most, continuums of care are counting annually. There is discussion about the timing of the count. For instance, the Northwest CoC only counts homeless persons during the Winter; however, other CoC's in North Carolina like to get a Summer count also.

Arguably, there are different groups of people on the streets depending upon the warmth of the air. Families move more often in Summer when school is not in session & hardiness is not as large a concern. Winter may find singles squeezed out of shelter beds or losing housing due to slowdowns in outdoor employment. These are just a couple things to think about in documenting the shifting patterns of homelessness.

Pictures make an entry more interesting. When I write for this column pictures are something I search for. There are lots of pictures associated with art projects that either give exposure to expression by homeless people or seek to use art, usually professionally produced, to raise money to support services &/or systemic change. Sometimes these projects work for both goals.

Hospitality House tried a calendar sale featuring art (photos & drawings) produced by, or about homeless people. An interesting story, that was difficult to bear at the time, involved one resident that was angry about some real or perceived sleights--never did quite the straight dope on that--that became the focus of her project. This resident of transitional housing wove into her drawings and fabrics written accusations against housing program staff. Like I say, it was embarrassing at the time but I would be interested in seeing the pieces with today's eyes.

Anyway, click on the image above to learn about one random project merging the social issue of homelessness with artistic expression.